Once they had reached The Team's house, they got Maeve situated.

In the garage.

"Hey Emp, want me to move your car out for you? I don't know if this girl should be in the same room as your lambo," Eging asked, dangling the keys infront of Emperor.

"Sure, but just don't crash it," Emperor replied.

Eging shrugged, "I can't crash a car when I'm just pulling it out to the driveway."

"I bet you could," Y/n snickered. N-Pacer chuckled a little before returning to a serious state.

As everyone settled down in the living room by the fire, they all waited intently for Y/n to begin explaining. Awkwardly, Y/n sat on the couch holding a mug filled with hot chocolate. It wasn't all that cold outside, but still it felt that way to her.

Emperor cleared his throat. "Y/n? Would you like to say anything?"

"...Notreally..."

"Too bad, you've got a lot of talking to do," Emperor refuted, looking at her expectantly.

Y/n shrugged. "You want the short version, the long version, or the short but detailed enough to pass as good explanation?"

Eging yawned. "I want it to cover everything, but I don't want to be in a college lecture."

Prince and N-Pacer nodded, probably meaning that they agreed with Eging. Emperor also nodded in approval, so Y/n took that as the third option.

Where to start, where to start? There was so much to explain, but it seemed as though time was so slow. "Well... uh... I'm not exactly sure how to start this," Y/n muttered.

Emperor put a hand on Y/n's shoulder. "It's okay. We all have to start somewhere, so why don't you tell us what you are? Because I now know you're definitely not inkling-"

Eging cut in, "But she looks inkling, so maybe she's inkling and something else-? MMPH-" N-Pacer slapped her hand and muffled Eging so that Y/n could continue. Y/n shot her a look of appreciation.

"Uh... for starters, I'm a pureblooded inkling." When Y/n received looks of confusion all around, she knew they didn't know what that meant. "Oh- A pureblooded inkling is an inkling that didn't actually go through evolution. From squid to human I mean. I mean that we were born as an inkling, not a squid. These purebloods are incredibly rare and are gathered in bloodlines. Unfortunately, there aren't many left but we live for centuries. We're almost immortal, so there's hardly any need to reproduce."

Let's see... what else was there? A voice cut through her thoughts. "So you mean, you were born like this, and you had magical powers?" Prince asked innocently. Y/n smiled a small smile and nodded.

"Exactly like that."

Once it looked like Prince understood, Y/n continued. "Maeve isn't actually pureblooded, because the pureblooded octolings died out centuries ago during the battle of the great zapfish. But we found Maeve in a dumpster one day. My parents took pity on her."

She looked up to see all of them lost in thought. "Ahem, Y/n please continue," Emperor motioned for her to keep talking.

"My parents gave her a share of their blood, turning her into a half-blood. She quickly became their favorite with how innocent and unknowing she was. It turned into favoritism over their own kid, and some octoling off the streets," Y/n said bitterly.

N-Pacer's eyes shone with sympathy, and Eging just nodded solemnly. "So that's what that conversation was about..." Emperor murmured.

Y/n swallowed and nodded. "My parents died sometime soon, and I was heartbroken. Bitter too. When I found them on the floor that night, I saw a bit of liquid seeping out from their skin. Knowing that I shouldn't touch it, I collected it on a piece of broken glass from the window."

Prince mumbled incoherently for a second, then brought his eyes to look up at Y/n. "Did someone break in and kill them?" Y/n closed her eyes and nodded grimly.

"Yes Prince, someone did. But when I studied the poison under a microscope, I found that it was made with a high concentration of octoling blood. At that point, I had to know who's blood it was, and so I went to Maeve's room holding the glass with blood on it."

Y/n shook her head as if recalling something, "I know now that it probably looked much worse then it was to Maeve, but Maeve shrieked and said she didn't have anything to do with it. Which was weird, because she had been in her room the entire time. There was no way she could've already figured it out."

A tear slid down Y/n's cheek, to which Emperor brushed it off with his finger. "It's okay Y/n, take your time. We don't want you to force yourself to relive those memories."

Y/n smiled gratefully at him, took a second to calm down and retried. "Maeve took a knife out from under her pillow, cut herself then hurled the knife at me screaming MURDER! She called the authorities on me, and claimed that I had killed my own parents."

The others looked shocked as they heard Y/n's story. After all, who would be that stupid to believe a lie like that? Unfortunately, it was clear how the authority's thought processes worked. They believed Y/n had killed her own parents and had moved to kill Maeve because of the favoritism shown to Maeve.

"I left home in a hurry, because I knew they were coming for me. I had no choice but to take what little I could carry and run. I morphed into a regular inkling and spent everyday of my life training to hold my power down and prevent it from revealing itself to the outside world." Y/n pointed at her core. "That burst of blue and black was the power exploding out. I hadn't used it for decades, so it turned a different color from being in the dark and kept under lock and key."

Emperor cleared his throat, "Decades? You've been alive for decades?" The others nodded in agreement, wanting her to explain. Y/n heaved a sigh.

"Yes I've been around for quite a while. Yet I act like a teenager because I am one. I forced myself to morph into a baby inkling and made myself grow up like everyone else, wiping as much of my memory as possible. It was only when I met Maeve did I remember. Her eyes spoke volumes when I saw them," Y/n explained halfheartedly.

Trying to lighten the mood, she winked, "How do you think I have so much battle experience?" It worked somewhat. The group chuckled, before settling down again to listen.

"Well, let me tell you. All of my powers were awakened in one, and I could barely handle it. Normally I wouldn't be able to make a lightning strike that big after coming out of isolation. But because Maeve had forced me to, I felt threatened and thus used a large supply of power. Speaking of which, Emperor are you okay??"

Emperor shot her a look, "Of course I'm okay, I'm the king."

Y/n rolled her eyes, "You were hit by lightning."

"Yes I was."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm sure I am."

"But are you?"

"Yes."

"Whatever."

Y/n briskly moved on. "Anything else you want to know?"

Eging Jr piped up, "How did Maeve find you?"

"... That's a good question. I'm not sure. I thought I'd done a good job of hiding it. I guess my fame in the square isn't to be taken lightly," she laughed.

They suddenly heard a large bang from the garage. "MAEVE'S AWAKE-!" Prince said sprinting in. Y/n hadn't even noticed he'd left. Maybe he's just that tiny that she didn't realize.

"Y/N!!!! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!" A sharp voice pierced through the house. Y/n quickly hopped up, only to be held down.

Y/n spun around, directly into Emperor. "Are you sure?" his expression seemed to ask. Y/n nodded.

"I'm the only one who'll be able to calm this girl down. So it minus well be me, after all I dragged you all into this," she replied.

"MAEVE? I'm here," Y/n said as she stepped into the dimly lit garage. "CAN WE GET SOME LIGHT IN HERE? GOSH."

Maeve let out a low chuckle. "True."

"Well? Maeve, what did you need?" Y/n asked, tilting her head.

Maeve scoffed, "Come on. I'm in the literal middle of nowhere. I'd like an explanation."

Y/n treaded cautiously. "What do you remember?"

"Well, I remember that guy," Maeve pointed directly behind Y/n and she turned around to see Emperor.

"He knocked me out."

"That's all?" Y/n asked with uncertainty.

Maeve nodded. "Sis, trust me if I had more I'd tell you. I keep racking my brain trying to remember what happened but it just won't let me."

Y/n suddenly remembered that all of Maeve's memories had whizzed past them into nothingness. Did that lightning strike cause Maeve to lose her memories? Perhaps that was a good thing then.

"...Sis??" Y/n asked confused. Maeve glared at her.

"You are my sister right? Because if not, I'm going to want to wake up right now. This is a horrible nightmare if you aren't," Maeve said, as though she was stating a fact.

"Oh uh yes... sis," Y/n hurriedly answered. "Well what happened was we were playing Mario Kart in the living room and you got so mad you wanted to hit Prince." 

"What-?!" Prince squeaked, coming forward with a glass of water. "Oh- um... I thought you might want water Y/n's sister." He said offering her the cup.

Maeve smiled such a scary smile that Prince flinched. "Maeve you're going to need to work on your smile, people still can't tell if you're being nice or not," Y/n said, frowning.

"Sorry sister. And thank you little kid," Maeve replied indifferently.

"Uhh so you really don't remember anything else?" Eging asked, coming out of the foyer.

Maeve shot him a look. "I really don't remember."

Eging heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank god..."

"Did something happen?" Maeve eyed him suspicously. Eging shook his head in rapid succession.

"No of course not, I was just wondering if you remembered you uh... almost knocking Prince out. That's why Emp here had to hold you down," he lied.

"Oh I see. Well I'm sorry for that... uh what was your name? Prince? Yeah Prince. Sorry about that," Maeve said turning to Prince, who squeaked and nodded slowly.

Prince new full-well that this entire 'scenario' Y/n had created was a lie, but went along with it for the good of everyone there including Maeve.

"Well, if you're awake Maeve, that's good. You should probably get home soon, because gamenights over now...!!" Y/n explained, trying to sound as convincing as possible.

"Ah got it, invite me over soon Sis! Also your boyfriend looks like he's going to shoot me with flying daggers~!" Maeve said as she paraded out the now-open garage door.

"W-WAIT MAEVE, HE'S NOT MY BOYFRIEND!" Y/n called out after her.