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Nacre awoke in her plush king-sized bed, hearing a loud scream. It sounded like... but she was all the way over on Mt. Nantai, camping with that strange friend of hers. Even her voice couldn't have carried that far. Unless... as loud as her little princess could scream in sheer exuberance alone, imagine how much louder it might be if she were in real danger! Ah, she should never have agreed to let her hang out with that weirdo freak! She just knew something like this would happen!"Jelfred!", she screamed for her valet. "Get the car ready at once!""Which one, ma'am? The limousine, as usual?" Jelfred's Inklish was quite a bit more fluent than that of most jellies, although he still had a noticeable Cnidarian accent."Yeah, fine sure— wait, no! It's too slow and probably won't take well to the mountain roads. Go fetch the Lampreyghini".
Even with Jelfred driving well over the legal speed limit as she had asked, the ride over seemed to take far too long."It's got to be that weird looking girl's fault. Narima, or whatever her name is", Nacre muttered to herself. "She's a weirdo. She's got those weird inside-out tentacles and that funny accent. She's probably a foreigner. Uh, not that there's anything wrong with that," she added hastily, suddenly remembering that the jellyfish was sitting right next to her. Unlike the limo, the sports car had no soundproofed passenger cabin. Pearl had been nagging her to try being nicer to the help, and she probably had a point, so Nacre was suddenly a bit self-conscious.The Jellyfish raised an eyebrow (seemingly more at the backpedaling than the initial insult), but did not say anything.After a brief pause, Nacre continued, no longer muttering to herself but actively confiding in her servant. "You see, my little princess, she always had so much trouble making friends. Her personality was always a bit too "big" for her peers to wrap their heads around, and they tended to avoid her. One time I tried paying someone to be her friend, but it didn't work out and when she found out she wouldn't talk to me for a month. When she found someone who seemed to genuinely like being around her, I... I wanted it to work, I really did. But I just had a feeling... I just knew from the moment I laid eyes on her, that girl would be trouble... I... I should have trusted my gut..."Jelfred opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and closed his mouth to drive on in silence.
The campfire wasn't hard to spot, and Pearl could be clearly seen bouncing up and down, squidbagging occasionally, discarded cans of Red Bullshark scattered at her feet. Nacre emitted a loud sigh of relief to see that Pearl was accounted for and unharmed. She hadn't been murdered, or kidnapped, or who-knows-what'd after all. Without a word, Jelfred pulls over and kills the engine. Nacre steps out of the car.Before Nacre can speak, Pearl immediately started talking rapidly. "Yo Mom, what are you doing here? And why are you in my car? I thought that was supposed to be my car for once I finally pass that stupid driving test...""I... I... I heard a scream. And, I just wanted to make sure you were okay..." Nacre said, starting to tear up slightly.Marina, who was standing nearby, suddenly looked really embarrassed. She spoke up."Oh, um... I'm so sorry, Mrs. P, Pearlie and I were just testing my latest superweapo— uhhhh, I mean, custom stage equipment. Yes, stage equipment.""Huh?" Nacre, finally composed enough to direct her attention to something besides her daughter, got a good look at the monstrous contraption pointing up at the sky, which was smoking slightly. "What in the name of... Wait, is that a Killer Wail?!""Uh...""Hey, it is a Killer Wail! I saw these in the news just the other day! They were first introduced to the the market a couple of years ago, kids would use them in Turf Wars to splat each other, but they just now banned them because of all the noise complaints."At the mention of Turf Wars, Nacre suddenly became distracted, a wistful expression overtaking her face. She'd always wanted to play in the Turf Wars, but her father wouldn't let her. He insisted it was more important that she spend all her time following him around as his understudy, learning the subtle art of real estate investing. And while this training had helped her to grow the family fortune even larger than it was, she always felt kind of... cheated. Like she'd been deprived of a real childhood, and railroaded into one occupation without getting the chance to explore what else the world might have had to offer. She didn't want that for her own little princess... that's why it was so important to let Pearl have the childhood, the freedom that she could never have. Even if it meant letting her run around with some rather strange people...Marina, who had been weighing in her mind how much detail she should go into, finally decides it's okay to at least give Mrs. P a basic idea of what it is. "Um... Well, it... It used to be a Killer Wail. I made some, um, modifications, though. For example, its amplifier was originally fed by a simple sine wave generator that was tuned to the resonance frequency of the opposing team's ink. But now, it's rigged up to work more like a megaphone. I also tweaked the power supply a bit to boost the output, among a few other things...""Uh... oh." Nacre slowly came back to the present. She supposed it was sweet of this girl to build Pearl a toy like that, but it sounded dangerous."I'm sorry about the noise", Marina continued. "I still need to make some more tweaks. It wasn't supposed to leak so much noise outside the cone of focus; it was all just mostly supposed to go in one direction, but more of it escaped than I thought. Actually blew out both of our eardrums from standing so close, took at least five minutes to regenerate before we could hear again...""Oh, um... okay... Well, it looks like everything's under control now." She turned to leave. As she opened the car door, she turned back to Pearl and said, "Well, uh, you be careful with that thing.""Ugh, I know, Mom...""You remember what happened at that talent show, right?""That was seven years ago, Mom. Now I'm twenty. I can almost ride my bike without training wheels now, I can tie my own shoes, and I know better than to point my voice at full power towards anything I don't want to blow up.""Alright then, just making sure. You kids have fun."
As Nacre closed the door and got buckled in, Jelfred started the car. She nudged him in the side with her elbow and remarked, "I think I like that nice exotic-looking girl. You know, I always had a good feeling about her. From the moment I laid eyes on her I could always tell she was going to be a good thing for my dear little princess."Jelfred rolled his eyes as he put the car into gear and drove off.