Work Text:
An young Inkling girl, around twelve years old, runs for her throughout the night. She through increasingly less familiar streets in the city of Cuttletopia, trying to get away from him. She looks back and doesn’t see him, which makes her think that she escaped him.
That is until she runs into someone because she wasn’t looking and falls down. She looks up and sees him, the man wearing a black suit, matching shoes, pants, and pure black glasses hiding his true identity, and the grocery bag that could hold anything buyable in a grocery store. The Grocery Man
The Inkling girl gets up and plans to run again, but the Grocery Man takes out a bottle of hot sauce, throwing hot sauce all over her eyes. The Inkling girl screams and falls to the ground, the burning of her eyes being utterly unbearable. She can’t help but rub her eyes, in the vain hope that she can remove the hot sauce from her eyes.
The Grocery Man leans down and searches her pockets, holding her wallet. After an hour of laying on the ground in pain, a passerby finds her and helps her up, taking her to the hospital, where a nurse cleans her eyes, letting the Inkling girl see again. That’s when she realizes that her wallet is missing, meaning she’s yet one more victim of the infamous, mysterious, inedible, Grocery Man.
“This has gone on for too long!” An Inkling boy, named Fin, grumbles as he puts another photo on the pin board. “We can’t let this guy ruin our city! We must find him, and bring him down.” He turns around looking at his lover determined.
His lover is an Octoling boy, named Max. who sits on an office chair, his legs on a desk looking bored but comfortable. “Nothing you said is wrong.” He shuts off his phone and lets it rest on his stomach, looking at Fin. “But how are we going to catch the Grocery Man? We may have rented an office, but that won’t help us catch him.”
Fin looks at him disappointed. “And sitting won’t either.” He smirks at Max. “So get up and show me your body, babe.”
Max rolls his eyes and gets up. “I could call you a hypocrite.” He gets a small smile as walks next to Fin and inspects the pin board more closely. “But that would stop you from looking at me.” He notices Fin not looking at the pin board. “Which might be a good thing because we have a job to do.”
Work sucks, it stops you from enjoying what truly matters. That’s what Fin thinks as he pays attention to the pin board he filled up. They stare at it, the photos of the victims, the notes Fin made giving useful details, the locations the Grocery Man has visited. They need to figure out where he would go next. After a while they think they got it, so Fin & Max head out of the office, do whatever they feel like to pass the time for it to turn into night, then head to the location where they are sure to catch the Grocery Man!
But he isn’t there. Probably because they didn’t actually figure him out.
The next day and back in the office, Fin looks at the pin board some more, frustrated. “How will we be able to find him?” Asks Fin, to himself. Max walks up to him, holding his wallet out in the open. “I have an idea.”
“Something to do with your wallet?” Asks Fin. Max does a so-so gesture with the hand not holding his wallet. “When we go out to try and catch him again, we should leave our wallets here. That way, if the Grocery Man defeats us, he can’t steal our money.”
Fin smiles and gives a thumps up. “That’s a good idea!” His smile goes away when he looks at the pin board again.
Until. “Eureka! Cuttletopia Shore!” He looks at Max, bouncing with energy. “I mean the actual shore of Cuttletopia, with the cold but still pleasant water touching your feet while you walk along at night. I’m sure the grocery man is going to Cuttletopia Shore tonight.”
Not finding any faults in Fin logic, Max & Fin go to Cuttletopia Shore at night, searching for the Grocery Man. The shore is very long, so there’s a chance that they won’t spot the Grocery Man, because he’s just too far away.
To their luck they hear an old Octoling woman run towards them, and see that it’s the Grocery Man chasing her. Fin & Max know what to do, they run ahead of the old lady and get into a battle stance against the Grocery Man. He stops dead in his tracks, annoyed that two teenagers prevented him from running down a granny.
Max speaks first. “We have heard of you, Grocery Man. The menace that beats people up with groceries and steals their wallets. You are the worst of the worst Cuttletopia Park or Shore have ever seen. Night life has turned stressful, people aren’t getting a good sleep. Sleep is already hard enough to have, so you are a true monster, making it even harder.”
Fin follows up on what his partner said. “We two are here to take you doowwnn! And there’s two of us, and just one of you, so we got the advantage. The best you can do is surrender now and let the authorities lock you up. We two are going to treat you worse than they are, so they turn yourself in, now!”
The Grocery Man doesn’t say anything, he lifts his grocery bag to his shoulder, freeing both his hands for combat. That’s he takes out five croissants and throws two of them and Fin and Max each.
They land but don't do much because they're still just croissants. But the Grocery Man wasn’t on them dealing damage.
He throws the remaining three at Max, who holds him arms up and blocks the croissants. But by doing so, he’s distracted. Fin looks at Max with concern until he realizes that the Grocery Man is charging at Fin with a baguette held like a spear. He stabs Fin in the stomach, which sounds way more than it is, because Fin just stumbles back, holding his stomach pain. The baguette splits in half thanks to the thrust, but that doesn’t stop the Grocery Man holding each half of the baguette like two clubs and hitting Fin on the head with them.
Fin falls to the ground, holding his head in pain. Max runs up to the Grocery Man and throws a punch, but the Grocery Man dodges. Max stumbles for a bit but regains his footing. He turns around to see the Grocery Man aim a banana at him like a gun. “Bananas can’t literally fire.” Says Max, trying to not be worried.
With a metaphorical pull of the trigger, the pulp shoots out of the peel and hits right between the eyes, actually being somewhat painful. Max is annoyed, he runs at the Grocery Man again, which is a big mistake. The Grocery Man drops the banana peel and takes a few steps back, seeing Max slip and slam into the ground.
With both Fin and Max being out for the count, the Grocery Man moves to steal their wallets.
This is when he learns they don’t have wallets on them. Fin looks at him smug, which makes the Grocery Man realize that they intentionally didn’t bring their wallets with them so he would not be able to rob them.
In a fit of rage the Grocery Man throws his grocery bag, still full of groceries, at the coastal waters, making a loud splash. He storms off, grumbling at not being able to steal anyone’s wallet that day. They watch him disappear into the darkness, ready to come back the next night to terrorize the city once more.
It’s tomorrow, in the evening. Fin & Max only have a few hours before it’s night and the Grocery Man is ready to be a menace yet again. They figured out where the next attack will be at Cuttletopia Park, as in, the actual park with lush nature. However, just before they can find the Grocery Man, doesn’t mean that they can stop him.
Max hums as he thinks about all the possibilities. “Not having our wallets on us means that we did technically stop him from stealing. Except, spending every night for cod knows how long getting beaten up is not ideal.”
Fin thinks about how the Grocery Man beat him up with baguettes, then Max with a banana. He thinks about how the Grocery Man seems near unstoppable with his mostly perishable foods. Which is what gives him an epiphany.
“If groceries are the Grocery Man’s strength…” Says Fin, slowly turning to Max. “Then could groceries be his weakness?”
Max looks at Fin, expression unreadable. “Not like i have a better idea.” He holds Fin’s hand. “Let's buy two grocery bags, i guess.” Max gets a bright smile by Fin. “Thank you for believing in me, i won’t forget it.”
They go to the grocery store, get two bags full of groceries, then head back to the office, waiting for when it turns dark. When it does they head to the park where they look for the Grocery Man. This time they have weapons of their own, which could really mess the Grocery Man up. As Fin said earlier, they are more dangerous than the police.
Finally, after a bit of searching, they find him, the Grocery Man. Fin raised his voice. “Hey, retell guy! We're ready for round two!” Grocery Man looks at him and Max and begins walking away.
“Hey! You're supposed to fight us!” Shouts Fin continuing to walk towards the Grocery Man. Grocery Man doesn’t speed up his pace, but they can tell he’s annoyed. While this is going on, Max whispers to Fin. “I think our grocery bags are actually a threat. He won’t fight us because he won’t get our wallets.”
Remembering their wallets, Fin gets an idea on how to get the Grocery Man to actually fight them. “What’s wrong? Upset that our money is at our office and not on ourselves?”
Learning where their wallets are, the Grocery Man turns around and sprints past Fin & Max, straight to their office. “He’s trying to rob us, which means we can force a fight. Get him!” Says Fin before running after the Grocery Man with Max.
While they're running, they realize that they can’t keep up with the Grocery Man, not with their heavy Grocery Bag on them. With heavy hearts, they drop their bags and run with a now much lighter load.
Fin & Max run up the building, before storming into their office, where they find the Grocery Man putting their wallets in his pocket. Fin stands by the door, making sure that the Grocery Man can’t just run out, while Max slowly approaches him, ready to beat him up.
The Grocery Man got what he wanted and wants to leave, he walks towards Max. Max runs up to him, which is a mistake because the Grocery Man opens a tub of ice cream and slams it the top of Max’s head. Not only does that hurt it also gives Max brain freeze, making him fall to the floor, throwing the ice cream away and holding his head in pain. The Grocery Man doesn’t walk closer to Fin, for he instead readies his next attack. He takes a grenade apple, and with a kitchen knife cuts it in half. He throws the knife away and then throws both half of the grenade apple at Fin.
Seeds and purple juice explode all over Fin, making fall down with a shout of pain, only shouting even more when he lands.
The Grocery Man walks over to Fin and stands above him. That’s when he takes off his glasses, letting Fin see his connected eyemask, which means the Grocery Man is an Inkling. Even though you can see the eyemask with the glasses on and of course his pointy ears and his slick hairstyle. Fin gasps, treating it as a big revelation. However, this time it’s an insult, the Grocery Man showing himself off, knowing that they can’t stop him.
Max slowly gets up and sees the insult against his Fin. Max stands completely upwards and grits his beak. He is done letting the Grocery Man get away with assault and rubbery. Max picks up the kitchen knife that the Grocery Man left behind and slowly walks up to him.
When Max is in range he stabs the Grocery Man in the back multiple times. The Grocery Man screams in pain, but Max upper cuts his jaw, forcing the Grocery Man to the floor. Max crouches down to him and takes back his and Fin’s wallets, before walking deeper into the office to call an ambulance.
Fin gets up and sees the Grocery Man losing alot of ink. He runs to get a first add kit and goes back to the Grocery Man, removing his suit and then doing his best to stop the ink loss. But just because Fin is helping him, doesn’t mean he will not gloat. “Ohhh, Max sure got you! What a loser.”
When the paramedics arrive, they force the Grocery Man into the ambulance. Police officers don’t attempt to arrest him, not wanting to slow the paramedics down. However, they do follow the ambulance with their police cars, ready to arrest the Grocery Man as soon as the doctors deem him stable enough.
Fin & Max stand just outside the building that their apartment is located at. “Well you did it Max. You got him just by stabbing him repeatedly.” Max nods along. “It was worth it, even if my clothes need bleaching.” Fin & Max got the Grocery Man and the media will surely celebrate them by tomorrow morning.