Hello, readers! After having played Splatoon, Splatoon 2 and the Octo expansion, I saw the lack of story for the most part- and decided to try my hand at stringing up whatever canon information I can find with my own Creative Powers into a story (possibly trilogy if I actually stick to my own ideas) about Splatoon and the sentient sea creatures within it.

I have a few chapters all written out already, and I hope to stay ahead with them as I unfold this tale. Each chapter will be posted on weekends (hopefully Saturday), if all goes well.

~ Prologue: When the Last Light's Out ~

Unknown Time -Floor Unknown of Unknown

The shadows flickered across the smooth, dull grey walls, cast by the many large torches hastily fastened to the floor and hanging somewhat loosely from the ceiling. The whole room -actually, not just this room but the whole of this underground city- radiated an atmosphere of doom, and gloom, terror and everything wrong.

In this room, the walls were smooth. In others, especially corridors, they were cracked, or perhaps patched up to the point that there was barely a single atom of the original wall remaining intact. All of them creaked ominously at all times, a sound accompanied by the quiet echoes of heavy footsteps belonging to the octopi dashing or speed-walking their way forwards on the floors above- or perhaps, if one cared to carefully listen while standing alone on the top floors, the echos would come from all the ignorant squids living it up in the city built atop all their heads.

One particular octopus quietly and carefully walked along one such barely-lit corridor. She wore the standard Octoling Corps uniform- a thin, anti-Inkling metal plate worn over a black t-shirt with equally black leggings and a belt, from which a pair of protective, night-vision battle-goggles hung. However, she wasn't your standard Octoling, belonging to the rank of Elite Octoling. Therefore, her four tentacles were black (as opposed to the standard bright red) and two long leaves of kelp were tucked between them, defying gravity by holding themselves up to sway gently in the stale, dry air. Holding her moderate-quality octoshot with the utmost care, she silently brooded on how far the situation here had fallen…

It had never been particularly great, but now that electricity levels had reached an all-time low, more and more homes, areas, and academy branches were deteriorating before simply collapsing in on themselves, to be -at best- reduced to a pile of rocks from which nothing could be salvaged, lest the interference cause something else to collapse as well. Even the lights were gone, put out in order to put the electricity to better use in helping to prevent further deterioration.

The meeting of The Authorities that she was currently walking to hoped to settle on a plan to rectify the situation, though personally, she was losing all hope in this place. Commander Catherine Catfish let out a sigh, wondering -not for the first time- if she might have been better off following her sister's path and not becoming so deeply involved in this near-impossible situation. Once again, she banished the thought and reviewed her meagre list of suggestions within her mind instead.

The Elite Octoling soon arrived at the (thankfully still intact) meeting hall, and took her place at the back with the other Elite Octolings, of which there were only ten. They all looked the same, really, especially as Cathrine was the only one here not wearing her battle-goggles on the grounds that they hid her emotions too much for an important meeting like this. However, many of the Octolings who'd grown up down here disagreed, believing the old nonsense that emotions got on the way of business, but she wasn't about to start thinking that they should all agree with her on that score.

Standing near the sides of the hall were some Octarians, representatives from the Electricity Research Department if she was remembering correctly. The singular tentacles (that more or less made up their entire bodies) were moving back and forth as the Octarian clones worriedly talked amongst themselves in quiet voices. They stopped talking the second the door opened to reveal a proud, practically ancient old Octoling, who'd been stuck in octopus form for the last century and had developed a new form all on his own.

His stern, glowing lime-green eyes and purple irises scanned the hall. Upon confirming that everyone important was present, he adjusted his grip in his wasabi sticks and swiftly took his place in the centre of the room, lifting his head so that his golden, octopus-shaped battle helmet glinted almost menacingly in the flickering torchlight.

"As you are all obviously aware," DJ Octavio spoke with plenty of force, taking the attention of everyone in the room, "we still have a severe lack of Zapfish, or indeed any other kind of electricity source. I have tried negotiating with those selfish and unintelligent squids for the past few months and NOTHING has come of it!" The old octopus paused to give the roof a particularly threatening glower, no doubt meant for the Inklings far above their heads. He then quite suddenly turned his attention to an unlucky member of the Electricity Research Department. "Well?!" He demanded, "Are you going to tell me if you've found a solution or not?!"

"Eeep! We, uh, did, Sir, but it involves fighting the Salmonids over their Power Eggs and…" The Octarian's voice trailed off as DJ Octavio gave him a glare that might as well have turned him into stone, and another Octarian bravely piped up from where his colleague left off.

"We found that Salmonid Power Eggs are a viable alternative source of electricity, provided that we used a little energy from a different source first to get the reaction going. Unfortunately, to get enough electricity to power our entire city we'd need a constant supply of Power Eggs, Sir." The Octarian stood tall (well, as tall as he could get, which was actually rather short) and reported the information almost like a well-programmed machine. "This is exceedingly difficult due the the Salmonids being a powerful warrior race, and they will not respond to any means of communication whatsoever."

At this, the DJ turned his eyes on the Elite Octoling next to Cathrine, who was standing about as rigidly as the Octarian who'd just finished speaking, in expectation. "The Wasabi Supply Unit received some charged Power Eggs from the Electricity Research Department and found them to be perfectly compatible with the Zapfish-orientated designs for weapons." She reported at once.

"Engineer Ida, you will be in charge of designing some kind of safeguard to guarantee that we can send some squads after the Salmonids for Power Eggs and get most of them back alive." Ordered DJ Octavio the moment he heard this, before turning back to address the entire room. "In the meantime, the situation has grown desperate. Since them squids won't negotiate, I'm suggesting we give up on that and take the Zapfish anyway. They're all so oblivious that they won't even notice the difference. Any opinions?"

There was instant muttering among everybody here. On one hand, nobody wanted to antagonise the Inklings further, seeing as they might well drive octopi to extinction if they decided to attack them. On the other hand… Cathrine was displeased to hear the other Elite Octolings (Except the Engineer, who was ignoring the talk in favour of scribbling down ideas for life-preserving machines that might work against the Salmonids) start coming to the conclusion that the DJ was right and that they really had no choices left, save getting destroyed by the Salmonids instead should they choose to go after their power source. At least, they reasoned, the Inklings were sentient.

"I don't like the idea." Said Cathrine, gripping her octoshot, "Inklings are formidable fighters, and when they find out they will be justifiably annoyed and will try to take their Zapfish back. I'd say harvesting Power Eggs from Salmonids might be the better idea- we could use weapons such as flooders, for example, to give us an edge so that we can keep on getting more and more Power Eggs- and the Salmonids live in the sea, they're unlikely to bother coming mainland just to attack us- whereas the Inkling are just above our heads!"

This sparked a small wave of disagreement from most of the other Elites, who were countering by pointing out that they would have to continually fight Salmonids all the time if they went for Cathrine's idea and that, once they had the Zapfish, they could use their machines to drive off the more primitive Inklings and keep them afterwards.

"For what it's worth," murmured Engineer Ida, "I see the point you're trying to make. But that solution would never work forever. We just don't have enough forces. Or supplies." She didn't even look up from her notepad as she stated this, but her gentle, considering tone of voice was enough for Cathrine to feel relieved that someone was willing to think about the alternatives to possibly reenacting The Great Turf War.

Unfortunately… "I see your point as well," Cathrine replied to her, "but I still think we could make it work. Anything would be better than causing an even bigger rift between ourselves and our neighbours!" The Engineer didn't reply, but she seemed to be considering Cathrine's opinion, at least. Cathrine walked a bit closer to the Octarians in the room to hear what they thought- which turned out to be that they were in favour of Octavio's plan, on the grounds that the Zapfish were easier to get and currently the more reliable source of electricity.

"Well." Said DJ Octavio, sounding somewhat smug and letting the tentacles crossed across his front relax a little, "It seems we've reached an agreement. All Commanders will be forming both defence and offence squads to obtain and protect the Zapfish. The Wasabi Supply Unit will be designing weapons specifically to protect the Zapfish and preserve the life of anyone who gets sent after the Salmonids. And the Electricity Research Department will do what they've always done. Now everybody leave! You've got jobs to do!"

Just like that, the meeting was over and, as far as Cathrine's sinking feeling was concerned, they'd just agreed to wage a covert war on Inkopolis.

His menacing, fully green eyes stared after Commander Catfish long after she'd left. Despite appearances, she wasn't like everyone else here, who'd grown up under his regime. Catfish had come from the surface, bringing new information, new ideas and possibly a new (and invaluable, should she pick his side) ally. However, utilising all three of those things was like trying to fire a splatgun stuffed full of enemy ink- in other words, Catfish could be just as great a threat as she was an ally, and the same went for her (currently neutral) sister. DJ Octavio made a mental note to send one of The Faction to keep an eye on her.

With that out of the way, the octopus -well, it wasn't exactly walking, due to his eight limbs all being tentacles- moved down a different corridor to the others, carefully making sure nobody else was watching where he was going. They didn't need to know, they'd probably not understand, especially with Catfish spreading her new-age ideas everywhere. DJ Octavio soon reached a carefully hidden grate -that simply looked like another part of the air supply system- and dived into it.

The other side of the grate, past a two-way pipeway, was a secret area that only The Faction and Octavio knew about. It was just as desolate as everything else down here, but actually a bit sturdier. The walls had proper built-in torches. There were a few doorways, from which exactly eighty younger, blank-faced Octolings came out in organised rows. Octavio narrowed his eyes at them, but none of them spoke. They didn't need to. They knew what to do already… Past Octavio's watching eyes, each squad of four left through the same grate their leader had just come through at intervals of ten minutes- a necessary precaution, just in case someone on patrol duty saw them all arriving from one direction and started asking questions.

Squad Sixteen -the Spy Squad- were waiting for orders just outside the grate once all the others had gone past. Perfect. They were trained to keep an eye on anyone on his own side who might be a threat in disguise…

"One-Sixteen. Go join the patrol-duty group and report to me if you see someone… highly unusual… trick the dunderheads into letting her through. Two-Sixteen, you will join Commander Cathrine Catfish's Zapfish Collection Squad by any means possible and report any and all suspicions you have about Catfish or whomever else she picks. Three-Sixteen, remain close to the surface and tell me the activities of my… old foe. And Four-Sixteen, you keep a general watch on everyone Elite-Ranked and report anything that looks like betrayal."

Squad Sixteen nodded as one before going their separate ways so they could follow his orders. With that settled, the DJ made his way down several flights of stairs (they did have elevators, but like everything else needed electricity to power them), tapping his wasabi sticks together somewhat irritably, before turning into a particularly shadowy corner and unlocking the door set into the local stone.

Once safely locked inside his office, DJ Octavio looked over his plans with a grim frown upon his face. (You Inklings took almost everything away from me. You forced my kind underground and left us all to dry up…) He sat down on the chair in front of his desk, slamming his front two tentacles (the ones not holding wasabi sticks) onto the desk in a decisive manner. (Well, now we're taking back what's ours. Let's see how YOU LOT like it!) The old octopus looked up at several blueprints, each one showing a different weapon that would -without a doubt- protect all his precious octopi once they had enough energy to power them.

(End of the line, Inklings.)