So, returning readers, I'm back! I actually wrote this after the prologue and the first chapter, so I can say that I really prefer first person.
And to new readers, this particular story takes place after another which I have up. There's a shortened summary of its plot below, but if you'd rather read it in its entirety, go ahead.
And now, the obligatory "I don't own Splatoon, credit to Nintendo" and spoiler warning for Splatoon 1, 2, and Octo Expansion.
The day after Callie's rescue from DJ Octavio, she inadvertently made her face public again in an on-a-whim Turf War with Marie and Rose Jacqueline, who had been dubbed Agent 4. She and Marie ran off, but the fourth Turf War teammate—a man named Sid who had worked backstage for the Squid Sisters—said he could tell long before Callie's mask was blown off.
Later, Rose was summoned to Octo Canyon by Captain Cuttlefish along with Agents 1 and 2. There, he told them that, in his long disappearance, he and Agent 3 had conducted an underground investigation of Grizzco. There were two things of note: one, Octarians were running a continuous campaign to steal Grizzco's eggs. Two, Agent 3 had been captured.
One, Two, and Four entered Grizzco in a desperate attempt for anything to learn. Inside, a voice they had never heard before hijacked Mr. Grizz's radio and had them sailed to a remote spot in the sea, where he dropped them off and had the boat attack them.
Two stole the boat back by soaking its mounted weapons with a Splashdown. As Four piloted it back to shore, One and Two found two sheets of paper inside. Both were crumpled as if they were old copies.
Two read one of them out loud. On it, a name was printed: Akash Octrope. It stated that Salmonid Golden Eggs were an alternate source of electricity and that taking from Grizzco was an excellent alternative power source.
The other, however, was coded and unreadable in its current state.
With that out of the way, the next course of action was to find the exact spot in which Callie was captured. This search quickly led them to a nearly-abandoned road in a quiet part of Inkopolis. One of the alleys held the entrance to an Octarian facility named the Lab. Based on Callie's limited memory of her time brainwashed, Three was somewhere down there too. That night, they found a cipher to decode the other document they had found inside the Grizzco boat and snatched a third document before being forced to retreat. Both coded docs were in Octarian, but Two, who had learned the language in Callie's absence, translated them. One of them said that a new pair of Hypno-Shades, one designed to work on Inklings, was in development. This was accomplished with the kidnapping of random Inklings from the surface, but Octavio was not informed of it.
The other said that when they were done, Octavio had originally planned to use the newly-developed shades on the captured Agent 3. But after getting ahold of Callie, he quickly changed his mind. Octrope took Agent 3 for himself and made him initiate the Grizzco raids. Though he initially refused, they read, Three acquiesced when he was told they had Callie captured.
Trapped nearby, Octavio begrudgingly offered a word on Akash Octrope: in the past, he had chased after Octavio's position several times. Now, he had presumably usurped Octavio.
With that, they had only one lead left: in the Lab, Four had found an electromagnetically-locked door. Some passing guards had said the power was coming from Octo Valley.
Octo Valley, however, hadn't been touched in a long time—the entrance from Inkopolis Plaza had been sealed. What's more, the arena on which Four battled Octavio was a stolen piece of Inkopolis Plaza, so there was a huge basin in the middle of it. Shortly after the incident that made it disappear, everything was simply moved to Inkopolis Square.
Nevertheless, to reach Octo Valley, they had to fly. And so, Sheldon drove them there in the flying truck. They had all of the Hero Weapons stuffed inside as a backup if things went wrong, and they set off.
En route to Octo Valley, the truck was attacked by a giant, mechanical bird the size of Tentakeel Outpost. They managed to shoot one of its legs off before Sheldon made a last-ditch effort as the truck was about to run out of fuel. He stopped the truck in Octo Valley, and the bird moved to escape. However, before it could fly away, Two grabbed onto it and waited in its main hull for it to land somewhere.
As the mechanical bird flew away, One suddenly remembered its name: The Eagle.
Though down one, they still pressed on. Octo Valley was in a terrible state; all signs of plant life were gone, and a thin layer of fog draped over it.
Next to the demolished messageboard, Four found a thin, flashlight-shaped object that turned out to be a weapon. When turned on, a limp stream of ink appeared out of one end. She handed it to Sheldon sitting in the now-motionless truck, who later dubbed it the Inkwhip.
Nearby, One and Two found a basket full of golden Salmonid eggs. By hooking on to a group of wires extending from it, they managed to topple a tower under construction, which landed on and demolished the basket.
At that moment, they became surrounded by a group of Octarians. One of them approached from above, standing on a floating platform, and addressed them—Akash Octrope himself. Upon hearing his voice, it became clear: he was the one who had attacked them in Grizzco. He flew away and gave the order to fire.
They avoided the onslaught for a while, but at the cost of the truck tumbling into the valley below. Just before they were overwhelmed, the Eagle returned with a newly-repaired leg—and this time, it was attacking the Octarians. Two had hijacked it from an Octarian camp in the forest west of Inkopolis, and Octarian engineering had made it pilotable even for amateurs.
The truck and six of the nine Hero Weapons were gone, but Two flew One, Four, and Sheldon back to Tentakeel Outpost. Octavio spoke up again, this time expressing concern at the Eagle—meaning he did not know of its construction—and hastily telling them that Agent 3 was in a facility hidden in Inkopolis. Which would have been helpful if they had not already known that.
That night, One, Two, and Four infiltrated the Lab once again and this time went through the locked door and deeper underground. There, they were met with another huge mechanical machine similar to the Eagle. This one was humanoid but with very odd proportions. It attacked them, and mid-fight, One managed to get high enough to see into the transparent head. And inside, she saw Agent 3 in the head of the vehicle, wielding an Inkwhip and wearing the very same pair of Hypno-Shades that she wore. The head detached itself and flew through an opening in the wall. As they gave pursuit, they shot it down, and Simon Parette, dubbed Agent 3 two years prior, stumbled out, fell unconscious, and dropped face-first onto the floor, shattering the Hypno-Shades beneath his chest.
As they proceeded with Agent 3 and the Inkwhip in tow, they came across another room that held the captured Inkopolis citizens alluded to in the document from the day before. At the push of a button, they were freed. But at the same time, an alarm sounded.
With all of the former prisoners, they quickly escaped to the surface.
Though most left soon after, one stayed behind. Agent 4 recognized her. Her name was Morgan, a childhood friend of hers. Based on what Morgan told them and on the fact that they were still being kept prisoner despite the successful production of a pair of Inkling Hypno-Shades, Marie deduced that Octrope was running a program to develop a pair of Hypno-Shades that could function perfectly on either an Inkling or an Octoling. Pairs existed for both species, but not one that could work on both.
When Simon woke up, Callie and Marie filled him in, and together, they left for Inkpolis Square. There, he found Morgan—his sister. They left the square together and later bought a new apartment next to the rest of the team's apartments.
Soon after, the four caught wind of something deterring any ships away from a patch of the sea by the Restricted Zone—the area in which Grizzco operated. What this something was wasn't as clear, but reports said it looked like a giant, metal fish.
Before investigating directly, they decided to try one more trip to Grizzco. Problem was, none of them could walk in—One, Two, and Four had all blacklisted themselves the last time, and Three showing up would have caused all kinds of problems. So, they decided to ask a favor from Sid: go to Grizzco and work one shift with a wireless audio communicator in his pocket. But a moment after walking in, the door shut behind him. Another Octoling spoke up through the bear-shaped radio, saying she had found the signal from the communicator. Her name was Eileen, and after sending two others named Rocky and Jack to retrieve Sid, she told him about how her sister had gone missing. Rocky and Jack dragged Sid deeper into the secret underground sectors that connected to Grizzco, and, throwing caution to the wind, the Agents gave chase.
Once inside, they came across a fork in the road. Two and Four went one way, and Three and One went the other.
Two and One swam down a long hallway until they emerged in a small Octarian base in the woods—the same one Two stole the Eagle from. Four found a map of an underwater facility titled the "Salmonid Research Center"—likely also the base of operations for the Grizzco raids. Then, Octoling troops appeared and blocked the way back to Grizzco, forcing them to trudge through the woods to return to Inkopolis.
Meanwhile, One and Three had found Sid. And with him were Eileen, Rocky, Jack, and Octrope. They managed to retrieve Sid and steal the Hero Splatling back. All of them escaped, but not without stealing Octrope's purple cloak from him.
Upon seeing this cloak, Octavio recognized it as belonging to a man that had volunteered himself for three-tentacled Octarian creation. Long story short: it went wrong, and now he was missing both legs and an arm. Though the Octarian was successfully created, it went berserk and escaped.
This was the very same Octarian Two and Four encountered in the thickest parts of the forest on their way back to Inkopolis. The pair escaped into the sunlight, and the Octaran turned and left.
After regrouping and sending Sid off, the four scheduled the attack on the Restricted Zone fish robot for the next day. They would take it, drive it to the underwater Salmonid Research Center, and destroy the eggs said to be stored inside. Rose took the time to ask Sheldon to attach the Splashdown to her Hero Dualies.
But on that next day, Eileen Octrope introduced herself to Octavio and took over Tentakeel Outpost.
The four were quick to respond—with the usual entrance sealed, they had to take the Eagle, which Two had parked in a remote corner of the forest in preparation to attack the robot fish.
As the Eagle flew over Tentakeel, Two noticed it was covered with Octoling soldiers, all standing perfectly still. In response, Four jumped down and sped up her fall with jets of ink from the bottoms of her Dualies. This greatly enhanced her Splashdown's radius and power—a technique she called Skydive.
With the outpost free of enemies, One, Three, and Four got to work on clearing the cabin of any important material. But then, Octavio flew in, piloting yet another Octobot King.
The Eagle took off, but Two had her suspicions. She took care to only shoot around Octavio, and Octavio seemed to deliberately miss her as well. After a few minutes of this, Octavio suddenly stopped fighting and dropped the Octobot King onto the outpost. Sometime earlier, it had a bomb mounted on it, and now, it was set to go off.
They left it behind, and in the Eagle, all four agents—and Octavio—escaped to Inkopolis.
They temporarily kept him in Cuttlefish's basement, but as soon as he could, Octavio slipped through a tiny window by the ceiling and left. Taking on his underused humanoid form, he walked through Inkopolis and caught a news broadcast live—one with the anchor Marina Ida.
The next day, the four nevertheless pressed on with their original plan to take the robot fish and destroy the eggs in the Salmonid Research Center.
Using an empty boat as bait, the robot fish emerged, and Two attacked it with the Eagle. Only Agent 3 managed to get in, and inside, he found Eileen Octrope and her two brothers Rocky and Jack. She told him the name of the giant fish: the Piranha. They attacked, but Three drove them out and stole back the Hero Brush, Hero Shot, and Hero Blaster.
But he managed to find out one more thing—that, supposedly, he or someone else in the NSS had killed Eileen's sister. Which, as far as he knew, was false. No one in the NSS had ever killed.
After heading back to shore to regroup, Rose, taking the spare Hero weapons back to the captain's place, walked past an alley with an Octoling soldier standing over an unconscious Sid.
Rose leaped into action, avoiding splatting the Octoling and instead shattering the shades on his face. They took him and Sid to Cuttlefish's house, where, after the team agreed, Rose gave Sid the Hero Brush.
At the same time, Marie was questioning the Octoling. He said very little and then escaped just as Octavio did.
After this, Simon went back to his sister Morgan. The Salmonid Research Center was slated to be one of the most dangerous missions he'd ever been on, in no small part due to how isolated they would be. And so, he asked her to go to Sheldon and ask him about a bunker in case of the worst.
The following day, Rose piloted the Piranha to the Salmonid Research Center. There, they found the three-tentacled Octarian, which Octrope had supposedly detained and sent after them. They shoved it into the water and pressed on to finally come to a room where Akash Octrope stood—noticeably taller than before—on a balcony overlooking them. He cast off his purple cloak to reveal artificial, metallic limbs, then engaged them in battle as all the lights shut off.
And one by one, all four of the agents had a pair of Hypno-Shades forced upon them.
Before Octrope, very few of the Octoling sunglasses were Hypno-Shades—actually, very few people even knew about Hypno-Shades. But after rising to power, he somehow had all of them replaced with the Hypno version and activated every single one. Meaning everyone working under Octrope was brainwashed, barring his own three offspring.
If this was the only thing Octrope had done, Octavio would have detested him just as much as he did then.
Octavio had gathered a small number of Octoling rebels right under Inkopolis Plaza. One day, he received a report from Barry—one of the Octoling rebels and the soldier Rose had freed—saying that Octrope had taken the NSS members and was now attacking Inkopolis. Immediately, Octavio moved out.
At the same time, Eileen Octrope, who had excused herself from participating in the attack on Inkopolis, ordered an AI to be developed to drive the Widow, a spider-like mechanical beast the size of the Eagle. Just as she was the master of the Piranha, the Widow was meant to be for Annabelle Octrope, her missing sister.
At the edges of the city, Octavio found Agent 1 and personally freed her to take her back to his base under the plaza. She reluctantly heard all he had to say and even more reluctantly agreed to work with him to overthrow Octrope. But first, one thing took priority: freeing the rest of the NSS.
She first went after Marie, the most closely-guarded one. According to Octavio, she was in an Octrope-controlled base under the forest. There, Callie found Marie, and they both escaped unscathed. Leaving Marie to rest, Callie next found Simon, who was assigned to work in the Restricted Zone. Mid-battle, she stormed a Salmon Run and freed not only Simon but the others assigned with him.
Meanwhile, Marie took a perch on top of Inkopolis Tower to find Rose, who was patrolling Inkopolis with a small team to catch any stragglers from the initial invasion. Soon after, she spotted Sid, standing on top of a utility pole and shouting at someone in Ammo Knights. When it turned out to be Rose and her squadron, Marie chased after him. After a long battle with Rose, she was free too.
Together, Marie, Sid, and Rose investigated the Inkopolis Square Ammo Knights and found a hidden trapdoor. Simon joined them, leading Callie, and rushed inside to find the three he hoped to find—the captain, Sheldon, and his sister—plus both members of Off the Hook, who were returning from weapon scavenging from a now-abandoned arms factory.
Here, Rose proposed a strategy. At this point, all of the original Hero Weapons had passed through Octrope's hands except for the Hero Dualies. Callie confirmed that, when Octavio had stolen her off the battlefield, she had seen Octoling soldiers with copies of every Hero Weapon other than Rollers, Chargers, and Dualies. The Hero Roller and Hero Charger were now lost, but Rose had kept her Dualies. Which meant that Skydive was an option for them, but not Octrope.
After leaving the bunker, Barry found the four and directed them to Octavio. Sid followed. On the way, Barry confirmed again that Octrope was confirmed to have four children: Eileen, the two called Rocky and Jack, and the youngest, who was either dead or missing. Annabelle, or Annie.
By this point, Octavio's rebels had freed several Inklings and Octolings, and this number was expected to grow. But the problem was that, among those willing to fight, particularly among the Inklings, some needed some form of training. And so, Octavio asked each of the four to act as mentors for those who needed them.
Callie and Simon immediately refused, citing their minimal teaching skills. Marie and Rose didn't answer as quickly, and in the meantime, they went to see those who were freed.
At the door, Simon turned back and let the others introduce themselves instead. He returned to the bunker to test some weapons for Sheldon and found Marina working on a cannon prototype—not quite as powerful as the Rainmaker, but with all of the range and blast radius. Then, he and Sheldon began work on a modified Roller.
Back at Octavio's base, Sid and a few other Inklings were assigned the task of patrolling the city to find the stragglers that Rose didn't. And meanwhile, one Octoling stood out among the crowd for being a supposed "master of all weapon classes". She introduced herself as Sky.
Rose and Marie returned to Octavio to let him know they were accepting the mentor positions. Naturally, Marie took the Charger division, and Rose took the Dualie division. They took the opportunity to tell Octavio and Barry of their Skydive plan and give them a live demonstration.
The following day, Rose began her life as a teacher. The Dualie division had grown exponentially overnight, no doubt due to whatever Barry was doing. In the crowd, she found Sky standing alone. Faced with the largest division by far, Rose asked Sky to take half the class. But first, she proposed a duel that ended in a draw.
Soon after, Barry set phase two of his plan in motion: humbly asking Marina to maintain the train that would take them to wherever Octrope's next target was. At the moment, they didn't know which city he would attack next, but it was almost certainly going to be one either north or south of Inkopolis: relatively large and bordering the ocean. Callie and Simon were assigned to be Marina's guards as she worked.
Later, Sheldon completed the modified Hero Roller. Now, it had a motor attached to its wheel, opening up several more options for her. Simon handed it to Callie, and she gladly accepted it.
After a time with this routine—regular trips to the train, weapon development, and mentorship, Simon and Callie encountered the three Octrope children just outside the rebel base once more. Together, the two staved them off.
In the base, Barry relayed that a rebel mole had found Octrope's next target: Sharktown, a smaller port city south of Inkopolis and the city in which Simon and Morgan grew up. Plans were made to move all troops to the train, but just then, Sid and his team came running to Callie and Simon, just after their bout with the Octropes, and told them of one more giant metallic beast—this one in the shape of a spider—that had drilled out of the ground and began beelining to Inkopolis Tower.
Callie and Simon rushed to stall it, then both Rose and Sky joined the battle—the former landing with a Skydive and the latter inadvertently landing on the spider. On it, Sky tore a hole in its hull and then was thrown off.
Finally, Marie jumped in with the completed Rainmaker. She and Rose took over as Simon, Callie, and Sky made for the train. When everyone was on, Marie and Rose got boarded as well. The spider chased, but as a storm passed over them, it collapsed onto the tracks and stopped.
On the way to Sharktown, the four rallied the troops once more, and the next day, they reached the battlefield.
Early in the morning, Octrope began his attack. This time, he had holes torn open in the roads and alleys. In the midst of all this, Callie came face-to-face again with Eileen Octrope. They spoke, and there, Callie swore to her that she would ensure that there were no barriers between the surface and the underground. After this, Eileen threw her weapon away. Rose and Sky charged in, and, with Eileen distracted, Callie splatted her regardless.
Slowly closing the holes in the ground, the NSS and Octavio's band of rebels began to turn the tides of battle. But then, the Eagle swooped in and began attacking. Marie directed an effort to aim Marina's cannons at it, then once it was over Sharktown's bay, Marie super jumped over it and threw the Rainmaker down, letting it explode and sinking the Eagle.
Shortly after this, Marie heard Eileen's voice through a stolen pair of Hypno-Shades: "Take hold of your eyewear and cast it to the ground." Hearing this, every single hypnotized solder did just that.
Before she could say anything, the arena on which Agent 4 had battled Octavio so long ago—the very same piece of concrete that was now made the basin in Inkopolis Plaza—flew through the air with Akash Octrope riding on it. Rose knocked it down with a Skydive, and the four of the NSS managed to board it before it ascended out of reach.
Now in the skies above Sharktown, Octrope conceded that he had lost in his plan to take the surface, saying that the Octolings had made it anyway—but this time, free of any Hypno-Shades. But he claimed he couldn't "leave Annie like this," and attacked them anyway, Inkwhip in hand.
After a long battle, they ripped off his artificial limbs with a Skydive, and he yielded. The platform slowly descended, and Octavio jumped in and ended Octrope's life.
Barry directed the four to fly the platform back to Inkopolis and place it back into the plaza, right where it was supposed to be.
In the entire ordeal, the death count came to one: Octrope himself. Though his children were nowhere to be found, Inkopolis began a new era, this time with both Inklings and Octolings living together.