Hey again, everyone. My god, it has been a long time. Yeah, so, for those who don't know, this is a story I tried working on before in 2021. It didn't work out so great after I, quite frankly, rushed it, but I eventually announced a rewrite, and then I went silent for almost a year. Oops. Sorry. But here I am again in 2023, I've rewritten the original 8 chapters and have added a brand new three-chapter prologue, and I believe the story is now a lot more digestible. Whether or not you're new here, I welcome you, because this is still a very big story with multiple arcs and it's time to finally start chipping away at it.

For the sake of clarity, I will say again: While I did write this to accommodate for new readers, you should bear in mind that this is technically a sequel, specifically to New Squidbeak Splatoon: Off Duty and Agent 3: Execution. So, you might find this more enjoyable if you're caught up with the character's histories and previous events. It's definitely not required, but do keep that in mind. But with that out of the way, onto the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Splatoon or any of its characters. Splatoon is owned by Nintendo.

The whole of the cosmos surrounds me

Bearing truth I did not think I need

My life, my needs, I cannot see

Now someone please just end this dream

A light burbling sound slowly filled the world, gradually encroaching everything around her. Bubbles rose calmly yet surely all around her, touching her, playfully rummaging through her tentacles as they passed by. A world of water surrounded her, filled with an ominous green tint, burning her skin with its hug.

The sleeping Octoling was floating in place, silently resting among the liquid. Her tentacurl hair was pink, and her skin was dark and bare, with nothing but a slimy green goo that was stuck to her to cover her up. Her mind was absent from her, but she wasn't alone. Floating a couple inches away was a boy, with similarly pink mohawk hair, considerably lighter skin, and the same goo covering him up. In this moment, neither of them had any idea where they were. Or what they were.

A single jolt suddenly ran through the water, briefly shaking them. A second, much larger jolt then arrived to awaken them; A red light began flashing, briefly replacing the green tint with each flash, as a muffled alarm sound blared its way through their world. The girl blinked awake, looking forward. She was dizzy from the water's effects, and she was very confused, but with one look, one thing was clear: A figure stood before her, watching her from behind the glass that protected her. She wasn't sure about the figure… but the feeling that swept over her felt… haunting. Like evil had just found her.

A third jolt arrived, accompanied by a bang sound, and the water began gushing out as the glass broke.

New Squidbeak Splatoon: Ascension

Prologue

Chapter 1: Insomnia

The Octoling's eyes opened as she awakened again, the same memories of those burning, piercing waters still engraved in her mind, haunting her again and again. The life she could remember was filled with adventure; The Deepsea Metro, her battles to save the world, the friendships she made, the pseudo-family she found… and yet… so much of it was a blank slate…

She still didn't remember her original, real name. It's why she, along with everyone else she knew, have just called her Bridgett for the longest time. It was better than being referred to by her Agent 8 code-name, anyway, which was the oldest identity she could remember.

The room was dark and she was alone, with the only source of light being the moon and city lights that managed to sneak in through her window, but it did seem that tonight would be another sleepless night. Another sleepless night in a nasty series, in fact. She had tried, and tried again, but sleep still evaded her, and her restless urges for action prompted her to sit up, stretching her arms out to either side of her. She looked around; the bed on the opposite end of the room was empty, as her roommate had seemed to sneak out again. It was fine, though, she could use the alone time.

She reached into her drawer, pulling out her old CQ-80. She powered it on, the holographic image brightening up her face and the wall behind her as it hovered in front of her. She navigated to the recordings page, where a long list of prior recording entries were already logged, and she pressed the button to record a new one.

"...Dear diary… I… can't sleep again. Those, uh… memories… the ones that feel like a dream… I was thinking about them again tonight." She glanced out the window. "…Actually, I've been thinking about them a lot more lately… It just feels like I… should be able to know what they are… but… but… lately, I just…" She paused. She no longer knew what words to say. These diary entries had used to be a satisfying outlet to get her feelings out, but… not so much anymore. She knew that wasn't the type of action she wanted. She needed more. And she needed to get it out now.

She turned the recording off and deleted the now-useless file, before powering the entire device down and stashing it back in her drawer. She stood up, and stepped toward the window, allowing the moonlight to reflect off her face. She reached to pull the window up, and the cold breeze outside immediately blew in, through her pajamas. She closed her eyes and stepped back, feeling the outside air. Action was calling to her now just as much as it did most nights. Opening her eyes again, she stared at the entire playground outside that was Inkopolis.

The sounds of cars, horns, and a passing train filled the air despite the hour, as the moon shone down upon the large, cold city, where every moment of every night, somewhere, something was going on. The city was rarely peaceful these days, and was always active with some form of tension in the air, even at night.

Bridgett perched atop the rooftops, now equipped with her Deepsea Metro outfit, her Octo Shot, and some other special weapons ready at hand. She hardly even cared about the cold air as she occasionally leapt from roof to roof, surveying the streets below her for something, anything, that would take her mind off things.

With every street she checked, things seemed pretty empty and quiet, as if separated from all the city's chaos… but she couldn't stop looking. This was Inkopolis. Sooner or later, she would notice something worth coming out for. Sure enough, a somewhat distant BOOM soon rang through the night, followed by a burglar alarm, catching her attention as she stared outward. She only briefly looked in the direction of the noise, clenching her fist before she transformed into her Octopus-form and launched off in a super jump.

A group of about five Octolings were currently running out of a bank, with masks over their faces and multiple bags of money firmly locked in their fists. They desperately ran to their van across the street, eager to get away from the noise they just created.

No police seemed to be coming yet. They felt pretty sure they were going to get away with this one… but they were still too late. As they approached the car, they all stopped in their tracks just as a flying pink Octopus landed on their car roof.

"What the-?" They all looked up as the attacker turned back into her humanoid form to show herself; It only took them a second to recognize that vigilante outline which criminals around the city had started to fear. It was Agent 8 herself.

"...S-Shoot her!" An Octoling shouted, before they all aimed and opened fire on her. She swiftly dodged by turning back to her Octopus form, flipping off the vehicle.

Most of the other Octolings began circling the vehicle to intercept her, but she had already seen them coming; Using a combination of her two different forms, she weaved in and out of their attacks as she took them on. A violent but swift shootout continued, and the gangsters couldn't do much as one-by-one, they were either splatted or knocked out, up until one last gangster was left with no choice but to hide behind the car. He stuck close to it, aiming his gun everywhere as he snuck along, but he was left with no time to react as Bridgett flipped in from on top of the car, erupting into a warning-less Splashdown that instantly splatted him. The car was thrown back, briefly spinning through the air before it violently landed back on its wheels, its windows cracked.

Left standing alone, Bridgett let out a successful breath, before moving over to pull off her mask. Before she could, however, she was interrupted.

"Hell of a performance." The familiar female voice spoke behind her.

She paused. "…Oh, no…" She stood back up and turned to face the Inkling, who had just leapt off a nearby fire escape and landed on the street behind her.

It was none other than Agent 3, in her full Hero Outfit and cape, with long, orange hair and black goggles covering her eyes. She walked toward her. "You got to this one before even I could… Doing more and more missions without me, huh?"

"...I was cleaning up."

"I can see that." She looked around at the aftermath. One of the Octolings that was simply knocked out was beginning to stir and get back up, but she suddenly pulled her Hero Shot on him and splatted him. "With some room for improvement…"

She groaned. "Oh, come on, Jessica… I took them all out in less than a minute. That's impressive."

"Don't take it the wrong way, Bridge. There's always room for improvement."

She didn't respond, a bit embarrassed.

Jessica listened to the bank's alarm, sighing. "...Come on. Police could be here any moment." She turned into her squid-form before blasting off in a super jump.

She watched for a moment, glancing at the mess around her, before doing the same and following.

It was soon after that when Jessica and Bridgett got settled on top of a building, overlooking the moon-lit city. At this point, now that the adrenaline had faded, Bridgett was shivering from the cold, curled up.

Jessica, who was casually sitting next to her, looked at her. "…You need a better suit."

"I'm fine with this one…"

"You been feeling restless again? Can't sleep?"

"...Yeah…"

"How many nights does this make?"

"...I don't know… almost a week…"

She propped her foot up. "Ok, but just saying, heading out into the cold to beat up bad guys in the middle of the night probably isn't helping you sleep."

She couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "I don't see you in bed…"

"I'm a night owl. I like the night. And, uh… I get you can't sleep, but… you don't have to keep torturing yourself, Bridge. This doesn't need to be your hobby."

"...You do this nightly, why can't I?"

Jessica thought about her answer as she looked over the city. Ultimately, she just sighed. "…Fair enough… but… sometimes, I just feel like you push yourself a bit too much. And I can't help but notice how much you've been using my own methods. My own style. It's not a healthy style. Your friends worry about you, your boyfriend worries about you…"

She didn't respond, also staring out over the city.

She sighed. "…I can tell you're not listening. Fine. But I hope you at least realize that beating criminals senseless isn't going to bring all your memories back."

"I've never said or thought that it's going to bring my memories back, I just… need something to do… And this city… needs us. More than ever. What, with the… rising crime rates and all that, I'd rather be here to calm things down myself before the government actually sends KRAKEN out here and makes everything even worse."

"Well, you can blame my crazy brother for trying to kill everyone and getting everyone paranoid."

"It is how it is…"

"...Go home, Bridgett. Get some sleep. I can see your eyelids getting heavy."

"...I-" She was interrupted as they suddenly felt the building shake beneath them, and they looked down. A low rumbling noise filled the city, as other buildings visibly shook as well. They could even start to hear some screaming coming from the streets. Her breathing got a bit heavier. "A-Again?"

"Another one." Jessica got up and pulled Bridgett from the ledge, before pressing a button on her goggles and looking around. The goggles turned green as they scanned the city.

Bridgett held onto her for comfort as she waited for the shaking to subside. The earthquake calmed down after a few moments, and she looked at her. "…How strong was it?"

"...4.6." Jessica read from her goggles' UI.

She blinked a bit. "…They're getting stronger."

She kept scanning around for a moment before deactivating her goggles, hearing the subtle, distant screams and sounds of panic. "Alright, sleep can wait. Come on. People need help." She transformed for another super jump. Bridgett quickly followed.

The tremor was felt by everyone who was awake in the city, and that included Marina Ida. She hadn't been getting much sleep herself, but there were things in the world that were more important than that. It was only minutes after the quake hit that Marina was down in her lab, underground, where the room was decorated with lots of monitors and wires of Octarian technology that let her do her research.

The room was dark, lit only by the monitors, but she was working frantically, running scans on the computers for as much information about the earthquake she could muster while she wrote down notes. She was turning her attention from the notes to the monitors and back again at an almost break-neck pace until the room suddenly lit up. She paused before she turned to see Pearl at the light-switch, a tired and unamused look on her face.

She turned her notes upside-down. "Pearlie. What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you…"

"Well, I'm just researching the quake…"

"It's almost 1 in the morning…"

She glanced at the time before she looked back at her. "Yeah, I know…"

She walked up to her, yawning. "I thought you were done operating this lab…"

"That was before the emergence of mysterious earthquakes started rocking the city…" She turned back to the monitors.

"Girl, they're just earthquakes…" She groaned. "Fault lines, tectonic plates, the Earth throwing a fit over the fleas on its back." She yawned again. "I love you, but you're getting awfully annoying in the worrying type of way."

"...No… this is a different type of earthquake…" She didn't take her eyes off the monitors.

"Like I said, annoying and worrying…" She lazily slid Marina's keyboard off the table. Marina looked at her, annoyed, but Pearl just patted her shoulder. "Now come the fuck home. Because when you don't sleep, I don't have anyone to cuddle up with in bed. Then I also wonder if you're down here doing weird-ass Subgrid experiments again, so I can't sleep either. Stop doing this to me…"

"Pearl, I'm sorry, but sooner or later, you're going to need to start taking this seriously. This is…" She paused. "…Something's not right…"

"...Ok, now you're just worrying me…"

"I've done the math. All the calculations." She picked the keyboard back up and plugged it back in. "The quakes don't come from fault lines. And every time we get one-" She motioned up to one of the monitors that had a map of space on it. "We get this… signal. As if it's responding to us. And it's not from Earth."

She looked up at the monitor, a bit confused. "…What, from Saturn?"

"Near Saturn." She sat down. "…This means something… something is coming…"

"...Are you talking about an alien invasion? Because I'm not… ready for that…"

"No… not necessarily." She stared up at the screen. "But it will be cataclysmic."

Pearl stared at her a moment, before again turning her attention up to the monitor.

The Next Morning

It was an uneasy morning in Inkopolis, with wonder and concern in the air relating to the rising frequency of these earthquakes. The entirety of the New Squidbeak Splatoon, however, was more concerned than most, as they knew more than anyone that something was wrong.

Beneath the streets of Inkopolis, in an abandoned, unfinished Shifty Station near Marina's lab, rested the Splatoon's very own underground headquarters that Marina had designed. At the moment, the room remained dark and silent; at least, until the lights and monitors all began turning themselves on, revealing the massive NSS emblem on the floor. A door slid open, and a young, quirky Horseshoe Crab, Sheldon Shellendorf, walked in, closing the door behind him. Humming to himself, he checked the time, and waited there a few moments until he heard the sound of the HQ's elevator descending. He sprinted over to welcome it, standing in front of the elevator doors.

The elevator doors soon opened, revealing one half of the Squid Sisters herself, Marie, wearing casual clothes while holding her coat with her arm and a latte in her hand. She nodded down to him. "Agent 5."

"Agent 2." He saluted.

She walked inside, over to the monitors. "Can I get a rundown on last night? Definitely felt like a worse quake than the previous ones."

"4.6 on the Pitcher Scale." Sheldon leapt onto one of the tables. "Agents 3 and 8 were out and on top of it when it hit, but the city's dazed."

"Have you traced these things to a fault line yet?"

"Nope, nada. Marina tried, no luck."

"Still not unsettling at all…" She sipped her drink. "Well, it's a good thing we reformed the Splatoon when we did…"

"Speaking of the Splatoon, where's Agent 1?"

"Distracted with something, I guess." She turned as they heard the door open, as Marina and Pearl came in next.

"Good, you're here." Marina rushed in, holding a bunch of notes with Pearl right behind her. She walked over to the table near Sheldon, plopping them down. "We should've been holding this meeting a while ago."

She looked at her, seeing how tired she looked. "Marina, have you gotten even a wink of sleep las-"

"No, Marie, I've been studying."

"...What'd you find?"

"That these quakes are likely going to get stronger and we need to start doing something about it now." She said, breathing heavy.

Pearl huffed a bit, stuffing her hands in her pockets. "Ok, personally, I think she may be a bit off her rocker."

"Really? Coming from you?" Sheldon remarked.

"Pearl, just, shush." Marie motioned her off as she walked toward Marina. "Let's stay calm. Tell us what you know."

It would only be a few minutes before the rest of the Splatoon gathered. Either the door or the elevator would open up as Bridgett and Jessica came in, followed by the green-haired Inkling Dylan Schultz, who was the team's Agent 4, and then finally, Cap'n Cuttlefish himself, who gripped his cane tightly as he walked in.

"Talk to us, Marina." He told her.

"Alright…" Marina went up to her computer, pulling up some of her intel on the monitors above. "I've been trying to study these quakes ever since they started popping up. It didn't take me long to notice this." She pulled up the space map, showing the location of the last signal she received.

Bridgett squinted as she looked up at the screen with everyone else. "What… is that?"

"It's a signal." Marina told them. "From outer space. Right here in our Solar System."

"Oh, not this again…" Marie rubbed her forehead. "Marina…"

"What?"

"I told you before what I thought about these signals… it's not from aliens, we're not about to be invaded."

"I didn't say it was from aliens."

Dylan shrugged. "Well, I dunno, the chances of us being alone in such a massive universe is astronomically lo-"

"Not now, Four." Marie interrupted.

"I don't believe it's aliens, I believe it's the Octarians." Marina replied.

Upon hearing that, some of the Splatoon members groaned.

Dylan sighed. "For once, I'd like it to not be Octarian-related…"

"Guys, let me explain." Marina continued, showing a slideshow of different screenshots of the same space map. "I've been following these signals for about a month. It's a repeated signal that has been getting farther and farther away from Earth, it's now by Saturn. I call them pings. You know why? Because they're communicating with someone. It's not indifferent from some communication tactics that have been used between Octarian settlements while I was there. Some of them seem to mean nothing I can understand, but most of them happen either right before, during, or right after a quake. It's almost like a feedback loop. A quake happens, it triggers a ping. What the pings or even the quakes mean, exactly, I've yet to figure out, but this is not a coincidence."

"Marina was acting really odd about this last night, she said this means something cataclysmic." Pearl added.

"Cataclysmic how?" Cuttlefish asked.

"Because the Octarians are planning something." Marina said. "What have they always wanted? They want energy, and they want our surface world. They could be hunting down other ways to get both. Because there is so much untapped potential from the cosmos, that must be what they're attempting to do next. And if whatever they're doing that's causing these quakes keeps up, the quakes could keep getting stronger and stronger, and then… well… we've all seen those particular disaster movies."

The Splatoon seemed pretty mixed about all this news. Well… rather, they all seemed more skeptical about it. Jessica was rolling her eyes a bit, Sheldon was playing with his helmet in boredom, and Marie was rubbing her face.

Marie sighed. "…Ok… ok, even if we humor this idea… that'd mean that the whole of the Octarians figured out deep space travel... without any Zapfish energy. They were inactive this whole time with no power because they were busy somehow building a spaceship. And, they're probably doing something underground that's causing these quakes that also somehow ties directly to whatever they're doing in space at the same time, which must take a lot of resources. Resources I don't imagine they have."

"Yes, that's exactly what I think happened." Marina replied. "It's not hard to figure out space travel, I wrote down a lot of designs back in the day. I find it very likely that they found a way to make them a reality. These signals can't be from anyone else, Marie."

"This is starting to feel like a UFO conspiracy to me." Jessica interjected.

Marie rubbed her chin before looking at Cuttlefish. "…Gramps, what do you think?"

They all looked at the elderly squid, who looked back at all of them, thinking about it. A moment later, he tapped his cane against the floor. "I think… Marina may be right to an extent. I've seen the Octarians with some fascinating mumbo-jumbo technologies in my day. In fact, we all have. I wouldn't put it past them to be behind these quakes somehow, Zapfish energy or not."

Marina softly hit her desk. "Thank you."

"...So what do we do?" Marie asked.

"...We'll keep investigating." Cuttlefish said. "Marina, Sheldon, you keep an eye on those signals and let us know what happens next. 3, 4, 8, we're going back on recon. The Octarians seem to be active again. Whatever it is they're doing, we won't let them get far."

Bridgett, Jessica, and Dylan all looked at other, not feeling very happy about this change of pace. "Yes, sir…" They all said regardless.

"...Well, that settles this meeting…" Sheldon wiped his hands together as he leapt off his table.

As some agents began heading out, Bridgett went up to Marina, who was looking back up at the monitors. She stood next to her. "You're… sure about this?"

"I am." Marina responded as she typed on her keyboard.

She looked at her, studying her a bit. Out of all of her good friends in the Splatoon, Marina felt the most like a… warm presence. Like a pseudo-mother figure for her, even if it was just to replace the lack of a real mother in her life. And at this point, Bridgett thought that she knew her pretty well, just as Marina knew her. "…Marina, I know there some things you haven't told us in the past, but if… something was bothering you… you might consider talking to me about it, right?"

She looked back at her. "Would you talk to me if something bothered you?"

"I, uh, asked you first…"

"...I'm fine, Eight." She rubbed her arm. "I've just been… thinking about a lot. And, clearly, so have you."

Of course, there it was again. Marina wasn't telling her something. She sighed a bit. "...Just… had a bad dream last night…"

"...Is it the same one?"

She slowly nodded.

"...Do you… want to talk about it?"

"...Maybe sometime…"

She nodded slightly as the two of them, along with Cuttlefish and Marie, looked back up at the monitor that held the space map, where the red dot represented the last location of the latest ping.

Saturn

Marina's suspicions were far from wrong; In the vast, dark reaches of space, even if they were still right here in the Solar System, was a giant, purple space station, designed completely from advanced Octarian technology. It was completely powered, yet with no Zapfish of any kind on board, and it moved ominously and silently through the black void, having stopped by the massive gas giant planet for some extra resources. A hole in the bottom of the station acted as a massive vacuum, sucking in some rocks and ice from Saturn's rings, as well as hydrogen gases from the actual planet's atmosphere.

The station itself was filled with former Octo Valley and Octo Canyon personnel who had been stationed here, which mainly consisted of Octoling scientists or soldiers. The hallways and rooms they walked through all looked like something out of the future, and used some pretty complicated machinery with lots of electric wires running along the walls, with everything inside serving a particular purpose.

The main deck, where the commanding Octolings were stationed, had a massive window that gave them a beautiful view of Saturn's atmosphere, with lots of space rocks floating past. It was after the station finished up its current salvaging run that the hole at the station's bottom closed up, and the station began floating upward, controlled by several Octolings inside the command deck. One Octoling walked up to one of his computers, typing in a coded message to be sent back to Earth that could be decoded to:

STATUS: GREEN. IS THE SHADOW READY?

Octo Valley

It was a dark room, lit up by the TV-sized screen that projected the darkly-dressed Elite Octoling's shadow onto the wall behind her. This Octoling was sitting in a lonely chair, staring down the screen as it projected security camera footage of Agent 8 herself directly into her face. She silently watched, studying the very fighting style of the NSS vigilante, all the way up until Bridgett had pulled off the sudden Splashdown, splatting the poor gangster and nearly flipping the car over. It was an impressive feat, and she knew she was a worthy fighter.

It wasn't long after that when the footage ended and the screen powered down, leaving her in pitch-black darkness. Light streamed in another moment later as the door slowly opened, and an older, Octoling man walked in, with a large, puffy, gray afro on his head, and something covered with a rag gripped firmly in his hand.

She stood up as she faced him. "…Sir."

He glanced at the screen, able to tell exactly what she had been watching. He grinned. "…She's magnificent, isn't she?"

"...She's one of the best."

"Yeah. It's just a shame she ended up on the wrong side of the larger war." He started walking around her. "You'd like to fight her, huh? I daresay, even, you'd like to kill her."

"...Yes…"

"I know. You don't even need to say it. The time may come for that. Bridgett is definitely special. You'll see why later. But for now, we're ready for your mission."

She turned to watch him as he walked around her. "…I don't want your mission. I'd prefer to just finally take the Splatoon on, if you don't mind. I think we're ready."

He suddenly reached over to grab her shoulders. "You will get to take on the Splatoon! You will! Our plan is moving along smoothly! But I need you to help nudge it along first."

She didn't respond, staring at him.

"Agent 8, or Bridgett, whatever they want to call her, has accomplished a lot, sure. But we're on the precipice of a new era. A new reality. A new universe! And it's our jobs to shape it! Axcia is calling for you. I want you… to journey into those stars… and claim everything that's ours."

"...So you're sending me out there to die?"

"I'd say… I'm sending you out there to find our future."

"But what would I get for helping you?"

He let go of her. "…Power." He unfurled the rag. "Pure, raw, unbridled, concentrated power."

He set the crystal that was under the rag down onto the table, and she stared down at it. It was no ordinary crystal; a strong green hue emanated from it, reflecting off of both of their faces, which was the result of an unnatural, cosmic energy housed inside. And whatever this energy was, it was calling for her.

Alright, first chapter down. Now, for anyone who is reading as this is being published: Since I've been working on this entire rewrite collectively over the past few months, I currently have 11 chapters raring to go, including this one. To avoid dropping every single chapter at the same time, and because I still want to look over some of the chapters before uploading them, I plan on publishing them over the span of the next few weeks, with maybe a couple-day gap between chapters. That way, this rewrite can still be dropped fairly quickly. Once we reach Chapter 12, we'll be back at where the original version of the story halted, and I will be back at my usual schedule of updating as I finish new chapters. I'm not going to attempt the weekly-update schedule again, since I think that actually contributed to the poor quality of the original version.

Regardless, keep your eyes peeled for more updates, and I'll see you very soon.