The next day, cargo shuttles were sent to the Inkblazer so the Squidbeak Splatoon would have as much equipment as they would need. During the news, Shiver and Frye revealed something that might have been related to the earthquake.
"Live footage from a satellite indicates that some sort of ship was underwater at the time of yesterday's earthquake. This ship's origins are unknown at this time, but the answers will soon come. Marina from "Off The Hook" is currently examining this as we speak and should have answers for us.", they said.
As Marina was examining the footage, she noticed something strange and contacted the Squid Sisters, along with Flurry Heart, Ryder, and Mickey.
"From looking at the satellite view on live footage, this ship looks almost identical to the ships in our Navy. Among other things, the main difference is that this ship has four giant pieces on the sides.", she explained.
Minutes later, the satellite footage showed that the ship was now moving upward. Marina noticed the four large extensions had a giant blue circle in the center that was glowing brightly. These appeared to be the ship's engines. About an hour later, everyone heard a loud roaring sound. Looking to the sky, they saw the ship flying towards the area between the two cities. Skye flew the Squid Sisters to an area twelve yards from where the ship was landing so they could have a look through binoculars. It was at this point that they spotted the ship's name: C F S Lemurian Star. Before they could go closer, they watched as beams of light appeared in midair and then disappeared to reveal three individuals. Callie and Marie's eyes lit up.
"Impossible.", whispered Callie.
"We always heard they were destroyed by the rising water.", said Marie.
"What are you talking about? What are they?", asked Skye.
"They're HUMANS!", said Callie and Marie.
"Let's get out of here before we're spotted.", said Callie in a rushed voice.
"WAIT, STOP! WE MEAN YOU NO HARM!", yelled one of the three humans.
Everyone suddenly turned around as the humans raced over to them. Two of the humans had blue eyes and dark blond hair, except one was taller and had pointed ears. The third had brown eyes and wore glasses.
"We always heard your kind was destroyed when the oceans rose.", said Callie.
"That's true, but we are the only ones who survived. We submerged our ship underwater and we went into a medically-induced sleep that kept us alive. My name is Brandon. I'm the Captain of the Lemurian Star. This person next to me with glasses is my best friend, Colin, and the third person you see is named Link.", said the person without pointed ears.
Callie and Marie shook hands with him and then he told them who they were.
"We are the last remaining branch of an army that was once spread wide across the universe. We called ourselves the "Christian Fleet", and sought to protect the universe from an evil entity. Link here was the Admiral of the branch that includes the Lemurian Star, called the Federation. We succeeded in destroying the entity and then came home to Earth after several years of exploration. We were about to retire when we got word of the oceans rising. In hopes of survival, we submerged and remained alive until now. Our other branches died out prior to us completing our explorations.", explained Brandon.
"We are about to engage an alien race that attacked us recently. Would you be willing to help us out?", asked Marie.
"Certainly, we will gladly assist you.", answered Link.
After bringing the Lemurian Star closer to Inkopolis and reporting what was discovered, Callie spoke to Flurry, Ryder, and Mickey. Then, Brandon told them that he and his crew were offering their skills to help out.
"You are very generous to help us. This means we have another set of soldiers to help us stop the Draconians.", said Flurry Heart.
Link's eyes grew huge.
"Did you just say, the Draconians?", he asked in shock.
"You know about them?", asked Callie in astonishment.
"We explored their world at one point, and we nearly died.", said Colin.
Brandon proceeded to explain what Colin was talking about. The Draconians had four arms, spikes on their heads, and three eyes.
"That's what they looked like when we explored their world.", said Sandbar.
"Well then, their anatomy hasn't changed after all this time. As I was saying, they were very hostile and tried to kill us, but we got away before they could catch us.", Brandon continued.
When Flurry realized that Brandon's description was the same as what the Young Six had collected, she told him what was now going on. When Callie and Marie told Brandon that a Draconian patrol had captured their parents and kids, he was speechless.
"In that case, it is clear that we should join forces with you.", he replied.
After letting Brandon join, everyone met his remaining crew-members. They were Spyro, Cynder, Blackstar, Moonflame, Kirby, Meta-Knight, his cousin Stephen, Fraaz, Draculaura, Clawd and Clawdeen Wolf, Ghoulia Yelps, Cleo de Nile, Frankie Stein, and Lagoona Blue.
Everyone knew tomorrow was when they'd be shipping out, so they all laid down to get plenty of sleep. The next morning, everyone got up early to get ready to go into space.
It was time to get off the ground and head for Draconia. Callie and Marie gave their children one last kiss before preparing to blast up to the Inkblazer and their kids waved at them as they were getting on their shuttle. Two hours later, it was time to launch. All of the ships blasted off and made their way until they reached space. All of the shuttles in the Squidbeak Splatoon docked on the Inkblazer until everybody was on-board.
Once everyone was in space, Brandon contacted Callie and Marie to explain why they were in the same place as the earthquake.
"You didn't feel an earthquake. What you felt was the shockwaves from our main engines. Our ship was buried under thousands of layers of coral, having been underwater for thousands of years. As our ship broke free from the coral, the shockwaves travelled through the water. I can understand why you thought our launch sequence from underwater was an earthquake.", he explained.
Callie and Marie understood Brandon's explanation and then everyone set a course for Draconia. The engines fired off and the ships shot towards the planet. Arriving in orbit, they set their cloaks and began descending on smaller ships. As they started prepping their weapons and equipment, Flurry Heart spotted a green light flashing in the distance. Smolder saw the light as well and realized the pattern was morse code. Pulling out a pad of paper and watching the light, she looked at a signal chart and recorded what was being flashed.
"We're being signaled. The light is blinking out the words: "Come Here".", she said to everyone over her radio.
Flurry sent her and the Young Six to make sure this was not a trap. They investigated the source and saw a familiar face from when they were mapping the year before.
"It's Leon and the others who are not following Koval.", Smolder reported after a minute.
"That's great to hear, Smolder. Bring them over to us.", replied Flurry.
Once everyone had met Leon and heard the story he had for them, Brandon was disturbed. He agreed that Koval needed to let go and keep going with life. They had landed in a remote area of the planet where patrols rarely searched, so they were safe. The soldiers split up and started making their way to the outskirts of Draconia's capitol. Not only was the capitol where the Emperor's palace was located, but it was also where the launching area was for space battles. It was now or never.
Night was falling on Draconia, so everyone had an advantage. Ghoulia had hacked into the Draconians' mainframe and found that the fleet would be getting ready in the morning. This meant that everyone had to place counter-measures to slow down their enemy. The Squidbeak soldiers blasted ink into the engines on all of the spaceships so the Draconians could not try to take off and invade planets, and Colin set up a device that spewed fire when a laser was broken because the Draconians were known to get startled when fire appeared out of nowhere. The next morning, everyone got in position and started priming their weapons. When the space crew boarded their ships and tried to launch, the engines wouldn't start since the Squidbeak soldiers had clogged them with their ink. The fire nozzles began spewing when a land crew started driving towards a gate that led into the woods. With both of these groups caught off guard, it was easy for everyone to swoop down and stun them with their plasma lasers. Jared received word of this and informed Koval.
"This is impossible. How can they have gotten here without being seen.", he wondered.
Jared suspected that the attackers had come during the night, but he wasn't certain. What he did know was that the air-force was untouched, so it was possible to defend from the sky. Koval sent orders to begin flight procedures, but Ghoulia knew this from tapping into his mainframe. She sent a digital message to everyone that they needed to get airborne. Everyone boarded personal ships and took off. Before Flurry had a chance to tell everyone to open their wings, Brandon said the same thing she was about to say.
"Lock S-Foils in attack position.", he said.
"You must know a fair amount about spaceship schematics.", replied Flurry over headset.
"More than you could ever know.", Brandon replied back.
Everyone armed their weapons and began shooting once the Draconians came up on their radar. Many of Koval's best soldiers were flying and trying to defend their world, but they had no idea how well trained these attackers were. They all suffered from broken windows and damaged engines, to wings being shot off and ruptured fuel tanks. Some of the Draconians had to eject from their ships because they were about to blow up. The area over the woods was in a pattern that none of the Draconians would die if shot down. They would only be knocked unconscious. The combined forces of the Christian Fleet, Equestria, the Squidbeak Splatoon, the PAW Patrol, and the Disney Fleet eventually forced the Draconians' hand in retreating. However, Ryder ended up getting targeted by a guided missile near the end of the battle. He ejected from his ship before the missile hit, but his parachute got tangled between two trees. Luckily, he was able to cut himself free and climb down. Brandon arrived on a speeder to pick him up and then everyone started closing in on Koval's palace. Along the way, they grabbed some of the Draconians and shackled them as hostages. When they reached the palace, they held their weapons at all entrances and exits, ranging from windows to doors and concealed openings.
"Your Majesty, the attackers have reached the palace and they have taken hostages. We are trapped here.", said Jared.
Koval became worried. If his soldiers were down and he couldn't get out, he could not do anything. Regretting that he sent Jared to begin an invasion of Earth, Koval broke down in tears as he ordered the white flag to be raised.
After accepting the fact that war had been declared against the Draconians, the Squidbeak Splatoon began gearing up. Callie and Marie were making sure they were with their children as long as possible before they set off for the battle. Inklings and octolings were putting on their space suits, prepping their weapons, getting ready to board shuttles to their lead ship, the "S S Inkblazer", and prepping personal ships if they had one.
Deep Cut announced that the battle would be legendary and sent their greatest prayers that they would not be defeated. At the same time, the Equestrian Fleet, the PAW Patrol, and the Disney Fleet were getting ready for the battle. Everyone knew that this battle would be a dangerous one. They knew there was the possibility that they would die if anything went wrong.
Two days before everyone was to be deployed, something unexpected occurred. Everyone was running through training exercises when the ground began to shake violently. Many inklings and octolings fell down from the intense vibration. Taylor and Lizzie ended up spilling their milk and falling out of their high-chairs. Luckily, Callie and Marie caught their children and quieted them down since they were startled to the point of crying. It was common for Inkopolis and Splatsville to occasionally have earthquakes, but this one was something else. Flurry Heart took a quick seismic reading and was blown away by how strong it was. Once the quake was over, everyone started getting back up.
"What was that?", Callie and Marie asked each other shakily.
Taylor and Lizzie were so startled that they were gritting their teeth and shaking. Flurry Heart came to Marie's house where Callie had met with her to get the final preparations taken care of.
"I'm not sure what caused that earthquake, but I know it came from Latitude 65 degrees north, Longitude 36 degrees west. That's in the middle of the ocean, but still close enough that we felt it all. My seismic scan says it registered 9 point 7 in intensity on the Richter-Scale. According to my scan as well, anyone in a 30 mile radius of the epicenter would feel all of the waves. Thankfully, nothing was destroyed or damaged."
Callie and Marie breathed a sigh of relief that nobody was injured. Nevertheless, everyone continued to gear up.
