Inkadia, once called Japan. Home of new forms of life on Earth. Right now, humans were in a different colony away from Inkadia, leaving it to the native Inklings and Octarians, squids and octopuses that gained the ability to achieve a humanoid form to walk on land. Right now, two Inkling women were adjusting their outfits. One of them, with her tentacles tied into a bow at the back of her head with her club ends reaching all the way to her calves, was adjusting her hat to make sure it was tilted onto the right of her head. She then reached for something…only it wasn’t there. “…Marie, where the squid are my earrings?!” called the Inkling woman to her gray-tentacled cousin, having just tied her shorter tentacles into a bow that tilted towards the right of her head while her hat sat on the left of her head.
“I dunno,” replied the other Inkling, Marie. “You had them last, Callie.”
“I know I put them-! …Oh, here they are,” mumbled the first Inkling woman, Callie. She fished out a pair of chunky hoop earrings and attached them to each of her pointy ears.
“I swear, you can be SO disorganized,” muttered Marie.
“Well, excuse me for-!” She then stopped talking. “…Marie?”
“I hear it too!” replied Marie as she heard the noise Callie heard. The two Inkling Idols rushed out of their dressing room and into the hallway…to see a blue box appear!
“Hey, isn’t that the box John and Kaori found?” asked Callie. “The one with Amy and her doctor friend?”
“Yeah,” confirmed Marie. “But what’s it doing here? Octavio’s still in prison.”
“Maybe Amy wanted to visit again?” guessed Marie. “Come on, let’s go see.” The Inkling cousins knocked on the door and the Doctor poked her head out.
“Is there anything on my head?” she asked. “Tysar won’t tell me if there is.”
“…Um…yeah, y-you’ve got…well a rose headband,” replied Callie, not sure who this woman was.
“That’s supposed to be there. Anything else?”
“Yeah, antlers,” replied Marie.
“…Antlers?” asked the Doctor.
“Y-Yeah,” confirmed Callie. Tysar then started laughing as the Doctor’s expression darkened comedically. She looked into the TARDIS.
“It’s early spring!” she protested at the powerful time machine. “Why are you putting hologram antlers on my head?! And you, Tysar! Why didn’t you say anything?!”
“Because the TARDIS is right, Doctor!” laughed Tysar. “That’s just funny!”
“All right, you two had your laugh! Now get rid of them!” The antlers vanished. “Thank you!” She then turned back to the Squid Sisters. “Now, Callie and Marie, the Squid Sisters, yes? Odd that you’d call yourself that, given that you’re cousins.”
“Sorry, do we know you?” asked Marie. “It’s just that…the human over there called you Doctor.”
“I did,” replied Tysar. “Although, strictly speaking, I’m not a human. I’m a Thal. And that IS the Doctor.”
“I wore a pleated skirt last time I visited Inkadia,” explained the Doctor. “That business with the Slitheen infiltrating Octavio’s court and trying to nuke the planet and sell off its radioactive remains? Ring any bells, you two?”
“…That’s really YOU, Doctor?!” asked Callie. “B-But…how?!”
“Regeneration, my dear Callie,” replied the Doctor. “It’s a lottery. Now, enough of that, I’m a little pressed for time.”
“So it ISN’T a social call?” asked Marie.
“Sorry, no. Did anyone report any missing persons or strange people just appearing out of nowhere?”
“N-No,” replied Marie. “Why?”
“We’re tracking something called a chronal surge,” explained the Doctor. “They have a tendency to take someone in one time period and plop them into another. Sometimes a knight from the Middle Ages gets thrown into the 42nd century, other times a Star Warrior ends up a few seconds into the past on another planet, you get the idea.”
“…Yeah,” said Marie.
“Really?”
“No!”
“I’m stumped too, Doctor,” replied Callie.
“Right. Well, we’re going to have a look around, if you don’t mind?” asked the Doctor.
“Y-Yeah, sure!” agreed the Squid Sisters.
“Thanks!” bid the Doctor as she and Tysar left the TARDIS.
“…So…no Amy today,” remarked Callie.
“Doesn’t look like it,” replied Marie. “And apparently the Doctor’s a shapeshifter.”
“…Hm…shapeshifter against another superpower…I think that was a Splatfest theme,” mused Callie.
“Doctor, who were those two?” asked Tysar.
“Callie and Marie, the pop idol duo known as the Squid Sisters,” replied the Doctor. “Better known as Agents 1 and 2 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon currently under the command of the original Agent 3.”
“And what kind of creatures were they?”
“Squids, if you can believe it. Or, more specifically, squids that underwent genetic mutation after genetic mutation to become the Inklings you see today. After a great flooding, humanity left Earth and some of the sea life evolved into land-dwelling creatures. Then there was a war between the Inklings and their octopus cousins, the Octarians. Eventually, the Octoling branch of the Octarians made peace with the Inklings and now they live together.”
“…You mean this is Earth’s future?” asked Tysar.
“Yes, but humanity’s coming back and helping Inklings and Octarians spread out across the stars.”
“And the chronal surge is centered here?”
“Yes. Now, we must figure out what before-!” Just then, the familiar feeling of a chronal surge passed over them. “Oh no!”
“Doctor, we’re still here,” said Tysar.
“Callie! Marie!” realized the Doctor. She and Tysar ran back to the Squid Sisters’ general direction to see them walking away from the TARDIS. “HOLD ON!” called the Doctor.
“Hm? Doctor?” asked Callie as she and Marie looked back. The Doctor sighed.
“Oh, good! Still in the present!” sighed the Doctor. “Now, come on, you two! Let’s start searching for-!”
“Doctor, we can’t go on searching for anything right now!” retorted Marie. “Callie and I have a concert in Splatsville!”
“And the Captain’s got a mission for us after that!” supplied Callie.
“With respect, you two,” interjected Tysar, “the concert and mission will be a moot point if we don’t figure out what happened during that chronal-!” She was interrupted by screaming from outside.
“…That’s not a good sign, no matter where you come from,” muttered Marie.
“Come on!” urged the Doctor as she ran towards the source of the screams.
Outside was pandemonium! Inklings and Octolings were running for cover from objects in the sky. The Doctor and her friends took cover as the objects continued firing. “What’s going on here?! An alien invasion?!” yelped Marie over the screaming.
“Well, given that there ARE alien ships hanging in your skies,” remarked Tysar, “yes, I’d say that’s exactly what’s going on! I don’t recognize the design of the ships, but-!”
“It’s the Irken Armada!” replied the Doctor.
“The what?!” asked Callie.
“The Irken Armada! The main military force of the Irken Empire! A race of insectoid creatures hellbent on conquering the entire universe! With a collective gender of jerk!”
“Why are they setting their sights on Earth now?!” asked Marie. “We can’t possibly have anything they’d want!”
“They’re not interested in wealth or political power!” replied the Doctor. “They conquer planets just because they can!”
“Well, what can we do?!” asked Tysar.
“One moment!” The Doctor pulled out her sonic screwdriver and walked to the middle of the panicking crowd. She then switched the screwdriver on. “Intercepting any teleports to the planet!” Three Irkens then appeared, all surprised at the whole affair. Two were little, about the size of a human child, and the last was a few centimeters taller than the Doctor’s height and wore a mask.
“What is this?!” demanded the tall one. “I ordered us to go to Octo Canyon! Not Inkopolis Square! Invader Smeech, you have failed!”
“Apologies, my Tallest!” begged one of the shorter Irkens. “Our teleport beam was intercepted and-!”
“He’s right, you know,” interjected the Doctor. The Irkens gasped.
“A…human?!” asked the tall Irken, the Tallest. “But the dominant life forms of this planet are squids and octopuses! How-?!”
“Humans spread out from beyond the atmosphere of this little planet, my Tallest,” replied the Doctor. “Now…I’ve met you lot before, but not necessarily with this face. Under Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation, I formally request a cessation of hostilities in order to parlay!”
“…You’re not human, are you?” asked the Tallest. “No worthless human could possibly know about the Shadow Proclamation, much less attempt to invoke it!”
“No, I’m not human, but I put a lot of work into this planet. I know there aren’t any Zygons on this planet to help enforce things, but I’m still here. I am the Doctor! Former President of the High Council of Time Lords! Keeper of the Legacy of Rassilon! Defender of the Laws of Time! Protector of Gallifrey! Under the Doomsville Treaty, I order you to leave this planet!”
“Ah, Doctor!” purred the Tallest. “So, it IS true! You Time Lords can change our faces! It won’t matter! I stuck to the Treaty! Earth was NOT caught in the crossfire between myself and the False Tallest, Tak! The Great Civil War is over and I won! You won’t interfere in my mission this time, Doctor!” The Tallest removed his mask so the Doctor could see his face!
“…Tallest Zim!” hissed the Doctor. “I should have known!”