essentially its the splatoon story w a few tweaks! inklings in this au are chaos chao that evolved to look like mobians over time. octolings? character chao? well, you're gonna have to wait to find out lol... uhh also everything here is a work in progress so keep that in mind! might change some stuff around if it no longer works with what i want
the parallel to the squid sisters! callie is sonic and marie is shadow. also in the ""new squidbeak splatoon"" with a tough chao named knuckles and a genius named tails who also manages the weapons shop!
the parallel to off the hook! pearl is amy and marina is blaze. blaze doesnt look like an average chao for more than a few reasons, but does it matter when they both make bangers? nobody seems to think so anyway.....
the parallel to deep cut! shiver is wave, frye is jet, and big man is storm. pledging to keep the land of the babylonians safe for future generations, they go out on heists when they're not hosting their podcast.
after the wipeout of human and mobiankind, many years later, sage is awakened to find the world not exactly desolate, but filled with chao. she also awakens metal sonic, who decides to take the responsibility to pick up eggman's work where he left off. sage, however, decides to help the chao survive, teaching them a few tricks and helping them build as they evolved. metal begins to experiment with the developing chao, much to sage's disappointment - but he finds out that they are vulnerable to chaos energies, like the chaos emeralds and any energy signature similar to any past mobians, which is how character chao are born. eventually, metal asks for her help to create a machine that can pick and choose which mobian souls can be placed into a chao, and she agrees to help because she was under the impression that he wanted to further their evolution and find out how to help them further. when she realizes this is not the case, she takes the manual she wrote and scatters it, making sure nobody else can operate what they created. she deserts metal sonic but feels as if she betrayed the chao by creating this device, and so watches them from afar. metal, armed with whichever chao (and their powers) he wants, begins to create an army to take over chaokind.
sonic and shadow grow apart as their wishes in life begin to differ and their communication dwindles. shadow sees sonic less and less until he no longer returns home. when he notices the master emerald gone, he begins to wonder what this is really all about. he recruits agent 4 and they go through octo canyon, collecting pieces of a torn manual for some sort of machine that is revealed to be able to infuse mobian souls into chao of the users choice. shadow is horrified at what this power can do, especially to chao who are already so vulnerable to changes in chaos energy even when the master emerald is gone. they also find out sonic is working for metal sonic for some reason, which is revealed to be because he wants to save those trapped in metal's regime. shadow throws the completed manual to sonic who is also shocked by what it means. after realizing that he was going down a wrong path, they sing the calamari inkantation together and free those who came to the show. afterwards, they talk to one another and become tighter than ever, vowing to do whatever they can to help free the chao under metal.