Splatoon Manga: NightRoad

Chapter 26: Pebbles

⭐️Chapter 26: Pebbles

Emperor was Tiring.

He had been following this trail for an hour now. He wasn't even sure if the voice cared anymore. Pebbles and rocks kept filling his sight, as he just wanted to look away from trees. He kept looking down at the path, thinking to himself. He just needed to stop and rest...

"Hey uh. Is it okay if I stop and rest for a bit? I'm starting to tire out..." Emperor said, to basically nobody.

After a few moments of silence, the voice responded.

"Alright, alright, I guess I'll cut you some slack..." the voice grumbled, rather annoyed.

Emperor sat down on a nearby rock, breathing a sigh of relief. He missed his brother. He missed his friends. The squidbeak. Inkopolis. When all of this was over, he swore he would go and lie down...anywhere really. Everyone would be glad when this was over. He would go back to spending time with his team and friends, and he could enjoy his bed and food and...

He just wanted to be home.

He picked up a pebble. It was small and round, smooth and gray. He turned it around in his hand, having nothing better to do. Upon closer inspection, he saw that it had tiny golden flecks in it. Sure it wasn't real gold, but it was still interesting. He couldn't believe that he was interested in rocks of all things at the moment, but hey it passed time. He picked up a smaller pebble. This one looked like the bigger one, but had way more tiny flecks on it. Emperor smiled to himself, and decided he might show Prince the rocks later.

He thought about what Prince might say when he saw them. Perhaps Prince might find the smaller pebble to be like himself, and maybe he would keep it, naming it Pribbles (Prince + Pebble, bad combo I know) or something. Maybe he would name the larger one Empebble, or something funny. Emperor smiled at the thought of what Prince would think. He put both in his pocket and looked up. They sky was getting dark. He would have to keep going. Unless he could sleep somewhere, but...he wasn't sure if the voice would yell at him for doing so.

"Hey voice? Would you...dislike it if I slept on a rock or something? Or...I dunno...slept at all?"

He waited a minute. It was always awkward, just calling out into nothingness and waiting for a response. Emperor thought he looked like a fool.

"Well. Sleep is important, but if you continue on your route now you should be out before the moon is up."

Emperor breathed a sigh of relief. Thnk cod the voice had heard him.

"Like...walking? Alone?" he asked.

"Mhm."

Well then, that settled it. If he could get out of here before the moon came, maybe he could camp out wherever he wound up and wait to find the others the next day. He stood up, making sure both his swords and the pebbles were with him, and then continued onwards on the path, determined to get to where he needed to go by moonrise (insert SplatRoad season 2 joke here).

It started off well. He was proud to be making progress, and there were no complaints or arguments from the voice. He had a reason to keep going, and he was going to use that reason to boost him along the way. He kept a happy smile on him the whole time he was walking. He believed in himself!

It had then slowly melted into boredom, again. Same trees, same pebble path, same plants...heck, he would perk up whenever he heard animal noises, because those were the only thing that made the walk interesting. His smile had dropped, and he had lost the motivation, the only thing keeping him from stopping was the fact that he had nowhere else to go. Why did his motivation have to drain so quickly? He hated it.

Maybe he could talk to the voice to pass time? Surely there had to be something that-

"Afraid I can't really talk at the moment. I'm watching for beasties to help make sure you don't run into anything nasty."

Oh.

Well I guess not then.

Emperor groaned. How long had it been? He had started to get hungry...

"If you're hungry, there are some wild blueberries to your right, in some bushes. Don't eat the purple ones, those are bad."

Food?!

THIS motivated Emperor to speed up. He dashed along the pebble path until indeed, he saw the bushes. Upon going to them, he noticed the berries were WAY tinier than what he usually saw in inkopolis. Well, that didn't matter now. He picked as many as his hands could hold, avoiding the purple and unripe ones like the voice had said, and began eating. They were sweet, and DEFINITELY the ones he was looking for. The kind he recognized.

Never had he ever in his life missed blueberries so much.

"Don't stay here too long, you have to-"

"I knww, I knww!" Emperor said with his mouth full of blueberries.
Psh, who needed a voice in your head when you had BLUEBERRIES! He forgot all about his troubles, making up a game of picking out the biggest and ripest berries from the bushes. He just kept going until he was filled.

Yknow what, might as well take some for the road as well. He had a case Nana had given him for their snacktime earlier in the morning when they were in the other parts of the forest. He packed that full with blueberries, and then left to continue down the path, smile wide.

Which of course, soon turned into boredom once again. He wasn't going to eat the blueberries even though he was upset, as he needed those for later.

"How...much...further..." he groaned, panting from tiredness.

"Just keep going..." the voice said.

Emperor spotted a rock. And then more. But they were getting bigger in size. He sped up his pace some, and continued to follow the trail. Until...he saw some huge rocks, which looked like they marked the entrance of something big.

Emperor looked up.

He stopped.

This...

This was the base of a mountain.