Splatoon Manga - Canon Lightroad

Crystals

⭐Chapter 16: Crystals

Skull had returned with Flavo's knife, though he had bruises and scrapes everywhere from rubbing up against the cement sidewalk in the park. Vintage had at least acknowledged him with an "oh", while the rest welcomed him. Goggles was asleep, Hachi was on a laptop, and Rider and Gloves were talking about something. Skull made his way over to a seat, but didn't sit down. The room was quiet at the moment.

"I beat Celadon," Skull said, not sure if anyone would care.

"Did you kill him?" Gloves asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I knocked him out and hid the body. Probably should've killed him though. I dunno. He looked young to me," Skull replied.

"Nice," Vintage mumbled.

"Actually, I've been doing research on the luminous 7 to see if I can find their age based on their sizes, and Celadon's about 17," Hachi said, scrolling through his laptop.

"WHAT?!" Gloves exclaimed.

Rider seemed surprised too, but said nothing.

"Yeah, by the looks of it, Amaryllis and Flavo are about 15-16 ish, Hessomight is at least 25, maybe 26, Mareiah is at least 20, perhaps 23, Lobelia is around 25 too, maybe 27, and Hex is like 30 or something," Hachi explained.

"Why is an adult in control of three teenagers? And what about the others? It seems fishy if you ask me..." Rider grumbled.

"Well, you can never tell with gangs..." Gloves sighed.

"Unfortunately..." Vintage growled. "Though my gut feeling tells me it's illegal in this case."

Skull shook his head as he sat down. He was glad he hadn't murdered a 17 year old, but...what about everyone else? Had they, other than Gloves, murdered?

"Hey uh...what were the results of your battles again?" Skull asked.

"Oh, I kicked Amaryllis too hard and sent her flying," Vintage replied. "I wanted the bitch to die, but I guess I'll have to do that when I see her again."

"I...you know how mine went..." Gloves mumbled.

"Vintage activated the fire pillars that I was standing around and I think Flavo wound up getting roasted alive..." Hachi said.

"Roasted alive as in killed?" Rider asked.

"Couldn't tell, but uh. Didn't really bother to..." Hachi replied nervously.

"Jeez, we need to do something about this near-murdering thing..." Rider mumbled.

"Well, they're criminals that haven't gotten caught by police yet, and their current only known crime is theft...huh. Maybe we are taking this too far," Hachi said, reaching up to press a button on the side of his headphones. "Hey, weird voice or whoever you are?"

"What?"

Oh.

Hachi was startled when she replied back.

"Can you make sure Nana doesn't kill Mareiah? You can hear what we're talking about, right?"

"I don't know. I suppose. I'll see what I can do," the voice said.

"Thanks."

"I'm surprised she actually answered," Gloves muttered.

"Yeah, me too. She seems suspicious..." Vintage said.

Skull sat there, taking all of this in. This was way deeper than he thought it was. Maybe he could change the subject for now?

"Oh, by the way. You said something about battle stats. How's that going?" Skull asked.

"I actually just finished the updates, so Nana's battle should be easy!" Hachi replied.

"I wish you could've done that with me..." Skull mumbled, wanting to have found a better way around Celadon than what he did.

"Well hey, it'll make mine, Goggles, and Nana's life better a little. I think we have the "harder" fights, if you know what I mean," Rider said.

"Mareiah did nothing but send out robots," Vintage snarled. "If Nana can't beat them, I swear I'm going t-okay, you know what? I'm going to go there myself. I've rested decently enough that I can probably handle wiping out robots. You weaklings stay here and wait."

And before anyone could say anything, Vintage was up, out, and through the door. The group stared at him as he slammed the door behind him loudly. It was silent for a moment before Hachi cleared his throat.

"Sooooo...wanna get lunch?"

"I..I'm down..." Gloves said shakily.

"I mean, I guess we might as well..." Rider sighed.

Skull just sighed as he shook his head. Vintage sure was something else...

"As long as there's dessert."

~~~

Nana was on her way to the Torrent Power Plant. It was further away from everything, but she didn't mind going alone. She'd asked around the place for help, and a nice catfish had told her the location. She used the excuse that she was one of the workers' daughters, though the catfish warned her that people were now evacuating buildings due to the luminous threat from the news. She thanked them and left.

As she approached it, she looked up. It was a building made of dark gray metal, colored with numerous blue water designs. She had to admit, it looked really cool. There were several large pillars and rooms behind a main building, so she assumed that that one was the entrance. She found the door in no time, and went in.

Upon entering, she saw an office-like room to her right, and a different room to her left. It was pretty quiet, and nobody was around. Straight ahead was a long hallway with a door at the end. There were more halls on her sides, as well as doors, but she was willing to bet that the center door was what she was going to go after. Walking straight ahead, she reached for the doorknob and jostled it. She was surprised to find it unlocked.

She opened the door, and stood in awe at what she saw.

Water was falling like waterfalls from several places around the room, and the sound of it roaring and splashing was the only thing that could be heard as it echoed around. A complex system of skinny metal platforms made a maze-like setup around the room as well, with all of them leading to different doors across the giant room. Everything was well lit with bright lights, enough so that Nana could see almost everything clearly. It was kind of beautiful, in its own way. But, even better...

The crystal was on a pedestal in the center of the room.

Nana made her way in, closing the door behind her. The door had led to a small metal platform that had a staircase attached to it. The staircase lead down to the smaller paths, so Nana began to make her way down those. Just then, something small whizzed by her head, causing her to look up. She hadn't seen them from where she was before, but she could see them all now.

Mareiah's tiny fish beast robots were about to steal the crystal.

Well, Nana wasn't about to let that happen.