Splatoon Manga: NightRoad

Chapter 42: Brother

⭐️Chapter 42: Brother

Nana liked this. She had found some teammates, and now all that was left was to find the rest. She was glad to have her teammates back again after being separated for hours.

Wait, hold on.

Emperor and Prince BOTH went down the second path. So where the heck was he?

"Uh...Prince?"

"Yeah?" Prince didn't move from where he was, he heard her just fine, even over the motorbike engine.

"Where's your brother?"

Rider stopped suddenly, and Ebony clung on to him as the vehicle jerked to a stop. Rider panicked.

"Oh my cod you're right where did he go, did we miss him-"

"Uh...I kind of...left...him...?" Prince said quietly. He didn't really want to admit it, but he had no choice.

"You what" Rider said, not wanting to look down at Prince.

"Look, I'm tired of him thinking I can't handle things! He was fine before, but when the shadowlings showed up he was all "oh I guess I have to protect you now because you're not capable of fighting them or something"! Not that it's their fault though, they didn't really...do anything...well. They did, but-yOU GUYS GET WHAT I MEAN!" Prince said, doing his best to explain his troubles.

"Yeah, don't worry. I'm still concerned you LEFT him though" Rider said, still keeping the motorbike at a standstill as he looked around for any danger while they were stopped.

"Yeah uh. I have no idea where he went" Prince admitted.

"Well, do we search for him? Where could he have gone?" Nana asked.

"There was a separate path Ebony and I saw that had pebbles going down it, but we didn't take it because Ebony knew the way back to Black Forest-"

"WAIT, HE KNOWS THE WAY THERE?!" Goggles shouted. He was hushed by Rider and Nana, as they didn't want to attract attention.

"Y-yeah...?" Ebony stuttered, unsure if this was good information to give out or not.

"Ebony, do you know if the pebble path leads back around to this one?" Rider asked him.

"No, but I can quickly go check? Shadow form n all..."

"Please do."

Rider turned the bike off to save fuel as Ebony slithered away as a shadow. The group was keeping an eye out for anything suspicious while Ebony was away.

It took a few minutes, but Ebony came back.

"It leads to a giant mountain, and I think there might be a path on the other side of it because I saw a path continuing on a further hill. I don't know if it collides with this path, but I did see a tall dead tree somewhere though."

"Okay wait, if Emperor's gone down the pebble path, then maybe we can see if that tree is in our path as well, and wait for him there" Rider said, thinking aloud.

"What about Flip and Gloves?" Goggles asked.

"We don't have any information on them, we can't do anything at the moment unfortunately" Prince said.

"I still feel bad about leaving Hachi there..." Nana mumbled. She sighed quietly to herself. She would make it up to him later.

Rider turned to her, and put his hand on her shoulder.
"I know, I do too, but chances are we'll lose fuel before we get there and then this whole mission will take longer than it needs to."

"Alright...if you're sure."

They got back onto the bike and started it up, driving down the path again.

-----

Emperor sighed.

He had gotten his blades from out of the ground, and had continued down the other side of the mountain. He would've gone back down the side he came up, but upon seeing a different path going back down, he decided to try it out. Man, battling at night was not only stressful, but also tiring. He just wanted to go to sleep. He made his way down the other side carefully, as the last thing he wanted to do was slip and fall because he almost fell asleep.

He slowly went down the path, loose rocks rolling away whenever his shoes disturbed the ground too much. He walked around large rocks that jutted out from the volcano's side. To be honest, he was just glad the thing didn't erupt on them. That would've been disastrous, and he'd seen few documents on what lava did to inklings. Not that he wanted to know, though, since it was probably horrifying. The side was also littered with small fragments of obsidian. He had to be careful not to cut himself.

Soon enough, he had made it down and back onto a trail. It was here that he stopped for a moment. Should he go back and try another path? Or should he continue down this path and risk possibly getting even more lost? He began to walk onto the path, but he yawned. He needed a place to sleep. He looked around, and spotted a dead tree further down the path. Maybe he could stop there.

Slowly but surely, he made his way over. He needed to figure out a way to cover himself so that nothing would see him and eat or squidnap him. Maybe there were some spare leaves or something nearby. He had a good look around. He spotted some, scattered around the trunks of the other trees. He walked over to them, and began to gather them.

He made multiple trips back and forth, but eventually, he had enough.
He sat down by the dead tree, and began to cover himself. It felt so odd, not using blankets or having friends to help. He grumbled quietly to himself and continued. He missed everyone. He missed their laughs, their jokes, their teamwork. He missed...his brother.

Oh my cod, he had nearly forgotten! He needed to find his brother ASAP! But...not right now. He was too tired. He would do it when he woke up. Hopefully Noir wouldn't squidnap Prince while he slept. And with that, he fell asleep, unaware of a bright light slowly approaching him.