Splatoon Manga - Canon Lightroad

Thanatophobia

⭐Chapter 18: Thanatophobia

"Honestly Nana, I wanted to roast her alive."

Vintage and Nana were back with the others, resting up after their fight. The walk back was pretty tiring, especially after the adrenaline rush they'd had during the battle. They smelled like smoke, and the squidbeak was kinda suspicious when they came back. Hachi remembered smelling like smoke after he came back from fighting Flavo, but Flavo was a pyromaniac of a mimic octopus. Nana shouldn't have had to deal with flames...

"Oh dear...you were supposed to go to a hydroelectric plant, so uh...why do you smell like fire?" Hachi asked nervously.

"I bought a bottle of oil, dumped it into the water, and caught it on fire," Vintage explained without a drop of regret in his voice.

"VINTAGE!" Hachi shrieked, hands flying to his head.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS THAT IS?!" Gloves yelped, turning around from talking with Skull.

"Why do you always insist on committing crimes?" Skull groaned, massaging his forehead.

"Eh. I'm sure the police fire department will blame it on the shark. It'll be fine," Vintage replied, stretching out a little. "Besides, you guys have commit crimes too, y'know."

Nana sighed as she looked up at the clock. Dang, it was after noon already, and it was becoming the evening. She'd missed lunch, and she was hungry. Her stomach growling gave that away too, and the more she thought about it, the more she wanted food. Why did missions like this have to be so hard?

"Oh wait, you guys didn't eat, did you?" Hachi asked, hearing the growl.

"Yeah, we didn't. Did you guys eat while we were gone?" Vintage grumbled.

"Ah...we kinda did," Gloves replied. "B-but we can get you two something if you're hungry!"

"Sure, I'll take a spicy ramen," Vintage said, sighing as he pocketed the lighter sat down on a hotel bed.

"I'll take...um...I don't really know what they have here..." Nana mumbled.

"Here, I found a menu of things," Skull said, giving her Hachi's laptop to look at.

While Nana did that, Vintage rested up in preparation for the next fight. If he was doing this in a pattern, and the group was going in rainbow order, then that meant Goggles was next because he was indigo and Nana was cyan. He'd have to skip out on fighting that giant orca Lobelia, but that meant he got to join Rider's fight with Hex or whoever. Actually, that reminded him of something, which was the fact that he hadn't heard from either of them since he got back. Vintage sat up and scanned the room upon realizing their voices were absent from the conversation.

Just like he'd suspected, neither of them were present in the room. Shoot, he had to get his rest up fast so he could join in with Rider as soon as possible. He thought about not asking everyone else about it and just leaving it to whatever happened, but he figured Nana would ask about it anyway, so might as well get it out of the way. Vintage cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. Everyone stopped talking and looked at him.

"Where'd Rider and Goggles go?" he asked.

"Oh yeah, isn't it getting into the afternoon?" Nana added, now noticing their missing presence as well. "I hope they get back in time to sleep!"

"Well, they slept while you were gone," Hachi said, "They have enough strength to keep going into the night a little. In fact, I recommend that we all get some sleep in case they need help too!"

"Ah..."

"Also they left to go face their foes as well," Gloves replied. "Goggles sped off to fight Lobelia and Rider figured he might as well go after Hex at the same time to make things easier.

Vintage immediately began to rest up, not caring whose bed he was on. Who knew what Rider or Goggles were going to mess up at this point. They were way weaker than he was, so they were bound to make a stupid mistake. However, he had just one more question.

"Do either of them have a weapon? One that isn't their turf war weapon?" he asked.

"I gave Rider my fangtooth fang," Gloves said, scratching the back of his head nervously.

"Oh, I gave Goggles my knife," Skull replied.

Nana stared at him with an expression of pure horror.

"You W H A T ? !"

Vintage only smiled a small, practically invisible smile.

"Nice."

~~~

Goggles was indeed, on his way to Midnight Tower, the location of the mechanical crystal. Rider had said it was on the highest floor, so that's where he was going to go. He passed by several people as he skipped along the sidewalk, waving to them. He remembered the path the group had taken to get there when they had ice cream, so he didn't need help from citizens or a map or anything. Quite honestly, he liked this city, and he wished the rest of his friends and team could visit this place too.

He soon neared the tower, and entered through the front doors. He hoped the fight wouldn't be too long, he didn't want to miss dinner. As he entered, he took the elevator up for the majority of the floors to reach the balcony area him and the others had gotten to the days prior. From there, the inside of the tower used a staircase to get to the top floor, which then led to the large, circular roof lined with smaller lights. The place was huge, and honestly, Goggles felt pretty small in comparison to this single building within the whole city.

He kept motivating himself as he climbed the stairs, Stormy Splattershot in hand. He had to do this for his friends, for this city! If he didn't do it, he'd probably be the only one of the squibeak who hadn't faced their foe. Chances were, Vintage would have to deal with Lobelia for him, and he didn't want that! He wanted to prove to Rider that he was strong enough to take Lobelia down on his own, and he planned on doing just that.

As he neared the top floor however, he halted.

Lobelia was already there, crystal in her hand.