antaurilover685, who owns Kairi, asked for this one. Here you go, Amiga! Enjoy! :)
A/N: Now, I know Christmas happened over a month ago, but you can never have too many Christmas cheer stories, right? :)
Skylanders belongs to Activision. Jamie belongs to pokemonsora01. Isabel belongs to ianon2013. Katie belongs to KatieMae77. Bree belongs to Syriensong83. I only own Rachel and Crystal. All other characters mentioned belong to their respective owners.
Saving A Christmas Tradition And More
Seven Portal Masters landed outside the Skylanders Academy and the first thing they noticed was the Academy had Christmas lights strung around it and the surrounding trees had lights on them too along with ornaments. Kairi looked around curiously. "Um, what's going on?" She asked curiously.
"Isn't it a little late for Christmas?" Isabel asked.
"Either that or way too early," said Bree.
Jamie then spotted something and it took him a minute to realize what he saw. "Is that…Chef Pepperjack in a Santa costume?" He asked.
Everyone's jaws dropped at that. "Chef Pepperjack playing Santa Clause?" Katie said.
Crystal giggled a bit. "I think he looks better that way," she said, making her older sister, Rachel, chuckle.
"Okay, before we see anything else that shocks us, let's go ask Master Eon what's happening," said the Tech Portal Master.
The inside of the Academy was all decked out in Christmas decorations with a huge tree in the Main Hall that was loaded with beaded garland, ornaments, and lights with the brightest star they had ever seen on the top of the tree.
"Is it someone's birthday today?" Crystal asked curiously, seeing all the presents under the tree.
Hugo was walking by when he heard that and he chuckled. "Actually, Master Eon decided to have Christmas here, although it's a tad late," he said.
"What do you mean?" Isabel asked.
"Well, you just celebrated Christmas, right?"
"Yes, but it was over a month ago," Jamie said.
"Well, Skylands has never experienced it before, so…Mags got some stuff together and here we are."
Katie's eyes suddenly widened. "Wait, did she make all this?" She asked.
"No. She went to your world and bought everything."
Before they could asked him on that, he quickly headed off for the library and the Portal Masters looked at each other. "Mags came to our world and bought Christmas stuff?" Kairi asked in shock.
"How would she do that?" Crystal asked.
"Well, Master Eon must have teleported her to our world to those stores," Rachel said.
"No one would think twice that her purple hair, skin, and clothes were actually real and not just a costume and hair-dye job," said Isabel.
"And Master Eon must have found a way to convert the gold into Earth currency," said Bree.
"So…no one would even realize that she was from here," said Jamie.
"Whoa," Katie said, expressing what they all felt in one word.
Just then, Master Eon came into the Main Hall. "Ah, Portal Masters, thank goodness," he said. "You're all here."
"Master Eon, what's going on?" Rachel asked.
"Just a little late Christmas celebration," he said with a chuckle. "But I'm afraid our festivities and the scavenger hunt your partners planned for you will have to wait. We have a visitor."
A young girl stepped out from behind Master Eon and they saw she was wearing a beautiful dress and had ballet slippers on and she seemed to dance as she moved and she held a nutcracker in her arms. Kairi thought she looked familiar and it suddenly clicked. "Clara?" She asked in surprise.
The young girl smiled. "Yes," she said.
Rachel blinked as realization hit her too and apparently it hit the other Portal Masters too. "From the Nutcracker ballet?" They asked in unison.
"Yes," said Master Eon. "And right now, Clara needs our help."
"What's going on?" Isabel asked instantly.
The guardian of Skylands turned to Clara, who looked at them. "The Nutcracker soldiers had to battle the Rat King again recently, but there was something…awful about him this time. Even my godfather noticed it."
"What was wrong?" Jamie asked.
Clara looked a bit shaken now. "The Rat King was very strong and kept eating this awful-smelling green cheese," she said.
All the Portal Masters stiffened and looked at each other. "Why does that sound familiar?" Bree asked.
"Because we've encountered it before," Kairi said.
Dr. Krankcase came up. "Yes," he said. "And we just saw Kaos go into a portal with more of that cheese."
"I think I'm beginning to get an idea as to what's going on," Rachel said. "And it's not a pretty image."
Katie caught on what Rachel was thinking. "Kaos is giving the green cheese to the Rat King because the green chees makes the Rats stronger!" She said.
Clara agreed with them. "He's become too strong to where he's going to overrun our home," she said. "Friends, will you help us defeat him?"
The seven Portal Masters looked at each other and nodded to each other. "We'll help," Kairi said.
Crystal went up to Clara. "We'll give that Rat King a big shoe," she said, remembering how the story of the Nutcracker went.
The young girl looked relieved and Master Eon opened the portal. "Be careful, Portal Masters, and good luck," he said.
They arrived safely. "Welcome to the Kingdom of Sweets," Clara said when they arrived.
"Where is that Rat King?" Isabel asked.
"He has not made it here yet, but is moving fast," said a deep voice and they turned to see Clara's godfather there. "My dear, your Nutcracker prince has gone to stop him."
"Oh, no," Clara said worriedly.
Bree, Katie, and Kairi looked out the window. "Um, guys, we've got a major rat problem," Kairi said.
"What do we do?" Jamie asked.
Crystal looked thoughtful. "The Nutcracker is a ballet, right?" She asked.
"Yes?" Rachel said, wondering what her little sister was thinking of.
"And there's a lot of dancing?"
The other Portal Masters caught on. "As much as I hate to say this, I think she's right," said Isabel. "We're going to have to become part of the Nutcracker."
"How do we do that?" Bree asked.
"We have to dance to either fight or avoid attacks," Kairi said.
"So we're basically going to be part of the story?" Katie asked.
Jamie looked at Rachel. "If we do that, I think we're going to need our Imaginator powers," he said.
The others nodded in agreement at that, except Crystal. "But what about me?" She asked. "I don't have Imaginator powers."
Rachel pulled an Earth Creation Crystal out of her pocket. "You do now, kiddo," she said and placed the crystal in front of her little sister and the wave of power surrounded Crystal, whose clothing became the color of milk chocolate and looked just like ninja clothes while her hair was braided back into twin pigtails, and shoulder guards appeared on her shoulders with the Earth Creation Crystal splitting in half and each half embedding itself into the shoulder guards while a rocket bazooka gun appeared in her hands. "Crystal, you are now a Bazooka Imaginator of the Earth element," she said. "Your bazooka will fire rockets, some of which will explode into crystal shards to attack enemies. Use your new power wisely."
Crystal's eyes flashed light brown for a moment and she nodded, hefting her new bazooka onto her right shoulder and it was lightweight enough for her to do so. With their youngest member having Imaginator powers, the rest of them activated their Imaginator powers and stood ready just as the powered-up rats started to invade the Kingdom of Sweets.
Now, the Portal Masters had been through a lot of battles, but this one had to be the most unusual battle they had ever been in. The rats had attacked and to the Portal Masters' surprise, knocked them back quite a bit. "I think we might need a little more help," Isabel admitted.
"That's why we're here," came Dr. Krankcase's voice as he landed beside them along with Whirlwind, Enigma, Wallop, Boom Bloom, Thumpback, and Krypt King.
"Awesome!" Jamie said, feeling rejuvenated at seeing their friends.
"You think that's awesome?" Krypt King said with a smile in his voice. "Just look who's behind us."
Every Skylander, even the Imaginators, came pouring into the Kingdom of Sweets from the portal and stood ready to fight. The Portal Master all felt rejuvenated at seeing this and stood back up. "Alright, guys! Let's bring these rats down the size!" Rachel said.
Cheering met her statement as the battle began again, but this time, the Portal Masters and Skylanders worked in tandem and timed the attacks as if they were choreographing a dance with each of them doing different dance steps all in time with each other.
As Thumpback swung his anchor, he caught Kairi when she got thrown back a bit and leaned her in a dancing dip before twirling her away from him while holding onto her hand. The Water Portal Master shot out powerful orbs as she spun out, which hit the rats head on.
Enigma was blasting the rats with his Eye Beam attack before suddenly crouching down, which allowed Jamie to leapfrog over his Trap Master partner to uppercut the rats with his brawler attacks. Isabel and Bree along with their partners were following their lead and doing the same, leapfrogging over their Skylander partners to surprise attack the rats, knocking them back a bit.
Katie, Rachel, and Crystal, along with their partners, formed three circles of different sizes one in the other and moved rapidly, spinning around each other gracefully to attack the rats and even to avoid attacks. Some attacks landed within their circles and broke it for a moment, but the space was filled fast as they would instantly bunch up into a group and again perform a rapid triple attack with moving around each other and hitting the enemies head on.
This helped them to defeat the Rat King's army, but when the Rat King himself appeared, things got much harder and the Skylanders were beat back to the point that they all had only a little health and the Portal Masters saw a red aura flash around the Skylanders, indicating that one more hit would knock them down and leave them unable to fight.
The Portal Masters huddled together, knowing they were in a tight spot. "What do we do?" Kairi asked.
"Do what we've been doing, only this time, surprise the Rat King," said Jamie. "But, we'll need time to charge up our powers for a combined attack."
Katie looked and saw that some of the Skylanders were still strong enough but knew this wouldn't be easy. "If the Skylanders that are strong enough can at least tire him out…," she began.
"We can take that time to charge up our attacks and when he starts to slow down…," Bree continued.
"We leapfrog over those Skylanders and hit that villain with all we got," Isabel finished.
Crystal looked worried. "Do you guys think we can?" She asked.
"If we attack as one, then yes," Rachel said, placing her hand out, palm facing the floor. The other six each stacked one of their hands on top of hers and each other's.
Hearing the plan, the Skylanders all nodded and the ones with the most health began to carry out the Portal Masters' idea while the ones with less health stood by, ready to be of help even though they were exhausted. Their perseverance gave the others strength as they battled the Rat King.
Finally, the Skylanders had attacked enough where the villain was slowing down and then looked a bit dazed and the Portal Masters' wasted no time. Running up to the Skylanders that were now crouching down on the floor, the seven humans leapfrogged over them with power orbs and weapons charged up to the max. "Fire!" They cried out in unison and their attacks hit the Rat King as one, knocking him back down to his normal size and before he could rise again, Clara threw her shoe at him, knocking him out before the defeated rat army carried away their defeated king.
The inhabitants of the Kingdom of Sweets and from the other lands of the Nutcracker swarmed the Portal Masters and Skylanders with grateful thank yous and cheering. With modesty, the heroes graciously accepted the gratitude before heading back to Skylanders Academy.
Everyone was instantly given rejuvenating food to recover and the seven Portal Masters were suddenly handed maps. "What are these?" Isabel asked.
"The Christmas Scavenger hunt that your partners planned for you," said Master Eon.
Rachel smiled and turned to her friends. "What do you guys think?" She asked.
"As long as there's no rats," said Katie. "I've had enough of them for a day."
"For a month too," said Jamie.
"Well, let's do it, then," said Kairi.
They were soon following the maps given, but decided to stick together instead of going separate ways. Going down the path, they soon met up Whirlwind. "Here's a clue to where the hidden gift is," she said. "The darkness is only broken up by a light when you activate it."
They instantly guessed that one. "The Dark Sensei Temple," they said in unison and Rachel wrote it down.
"Should we go there and get it first, or solve the clues first and then go get the gifts?" Bree asked.
"If we solved the clues first, then we could go to where the presents are and that way we wouldn't have to double back," Jamie said.
"He's right," said Katie.
"I'll write them down then," Rachel said.
"But how will we know which gift is for who?" Crystal asked.
"Don't worry, the gifts are marked," said Krypt King and the Portal Masters took a moment before they realized they had unknowingly followed the next path marked on the map. "Here's another clue. You won't need a coat here, but a temporary freeze can help you cross an equally temporary bridge."
Again, they answered in unison. "The Fire Realm!"
The next path led them to Enigma. "Mysteries lurk here, ones that tease the brain into thinking very carefully," he said.
"That sounds like the Magic Realm," said Jamie. "With those crystals to activate or block areas."
Deciding that made sense, the others nodded and they moved on.
Thumpback gave them their next clue. "Clear and pure, darkness is afraid of this," he said.
"Light?" Kairi guessed, but Thumpback gently shook his head.
"Huh, this is a tough one," said Isabel.
They fell into thought before Crystal grew bored and saw a lake nearby and so playfully splashed the others. "Hey!" Bree cried out in surprise, playfully splashing the young girl back. Rachel slipped a bit in the mud when she went to help Bree out and took a moment to wash her hand off in the water. Suddenly, she froze.
"Wait a moment!" She said, catching their attention. "Crystal figured it out!"
"I did?" The six-and-a-half year old asked in confusion.
Rachel indicated to some mud still on her hand and she washed it off in the water. "Water is clear and pure," she said. "It washes away anything."
"Darkness can't touch it," Jamie said in realization.
"So the next gift is in the Water Temple," said Katie.
Funny Bone was waiting on another path and playfully jumped on Isabel and licked her face. "I'm the next clue," he said.
The Portal Masters instantly caught on that the clue's answer was the Undead Temple. "Five down, two to go," said Kairi.
"This is fun!" Crystal said happily.
"Perfect way to clear our minds after that crazy battle," said Bree. "I don't think we've ever been in a battle like that before."
"You're right," said Isabel.
The second-to-last path led them to Boom Bloom. "As with Funny Bone, I am also the clue, for without this, everything would be dull," she said.
Crystal instantly guessed it. "Life!" She said.
"She's right," said Katie. "Without life, things are dull."
Excitement filling them that they had just one more clue to solve, the seven Portal Masters raced down the path, almost plowing into Ro-Bow, who had to brace himself and catch Crystal, Katie, Isabel, and Bree in his arms while Rachel, Jamie, and Kairi managed to just barely stop themselves from knocking over the Tech Bowslinger Sensei, who chuckled.
"I'm guessing you all have just one last clue," he said with a teasing note in his voice.
The humans looked a bit sheepish. "Sorry, Ro-Bow," Rachel said and the others echoed her apology.
He chuckled again. "Here is your final clue: I can be strong and gentle at the same time, sometimes warm and sometimes cold, depending on the season," he said.
"So it's an element," Isabel guessed immediately.
"Just like the other clues," said Bree. "Rach, which one of the elements haven't we guessed yet?"
Rachel consulted the list. "We have Dark, Fire, Magic, Water, Undead, and Life," she said. "The only four left are Light, Earth, Tech, and Air."
Earth and Tech were ruled out instantly. "So it's between Light and Air," said Kairi thoughtfully.
Just then, a warm, pleasant breeze blew past them and Katie sighed happily as she loved how the wind did that. Her eyes suddenly widened. "The wind," she said. "It can be strong or gentle and depending on the season, it can be a warm wind or a cold wind."
"Which means we'll find the final gift in the Air Temple," said Jamie.
Again deciding to stick together, the seven Portal Masters went to each of the temples, starting with the Undead one first since it was closest before taking the cannon up to the Magic and Life temples. Finding the first three gifts, they decided to drop off the gifts at the Academy before unanimously deciding to go to the Water Temple next, then take the rocket platform to the Dark Temple and Air Temple, and then lastly go to the Fire Temple since it was right next to the Academy.
About an hour later, they returned to the Academy with all the gifts and claimed the gifts with their names on them before going in the Main Hall to the big tree where everyone was waiting with smiles and encouraging the humans to open their gifts.
Bree went first and was stunned to find a pair of headphones that had the Undead element symbol on them. Wondering how her partners knew she had been searching for a pair of headphones just like it, she hugged them happily. Isabel's gift was a charm necklace that had a charm from each of her partners and she instantly put it on, hugging her partners.
Jamie's gift was a pair of durable boxing gloves that would work with his Imaginator powers to provide more armor and he couldn't thank his partners enough for such a thoughtful gift. Katie received a charm necklace just like Isabel's and hers also had charms from each of her partners and Ro-Bow helped her put it on as she thanked them.
Kairi opened her gift and recognized it to be a cherry blossom seed. "You guys remembered," she said happily.
"And that's not the best part," said Snap Shot, indicating to a patch of dirt just off to the side where the fountains were. At Master Eon's encouraging nod, Kairi planted the seed and it instantly grew into a cherry blossom tree, to her delight and everyone else's amazement.
"I love it!" The Water Portal Master said. "And best of all, everyone can enjoy it."
Everyone then turned to Rachel and Crystal. "That just leaves you two," said Jamie.
Rachel nodded to Crystal. "Go ahead, kiddo," she said, already knowing what the gift was as Starcast and Boom Bloom had already told her what it was.
Crystal squealed happily at seeing it was a necklace with the Life Symbol on it and Master Eon chuckled. "You not only gained your Imaginator powers today, Crystal, but also your Portal Master power," he said.
Placing the necklace around her neck, Crystal saw her hands glow a bit green and she moved one hand to see vines coming out of the ground. "You have the ability to control plants," said Boom Bloom, a smile in her voice.
Excitement filled the young girl to no known end as she then turned to her older sister and Rachel chuckled as she opened her gift and gasped when she pulled out a charm necklace that had charms from all her partners. "Thank you, guys," she said, placing it around her neck. "It's perfect."
"And there's a whole lot more for everyone!" Came Chef Pepperjack's voice as he came in, still dressed like Santa Clause, carrying a big bag of presents over one shoulder. "Merry belated Christmas, everyone!"
With that, the celebration kicked off in full swing with everyone fully enjoying themselves to the fullest.
Again, I know Christmas was over a month ago, but a cheerful story is always nice, right? :)
Please leave a review, but no flames!
GoldGuardian2418