Tale 1 Part 1: Preparing For A Race
Note: This is set between Swap Force and Giants, so the Swap Force themselves will not appear, but the Cores from Swap Force will be involved.
Hot Head skidded to a halt, shifted out of his motorcycle form and, turning around, looked proudly at the flaming skid mark he had left on the ground of the Fire island of the Lost Islands, where all of the Fire Skylanders, with the exception of Sunburn, as he was the Fire Element leader, and Blast Zone, as he was the second-in-command of the SWAP Force, lived. "Oh, yeah!" he shouted. "I'm the fastest! The slipperiest! The most awesome Skylander in EXISTENCE!" he yelled, raising his big, cumbersome arms to the sky.
He then heard the screeching of another pair of wheels at his feet. "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!" Fryno yelled at him, as his emberformed motorbike vanished in a blaze of glory. "I AM THE FASTEST, NOT YOU, GRANDPA! SO I'M NEW AROUND HERE, BUT I AM ALSO WAAAAAY BETTER THAN YOU'VE EVER BEEN IN ALL TEN THOUSAND YEARS OF YOUR LIFE!" The permanently enraged rhino biker screamed at him for no apparent reason.
Hot Head went deathly still, the fires of rage burning in his eyes. "What did you just say?" he growled, deadly silent and even more menacing. A smarter Skylander would have backed off and left. However, Fryno was way too full of himself.
"I SAID I'M BETTER THAN YOU, AND GET USED TO IT, CAUSE IT'S TRUE, YA GOT THAT, YA BIG OIL SLICK?!" Fryno raged.
"Alright," Hot Head was doing everything he could to control his anger, but he would not let the insult to his pride issued by that jet-set, leather-jacket wearing punk stand. "How about a race, then?"
"LEMME TELL YA SOMETHING, I WILL ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE, MC GRANPA! WHEN, AND WHERE, EH?!" Fryno shouted.
Hot Head frowned. 'MC Grandpa? Was that supposed to be an insult?' he wondered. "There's gotta be a good racetrack somewhere around here. Maybe we should ask the Tech Skylanders," he suggested.
"YEAH, LET'S GO ASK SPROCKET!" Fryno shouted. "SURELY HER PRISSY GOLDING ASS HAS GOTTA KNOWS A GOOD RACETRACK SOMEWHERE AROUND THESE PARTS!" he raged, beating his fists against the floor.
Hot Head sighed. "Sure, let's go ask Sprocket,"
The two found the female inventor in her workshop on the Tech Island of the Lost Islands. The workshop in question had been converted from an old movie theatre from the time a year and a half ago when the majority of the Skylanders had moved to the Lost Islands.
"Sure, I know an absolutely fabulous racetrack only a few kilometres away. It's free most of the time, and I go there to test a lot of my vehicular inventions, so I'm sure the owner wouldn't mind a couple of Skylanders renting it for a few hours," she smiled. "One condition," she hastily added.
Hot Head, who could barely fit into the ex-theatre, sighed. "What is it?"
Sprocket smirked. "I want in too," she smiled.
Hot Head's eyes widened, that was a lot better than he had expected. "Sure, where is the place?"
An eighty-minute flight later, the three Skylanders were standing at the top of a largely elevated grandstand hewn out of a mountain, where they looked down on an awesome racetrack spanning three islands that had been joined together for the purpose. "Welcome to the Pig Rock Raceway!" she beamed, gesturing at the track below. And it was a beauty.
The starting line was at the base of the mountain they were standing in, which, after a small straightaway lead straight into a slalom course in a small swamp, involving all kinds of intricately knotted tracks. Hot Head realised he would get a headache trying to work out how to get through there, so he allowed his eyes to continue out of the slalom course and onto a place where the track was suddenly made out of wood. The reason for the wood quickly became apparent, as the wooden track quickly led onto a bridge that spanned the gap to the next island. That island in question had the track split in two, and there seemed to be some kind of mechanism that, when activated, would block off one of the tracks. The two smaller tracks led into a massive curve that looked like it was vertical, for which a massive amount of speed would be needed to pass through safely, before going beneath itself into the depths of the Skyland. No one could tell what was down there, but the tracks, still separate, reappeared and intertwined with each other in a long, drawn-out series of loop-the-loops that bridged the gap between the second and third islands. Luckily there was also a safety net beneath it, just in case.
But the third part of the racecourse was without a doubt the most impressive, and also what gave the course its name. The tracks abruptly ended about twenty-five metres from the edge of the island, where the racers would obviously have to cross a jump and land on the track of the third island. At first glance the third island like,d unimpressive compared to the other two, it was just a massive spiral encircling a great mountain with a peak that for some reason looked like a pig head with a gaping mouth. The three Skylanders could only assume that the track went within the mountain at some point, because the track emerged from the open mouth of the pig - and dropped into a massive vertical that went straight down the mountain before curving back up like a ski jump. But most ski jumps didn't have a loop-the-loop in the middle of them. This one did.
Again, there was a net stretched beneath it in case someone didn't make the distance, because apparently the design was for the jump to carry any and all racers all the way across the two hundred or so metres across the gap between the third island and the first. There was a large, flat landing area that funnelled back into a track, went through some rather unnecessary hairpin turns before finally ending up back at the starting line.
"LEMME TELL YA SOMETHING, THAT IS THE MOST AWESOME THING I HAVE EVER SEEN, YA GOT THAT YA BIG RACETRACK!" Fryno screamed at the course.
"This'll do nicely. So, should we get started?" Hot Head suggested to Sprocket, who annoyingly wagged a finger in his direction. "Uh uh uh. We should see if anyone else wants to compete," she smiled.
Back at the Isle of Light, they were surprised by how few were interested - and how unlikely the ones that were interested were.
"We're having a big race a few islands away, anyone interested?" Hot Head asked shortly. He was addressing all of the Life Skylanders, with the exception of the Swap Force, as they were still trapped on Earth at the time, and Camo who was goofing off somewhere with Sunburn. Sprocket had asked him to ask all of the Water, Life, Earth and Air Skylanders, while she got the Tech, Magic, Fire and Undead ones.
Almost every single one of the Life Elements walked away without even bothering to respond. Only Stump Smash and Shroomboom remained. "We're Life Element. As in, opposed to anything unnatural? Like racing?" Stump Smash asked in a bored tone. He then turned around and left.
"I wanna take part!" Shroomboom yelped excitedly. "It'll be great advertising for my pro-mushroom con-pizza campaign!" the monocular mushroom added, strangely excited. "You know you need a bike, or a kart, or something to compete, right?" Hot Head asked, surprised that out of all the Life elements, Shroomboom would be the one to volunteer. "Yes. I know," Shroomboom replied mysteriously, narrowing his eye and smiling. At least he thought it looked mysterious. It actually gave the impression that he was squinting. "Fine. Meet at Sprocket's workshop at ten in the morning tomorrow. Oh, and can you go and ask the Water Skylanders if any of them want to compete?" he added. Shroomboom nodded enthusiastically, making his way towards the bridge that connected the Life island of the Lost Islands to the Water Skyland, which happened to be next door. Hot Head moved in the other direction, towards the Earth island.
Sprocket had gathered the Tech and Magic Skylanders together to ask them all at once, thus saving time. "Does anyone want to take part in a car/bike race?" she asked, coming straight out with it. Voodood, Countdown, Bouncer, Ninjini, Scarlett, Star Strike, Wrecking Ball and Double Trouble were quick to decline, the others seemed to be considering it. "Will there be a prize?" Boomer asked. Sprocket shook her head, replying "Only if someone contributes one," and the troll stalked off. Sprocket scratched her head, wondering what he had to be angry about, then decided it was unimportant and turned to the Skylanders who were still there.
"Operation designated race is calculated to have a high probability of generating positive emotions designated competition, fun and victory when event designated 'this unit is victorious' occurs. I will accept your offer, biotic factor designated Sprocket," Drobot droned in his eternal monotone.
"I'd love to, but I need a vehicle," Spyro told Sprocket.
"Generating negative emotion designated fear is a pointless exertion of energy in this circumstance, fellow unit designated Skylander, this unit possesses multiple devices equipped to serve a vehicular function and also equipped for biotic factors of dragonoid anatomy. Go to geospatial location designated Drobot's workshop and laboratory to collect said abiotic device," Drobot added, looking at Spyro. Without saying anything, Spyro looked at Sprocket for a translation.
"He has a spare vehicle for you," Sprocket explained, "come by his place to pick it up," Spyro nodded, smiling. "Right,"
"Ye-ha-ha! I'm going for the gold!" Trigger Happy laughed maniacally. He continued to laugh maniacally as Dune Bug and Pop Fizz also confirmed that they would like to participate in the race.
The orange gremlin suddenly gasped and cried "I'd better go prepare my vehicle!"
"That only just occurred to him?" Pop Fizz questioned. Sprocket nodded, then began moving towards the Fire Island.
Sprocket had wisely decided to make sure Fryno didn't ask anyone if they wanted in on the race. But to make sure he didn't think he was being left out, she took him to a deserted island a little way away from the Lost Islands that Flynn had asked her to clear so that he could keep some of his vehicles there.
"Now, you have to make sure that you ask every bush, tree and rock on this island if they want to participate in the race," Sprocket had instructed him. "Got that, Fryno?"
"HELL YEAH, I GOT THAT! DO I LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT TO YOU?!" he had raged in her face.
Sprocket frowned, and wiped a bit of Fryno's saliva off her cheek. "Just ask everything on the island if they want to participate in the race," she told him abruptly. "I've gotta go ask some others if they're interested, I'll come back and pick you up in a couple of hours," she told him, moving back towards her aircraft. Fryno nodded, and turned to the nearest tree. "HEY TREE! DO YOU WANT TO RACE ME?!" he shouted at the tree.
Being a tree, it did not respond.
"OI! I'M TALKING TO YOU, TREE!" Fryno shouted, getting angry.
The tree continued to ignore him.
"OH, THAT'S IT. LEMME TELL YA SOMETHING, YOU ARE ABOUT TO GET FRYNOED!" the rhino biker raged, launching a barrage of fisticuffs at the tree.
The tree promptly fell over and caught fire, setting fire to several other trees and bushes. "HA! THAT'LL TEACH YOU, TREE!"
Fryno then realised that several other trees were catching fire. "HEY! STOP BURNING! I NEED TO ASK YOU A QUESTION!" he raged at no tree in particular. "I SAID STOP BURNING!" he raged, emberforming his motorbike and charging the burning trees.
Things proceeded in a fashion like this for about an hour, by which point Fryno had destroyed everything on the southeast half of the island. Flynn chose that moment to swoop by. "Hey down there! Great job clearing the island!" he shouted down to Fryno.
"HEY, YOU'RE THAT ANNOYING BALLOONIST GUY! I CAN'T STAND YOU! DO YOU WANT TO TAKE PART IN A RACE TOMORROW?!" Fryno yelled up at him.
"A race, now that sounds interesting. When and where?" Flynn called back down to Fryno. "TOMORROW AT TEN IN THE MORNING, SPROCKET'S WORKSHOP! BE THERE OR END UP LIKE THEM!" Fryno raged at Flynn, gesturing at the charred remnants of the trees that had already been destroyed by his wrath.
"Got it. I'll see you tomorrow, and for now I'll let you get on with clearing and destroying everything on the island. You're doing great!" Flynn called down to him.
"THANKS! I REALLY CAN'T STAND YOU!" Fryno shouted back at Flynn, before realising that another tree had been set on fire. "HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I GOT TO TELL YOU TO STOP BURNING!"
Okay, this was originally done for my friend HazardTheAssassin, who wanted me to write something completely unrelated to Dragon Chronicles. This was partly inspired by HotWheels Acceleracers, partly by Angry Birds Go, and partly by that racing episode of Johnny Test. So I thought this up, then remembered how little attention my last one-shot, Love at First Boom, got. I mean, seriously? Six reviews? So I decided to make a collection of one-, two-, and perhaps the occasional three-shots kinda like my other friend, Numbuh 94/Undead Prowess/whatever she's calling herself when you read this, 's Heroes and Chompies. And I will include Love At First Boom here too. Some will be related to Dragon Chronicles, some won't be, but to all ends and means, this particular one won't be. And seeing as Julie has become otherwise engaged, Gaiphe has gone to become a god to some rural tribe in Sonic Unleashed, I still have no idea where Riley is, and we all know the problems with Flynn, I have decided to bring in my sister to help me. Ladies, gentlemen, dragonoid creatures and other sentient species, give it up for Ala!
{a being that looks like a female Sunburn, but with a longer beak, a more dragon-shaped tail, scales over all of her body except the head, wrists/ankles and end of her tail, and white instead of red enters}
Ala?
"What? This is a world with all kinds of incredible beings. You really thought I would stay human after that?"
Well, I remained human.
"Please, bro, we all know that the only reason you're human here is because you thought the readers would get weirded out if the Author's Notes were being hosted by a dragon,"
{rolls his eyes} Sure. For my twin sister, you can be incredibly annoying with your logic sometimes.
"I know, and I love it. Kinda why we're fraternal twins. Peace!"
Hey, I say -