Skylanders: Age of Ruin
Chapter 4: News
"We're going to need the others, aren't we?" Tree Rex said grimly, "the teams that were out on missions, I mean. Either way, we'd need to contact them but the way things are, it might be hard to find them. Everyone has different people they can trust, and with how fast word travels in Skylands, they'll know about the island before long, which means they won't go back there, even if they could."
"We've been in hopeless situations before," Spyro responded, "it can't be that hard to track them."
"There's no problem finding them, Buzz knows every single mission that every Skylander goes on," Spy Rise said solemly, coming over, "the question is if fifteen Skylanders will be enough. I mean, yes, we've kicked ass of all sorts of big bads with the same amount, or less even, but judging by that book, this thing we're up against this time is on a whole new level. Not to mention that morale won't be the best, we've all probably lost somebody important to us..." He trailed off and hung his head. A sad realization dawned on Spyro then.
"He wasn't on mission, was he Spy?" the purple dragon questioned gently.
The mechanical agent shook his head slowly.
"Grim?" Tree Rex asked, his head tilted, "but he can't be dead."
"The destruction takes elemental energy when it causes ghe Skyquakes," Spyro explained, "it takes undeath away from the undead. Undeads have died before from it,"
"But," Tree Rex tried to retort, only to be cut off.
"He's gone, alright? That's all there is to it." Spy Rise said, somewhat angirly, "even Reapers die..."
"I can garuantee you he survived," Tree Rex said sternly.
"How?" Aske Spy Rise, begining to loose his temper.
Tree Rex pointed behind both of the other two, to a chunk of land barely as big as a small car that had just knocked gently against the ship (which had been moving more slowly for a while). And on this tiny little peice of land, lay an unconscious, but very clearly alive, Grim Creeper. Spy Rise quickly scrambled over and carried Grim to the infirmary. "If that wasn't luck, I don't know what is," Tree Rex said as they left, "the odds are millions to one. I'd say it bodes pretty well for the future."
"Let's just hope we don't use up all that luck before we need it," Spyro responded.
"Yeah, that might be true," the giant said solemly, "hey, though, is there anything else that could help in that book?"
"I didn't really check, " Spyro answered, "the first few pages after the story part are just lots of diagrams and stuff like that. Seemed like some historian just cataloging research, but I only looked at about five pages after I finished the reading, and there's clearly a LOT more pages than that here..." he opened it once more and absentmindedly flipped through the pages. Then he stopped at a page with peculiar writing and symbols sprawled across it.
"Didn't get far enough to see this, for example," he said, showing the pages he had stopped on to Tree Rex, "wonder what it all means..."
"I recognise some of these. only a few, though, and I not fully sure from wh..." he stopped and grinned a bit, pointed to a specific symbol, "But we both've seen this one plenty of times, and I know damn sure exactly where."
Spyro looked where he was pointing and gaped slightly.
"It's the symbol on Kaos' head." Spyro said, "I always kinda wondered what that meant. Either way, we don't have time. We need to find the others first"
"Well, I got good news there!" Shouted Buzz from the helm, "We're where the smaller group got sent. tiny cluster islands called The Staircoil: place winds up/down like a spiral staircase. We should be able to find the them somewhere here. It's not very big, so our best bet it to split up, send one group down from the top and one up from the bottom."
"Me and Tree Rex will head each group," Spyro said, "I'll take top down."
"I'm okay climbing." Tree Rex nodded.
"Like hell you are!" Stealth Elf said, as she and the others came back (all of them surprisingly sober), "We had a hard enough time getting both of you back into your current wretched conditions, you are not going on mission yet!"
"But.." Spyro began, but was immediatly cut off by Rattle Shake
"There aren't many islands, and judging by the fact that a group is on mission yet, there won't be many monsters, but that doesn't change the fact that you two are barely in good enough condition to walk around the ship," the snake said, "we can't risk you doing this. Besides, two groups of three will be fine, and me and Stealth should be able to lead the teams. "
"I can agree with that." Stealth Elf said.
"Well..." the purple dragon considiered for a moment, then tried to put a tiny bit more weight on his injured leg and winced and when he looked at Tree Rex he could tell the giant seemed drained. So he sighed and nodded, "alright, pick you teams."
"Well, Spy, me and you should stick together, being the only Swappers" Rattle Shaked said, and the mechanical agent nodded, you got next pick if you want, Stealth."
"Alright, well, both DK and Pop are heavy hitters," the life elemental said slowly, "but I prefer speed and brains as first choice. Chill, you're with me."
Stealth glanced slightly at Chill for a moment.
"Hey, Rattle Shake," she said after that minute had passed, "mind if we take Pop Fizz?"
"Sure," the snake shurgged, "was gonna pick Donkey Kong anyway. He talks less."
"We'll keep an eye on you from here," Buzz said, "though you should be more than safe. After all, there's gonna be nine Skylanders in those islands. Either way, head on out."
«^»«^»«^»
The lower team, Rattle's, was the first to be dropped off.
"So, where do ya think they are?" The snake questioned the other two.
"Hopefully they finished their mission by now," Spy Rise responded, "so they should be kicking back somewhere. Acorrding to Buzz, we're looking for Drobot, Flameslinger, and Wrecking Ball. Not a hard bunch to find."
DK beat his chest in agreement and gestured to a path. The other two nodded and began to walk follow. As suspected, no monsters were encountered, but something still felt, wrong, like there was an unusual shadow over the whole place. But they didn't seem to be in immediate danger so they mostly ignored the feeling
The moment the second group touched the ground at the top of the Staircoil, Pop Fizz shivered slightly.
"I got a bad feeling goin on in my gut..." he said in answer to a look from Stealth.
"Maybe you should drink more than just soda then." the elf sighed and shook her head.
"Remember, it was ne of these feelings of his that saved us from that skyquake..." Chill reminded the life elemental, "what if it's another one?"
"Oh it ain't that bad a feeling," Pop Fizz interupted, "but it ain't good either. ."
"Well, either way, we have to keep moving," Stealth submitted, "we have to find the others, if your gut feeling means anything, they might be hurt. So let's go, alright?"
They agreed and quickly began the descent, and before that had gone far, they were suddenly met by a spherical object that came crashing through the shrubs. It was Wrecking Ball.
"Wrecking Ball, what's wrong?" Pop Fizz asked, grabbing the mutated grub and stopping his rolling.
"Routine mission, right? We finished super easy but then..." The little creature squirmed and tried to hid his face, "these...things showed up...I got away, but Dro's wings are broken and Slinger can't outrun them. They're trapped"
"Oh no. Wrecking Ball, you good to fight?" Stealth asked.
"I'm going to help save the others, if that's what you mean." Wreckking Ball responded.
"Come, now, come on, let's move out."
Uhhhhghghghgggghhhhh *beats face against desk*
Writer's block?
Forgive me if this sounds shakespearian, but to me each story is a great, wild beast, which I must do my best to cling to and guide to the end. Sometimes, the beast charges straight, sometimes it goes in the wrong direction, and; worst of all; sometimes it sleeps. When it sleeps is worse that anything else it does, for the when the beast sleeps the story moves neither forward nor back.
...woah, dude.
Yeah, I need some pop or tea or something. Luckily though, I have the rest dof about ten chapters from now planned out.
Well, that's good.
Yeah. Anyway.
Belak Out
