Glumshanks felt tired as he was returned to his cell. Krystal had ordered him to be placed into the ordinary tortures that came with being a prisoner. He put up with it, knowing how much worse it could be from experience. He knew why he was being punished and tortured. It was to aggravate his master, Kaos. Krystal knew that Kaos would eventually come back for him once he found out about the troll being held prisoner. Glumshanks didn't believe it entirely though. He was a minion, nothing special. Had it been his previous master, Kronos, sure, but Kaos? Not likely. No, the one who was most likely to come for him was Harmony and her Skylanders, as she had rescued him from the Demolition Derby, not that she had known it was a real thing. She had just thought she was playing a game. He grimaced at the thought of her still thinking this was all a game. Glumshanks then smirked as he thought about the other reason he was being tortured; he had refused to give the location of the Skylander Academy and Kaos.
Krystal had been very upset to learn from another of her minions that Kaos had helped to defeat the Darkness and had lost his powers. She was even more aggravated when a rumor was found stating that he was "helping" the Skylanders by being an evil consultant of sorts.
"Hey, Schmuck face, how many bruises you got?" Dark Mage wasn't the nicest among the Dark side of the Dual Force, but Glumshanks didn't honestly care. They made fun of him all the time when he had first shown himself. Frankly, they had all been jealous of the troll for having been so close to their master within such a short span of time.
'If only they knew the truth…' Glumshanks shakily made his way to the mat that he was to sleep on. "Only a few, I think going after the eternal fire source was more dangerous, Mage. G'night."
"Yeah, whatever…hey wait a minute!" Glumshanks smirked as he fell asleep to the sounds of Dark Mage yelling at him about going near the eternal fire source when he was obviously not of the fire element, or a Skylander.
Glumshanks smirk was short lived though as he found himself on the dream plains of Skylands. "What the?" He hadn't been there in years. "Huh… and here I thought… hey, wait a minute…" He glared at the ground ahead of him as things started to take shape. "Who brought me here? Only a portal master could bring me here unless I meditated… Lord Kaos!" With that thought, Glumshanks ran as fast as he could, the trail that formed in front of him showed him the way to go. He felt the dream world form around him, bringing back the memories of why he avoided the place as best as he could. As he ran, he felt something cold form on him. He glimpsed at what was happening to him and groaned in annoyance. A set of armor was forming on him. He just growled and kept running, though he knew the weight of it was starting to affect him. 'Honestly, why does this weigh anything? I'm in the dreamworld half of Skylands!' He came to a stop when he finally found what he was looking for.
There was a very, very confused young man who was slightly taller than in the real world standing in a clearing. He didn't have makeup on his face to accentuate his evil looking face, but at the same time, those red eyes of his were those of a lost child. "Where am I?" Glumshanks was somewhat surprised to say the least. Usually the young portal master was completely egotistical and would act like he knew everything.
Glumshanks reached a hand up and pulled off the dark cloudy helmet that had formed on his head. He threw it to the ground and it vanished, much to his delight. He then waved a hand over the rest of his armor, as though trying to dispel a thought. He was now back in his usual pants and vest. "Well… I'd say we were in the Dreamlands, Lord Kaos." Glumshanks smirked as he leaned against a tree nonchalantly. He hadn't done something like that since the last time he had been in the dreamlands.
He had never seen such happiness on his young master's face. It was almost like seeing his previous master's face when they talked. It was… relieved? "GLUMSHANKS!" The dark portal master ran to the troll and restrained himself from hugging the overgrown troll. "What happened to you? What is this place? Where are we?"
"Calm yourself, Lord Kaos. Like I said, we're in the Dreamlands. It's a place that connects to Skylands on the mental level and is usually only accessed through dreaming. Even then though, you have to either be pretty powerful to get here, you need to concentrate really hard, or you need to get summoned here. I believe I was summoned by your presence, but if you don't mind my asking, what are you doing here?" The troll had never really been happier to see his midget master, but he was still concerned. 'How did he get here anyway? Usually one has to know of this place or be summoned in order to even reach here…'
"I blacked out, alright? I was… I was training…" He never admitted to training… why was he… "With Harmony…" Oh, that was it. "We somehow saw into each other's lives and then she ran away crying and that's when I blacked out okay?" He rushed the last part so quickly, that it was impossible to deny that it really was Lord Kaos he was talking to.
"Alright… at least you two were training together instead of killing each other for her foiling your plans to rule Skylands." He smirked though he wanted to kick himself for reminding him of that. 'Why did I just give him something to hate her about?'
"Trust me… after what she's been through… that doesn't matter…" Kaos gave off a shudder as he thought about what he had seen. What his sister had seen… "Besides, we need to figure out where you are and rescue you."
"Wait, what?" Glumshanks was so shocked that he almost didn't react fast enough to dispel his armor returning before Kaos noticed it. "You're actually going to attempt something so stupid as to rescue me from your mother's castle?"
"Yes, why? And thank you for telling me where you are. I'll be able to get that oaf Flynn to fly us there once Harmony's calmed down enough and I wake up from this." Kaos grumbled in his usual tone.
Glumshanks rolled his eyes. "Honestly, I thought you'd go and find a new minion. I mean, you did fire me when the Darkness had convinced you that I was in your way." This got a reaction of embarrassment and annoyance from the short human. "That is why, isn't it?"
"Of… course not…" Kaos let out a sigh as he felt the truth needed to be said. That was another disadvantage of the dream world. Unless you knew that it was influencing you and you tried to control it, you could not lie. "Look, even after I did fire you, I ended up talking to myself with an imaginary version of you helping me, okay?" That explained his reaction to Glumshanks when he, Cali, and Flynn all arrived with the engine. "I didn't want to, but I knew that I wasn't powerful enough to even control the darkness, never mind destroy it on my own. I had to figure out how to do it and… though I will never admit this in the real world, you're smarter than me, Glumshanks." Glumshanks' wood brown eyes widened in shock. His master had always considered himself a genius, and to think that here, in the privacy of the Dreamlands, he'd learn that he was actually appreciated! "So I fired you in hopes that you'd meet my expectations and go to the Skylanders and figure out how to stop the Darkness." He looked up at his friend and noticed that he was stunned into place. He worked his face into a devious smile then. "But in the end, you still needed the AMAZING KAOS to save all of Skylands from the Darkness." That snapped Glumshanks out of his shock, as it was more normal for his ego to show.
"Of course, sir. Might I say that I really don't believe going up against your mother is the wisest of actions."
"Why not? You obviously haven't been released to find me."
"Because she's waiting for you and Harmony. She wants to kill you both, or at least try and control your mind and kill Harmony."
"What did she ever do to her?"
"Harmony is supposedly the good twin, having all of your mother's looks, but at the same time, she acts more like your father's good half."
"Father had a good half?"
"Yes, which is where I came from. His good half summoned me over two hundred years ago and I…" He quickly clamped his large green hands over his mouth. According to the family records, he had only been employed for twenty years, not two hundred, and even so, summoning was something that happened to Skylanders, not servant trolls that were strangely tall and smart for their species.
Kaos glared at him with a look that said, 'What were you saying?' He waived it off easily. "We'll talk about that later, after I've rescued you."
Glumshanks lowered his hands, rolled his eyes, and looked at his master like he was being a fool again. "Master, as much as I respect you, I honestly don't think you're strong enough to take on your mother. Even Harmony got lucky because that tribal girl helped her Skylanders."
"Well what do you suggest?" Kaos growled. He was not going to leave his best friend in who knew where just so that his mother could torture him!
Glumshanks thought it over, forgetting that his armor wanted to overtake him and show his original form. Kaos noticed it though and waited for it to fully form, as he recognized it to not be dangerous… at least not immediately dangerous. He was stunned to find that within minutes of Glumshanks thinking, the troll had been covered in a dark green set of armor with light green trimming. There was also a helmet that appeared on his head, though he was too busy thinking to notice. Kaos noticed that it had two symbols on it. The Darkness symbol for Skylanders, which looked like a crescent moon, and attached to it was the symbol for the Life element, a leaf.
"What about if you managed to summon some Skylanders like Harmony does? That might give you an edge…"
"One like you?"
The comment caught Glumshanks so off guard that he jumped back a little. "Wh…wha… what do you mean, Master?"
Kaos pointed out the armor on his servant who then grimaced. "You've been keeping secrets from me, haven't you, Glumshanks?"
"Only because my last portal master was killed from my mistake, sir." Kaos' eyes widened as he looked at the troll's ashamed face from under the helm. "Your father is dead because I wasn't quick enough to help him." Glumshanks looked more ashamed than Kaos had ever seen him before.
"Ha! Is that what you think?"
"Huh?" The two turned towards a sound that was similar to Kaos but also seemed more… lighter, and older. Glumshanks nearly fainted at the sight of his old master.
"Nice to see that my little summoning spell works still… at least on your minds. Dark Life, you silly troll, did you really think I was dead? Even after seeing what happened when Kaos tried to destroy Eon?" Glumshanks armor disappeared as the troll fainted and fell on his back into the cloudy ground. Kaos' eyes widened in shock. He had never seen Glumshanks faint before; bruised, maimed, stunned, even knocked unconscious, but never faint! "Huh… guess he really thought I was dead, huh?"
"Apparently. Mind telling me who you are?" Kaos glared at the taller man who had a similar face to him. "And his name is Glumshanks, not Dark Life."
"Hmm… I see Krystal decided to not bother mentioning me. I'm Kronos, also known as your father and his previous master." Kronos pointed to Glumshanks as he made his way to the unconscious troll. He placed a hand on the trolls head as though checking his temperature. "He's going to be sick when he returns. I'll send him back now… but with a little gift. Oh, and his original name was Dark Life." He waved his hand and summoned a small stone. It had the combined symbols that had been on Glumshanks helm. "There we go. A little memory stone so that he knows you and you sister are on your way to rescue him."
Kaos frowned as he saw the man make his best friend fade away. He understood what was happening and why, what he didn't understand was how. How was a man that Glumshanks was sure to be dead standing before him… sure they were in the Dreamlands, but still… this was too strange. "What exactly is your role in all of this? And how come Glumshanks thinks you're dead?"
Kronos looked at his son with a grimace after Glumshanks had been returned to the world of waking, or at least, to a normal sleep. "He thinks I'm dead because when your mother banishes someone, it's almost the exact same spell as when she kills someone."
"Well then, where are you banished to? Glumshanks obviously respects you, so that means that I should at least try to rescue you."
Kronos shook his head with a chuckle. "Kaos, my boy, you may be powerful and smart, but you still have a lot to learn. I've been banished here to the Dreamlands." Kronos then smiled kindly to the younger man. "I've been watching both you and Harmony since you were born. The only difference is that I've had to watch you from here." He looked Kaos right in the eyes and Kaos felt a slight pain of embarrassment as he recalled all the times he failed to take over Skylands. "Now, let's send you back to Skylands. You have to save my Skylanders after all."
"Mother has all of them?"
"All the dark ones, yes, but she doesn't know Glumshanks is a Skylander, hehe. Next time, I'll try to summon Harmony as well. Good bye, son…" With that, Kaos' vision blurred once more and he returned to a deep dark slumber.
