Ch. 21: New Enemies

It had taken them another two hours, but Flynn had finally reached the Cloudbreak Volcano. Spyro and Riley jumped out gratefully, as the balloon was surprisingly spacious but still had them packed like sardines. Add that to the fact that Flynn had been complaining about the fact that Spyro wouldn't let them spend the night - and get a couple of good meals - at Molekin Mountain all day, and both dragons were very happy to get away from both the balloon itself and it's insane pilot.

"Hey Night Shift? Riley? How about we go for a jog around the volcano? There might be other Skylanders around," Spyro suggested. Riley nodded, a smile across her cerulean blue muzzle. Night Shift was as impassive as ever.

"I think I'll stay with the balloon. Y'now, make sure that no one tries to steal it while you're all gone," Flynn suggested.

"Exactly what I was about to suggest," Spyro smiled, then, as the two dragons got out of Flynn's earshot, the purple dragon added "And I think we've all had enough of the scintillating company of the greatest pilot in all of Skylands," At which both dragons fell over laughing.

"Let's split up. Night Shift, go check the lip of the volcano. Riley, check the perimeter of the island. I'll check the base of the mountain. Circle round until you get back to the balloon and tell any Skylanders or beings claiming to know Skylanders to do so as well," Spyro instructed the other two. Night Shift nodded and wafted off to the left, as wordlessly as ever.

Riley, however, was more reluctant to go. "You'd better not stray too far, Spyro. You might need my help again," she joked, elbowing Spyro in the foreleg.

"Me? Need your help? Good luck with that," Spyro smiled. "And stop flirting with me, I have a girlfriend. She may not be here, but I have one,"

Riley, chuckling, spewed a trail of sea slime and slid down it over a couple of rocky outcrops to the edge of the island. Spyro watched her go, thinking that she definitely seemed a lot like Zap. It was conceivable that they were siblings.

Shadeblazer flew through the outer rim of Cloudbreak Islands, chuckling at the way that even now, that horrid, primitive wooden pile of trash was surely going up in flames. She spotted Linagarnix's castle in the distance. The dragon landed in the courtyard and the massive doors opened wide to admit her. She stepped through. Unseen, another being slipped through the doors behind her.

Or so the being thought. Now that Shadeblazer's head was uncluttered with the turmoil that had occupied it for the last few months, her vigilance of her surroundings was exponentially increased.

The Undead dragon's head whipped around like a snake. "Who are you, and why are you sneaking into the castle? No, wait. It'll save time if you explain to me and my mother at the same time," And picking up the being by one of the newly formed barbs on her tail, she continued walking towards the throne room.

Darklight's assumption that Shadeblazer's physical form was unchanged was a tad hasty. As it happened, the changes to Shadeblazer's body simply took more time to take effect than Darklight's changes. The only current changes were the addition of five bone-coloured spikes in the shape of a brazier around the eternal flame at the tip of her tail, and that the claws on each of her toes were slowly growing longer and sharper. It was from one of her brazier-like spikes that the intruder was hanging.

"Shadeblazer, what took you? Darkus and Cogshine returned hours ago. You had better not be late again, or you know what'll happen to Burn," Linagarnix admonished sternly. "Burn? Why should I care what happens to that kid? Oh, and I found this other kid trying to sneak into the castle," Shadeblazer waved the newcomer around on the edge of her tail.

"What?" Linagarnix was genuinely astonished. "But I thought you cared about Burn, and I was keeping him hostage to ensure your compliance. And you look a bit different. Exactly what happened?"

Shadeblazer smirked. It was an ugly sight on her black muzzle. "Best I can figure, based on what I overheard the Skylanders saying, everything bad about Shadeblazer was stripped away from everything good. I'm the bad. The good is unconscious, possibly dead, in that cruddy little treehouse town. And it's probably going up in flames as we speak,"

"So you couldn't care less what I do to Burn?" Linagarnix wanted to confirm. Shadeblazer, despite her recent loyalty issues, was one of her greatest servants, but recently the fact that Burn, who was almost like Shadeblazer's son, was being held captive by Linagarnix was all that was keeping Shadeblazer in line. Somehow, despite everything he had done with Shadeblazer, Insidae and Cogshine, he still had some shreds of morality and cared for others.

"Why would I care?" (Shadeblazer)

Linagarnix smiled. She picked up a small radio and shouted into it "Cogshine! Get the eviliser and hit Burn with all it has. And don't worry about Shadeblazer. Everything even remotely good about her is gone like yesterday's lunch," Just to prove her point, she let loose with a malevolent laugh before cutting off the connection.

Linagarnix turned to the white dragon hanging from Shadeblazer's tail. "Now, who exactly are you?" Shadeblazer shook the young dragon off her tail and she landed as agilely as a cat.

"My name is Windstorm. Air dragon, and daughter of Malefor. Me and my brother Rocky, an Earth dragon who's nowhere near as good at stealth as I am, and so is waiting on a nearby island, want revenge on Spyro, Cynder and the Skylanders for killing our father. We heard that working with you was the best way to gain sufficient power to do so. I heard about what you did with Cogshine. If we can get that kind of power, Spyro is a dead dragon," Windshine vowed, explaining her whole situation to Linagarnix.

"Interesting," Linagarnix considered the story. It doesn't particularly matter whether they're Malefor's children or not, though if they are, it could work well for me, and with their elements of Air and Earth, I'll only be missing Water, Life and that lost time machine created thousands of years ago. If only Portals could still travel through time, she thought wistfully. That would make my plan far, far easier. But still, with these two children of Malefor, I'll be two steps closer to my goal.

"Very well. You can work with us. Shadeblazer, you and Windstorm are to go find Windstorm's brother-"

"Rocky," Windstorm supplied the Dark Portal Master.

"Don't interrupt me. After he's here, I want you both in my private quarters for a better explanation of yourselves,"

Windstorm looked like she was about to protest, but Shadeblazer grabbed her little paw in her own massive one, making the former look as large as a postage stamp, and pulled her along. "Rule number one around here, kid," the black dragoness muttered to Windstorm. "Never upset Mum," Noting Windstorm's questioning look at the term, Shadeblazer elaborated. "Me and Darkus were the first two here. Neither of us ever knew our parents, and Linagarnix basically adopted us and became our surrogate mother. When Cogshine, Insidae and Burn came here, they noticed the two of us calling her Mum and the title kinda stuck, even though it doesn't even apply anymore,"

Shadeblazer noticed this and cursed inwardly. Watch yourself, Shadeblazer, she told herself. You just lost all of your good qualities, don't go and get more!

But that was not possible. You see, there was a Yin and Yang effect on all beings in Skylands. That is, that while people can be more good than bad, or more bad than good, no person can ever be purely good, or purely bad. Shadeblazer and Darklight, once separated, were pure bad and good respectively, but the Yin and Yang effect meant that they were almost immediately generating good and bad qualities, also respectively. The chances were that they would remain more good or bad than most people, but they were not, and never could be, pure.

The massive tree had a crown of flame, which was steadily spreading down the tree. This Tails could see, because whatever time phenomenon was in place, time between Earth and Skylands was currently equal, and even though Chill was holding it back with her walls of ice, it wouldn't last. Tails was still frantically rummaging through his games, searching desperately for anything that would work. The fire truck in Fantasm Forest was rejected, because it was impossible to actually fly the fire truck, his Skylander avatars with power over water were rejected because that water was designed for dealing damage to enemies, not extinguishing fire, but wait, Jet-Vac!

Tails grabbed his S1 Jet-Vac figure from the shelf, which just happened to be fully upgraded and level 15, ducked into his lab, slammed the figure down on the Portal and, embarrassingly, tried to dive into the Portal. Tried. Tails sucked at swimming, sucked at most sports actually, so his dive was more of a vertical leap, causing him to bang his head on the edge of the Portal before collapsing through it in pain. "That's gonna hurt come Skylands," he moaned in the seconds he spent soaring through the strange space he went through every time he switched between Earth and Skylands.

The second he landed in Skylands, now in the form of Jet-Vac, the anthropomorphic wingless eagle, AKA Sky Baron, he kick-started his Jetpack, soared up to the level of the flames and activated his vacuum blaster, clasping one hand to his helmeted head in an instinctive method to try to relieve himself of the headache. It effortlessly sucked up the burning material, basically extinguishing the fire. Tails corkscrewed around the tree, sucking up as many flames and their sustenance as possible. It actually only took a few minutes, after which Tails landed, and was about to switch out of the Sky Baron's form when he noticed that his vacuum blaster was smoking.

Sunburn, who, as a Fire Skylander had been hanging back for fear he would contribute to the flames, took a look. "That thing's gonna blow if you don't expel the fiery stuff stat," he told Tails. Tails nodded, soared back up and released the flames vertically into the sky. The resulting fireball made an amazing firework. Tails switched back to Polar Whirlwind in mid-air, and, flapping his wings like a hummingbird, landed and performed a dragon equivalent of a bow. Which was basically touching his right front foreleg to his chest and bowing his head, though the victorious smirk on his muzzle kind of ruined the image of humbleness.

The other Skylanders were used to this sort of achievement, so they took it with a grain of salt, but the kitsunes were impressed, and duly applauded.

Roller Brawl, Cynder and Sunburn congregated around Tails to congratulate him on his first real heroic deed. "Hey, do you hear that?" Tails asked. As Polar Whirlwind, his sense of hearing was amazingly acute, even more than most dragons. Cynder and Sunburn nodded, but Roller Brawl just looked confused, at least until she realised it was a dragon thing. "Sounds like a balloon's coming,"

Cynder, Tails and Sunburn nodded at each other, and took off, leaving Roller Brawl by the massive pool. She watched them go, considering whether it was coincidental or if there was some kind of dragon telepathy going on. "Eeah, I'll leave that to the geniuses in the Tech element," she muttered to herself, moving towards the palace Tails had created out of thin air that morning to properly prepare her sleeping arrangements. After all, it was getting late.

The three dragons flew towards the balloon, the occupants of which were slowly coming into focus. "Spyro!" Cynder gasped in disbelief, speeding up and tackling her boyfriend full-on. Tails and Sunburn took their time a bit more, finally landing in the balloon without crashing into anyone, though it was getting crowded. Tails decided to see who else was in the balloon. Night Shift and Flynn he recognised, the latter of which he wasn't particularly happy to see, but there were two more dragons he didn't.

However, Sunburn recognised one of them. "Loni! Good to see you, my friend,"

Tails watched the two get reacquainted. "So this is Loni, the Portal Master, I presume?" He was still a bit annoyed at the way both Loni and Scott had completely ignored him when he first arrived in Skylands two days ago. He had been there for two hours before anyone had any idea that Kaos, his mother and Glumshanks were attacking. One of them could have at least come and said hello.

"So you're Tails, then? Sorry I didn't come meet you in person, as I get the feeling you thought I would. If Eon were still around, he probably would have. But I'm not Eon, and me and Scott are trying to make the Skylander forces more casual. Maybe it's not working out as great as we thought it would," Loni did a dragon-shrug at the last sentence.

Tails thought through her explanation. "So you didn't come and meet me because you're trying to make the Skylanders less, er," Tails paused as he searched for the right word. "Militaristic?" Loni suggested. Tails nodded. "The Skylander ranks were like an army boot camp when we got here. And I'm still basically about fourteen. We're trying to change the Skylanders from an army to an on-call task force,"

Tails smiled. "Yeah, I see your point. Who wants to live with that kind of discipline 24-7? Hey, how did you escape the blast?"

Loni did another dragon shrug. "I'm a Portal Master. My Portal abilities kicked in and took me to the Cloudbreak Volcano, which was on my mind because of all the excitement about it's eruption. Me and Scott were planning to take all of the Skylanders and go see it erupt. I spent a couple of days hanging around there, surviving on the sheep nearby, then Spyro, Night Shift, Flynn and Riley showed up looking for any Skylanders or associates who had made their way to the volcano, and found me. You'd be surprised how good raw sheep tastes to a dragon,"

Tails nodded. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was,"

Well, this was interesting. I know, I know, everyone wanted to find out what happened to Kaos and Duskwort, but in the spirit of Kaos keeping Duskwort a secret from everyone, I decided what happens to them should be kept a secret for now.

Okay, I couldn't decide what should happen. Next chapter, I promise. But first, 'A Technical Tail' is starting to get lonely, so I'm heading back and doing a new chapter of that. And I told you Rocky and Windstorm would be important later. I actually have all kinds of escapades planned for that spin-off. So I really advise you read it.

Thanks for all the reviews, everybody! Two more and I hit fifty! And keep going, Rex, I know you're not a fast reader but I'm confident you'll get there eventually. Thanks for being the only person who's reviewed 'The Abandoned Dragons', Jane! And chill, xshadowclawx, all is forgiven. Peace!