Ch. 25: Pest Control

Tails checked the video feed that showed him what was behind the Egg Lancer. With the massive storage area, and the six large legs, rear-view mirrors really didn't work for the robot. So Eggman had installed video feeds into the cockpit, not to mention a retractable roof that was bulletproof, fireproof, laser-proof, and, Tails hoped, magic-proof. An identical glass casing was installed on the Egg Beetle.

Tails spotted Shadeblazer in the video feed. Then he spotted an intercom, and a microphone in a holster near the joystick. He grabbed the former in his left paw, and the latter in his right. "Hey Avril?" The Frost Elf, who had been giving him directions, looked at the Life dragon. "Time to get our Eggman on," Tails smirked.

"Hey Shadeblazer! Did you ever play the Sonic video games?" Tails jeered into the microphone, and Camo's leafy, mocking voice came through the various speakers on the Egg Lancer.

"Uh, no? What sort of question is that?" Shadeblazer called back.

"Shame. If you had, you might know how to deal with this!" Tails shouted, doing his best Eggman impersonation and placing extra emphasis on the last word, as he flicked a button and a barrage of mines launched from the storage area at Shadeblazer. "Skylanders! Launch the laser cannons! Drobot, do you read?"

"This is Flynn, calling from the Egg Beetle. I read you loud and clear!" The irritating Mabu pilot replied, leaning over and cramping Drobot in his eagerness. "Tell Drobot to start launching the rockets! These things came out of video games, we should have an unlimited supply!"

Under the guidance of the other Skylanders, the six laser cannons detached from the Egg Lancer's legs, positioned themselves appropriately as the entire Egg Lancer swung itself around so that it was flying backwards. The Egg Beetle mirrored it's position.

Tails whistled through his leafy green muzzle. "Just like in the video game. This is the first time I've played as the bad guy, though. And we can't allow this boss to be defeated," Tails thought abut his statement for a second as the Egg Lancer's lasers charged up. "Wow, this entire situation would give the people at SEGA either a massive host of new ideas - or a splitting headache. It might even cause them to pass out in shock," The dragon chuckled, before rearing up on his hind legs, and, bracing a paw against the windscreen for support, threw his foreleg back Eggman-style and yelled "FIRE!"

Rockets burst from the sides of the Egg Beetle. The six laser beams each fired a single massively long burst at the evil dragon. All four pincers stretched far beyond which the laws of time and space had any right to allow them to, and snapped at Shadeblazer. Tails gasped at the last effect, he didn't even know they could do that. Then he spotted the long, retractable joints. "Should have thought of that," he muttered, clasping a flame-red claw to his central thorn-like horn.

Then Tails tried to work out exactly when that had become a normal sentence in his life.

To top it all off, Darklight launched a massive fireball at her negative half.

Shadeblazer dodged the Egg Beetle's rockets with impunity, but when the laser beams caught up with her, she had to carefully hold her position to avoid injury. Then the Egg Lancer and Egg Beetle's pincers grabbed hold of her, and the lasers realigned themselves to hit her just as Darklight's fireball slammed into her full-on.

There was a flash of light, and Darklight disappeared.

Tails noticed Stealth Elf gasp. "They have their own ESORPE!" She pronounced it EEH-sorp.

"What's an ESORPE?" Tails asked, turning to the Life elf.

"Emergency Skylander-Only Return Portal Effect. It's like a safeguard between Skylanders and their Portal Masters to make sure that no Skylander dies on active duty, where if a Skylander is about to die, they automatically get teleported to a secret safe-room underneath the Core of Light, where they can rest and absorb the Core of Light's healing magic until they're completely healed. But we try to avoid using it if we possibly can, because it only works for Skylanders. Anyone who the Skylander may be rescuing, or protecting, is doomed to whatever their fate is without a Skylander to protect them. Kaos' mother must have a similar effect in place on her dragon minions," Stealth Elf explained.

"So Shadeblazer was automatically teleported to a safe place so that she wouldn't die. Does make it hard to be rid of her, but still, that's a good idea," Tails commented, before swinging the Egg Lancer around and continuing on towards the Northern Quadrant.

Cogshine couldn't help but smile. His sphinx DNA meant that he barely felt the cold, but despite his strange new powers over the element of Life, that cocky, annoying evilised kid Burn was still a Fire being at heart, and he was clearly, ah, not enjoying the Northern Quadrant's climate.

A large snowball whacked into Cogshine's flank. "Take that, ye invading beast!" He turned his head and spotted a trio of Frost Elves standing beside a catapult, who had evidently just launched it. On any other day, Cogshine would have landed and engaged in a nice bit of torture and bloodshed, but he was on a mission.

So he contented himself with swooping down and devouring all three of the annoying little icy Popsicles in one bite and enjoying the squishy feeling of their organs on his tongue, and the swish, swash of their blood between his razor-sharp, carnivorous teeth. The idea of explaining to the elves that they were here to try and stop the invaders and they should be helping the two dragons, not attacking them, never crossed his mind.

"Dude, that was really mean," Burn commented as Cogshine spat out a couple of pieces of armour. It was the only thing he couldn't digest - and besides, it wasn't like the Frost Elves would need it where they were going.

"Yes, yes, you're right, I should have saved one for you. You get pick of the lot next time we see some of those pipsqueak Popsicles,"

Burn was shocked. Sure, he was evil, and enjoyed some torture as much as the next tyrant, but Cogshine's level of bloodlust shocked him. And Burn really preferred his food cooked and warm. And dead.

"I'll pass on that. Tell me when you spot something that looks warm and dead. A good tree would be nice,"

There was a way of fine-tuning evilisation so that it supercharged beings with the power of a single element. Burn had kept his mastery of Fire, but also gained a level of power over Life. And he was quite enjoying controlling plants - not to mention that he had discovered in the last couple of days that there was nothing better for the digestion than a good tree.

Then, with his enhanced feline eyesight, Cogshine spotted something very strange in the distance. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Is what what you think it is?" Burn asked.

"Well, whatever it is, it's coming this way," (Cogshine)

"Yeah, I can see it too," (Burn)

"Wait, didn't Linagarnix mention that the Skylanders had a new toy?" (Cogshine)

"Yeah, didn't she say it was a GIANT ROBOT BEETLE!" Burn screamed and dived out of the way as the Egg Lancer rocketed past him, Darklight in it's slipstream. It was actually about six times as large as either dragonoid.

Cogshine spotted the Egg Beetle moving towards him. He looked back at the Egg Lancer. "I want that thing,"

The Egg Beetle rocketed by and Cogshine grabbed hold of it's storage container with the claws on his forelegs. He used his hind legs to grab hold of one of Burn's tails. "Come on, kid. We ain't splitting up just yet,"

"We've got a mission going on!" Burn shouted. "You can't just abandon it because you want a new toy!"

"The weapon will help us complete the mission!" Cogshine explained, rolling his eyes. Then he heard a whining below him.

And realised he was lying on top of a missile silo. And that there was a video camera a few metres away from his face.

"Engaging anti-boarder defensive manoeuvres!" Drobot boomed into the microphone.

"Oh no," Burn gasped. Missiles burst out of the silo and detonated against Cogshine and Burn's underbellies. They let go, gasping from the pain.

"There it is. The Winter Keep," Avril proclaimed. Everyone aboard the Egg Lancer crowded for a glimpse. Tails could barely see the people on the Egg Beetle doing the same. He envied Darklight with her unmolested view, and the people aboard Sharpfin's boat - they had the whole deck to themselves! Then inspiration struck.

The plant dragon jumped from the cockpit into the space between the two large pincers and vanished in a flash of light. In a matter of seconds, Tails was back, having returned to Jade Flashwing. Where he got the miniature pirate ship he was perched on was anyone's guess.

"Where did you get the miniature pirate ship, mate?" Roller Brawl hollered.

"Pirate Seas locations piece! Useless for transportation, but great for stuff like this!" Tails replied. Jade's silky, sweet tone made it sound like he was mocking them and Tails realised that, so he added "I'm not jeering, it's the voice,"

And from the miniature pirate ship, Tails beheld the majesty that was Winter Keep.

The centre of it was a massive tower, and it was surrounded by Skylands every which way with all kinds of constructions on them, both defenses and living quarters. Tails could swear that he saw some that were both. At the top of the tower, there was an arena with four doors - and above that, what seemed to be a massive statue of either Whirlwind or Polarus. It was identical in every way but one - while the rest of the statue was stone, the unicorn's horn appeared to be made of pure amethyst.

"Behold the Illuminator!" Avril called.

"Just like in the game," Tails breathed. Then he checked his memory. "Wait, the statue was smaller and the Illuminator was separate from the statue. But everything else is identical. It's - it's kinda scary,"

Avril and Drobot docked the two giant robot insects in a convenient natural dock the Frost Elves had taken advantage of, Sharpfin docked his ship, and Tails jumped to the dock, and, vanishing for a second, caused it to disappear. The other Skylanders and company piled out of the two robot insects.

A Frost Elf was just boarding an airship, but at the sight of the people disembarking the ships, he jumped down. "Avril! Is that youe?"

"Duff! Good to see ya, big brother! I brought the Skylanders to help with repelling the invasion!"

"I dunno about the Skylanders, but the robot insects should help. Skylanders, we have two problems. There are the Cyclops airships, but those can be destroyed by our snowmen launchers. The two giant dragons we have seen flying around and attacking are another story. We're probably going to need those robots to defeat them," Duff explained.

Tails and Drobot climbed back into Eggman's insectoid robots. "We're on it," Tails boomed from the Egg Lancer's cockpit.

"Don't you need someone to pilot the lasers?" Sunburn asked, shivering despite his get-up. "What do you think the robots are for?" Tails asked him.

"What robots?" Zap asked in a tone completely different to the one Tails remembered from the game. There, it was high-pitched and gurgley, here it was more natural, like the sort of voice he would expect from a high-school jock. Yet Zap didn't fit the jock image at all.

"These ones," Tails smiled, pushing a button. Six robots identical to the type that Sonic destroys so much in the video games rose out of the floor. Rubble Rouser and Riley realised, shocked, that they had actually been standing on them, assuming that they were part of the floor. With robotic precision, they marched to their stations.

"Why didn't you use those before, eh?" Jet-Vac, who had also been aboard the Egg Lancer, asked. "Because they take up all the room for the seats, eh?" Tails smiled, placing extra emphasis on the 'eh'. What he meant by that, no one was quite sure.

The hatch at the back of the Egg Lancer closed, and Tails and Drobot took off. Duff watched them go. "I hope they know what they're doing. I saw one of those dragons eat three Frost Elves in one bite earlier today,"

I said that I was going to change Zap's voice. Don't worry, unless one of the new Swap Force Skylanders proves to have an equally annoying voice, it's going to be the only time I do that. And I finally have some peace from that irritating, obnoxious phoenix!

And I hand been considering an awesome new idea for a while now, but I finally approved it: To include music in appropriate scenes! Kinda like what spashfire99 is doing with his Taylor Swift songfics, but only every dozen chapters or so. So, for a romantic scene, perhaps R5's 'Here Comes Forever' or for a break-up scene, Owl City's 'Take it all Away'. But this is NOT going to turn into a songfic. The first one should be in the next chapter. And I am going to make sure to mention the name of any song and it's artist that I involve, either in the actual story or in the Author's Note. A word of forewarning: Be prepared to get loud! Peace!