"Absolutely not!"
The sage's shouts nearly cause what remained of their esteemed Academy to crumble into dust. Dusk had fallen, and the staff and students had gathered into the library, one of the few rooms that remained intact at the end of the battle. Even then, windows were shattered, books were sprawled across the floor dirtied and burnt, and low candleflames set the solemn mood for all the Skylanders gazing intensely at their headmaster.
In the span of an evening, a runt of a villain had become the greatest threat to their home in the skies. Many students were in disbelief and quickly shifting to panic as the day's result. Eon had proposed an elite team to travel to Kaos's lair and deal with him immediately, and that was were feet were being put down.
"Are you kidding? Why shouldn't we go?" Jason squeezed through the crowd and slammed his fist on the old master's desk. "If that Kaos kid is that tough now, you're gonna need all hands on deck!"
"We're talkin' about Kaos here! Even sheep make mutton out of him!" Eruptor shouted.
Hugo could be heard screaming in the background. "Sheep!? No sheep! I've had enough trauma for one day!"
"I appreciate your valor, everyone, but this is a matter well beyond your capabilities at this moment. You have shown remarkable aptitude to this point but do not forget that you are still only cadets."
He laid that last word down like a hammer. The students held their heads in shame made to feel weak.
Elf raised her head against the weight of her teachers' stares. "You can't honestly expect us to simply sit here and do nothing."
"Yes, we can."
The door flung open, almost breaking from its hinges. A large. Burly shape came clanging slowly down the steps and toward the gathered crowd. His armor gleamed in the candlelight while his down of feather remained frozen to his body like a second coat of metal. His gaze turned unwavering to them all as his face emerged from the shadows.
"Sensei King Pen!" Jet-Vac gawked. "All cadets, salute."
All members did so, save for a select few. Spyro's claw wavered at his side, not knowing what role the big old bird was meant to play this time. King Pen was this last chance of Eon's to mold him into a proper Skylander; maybe now he was a savior for everyone?
Pop-Fizz showed similar lack of discipline, marching up to the penguin instead. "Either the artic got a lot more ruin-y, or King Pen is out of his territory. So, our fine-feathered friend, what brings you to this utterly destroyed neck of the woods? Just so you know, this wasn't my doing… this time."
"Master Eon contacted me beforehand regarding the situation with Kaos. The other Senseis will be arriving shortly."
"Other Senseis?" Katelyn asked. "Wait, just who are you?"
"Ah, yes. I believe this is our first time meeting, children." He bowed before them, impressive considering his heavy suit and gauntlets. "I am King Pen, one of the many Skylander Senseis who help to protect the realm and guide new Skylanders along the path to greatness."
"King Pen is an old colleague of mine and stands along the mightiest the Skylanders have to offer." Master Eon rose to stand by his comrade. "You understand, surely, that my need to summon them all speaks of the threat we now face."
"At the very least, I am glad Eon's experiment worked and you have formed true partnerships. The Senseis expressed doubts as to what would come of the appearance of Portal Masters, and you in particular, Spyro."
"Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the vote of confidence." That smile did nothing for him.
Spyro huffed; easy to admit that whole 'lifelong confidence' bit when the result turned out peachy keen. He'd all but admitted that they were nervous about whether he'd spend who knows how long stuck on a glacier practicing squats, too. Still, it was nice to be someone being a little more up front for a change.
Stealth Elf almost charged towards the two teachers, not bowing to the gap in experience for once. "With all due respect, sirs, the fact that you're summoning the best warriors you have is exactly the reason we should go. Kaos is still only one Portal Master. We have five, plus an army of heroes ready to take the fight to him."
"Stealth Elf is right." Pablo's voice cried from somewhere in the crowd like a rogue firecracker. "Let's serve that bandito up a steaming hot plate of justice! With a side of guacamole!"
All the students cheered in turn. They were tenacious, even if they weren't the best at their studies.
Eon's sigh only put a damper on their fiery spirits, though. "You would have me send untrained cadets into battle? Kaos, admittedly, has shown little cause for worry in the past but things are different, now. It was already an error on my part that it was even allowed to come to this." Eon was looking straight at Spyro now, even bending down to hold him by the shoulders as if to ground him there himself. "Please, for your own safety, remain here."
"Listen to Master Eon. You should have the chance to cultivate the bonds you all have formed."
The damper turned into a downpour as the student body went silent. Eon was always the one who inspired them to do great things, assured them they were on the highway to legend, Spyro especially. What did it mean to any of them when he was the one saying they couldn't handle an enemy? For the dragon it just made every scale on his body rattle and twitch, almost flaring from their seats.
Was he really going to take this from anyone? Even the man who raised him from an egg?
"No."
"Spyro, please."
"No, just listen." Spyro flew up to his face, so close an ember would have set the sage's face aflame. "I'm gonna put a reverse spin on that truth ball and say yeah, we're cadets. But we still took down the worst the Skylands had to offer." He turned to Cody, still wavering between confidence and doubt in place. "That was because… we had each other, and we stuck together."
Cody stood by his side, and Spyro could safely say he had never felt stronger in that moment. He took a breath, as the dragon took his hand in claw.
"Master Eon, no matter how many times I tried to run away or deny it, you were the one who kept saying Spyro and I had something special together. We all did." All their teammates banded by their sides. "This might as well be our time to prove it."
"Yeah, what he said!" Pop Fizz cheered.
"I must wholeheartedly agree." Anne smirked with a touch of her glasses.
"Alright!" Spyro looped in the air. "Team Spyro for the win!"
The fanfare went cold again. The dragon wanted to say it was just a breeze from the outside, but the faces of the team said otherwise.
"Excuse me?" Katelyn blinked, looking none too appreciative.
"Yeah, I am not gonna go around with that team name on my shoulder." Stealth Elf chided.
"You have to admit, sir. They make quite the team." Jet-Vac spoke in defense. Spyro was almost floored from that alone, though he'd be sure to get a cross glare from the bird-man if he said so. "Now, far be it from me to stand against regulation, but…"
Master Eon shared a look with King Pen, who only shook his head. Something about the power of youth and how it appealed to old men to be sure. Eon gave a longer sigh than anticipated, but Spyro knew the old man enough to know what that meant.
A smile formed in between the hairs of his beard. "…Very well. We shall end this battle together."
Cody returned his smile. "Thank you, sir."
Hugo hopped from his hiding place. "I believe this is the perfect moment for the call, sir."
"True enough, Hugo. Skylanders, UNITE!"
They warped onto the panel set just before the domain of the Dark Portal Masters. Each held their breath and swallowed their nerves down stepping onto foreign soil. Though it was like the moment they did, some imaginary curtain was drawn back to the landscape in full.
"Does anyone else feel as though… something's different here?" Anne spoke the group's thoughts.
Their formation was broken wandering around the barren soil now dotted with rubble and broken trees. Just like their own Academy, this place was now a half-ruin bathed in a cold violet light as opposed to the warmer tone they all remembered when last they came. The fog was thick as fabric and clouds now swirled around the tower's peak with flashes of lightning. It was as though they entered a vision of the end of the world.
"Kaos more than likely took this place over after his mother was defeated." Master Eon stepped towards the edge without a flinch at the foreboding castle. "We are in his domain now."
Those words were what permeated the air as they ran across the bridge and up the broken stairway into the main castle. The doors flung open into a pitch-black hallway that was lit step-by-step with blue-violet flames. An alien sense of dread was filling them all as their steps were more stiff and slow than they'd wanted them to be. Was it really Kaos that was making them feel this way?
Jet-Vac balked. "Kaossandra is the most powerful Dark Portal Master in the Skylands, and Kaos is, well-"
"A wimp," joked Spyro.
"A loser." Eruptor followed.
"A butt of constant mocking jokes in heroic humor." Pop Fizz added.
"I was going to say a vicious delinquent obsessed with delusions of grandeur, but yes." That was really best summed up as all of the above, but that was beside the point. "How could he have obtained this much power?"
"…Through all of you." Master Eon spoke solemnly.
"What?" Cody gasped. "How is that possible?"
"The Spellbook he possesses." Eon waved his hand and a projection of the tome made from his magic hovered before them all. "There is an ominous force contained inside, one that hungers for power and to destroy the Core of Light."
Kaos was holding some sort of strange book, the last time Spyro saw him. Though he'd just assumed that meant old melon-noggin had finally gotten an instruction manual on how to be a better villain. In a sense, that might have been true; he had ignored it at the time, but there was something off about the Dark Portal Master. Something that made him formidable to the point he'd begun to sweat at the thought of squaring off against him.
"It satiates that hunger through the elements. When you defeated the Doom Raiders, Kaos took their elemental powers and used them to empower the force inside that tome."
Wait, was that what happened? He'd felt drained at some point. Sweat was starting to go down the dragon's scales all over again. Master Eon might not have made the wisest decision in calling King Pen to hold off the arrival of the other Senseis until they knew what they were dealing with.
The dragon shook his head not to show those thoughts and flew to his mentor's side. "Wait, so you're saying we did Kaos a solid bringing down all those baddies? That he… played us? That is kind of painful, Eon."
"Never as painful as being at his beck and call just to hear him brag about it."
Almost under spotlight, a troll appeared from the top of the steps. He near dragged his massive, wart filled feet and disheveled shoulders down to the ground floor. Seeing them all, he gave a sigh like he would have paid to be anywhere else.
"Wait, aren't you Glumshanks?" Elf asked. "Kaos's troll servant?"
"I assure you madame, my resume includes much more than demeaning lackey work." The troll cleared his throat and unrolled a scroll that clanked onto the tile. The troll spoke in as great of a fanfare someone who spent his life waiting hand and foot on Kaos could give, not that that said much. "But I'm here to serve as the host: welcome to the lair of Kaos the Unbelievable Awesome, Wicked, and Magnificient. Welcome to your doom."
"Three guesses who wrote this speech," Spyro muttered.
"Before you have the privilege of meeting your final and excruciatingly painful demise at the hands of the Great One, you must first face a test of your abilities. Enter the Hydra!"
The wall above the entryway where Glumshanks appeared shattered casting the room into shadowy gloom. From the dust and darkness came five pairs of crimson eyes glaring and glowing with bloodlust as they shifted over and along one another. Their growls filled the air with an electric tension. All at once the heads came to life and roared, shaking the room and forming cracks in the walls and ceiling.
"Oh, great! It had to be a hydra!" Eruptor yelled. "Why can't bad guys ever send kittens after you? Everybody likes kittens!"
Glumshanks quickly rolled up the scroll and backed towards the staircase again. "Be sure to handle this quickly. Believe it or not, this thing drools."
Drool wasn't nearly as deadly as the streams of fire and water shot by its left two heads which the team just narrowly escaped. Rows of melted and eroded stone were left in the wake of its blast. The other two heads snapped at Pop and Jet-Vac and their partners, before the undead head released a corrosive fog that made the columns wither.
The creature solely focused on hunting its prey as they only dodged by a hair or scale. It didn't care if its own master's palace was broken in the process, and even now the foundation was starting to crumble. Just as Cody had blocked another blast of spiraling flame, a piece of debris cracked and fell on him. Spyro was just able to push his friend out of the way before he'd have been squashed like a cockroach, with pebbles digging into his scales as they rolled aside.
Soon enough it seemed the monster had gone from a mindset of destroying his enemies to destroying everything in existence. Like a cat frustrated with mice slinking into their mouseholes, it started blasting streams at the walls and ceilings, happy to let the building crush them if it couldn't. The Portal Masters raised their shields and charged with the Skylanders as they struck with blades, blasters, and bursts of flame on its hide.
The hydra only roared and merged its blasts to shatter the wall behind them. Their backs were left to open air, but there was still no escape.
Jason raised his barrier with Jet-Vac behind him, rotating to fire back. "Whatever Kaos is up to, we're never going to stop him in time if we're all stuck dealing with this thing!"
Master Eon let loose a fierce white blast of magic. "Agreed. Spyro, Cody! We leave it to you. You must go and stop Kaos while we deal with this monstrosity."
Spyro blinked as he was hauling Cody across the room to the other end. "No way, we're not leaving you guys behind. If this thing's anything like a real dragon, you guys are in for the fight of your lives!"
"So let us have some fun!" Eruptor shouted.
"Let's just call it a final exam. We are cadets, right?" Stealth Elf twirled her blades after popping in from another attack.
"Finally! I get to blow up something on purpose." Pop was bouncing like a jumping bean.
Cody shook his head. "It's too dangerous. Let's all fight it, together."
A golden shield blocked the attack aimed for them this time, from Anne's hands. "This is the most logical choice, Cody. Even if we engaged this creature together, it would still waste time we likely don't have. You must stop Kaos quickly."
"But…"
Spyro could usually be counted on to give the cocky reassurance here, but he wasn't so sure at this point. Dare he even thought it, but it scared him just what might await past that hall of black beneath the hydra guard. He'd been proven wrong more than enough times over the course of this semester not to go poking at bad guys on your own. With all the power Kaos had supposedly gained, a puff of flame and a magic shield might not be enough.
Cody clearly felt the same, if not more so. He wasn't cut out for this like a Skylander who trained his whole life was. It made his wings feel heavy that he was being such a wimp on both their ends. What kind of partner couldn't give a partner proper backup.
"Cody. Spyro." Katelyn came speaking to the rescue. "We all believe in you."
Cody looked to him. "What do you think?"
Spyro inhaled, and let that fire burn. He talked a big game this whole time; it was now time to prove it.
"I think… we should show 'em what we got."
Final exam… hope they could make the grade, Spyro thought. The two ran past the hydra into the hall, Ancients knew what was waiting.
I'll cut the author's note short this time. Here we are, final battle, the beginning of the end. To everyone who stuck around thus far, thanks for your support. Onto the reviews:
ScrappyDooFan: I aim to please with bad guys getting with what they deserve.
GameHero95: Glad you liked the addition. Kaos was definitely a much more formidable villain in the games, while the TV show provided different portrayals of characters for various reasons. The book is corrupting Kaos, but I would say it's because his lust for power makes him easily manipulated, and not due to any special power of the book.
MYTHICBOY: The hydra was crafted from the Spellbook, and each hydra head was composed of the elements that Kaos had stolen from the Doom Raiders, with the Life Element to, well, bring it to life. I will see about maybe drawing the hydra, but think of it as a lankier version of the 'Five-Headed Dragon' or 'F.G.D.' from Yu-Gi-Oh.
Bookwriter94: It was always going to come down to the Skylanders and Kaos. No way Leichter would finish them off before Kaos could. Thanks as always for your comments!
That wraps up another one. As always, review, favorite, follow! Until next time! Have a great Father's Day!