Author's notes:

This came out sooner then expected. I am happy to make two announcements.

1. I will be continuing this story regardless. So this won't be something that is started and not finished like many of the good stories that I read. I plan for this to be done within a year but that may change based on other factors of my life. Job searching is one of them.

2. I am very happy to see that my work has gotten so much attention in the span of a few days. As a result of this I am doubling my efforts to making more of this story and I am also interested in seeing some reviews in the future. I am still looking for an editor if anyone is interested but I would prefer you expressing your interest to me via review as it is easier for me to see and access.

I am interested in what you all think of this story so far so any comments or questions please feel free to ask, I will try to respond right away if I can. I do check my account on a daily basis so I should be able to respond fairly quickly.

Enjoy the show

Chapter 1: The Journey Begins

The sound of my talons hitting the stone floor as I walk through a hall is all that I hear. Looking around I see that I am inside a large building covered with weird symbols and drawings that I have never seen before. Some of which looks to be some form of writing but none that I have ever seen before. The building is old since the only source of light seems to be coming from outside, though small holes at the top. The hall is also covered with small debris scattered thought the place making the place look like it has seen better days. Despite this the natural lighting seems to make the place look sharper and fresh, while giving a relaxing vibe about the place. The building was huge, at least it must have been since the ceiling looks like it was made for giants, with room to spare. The hall is very long, too long to see the end of it and despite me moving forward I have yet to see anything like a door or another hall. Looking at all of this, I know that I have never been here before. Yet, there is this strange feeling of Déjà vu.

'Huh strange' I thought. The strangest thing though is that I am walking. 'Why am I walking when I can just fly? It's faster and I don't see any reason why I shouldn't.' But after thinking this something weird happened. It was like a thought had appeared in his head, but it sounded like it was someone else's thought. Like the 'voice' of another person is saying it but no sound is heard in your head, just the words appearing before you.

'Because you cannot fly.'

'What?! What do you mean I cannot fly, of course I can just watch.' As soon as he was done talking to the other person he tried to ready himself to take to the air. Only to find that his body wasn't responding to his thoughts. 'What is going own why won't I move like I want to?' He tried to call for help but nothing happened, his mouth didn't even move. After trying again and again to make his body move differently is met with the same result, nothing. After what feels like an eternity his body finally stops and notices that he is in front of a very large door. The door has three large symbols on it that he cannot make out what they are, and they appear to be blurry to his eyes. Upon stopping in front of the door the room is filled with silence as he just sits there waiting. After a few seconds the door starts to open on its own and a light starts to fill out making him cover his eyes.

"Wake up Spyro, there is an emergency!" Stealth Elf says while shaking Spyro awake. "What's up with you? You never sleep that deep in the middle of the day." She says sounding concerned about him. He really hasn't been his usual cheery and overconfident self lately and it has been bothering Stealth Elf for a while now. She knows that he says its nothing big, but her gut tells her that something is eating at him and her gut hasn't been wrong yet. "Kassondra just called for us, she says that something has happened to the Skylands."

Shaking his head to wake himself up Spyro got up and started running towards the main room. This caught Elf's attention as she never saw Spyro run before, unless he physically couldn't fly. "Is something wrong with your wings Spyro?"

"What? Oh no, sorry just eh still feeling drowsy is all got that whole limp wing feeling its fine. See?" he says this as he starts to fly up and prove his point by doing a loop in the air. "Come on let's go see what's up." As Spyro flew he started to think back on the dream that he had. He never had one where he couldn't fly before, and he has never had a dream where he was not in control of himself at all. Normally he can at least change direction or talk in them but the last one felt so set. Like he was having a dream that someone else had thought up and he was just experiencing it. 'Maybe it was Dreamcatcher who did this, after all her powers are to literally enter and control people's dreams. But something tells me that it wasn't her, after all she really likes to make people afraid of things or make people experience nightmares, and it didn't feel like that. I wasn't afraid at all.' Before Spyro could ponder any further he had reached the main room with the rest of the team. Pop Fizz was mixing some potions together in the back. Eruptor and Jet-Vac were sitting on the couch while Kassondra was sitting behind the desk looking really upset about something.

"Good, now that everyone is here I can tell everyone why I called you here." Kassondra says this as she gets up from behind the desk to lean on it from the front. "I am not sure how or why but somehow, something is changing in Skylands."

"What do you mean that something is changing? Doesn't everything change all the time or is that me just seeing things?" Pop Fizz asks while scratching his head and throwing a beaker that still had something it in a random direction casing a minor explosion to occur. "See what I mean, I am pretty sure that there wasn't burn marks on the floor here a minute ago."

"Yes, Pop has a point, what do you mean Kassondra?" Jet-Vac says while leaning in closer to listen.

"I mean that something is disturbing the balance of the very core of Skylands itself, I already got reports that there are islands where the Mabu are saying that gravity doesn't work, or weird colored arks appear in the sky." As Kassondra says this, she notices that everyone seems to be totally fine with this information and that no one is showing any form of urgency.

"Well I mean that sounds bad but that isn't too abnormal for Skylands, that sort of thing happens from time to time, there is nothing that we can really do about it." Jet-Vac says rather matter of fact like, it sounded almost like he was about to give another 'lecture'.

"Normally you would be right Jet-Vac, but this is different somehow, and apparently due to this disturbance most of known Skylands is without signal or Wi-Fi." As soon as this is said every Skylander in the room immediately checks their cell phone with a gasp. Panic and danger apparent on their faces. "Really that's what you guys are more conserved with, typical. Anyways I tried using some magic to help us find what the source of the problem is when I found something disturbing." She says with a renewed look of worry on her face and she struggles to say the rest. "I think this event was caused by something happening to the core of light."

Everyone looks up from their phones and gasps at Kassondra's words, a string of questions asked at lighting fast paste soon followed along with great terror and shock coming from their faces, each question sounding more desperate then the last.

"How do you know this involves the core of light?"

"What happened to the core of light?"

"Is it safe did it get damaged or destroyed?"

"Is this the work of Kaos, did he manage to escape from Cloud Break?"

"How do we fix this, or are we already too late?"

"Enough" Kassondra shouted over the endless ramble of questions. "Look, I know the core of light is still in one piece, otherwise we would know about it. I know that it involves the core of light because when using my spells I rely on the core to balance my magic and when I tired using a spell to help locate the problem I found that my spell didn't work which means I either messed it up, or there is something wrong with the core of light, and I don't mess up my spells. As for Kaos, I checked with Cloud Break and they say he is still behind bars and being annoying, so it cannot be him. I am not sure as to how to fix this since I am not sure what is really wrong with the core to begin with, but it doesn't seem to be something we cannot fix, I am just more worried about how this happened since something like this has never happened before."

"Wait a minute, you said that all cell phones have no service and you cannot use magic to confirm anything so how do you know about what is happening at Cloud Breaker Prison?" Eruptor asks with a questioning attitude, sometimes he really can show how observant he is.

"I used a landline to call them, I had it installed so that way they can have a direct connecting with us in the case anything ever happens." Kassondra answers while crossing her arms making sure that she can be trusted. It wouldn't be the first time that Eruptor has given her trouble and has questioned her every move. "If we are done wasting time I would like us to get going, so that we can make it back in time for me to catch my soap operas, no service also means no TV apparently."

The Skylanders then stood on the stones of their respective element with Kassondra in the middle and they all appeared at the place just in front of the core of light. Sure, enough something was wrong with it. The core still was in one piece but the things that made up the core were different. The stone heads had some cracks in them were looking to be a little darker in color. The flowers and water looked a little sick and discolored. The flowers are not as bright looking, and the water looks like there is something like dirt in it making the once clear blue color now look grey in comparison. The biggest change was that instead of pure light coming from the core, there is instead a light grey stream coming from the top giving the entire core an eerie feel to it. Among the shock of the Skylanders there was something else in front of the core that caught their attention. Spyro and Kassondra looked on in horror

"It's about time you guys showed up, I was beginning to worry that you might have lost your way."

In front of the core stood a dark shadow, that gave everyone chills. This shadow looked exactly like the one that Strykore was when he was trapped away. The Skylanders readied themselves for whatever happens next. "How can this be? You were just sealed away again there is no way you could have escaped so quickly, it's impossible." Kassondra says looking like she has seen a ghost.

"Impossible?" the shadow laughs wildly in a deep dark tone, at this taking a good look around while doing so. "It would be and is for Strykore, but don't think that I am anything like him." The shadow says while glaring at the Skylanders. "Although I do understand your confusion, I did come here to get your attention and I thought that this would be the best way to do so." As the shadow says this, his shape begins to change and as he speaks his voice is also changing becoming lighter and a bit more pleasant to listen to although it still sounds like a man talking. "Now that I have your attention I no longer need to be like this, give me a sec to get a little more comfortable." As he says this the shadow changes into something completely different where there was once a shadow a person now stood.

The person looks to be the same shape as Eon, has but looks younger in comparison. He was dressed in what looked like a normal light blue colored shirt, with a weird spiral symbol on the front made with white lines. He is wearing black pants that look to have additional pockets on them. He has a dirty blond like hair and his eyes are teal colored. His skin looks fair but slightly pale looking, like he doesn't get out in the sun too often. "There much better."

"Who are you and what are you doing to the core of light?" Spyro demanded.

"I will answer in reverse, what I am doing to the core of light is nothing really. I am merely putting my influence upon it and as a result it turned out like this. I can assure you that it will not remain like this, in fact I have every intention of undoing this after I leave. I only did this in the first place to get you here so that I could talk to you all." He says with a very formal and flowery like way. Almost as if he was acting and was merely rehearsing his verse. "As for who I am… I will not say."

"What do you mean, ya won't say, how are we supposed to beat up the bad guy if we don't know what kind of jokes or insults to throw at you when we start to beat you up?" Pop Fizz asks while scratching his head.

The man sighs after hearing this. "What I mean is that I will not tell you my name, but I will tell you what you can call me, you certainly have zero patience for the dramatic. You may call me Jester, or J if you like."

"Okay 'Jester'" Jet-Vac says laced with sarcasm. "You have our attention and you got us here, so we are going to stop you now." Upon finishing this the skylanders moved into action each on taking up a different angle of Jester. The first one to attack was Eruptor, sending large lava balls directly at Jester. What Jester did in response to this is that he motioned his right hand facing the lava and a large amount of water seemed to come from nowhere and some of it hit the lava mid air making it disappear. The rest of the water was used to hit Eruptor and send him flying back. Next, Stealth Elf teleport's behind Jester and went to hit him using her blades. Without warning Jester's body crumbles to the ground as dust disappearing before her eyes. Jester then appeared behind her and, with a smug look on his face, touches the ground making several poles made of bone make a cage around her trapping her. Jet-Vac and Pop Fizz decided to attack together, Pop throwing a potion at Jester while Jet-Vac shoots with his vat gun aiming directly at Jester. In response to this Jester makes a motion with his hand and changes the direction of the air bullets to hit Pop's potion instead. The result of this is that a green goop forms around Jet-Vac and Pop making it impossible for them to move. Spyro takes advantage of the battle and swoops in from above sending some fire balls at Jester from behind. Instead of hitting their target the fire balls seem to hit the ground where Jester should of been. After looping around Spyro finds that Jester somehow managed to move a bit of the earth so that it protected him at the last second. After this the team became exhausted and so far Spyro is the only Skylander that is left standing and it looks like Jester isn't even breathing hard.

"Ya done?" Jester says in a nonchalant manner. "I did say that I didn't want to fight but that doesn't mean that I am just going to let you hit me."

"If you don't want to fight then what do you want?" Jet-Vac asks while trying to get the goo off of him and Pop. The goo is not that sticky or hard and seems to be dissolving on its own, which is weird to say the least. As Jet-Vac looks around he can see that the rest of his teammates are not really injured and their own binds are coming off on their own.

"I was hopping you would say that V," Jester says as he addresses Jet-Vac "Oh, hope you don't mind if I call you V, I mean I was going to call you J or Jet but that would be confusing with my name so V it is. And before any of you ask, because I know you all will, I know all about you all and yes you all have your own nickname, and no you don't get any say in it. Anyways what I want is simple. I want one of you to find out about me." Jester says this with a smile on his face.

"What do you mean find out about you and why one of us? You aren't making a lot of sense Jester." Stealth Elf says with confusion and threat in her tone.

"Easy there, I will explain. What I want is for one of you to find out about me and learn who I am. The catch is that the longer you take to figure it out the more harm that will come to Skylands. Think of it like a scavenger hunt, first one to find out about me wins and I stop causing harm to Skylands. The game is over when anyone of you says my name, and I don't mean Jester or J. As for hints or anything of the sort there will be none. You must figure out who I am on your own."

"How are we supposed to do that, with no hints how are we supposed to find out who you are?" Eruptor asks with menace in his voice.

"Relax Rup, I will tell all of you one thing as a way of pointing you in the right direction. There are people who know my name, though they may not know that they know it" Jester says this with a sing song. "Oh, and here is a little added bonus for Spyro." Jester perks up, saying this like it was something that he almost forgot. "My name is the key to everything about your past Spyro, and if you want to learn more I suggest you should find it first because if you do… I will answer any and every question you have about where you come from and who your family is, Spyro. And in case that any of you doubt me or say that I am lying, I do have proof. I got all of the details right here, and I will hand you this to prove its worth." Jester was holding a small note book and from it he had tore out a small page and tossed it to Jet-Vac. On the page was what looked to be a journal entry and it was signed and written by Eon.

After seeing this the entire team is frozen on the spot. Nobody could believe what they just heard and Spyro was immensely conflicted. How could this guy know about his family, his past? How did he know Eon and how could his name be the connection to all of this? Who is he?

"Any-who, I have said what needed to be said. As promised the core shall be fixed good as new and I hope that we meet again soon. Bye for now." As he said this a grey vortex comes from nowhere and engulfs Jester and when the wind settles, Jester is gone and the core returns to normal.

There is dead silence after Jester left as the rest of the team looks at Spyro seeing something in his eyes that they haven't seen in a while. A fire is lit in him and Spyro is oozing determination. They all know that without a doubt that Spyro will stop at nothing to catch him. HE will catch Jester and will finally hear about his family and all about the details behind them. Spyro now had the will and determination to go to the end of Skylands to find Jester. "It's on Jester."

Chapter 2: I think it starts with a K