Academy Chronicles: Rise of the Skylanders
Chapter 24: Charging to Battle
Landing on a hill side opposite to where we dropped Makoto and Kyoko off, and far enough away from the factory's entrance for Monokuma and the rest of LOSE to see us, we made our way out of the Dreamcast.
Making our steps on the grass, bypassing hints of rusted Arkeyan architecture and robotic body parts, I heard a screech by Madoka.
"Kyaaaaa!"
"Madoka?!" I called out, running to her aid.
"S-Sayaka… you might wanna look at this…" Madoka said to me.
"Huh?" I looked down and recoiled in small shock. Not that it was scary, just surprising…
What appeared to be an entire fried chicken. Steaming, freshly grilled… it looked appetizing, but why? Wouldn't the food left behind by a race lost thousands of years ago be decomposed by now?
"Hugo… he said Onk Beakman was a penguin, right?" Madoka asked me.
"Y-Yeah, what about i-"
Then it hit me.
"…Oh."
That wasn't fried chicken. It was more along the lines of grilled penguin.
"Madoka! Sayaka! What's going on?" Sonic asked as he ran up, Spyro following suit with the others not far behind.
"We found Beakman." I said, pointing at the smoking corpse.
Sonic's eyes widened as he leaned forward.
"Damn, they… they killed him. I guess once he outlived his usefulness, they cooked him up."
Spyro was grinding his teeth at this point.
"You mean… we're too late?!" His horns were flaring up. I can tell he hasn't faced a casualty as a Skylander. At least, not in a while.
"Oh no!" Neptune screamed. "They Uncle Owen'd him!"
Spyro looked at Neptune with a furious expression.
"You think now's the time for a joke?! Seriously?!" He growled.
"S-Sorry, sorry… that's just a defense mechanism. I didn't mean to spit on his grave…!" Neptune said in her defense, sweating.
Spyro's face became more and more distraught. I had to do something.
"Spyro, this is what they want from you!" I blurted out, getting his attention.
"I'm nooo stranger in being guided to despair. I wouldn't be here if that didn't happen! Monokuma wants you to feel that, okay? Why else would he leave that corpse here?" I told him. "He wants you to feel like you failed. Don't give him that satisfaction."
Spyro was still breathing heavily, but I still encouraged him.
"Don't give him what we wants…"
"Right, right. We fail sometimes, yeah…" Spyro muttered.
"Hang on." Homura then interrupted. "If Monokuma put that corpse there, that means…"
"He's been expecting us all along!" Tails exclaimed.
Just then, a large voice bellowed from afar.
"SURPRIIIIIIIISE!"
A light then shone on us. As we shielded ourselves from the light, we see the REX once more, piloted by Ronin and Monokuma hanging from the sides.
"About time you joined us!" Ronin chuckled. "They've been expectin' ya."
"So you decided to follow us, eh? Like out little rotisserie gift?" Monokuma asked. "Boy, you guys are soooo predictable! What'cha did to Hope Dope and Bacon Hands, though?"
"None of your business!" I yelled out.
"D'awww, big words from a little kid!" Monokuma laughed. "Puhuhuhu!"
"Laugh all you want, Monokuma! There's no way we're letting your Liberators go out into the rest of the multiverse!" Sonic barked back.
"Too late for that! Our army's ready, you bastards! Take down as many as you can, you'll still be overwhelmed! I dare ya! I double dare ya! I triple dog dare y-"
Monokuma's speech got cut off, though as a laser pierced through one of the REX's engines.
"Uh-oh! We're going down!" Ronin says, trying to maintain control. The REX began to spin and spin as it flew down the hill and into a patch of grass down below, but still giving time for Monokuma and Ronin to hop out to the factory.
"O-Okay… Tails, you outdid yourself with that laser, pal! Good on ya!" Pop Fizz congratulated.
"That wasn't me." The fox replied before we all turned around in response to the ground now shaking as something approaches.
To our surprise, it was a giant tree monster. It was Tree Rex, one of the Giant Skylanders! Spyro got backup!
The hulking plant leaned down to acknowledge Spyro.
"Call received." He grinned.
"Thanks, Tree Rex." Spyro nodded.
Marching behind the giant, more and more creatures of shapes and sizes appear, ready to combat the Liberator forces. It was the Skylanders!
"We're here, Spyro!" Gill Grunt, the fish-like Gillman with a harpoon gun told the dragon.
"Gill! Thanks, man! You couldn't have come at a better time!" Spyro got out his wing to "high-five" his close friend.
"Hahahaha! Where's the targets?! Heeheee! They're mine, mine, mine!" Trigger Happy, the eccentric gunslingling gremlin eagerly asked.
"Down that hill!" I said, pointing at the factory. "We have two people hoping to stop the creation of these guys! What we gotta do is stall for them!"
"And when all's said and done, I'm taking the mates responsible to CloudCracker Prison!" The reptilian bow wielder Snap Shot promised.
"Sounds like a plan!" Sonic grinned before getting out his sword.
Spyro then flew up, spewing fire into the air.
"Let's end this together! Skylanders, to battle!"
With that, we charged down the hill to engage in the fight that will determine the fate of the multiverse as we know it.