Chapter 6: Fish to Fry
"What the hell?" Terrafin spluttered. "Hey now, dontcha go blaminizing anything on me. I dids try to warn you that we was about to go over a gosh darn waterfall, but you would not never listen, no you just kept on keepin' on shushin' and shushing me, and now mah boat has been smashed into a bazillion and one pieces, you is one hundred and eleventy-six percent going to pay for that," Snagglescale accused.
They were standing on the riverbank, a little way downstream from the waterfall. The boat had gone over and smashed. It had already sustained damage from the mines, and the impact with the water a hundred feet below smashed it to pieces. They had both falledn into the water and made it to shore.
"Whatever. We'll talk about that when we're back in civilisation," Terrafin brushed him off. "Come on, we're not gonna get anywhere if we don't get moving," he beckoned, starting to walk along the riverbank. "Nuh uh uh, I am not moving, I repeat that I am not moving from this here spot until I get my compensation, and that is a gosh darn fact that you can take with you, my legs will not budge and you cannot make them," Snagglescale retorted, placing his hands on his hips and jutting his chin out. Terrafin frowned for a second in thought, then smiled and shrugged. "I can work with that,"
X
"We need a ship," Sprocket decided. "What about the Dread-Yacht? Why can't we use that?" a being that was essentially a bomb with a face, with a robotic body attached to the bottom questioned. This was Countdown, the rookie assigned to Sprocket as her trainee. Sprocket frowned, cocked an eyebrow and gestured to the damaged ship, moored between two large branches that made up part of the Woodburrow docks, from the small cabin that they were using as a workshop. "You think that's gonna fly?"
Countdown turned and gasped at the sight of the Dread-Yacht. "What happened to the ship?!" he gasped, eyes wide, before pausing. "Oh, wait, I remember, Flynn crashed it. Right, heh heh," he nervously chuckled under Sprocket's patronising glare. "I, uh, have memory issues," he despondently shrugged.
Sprocket facepalmed and sighed. "I know, you told me that three times today already,"
"I did? Oh, uh, I forgot," Countdown shrugged, wincing. The Golding groaned. "This is gonna be a long two weeks," she muttered in irritation.
"We do need to get the Dread-Yacht fixed, right?" Countdown asked for clarification. "Yes!" Sprocket exclaimed.
"You get used to it. Trust me, I shared a school with him for the last half a year," Roller Brawl commented as she passed by. "Shouldn't you be with your mentor?" Sprocket questioned. "Cynder needs, ah, alone time," Roller Brawl shrugged nonchalantly. "Hope she's okay,"
Sprocket nodded in agreement. "Shouldn't you be more worried about her? Her boyfriend's reused his lead!" Countdown exclaimed.
"I think you mean presumed dead," Roller Brawl chuckled, then her smile slid off her face. "Oh dear. Spyro?! Dead?!"
"Wait, her boyfriend's Spyro? SPYRO! He can't be dead!" Countdown exclaimed, then paused. "Er, sorry but, who's Spyro again?"
Sprocket groaned. "I'm going to find a ship. There has to be something sky-worthy in this place,"
X
"One hundred and twenty-nine bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred and twenty-nine bottles of beer!" Snagglescale sang from where Terrafin was carrying him on his shoulders. The Gillman had been so annoyed that Terrafin was carrying him with little effort and wanted to make the journey harder for him in retaliation for the destruction of his boat. And everyone knew that Gillmen all had terrible singing voices.
"Stop that," Terrafin groaned. "You take one down and pass it around, one hundred and twenty-eight bottles of beer on the wall!" Snagglescale continued defiantly.
X
Spyro smiled in weary relief. "Huh. It's been so long that I've practically forgotten what a village that isn't being attacked by evil is like,"
Folding his wings, he glided down to the dock and landed on the creaky, damp planks of the small pier. He had arrived at the small village, which seemed to be inhabited by Gillmen. "Nice place, for a swamp," Spyro smiled, as despite the ramshackle appearance of the buildings the Gillmen inhabiting them really seemed to be having a good time. Confident, he approached one. "Excuse me, would you mind if I borrowed your phone? I need to call my friends," he requested.
"Why sure, matey. The community phone is right aboutsa thataways, therexactly within themsa sheriff's officearooney," the Gillman pointed to a ramshackle building, and Spyro nodded his thanks, moving in the direction of the building, while a pair of eyes watched him move from the shadows of a nearby tavern.
A voice whispered into a device, "Smasher to Thunderstorm. This is Smasher. I have eyes on the target. Over,"
"Copy that. I'll tell Miasma to keep an eye open. We can't let those other bozos beat us to this one," the walkie-talkie replied in a distorted, untraceable voice. "Wish me luck. I don't think I'm alone," the voice whispered.
X
Snagglescale continued to sing. "Seventy-two bottles of beer on the wall, seventy-two bottles of beer!"
"Please, for the love of all things under the Dirt Seas, stop that!" Terrafin begged. "Hey, look on the bright side, Skylandawatjimacallit. there's only roundabout seventy-one bottles of beer left to go,"
"I really wish I'd died in that crash. The Underworld's great this time of year according to Fright Rider," Terrafin moaned.
X
Cynder blinked as her phone rang and she spotted the caller ID. "Gillmen Swamps Protection Association, Mudwater Hollow Branch? Why are they calling me?" Regardless, she picked up and, shocked, felt faint at the sound of her boyfriend's voice. "Cynder? This is a bad line, can you hear me?"
The dragoness screamed. "Spyro! We thought you were dead!"
"Well that's just insulting," the purple dragon smirked. "It'll take more than a little aircraft crash to kill me,"
"Is Terrafin with you?" Cynder demanded. "Nope, we got separated. But I'm certain he's fine, if I survived that crash no way he didn't,"
"Hmm. I'll tell the others to send a ship to pick you up from Mudwater Hollow," Cynder nodded. "Hopefully he'll be back by then," she added. "Got it. Hopefully," Spyro repeated. "Love you. Bye," and Cynder could just hear the dragon's cocky smirk.
Spyro put the battered old phone back on it's receiver and turned to the Gillman lounging behind a desk that looked just as much like it was made out of driftwood as the rest of the beaten-up old town. "Thanks, Sheriff," he nodded. "Well, that's a pleasure to be a-helpin' out a Skylanderooney like yourself, matey. Toodleoo!" the sheriff yawned and waved as the purple dragon left the building.
"There's gotta be something to do around here," Spyro frowned, looking around. Gillmen waved at the sight of him, and the dragon paused at the sight of a hulking, large, moss-green Boghog being lead on a leash by a Gillman farmer, but shrugged it off as another of the many oddities of Skylands' individual regions. An indistinguishable silhouette flattened themselves behind the curve of the roof of a nearby building, and Spyro saw nothing there, but his sight was caught by something glinting off the sunlight over near a pier.
Out of boredom and curiosity, the dragon ran over to the pier, which looked rather ramshackle, but drew up at the edge of the rotten planks of wood. "That looks a little dangerous," the dragon frowned, and squinted at the object lying, abandoned, at the edge of the pier. It was some kind of small, purple crystal that was long and prismatic, like a miniature version of a laser reflector. "Purple. That's the magic element colour. That could make a nice necklace or something . . and Cynder does like amethyst," Spyro smiled.
He looked down at the damaged driftwood, and gingerly pressed a paw to it. Nothing happened. "I think that'll hold my weight," he breathed, carefully stepping onto the jetty. Sure enough, despite it's appearance, it held. One step after another, careful not to put weight on the wrong areas, Spyro crossed the planks.
After a few moments, he was within touching distance of the crystal.
X
Underwater, a ball of energy flickered into existence. "This is why they say I'm dangerous," a voice hissed, and the blast streaked through the water.
X
"Thirty-eight bottles of beer on the wall, thirty-eight bottles of beer! You take one down and pass it around, thirty-seven bottles of beer on the wall!" Snagglescale boisterously crowed. "SHUT UP!" Terrafin shouted, throwing him off his shoulders and yelling at him. "I have sat through two hundred and twenty-six bottles of beer and I'll be damned if I'm gonna sit through the last thirty-seven!" the Dirt Shark yelled.
"Well, you can't stop me and no half-decent Skylander would abandon a civilian in the middle of nowhere. So ya stuck with me," Snagglescale smirked.
The Skylander facepalmed. "Get on,"
X
An instant before Spyro could touch the prism, one of the rickety pillars supporting the jetty flew up into the sky, away from it's brethren. "What the . . . ." Spyro trailed off ad the planks he stood on began to collapse away from each other, smashing into the lake. The crystal rolled away and landed in the water, vanishing amongst the foam and spray, but the purple dragon had bigger problems as the pier collapsed underfoot. The planks splintered as the force and lack of support echoed through them, no longer able to support their own weight, and Spyro frantically backed up as the jetty collapsed into the lake.
But one wrong step sent an echoing crack through the structure, and with a large crack, the entire jetty collapsed into the lake and took Spyro with it.
X
"Twenty-two bottles of bear on the wall, twenty-two bottles of beer!" Snagglescale sung with a smirk. "You take one down and pass it around, twenty-one bottles of beer on the wall!"
Terrafin groaned, then his face lit uo at the sight of something in the distance. "A town! Thank god!" With that, he flung Snagglescale from his back, and the Gillman crashed to the ground a few feet away. "That's for two hundred and forty-one bottles of beer, you half-baked piece of cod! See ya!" And the Dirt Shark jubilantly abandoned his burden and positively skipped towards the town. "And I only had twenty bottles to go," Snagglescale moaned.
A/N
A/N
'Thunderstorm', 'Smasher' and 'Miasma' are all canon characters using codenames too. I'm really trying to tone down OCs as opposed to canon characters. If you're smart, you'll be able to figure out who they are.
Poor Terrafin, sitting through Snagglescale's singing. But Spyro might have bigger fish to fry . . . .
And I am so sorry that I took so long to update, there was this thing where I lost a bit of my work and didn't want to post until it was reclaimed. And I also know that this chapter is a little short, but I wanted to prove I'M NOT DEAD! Peace!