Ch. 16: Who's A Real Man?
"Why don't you get it? I handled that entire mission solo! The others just held me back! I only got anything done after I ditched them!" Spy Rise snapped at Wash Buckler, conveniently forgetting to mention the assistance of Snap Shot.
"That may be true, but you mustn't forget the entire purpose of the SWAP Force," Wash Buckler sagely told the Spyder, swapping their legs. Spy Buckler stared at Wash Rise in frustration, before swapping back. "The ability to exchange posteriors? Big whoop," he snorted.
"You know what they say. A happy crew is a crew that works together," Wash Buckler smiled. "I just can't work with them. They never take anything seriously. Lives could be in danger and they're partying their exchangeable asses off!" the Tech Skylander shrieked.
Wash Buckler put a hand on Spy Rise's shoulder. "I think I know how to calm you down,"
X
"Aw yeah, now we're talking. Drink that beer like a real man!" Doom Stone shouted, pointing at Rattle Shake and Rubble Rouser, who heartily guzzled down flagon after flagon.
The Man Cave'a main hall was at the very centre of the massive hurricane and constructed from an Arkeyan Robot's body, with limbs spreadeagled and carried by several Skylands carefully positioned where they could hold the machine's weight. The robot's interior had been hollowed out and replaced with several tables and a flat wooden floor that spread through the machine. The only exception was the left leg of the robot, which was suspended vertically and had several holes cut into it to act as a hangar. This robot was the original Man Cave, everything else within the tornado was an expansion added by the SWAPlanders and other inhabitants that had been accumulated over the years. It was just the attitude the SWAP Force took. Village destroyed by Kaos? Come live in the Man Cave! Orphan with no home? The Man Cave has extra space! There's always room in the Man Cave! As a result of this attitude, over time a populated village was built around the base, creating a secluded, mostly self-sufficient and somewhat small community with few permanent residents. The majority of people who lived there were refugees who needed a place to stay while their homes elsewhere were being rebuilt.
The 'cave' had also been likened to being the SWAP Force's personal homemade amusement park by some critics. Pomfrey LeFuzzbottom in particular took a rather scathing view of it's construction and the casual methods used by the SWAP Force in general.
"Isn't this a great party? Great for teamwork and comradery and just to celebrate being part of the gang!" Wash Buckler exuberantly declared, putting an arm around Spy Rise's shoulders. "Yeah. It's brilliant," the Spyder groaned.
Doom Stone spun over to the two. "Come on, brassbutt! Show us you're a real man!" he commanded, snatching Spy Rise's left wrist, being careful not to hold the one that had his grapple gun on it, and pulled them towards the bar. "This is completely ridiculous! Alcoholism is totally unrelated to manliness! Manliness is no more than a concept anyway!" Spy Rise protested.
"Enjoy the party! It's all for you, old chum!" Wash Buckler shouted over at him.
"Hey, Blast Zone, would you mind setting fire to this?" Fire Kraken asked his fellow Fire Skylander, holding up a thin firework. "Why, is there a problem with your own fire, my friend?"
"Drank too much punch," the Sparkler Dragon burped, snapping his fingers for effect. There was a fizzing noise and a puff of smoke, but no fire. "Very well," Blast Zone nodded, touching the end of the firework's fuse to the fire emitting from his elbow. "Now, which window do you intend to shoot it out of?"
"Why would I shoot it out a window? No one would see it outside! I'm gonna fire it off inside!" Fire Kraken grinned, flicking his tongue. "What?" Blast Zone breathed.
The fuse burnt out and the firework ignited, shooting towards the wall. It hit the wall at an angle and slid up the curved interior of the robot, arcing around the roof and soaring back down towards the other side of the hall, where it landed with a minute splash in Doom Stone's tankard of beer. "This is how a real man drinks!" the golem shouted, downing the entire tankard - and the firework - in one gulp.
"Uh-oh," Fire Kraken nervously swallowed.
Doom Stone suddenly burped, expelling red-and-pink sparks and flickers from his mouth fir a full ten seconds, which rained down on Rattle Shake and Rubble Rouser. "Like I was saying. That's how a real man drinks his liquor!" he declared, before burping again.
"Hey, has anyone seen Grilla, Boom Jet and Freeze Blade?" Stink Bomb absent-mindedly asked.
X
"Hotshot? This is Edge. I've got eyes on," Edge trailed off. "I'm really not sure what, but I could use your advice,"
"Edge? Good to hear your voice, I was starting to worry. No one calls me anymore," Hotshot lamented from the other end of the line, and Edge rolled their eyes. "That's because you're number one on his hitlist. You're so badly wanted, you can't fart without someone who wants you dead getting a whiff of it,"
Hotshot chuckled. "Nice innuendo. Now, what's the situation?"
"A spider lady and a bunch of evil puppets is shipping a cage with one of those SWAP Force guys in it in a tiny airship. I don't think I want to know what they're doing with a locked up Skylander," Edge gulped.
Hotshot audibly groaned. "Tricky situation. See if you can help, but don't blow your co - get off the line! We're being traced, it's the Hunters! Thunderstorm's picked up a -" Edge cut the connection and swallowed nervously. "I sure hope no one traced my position. Or theirs - actually, I do hope they got my position. Then I could buy those two enough time to get on the move. Now, let's see what we can do about puppet lady,"
Edge took careful aim at the lock of the cage holding Boom Jet. An arrow was nocked on a bow, and the agent prepared to fire as, not far away enough for comfort, someone narrowed their reptilian eyes and hissed, "Ya ain't flying the coop on me this time, mate,"
A second before Edge could fire and free Boom Jet, an arrow whistled centimeters from her head. "What the -!" Edge shrieked, looking back towards where the arrow had come from. Their eyes went wide at the sight of a pale blue crocogator leaping out of cover and nocking another arrow to his bow. "This time, I won't miss!" Snap Shot shouted as Edge sprinted for cover, jumping into a small gulley where they would be safe from the crocogator's arrows. "That's right, ya li'l blighter, run away! I'll have your head stuffed and mounted on my wall someday, an' sooner rather than later!" he shouted, steadily advancing on the gulf that Edge was sheltered in. "Oh, and tell your bastard of a ringleader you-know-what's coming for him. You vagrants can't run forever!" Snap Shot fumed.
Edge stayed below and crawled towards their craft, knowing better than to respond to Snap Shot's taunts. Any speech would only give away their position.
"Fine, mate. Be that way. But a Hunter always brings home a kill," the crocogator leered.
A silver blur shot into the sky, whisper-silent, and Snap Shot cursed. "E' got away!"
X
"Question is, where do I start looking?" Jet-Vac wondered. "I s'pose I could get someone to give me a tour, or perhaps ask if anything unusual's been going on 'round here - but it might not 'ave been, I'm in a totally different section of Cloudbreak to that Woodburrow place now," he groaned.
"First order of business, transportation. Can't take the apartmentcraft, the rookie's sleepin' there and I can't have him taggin' along. Hmm," Jet-Vac thought for a second.
"Oi! You there!" he shouted at a nearby Frost Elf. "Ah, yes Skylander?" she responded, a little nervous.
"Is there an old airship or place where old airships are left anywhere around here?" the Sky Baron asked, trying to be polite as the civilian thought for a moment. "There'a a junkyard not far from the castle. Roundabout thataways, I'd guess," she responded. "Well, thank you kindly, ma'am," Jet-Vac nodded and smiled.
X
Kaos grinned as his armada advanced on Dragon's Peak. "Soon, soon! Soon, all of their riches will be mine! Muhuwahahahahaha!"
X
Suddenly, the doors of the Man Cave's main hall burst open and Grilla Drilla rushed in with Freeze Blade on his heels. "Guys! Boom Jet's been kidnapped!" the gorilla shouted.
This announcement threw the entire team into uproar. "What?" Trap Shadow demanded. "Who would dare do such a thing?" Night Shift demanded. "Come on, everyone! Let's go find him like real men!" Doom Stone shouted, banging his omnipresent halberd on his shield for effect.
"Hold up, everyone! Quiet!" Wash Buckler demanded, perching himself atop a table. "What exactly happened?" he growled, staring at Grilla Drilla and Freeze Blade, who quivered under the intensity of his gaze.
"We were spending the night in a rented room, and-and when we woke up, B-boomie had vanished!" Freeze Blade stammered nervously. "What makes you so sure that he didn't just leave early?" Wash Buckler frowned.
"Because he left this behind," Grilla Drilla somberly held up Boom Jet's beloved turbine. As one, the thirteen SWAP Force gasped. None of them could remember ever seeing Boom Jet without it. The turbine had practically been part of him. If he had gone somewhere willingly, he never would have gone without it.
"That settles it," Wash Buckler growled. "Someone has one of our own, boys. And what do we do when someone takes something that belongs to us?"
"WE TAKE IT BACK!" everyone shouted at once. Even Spy Rise joined in, swept away by the moment. "To the ship! We are going to find Boom Jet! And nothing will stand in our way!" Wash Buckler shouted, leading the charge through the doors of the Man Cave and towards the recently captured pirate galleon. A thunderous roar followed him. "AYE!"
"Wash Buckler, sir?" Magna Charge started. "Yeah?" the SWAP Force leader snapped. "Are you one hundred percent certain that utilizing a known pirate ship as transportation is a good idea? We should probably take some time to redecorate it," the Arkeyan Ultron recommended. "Curses, ya right, matey!" the mermasquid groaned. "Come on, men! To the paint depot!" Once again, Wash Buckler led the charge in a different direction, and another thunderous roar followed him. "AYE!"
X
"Well, this'll do nicely," Jet-Vac grinned. He was standing at the edge of a capricious junkyard, full of old airship parts. "I'm bound to find something serviceable in all this junk. Okay, nothing too large, needs to be able to be flown solo,"
Something to that end caught his eye. With a mighty heave he pulled a framework shaped like a giant bird's beak out of a pile of debris. "A SkyBike! Perfect!" he exclaimed. "Gonna need some fixing up, though," he awkwardly commented.
SkyBikes were popular contraptions among the younger members of Skylands' population. High-speed micro-aircrafts that rarely seated more than two people at a time, they were essentially just what the name implied; motorbike-like crafts that, instead of wheels, had propellers mounted in appropriate places to lift them into the air and various turbines or boosters to create forward thrust.
The one Jet-Vac had found, though, was missing it's engine casing, leaving the engine in plain view, and only had one turbine pointing downwards on the left side at a slight upwards angle. This model also had two horizontal-facing propellers on either side, likely for the purposes of steering. "Nothing I can't handle," the Sky Baron shrugged, quickly locating the ignition wires. "Figures there wouldn't be a key," Jet-Vac groaned, carefully prying the casing open and finding the wires that turning a key would trigger. He touched them together, completing the circuit, and was rewarded with the electrical engine roaring to life. "Perfect-a-rooney," the Sky Baron grinned, killing the engine and casting around the junkyard for appropriate parts he could use to get the SkyBike back in working order. He'd make it fly yet.
X
Snap Shot's phone rang. "Yello?" he answered.
A mechanical, synthetic, bur vaguely feminine voice answered. "Snap Shot. Did you get anyone?"
"Sorry, nada. Damn blighter got away on me. As usual," the crocogator groaned. The voice on the other end did likewise. "It sometimes seems like we're never gonna catch even one of them," she commented.
"Dontcha worry, Shifty baby," Snap Shot grinned. "All it'll take is one, then the rest'll drop like flies,"
"Urgh! I have told you before and I shall tell you again, my name is Gear Shift! And don't call me baby, you repugnant reptile. What happened to our code names, anyway?"
Snap Shot snorted. "I got bored of them. Anyways, tell the others to keep their trigger fingers at the ready. The volcano'll erupt in less than two weeks. And it wouldn't surprise me if they had something planned. Snap Shot signing off," he retorted.
X
"Free Ranger! Open the hurricane!" Wash Buckler commanded from the tiller of the newly rechristened 'S.S. REAL MAN', a hearty title that had been applied by Doom Stone in white paint before anyone could stop him, and the storm chicken perched himself on the edge of the ship's piranha figurehead, blades in claws.
As the sun set on a day gone by, Free Ranger swept his arms apart the omnipresent tornado surrounding and protecting the Man Cave parted just enough for the galleon to pass through, and it did. As the S.S. REAL MAN sailed towards the sunset, Wash Buckler cheered, "Let's find our teammate!"
A/N
A/N
I know it's getting stupid, but once again I 'borrowed' the gimmick of a minor character from Fairy Tail. Elfman is this big macho guy who's always going on about being 'a real man', and I just drew a parallel with the Man Cave. From there, given that the SWAP Force are all male, it wasn't hard to decide that one of them should go on like that. Like I said before, the majority of the SWAP Force are minor characters, so there's nothing wrong with making the ones who will only appear two or three times a little gimmicky and one-note, right?
Correct me if I'm wrong, Magicanus. -.-
Anyway. I just had to decide on who. Originally it was Blast Zone, but he seemed too knightly for it. Magna Charge and Rubble Rouser didn't seem right, so I started working my way through. Having crossed Tech, Magic, Water, Life, Undead and Air off the list, I . . . . then went on to cross Rubble Rouser, Blast Zone and Fire Kraken off the list. So I was just left with Doom Stone. Whaddya know, gimmick application doesn't determine who's the right or wrong choice, just which choices are left. :P
Sparkbutt, what EXACTLY do you mean by that?
LiteFox, good to hear from you as always. I think the hollowed out Arkeyan Robot was particularly inspired. I hope you like the S.S. REAL MAN, because you'll see a lot of it in the next couple of chapters. Yeah, poor Glumshanks. :(
Best OC Maker, thank you!
Phoenix, I abandoned that for a reason. Don't make me go into it again. -.-
Guest, who's Mr. G and why should I care?
Anyway, the SWAP Force and their S.S. REAL MAN are sailing off to find Boom Jet. Will they prevail?
Kaos is attacking Dragon's Peak for money. Will he pull it off?
Jet-Vac is building a SkyBike so that he can pursue the mystery of the invisible person. Can anyone guess, based on the description I provided of the SkyBike he found, as to it's future/true identity?
And will Edge escape Snap Shot and the mysterious Hunters organisation? Find out, next time! Chapter 17: Skyward! Peace!