Skylanders Part 1

The Skylands, a peaceful place where creatures of all shapes and sizes and ways of life live in harmony with one another. Aside from one evil tyrant named Kaos. Do to his interference on countless cases, things aren’t so peaceful anymore. This is especially true for one fire dragon in particular, who suffers every night since an unfaithful accident. Sitting on a high, sheer cliff, stands a large manor made of sturdy materials like refined metals, cured and petrified woods, and several frames of stained glass. Inside, however, are thousands of different electrical wires connecting from one machine to another. Deeper still is a chamber filled with test tubes, computers, and other equipment. On one side of a customized microscope was the fire dragon in question. His scales were a deep red with dark orange scales forming a flame like pattern down his back and legs. His wings were folded tightly against the side of his body, but traces of black leather membranes could be seen clearly. His claws were also seen as black while his long straight horns were a dull yellow-orange.
         He stepped back from the microscope and rubbed his eyes with one of his front paws. When he set his paw back on the ground he blinked a couple times. His reptilian eyes were orange at his slitted pupils and turned green from there. He sighed to himself as smoke escaped from his nostrils. “Eon damn me; another failure to isolate the correct isotopes to cancel out that vicious… transformation…” He visibly shivered. He quickly shook his head. “No, I will fix this. Without going to Eon himself.” He checked out the window and saw it was well past high noon. “I might have some time to talk to Jet-Vac and Hoot-Loop before I have to get back in my cage.”
         He made for the door when a knock came from it. This startled the dragon greatly seeing how the only way for someone to find his home or even get to it was to fly higher than most can handle. Unless you’re from the Wind Tribes… or knew one of the Giants.
         Opening the door, he found a couple different green dragons; one had mechanical parts covering its head and eyes with a single silver horn atop its head curving back, large mechanical wings, and a large blue tail tip shaped like a drill. The second had red eyes with large black pupils, several thorn-like horns along its head, thorn-like spines, a large leaf like tail, and red feet up to the knees on all four legs. Both seemed incapable of reaching this height, aside from the one with the robotic parts. Both seemed a bit surprised themselves.
         “Camo? Drobot?” the fire dragon pondered. “How did you guys get up here?”
         Camo looked around. “I’m not too sure how to answer ya Drake. One minute we were talking to Hoot-Loop, the next we’re here.”
         “Affirmative,” Drobot continued. “I let slip that my flight protocols seemed to be desynched from my flight motor functions. He did something and now we’re here at you headquarters where you refuel and recharge.”
         Drake sighed as more smoke escaped his nostrils. “Alright, get inside. I think I know what your problem is Drobot.” He turned around and led the two dragons inside.
         “No matter how many times I see this place from the outside,” Camo began as he whistled. “The inside is so impressive.”
         “Affirmative,” Drobot confirmed. He stopped at a table as Drake approached with one set of tools in his mouth and another tool wrapped in his tail. “Should I deactivate?”
         Drake took the tools from his mouth and set them down on the nearby table. “Just your vocalizer so I can work in peace.” He brought his tail around and took the tool from it with one of his front paws. He pressed a small button hidden between Drobot’s wings. A panel opened on his side and Drake peered inside. “Yep, just as I thought; your timing gears are loose. What have you been fighting out there? The Giants?”
         Camo chuckled as Drake got to work. “Close enough.”
         Drake looked to Camo with a bored expression. Camo sighed in defeat. “Okay, truth is we were trying out some new combos to see if we could join the Trap Team.”
         Drake raised a brow. “Trap Team? Are you talking about those guys with the Traptanium crystal weapons? Why would you want to join them?”
         “Cuz they’re awesome!” Camo replied. “If we show them we can fight alongside the best, we can help them get those prisoners back where they belong and then some! If we can lock them all away into Traptanium crystals, then the only one left for us to trap away would be Kaos himself!”
         Drobot gave a nod, having complied with Drake’s request to shut off his vocalizing protocols until repairs were finished. Sometimes the cyborg dragon can take things a bit too literal. Drake set the tool down and pressed the button again to close the hatch. “I’ve finished the repairs. Try not to knock those gears loose again by any strenuous flight for at least three days.”
         Drobot nodded. “Affirmative. I thank you for your assistance in my repairs, Unit Drake.”
         The two made their way to the door and stepped out, both using their powers to get down careful so as to not hurt themselves on the way down to the ground. Drake sighed as he glanced outside before shutting the doors. “It’s too late to go out and explore a bit. Damn… I really need to get more of Pop Fizz’s potion to reverse this curse upon me.” He proceeded to a large, reinforced metal cage with several different binds and chains. “Here we go again, the same routine every night.” He sighed as he shut the cage and its electronic lock activated. He went to work putting each of his legs in the binding chains, followed by his tail, wings, body, and finally his neck. He walked as close to the back of it as he could and curled against the bars.
         “If I can’t get rid of this monster inside me, she’ll never listen to me again…” Drake mumbled to himself as he shut his eyes, dreading the coming of the moonlit darkness of the night and unaware of a dark being already within his home smirking wide.

Morning came as a smack to his muzzle, literally, as Drake was sent tumbling into a stone wall. Wait… stone? Wasn’t he in a metal cage just last night? Drake struggled to get up as the attack and collision knocked his sense of balance off. He shook his head carefully to get the dizziness out, but once it was, he wished he hadn’t. Surrounding him were several angry and furious looking Skylanders ranging from all the tribes. Those who were magically inclined had spells or attacks at the ready, and those with weapons had them aimed and primed. With a yelp, Drake pressed his back against the rock wall behind him. He couldn’t see any of his friends amongst the mob of attackers, so Drake assumed that meant they either hadn’t heard what’s happening here or they were being forced to the farthest part of the mob.
         “What are you all doing?!” someone yelled from above with an accent. Drake looked up and saw Jet-Vac with some interesting new equipment. He landed and aimed back at the crowd. “Get back! All of ya! Back I say!”
         Drake cautiously stepped closer to his friend. “Am I ever glad to see you right now Jet-Vac. I don’t know how I got out here, but I do know why they’re all attacking me. Can you fill in the blanks from there?”
         Jet-Vac looked back to his friend with a saddened expression. “I’m afraid not my friend. But I can help you get back to your home.” He looked back to the mod as a few tried to get close. “I said back!”
         Drake looked down, defeated. Until he heard the sound of wing beats. Looking up he saw a couple more of his friends, Spyro and Cynder, hovering above with snarling expressions and claws and talons at the ready. A shadow of a smile began to appear. What really surprised him what when several tall and large individuals appeared with crystal like weapons. Two were aquatic but one had a bow like dual weapon and the other had two starfish shaped weapons. One was blue and had an even bigger boomerang. Two were machine like; one female in shape with a large gear shaped hula-hoop and the other with crystal around his large fists. One was a golden lion with a large red crystal shield and the other was as big as the blue one with the boomerang only he was holding a large red crystal bazooka. One was dual wielding brown crystal hammers and another female had a Nordic helmet with large brown crystal horns. Another looked like a pharaoh and had a large black crystal sword. Each of them seemed to be on their side as they were all aiming against the mob. Many started to back down as murmurs started up.
         “I-Isn’t that them?” Drake heard from one.
         Another answered, “Those weapons give them away; they’re made from Traptanium.” Drake’s eyes widened from that realization.
         “Why would the members of the Trap Team want to help protect that monster?!” one yelled.
         “It makes no sense!”
         “Trap him!”
         “Send him away from the Skylands!”
         “Get him outta here!”
         Drake didn’t understand what could have happened this one time that could have caused everyone to hate him so much. He understood all the terrible things he’s done over the course of several weeks, but what happened in that single night that could have caused all of this? At that point he was done being afraid and done of hiding behind his friends. He stood up fully and stepped around Jet-Vac and started to make his way through the Trap Team. He didn’t stop or even flinch as Hoot-Loop appeared in the blink of an eye with Sunburn, Camo, Drobot, and even a few other members of the Swap Force; Blast Zone and Freeze Blade to just name a couple. Each of them watched as he walked meticulously towards the crowd with determination present in his eye and the by the snarl on his muzzle. He stopped only a few feet from the crowd.
         He heard the others behind him begin to step forward, but he stopped them by spreading his wing to the side. “No.” They looked to him as Spyro and Cynder landed and he glanced at them. “If I am to be punished for the crimes I’ve committed today, then I should at least face them head on.” He folded in his wing and faced the crowd. “But before you pass your judgment; at least do the doomed one last favor?”
         One from the crowd stepped forward, her skin was as pale as the moon and she wore a robe of the purest black. From the sides of her head were two large, upturned wing like horns and on her shoulders were pieces of armor. Her pupiless eyes and black lips set her apart from others of the undead tribes In Drake’s eyes. She was rather attractive for a bipedal, but not attractive enough.
         “Hex,” Drake began. “I thought I smelled you. Can you please explain to me what’s happened here and why everyone is so pissed off at me?”
         Hex kept her gaze on Drake even those behind her shifted their weight back and forth, waiting for a reason to attack the mutant fire dragon and kill him on sight. “What you did in a single night, Drake, is inconsequential to all of your previous crimes that you have sought to self-punish yourself over. You invade this humble village and attacked everyone on sight, destroyed countless structures and buildings, and event went as far as injured a few.”
         Drake knew these were the norm the few times he hadn’t caged himself in time. But what could have been so different this time? “What aren’t you telling me?”
         Hex seemed unable to fully answer for a good minute until she set her gaze and outright said, “You grabbed Whirlwind in your mouth in what seemed to be an attempt to devour her but you instead ran off into the distance towards Kaos’ palace of darkness. From which you must have been blasted out come daybreak for you crash landed at the point of first dawn’s light.”
         A few in the mob of Skylanders hissed, growled, and yelled for justice to be made against the fire dragon. But what Hex saw in her friend’s eyes made her dread to her core telling him that horrid detail. His pupils shrank into tiny dots against his green eyes. The unbridled fear and anguish from how his jaw hung loose and drop of his tail and wings. His entire body language yelled horrific realization that he had never thought something like that could happen. But in the blink of an eye that horror turned to rage as his jaw clenched and his teeth gashed against each other. His claws and talons dug into the earth beneath his paws. His wings closed into his body but then began to spread again; out and upward to give him the look of a predator. His tail began to lash, slowly at first, but then became as quick as a whip; fury and hatred flowing outward with each lash. His pupils returned to their normal slitted selves, but grew larger with anger as a fire burned white hot behind them. A hungering growl escaped from his throat as all present went quiet from shock. Of everyone there, no-one, not even his closest friends, had ever seen him in such a state of anger. He looked now less like a dragon and more like a demon in quadruped form. Many backed away as the growling got worse and worse and turned into snarls.
         Spyro cautiously stepped towards his friend. “Drake? Hey buddy, you okay?”
         When Drake looked back, Spyro’s heart skipped a beat as he saw the true fury within Drake’s eyes. “I’ll not stand by any longer and I will not hold myself back any further! Kaos did this to me, made me a monster. Well, I’d say it’s about time he took a good long look at what he’s made me into! If any of you follow, I will not be responsible for your deaths!” With a quick snap of his wings, he took off into the air, the crowd below him disappearing in only a few short seconds.

A single being laid in a cage hanging high in the ceiling of a large dark room. She had a sky-blue body that contained a mix of scales and feathers with a similar pattern to her wings and long tail. She had long pointed ears and a long horn coming from her forehead. Her eyes were a dark purple with light blue irises with big pupils. Her whole body ached all over from the injuries she took from that fire dragon bastard. She never dreamed he’d break his promise to her, to all of the Skylanders, that he’d stay locked away in his home during the night. She could see some red starting to form and drip down her body where the sharp points of the teeth held her in place in his mouth. If she were to ever see him again, she’ll-
         “Finally awake, are we Whirlwind?” asked an irritating voice just to her left. “I thought for a moment you had died on the way here. Too bad… for you that is!” It began to laugh obnoxiously.
         Whirlwind looked over painfully and saw him; Kaos. He was as she last remembered, a dwarf sized Caucasian skinned child of a man with an ugly mouth, three black bordered diamonds on his head, and draped in a black hooded robe with the hood down. She and all of the Skylanders hated this person with a passion, but they all knew his existence was only to keep the necessary powers that be in check so things didn’t get too peaceful. Yet his counterpart, Eon, was necessary to ensure that the whole of the Skylands from falling into discord and disarray. Two powers, two ultimate forces of nature, two beings that represent them.
         She hissed at him, causing a pain in her chest to force her to flinch. “What am I doing here, and why me of all Skylanders? Why not someone else?”
         Kaos floated back a bit, his magic allowing him levitation. “Why you? Because of you, I’ve started to lose control over my little pet. Before he started making sure to lock himself up in a way that he knew he’d never escape, I would have full control over him while the moon was out and have him destroy everything in sight! I had him in my clutches!” He held his hand out win a partial clenched state to emphasize his point. “But then you came along, and my control started to slip…” He turned his back to her and raised his hands upwards. “Because of some unknown force about you or surrounding you, he began to look closer into his DNA, his very biotic coding to find the source of his monstrous other form during the night. Each day he gets closer to finding that which I’ve caused and each night I’ve lost more and more control!”
         Whirlwind processed what the god-ling was talking about. She did recall the first time she had witnessed Drake during the night and had been afraid of him at one point because he had himself ready to attack her… but he didn’t. Or rather, it seemed he couldn’t attack her. A realization finally dawned on her, forcing a different kind of red to flush to her cheeks. “He started doing everything… because he-…” Her train of thought was interrupted when a nearby blasted inwards at ground level a few stories below her. She and Kaos looked down and saw a red dragon with orange flame patterns, black claws and talons, and long straight dull-yellow horns. His eyes were a very unique coloration, and they betrayed an anger that no doubt Kaos could use to his advantage.
         “Drake?!” Whirlwind shouted in surprise but Kaos stated as though he was expecting the fire dragon.
         “Release Whirlwind now Kaos,” Drake stated venomously. “Or you’ll answer to my wrath.”
         Kaos grinned as he floated down to the ground, his hand behind his back. “Oh, I don’t think so, my little pet.”
         Drake kept his composure but the growl escaping his throat showed he didn’t come with much patience. “I said you will release Whirlwind or I will kill you.”
         Whirlwind’s eyes widened at his bold statement to kill the only entity that can keep Eon in check. Kaos chuckled. “I don’t think you understand the position you’re in.” He snapped his fingers and lights shined on two sets of large crystals, one a light blue and the other a vibrant red. “The only way either of you are leaving is if the other is trapped away in one of these crystals. Both of them are Traptanium crystals, one for fire and the other for wind. Only one of you can leave but only after the other is trapped in one these crystals.” He smiled as the cage moved to be hanging right about the light blue Traptanium crystal.
         Drake squatted down with smoke escaping out the sides of his mouth. “If you dare to harm a single feather on her body, I’ll-!”
         Kaos scowled. “You’ll do nothing if you value your precious Whirlwind’s safety and freedom! I know spells and rituals that will allow me to release her from the Traptanium but keep her entirely under my control.” Drake’s anger vanished in an instant. Kaos smiled. “Unless you want her against you instead of with you, surrender yourself to me and allow me to have full control over you during the night until I finish my little experiment with you. Then you’ll have no choice but to obey me forever!” He laughed. “You’re choice; you, or her?”
         Drake looked to the cage, locking his eyes with Whirlwind’s. Although he wasn’t psychic, through locking their eyes, he could feel his feeling transfer to her as a plan between the two of them that would have taken hours to explain took only seconds. Drake stood tall as he began to approach Kaos at a slow walk.
         “There’s something about me you’ve failed to realize Kaos,” Drake stated.
         Kaos raised a brow. “I know everything about you. You’ve nothing to hide from me.”
         Drake hissed a bit. “How about the fact I’m still in this form even though it’s sundown?”
         “Say wha…?” Kaos stammered as he glanced outside the hole. His eyes widened as he looked to Drake again as he saw the muscles ripple across his body. His form began to get larger and more muscular as his claws grew sharper and his wings grew outwards into bigger and meaner shapes. His tail whipped and lashed and grew into a larger form with a blade at the end. His legs hind legs grew bigger and stronger and allowed him to take a bipedal stance. His front paws popped and strained and changed into clawed hands. His head and face and neck began to contort and change from normal dragon parts to something almost unidentifiable. From the darkness that then enveloped the chamber, one couldn’t truly see how Drake had changed in his full form, given how he had only attacked during the night, not too many knew what he looked like anyways. But within the fading light of dusk Kaos only now just realized the folly of his meddling. And how fatal this whole plan was…
         “Care to dance with the devil in the pail moon light?” the monstrous hulking mass of unbridled hate and anger questioned with a growling voice that couldn’t be identified as Drake anymore.
         Kaos looked at the large creature before him, screamed like a little girl and rushed out rather quickly, causing Whirlwind’s cage to return to its original position. The shadowed mass then turned its attention to said cage. It forced upon the bars and retrieved the injured Whirlwind from within. It held her close and carefully, even as it began to shrink again. This feeling was rather unusual for the mass as Whirlwind understood it, but welcomed it nonetheless.
         “I’m sorry about all of this that’s happened,” the mass said. “I never meant for any of this to happen. To you, to me, to every victim that I’ve made. I swear I’ll make it up to you all.”
         Whirlwind watched as the bipedal creature set her down on the ground, resumed a quadruped stance, and eventually return to the form of Drake; your best friend. She saw the tears falling from his eyes as he continued to apologize for every accounted incident when Kaos forced him to do horrible things. She carefully stood and rubbed the side of her head against his to get him to shut up.
         “Sometimes you talk way too much,” Whirlwind finally stated after the sob filled apologies stopped. “As long as you come down from that stupid building you call a house and help with the rebuilding, I’m sure everyone can find it in their hearts to forgive you.” She smiled at Drake as he smiled back after wiping his nose on the back of one of his front paws. “But, before we get there… how in the world did you pull that off?”
         Drake smiled a bit more. “Unknown to Kaos is I kept in contact with my science pal Pop Fizz. Just before arriving here, he gave me a potion that temporarily gave me control over myself and my transformation during the night. He and I are working on a permanent cure to my transformation so that I can change back and forth whenever I want. But to do that, I need to keep living in my home. I’ve grown quite accustomed to it.” He looked away a bit. “A-And maybe you could… move in…?”
         Whirlwind pressed a claw to his mouth. “Uh, no. I don’t think so.” She placed her paw on the ground but smiled. “At least, not yet. How about we just get me patched up and getting back to the others?”
         Drake smiled and nodded, utilizing the best of his first aid training to get the bleeding to stop in some areas or cleaned off in others. The two proceeded to take a long walk back to the others who may or may not have already begun reconstruction or any and all objects damaged. The walk may have been long and took them well into the next day, but they were happy for each other’s company throughout it all.