by Beakman, Onk
Chapter Thirteen
TRUE COLORS
The Chompies bared their gigantic teeth as they raced forward. As Trigger Happy whipped out his extraordinarily long tongue to recover his golden pistols, Drill Sergeant sent a barrage of homing rockets flying up to meet them, but they did little damage.
Kaos, meanwhile, was cackling with laughter as Wiggleworth moaned in dismay. Spyro hated to admit it, but Kaos was the only person who could defeat these things, as he had defeated all the other mega monsters that had appeared recently.
Then he caught something out of the corner of his eye. A tiny Chompy was staggering out of the ruins of the wall. A small, regular-size Chompy. A Chompy that was missing a tooth.
Even as Trigger Happy frantically squeezed off another half-dozen rounds of gold coins, everything became clear. Kaos hadn’t destroyed the giant Chompy that Drill Sergeant had defanged. He’d just shrunk it down to its normal size. Why? Because the little twerp had been the one who had made it so big in the first place.
“Stealth, first question: can you walk?” Spyro hissed through clenched teeth.
“I can run if it helps stop those things.”
“Good. Second question: can you get Kaos’s staff?”
Ignoring her aching ankle, Stealth Elf was off like a shot. She moved so fast she was a blur. Before Kaos knew what hit him, she had grabbed the red staff and was standing back at Spyro’s side. “You mean this one?”
“Wha…,” screamed Kaos, staring at his empty hands. “Give that back to me!”
“I don’t think so,” shouted Spyro, shooting into the air. “Steath Elf, supersize me!”
Stealth Elf pointed the staff at Spyro and a beam of magical energy shot toward the dragon. It hit him square in the chest, and, in the blink of an eye, Spyro was the size of the giant Chompies. A second later, he was twice as big again.
“That’s more like it!” the mega Spyro roared, his voice rattling every window in the Archive. “It’s time you three picked on someone your own size.”
The Chompies skidded to a halt, but still bared their fangs. This was going to be a big scrap.
Spyro flapped his mighty wings, each beat like a thunderclap, and soared up into the sky. He pivoted in midair and plunged back down, butting into the first Chompy. It sailed off its feet, through the air, and over the edge of the island.
“One down. Two to go!” Spyro boomed, before letting out a shriek of pain. One of the other Chompies had bitten down on his tail and was holding fast.
At ground level, Stealth Elf gasped, momentarily distracted by the fight. It was all Kaos needed.
“I’ll take that, fool.” Without warning, he grabbed the staff and jabbed it at Stealth Elf. The crystal on the end lit up and, for a moment, Drill Sergeant thought his friend had been disintegrated. Then he heard a tiny, weenie voice.
“Down here!” it cried. “Down here!”
The bulldozer peered down to see a minuscule Stealth Elf in the grass. Kaos had shrunk her to the size of an ant.
The evil Portal Master pointed the staff at Spyro. “Time to bring you down to size, you COLOSSAL CRETIN!” he cried, letting loose a beam of light. Spyro saw the crystal flare and, straining with the weight of the Chompy, swung his tail around. The Chompy was pulled off its feet, straight into the path of the beam. With a flash and a squeak, it was reduced to its usual dimensions and thudded to the floor, stunned.
“Bah! I won’t miss this time, fool!” Kaos screamed, bringing the staff about. Spyro opened his mouth to breathe a ball of fire at the Portal Master, but needn’t have bothered.
“Yow!” shrieked Kaos, leaping into the air. “That really hurt!”
Drill Sergeant’s eyebrows shot up as he watched the Portal Master hop around clutching his ankle. Then he noticed something stuck deep in Kaos’s ankle—a teensy dragonfang dagger buried right up to its handle. The pin-size Stealth Elf had taken her revenge.
Kaos scratched at his ankle, trying to pull the dagger out, yelping all the time. “Get it out! Get it out!”
Glumshanks ran over to his master and grabbed Kaos’s ankle, sending the bald villain crashing onto his back with a thud. “You’re always giving yourself splinters,” the troll butler tutted before expertly plucking the dagger from his skin.
Kaos sighed in relief before his face fell.
“Missing something?” thundered Spyro as he wrestled with the remaining Chompy. Kaos’s eyes went wide.
“My staff! Where is my enchanted staff?”
“Be-beep! Let me help look for it, sir,” shouted Drill Sergeant, rolling forward. Kaos threw up his hands when he saw the staff with its precious magical crystal lying on the grass in front of Drill Sergeant’s bulldozer wheels. “Coming through!”
“Nooooooooo!” Kaos yelled as Drill Sergeant drove straight over the ruby. The metal staff mangled beneath his treads and, with a tinkling crunch and a flash of light, the crystal shattered.
“Oops!” Drill Sergeant grinned. “My bad, sir. My bad!”
There was a fizz of energy, and suddenly Spyro and the Chompy were back to their normal sizes. With a flick of his tail, Spyro batted the Chompy out of the way and turned to see Stealth Elf pop up from the grass.
“Nooooooooooo, you FOOL!” Kaos shrieked, his hands running over his bald head. Spyro was sure that if the Portal Master had hair, he would be pulling it out. “Look what you’ve done!”
“We’ve beaten you,” giggled Trigger Happy, swinging his pistols around to cover the defeated Portal Master. “That’s what we’ve done. Oh yeah!”
“This was always the plan, wasn’t it?” Spyro snarled, stalking forward. “Test your staff out on those other creatures—toads, caterpillars, cockroaches…trolls.” He glared at Glumshanks, who shrunk back behind his master. “Make people think you were saving them from the monsters, just so you could attack the Archive and blackmail the curator. You thought he would be so blinded by hero worship that he’d just hand over whatever you wanted.”
“And he was wrong,” shouted Wiggleworth, from his fellow Librarian’s hands. “Quite wrong. I’d never give him anything he wanted.”
Kaos was surrounded now, cringing on the floor with Glumshanks, while Spyro, Stealth Elf, Trigger Happy, Drill Sergeant, and the remaining Warrior Librarians looked on.
“I suppose you think you’ve won, dragon breath,” he spat, struggling to his feet. “I suppose you think this is all over.”
Spyro smiled.
“Looks that way to me.”
“Does it now?” Kaos straightened his robes and took a sniff from the orchid in his lapel. When he looked up again, he was smirking. “It’s far from over, little dragonfly. If you thought you’d faced your biggest challenge, you were wrong. So, so wrong.” The maniacal Portal Master was shouting now, screaming at the top of his maniacal voice. “Hear me. Hear Kaos! This is only the beginning! You are doomed! DOOMED LIKE NEVER BEFORE! DOOOOOOOOMED!” Kaos broke into frenzied laughter and clapped his hands, summoning a Portal. In a flash, he had gone, taking Glumshanks with him.
A tiny scrap of paper floated from where Kaos had stood. Cautiously, Trigger Happy walked over, snatched up the paper and, after glancing at it, held it out for Spyro to read.
“Did I mention that you’re doomed? Lots of love, Kaos. x”
Chapter Fourteen
THE BOOK
Spyro waited in the sunshine. All around him, Warrior Librarians bustled here and there. The restoration of the Archive Walls was already underway, and Eon had dispatched every Skylander he could spare to help with the work.
Spyro watched as Trigger Happy, Jet-Vac, and Stealth Elf cleared the rubble, Drill Sergeant and Terrafin dug out new foundations, Prism Break hauled huge piles of bricks back and forth, and Warnado whizzed up gallons of cement, mixed with water from Gill Grunt’s water tank. Spyro would join in later, but for now he was waiting for a very special visitor.
A Portal flashed into existence beside him and Master Eon stepped through the glare. The o
ld man surveyed the damage, but nodded in approval at the sight of his Skylanders working hard to put it right.
“Well done, Spyro,” he said gently. “You did well to stop Kaos.” He paused before adding, “Again.”
Spyro shrugged. “It was a team effort, Master. It’s always a team effort.”
Eon smiled down at his friend.
“It takes a big dragon to share the glory, Spyro. A big dragon indeed.”
Spyro raised his eyebrows.
“Not as big as I was,” he said with a grin.
Eon laughed.
“Now, what was it that Wiggleworth wanted to show me?”
The smile faded from Spyro’s lips.
“You better come and see for yourself,” he said.
The chief curator hadn’t been joking. The Archive’s vault really was high-security. Spyro and Eon had to walk down seventeen flights of stairs and be let through thirteen heavy metal doors before they reached Wiggleworth, now safely encased in a new suit of armor.
Eon raised a hand in greeting to his old friend. “It’s been a long time since I was down here.”
“A good many centuries, yes,” agreed the curator. “I hardly venture to these depths myself these days, but this is important.”
He indicated a large safe set into the far wall.
“Behind this door is one of the most dangerous books in the collection. Some might suggest it’s the most dangerous book in the whole of the universe.”
Spyro felt his stomach tighten.
“Let me guess—the book Kaos demanded.”
The bookworm didn’t answer. Instead, his robotic armor clattered and whirred as he walked over to enter a ridiculously long number into a keypad. After what seemed like the hundredth digit, the lock gave a solid clunk and the massive door swung open.
They stepped into the inner chamber. It was completely bare, save for a single book resting on a wooden lectern in the center of the room.
Eon strode over to it. Spyro ran to catch up, coming to a halt beside his master in front of the lectern.
Eon didn’t say anything. He just glared down at the cover of the book, a shadow passing over his face.
“Master Eon?” Spyro asked, his voice echoing around the chamber. “What is it?”
There was a long pause before the Portal Master spoke.
“Something I have dreaded for a long time.”
Spyro looked up at his master, searching for answers in Eon’s worried face.
“This, Spyro, is the legendary Book of Power.”
Spyro smiled nervously.
“The Book of Power? That doesn’t sound too bad.”
Eon gazed down sadly at his favorite Skylander, suddenly looking every inch his impossible age.
“It is a book of prophecy. A book full of the most dreadful predictions.”
“Like what?” Spyro asked, a chill running down his tail.
Eon paused, as if he didn’t want to say the words out loud.
“Like the fall of the Skylanders, Spyro. And the fall of you.”
To be continued in
The Mask of Power:
Gill Grunt and the Curse
of the Fishmaster
