Ch. 61: Tracking The Beast

"So, how do we do this piece of Dark Gaia extraction thing?" Tails questioned. He had met

up with Double Trouble, Drobot, Wind Up and Spyro at Drobot's lab in the Lost Islands.

"This unit's calculations indicate that unit designated Spyro's exposure to pure light energy as generated by construction designated Temple of Light will force expulsion of energy designated Dark Gaia fragment, upon which this unit and units designated Tails, Double Trouble and Wind Up will initiate operation designated 'capture Dark Gaia fragment with Traptanium Orb'," Drobot explained.

"And how do we do that?" Tails continued to question.

Wind Up took over. "We're gonna trap it between a rock and a hard place! As well as a concentrated pillar of light and an orb of Traptanium!" the boisterous toy exclaimed.

Spyro cringed as the clockwork mechanism shouted in his ear. "Basically, Drobot has designed a containment funnel. I'll be able to stand all the light energy for long enough. And even if I can't, it's light, not darkness, what could go wrong? The fragment, though, will find itself trapped by the expanding light energy, with only one place to take refuge,"

"The Traptanium," Tails finished with a smirk.

Drobot led them to something that looked like three cones welded together with the Traptanium orb attached to the top. There was a thick-looking door in the side of the ruby-shape formed by the upper two, and an airport-style mobile staircase leading up to it.

Doing his best spaceman impression, Spyro slowly walked up the staircase while applause echoed around him and invisible trumpets blared out a melodic, patriotic tune in the distance.

"Why is he walking in slow motion?" Wind Up asked, confused. Tails understood. "He must be doing a spaceman boarding a rocket thing! That's why he was holding that tape recording of applause and trumpet instrumentals," he exclaimed.

Double Trouble simply cupped his hands to his, er, mask's mouth?, and shouted, "Booooooooooo!"

Spyro heard and retaliated, "Shut up! I'm basking in the spotlight of my own heroic brilliance!"

"When did Spyro turn into Flynn?" Wind Up asked. "Hey, I'm sitting right up here, y'now!" Flynn shouted as his balloon swept overhead. The self-proclaimed 'greatest pirate in all of Skylands' slowed it down so that the bright blue balloon was hovering directly over the rocket-device and lowered a hook to catch on another hook mounted on top of the construction. "What is he doing here?" Tails irritatedly questioned.

"Unit designated Flynn is most suitable unit for this operation, because construction designated Flynn's balloon is required to transport device designated Fragment Extractor to location designated above Core of Light,"

Wind Up frowned. Or seemed to, anyway. "What?"

"He needs Flynn's balloon to move that great thing above the Core of Light," Tails translated.

"Well why didn't you say so?" Wind Up asked, frowning.

"Affirmative, this unit completed operation designated 'say so'," Drobot reported.

Wind Up said nothing, merely looked at Tails. "Technically he did," the indigo dragon responded. "Can't he build a filter that makes him talk normal?" Wind Up moaned.

"Boona boo noooooga," Double Trouble responded, and both Tails and Drobot nodded in agreement.

X

Tails and Drobot followed Flynn's balloon on wing, with Double Trouble levitating both himself and Wind Up behind them.

Eventually they reached the Core of Light. "What are you doing?" Sunburn asked, confused. "Apparently helping Spyro play spaceman," Wind Up responded. If not for his perfectly straight face and deadpan tone, Sunburn would have assumed he was joking.

"Oooooooooo-kay," Sunburn drew out the word in procrastination. "I won't ask. Continue,"

Seeing that Flynn's balloon was getting ahead of them, the four Skylanders hastened to catch up.

X

"Steady now!" Tails shouted up to Flynn. "Yup, you're almost there," Wind Up added.

The cone swung inches above the Temple of Light, dangling precariously close to the Crystal Eye. The spectacle was going far from unnoticed down on the ground, where Wind Up's previous shout about Spyro playing spaceman had attracted attention.

"What the heck is going on up there?" Ajay, who was in the crowd, frowned. "Good question. But I'm not sure we want to know," Whirlwind responded.

Interestingly enough, Ajay was still in the Thorn Horn Camo avatar. And the real Camo was watching a mere few metres away.

Pop Fizz frowned, and turned to Scratch. "Am I seeing double, or are there two Camos in the crowd?"

Scratch squinted, but by now Tree Rex has moved in front of the actual Camo, leaving Ajay the only plant/dragon hybrid to be seen. "You're seeing double," she retorted. "But it is weird that Camo and Whirlwind are sitting together. I thought they couldn't stand each other,"

"Maybe they ingested one of my love potions?" Pop Fizz suggested. The sphinx wheeled around in shock. "You have love potions?" The alchemist looked sheepish. "Well, yeah, but they don't actually make someone love you, they just make you turn pink for a day or two,"

"Then how is it a love potion?" Scratch asked, raising a feline eyebrow. Pop Fizz shrugged. "I dunno. Why is your name Scratch?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Scratch asked in disbelief.

Ajay looked up, and realised that he did not recognise the navy/indigo-coloured dragon. "Is that Tails?" he asked Whirlwind, who merely nodded in response. "Whoa. He looks like a girl," he commented. "Not too far off the mark," Whirlwind muttered to herself, remembering all the times she had heard about from Roller Brawl, Chill and the others who had been at Cloudbreak with Tails that he had used the avatar of a female Skylander.

"Tails! Down here! I need to talk to you!" Ajay shouted up to Tails.

Tails looked down for an instant, registered the guise of Camo standing in the crowd next to Whirlwind, amidst various other Skylanders, and replied, "Later, Camo! Kinda have to focus on this!"

Ajay blinked. "He didn't recognise me?" he asked, hurt. "Well, you do look exactly like Camo," Whirlwind responded. Ajay shrugged it off. "Well, I guess,"

X

"That's it!" Wind Up shouted. "That's the perfect position!" he added for clarification to Flynn. Steadily. Flynn brought the balloon to a stop.

The light surged through the funnel and into the enclosed section. Seconds later, something that looked literally like a chunk of darkness that had been torn off something larger, greater, emerged into the Traptanium Orb. After whirling around like a dervish for a few seconds, it pressed itself to the side of the orb.

Nothing else happened. "Well, that was anticlimatic," Wind Up commented. "Booooooooo," Double Trouble added for emphasis.

Flynn maneuvered his balloon and landed the rocket-like construction on the ground. Spyro knocked the door open and triumphantly stepped out - but due to the fact that they had left the stairs that fit the construction on Flynn's airship island, he promptly fell to the ground and sprawled on his underbelly. Most everyone let out a laugh or two at that.

"Is it just me, or did we leave behind the stairs?" Wind Up sniggered. Double Trouble's only, customary, response, was, "Booooooo,"

X

Tails, Spyro, Cynder and Loni watched as Double Trouble, Sprocket and Drobot carefully secured the orb of Traptanium to the Dread-Yacht. "I'm getting a weird sense of deja vu here," Soyro commented. "This is exactly what it looked like when we were installing the Compass of Ultimate Finding two years ago," Cynder told him. "Oh yeah. Good times," Spyro sighed of good memories, as he and Cynder thought back.

FLSH-BCK

A slightly younger Spyro high-fived Whirlwind. "Race ya to the Dread-Yacht!" he exclaimed. "No one beats the Whirlybird," Whirlwind smirked. "On your marks, get set, go!" Bash shouted as the two took off. "I wish I could fly like that," Bash sighed. Cynder moved over to him, and commented, "Me too," but Bash nervously edged away from her before outright running.

Spyro and Whirlwind swept towards Flynn's ship, still in the terrible state of repair it had been until Sharpfin restored it. "Hey look, they're fitting the new thingy, what was it?" Spyro asked Whirlwind. "The Compass of Ultimate Finding. You have terrible memory, Spyro," she snorted.

BCK-2-D-PRSNT

Cynder slapped Spyro's foreleg. "What was that for?" he asked. "Insensitivity," Cynder snorted.

"Ahem, anyway," Tails broke it up. "Is there any reason to delay going after Dark Gaia now?" he questioned,

"Not that I can think of," Loni decided. "We still need a ship," Cynder pointed out. Tails snorted. "I still have access to the virtuality portal. You really think that's gonna be a problem?" the indigo dragon skeptically questioned. "What about the Egg Lancer?" Loni raised a scaly eyebrow.

Tails paused. "Yeah, that works too,"

X

The Egg Lancer thrust itself through the sky, tearing an insect-shaped hole through a thick wedge of clouds.

Tails jauntily tugged on the controls and the craft leapfrogged a small island. "You're having way too much fun with this," Loni snorted, gently cuffing him on the foreleg. "Are you really surprised? It's not every day you get to fly a giant beetle," Tails chuckled. "Nope, but it is every week," Loni retorted. Tails conceded the point.

There were only five of them aboard the craft. Tails and Loni themselves, Cynder, Dan and Drago.