Not Quite Harmony

Just Another Day

Almost two years. That's how long it's been since Skylands faced a serious threat. For a while, everything seemed fine. We contained Kaos, found a new ally in the form of a giant talking brain (I'd honestly rather not look into it) and we sealed the power of Mind Magic away for future generations to discover and (hopefully) use wisely.

Even I was starting to believe that things were looking up, and I'm not exactly the sort of person you'd call the eternal optimist. Things have been pretty peaceful for some time now… but we all know for a fact that it won't last.

Yep, that's right - Kaos escaped. Again. The Skylanders had been keeping him trapped in a jar after that Brain guy shrunk him down to size, but Kaos and that butler of his found a way to slip away into the wilderness in the dead of night and we've heard neither hide nor hair of him since. It's only a matter of time before he tries something stupid that puts us all in danger, though.

Sigh. Yes, I actually just wrote my sigh into my notes. A sigh really is the only way to sum up what's been going through my mind lately. I mean, the thought of asking HIM what we should do next, like he'd actually have an answer that didn't involve how 'handsome' and 'irresistible' he thinks he is…

Sigh. And yet, I don't know where else to turn. For as annoying as he is, he's got a good heart - a heart of gold, even - and I know that he'll always be willing to lend an ear to me. Or a scarf. He loaned me his scarf on that cold winter evening a few months back, and it was actually pretty warm. I actually fell asleep wearing it, and when I woke up to find that I still had it on me, I could feel myself blushing like crazy, and I honestly have no idea why.

Well, okay, maybe that last part is not entirely true, but come on - me and HIM? You've GOT to be joking! I mean, he's… Well, I won't deny he has his good points, but…

I feel like I could just write the word 'sigh' over and over again and that would sum up my opinion of him nicely. An exasperated sigh. A weary sigh. A lonely sigh. A dreamy sigh…

Did I seriously just write that? Hoo, boy… If anyone were to actually read this thing, I'd never live it down.

Like I said before, I just don't know what to do.

About whatever the future holds for Skylands…

And about HIM…

"Hey, Cali, are you in there?" Flynn asked, suddenly appearing at the study's doorway.

"Oh!" Cali exclaimed in alarm, quickly snatching up a small pile of textbooks that had been resting nearby and placing them on top of her diary, concealing it from view. "Y-Yeah, I'm in here. Just checking some… stuff. Some old stuff," she babbled nervously, turning to face her fellow Mabu with an uneasy smile. "You never know when you might learn something from one of these old books, y'know?"

"Well, actually, I wouldn't know, if I'm being honest," Flynn admitted, reaching up to straighten the pilot goggles that rested atop his head. "I've always felt that there's nothing a book can teach you that you can't figure out just by getting out there and trying stuff. It's all about getting outside your comfort zone, Cali," Flynn declared casually, right before a butterfly came flying over from seemingly out of nowhere to perch on the man's nose. Flynn let out a shrill shriek of panic, proceeding to flail his arms about wildly until the harmless little insect flew away without a sound. The Mabu pilot then chuckled awkwardly, realising that he'd just made a fool of himself. "Heh. Of course, that also means being prepared for surprises, and even the greatest pilot in all of Skylands can be caught off guard every once in a while."

Cali rolled her eyes, but couldn't help smiling knowingly. "So, what did you need to find me for, Flynn?" she asked.

"Oh, that! Yeah, Hugo was shouting something about some kind of magical detergent before. At least, I think that's what he was trying to get across. Poor guy was so worked up that I could barely make heads or tails of what he was saying."

"A magical disturbance, not detergent, ya big clod!" a distinctly Scottish accent sounded out from behind Flynn. The Mabu pilot turned to see Avril, Captain of the Boney Island Frost Elves, standing there, an exasperated look on her blue visage, her steel battle helmet ever-present. "Honestly! I thought pilots such as yerself were supposed tuh be on the ball!"

"A magical disturbance?" Cali repeated, getting up out of her swivel chair, concern on her face.

"Aye. Hugo's been monitorin' it on one o' Master Eon's old telescopes. Says the stars 'ave been alignin' erratically as of late, goin' in an' out o' all sorts o' unusual formations. Now he's sayin' that lightnin' has been added tuh the mix. Purple lightnin' that's about as natural as Flynn's patented enchilada recipe."

"Hey, that recipe was handed down from my mother!" Flynn stated before adding, "I just wanted to see if it tasted better with four kinds of spicy peppers added to the mix. You don't know if you don't try."

"Those were magical spicy peppers, Flynn! It was lucky I didn't end up shootin' flames out o' my-"

"Never mind!" Cali yelped hurriedly, not wanting to hear the specifics of Avril's indigestion. "I'm going to check on Hugo!"

Racing out of the study that had once been used by Kaos during one of his many shaky - and of course temporary - alliances with the Skylanders, Cali made her way along the Academy's balcony, soon finding the teleportation pad and leaping onto it without a moment's hesitation, appearing instantaneously in the courtyard, at the edge of which Hugo stood beside a colossal telescope that was pointed diagonally upwards. The knowledgeable Mabu wasn't even looking through the telescope. He was standing with his back to Cali, completely rigid, his fur bristling underneath his green jacket.

"Hugo, what's going… on?" Cali managed to say, becoming lost for words as she arrived at her friend's side, following his wide-eyed, bespectacled gaze.

Hugo was staring at a not-too-distant stretch of sky.

A stretch of sky that was currently filled with ominous clouds.

Clouds that crackled with purple lightning.

Unnatural purple lightning, just as Avril had said.

And when Cali finally brought herself to speak, all she could say was:

"We've gotta get the Skylanders!" With that, she and Hugo took off towards the Academy at a run.

"What should we do today? We could go swimming, we could go to the lava pits… or we could go fishing!" Spyro The Dragon suggested to his fellow Skylander, Gill Grunt, as the two sat on a rocky outcrop on the edge of one of Skylands' many floating islands, enjoying the view. "Nah, that'd be kind of weird, seeing as you're a fish. Hey, anyone else getting a sense of deja vu?"

"It's just a new cologne I'm trying out!" Deja Vu protested in annoyance as the time mage stepped out from behind Spyro and Gill. "It's not that bad!"

"That's not what I meant at all," Spyro insisted as his fellow Magic Skylander walked away in a huff. The dragon turned back to the Water Skylander who sat beside him, noticing that the Gillman was squinting up at the wide blue yonder.

"Hmm. Is it me or do those clouds look-?" he began.

"Super evil?" Spyro guessed, cutting in.

"I was going to say 'really freaky', but sure, let's go with your one," Gill said with a nod as he and Spyro eyed the clouds that crackled with sinister magical energy. In fact, several Skylanders all across the way began to sit up and take notice...

Splat looked up from painting a very abstract self-portrait as her easel became cast in shadow by the darkening sky.

"Well, there's a blemish on nature's canvas if I ever saw one," the faun muttered, twirling her double-ended magic paintbrush in one hand. In truth, no one was sure if Splat's appendages were indeed 'hands' and not hooves concealed by magical gloves that behaved like opposable digits. Either way, the SuperCharger Skylander was none too pleased about having her calming outdoor activity interrupted by signs of trouble.

Tree Rex and Crusher sat hunched over a small table in a small tavern that was, in retrospect, a little too small for the two Giants as they played their game of Skystones. They glanced up at the small TV screen hanging over the small bar where the small Greeble barkeep was polishing a small glass. The TV showed live footage of the peculiar weather phenomenon happening outside.

"Looks like something tree-mendous is going down out there," the Life Giant mused.

"Think we should head out and try to crush the rising fear?" the Earth Giant enquired.

"That, and try to come up with some better puns," Tree Rex declared as he got to his feet, upending the table as he did so, scattering empty flagons and Skystones cards all over the floor.

Roller Brawl sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, holding her legs close to her chest. She seemed to be balancing precariously on her rear, looking like she might fall over onto her side at any moment.

This is lame," the Undead Skylander exclaimed aloud as she glanced over at Stealth Elf, who sat beside her on the moonlit sandy beach. "Not to mention painful. You sure this is supposed to be good for me?"

"Yoga makes for an able body, which, in turn, makes for an able mind," Stealth Elf responded in her soft voice.

"Whatevs," Roller Brawl muttered, abandoning the new-age routine she had agreed to try for the sake of her fellow Skylander and instead proceeding to stretch out on the sand, resting her arms, which were decked out with protective pads and black roller derby armour, behind her helmeted head. She then sat up suddenly, noticing an odd occurrence in the sky. "Whoa, cool! Natural light show!" she exclaimed, grinning at the sight of the dark clouds and purple lightning, her vampire fangs showing.

Stealth Elf followed the derby champ's gaze, the elf's expression growing solemn underneath her leather mouth guard. "Yeah, I'm not so sure that's natural," she said.

Pop Fizz was walking along a winding path, occasionally sipping at one of his potions (with 'occasionally' being roughly every three seconds) when the rumble of thunder caught his attention and he caught sight of the lightning clouds. He glanced down at the beaker in his clawed hand.

"That's it - I'm off this stuff for life!" he exclaimed, throwing the beaker over his shoulder. It exploded as it hit a wild mushroom, causing the fungi to sprout legs and run off into the distance. Pop Fizz then chuckled. "Yeah, like that's gonna happen," he declared, immediately pulling another potion out of his satchel and taking a big gulp, turning into his crazed berserker form and starting to run in the direction of the clouds.

"The clouds! What'd I tell you? I was right about THE CLOUDS!" Ermit the hermit yelled wildly as several Skylanders ran, flew, rode or burrowed past him, but no one was paying the old-timer any mind. The heroes all met up on an island not far from the lightning clouds, staring at them apprehensively.

"What d'you think it means?" Spyro asked. "Kaos? The Darkness returning?" The dragon then smirked. "Broccoli Guy on too much sugar?"

Stealth Elf stared at him.

"What? I'm just making a joke to lighten the mood," Spyro assured her.

"Well, all joking aside, I think we're going to need a well thought-out plan if we're going to-"

"Less talk, more walk! I say we roll with it!" Roller Brawl cried brashly, putting two fingers in her mouth and giving a shrill whistle. A yellow vortex then opened right beside her, prompting several of her fellow Skylanders to hurriedly scramble out of the way as a powerful-looking off-road buggy made of what looked worryingly like dragon bones rocketed out of the rift between dimensions, its horn honking to encourage its driver to board it, which Roller Brawl did with gusto, and as soon as her gloved hands touched the steering wheel, her black derby gear turned ivory white to match the bone frame of the buggy. It looked like she was wearing a skeleton over her clothes while sitting within another, much larger skeleton on wheels. The Undead Skylander revved the motor and she took off with a cry of, "AW, YEAH!"

"Are you serious right now?!" Jet-Vac exclaimed aloud as he watched Roller Brawl's Tomb Buggy speed straight up a small slope at the edge of the island, using it as a ramp to propel herself over to the next island and right into the midst of the unnatural tempest.

"I'll go make sure she's alright!" Spyro shouted as he took flight.

"No, wait!" Jet-Vac and Stealth Elf called after him in unison, but the headstrong dragon was already gone.

Purple lightning crackled with explosive fury, flashing from one dark cloud to the next like a sinister chain of dangerous, destructive energy.

And Roller Brawl was caught right in the middle of it.

The Undead Skylander let out a low whistle, impressed by the semi-natural spectacle taking place all around her. "Quite a storm," she mused, genuine humbled awe on her face for a moment. Then she grinned madly from ear to ear, her fangs clearly visible. "Now let's crank it up to eleven!"

Roller Brawl pulled a mix tape out of the Tomb Buggy's glove compartment and inserted it into the onboard sound system. Heavy metal music began to blare at full volume, Roller Brawl miming playing a guitar in time with the song. Lightning crackled right next to the Tomb Buggy, shaking the ground of the island surrounded by storm clouds. Roller Brawl jolted in alarm, her magically glowing eyes wide with terror for a split second. Then she just laughed.

"Oh, you got me, lightning storm! You totally got me!" she exclaimed aloud with misplaced glee.

"And you're totally nuts!" Spyro declared as he landed in the passenger seat right beside the derby vampire, causing her to shriek, startled by the dragon's sudden intrusion on her escapade.

"Next time, warn a girl before you just drop in like that! I could've been shaving my legs for all you knew!" Roller Brawl exclaimed indignantly.

Spyro stared at her. "If you were shaving your legs in the car, you'd need a psychiatrist worse than you already do!" he shouted over the noise of both the lightning and the Tomb Buggy's music player. "Would you turn that thing off?! I can barely hear myself think!"

"What?" Roller Brawl responded loudly. "I can't hear you! I'll have to turn this thing off!" she said as she reached forward and switched off the sound system.

"That's exactly what I…! Oh, forget it," Spyro declared, rolling his crimson eyes. "Come on, we've gotta get out of here!"

"Why?"

Spyro's eye twitched. "Why, she says. Because we'll be made extra crispy by this lightning if we don't! That's why, Roller Brawl!"

"I've told you before, call me Roll! It's short and slick, like me!"

"Oh, you're something alright," the purple dragon muttered as Roll continued to steer them through the storm. "Why did you even come in here, anyway?"

"Reconnaissance! Duh!" Roll exclaimed as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You don't think I'd just drive into the eye of a storm all willy-nilly, do ya?"

Spyro blinked. "Is… Is that a trick question?" he asked.

Roll gave an exasperated groan, rolling her eyes. "Boys," she muttered irritably before suddenly slamming her foot - skate and all - on the brake pedal, jerking the Tomb Buggy to a sudden halt. "Do you see that?"

Spyro followed the Undead Skylander's gaze. There, at the very centre of the shrouded island, at the very eye of the supernatural storm, was an unmoving figure sprawled face-down on the ground. "Someone's hurt!" the dragon cried, immediately taking flight and gliding over to the unconscious figure, a bolt of purple lightning narrowly missing the Magic Skylander as he landed beside the body. Roll soon skated up to join him and helped the purple dragon turn the downed figure, whose head was concealed by the hood of the green jacket he wore, onto his back, the hood falling away to reveal the figure's face.

A human face.

Spyro and Roll glanced at each other.

"Dibs on his blood if we can't find a pulse!" the derby vampire declared eagerly.

Spyro face-palmed.

"And you say you found him in the middle of that atmospheric anomaly?" Jet-Vac asked later as the Skylanders stood around a metal table in the Academy's basement, which doubled as a workshop, albeit one filled with some of the quirkiest inventions imaginable. The human boy lay stretched out on the table, still out cold. He was a young teen with messy blonde hair and three ginger freckles on each cheek. His hooded green jacket was unzipped, revealing a white undershirt. His jeans were a dark grey, almost black. Red and white sneakers adorned his feet, the white laces on the right shoe presently untied.

"Nah, I think they found him in the storm, actually," Eruptor said cluelessly, earning him a look from the Sky Baron. "What?"

"I'll tell you what!" Mags exclaimed, the undead inventor suddenly pushing past the lava monster with a magnifying glass in hand, her signature stovepipe hat lopsided atop her purple hair. She gazed intently at the human boy's freckles through the magnifying glass, making her left eye appear huge. "This here youngster is lucky to be alive! Wanderin' around in a storm like that... Why, he must be kookier than a cuckoo clock in a bologna blizzard!"

"Look who's accusing who of being a kook," Roller Brawl muttered to Pop Fizz, who was in the middle of taking a sip of potion when his fellow Skylander spoke. He ended up slopping the fizzy substance all down his front as he struggled not to laugh out loud.

"Perhaps he wasn't out there of his own volition?" Cali suggested. "I wouldn't put it past the average crew of Sky Pirates to cast one of their prisoners - or even one of their own crew members - over the side into a raging tempest just for kicks."

"Well, if this kid's a Sky Pirate, he sure doesn't look the part," Spyro mused. "He's far too clean, for one thing. Just look at that hair."

"I reckon you've got the tail right on the platypus there, Spyro," Mags said, nodding in agreement as she coiled a lock of the boy's blonde hair around her finger. "Look at that. Not even a trace o' dandruff or breakage. Probably more shampoo than hair, honestly."

The boy moaned suddenly, startling Mags into stepping back. "No, Mom, I don't wanna go to school today," the boy mumbled cluelessly, slowly opening his eyes, revealing the right to be blue and the left to be gold.

"Well, there's something you don't see every day," Mags murmured, holding up her magnifying glass again to better examine the boy's eyes, only for him to immediately reach up and rub them, clearing his hazy vision.

"Huh? Whuh?!" the boy exclaimed, sitting bolt upright and gazing around in wide-eyed bewilderment at the assortment of non-human beings around him. Dragons, elves, gremlins… He rubbed his eyes again. He then pinched his wrist. He then slapped himself in the face. Then he started to hyperventilate. Then-

"Uh-oh," Spyro said, realising what was about to happen. Sure enough, the boy let out a panicked scream, quickly scrambling off the metal table and backing up against the wall, holding up his left arm in a vain attempt to shield himself from any potential attack.

"Gee, what's his problem?" Pop Fizz exclaimed, turning into his berserker form as he spoke, which, of course, did nothing to quell the young human's panic. "You'd think he'd never seen a group of ordinary folk like us before!" he went on in the more gruff voice of his transformed state.

"Ordinary. You. Right. You keep telling yourself that," Roll said, shaking her head knowingly.

"You're not helping, Roller Brawl," Stealth Elf told her in a warning tone.

"Alright, we're clearly giving the poor chap a bad first impression of us," Jet-Vac stated. "Why don't we all just take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and introduce ourselves properly?"

"Yes, a capital idea, Jet-Vac, my man," Professor Brain said as he filed into the room at that very moment, the last of the Ancients floating over to join the rest of the group. "As the smartest and most powerful brain in the known universe, I wholeheartedly concur with the notion of-"

The young human groaned loudly before sinking to the floor in a dead faint, the sight of a giant talking brain with one huge eyeball and long, squid-like tentacles being more than his conscious mind was willing to try and process.

"Oh. My bad," the Brain said awkwardly. "Well, that's why we have smelling salts, yes? I'll just… I'll go upstairs and get some of those, shall I?" he went on meekly, noticing the looks he was getting from the Skylanders and their associates. "Yeah. I'll, um… I'll go do that in a nice, quiet fashion."