Beyond the Skies

Chapters

Scroll 2- Chaos and Chompies
Scroll 3- Meeting Royalty
Scroll 5- Canterlot Crashers
Scroll 6- Tomb Raider: Griffonstone
Scroll 7- Field Trip
Scroll 8- Major explaining
Scroll 9- When Worlds Collide...
Scroll 10- Limitless
Scroll 11- Major Explaining: Round 2
Scroll 12- When you reach 88 miles an hour...
Scroll 13- A big learning curve
Scroll 14- Igniting the Spark Part 1
Scroll 14- Igniting the Spark Part 2
Scroll 15- Lessons from a Master
Scroll 16- Fright Night
Scroll 17- Time's Up
Scroll 19- Major Explaining: Round Three
Scroll 20- Mixed Up Mishaps
Scroll 20.5- Memo to the Academy (Bonus)
Scroll 21- A Change in Plans Part 1
Scroll 21- A Change in Plans Part 2
Scroll 21- A Change in Plans Part 3
Scroll 22- Lava Puppies, Ponies and Pirates, Oh my!
Scroll 23- Pack Problems
Scroll 24- Molten Chaos
Scroll 26- Castle Crashing
Scroll 27- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These (Part 1)
Scroll 27- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These (Part 2)
Scroll 27- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These (Part 3)
Scroll 27- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These (Part 4)
Scroll 28- Prelude of Advancements
Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 1)
Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 2)
Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 3)
Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 4.1)
Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 4.2)
Scroll 29.5- What Lurks in the Shadows
Scroll 30- Grounded
Scroll 31- The Search
Scroll 32- An Unexpected Series of Events (Part 2)
Scroll 32- An Unexpected Series of Events (Part 3)
Scroll 33- Ancient Teachings (Part 1)
Scroll 33- Ancient Teachings (Part 2)
Scroll 33- Ancient Teachings (Part 3)
Scroll 33.5- The Web
Scroll 34- Mind Games Part 1
Scroll 34- Mind Games Part 2
Scroll 34- Mind Games Part 3
Scroll 35- Stories of Old
Scroll 36- The Library
Scroll 37- A Different Approach
Scroll 1- Through the clouds
Scroll 4- Preparations
Scroll 18- Hypno Havoc
Scroll 25- Pawful Chaos
Scroll 32- An Unexpected Series of Events (Part 1)

Scroll 2- Chaos and Chompies

Fluttershy’s cottage

As the morning air blew past the two of them, Calvin and Fluttershy soon landed on the outer edge of the Everfree forest; a few hoofsteps away from her cottage as the human boy returned to his normal form. He felt quite exhausted after flying as the Griffon named Sonic Boom. Plus, having wings was a bit of a new experience for him as he fell down onto the grass.

“Oh my! Are you okay?”

“Heh… Yeah. I just need a quick breather,” Calvin told her, “Who knew that flying could be so much of a workout?!”

“Actually, for pegasi and other creatures with wings, flying is a professional sport. Rainbow herself even competes in a few races every once in a while.”

“Does she?” Calvin replied back. “Well, I’m not quite sure if I’m up for a race against her. She might leave me in the dust if I even tried.” The boy soon returned to his feet as he and the mare walked to the front door. Before the human opened the door though, the Pegasus stopping him for just a minute, sighing a minute and looking a little nervous as she began to speak again to the human boy.

“Before we go in, I need to let you know something. I… have someone living with me so please, don’t be freaked out by him.” Fluttershy said in a whisper like tone.

“You mean like a roommate?”

“… You can say that. He’s kind of a goofball at times and can be a bit… silly.” The Pegasus said. But it wasn’t until the two of them heard a booming voice from inside the cottage that Calvin got an understanding of what she meant.

“Back, you vile creatures... BACK I SAY!!! You shall not use those fangs of doom against me!!! I am Discord. Knight of Chaos, and protector of Lady Angel!”

Calvin then looked back at Fluttershy, quite startled, like she was. “Does he normally act like that?”

“I honestly don’t even know where to begin when it comes to Discord. He’s a spirit of chaos and mischief.” Fluttershy told him. Before Calvin could say something else, another thing caught his attention. Some growling like sounds and a moaning noise. When he opened up the door, the two of them were treated to the sight of Discord in a cardboard box covered in tin foil like he was a knight, a bear in a dragon costume and a little rabbit with a blond wig on its head, like it was suppose to be a princess.

“Discord… What are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I was bored, so I thought I would do a bit of Roleplaying with Angel and Henry while you were gone-.” The Draconequus stopped talking at the sight of Calvin, then got closer and narrowed his eyes, looking at him with a serious face. “Flutters, who is this little fellow?”

“Oh, this is Calvin. He’s going to be staying with us for a little bit. He got bruised a bit after crashing into Rainbow’s house.”

“Isn’t her house made of clouds though?” The Spirit of Chaos asked.

“Yeah, but the roof and floors are solid so anypony who can’t walk on clouds don’t easily fall through it.” Fluttershy said, but the Spirit’s gaze was more focused on something else: the Necklace around Calvin’s neck. It sort of reminded him of the Elements of Harmony, but it also felt different because of the magic that surged from it.

“That is an interesting trinket that you have there. Can I take a closer look?” However, Calvin shook his head, backing up a little as he grabbed his necklace with his right hand.

“No thanks. It’s kind of… Important.”

“Important? How exactly is such a tiny stone important?” Discord asked, puzzled. “Does it give you superpowers or something?”

Calvin stood silent for a minute, then backed up a bit. His best guess for this guy to get off his back was to give him a demonstration. But… he wanted to make sure that Fluttershy was okay with it first. “Hey, Fluttershy?”

“Yes, Calvin? What is it?”

“Would it be okay for me to give Discord a demonstration of what I can do?” The young boy asked. He had his hands at his sides as the chaos spirit used a snap of his talon to make all the roleplaying costumes and everything else disappear in a flash. “I think it would be better than trying to explain everything to him.”

“I’m okay with it. Just… nothing too crazy.”

‘Guess no Giants or Trap masters then.’ The human thought to himself. In comparison to height, Giants were the tallest of the five classes of Skylanders. Coming behind that was Trap Masters, Swap Force, Superchargers, and then the normal skylanders. Thinking of one of the Light skylanders this time, he said the characters phrase to himself in a soft whisper. “Time to Shine”. Seconds later, he was covered again in a white light that lasted for a few seconds, but the transformation was what surprised the Draconequus the most.

Calvin had now turned into the Light Skylander known as Spotlight. A white dragon with Three Halo like rings on it’s body; two near the wing joints and one on the tail.

“Wow… That’s quite… amazing. What exactly did you do though?” Discord asked. Calvin and Fluttershy then took the time to explain what he told her, Rainbow and Twilight earlier from the transformations to what he was exactly transforming into, all while the spirit of chaos was drinking a chocolate shake and reclining on the living room couch. “So, let me get this straight… Because of that necklace, you can turn into these beings called Skylanders and also have control of their powers?”

“Pretty much. But the transformations only last for a short while. I think they could be extended the more I get use to it, but I don’t really know, to be honest with you.” Calvin replied back as the boy returned to normal. “I did just find out about these powers today and whatnot.”

“Understandable. I get what you mean.” Discord replied back. “If you would like, I can help you with that. I’ve personally transformed into a few things myself and might help you with that-.”

“Discord, Calvin is still recovering.”

“I know, Flutters.” The Chaos spirit chuckled a little bit as he replied back. “I was going to say once he’s fully healed. That way, he doesn’t accidently have his wounds open up on him.”

“He’s got a good point there, Fluttershy,” the boy said, “What better way to learn than from someone who’s had personal experience?”

“Discord uses Chaos magic. Yours is… something else,” Fluttershy remarked, “Maybe you should take a moment to lay down a minute.”

“I was doing that earlier,” Calvin replied, “What I think I need is some food. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I felt my stomach growl on the way over here.” Fluttershy nodded her head, telling the human to help himself to a bowl of fruit that was on the kitchen counter. Calvin found himself an apple and began to slowly bite into it, savoring the juicy fruit as he devoured it all the way to its core, tossing it into the trash bin that was nearby.

“Oh my!” Fluttershy gasped upon seeing him finish. “You must be really hungry by now! What can I get for you, Calvin?”

“Well… Do you have anything that can be a source of protein?” He then asked, catching both Fluttershys and Discord’s attention. “Like most of my kind, humans are Omnivores. So, our diet consists of sources of fruits, meats and vegetables. But I don’t eat ponies.”

“Oh… if that’s the case, then what are you exactly hungry for? Maybe we can find something for you in Ponyville.”

‘What the heck is that?’ Calvin asked himself mentally as he thought through his options. Either stay here and possibly starve, or go out with Fluttershy and Discord to see what kind of options for food were there. To him… the second one sounded a LOT more useful right around now. “Is Ponyville the town that’s not far from here?”

“Yeah, Twilight and our friends live there.”

“Okay, well maybe it won’t hurt to get a tour of the town. I’ll be lucky if I find some pizza there.”

“Actually, a new pizzeria opened up last week,” Discord replied to him as the three of them left the cottage. “The owner was quite nice. His name was Papa John’s if I remember correctly.” The comment got Calvin to chuckle a little to himself, causing him to think of the pizza restaurant that had the same name back home, but another thing soon got on his mind. One that wasn’t about food. It was about Master Eon. He wanted to ask him a few other questions, but he knew that there were even some things that the elder portal master might not know about. This would include one thing… Was he the only one who had this happen to him… or not?

Those would be questions he would have to save for later. As he went into town, many of the townsfolk watched him walk along with Fluttershy with worried or scared expressions. Some even proceeded to run into their homes and lock their doors. Calvin sighed. Despite being himself and being harmless, the other ponies were afraid of him. Fluttershy had seen the town act this way before when Zecora first arrived into town on the thought that she was a witch. But after some time, they were able to adjust to her.

Soon though, they came across Sugarcube corner, or what Calvin saw as a real life gingerbread house. Soon, the three of them were greeted by a very happy and very hyper pink pony that was just as bouncy as her mane and tail, with a mark of three balloons on her flank. Two yellow and one blue. She seemed very happy to see both Fluttershy and Discord, but gasped at the sight of Calvin. “Ooooh! Who do we have here!?”

“Pinkie, this is Calvin. He’s staying with Discord and I and is kind of new around here.”

“Wait? New? Like as in NEW PONY!?!” Calvin’s nod of the head led to the Party Pony zipping back inside the Gingerbread house like she was in the road-runner looney toons cartoons. Fluttershy and Calvin looked at each other in confusion before slowly entering the small bakery. Soon though, the two of them were greeted by a yellow stallion named Carrot Cake, who greeted the two of them as Fluttershy ordered a muffin for each of them. As they ate the sweet treats though, they heard a loud clash of pots and pans in the back of the room.

“I’ll go check on Pinkie.” Discord offered as he used a talon snap to have himself disappear into the back room. For a moment, everything seemed okay, but then, Calvin began to hear Discord begin to talk. “Oh, why hello there little guy. Are you lost? You just look so cuddly… Would it be okay if I call you squishy?”

Five seconds later, a massive chomp and a series of loud screams erupted from the back.

“OWWWW!!! BAD SQUISHY!! BAD SQUISHY!!! GET IT OFF!!! GET IT OFF!!”

“Discord, are you okay-?” Calvin’s question was interrupted when Discord warped back into the dining room with something chewing on his lion paw. It took Calvin three seconds to realize what in the world it was before the spirit of chaos warped out again. And when he realized it, something clicked in his mind that this was going to be a major problem.

A Chompy. Little green creatures with huge sets of teeth. They might look harmless alone, but when in groups, they can cause major problems. “Hey, Fluttershy? Where did Discord go?”

“Probably outside, why do you ask?”

“I just got a bad feeling that something bad is going to happen-”

Before Calvin even got up out of his seat, Discord returned to the room. “Sorry about that. Hey Fluttershy, can I ask for your help on something? Some weird creature bit me earlier, and I was wondering if you can-.”

Before even getting to what he needed help with, another scream was heard. This time, as Discord turned around, his jaw dropped. The single creature that he thought he put in a bubble was running around again. Only this time, there were more of them. Ten to be exact, as they were seen chasing some of the townsfolk. Including Pinkie Pie, who was calling the one that was nibbling on her tail “Gummy”.

“O-oh my-! W-what are those things-!?” Fluttershy freaked out, hiding behind Discord.

“Oh great… Discord, what exactly did you do to the chompy you encountered earlier?”

“Chompy?”

“The green monster with the teeth that’s running around outside and causing havoc?” Calvin said. “These guys are known for causing a LOT of trouble, and Skylanders have to deal with them constantly. Now, because you left that single one alone, you gave it the opportunity to multiply, and now, there must be almost over a hundred of them out there!!” Calvin was now having to step outside into the chaos and panic. Someone had to do something to stop them, and he knew that he was the only one up for the job. Grabbing his pendant, he said one statement.

“Whip up a STORM!”

A small whirlwind soon twirled around the boy as the transformation began to take effect. This time as the Air Skylander named Free Ranger. A Storm Chicken with a pair of blades that can shoot out crescents of wind and also shoot lightning from his eyes. “Fluttershy, stay inside. I’ll take care of the monsters.”

With that, the young boy entered the fray, using the first chance he got to shock the first few chompies that were going at them with a bolt of lightning before attacking some other ones that were trying to bite his newly formed tail feathers. Using his second ability, he formed a small twister by his feet, blowing the enemies away from him before proceeding to attack them again. Now, all the chompies in the area were now focused on him.

“You want a piece of me? Well, come and get it!!”

As he quickly dashed out of town, the chompies followed suit. Ignoring the other ponies in the town to chase after the chicken. When Calvin got far enough, he started to fight using his blades in combination with his lightning and wind abilities. The number of chompies began to decrease over time. But at points when Calvin thought that he was done, a few more continued to keep on popping up. This kept on happening for a few more minutes until he saw the source of the problem.

A Chompy pod that was in a garden behind an elementary school. Along with an earth pony that was trying to scramble to her hooves after the Chompies spawning from it started trying to go for her tail. Calvin quickly tried to hurry on over, attacking the first Chompy and proceeding to take on the others after slicing through the plant pod three times. Another lightning shock took care of the final chompies that were lying around. Turning around, he could clearly see an adult mare and two children.

“T-thank you so much, mister-!” The youngling with what appeared to be a Tiara on her head said to Calvin. Shortly after that though was when he got back to his human form, catching both the kids and the teacher off guard.

“You’re welcome. Hey, do you have any idea how that plant was growing out of control?”

“Umm… No, not really.” The mare said. “We were supposed to be having a class project where you were taking care of a plant for a week-

“I have a small hunch on who’s plant it might’ve been, Ms. Cheerilee,” one of the children said. This one being one with silver glasses and a well brushed mane. “I heard that Apple Bloom and her two friends were going to Appleloosa this weekend. Maybe it was theirs?”

“Let’s not assume just yet, Silver Spoon. Let me go have a look and see.”

As she went to look at the garden both of the little ones trotted over to Calvin and introduced themselves, while he did the same in turn. The two ponies names were Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara; both of them were really grateful for his heroism. As they got to talking a little bit though, Calvin started to notice that they had a certain judgement against this “Apple Bloom” figure.

“Anytime something goes wrong, we know that those three have something to do with it.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad ponies,” Calvin told the two of them, “It just means that they made a couple of bad decisions. You wouldn’t want someone to get on your case when you did something wrong now, right?”

Just when he said that though, all three of them could hear Cheerilee deeply sigh. “… No wonder things got this out of hoof. I should have known.” By her forehoof was the sign that had the names of Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. The three fillies that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were just talking about recently. However, something seemed off to the boy as he got a little closer. Something unusual stood out in the soil that wouldn’t be commonly seen in a garden such as this one.

They almost looked like…… spines.

“Ms. Cheerilee? Did you happen to see anything like this in your soil when you originally planted these flowers?” He asked, showing the spine.

“N-no. That wasn’t there before.” The teacher said.

“If that’s the case, then I believe I might’ve found your problem,” the human began to explain, “Even though the creatures that you saw look like squeaky toys, Chompies have a full on skeletal structure. This looks like a spine that had been planted in the soil, given the roots that are still stuck to it. Something tells me that the three fillies that you mentioned earlier planted this because they thought it was a seed for a flower. But, as it turns out, it was the exact opposite.”

“So… this was all…?”

“An accident that could’ve been a lot more problematic if left unchecked.” Calvin finished speaking.

“Wait… are you saying that nopony is to blame for this?”

“I highly doubt that Apple Bloom would want to have caused townwide chaos, Diamond Tiara,” Ms. Cheerilee told the filly, “Apple Bloom is a good filly. It’s just that sometimes, she does things with her friends without thinking if something is going to work or not.”

“That’s why the tortoise won in a race against the hare,” Calvin said.

“I’m sorry, what?” Silver Spoon asked, puzzled.

“My bad. What I mean is that ‘slow and steady wins the race’. If you rush something, you’re bound to slip up for it, unlike someone who takes their time in order to do something right the first time.”

“And just when I thought those three learned from that one Hearts and Hooves day…”

Calvin didn’t quite understand what Cheerilee meant by that, but just rolled along with it. Soon, Fluttershy and Discord caught up with him, and the three of them were soon going back to the cottage. That’s when Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon began to talk amongst themselves as they walked away.

“So, Diamond? What do you think of Calvin?”

“Well, he’s okay I guess. Better than those blank flanks. What did you think of him?” The question though caused Silver Spoon’s cheeks to flourish bright red as she looked back at her friend.

“I-i think he’s…… cute.”

Unknown Location

In the darkest corners of the world, a storm was brewing around a floating castle that looked like a haunted mansion. The walls appeared to be close to crumbling, and the sounds of a loud laughter, like a howling hyena, echoed the building as the front doors closed with a loud SLAM!!!

The laughter came from no other than Kaos himself. A dark portal master who was an excellent strategist, but his plans always seemed to fall flat anytime he was close to being successful. Despite this though (and his ongoing hatred for trees), he was as crafty as he was cunning. And... he had just came up with another well thought out plan.

“GLUMSHANKS!!” He called out to his loyal minion, who came hurrying in a few seconds later.

“Yes, Lord Kaos?”

The response though, only got the goblin to receive an angry glare. “What is it with you always calling me “Lord” Kaos all the time Glumshanks? Why haven’t you tried spicing it up a little? The Arkeyan Conquertron referred to me as Emperor when we going after the Iron Fist of Arkus.”

“You’ve known me ever since you were a child, and now you’re asking me this?”

“SILENCE!! I have come up with a remarkable plan for how we will be able to beat the Skylanders!!!”

Glumshanks just raised one of his eyebrows in confusion. “Remarkable as in the sense that we’re going to get a lot of negative criticism for it?”

“On the CONTRARY, Glumshanks. The comments about my newest plan will be overwhelmingly positive!!”

“Well, someone has spent some time with his Thesaurus recently.”

“I don’t even like dinosaurs!!!” The Dark Portal Master yelled as he walked over to his own portal of power. Glumshanks followed him shortly afterwards, and the two of them came to what the portal was presenting to them. It was presenting the historical events of when the skylands was formed over twenty thousand years ago. Huge chunks from numerous islands were pulled into the grounds below, said to have been lost in the endless pit that lied beneath.

“Now, Glumshanks… There's an important reason why I’m looking at these historical events. Can you take a guess why?”

“Honestly, Master, I don’t know why. Why don’t you just tell me-?”

“I’m getting there, FOOL!” Kaos snapped. “During the events that were called “The Reckoning”, massive portions of numerous islands were stripped away. Leaving us with only what we have as of right now. Everything that is known to the Skylands remains afloat because of a invisible web of magic casted from the depths of Mt. Cloudbreak.”

“Master, are you saying what I think you are trying to say?”

“If you are referring to distorting the web, then no. It is impossible to do it. But, I believe that what got pulled into the depths below may be another story. From time to time, I’ve felt massive surges of magic go off down below us, which leads me to believe that there might be a living civilization all the way down there. Or to us… Unclaimed territory. It’s like trying to pick apples. You need to do it when they’re just ripe enough.”

“What are you saying? We’re going to invade an unknown civilization, just like that?”

“Only a fool would do something that reckless and not know what they’re up against. We would first have to do a reconnaissance mission, just to make sure we know what exactly we’re dealing with. And that, Glumshanks, is where you come in.”

The loyal minion swallowed what was in his throat and now looked at Kaos with a worried expression. “M-master?”

“Glumshanks, I want you to take the troll ship that we have in the docks and go down to the surface. Investigate and report back as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence, and if we learn about who and what we’re dealing with, the sooner we can make a passageway to the lands below for our troops.” Kaos told his loyal minion precisely. In was his way of making sure that there were no screw ups in his explanations.

“Am I-I bringing anyone else with me?”

“No, just yourself. If you use the resources in the transport to your advantage, then you should be fine… Why are YOU STILL HERE!?!”

“S-sorry master!” Glumshanks rasped as he ran out the door to the docks. Kaos sighed. If his loyal minion could just follow the simplest of directions, then they possibly might be getting somewhere.

Canterlot

Over the course of the day, Princess Celestia, her sister Luna, and Princess Cadence had felt something strange linger throughout the day. Something like a rift or tear in the magical plane that covered Equestria like a blanket. It might have been brief, but from the moment they felt it, they began to think that something was wrong. It was like when Discord used to cause trouble before becoming reformed, but different.

“Aunt Celestia,” Cadence stated, “I should go over there and make sure that everything is okay. For all we know, Twilight could’ve done a powerful spell on accident and is still trying to clean up the mess it might’ve made.”

“Very well. If you insist,” the solar alicorn replied, “I’ll write her a letter addressing our concerns. In the meantime, you should go see Twilight and have Luna come with you. I need to make sure to return to the courthouse, so I can continue with the sessions of today’s day court.” With that, both Alicorns proceeded to leave the hall of elements as Celestia herself summoned a piece of parchment and quill, beginning to write a letter to her student and fellow princess.

My Faithful Student,

Earlier today; Luna, Cadence and I felt a powerful surge of unknown magic for a brief moment around one o’clock this afternoon. We would like you to look into the matter alongside them since they felt the magic nearby where Ponyville is located. They should be arriving at your Castle momentarily. In the meantime, do the best you can in order to assist them to the fullest in their investigation regarding this matter.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia

End Scroll 2

Author's Note

Shout out to Regreme for helping me proof read and edit this chapter.

This Chapters Skylanders:
Spotlight

Free Ranger

And we now see Kaos. Wonderful...

Enjoy!
-Frost

P.S. I was thinking of having a moment where Calvin as Flashwing meets Twilight. Good or no good?

Scroll 3- Meeting Royalty

Beyond the Skies- Meeting Royalty

Fluttershy’s Cottage

Some time after the small chompy incident that occurred earlier in the day, Calvin returned back to Fluttershy’s cottage along with her and Discord. After everything that happened so far, the young boy felt like he needed to rest for a little while, especially with the amount of energy he burned from fighting the little monsters that were attacking the civilians in Ponyville. However, his bravery did not go unnoticed, especially with the visitor that was knocking outside Fluttershy’s door.

“I’ll get it!” Discord declared as he quickly zipped over to the front of the house and opened the door. “Well, hello there, Twilight. How’s Tia been lately?”

“She’s alright,” Twilight answered briefly, “Speaking of which, is Calvin here? I need to talk to him.”

“He’s in the living room. By all means, come on in,” The spirit of chaos insisted, opening the door widely and allowing the Alicorn to trot on in. She made her way to where Calvin was, sitting on the couch and having the muffin that he didn’t get the chance to eat while at Sugarcube Corner. Along with that, Angel was sitting by him and nibbling away at a carrot that Fluttershy had given him recently. The two of them didn’t even notice Twilight until she trotted closer to them.

“Oh hey, Twilight,” Calvin greeted, upon noticing the Alicorn’s presence.

“Hello, Calvin. I see that you’re doing well.”

“Indeed. Fluttershy and Discord have really been helping me out a lot with getting adjusted and making me feel comfortable. I even got the chance to meet Pinkie Pie earlier today at Sugarcube Corner.”

“You did? Hmm…” Twilight paused for a minute so she could formulate the question that she was going to ask inside her head before saying anything. “Hey, Calvin… Can I ask you something?”

“Um… Sure?”

“Did you use any of your powers recently?”

“Y-yeah. There was a problem in town with a bunch of little monsters called Chompies, and I had to use them to stop them. Why, am I in trouble?”

Twilight’s eyes twitched for a brief moment before looking back at the boy. “N-no. Why would you think that?”

“You look a little funny…”

The Alicorn took a moment to shake her head and readjust her focus before looking back at Calvin. “S-sorry. It’s just that I felt a surge of magic earlier today and thought it was you, so I-.”

“TWILIGHT!!!!!!!!!!”

The new voice startled the individuals inside the cottage as Twilight’s assistant, Spike, rushed in through the open front door, out of breath with a scroll in his claw. “L-letter!”

“A letter? From the Princess!?”

“Who?” Calvin asked, a bit puzzled by who Twilight was talking about.

“Princess Celestia,” Discord said, “Ruler of Equestria and Diarch of the Day. She rules Equestria alongside her sister Luna, who is the Diarch of the Night. Not to mention Twilight’s teacher.”

“Teacher? What exactly does she teach?”

“The magic of friendship I believe. Other than that, she taught Twilight many other important lessons and morals over the past few years.” Discord was going to continue speaking, but when he saw the expression on Twilight’s face, he could tell that something wasn’t right. “Is something wrong, Sparkle?”

“Sparkle?”

“That’s her last name, Twilight Sparkle-,” Discord told him, only to be hushed by Twilight a few seconds later.

“Everypony, we got a situation. Listen,” The Princess of Friendship cleared her throat before speaking again, reading from the letter she had received. “My Faithful Student… Earlier today; Luna, Cadence and I felt a powerful surge of unknown magic for a brief moment around one o’clock this afternoon. We would like you to look into the matter alongside them since they felt the magic nearby where Ponyville is located. They should be arriving at your Castle momentarily. In the meantime, do the best you can in order to assist them to the fullest in their investigation regarding this matter. Sincerely, Princess Celestia… Oh dear. This isn’t good.”

“What’s wrong?” Calvin asked.

“Remember when I asked you about if you used your powers earlier and you told me yes? Well, it seems like the Princesses also felt it, too.”

“Is that a bad thing or a good thing?” The boy then asked her. She shook her head, diminishing the boy’s positive hopes for a moment.

“No. If they’re dealing with Unknown magic, then they always take it seriously-” Twilight stopped mid sentence, realizing a detail that she had overlooked earlier. “Oh no… We need to get to the castle, like RIGHT NOW!” Before Calvin could ask anything, Twilight’s horn glowed, illuminating the room in a brief flash of light as everypony was teleported into the Castle of Friendship’s Throne Room, where the rest of Twilight’s friends were. While Rainbow and Pinkie were happy to see the young boy again, one pony wasn’t quite fond of his entrance.

“Oh my!! Who do we have here?” The Fashionista named Rarity asked as the Skyshifter tried to make sense of what was going on.

“Hi, Calvin!!” Pinkie responded, startling him on accident.

“H-hi, Pinkie. Um… Where are we?”

“In Twilight’s castle, silly!!” Pinkie hopped and bounced around him.

“Wait, darling? You know this… individual?” The White Unicorn in the room asked as she trotted a little closer to Calvin, grimacing a little at his clothes. “His clothes look SO ragged for a handsome young colt.”

“Rarity, it’s not the time for critiquing his sense of fashion,” Twilight told her, “Princess Luna and Cadence are making a surprise visit today and could be here any minute!”

“Uh, Twilight. Did they actually say when they were to arrive?” Rainbow asked, folding her front forelegs as she was floating in the air with the support of her wings. The Alicorn shook her head, recalling on how the letter said that they would be here momentarily. Calvin did not understand it, but Discord provided the rough translation that they would be here any minute now. The boy knew one thing for sure... since they were figures of Royalty, he better be on his best behavior, especially since two of them were stopping by.

Soon, both of them made their “grand entrance” by teleporting directly into the room. The sheer act in itself knocked him backwards and onto his face, groaning in pain. “O-oww…”

“You okay there, rookie?” Rainbow asked him as she helped him back up.

“Y-yeah. Just a scratch,” he replied as he shook his head. However, his eyes had now met the eyes of the two princesses, and they were quite surprised to see him, just as much as he was surprised to see them.

“Twilight, who or what is this creature?” Luna asked.

“Princess Luna. Princess Cadence. This is Calvin. He just arrived here under unknown circumstances earlier today.” Twilight explained. However, as the two princesses trotted closer to him, they became a little suspicious of him because of the necklace around his neck and the magic that they could feel from it. The same kind of magic as the one that they felt earlier today.

“It seems that we have found the source,” Luna replied, “Twilight, were you trying to hide this youth from us?”

“N-no, Princess! Not at all!!”

“Then, how come we can feel a powerful source of magic from this boy?”

“Ahem, if I may,” Calvin interjected, “Maybe it would be best for me to show you rather than trying to answer all of your questions all at once.” With that, Calvin said a different phrase as he prepared to shift into another Skylander.

“Any Last Wishes?”

Within seconds, the light around Calvin swirled, and he turned into Ninjini, the Magic Skylander Giant. He was a lot bigger now and the insignia on the Skylanders belt reminded Twilight of her own Cutie Mark. Calvin only kept this form for a few more moments before deciding to revert back to his normal state.

“W-what was that?” A shocked Luna asked in a demanding tone.

“That was something I am capable of now. The pendant around my neck allows me to transform into beings that are known as Skylanders. They’re heroes that consist of ten different elements that fight evil. The one I turned into just now was Ninjini, a magic skylander that is one of the five Skylanders Archetypes that is known as a Giant.”

“Wow… that is a very powerful gift there, young one,” Cadence responded. She had known Crystal based magic from the books in the Crystal Empire’s archives, but have not seen anything quite like this. All this power just with one gem? It must be a big responsibility. Calvin continued to explain everything that he told Twilight before to the Princesses now, including the names of the Archetypes.

Skylanders, Giants, Swap Force, Trap Team and Superchargers. Each with their own differences and similarities. To demonstrate the other types, Calvin turned into Blackout again to show the normal Skylander, Snap Shot (A Water Skylander that resembled a anthropomorphic crocodile had a Traptanium Crystal Bow and Arrow) for a Trap Team member, Free Ranger for a Swap Force member and lastly, Spitfire (A flame and tech enhanced legless gargoyle) for a Supercharger. Turning into Spitfire and saying the name made Rainbow Dash confuse him for the captain of the Wonderbolts, but after a while, he was able to clear things up. Returning back to normal, Luna gave the boy a few compliments for his skills, but then heard the Element of Loyalty say something.

“Yeah, you should totally see Calvin in action. He’s flipping awesome!!”

“Is he?” Luna asked. “If so, then maybe we should see what this young one is capable of. Twilight, I believe that Ponyville has a training barracks, does it not?”

“We did, but it got destroyed during my fight with Lord Tirek a couple of months ago. It’s still being rebuilt.”

“Shame, and I thought we had a facility where we could properly demonstrate your skills.”

“H-hang on a second, Luna. I think I have something that can help,” Rainbow Dash replied, leaving for a few moments before returning with a wooden dummy. “I remember a long while ago that Scootaloo and her friends were trying to get their cutie marks in martial arts, so I kept the dummy in case if they ever wanted to try it again. Plus, we could go to the fields outside of town if you want a big empty place in order to test him.”

“That… sounds like a good idea.”

“Very well, Rainbow Dash. Please, guide us.” The Pegasus nodded, guiding the ponies and princesses outside of town and had an area set up for Calvin to prepare to fight. With a quick signal, the cyan mare had the boy prepare for combat again. Using his powers, he switched to Blackout and began to use his wings in order for him to strike the dummy. After a few times though, a small ring of light glowed around him and a voice went off in his head. Something along the lines of “Level up” like the almighty voice in the sky would say. That wasn’t the only thing that happened though. Calvin was able to learn a new skill in which when Blackout performed an aerial attack, he became a spinning buzzsaw and the spines along his back became rotating blades.

When he was done and shifted back to normal, Luna was impressed… Partially. “You have skill and talent, but you need to find ways to extend your limits. How many of these “Skylanders” can you possibly turn into?”

Calvin began to scratch his chin, doing the mental math inside his head. “Well, if you do the math, which includes eight giants, sixteen swap force members and trap team members and exclude the variations and re-releases… that totals it to around one hundred and fifty.”

The only resulting expression that he got from the ponies and even Discord was their jaws dropping and their eyes widening. Basically, he broke them. The boy sighed to himself and thought of a question to ask Twilight. “Hey, Twilight? When do you think that it might be a good day for me to visit Celestia?”

“Why not Monday night?” Rarity suggested. “It’s the night of the Grand Galloping Gala, and she’ll be there for sure. The only thing though is that it’s a formal event.”

“Formal? What does that mean?”

The fashionista sighed, Facehoofing herself. “It means that I’m going to have to craft you a suit for the occasion.”

Meanwhile…

Kaos was in a concentrated state of mind. One where he preferred to not be disrupted. If so, then his train of thought would be derailed, and his thinking would be back to square one. However, given someone of his status, he never had the chance to get a few moments of peace... especially when he sent out Glumshanks to go on a reconnaissance mission.

“Lord Kaos? Come in,” came the voice from the radio transmitter that was on board the loyal minion’s ship. “Sir, I’m getting a LOT of turbulence down here from following the coordinates you gave me. Are you sure that everything will be okay?”

“Oh! I knew I was forgetting something,” Kaos snapped his finger at the sudden realization, “Don't worry, Glumshanks. That's just the natural magical field between Skylands and the land below. Acts as a natural barrier. You'll make it through. Probably…”

“Probably…!?”

“Possibly.”

“POSSIBLY!?!”

“Anywho, give me a call when you get there. I have some preparations to make…”

“But Si-!” Kaos didn’t hear the last of the transmission from Glumshanks after he cut the communication channel for the time being. By preparations, Kaos meant that he needed to prepare his new plan. He wasn’t sure of a lot of things. What the population was… How much magic it had… if it had any trees that needed to be burned to the ground. All these things had to be taken into account in order for this plan to be better unlike the last few plans.

Especially when he was forced against his will to work for the Skylanders. A time where he had to label it “Community Service” just so the rest of his family did not have to hear about it. One thing he knew for sure though was that no Skylanders were aware of his current intentions. He had his armies attack different outposts in small scale battalions in order to draw their attention away from the ship that Glumshanks was using. He just hoped that for his sake he knew how to fly a troll ship.

Unfortunately for him, luck wasn’t always on his side.

“S-sir!? I don’t think I’ll make it through!! The ship's engines are damaged, I’m running on fumes and it’s beginning to fall apart at the seams!! But, Sir, I have to say, it has been an honor servi-.”

“Oh, quit with the melodramatics!! …Do I have to do EVERYTHING myself, Glumshanks? I ask you!”

“But, Si-.”

“Nope! Not another word. Guess I'll have to handle the barrier myself,” Kaos interjected, his eyes glowing as he looked at his loyal minion in the viewing pool that was part of his Portal of Power. Suddenly, before Glumshank's ship, a rift opens in the energy field, providing him clear passage through. “There! I used my Dark Portal Powers to see you through. There. You happy!?”

“Oh, thank you, Si-.”

“Good! Now, get to it!!” The Dark portal master yelled at his loyal minion, whose only reply at the time was a loyal salute and a wave.

“Of course, Sir. The ship is now exiting the energy field. I'll make sure to get all you need, Lord Kaooooooo-!!”

“Huh. Odd. Communication's cut off. ....ah, he'll be fine. Now, where was I?”

Landing Site

Glumshanks was covered in soot and scratches by the time he was able to walk away from his crash landing on a strange new world, surrounded by darkened trees.

The Minion coughed a little, before refocusing his attention. “Guess it's true what they say... any landing you can walk away from is a good one-” Then, his sense of smell kicked in, making him want to cover his nose. “Whew! What is that awful smell!?!”

That was the least of his worries though. Glumshanks began to hear a series of loud snarls behind him. Shaking a little, he slowly turned around. His eyes soon widened at the sight of pairs of green eyes that belonged to a pack of timberwolves, howling to call upon more of their kind.

“… Oh no.”

“Hey girls, did you hear that?”

“Hear what, Calvin?”

“Something that sounded like someone screaming?”

“ … Nah, all I hear is the train on the tracks.”

“Odd, I swear I thought I heard someone just now.”

End Scroll 3

Author's Note

Todays Skylanders:
Ninjini

Snap Shot

Spitfire:

Also, a gimmick with Calvin is that the more times he uses a certain form, he will personally level up and obtain new upgrades and skills for the character in which he uses. Also, he can stay in that form for longer amounts of time.

In a few chapters, I will have his token out and ready, but as of right now, stay tuned.
-Frost

Scroll 5- Canterlot Crashers

Beyond the Skies- Canterlot Crashers

Fluttershy’s cottage (A few hours before the gala)

It had been about a day since Calvin’s visit to the Carousel Boutique, and now, he was spending his morning talking with Discord about his experience with not just her, but also the Cutie Mark Crusaders and also Applejack. Of course, being the lord of Chaos that he is, explaining things to him wasn’t always so easy, but this morning, he actually took quite a liking to the boy’s little story about what happened.

“So, Applejack tried to hogtie you with her lasso, and you burned it? Boy, you sure have a lot of tricks up your sleeve,” Discord chuckled, “Then again, your clothes don’t have sleeves.”

Calvin sighed. “Point taken…”

“You would really be good as an escape artist with those tricks of yours there, Calvin. Either that or one of the stallions that gets shot out of the cannon at the circus.”

“Um… I don’t really think I would be able to do that.”

“Not with that attitude!” He cheerfully interjected.

“Right… So, would you mind if I asked you something?” Calvin asked. “I was wondering about Princess Celestia. The pony that Twilight and the girls are going to introduce me to tonight… What is she like?”

“Well… That’s… a bit of a tough question. My relationship with her has been a bit… bumpy over the years if you know what I mean.” Discord then pointed to a blue sign he made in the air, stating “Reformed Villain” in bright gold letters. While that was going on, a few bumps began to take form along his shoulders and serpentine body as he conjured a hammer with his Chaos magic and started to smash them back in. This caused the sign above him to crack a little with each smash of the hammer as the Draconequus looked back at the boy. “We're in a somewhat fragile state right now-”

Around the time he said that, the sign above him shattered into pieces, with parts of the sign taking form into glass as they fell to the floor. “-So, I really got to watch my step around her and Luna. Or else I’ll poke a claw out.” As he got up, he placed one of his feet on a shard of glass, giving the sound of what you would hear when a balloon would pop. He lifted it up, showing the deflated limb to Calvin.

“See what I mean?”

Crushing the glass pieces in a claw, he placed his mouth at a claw tip of his foot and blew, the limb blowing back into shape like a balloon.

“I guess…… Would one way of describing it be like trying to walk through a minefield?” Calvin asked, remembering when he had to tread through one when playing the first Skylanders game.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

The boy then breathed a sigh of relief. Conversations were never a strong suit for Calvin, so he was always trying to be careful with what he said… and anytime he messed up, he would be quick to apologize. “Still… back to what you were saying about Celestia?”

“Oh! Right…” The Chaos spirit replied back, using a small broom and dustpan to pick the glass off of the floor. “Well, Celestia is a kind pony, but she is also quite busy. She is the ruler of all of Equestria, and that comes with a lot of responsibility and a long to-do list. She’s a bit of a workaholic if you ask me.”

“A what?” Calvin asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Workaholic… You know… likes to keep herself busy with things to do… That sort of thing?” The boy still seemed confused as Discord only gave a deep sigh. “Well, are there any other questions you want to ask?”

“Well… How should I act around her? Should I try to be formal, like what Rarity told me at the boutique, or casual, since Rainbow told me it’ll be easier for me.”

Now, Calvin brought up a very good question. One that was tricky for even Discord to answer. “Well, the only thing I can suggest is for you to be yourself. Just act normal. Like when you met Luna and Cadence earlier today.”

“Yeah, but that was a surprise that caught everyone off guard,” he reminded him.

“True. But you should still act the same way. Just keep calm and carry on… For me though, I have other things to focus on.”

“Other things?” He asked.

“I’m a little concerned about a new friend that Fluttershy made yesterday while you were at the Boutique. Her name is Tree Hugger, and I get a weird suspicion that she’s trying to slowly take Fluttershy away from me.”

“That… just sounds really silly. You can have more than one friend, Discord. Don’t you think that she considers you as much of a friend as she considers Twilight and the girls as her friends as well?” He posed a very valid question... but Discord wasn’t quite so open to the possibility though, especially with the personal thoughts of her inviting Tree Hugger to the Gala instead of him lingering in his mind.

Calvin sighed. “Well, I’m going to check on Rarity and see if my suit for the Gala is done. I’ll catch up with you later.” With that, he exited out the front door of the cottage and began to walk to the Carousel Boutique. It was a calming walk, despite the numerous amounts of eyes that were watching him as he made his way to the place Rarity called home. Soon, he made it to the front door and knocked a few times before he heard a voice.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Calvin,” he replied, “Can I come in?”

“Of course you can!” Rarity replied wistfully, using her magic to open the door and welcoming the boy inside before closing it behind him. “I’ve been working on your suit all day, and thanks to you, I’ve come up with a variety of options for you to choose from.”

“Wait… Options?”

“Why of course! You should always have a second set of clothes for any fancy occasion. So, I did a number of suits in different colors for you. Most of them based off of the colors of the elements that you mentioned the other day when explaining your powers.” The seamstress said, displaying a series of ten different suits. Two of them that caught his attention were the dark navy colored pair based on the Dark Element and the Purple suit based on the Magic element, so he decided to use those two for the Gala tonight.

“All of these look fantastic, Rarity. Hopefully, this gives a boost to my confidence.”

“Why’s that, Darling? You already look very confident to me.”

“Well, I’m a little bit nervous about meeting Princess Celestia,” Calvin admitted, “I tried talking to Discord for advice, but that really didn’t go so well. He’s acting a little… what's the term…?”

“Not himself?”

“I was going to say loony, but I think the proper term is senseless,” he replied, “You should’ve seen him after he mentioned the new friend that Fluttershy was bringing to the Gala.”

“Should I know?” She asked, a little bit concerned.

“He thinks that her new friend, Tree Hugger, would take Fluttershy away from him. I tried to reason with him… But… He wasn’t really… accepting of what I told him. Let’s just hope he doesn’t take things too far at the Gala tonight.”

“Darling, I think that’s something we can all agree on. Come along now…” She ushered. “Let’s get you suited up and ready. The train to Canterlot should be leaving in an hour.”

“Is Canterlot like another town or city?” The boy asked. He never had the time to look at a map of Equestria, so he was fairly new to the country's numerous locations. Rarity herself was surprised to hear the boy say that and began an explanation that made Calvin feel like he was being lectured by his parents.

Soon though, he and the girls were off, with Discord in tow. Spike ultimately decided to stay home, because he remembered his experience from the last Grand Galloping Gala, and it wasn’t exactly Grand. On the way though, a lot of things were going on inside Calvin’s mind. He was personally worried about trying to not disappoint Twilight’s “Teacher”, not to mention the ruler of the entire country, but also felt… alert, like something bad was going to happen tonight of all places.

‘Eon? Are you there?’ He thought to himself, wondering if he had some kind of way to communicate with the Portal Master in his mind. It didn’t happen immediately, but after a few seconds, a voice responded.

‘You said my name, young SkyShifter?’

‘Yeah. I wanted to ask you about something. Remember when you said about me needing to make that token to call upon help when I needed it?’

‘Indeed,’ Eon spoke softly to him. ‘You are ready to make it?’

‘Yes, I am. I got a bad feeling that after tonight, something crazy is going to happen, and I want to be ready for whenever I may need help, and I’m separated from the girls.’ Calvin told the Elderly portal master his concerns. ‘How does the process work?’

‘First, you need an item to serve as your token.’

‘Could the Traptanium Crystal around my neck work?’

‘If you believe so. Now, with that, you need to say something. A calling to others who might come across it and need your help in desperate times.’ Calvin thought about it for a minute, taking the time he needed to summarize the words, but soon, he spoke again to Eon.

‘Hello. My name is Calvin, but you may refer to me as the SkyShifter. Summon me, and I will assist you in anyway I can.’

‘Well done. I’ll take care of the rest from here. You might want to pay attention to your friends though. The Pink one thinks you’re dozing off.’

“Wait, wha-?”

“Wakey-Wakey, Calvy!!!” When Calvin snapped back to reality, Pinkie Pie’s face was way too close to his to be even considered… comfortable.

“Agh! Don’t surprise me like that!!”

“We’ve been trying to get your attention for a while, silly! We made it!”

“Wait, made what?”

“No, not what... here! We made it to Canterlot!!”

‘Well, that was quick,’ he thought mentally as he followed the dressed pink pony out of the train car and into the royal city. The city at night looked magnificently stunning as the two of them moved through the streets. They soon caught up to Rainbow, who was waiting for them just outside the castle doors.

“There you guys are. Where the hay were you?”

“Well… I kind of… dozed off.” Calvin said with an embarrassed smile on his face. “Must’ve been thinking too much, honestly.”

“Oh, come on, rookie! You’ll do fine!! There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“That’s because you’re a pony while I’m… well, me. I stand out too easily.” Calvin did make a good point. Amongst all of the ponies, he and Discord were the two that stood out the most.

“Hey, kid. Just play it cool and things will work out just fine.”

Calvin rolled his eyes as he looked back at Rainbow Dash. “You make that sound like it’s easy.”

“That’s because it is,” Rainbow patted him on the back with a hoof as they walked on in. “Twilight was going to get the Princess ready, so she could introduce her to you.”

Calvin gulped a little at what Rainbow said. Nervousness still gripped him like a boa constrictor. “Ooookay. That’s some good information… But, could you be a little more specific?”

“What’s there to be specific about? She’s right in front of you.”

‘Uh oh...’ Calvin thought. He now stepped into the same room that had the tall white Alicorn in the room, and his nervousness began to spike. Twilight was next to her, but that didn’t really make him feel any more comfortable, especially when Rainbow pushed him into the room before she bolted for the door.

“Good luck, kiddo.”

‘So much for MORAL SUPPORT!!’ The boy mentally shouted, only turning around to look at the two alicorns in front of him.

“So… you must be Calvin, I assume?”

“Y-yes, that’s right…”

“There isn’t a need to be nervous,” Celestia spoke with a soft tone. “I just would like us to talk. Twilight has told me some very… interesting things about you.”

The human boy now raised an eyebrow. “Define interesting?”

The princess cleared her throat, covering it with a hoof. “I believe it was your… abilities? She said that you had some sort of… transformation spell?”

“It’s… a little bit more complicated,” Calvin said, “Plus, I’m worried that I’ll destroy this suit if I even try it, and I don’t want Rarity to have a fit with me over it.”

“Your other clothes weren’t destroyed though-”

“That’s because they were light, Twilight. This is a lot more layers and if I tried transforming into something, like from the fire element for example, it’ll burn to cinders.”

“Element? Is this ability elemental based?”

“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. You see, back where I’m from, there is something called Skylanders, composed of heroes that range from 10 different elements. Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Magic, Life, Undead, Tech, Light and Dark. I can transform into them by saying a phrase they would normally say because of the gemstone around my neck, but I can only transform for a short amount of time before turning back to normal.”

“So, it’s less of an ability and more of a magical artifact?”

“One that only I can use,” Calvin pointed out, “Trust me, Twilight was eager to try, and all that did was cause crickets to chirp.” However, it was during this moment that the hallway began to echo with the sound of hooves and many ponies panicking and running for the door.

“Okay… does anyone know what the heck is going on?”

“Not me… Unless something happened outside, then we don’t know-” Around then was when a familiar face from the Royal guard bashed through the door. It was an orange pegasus stallion, and right behind him was Twilight’s brother, Shining Armor.

“Twily!”

“Shining!”

“Um… What?” was the only thing Calvin could say before Applejack entered the room as well. The only recognizable difference was that her gala dress, once originally smoothed, was now wrinkled and dirty.

“Alright, everypony come on!! We gotta get ‘cha all out of here!”

“Applejack, what is going on!?”

“Some crazy bald varment is unleashing monsters onto the courtyard. Rainbow Dash stayed to fight them off, but I’m worried for her safety.” Looking back at Twilight and the others, Calvin looked towards the door where all the noise was coming from and sighed. Rarity was going to kill him for ruining her suit.

Ignoring the voices that followed from his friends, Calvin pushed himself through the door and ran towards the sounds of chaos. Soon, he saw exactly what was going on… and who was causing it.

“YOU LITTLE TWERP!! DO YOU THINK YOUR WINGS CAN HELP YOU AVOID THE WRATH OF KAOS!!!?”

Now, Calvin was able to see everything. He was personally scared at first, seeing the actual Kaos himself and not the one from the games he played back home. But, he also saw that Rainbow Dash was beginning to tire out. She couldn’t last much longer in this current state, due to the amount of close calls from not only Kaos, but his minions as well.

As luck would have it, Calvin had the perfect way to distract Kaos. Or as he heard many times back home, a pre-emptive strike. Grabbing an apple from a nearby table, he threw it at full force like he was pitching at a baseball game, knocking Kaos upside the top of his head.

“What in the-? WHO DARES HIT ME WITH THE EVIL SPAWN OF TREES!?!”

“Over here, baldy.”

Kaos now turned around, surprised at first to see Calvin as he tore off his suit jacket to where he only had his undershirt on. “You’re going to pay for messing with my friend!”

“Oh, really now? You look too… weak to be able to fight,” Kaos snickered before turning back to the battle with Rainbow and the exhausted solar guard, “What are you going to do, turn into something that actually could stop me?”

“… You can say that.” With that, blue fire roared around Calvin’s hands as he prepared himself for what was to come. “Fuel the Flames!”

“Oh, you are so going to get it now!!” Rainbow Dash yelled in support. Kaos himself was distracted only for a short bit as he turned back around to see the human boy turn into the one thing that he dreaded most.

A skylander.

“W-wha-!? HOW-!?!”

“That’s for me to know only? Now then, Rainbow?”

“Yes?”

“Sick ‘em.” That verbal cue had the pegasus change her tactics. Instead of dodging and weaving in and out of cover, she was now going on the offensive. Using her blinding speed to cause Kaos’ minions to lose track of where she was before she smashed her hoof in their face. The same went for Calvin, who focused on sticking with Melee combat against his opponents while dashing out of the way of incoming rockets that were being fired at him from some nearby trolls. Seeing as all of them were close by one another, Calvin used his powers to unleased a fire tornado on the small group, causing them to start floating helplessly in the air by the flames. Again, he heard “Level up!” inside his head, but he ignored that in order to focus on the fight he was in, assisting Rainbow in another close call with a few troll fighters.

But with Kaos being the persistent little pest that he was, he was far from calling it quits with these two. Before using his magic to disappear, he summoned two battalions of drow elves and two life spell punks, which in turn, confused Rainbow when she saw that her attacks weren’t hurting them. “Why isn’t this working!?!”

“The spell punks back there are healing these guys! Attack them first!! I’ll deal with the others.”

“Roger!!” She saluted as the two friends attacked in unison, Rainbow using her blinding speed to blindside both spell punks as Calvin ripped and tore up what remained of the battalions. Around then was when Twilight and Celestia herself teleported into the room, just as Calvin was turning back to normal.

“So… this is why you ran back?”

“Yes. Rainbow was in trouble, and I had to help her.”

“That is very brave of you.” The Princess replied, before turning to see the collateral damage that was left behind from the clash. “However, who had the audacity to attack Canterlot during a peaceful gathering such as this?”

“Some bald doofus who called himself Kaos,” Rainbow replied. “He had a VERY big ego and was able to summon a lot of bad guys. He did seem shocked though when Calvin transformed though.”

“Why’s that?” Twilight asked.

“That… might take a while to explain.” Calvin cleared his throat, taking a deep sigh. “Remember when I said that Skylanders were heroes? Well, Kaos is the villain that the Skylanders have to handle on an occasional basis. He may be small, but what he lacks in size, he makes up for in power and magic. He’s what is considered as a “Dark” portal master, where the light portal master is the person that calls upon the Skylanders whenever someone needs help. But… something about him just now felt… off.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well… for one thing… how exactly do you think he knew about the Gala?”

“I don’t know, but it’s one thing we need to keep an eye out for. If he had the guts to try and attack us on our home turf, there’s no telling what he might do next.” Calvin agreed with Rainbow’s statement. Now though, he decided to follow up with Rainbow and her friends and enjoy the train ride back to Ponyville.

Some time later…

The boy that was the SkyShifter woke up later in the evening, only to find himself not on the bed in Fluttershy’s cottage. Instead, it looked like the cloudy void that was what the Skylander games had when you needed to place a Skylander on the portal of power. He was confused as to why exactly he was here, but soon, his question was answered when one voice caught his attention and had him turn around.

“Hey, kiddo. Over here.”

It was Spitfire. The Fire Skylander himself.

End Scroll 5

Author's Note

And with that, the villain makes his move AND Calvin's token is released. For those that want to summon him, his token looks like this.

Not quite the one that his necklace looks like, but it's the one that other Displaced will find. Thanks again to Regreme for helping me edit this chapter along with all my other ones. Plus, he gives some good ideas for character progression.

Scroll 6- Tomb Raider: Griffonstone

Author's Note

And here's another chapter. No, I haven't gotten Skylanders: Superchargers yet. But it's on my to do list! Hopefully, I'll be able to get it as soon as possible.

Stealth Elf:

Nightfall:

Hope you guys enjoy it!

Oh and there's this too:

Scroll 6- Tomb Raider: Griffonstone

Beyond the Skies- Tomb Raider: Griffonstone

Unknown Location

“Hey, Kiddo. Over here.”

Calvin himself had to blink a few times before realizing the extent of what was happening. Spitfire, the actual Fire Skylander himself, was right in front of him. He had many questions, but a lot of them could be saved for later.

“S-spitfire?”

“That is my name, yes? You must be Calvin.” The boy was taken back a bit when the Skylander said his name. They had only just met, and now, he knew his name? How could that possibly make sense?

“Y-yes, I am… How do you know my name?”

“Master Eon told me. He called a few of us into a room to explain what was going on and the power that you possessed. How this is happening though… I’m not so sure,” he said, “What do you remember happening?”

“Well, I was off to a Gala with my friends. Somehow, Kaos tried to crash the party-”

“Whoa whoa whoa, back up a minute. Did you say Kaos?” The Skylander retorted. “Last I heard of him, he hasn’t been doing any… evil doings recently.”

“I can say otherwise,” Calvin said, remembering his encounter with the Dark Portal Master. When he did though, a series of images began to flash like it was showing a movie at a theater, and Spitfire soon saw and heard what exactly the Skyshifter had told him about. But his personal favorite moment, besides the part where he kicked some serious flame with his transformation, was when Calvin first encountered him and threw an apple in his face.

“Well, that’s something…” Calvin thought to himself. “I think anything I remember can be seen here, like watching something on a movie screen.”

“Heh… serves that jerk right. You really know how to make Kaos retreat.”

Calvin shrugged, smiling a little. “Honestly, I just try to do my best. Can you make sure to tell Eon about Kaos? I got a feeling that more trouble will be happening on my end sometime soon.” The Supercharger nodded, using his flames to disappear as a bright light filled the room and consumed the Skyshifter.

Castle of Friendship

When Calvin woke up again, he found himself inside the guest bedroom of Twilight’s castle. He originally woke up peacefully, but soon, his peace was disturbed by the sound of two to three voices bickering amongst each other. Once his hearing was cleared up, he began to make out the voices as he slowly walked to the door.

“I want him.”

“Rainbow, how many times do I have to tell you: no means no!”

“Come on, Twilight! Have you NOT seen him kick some serious flank in the past few days?! Calvin would be great to have with Pinkie and I.”

“Great, they’re talking about me,” Calvin groaned, “But what exactly are they talking about?” He decided to listen in a little while he was changing his clothes, so he can be clued into what was going on.

“He’s just a kid, Rainbow! Griffonstone can be a dangerous place!! Plus, they don’t take too kindly to outsiders!”

“What the heck is a Griffon Stone? Is it some kind of special rock?”

“I’ll watch over him, then. All of us have been since he crashed into MY house, so let Pinkie and I keep an eye on him.”

“And I told you, NO!”

Okay, that was it. Calvin opened the door widely, surprising all three of the ponies in the room. “No what?”

“Oh uh… Calvin… Good morning?”

“I would say the same if the three of you didn’t exactly wake me up, or at least Twilight making herself sound very strict with her tone,” Calvin sighed, “Plus, I hate it when someone is talking about me in private, yet they’re loud enough to where I can hear them.”

“Hehe… Busted,” Rainbow snickered, glaring at Twilight.

“What were you even talking about anyway? All I heard about was some… Griffon Stone? What is it, a relic?”

Twilight sighed, tempted to facehoof herself, but resisting the urge to do so. “No, it’s the name of a nation. It’s the home of the Griffon Kingdom.” She took the time to clue Calvin in on a few things from the Cutie Map and the Griffon species. But in doing so, Rainbow noticed that she used words that would make this trip seem more like a grueling expedition than what she thought as a walk in the park.

What she heard from Calvin, though, was quite unexpected… For both Rainbow and Twilight. “Sounds dangerous… I’M IN!!!”

“Wha-!? Why-?!”

“Twilight, come on. I’m a thrill seeker. Plus, I’m kind of interested to see what this new nation looks like.” Calvin replied.

“Well, well... we got ourselves a young Daring Do right here!” Rainbow replied. “I like your style!”

“W-what!? You are actually considering on going!?! Even AFTER everything I told you!?” Twilight responded. Calvin just smiled as he walked to Rainbow’s side.

“I prefer to listen to the Twilight that doesn’t sound like my adoptive mother.”

“Aww... Snap!!” Rainbow laughed as she looked back at Calvin, “I’m so glad to have you on board with this trip. Let’s go find Pinkie. She must be packing her bag back at Sugarcube Corner.”

“Sounds good to me.” The Skyshifter told her as they left the castle.

“So, remind me again, how exactly are we getting there?”

“You’ve ever been on a ship before?” Rainbow asked. The three of them have just arrived in the port to Baltimare and were walking towards the shipyards that had the vessel that was waiting for them. They had to use a train first to get to the port city before having to travel overseas.

“Once or twice back home, but that was just for a short field trip. I haven’t ever gone long distances onboard one though.” Calvin answered.

“What does your kind even use ships for?” Pinkie asked. “Are they for throwing big parties?”

“Not… necessarily. Honestly, I don’t know how to answer you on that one, Pinkie.” The boy sighed as the three of them turned another street corner. “Still, are you sure that you two need all that stuff? We aren’t exactly camping in the woods.”

“Well, we are going to be away from home for a while, almost a few days at best, so we needed this to pack some food, some things to keep us busy, some bits for if we need to buy anything. You know, those sort of things. Besides, why do you only have that one small backpack?” Rainbow then asked, pointing a hoof at the small sack.

“Twilight thought I should bring it, just in case.” Calvin sighed. “I’m using it to place some extra clothes and some other things, too.”

“You sure you don’t need any food?”

“I’m sure, Rainbow. I’m not hungry right now.” The Skyshifter told her as they got closer to the docks. He had a lot going through his mind, especially with finding out that he was able to meet Spitfire in person. There was a lot of things involving his powers that he was unsure about, but hopefully, some things will clear up soon.

It had taken them almost the entire day to reach Griffonstone, but upon arriving, Calvin didn’t like the looks of the place one bit. A lot of it was run down, and the local population was just plain… rude. No one offered to help them as soon as they reached the town, and all the Griffons in the place were giving strange looks at them. Specifically, him. By Eon, he just had to feel like an outcast because of this.

Not to mention the fact that everything in Griffonstone, even small services and the local restrooms, costed bits. Nothing here was for ‘free’, and many of the shopkeepers tried to raise the prices on them, which had Calvin learn the art of ‘haggling’ from Rainbow Dash, mostly involving the act of trying to convince the merchant to lower the price of the goods they were trying to sell.

“Ma’am, these cost 100 bits.”

“Pfft, I would buy these sandwiches for 50 bits back home.”

“100.”

“50.”

“90.”

“60.”

“75. Take it or leave it. No other offers, Miss,” The merchant sternly growled.

“Sold,” Rainbow replied, giving the sandwich salesgriffon the required amount of bits before she got the sandwiches she paid for Pinkie, Calvin and her.

“Fine. Take that brainless ape and go back to where you came from-”

Now, that was where Calvin’s ears twitched. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch that last bit, Missy.”

“Uh oh…” Rainbow muttered. Somepony had to anger Calvin, and she needed to intervene before anything drastic were to occur.

“Look boy, I’m not dealing with this-”

“The next thing you’re going to say is “Leave now before I call the guards on you”.”

“Leave now before-” The merchant soon realized what happened, and her eyes widened. “How did you-?”

“I used my brain. Case closed.” Calvin then turned away back to Pinkie and Rainbow before they continued to trot through the back streets of Griffonstone.

“Dude. I almost thought you were going to get in trouble. But that… was awesome. How did you do it?”

“It comes naturally. If I were a pony, I would probably have a cutie mark for it.” He chuckled before looking in front of him and noticed a griffon walking towards them. “Um… Dashie? We got company.”

When Rainbow turned around again, her eyes narrowed. She knew this griffon. “Gilda.”

“Rainbow.”

“Gilda.”

“Rainbow.”

“Pinkie!!”

“Dear Ancestors, make it stop!”

Calvin raised an eyebrow and turned around. For a moment, he thought that he just heard Spitfire talking inside his head. “That was weird.”

“What was weird-?”

He flinched again, looking around. “The heck? Spitfire, are you talking inside my head?!”

“Apparently so. I also can see what you’re doing. Who knew that going to take a nap led to this?” He heard the Fire Skylander speak to him mentally. “I’ve seen everything since you just landed. Nice roast on that griffon at the sandwich shop… Still, why are you here anyways?”

“That… I don't remember-”

“Hey, Calvin? You okay?” Calvin snapped out of his thoughts when he saw Rainbow flying by his head. “We’re moving. Gilda knows about a place where we can rest.”

“Gilda? You mean the griffon?” Rainbow nodded her head in response and told him to hustle because he was burning daylight, something that Spitfire was chucking about inside Calvin’s head. Nevertheless, he ignored it as they got moving, but as Gilda and Rainbow were talking about something involving a lost treasure, Calvin soon heard something from Spitfire that got him thinking a little.

“Hey, are you familiar with when the Skylanders are on missions, that they normally go in pairs or small groups?”

“Yeah, I do,” Calvin remembered. “What about it?”

“Do you think that rule still applies here, or is that somehow off the table?”

“Well, I need to find a way to call you here, first off,” the Skyshifter pointed out, “Second, like with my transformations, there might be a time mechanic involved if something like that was to be accomplished.”

“Time mechanic?”

“You may be limited to the amount of time you can be here for,” Calvin reminded him. “Still, that doesn’t rule out the possibility. There’s just a lot of values that are unknown as of right now. If we had some more information, then it might be a possibility.”

“I could ask Hugo, but then again, Eon said to me that very few people should know about your secret. He doesn’t want to put you in any kind of danger.”

“Try telling that to Eon after I encountered Kaos.”

“... Good point.”

Calvin would reply back to the Skylander, were it not for another griffon in the room slowly approaching him. “Umm… Hello?”

“Hi?” Calvin responded, “I’m sorry, but who are you? I haven’t seen you before.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. The name’s Greta.” she replied back, sticking out a claw in the form of a handshake. Calvin kindly shook her claw and smiled, introducing himself to her, but it seemed like the griffon was paying more attention to the crystal around Calvin’s neck.

“That’s quite an interesting pendant you have… Can I-” At the part where Greta tried to touch the crystal, it violently pulsed and shocked the griffon, causing her to skid backwards. Calvin got up from that and tried to help calm her down, but the griffon wanted answers for what just happened.

“What the beak was that?”

“I’m sorry, Greta. The crystal’s magic only works with me. Anyone else who tries to touch it gets hit with its magic. I tried to warn you, but I didn’t get the chance to speak.”

“Wait, magic? What do you mean by that?”

Calvin sighed. “That is hard to explain. It allows me to undergo transformations for a short amount of time.” Before she could say anything else, the Skyshifter chanted the phrase Full Scream Ahead! and turned himself into the Air Skylander called Sonic Boom; who was by nature… a griffon.

When he changed back seconds later, all that did was leave Greta shocked and confused. “You just… turned into… a griffon.”

“It’s not the only thing I could turn into, but I don’t want anyone screaming their heads off and thinking I’m a monster,” Calvin pointed out, “A lot of griffons here see me as a freak. I don’t want to make myself looking like a threat.”

“The young one makes a good point,” another voice replied. Calvin and Greta turned around, looking at another griffon that appeared to be a male by size and voice, someone that Gilda referred to as “Grandpa”, but Calvin wasn’t able to catch his full name. “Just who are you exactly?”

“My name is Calvin. I’m with my friends Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie-”

“Ah yes, the two Equines,” he replied, “Gilda was going to help them with what they came for. But, I’m a little more curious about you.”

“Me? Why is that?”

“Pardon me if I sound rude, but I did happen to notice your… ability just now,” the griffon spoke sincerely, “I’m rather curious as to how it might be related to some of the things that have been found on Griffonstone.”

“Wait a second… What things?” Calvin asked

“Machines. Bodies of Metal. Things beyond my comprehension,” he replied. A small alarm went off inside Calvin’s head as he tried to speak to Spitfire.

“Spitfire, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“There were contraptions of metal bodies found across Griffonstone. I think they’re talking about the Arkeyans.”

“What? That can’t be right. We’ve been working to make sure that all the Arkeyans were taken care of… Unless they fell through the clouds… We need to investigate that. Ask them about where they are located.”

Calvin sighed, clearing his throat a little before looking back at the two Griffons. “I’m a little curious about these contraptions. Where could I possibly find them?”

“Mostly in the old Junkyard, but I heard that the Emperor has been trying to have his scholars try to discover how they work and how to somehow make them operational.”

That… immediately… raised a few red flags. “I better hurry then. Something tells me that if they’re trying to do what I think they’re trying to do, it’ll only spell out trouble for all of us.” Without even giving a second thought, Calvin stormed out of the small room and began to walk. He began to look for anything that could be a sign of the Arkeyans, but also needed to stay out of the sight of the guards. Word of his encounter earlier with the shopkeeper in town had spread, and now, they were looking for him. As he hid behind a corner, a few guards were knocking on the door of the building where he just was, questioning the Griffons he was talking to.

“Maybe I need to hide myself for the time being,” he considered, holding his pendant again, “Silent, but deadly.”

Turning into Stealth Elf provided Calvin with a lot of tactical advantages. For one thing, he was now a ninja. Second, his new set of abilities provided him with a lot of abilities to keep himself hidden... and the guards distracted, which was definitely a plus. For the ten minutes that he was the Life Skylander, he was able to bypass a LOT of the guards, and when he turned back to normal, the Skyshifter was hiding behind a curved piece of steel, watching as a bunch of griffons with strange robes and books were moving in and out of a clearing up ahead.

“Okay, I should stay away from that… But… If I were a betting boy, then that’s probably where the Arkeyans are.”

“There seems to be a secondary entrance to your left. It may be a long shot, but I think where those birdies are is only the tip of the iceberg. Let’s head into the caves and see what else we can find.” Spitfire instructed to him as Calvin hurried to the entrance. To the surprise of both of them, they seemed to find that the room was filled with gold and treasure. Something that wasn’t normally kept by Arkeyans. He had a bad feeling that it was some sort of trap.

“Stealth mode, don’t fail me now…” He told himself as he quietly walked through the open room and got closer to where he was hearing all the commotion around him. There were around eighteen different griffons conducting research in a tightly quartered area that looks sealed off. They seem to be investigating some sort of stone in the center of the area that looked like it was broken into two pieces, but it was held together by magic.

“Hang on, Calvin. This is just getting weird.”

“Weird? Why’s that?”

“Both of the energies pulsing from those stones are similar to the Magic from the Core of Light. Not only that, but the other stone feels like it contains Rift Energy.”

Calvin raised an eyebrow before responding. “Rift Energy?”

“It’s the energy that the Rift Engines our vehicles use back in Skylands. Think of it like gasoline used to power up a car or coal used to keep a train running.”

Now that… made a lot of sense. But why would something like that be down here? He needed a distraction so he could investigate further. Noticing an old mining box, he looked inside to find sticks of dynamite and a couple of matches. Lighting them with some sparks from nearby rocks, he tossed a few of them as far as he could so the explosion that triggered could possibly catch their attention.

“What the beak-!? Are we under attack!?!”

“Everybirdy out! We need to call the marshal!”

“Well, that was a lot easier than expected.” Calvin smiled, using the distraction to get closer to the stone while all the griffons were running for their lives. Surprisingly though, as he touched both pieces, a colorful array of magic soon pulsed through him as it surged through him and stored itself in Calvin’s necklace. Then, as Calvin tried to put it back, the two rocks just fell to the ground. Lifeless.

“Uh oh… What just happened?”

“Whatever it was, I got some good news and bad news for you. The Bad news is, you got to run. The military is coming.” With that, Calvin wasted no time, bolting from the scene as he ran back towards the entrance he came through. Unfortunately, as he came out, his escape route was blocked off by a full group of griffon soldiers and one that appeared to be their commanding officer.

“Great… first, it was the two Equines causing trouble before they left, and now this runt? I really need a raise for my job.”

“Spitfire, mind telling me what the good news is now!?”

“Calm down, give me a second.” Before Calvin could even realize what was going on, a set of blue flames appeared on the ground next to him. The griffons thought that Calvin was trying to attack them and crept closer, but in doing so, got slammed by the incoming surprise that the Skyshifter was stunned by.

“The Good news is that I’m here now. But only for a short while. I would think fifteen minutes at most give or take.”

Spitfire was now standing next to him. The real thing. Calvin grinned a little and thought of it as how Co-op worked in the Skylanders games. “Okay, my turn. Dark and Dangerous.” With that, a series of dark shadows soon came across the Skyshifter as he turned into Nightfall, one of the Skylanders of the Dark Element. A Dreadwalker who had two hooks around his, now her, hands and can weave shadows into the ground as a weapon.

“Good choice. Now, let’s get started,” The gargoyle told him just as the first few Griffons charged in to attack them. Calvin was quick enough to dodge the first few attacks as he used his hooks to break their spears and swords. The two of them pushed forward through the soldiers, but after they defeated a few, more of them would show up.

“Ugh, these guys just don’t know when to quit, do they?”

The Skyshifter agreed on that part, but then thought of something. If the magic he had absorbed was rift energy… Would it be possible to use it, too? “Spitfire, I got an idea.”

“What’s that-?”

“Simple… Run!” Calvin told him, the both of them starting to run as fast as they could. The two of them knocked over a stack of barrels as they ran to a cliff.

“Where are we even going!?”

“To the cliff.”

“Okay, why-?”

“You’ll see,” Calvin smirked as the two of them leaped off of the basin. All the guards were able to hear was the splash in the water and the ripples from the impact.

“So… Who thinks they’re dead?”

“Dead.”

“Dead as a doorknob.” One of the last griffon guards that arrived chirped.

“Too bad,” the captain in charge retorted. “I sign your paychecks. Search the coastline and the beach, double time.”

Most of the griffons groaned as they backed away from the bridge, but if any of them stayed a moment longer, they would’ve seen a blue source of electricity from underneath the waters.

“Okay, that was too close of a call…” Spitfire snapped, trying to make sure he didn’t get wet inside the vessel they were in. “Just how did you call forth the Sea Shadow though?”

“All I did was just picture it in my mind, and there it was,” Calvin said as he took the two of them under the waves. “I think I can bring out vehicles depending if I shift to a supercharger or not. Now, given that the griffons said that the Equines had already left, something tells me that Rainbow and Pinkie are already back.”

“So, what’s your plan?”

“Simple. Get this to the dock in Baltimare, change back to normal and go back to Ponyville.”

The Fire Skylander smirked. But saw one thing with the plan that didn’t add up. “And how exactly are we getting there once we reach land?”

“Were you interested on taking Hot Streak out for a spin?”

“YOU FORGOT CALVIN!?!”

Rainbow Dash was in the worst possible situation she could be in. She, Gilda and Pinkie Pie had just returned from Griffonstone only hours ago, only to realize that in the rush to get out of there, they left Calvin behind. Not only that, but her idol, Spitfire, had just happened to be at the Castle as well, discussing future Wonderbolt shows and the possibility of one being in Ponyville. As she was being pestered out of her mind, she began to hear something though. A loud humming noise that was getting closer.

“Twilight… do you hear that?”

“... Yeah, but that doesn’t make sense… I’ve only heard this before in Sunset’s world. Why would I be hearing a-”

Just as the Princess of Friendship was about to finish her sentence, a blazing hot rod blasted through the crystalline walls of the castle and went barreling towards her. In the vehicle’s front seat was a fire gargoyle of sorts while on the back end was Calvin hanging on for his life, but enjoying the thrill.

“-CAR!!!”

*SMACK*

“WOOHOO!!! Nailed the landing!” Calvin cheerfully yelled as he hopped off the back of Hot Streak, and Spitfire popped out from the driver’s seat. “Hey girls, where’s Twilight?”

All that happened next was Rainbow bursting into uncontrollable laughter and pointing next to Calvin’s feet. Right next to the Skyshifter was none other than the pony he was looking for, just with a singed mane and burnt fur and not amused by his stunt at all.

“Um… Whoops?”

End Scroll 6

Scroll 7- Field Trip

Author's Note

Next chapter and Calvin meets his first two Displaced. The first being a portal master while the second one is being the Delta Guardian, Zinnia. Both Displaced that belong to Gale. Major thanks to him and helping me yesterday since I had a lot to go through. Including my brothers birthday and a case of swimmers ear that's driving me nuts.

Splat:

Stay tuned for more in the future.

Scroll 7- Field Trip

Beyond the Skies- Field Trip

Twilight’s Castle

Shortly after Calvin’s… entrance into the castle, the young skyshifter had a LOT of explaining to do... mostly to Twilight. Though not before Spitfire had to apologize to her for running her over with his vehicle, Hot Streak. It was after these apologies that the young Alicorn was able to get to asking some questions that were on her mind.

“Okay, first thing’s first,” Twilight asked, looking at the Fire Skylander. “Who are you?”

“Me? I’m Spitfire,” he replied. Unaware of the pegasus in the room that was also named that as well. “I’m a Fire Skylander.”

“So, you are actually a Skylander?”

“That’s right,” he said to her, “I’m Fire Skylander and one of the SuperChargers. And yes, I already have a feeling of what’s going on. Trust me, Calvin and I found some things in the Griffon Ruins that weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. Luckily, Calvin was able to call for me, so I can help him.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow before looking at Calvin with a look of confusion. “How-?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Twilight,” the boy told her, shrugging her shoulders, “I’m just as confused and surprised as you are. We were lucky to make it out of there. Though, we did have to fight our way out and jump off a cliff-”

“YOU DID WHAT!?” the Alicorn shouted in shock.

“H-hey, don’t do that! You can make someone go deaf like that,” he sighed, “Like I was saying, we jumped off a cliff into a transport I was able to summon.”

“Okay, hold up,” Rainbow interjected, “So basically, not only can you call on an ally to help you… but you can also summon vehicles?”

“Pretty much. But, like my transformations,” Calvin said, pointing at Hot Streak as it slowly disappeared. “They have limits.” It was around then though that his crystal began to warmly glow a bright white light. Calvin was unsure of what was happening, but then he recalled something Eon told him. Something about his token and how others who found his token could call upon his help.

“Um, Twilight. Sorry to cut things short, but I have to go. I’ll explain later!” Calvin told her. Before the Alicorn could say anything, both Calvin and Spitfire disappeared in a flash of light, leaving the room empty and almost everypony, including Gilda and Spitfire, staring at what happened in disbelief.

“Well, I’m going back to the Academy. Something tells me that you might have your hooves full, Princess.” Spitfire told her. All Twilight did was sigh briefly.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

Meanwhile…

Ace sighed, leaning heavily against the desk he had found. Surprisingly good condition for something over a thousand years old. He held a small crystal in his hands, turning it over again and again.

“I know what this is…” he muttered, frowning. “Traptanium. But why did it have to be a Token?” Sighing again, Ace closed his eyes, holding the crystal up. “Whatever, let’s see who this is. Yo Calvin, come say hi.” However, what happened next was something that Ace wasn’t personally prepared for. A bright flash of light went off in the room as two figures came tumbling in. The first was what appeared to be a human. A young human in fact. The second was, from what Ace could tell, not a pony, but something completely different. Especially when he heard it speak.

“Calvin, please warn me about whenever that is suppose to happen…” The voice groaned. As the smoke faded away, Ace was now looking at not just a young boy, but also the Fire Skylander named Spitfire.

“Of course…” the man groaned, standing. “I get thrown into a world that immediately is plunged into a bloody war against the damn Doom Raiders, and you get actual Skylanders. Fan-bloody-tastic.”

“You also have me, Ace,” Core Strike said, his voice echoing in everyone’s heads.

“Oh yeah, a mentor who is a spirit in a sword. How could I forget?”

The boy looked up to the person, confused. “Um… who said that?” The boy said, looking at Ace. The one thing standing out was the crystal around his neck.

“My sword,” Ace replied, unsheathing Core Strike and holding him up to the little light that a nearby candle provided. “Or rather, the spirit bound to it. He speaks telepathically.” Sheathing the blade again, Ace held out his hand in greeting. “Name’s Ace. Nice ta meet ya, Calvin.”

Calvin himself tensed up, stepping backwards and looking at Spitfire. “H-how do you know my name?”

“Your token told me. Chill, dude.” Chuckling, Ace turned and returned to his desk, fishing through the drawers. “So tell me, Calvin, how does a kid like you get Displaced?”

“I’m sorry, what?” he responded, “I-I’m kind of new to this.”

“Fair enough. Gimme a sec.” Finally finding what he was looking for, Ace stood, a small notebook under his arm. “Come on, walk with me for a bit. I’ll show you around.”

The boy looked at Spitfire, who simply told him that he was heading back to Skylands as he disappeared in a flash of light. Turning back, Calvin slowly followed Ace.

“So, welcome to the Ruined City, as we like to call it,” the man said, gesturing out of a window as they passed. Calvin glanced out, seeing the crumbling walls of the Castle of the Two Sisters, as well as a multitude of tents and shanties surrounding it.

“Ruined city?” he asked, “What happened here?”

“Oh, this place is just really old,” Ace explained, “but we had to move somewhere after the Doom Raiders took over Ponyville.”

“Took Ponyville?” Calvin asked, before looking at him. “In this world, you mean? Because last I remember, Kaos tried crashing the Grand Galloping Gala, and I hit him in the head with an apple.”

“You have Kaos?” Ace demanded, looking to him with a mix of shock and envy. “You’re lucky… at least Kaos was funny.”

“He calls apples the spawn of trees.”

“Like I said, funny.” Calvin smiled a little as he continued to follow Ace. But then, something else came in his mind. Something he wanted to ask.

“Ace… What exactly are you?” he asked, “I-I don’t mean to be rude… but I just wanted to know a little more about you.”

“Not sure,” Ace replied simply, shrugging his shoulder. “I think I’m just a regular guy in another world, but for all I know, I’m a Portal Master. I mean, I’ve already found the Eternal Fire Source just sitting under Celly’s old bed.”

“A portal master? Does that mean you can summon Skylanders?” He asked, looking a little eager to find out his reply.

“Again, not sure.” Going quiet for a moment, Ace then continued, looking over his shoulder. “But I do have Eon’s amulet. And this Equestria is apparently made out of Skylands.”

“Wow… That’s new,” Calvin replied, “From what I can tell, I think My Equestria is below the Skylands. Spitfire and I found a few remains of Arkeyans in Griffonstone before I had to shift forms and run for my life. Also, the Cutie Mark Crusaders accidently planted a chompy pod for a school project.”

“Heh, crazy fillies…” Ace chuckled shaking his head. “So, that Skyshifter part in your Token, that was literal? What forms do you have?”

“Technically, I just have to repeat a phrase from a Skylander, and I turn into them for a short period of time. Though, the more times I use them, the longer I can stay transformed, and the more abilities I get. Need a demonstration?” he asked.

“If you want, I think I got it though,” Ace replied, rubbing his chin in thought. “So… if you said ‘Fear the Fish’, you’d turn into Gill Grunt?”

“Basically. For me… Saying ‘The Art of War’...” the boy soon began to glow briefly as he looked back at Ace, a violet like light began to fill the room as the Skyshifter took on a new form. This time, of a magic skylander. “... Allows me to turn into Splat. One of the SuperChargers of the Magic Element.”

“Heh, neat.” Smirking, Ace leaned against a wall and crossed his arms. “Bet you can’t turn into Bowser or Donkey Kong though. And yes, they’re technically Skylanders now.”

“Yeah, I rather not try to go that far.” Calvin said in his new form as he soon had himself return to normal. “That’s not the only thing I could do though. At times, I can have a Skylander fight beside me for a limited amount of time. Not only that, but I could also summon vehicles. Again, for a limited amount of time. Trust me on that one. Spitfire and I almost ran over Twilight.”

“Heh, funny,” Ace chuckled, shaking his head. “You know, I had the thought of trying to build some of the Superchargers vehicles myself, but if my suspicions of being a Portal Master are true, then I won’t need to.” Pausing, he glanced out of the window again. “Hey, you wanna see something cool?”

Calvin then looked back at Ace, again with a raised eyebrow. “Define ‘cool’.”

“Skylanders stuff.”

Calvin thought for a moment, remembering some things that he personally had to take into account. “Um… I need an adult?”

Ace chuckled slightly, shaking his head. “I meant the Portal of Power, Cal. Jeez…”

“Oh, you have one?” Calvin asked, surprised. “Well, go ahead. I’m right behind you.”

“You may wanna shift to an Air, buddy,” Ace said with a smirk, unsheathing his sword as it began to glow a light blue before diving out the window. Calvin was startled by Ace’s actions, running to the window to see if he was falling to the ground at the bottom of the mountain. To his surprise, however, Ace was laughing as he ran along an invisible pathway, swiping a menacing looking katana in front of himself the whole time.

“Oh, if that’s the way you want to play…” Calvin said, “Full Scream Ahead!” With that, Calvin jumped out in pursuit, now taking on the form of Sonic Boom as he chased Ace. He was able to see the path he was walking on, probably because of being an air element, but didn’t pay attention to that and instead focused on following Ace.

They eventually came to a stop at the mouth of a cavern in the chasm below the castle, Ace skidding to a halt and kicking up a small cloud of dirt as he sheathed his blade. “So, here we are,” he said simply as Calvin landed next to him, gesturing towards a large crystalline tree.

Calvin looked in the direction of the tree as he turned back to normal. “Strangely enough, that looks like Twilight’s Castle. So, the portal is in there?”

“Yep, in a cavern behind the Tree.” Ace smirked as he strode in, taking note of the staff embedded in the earth. “And you may get to meet Zecora, too.”

“Zecor- who?” Calvin asked, before sighing a little. “You know, I think I’ll wait till I see her first before guessing her name. I’d rather not mess up.” With that, the Skyshifter allowed the Portal Master to go inside first, with him following shortly afterwards.

“She’s a Zebra shamaness,” Ace explained, ducking under the low archway in the back of the cave. “Kinda like Voodood, but a woman and way prettier.”

“Why thank you, Ace, for your kind words,” a smooth, thickly accented voice said, the owner stepping out from behind a large stone plinth to reveal Zecora in a simple brown wrap. “Though what you said before sounds quite absurd.”

Calvin just looked at the Zebra, a little surprised before looking back at Ace. “I’m going to take a guess that this is her?”

“It is nice to meet you, my young new friend,” Zecora said sweetly, grabbing a dark cloak from the wall and covering herself. “But why are you here? To what end?”

“Um… Ace summoned me, and… Well… He told me about the Portal?” Calvin stuttered, a little nervous on what he was trying to say. Meeting this zebra was like meeting any new person to the young boy: very hard at first, until he starts to feel a little bit more comfortable around them.

“Relax, dude,” Ace laughed, moving over to the stone construct. “Zecora’s cool. Now come’ere. This is what I was gonna show you.”

“Oh. Okay,” he said, “Is this what you were talking about?”

“Yep, my own Portal of Power!” the man exclaimed, gesturing to calm purple substance within the stone borders. “Apparently, this thing spat me out when I was Displaced, so… yeah.” Calvin took a moment to look at it for a second and see everything in front of him. That was, before noticing all the clutter in other parts of the room.

“So, have you tried using it before?”

“Nope,” Ace shrugged. “But we’re thinking of making a Core of Light that connects to the Tree of Harmony. That’s why Zecora’s down here. She’s taking notes for Twilight.”

“I see…” Calvin said, his attention though was elsewhere as he looked back at something behind Ace before walking over there. Putting his hand in a pile, he picked up two figures that he recognized and brought them over. “Do these belong to you, Ace?”

Looking up at the figures, Ace gaped at them for a second before snatching them up. “It can’t be…” he muttered, eyes wide. “No way! Spyro and Cynder!?!”

“I think they’re yours… but I don’t know if they’re real or not. They seem to be like mini stone statues...”

“Yeah… but they’re mine. I’m sure of it.” Smiling to himself, Ace held the figures up. He panicked, however, the Spyro figure slipped in his grip, falling into the viscous purple substance in the portal and disappearing completely.

“What just happened?” Calvin asked.

“... I’m an idiot, that’s what…” Ace muttered, scowling. He then screamed in anger, kicking the side of the Portal in his rage. However, when he wasn’t looking, Calvin was seeing something that the Portal Master was not paying attention to.

“Ace… Remember the phrase “Toys to life”?” He asked, watching something move and then stretched out from the portal. “I… think you just did that with Spyro-”

He was cut off as a brilliant purple burst of light surged out from the portal, blinding everyone present. The soft beating of wings was heard before a raspy, cocky voice called out.

“All Fired Up!”

As the light died down, Calvin lowered the hand he used to cover his eyes, only to see the purple dragon himself standing there. In front of him. Quickly, he bumped Ace in the shoulder, getting his attention and trying to have him look back at the portal. “Ace… You got to see this… It’s Spyro.”

“I see it, Cal…” Ace breathed, watching wide-eyed as the drake hopped off of the Portal. “Not sure if I’m believing it though…”

The dragon looked at the two of them shortly, before its attention was focused on Ace. Using a paw, Spyro waved it in front of Ace as the Portal Master stared at him in shock. Sighing, the drake then spoke. “Are you the new Portal Master?”

“Apparently…” Ace breathed, kneeling down and looking Spyro over. “Are… are you real?”

“Last I checked,” Spyro chuckled, looking himself over. “Little younger than I remember…” He then noticed the other figure in Ace’s hand and nudged it a little. “I’m guessing you’re going to bring Cynder here, too?”

“Oh, yeah!” Ace cried, quickly standing and dropping the Cynder figure into the Portal. Soon, the same thing as before happened... only this time, the color of the light was a grayscale shade with a female voice being spoken this time.

“Volts and Lightning!”

A second dragon stepped out of the light, her body much sleeker and her scales a deeper shade of purple, broken silver shackles around her ankles. Cynder glanced around the room for a moment before a wide grin split her face, and she pounced, tackling Spyro to the dirt.

“Spyro!” Cynder cried, “Oh, I missed you!”

“I missed you, too, Cyn!” Spyro laughed, giving the dragoness a quick hug before pushing her to her feet. “But we’ve got company. Meet the new Portal Master!”

Cynder looked up, her features falling into a deadpan. “Which one? The furry’s wet dream, the child or the wannabe samurai?”

Calvin himself just pointed a finger towards Ace. “I think you’re looking for him.”

“H-hi!” Ace said, waving stupidly.

“Uh huh…” Cynder drolled, rolling her eyes. “Great, this is what we get? Wonderful.”

“Hey, let’s not assume based on first glance,” Calvin suggested, “After all, he summoned me here.”

“Uh huh, and I’m a Dirt Shark,” Cynder sneered. Calvin sighed, looking around before asking Ace something.

“Do you think shifting here helps?” he asked, pulling out the traptanium crystal that was under his shirt at the time. “Because if a dirt shark is what she’s asking for… I can play the part.”

“Do it,” Ace said, frowning at the dragoness while Spyro groaned, burying his face in his paws. The boy smirked, putting his hands together and letting the crystal glow, before saying “It’s Feeding Time!” and being surrounded in a lightish brown light. When the light faded away, Calvin was now in the form of Terrafin, The Earth Skylander and the literal definition of a dirt shark.

“How’s that?” Calvin asked, his voice now sounding like Terrafin’s. Catching Spyro and Cynder by surprise.

“Fin?” Spyro asked, shocked. “How-”

“That’s not Terrafin,” Ace chuckled, “It’s Calvin. He can become any Skylander by saying their catchphrase. Observe: Cal, wanna go outside and be Tree Rex?”

“I think I have another idea,” Calvin suggested as he returned to normal for a few seconds. Only to shift again, this time to a familiar phrase. Spyro’s phrase. “All fired up!” A bright violet surge of light went off, and now, the young boy was looking at the purple dragon in front of him… as the dragon.

“Hi.”

“Okay, that is just creepy,” Spyro said, leaning back with a creeped-out look on his face.

“Hmm, it has its uses…” Cynder muttered, tapping her chin. “Can you be me?”

He nodded. “Volts and Lightning!” He said, changing form into the undead dragon in front of him. “My transformations don’t have limits on who I can be. However, they have limits on how long I can be you guys for.”

“Huh, interesting,” Spyro mused, looking Calvin over. “You’ve got every detail right… how?”

“I just have a good memory. Other than that, I don’t know how magic works.” Calvin said, shifting back to his normal form. “However, Ace is the Portal Master here. Not me. I’m what I call a Skyshifter, since I can shift into any Skylander.”

“Makes sense…” Cynder mused. “But how would you do the Swap Force?”

“Personally, I haven’t gotten far with switching tops and bottoms yet,” Calvin said. “But I have gotten as far as Trap Team, SuperChargers and even turned into Ninjini once. Which reminds me, there’s one other thing.” With a little bit of concentration, a small void like tear opened up and out from it, the Spitfire that Calvin knew soon landed right next to him.

“Figures that I would get brought back out eventually,” Spitfire sighed, before looking in the direction of Spyro and Cynder.

“Before you freak out,” Ace said quickly, holding a hand up. “This isn’t the same Spitfire you know. He’s from Calvin’s world, an alternate dimension.”

“I was going to get to that, but you beat me to it,” Spitfire chuckled. “Still, it’s great to see you two again.” While this was going on, Calvin could hear a brief set of footsteps from outside. Looking back at Ace, the young boy looked a bit cautious.

“Ace, there’s someone outside.” Calvin told him, having Spitfire return back, so as to not startle whoever was outside.

“Hm?” Ace hummed, turning and sticking his head out the cavern opening. There stood Spike, looking around almost confusedly.

“Spike, buddy!” Ace called, catching the drake’s attention. “Come’ere! You gotta meet these guys!”

“Meet who?” he asked, peeking inside. He was quite surprised to notice two other dragons besides himself, not to mention a little curious. “Ace, who are these two?”

“Spike,” Ace explained, directing the young dragon over to Spyro and Cynder. “I would like you to meet Spyro and Cynder.”

“Nice to meet you,” Spyro greeted, holding a paw out.

“Likewise…” Spike replied, frowning slightly. “Sorry, it’s just… I feel like I know you guys…”

“Unlikely,” Cynder scoffed, looking away. She paused, however, glancing back at the bipedal drake unsurely. “The only way you could possibly know us is if…”

“If what exactly?” Calvin asked. “I’m a little lost.”

“When… when we brought the islands of Skylands together to form this world,” Cynder started, taking a seat and starting to draw in the dirt. She stayed quiet for a moment as a large map revealed itself in her drawings. “The only thing the Skylanders managed to leave behind were ten kids, each one in a sort of stasis pod and each one connected to a different Element.”

Catching onto her meaning, Spyro sighed. “Ours was an egg,” the drake continued. “Purple, with green spots.”

“Wait…” Spike paused for a minute, before asking a question. “That sounds a lot like my egg when Twilight hatched me.”

Spyro blinked. Cynder raised a brow. Both dragons shared a quick glance.

“... eeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!”

Ace, Zecora and Calvin covered their ears, stumbling back slightly at the sheer volume of the noise coming from Cynder’s mouth as she pounced on Spike, knocking him to the ground.

“Woah!” Spike cried, grunting at the impact. “The he-?!”

“My baby boy!” Cynder squealed, hugging Spike’s chest. “You’ve grown up so big and strong!” Calvin just looked at Ace, before staring back, dumbfounded by what was happening.

“Uh… what’s going on?” Ace asked, confusion covering his face.

“I’m just as confused as you…” Calvin replied, looking back at Cynder and Spyro.

Spyro just chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, it looks like Spike’s our son,” he explained nonchalantly.

“Well…” Ace muttered, rubbing his chin in thought. “That kinda makes sense, seeing as Spike’s an Undead Elemental.”

Calvin then raised an eyebrow, looking back at him. “Wait… he is?”

“Yep. His fire screams with the souls of hundreds of dead Ponies, crying out from the Underworld.”

Everyone present looked to Ace in shock.

“What!? I heard it!” Calvin was going to comment, but instead, he decided to hold his breath. This was a reunion between two parents and their child after being separated for so long. And for Spike, this was him discovering his origins. The last thing he would want to do is interrupt.

“Um…” Spike muttered, eyes wide. “Maybe… maybe we should go… talk…”

“Yeah, that sounds like something I’d say, too,” Spyro chuckled, nudging Cynder to get her attention before turning to Ace and nodding. “Thanks for waking us up.”

“Uh… no problem?” Ace replied, stepping to the side as the three dragons walked out, smiling nervously at Spike.

Calvin then looked at Ace, a little surprised. “Uh… do you think we should’ve told them about what was happening? You know… with the Doom Raiders?”

“Best not to ruin the moment,” the Portal Master sighed, shaking his head.

“Yeah, but what if one of them finds out about Spyro and Cynder? They could try to capture them.”

“Spike knows about the spies the DRs might have. He’ll keep them a secret.”

Calvin sighed. “Okay, I just thought to be cautious. If summoning Spyro and Cynder here attracted Spike’s attention, who knows what else it might bring.” The skyshifter was trying to air on the side of caution. The Doom Raiders were not to be taken lightly, after all.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Ace sighed. “I’ll bring them both up to speed. Later.”

“Alright. That sounds good…” Calvin asked, looking back at where he found the stone figures of Spyro and Cynder. “Hey, do you think it’s possible that there are others here besides the two we found?”

“Those were my Skylanders,” Ace replied, frowning in thought. “The toys at least. If Spyro and Cynder are here, the others are, too.”

“I understand that, but do you think that they’re here with the rest of your… collection? Or are they cast out in different places, and you need to start searching?”

“Oh, nothing’s easy,” the Portal Master sighed, “Knowing my luck, they’re out there in the world. They could be in the middle of the Badlands, or in Blueblood’s trophy room. Either way, it’ll be nigh impossible to find them.”

“Hmm…” Calvin said to himself. Thinking for a few minutes while looking back at the shelf where he found Spyro and Cynder earlier. Only to notice one other figure on the shelf. “Hey, Ace, I think there’s one more here we missed earlier.” Pulling it down, he handed it to Ace, who was surprised to see what the boy found.

“No way…” he breathed, smirking, “Drobot’s here too? I mean, it would’ve made more sense to have Trigger Happy and Gill Grunt, but hey! This is way better!”

“Well, Spyro and Cynder are dragons, so finding another one kind of makes sense, right?” Calvin asked Ace.

“Yeah, I guess,” the Portal Master shrugged. “I just meant the original Starter Pack. You know, I actually got the original Spyro last?”

“You mean series 1, or something else?” Calvin asked, a little puzzled.

“I mean the first Spyro toy, yeah,” Ace chuckled, setting the Drobot figure on the edge of the Portal. “I bought the game from a friend who’d broken his Spyro, so I never had one.”

“Ah, okay,” Calvin replied, “So, you think we should call on Drobot now or when Spyro and Cynder get back?”

Ace just smirked, pushing the toy over the edge of the Portal and into the substance within. “Oops.”

“Well, that answers my question,” the skyshifter replied as the aura of the portal changed to a bright gold. The clinking of gears could be heard as another phrase was heard. ‘Blink and Destroy!’ With it, the Tech Skylander known as Drobot soon climbed out of the portal, calibrating his sight first before looking towards Ace. All Calvin did was back up a little, giving the two of them some space.

“Greetings, Portal Master,” the cyborg drake said, his voice echoing with the synthesizer in his helmet. “I am Drobot.”

“What’s up!?” Ace cried, smiling wide.

“Up is a direction, Portal Master,” Drobot droned, flexing his wings.

“Are you gonna be a downer the whole time?” the man groaned, slumping over.

“I’m just answering logically. Now, Portal Master, what is your name?” he asked, walking over to Ace.

“You can call me Ace,” Ace answered, shrugging, “That’s Calvin, and the Zebra is Zecora.”

“H-hi,” Calvin squeaked, a little nervous with being put on the spot.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Drake of Machines,” Zecora added, noticing Drobot’s change of expression once she started speaking. “I apologize, I did not mean to intervene.”

“Our meeting is merely coincidental, though still pleasant,” Drobot replied, nodding to them both.

Ace sighed. “Of course… oh well.” Shrugging, he turned to Zecora. “You gonna be okay here?”

“I shall be perfectly fine,” the Zebra said with a smile, waving him off. “Now go, I will remain here for a time.”

“Hey, Ace?” The Skyshifter asked, getting the Portal Master’s attention. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead, Cal,” Ace replied, turning and strolling out of the cave. “I’m all ears.”

“Can you please tell me more about something? These ‘Displaced’ I think you called them.” He asked. “You seem to know a bit about them, so maybe you can tell me about them before I return to my world… You are going to bring me back right?”

“Of course,” the man chuckled, rolling his eyes. “I wouldn’t keep you here. You can stay as long as you like, of course, but I can send you back as soon as you want.” Pausing, he looked up, drawing his sword as it glowed green and shifted into a long, vine-like whip with red thorns. “Let’s get something to eat, and then I’ll explain the Displaced stuff.”

“Okay, I am kind of hungry right now,” Calvin admitted, following the Portal Master. “Lead the way, brother-” he paused for a minute, looking embarrassed at the last bit as it caught Ace’s attention.

Glancing to the young Skyshifter, Ace let out a brief laugh at his expense. “Hey, man, it’s cool. I’m guessing you don’t really have any family figures left.”

“S-sort of, yeah… Are you okay with me calling you that?” he asked.

“Sure, why not?” the man shrugged with a smile, “It’d feel good to be an older brother again.” Calvin’s face lit up like the lights on a christmas tree, was soon leaping forward and hugging Ace.

“Th-thank you!”

Laughing again, Ace hugged him back with his free arm. “Heh, no prob Cal! Everyone needs someone, right?” Chuckling, he let the boy go, smirking a little. “Oh, and if you’re joining my family, you have a sister, too. And her side of the family is crazy big.” Shaking his head with a smile, he turned to the cliff, snapping the whip so that it wrapped around an overhanging flagpole. “But enough about that. Shift, and we’ll head up!”

“Okay… which element?” Calvin asked, a little puzzled.

“Meh, your choice,” the Portal Master shrugged. Calvin sighed, deciding to stick with one of the forms he personally liked as he got on all fours. With saying ‘Darkness Falls’ to himself, the young boy had turned into one of his personal favorites. Blackout. “Could this work?”

“Yep,” Ace replied before flicking his wrist again, smirking as his whip seemed to shrink in length, pulling him skyward. Calvin soon followed him, using his powers to move upward as his body moved in a buzzsaw formation. Soon, he landed right next to Ace as he shook the dust off of him.

“So, where’s the food?” he asked, confused. Not seeing anything to eat nearby… yet.

“In the main hall,” Ace provided, sheathing his blade once more. “We’ve got Pinkie and AJ in control of the cooking team to feed all the refugees, so we should be able to get something good. Fluttershy and Zecora do the gathering, too.”

“Oh, okay. Lead the way, I guess…” Calvin said, returning to normal and following Ace again.

Ace nodded, turning and heading for the main entrance of the castle and striding through the doors. He led Calvin to one of the many tables set up in the main entrance hall, hopping over and sitting on the other side before waving a Pegasus mare in a waitress’s uniform over, taking a pair of menus from her.

“Here you are, Cal, take your pick,” Ace said simply, handing Calvin a menu before opening his own.

“Hmm… can I have a grilled cheese?”

“Of course you can, sweetie,” the mare said sweetly, writing his order down on her notepad. “And for you, Mister Ace?”

“Uh… I think I’ll have a simple salad. And bring us both a cider, sparkling.”

“Right away, sir. Your food will be out soon.” With that, the mare hurried off, ducking through a side door. While they waited, Calvin then spoke again.

“So, Ace? Can you tell me about the Displaced now?” he asked, trying to be patient.

“Sure,” Ace replied, leaning on the table’s edge. “Where to begin… well, you know about tokens, right?”

“Yeah, but besides that… nothing else really.”

“Don’t sweat it. We’ve all been there,” Ace chuckled. “Well, the Displaced are people who’ve been taken from their home world, most commonly a version of Earth, and thrown into a version of Equestria, most often given powers. Most of us are taken at a convention when dressed up, getting the powers of whatever we were dressed as. You still following?”

“Yeah… For me though, I came to my world after I was given a rare traptanium crystal.” Calvin replied. “Would your sister be another one of these Displaced as well?”

“Yep, she was turned into Zinnia from the Pokemon games.” Pausing as the waitress came back with their food, he thanked her before continuing. “There’s also an actual Mewtwo, the Crystal and Homeworld Gems from Steven Universe, and some kind of pony Time Lord going about studying us with a Screwball in a TARDIS that looks like a garden shed.”

“Studying us with what?”

“I’m… not even sure,” Ace sighed, “She was nice enough though, goes by the Guardian. I think she was teaching Screwball about us, but again, I’m not sure.”

“So, this Screwball was a pony? I thought it was a kind of ball you throw in baseball or something,” Calvin replied back, “Still though, are those all the people you met, or are there others, too?”

“Yeah, Screwball was her name, and it’s also a type of throw.” Smirking, Ace reached over and nudged Calvin. “Be prepared for weird names in Equestria, dude. But yeah, those are all the Displaced I’ve met so far.”

“Hmm… what kind of Displaced has… Zinnia met?” Calvin asked, trying to remember her name correctly.

“I don’t know all of them. You’ll have to ask her for the PG list when you guys meet,” Ace replied, sighing. “And make sure you ask for the PG one.”

“Is there a PG-13 list?” he asked, “Matter of fact, what’s today's date? I’ve lost track since ending up in my world.”

“Time flow is different in all the different Equestrias,” Ace explained, “You’re better off asking who the last big villain they defeated was, which was Tirek. I’m not sure of the date.”

“Well, I wanted to know the date… because… if what I think is right… I turn 13 today.”

“Oh, cool! Happy Birthday, dude!” Ace cried, smiling wide. “Hold up - PINKIE!! BIRTHDAY CAKE, NOW!!!”

“On it, Acey!” a bubbly voice replied.

“Thank you,” he replied, reaching over to hug Ace the best he could, “I’ve never had a birthday before with a big brother. This just makes it more… amazing.”

“I’ll call Zinnia later, then we can have a full family thing,” Ace chuckled, hugging him back. “But… you’re welcome. I’m here for you if you need me. Always remember that, okay?”

The Skyshifter nodded his head, looking back at Ace. “I will… Ace, what is your sister like?”

“Uh…” the Portal Master muttered, smiling nervously. “She’s… eccentric.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well…” he said, trailing off as the words eluded him. “She… prefers adult company.”

“You mean like stuff that you would say ‘We’ll tell you when you’re older?’ or something like that?”

“Exactly,” groaning to himself, Ace shook his head, “But other than that, she’s a sweet girl who loves her family. She actually had a bit of a breakdown when I was Displaced, apparently, and it was two years back home before she was, too.”

“But she’s happy to be with you again right?”

“Heh, yeah…” Ace chuckled. “Though we’ve only talked once since.”

“She’s still a fun sibling right?” Calvin then asked as he noticed the waitress come back with their order. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Thanks, hun,” Ace said, smiling as he took his food. “Yeah, Zinnia’s pretty fun. Though her preferred ‘fun’ is the kind that I’ll tell you about when you’re older.” He chuckled, munching on some lettuce. Calvin sighed a little as he began to eat his sandwich. But when he was about to finish, he noticed a Pink Pony come out with one of the biggest birthday cakes he had seen.

“That… is a lot of cake.” He commented as it came to the two of them. “Seriously, you can fit someone inside that cake!!”

Pinkie giggled to herself as she lifted the cake onto the table before them, smirking mischievously. “Yepperooni! You totally could!” With that, she turned, prancing back to the kitchen.

“Hmm…” Ace muttered, watching her go. “Something’s not quite sitting right with me…”

“What do you mean? This looks awesome!”

“Yeah, the cake looks delicious,” Ace agreed, standing and circling the confectionary masterpiece. “Looks like the Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness cake. But it’s what you said… that you could fit someone inside of it…”

“Do you think there is someone in there?” he asked, “Because if not, then how are we supposed to cut the cake?”

“Ugh!” a muffled female voice called out from within the cake, and seconds later, the top opened up, revealing a dark-haired woman in a white button shirt. “You always were a buzzkill, you paranoid idiot!”

“Great to see you, too, sis,” Ace chuckled, shaking his head. “Calvin, meet Zinnia, my crazy little sister.”

“‘Sup little man!” Zinnia greeted, smiling wide as she spread her wings and flew out of the top of the cake. “Don’t worry, everything below the part that opens is edible.”

“Nice to meet you. It’s great to see my new sister!” He said, hugging Zinnia out of instinct.

Chuckling, Zinnia hugged him back. “And here I thought I was the one with the problem of getting too attached,” she teased, glancing to Ace. “Guess you’re not perfect either.”

“When did I ever insinuate that I was?” Ace shot back, chuckling slightly. “I said I’d be Cal’s brother, since he’s kind of alone now.”

“Oh, you poor baby!” the Draconid cried, hugging Calvin harder. “Don’t worry, Big Sis Zinnia’s here for you!”

“Umm… T-thanks…” he replied, coughing a little, “C-can I b-breathe?”

“Oh, sorry,” Zinnia muttered letting him go and chuckling nervously. “Don’t know my own strength sometimes.”

“T-thanks,” he breathed out, “Well, so far today, I almost ran over my Twilight, met Ace, summoned Spyro, Cynder and Drobot and now I have a new brother and sister…… BEST DAY EVER!!!”

“Heh, another Skylanders fan,” Zinnia chuckled, shaking her head ruefully.

“Hey, what’s wrong with Skylanders?” Ace demanded.

“Nothing, just not my thing.”

“Maybe Ace should tell you about what I can do then,” Calvin told Zinnia, “Unless of course, I am allowed to give a demonstration.”

Zinnia shrugged. “Go ahead, bro,” she said, smirking at him. Before long, Calvin smirked and then used his pendant to transform again. This time, he chose to take on one of the forms that he had used before, since he was quite familiar with it. Saying ‘Fuel the Flames!’, the young boy soon took on the form of Spitfire as he looked back at Zinnia.

“That…” Zinnia breathed, looking Calvin over before he turned back to normal, “...Is pretty damn cool.”

“It is also quite useful.”

All three Displaced whipped around, seeing Cynder stood not too far away, giving them a blank look as Spyro soon showed up next to her with Spike.

“Hi, Cynder.” Calvin cheerfully replied, waving a little.

“Hello young man,” the Undead Dragoness replied, nodding to him. “Who’s the new girl? Another Portal Master?”

“Arceus, I hope not,” Zinnia muttered, “I got enough on my plate.”

“Cynder, this is Zinnia. She’s Ace’s sister.” Calvin told her, nudging her a little and trying to get Zinnia to be comfortable around her.

“Nice to meet you, Zinnia,” Spyro said with a smile, nodding respectfully.

“You too, Spyro,” the Draconid replied. “Cynder too, of course.”

“Zi, you’re forgetting Spike.” Calvin sighed, pointing him out to her.

“Uh, that’s not Spike,” she said unsurely, “Spike’s tiny, and orange. In fact, he’s a Dragonite.”

“Who are you calling tiny!?” He shot back, standing next to his father.

“Okay, I stand corrected,” Zinnia admitted, holding her hands up in defeat. “You sound identical. Nice ta meet ya, not-tiny Spike.” Pausing for a second, she leaned in to Ace and whispered “Size issues much?”

Before Calvin had the chance to say anything though, he noticed a scroll take form above Zinnia before landing on top of the Draconid’s head.

“What the…” she muttered, reaching up and grabbing the scroll. Taking a look at the seal, she blinked when she saw a design that resembled a dragon's head. Rolling her eyes, she broke the seal and unfurled the scroll. “I wonder who this is from?”

The Draconid then proceeded to read the scroll out loud, doing her absolute worst impression of who she knew was the sender. “Dear Zinnia and Umbra, I hope this letter is received well within the next week or so. I have something that I would like to discuss with the two of you and didn’t want to summon you on the thought that you might otherwise be occupied in your own realms. With the fact that the temple will be home not just to myself, Revaan, and you two, I was considering the possibility of a time where all the members of the family could be able to meet in person. Applejack told me of Hearth’s Warming coming up, and I wanted to ask if you think we could have everyone over around that time to get to know each other and celebrate the holidays, preferably in the evening, since I need to go with Applejack to visit Pinkie Pie’s family early in the morning. But again, that’s up for you to decide.

I hope that this opportunity would allow for us to meet the leaders of the other branches in the hoard and also get to know each other. If we’re suppose to be a family, then we should have a chance to meet the family. Still though, you are the ones in charge of the hoard, so you call the shots. I’m just a leader of a branch offering a suggestion to you.

In other news, I want to let you know that Applejack was successfully able to lay an egg recently. Revaan told us that it will take some time for the dragon to develop while inside the egg, and that in two to three months, we’ll find out if it’s a boy or girl. The only thing now that we need to do though may be hard: Having to tell the rest of her family about our relationship. Anyways, I hope to hear back from you soon. Also, are you two aware of a Lich displaced named Asphyxious? He was the only Displaced that had stopped by the temple besides you two, and he was… well, interesting in his own way. I’ll tell you about it another time.

Sincerely, Ken Ahkrin.”

“Who’s Ken?” Ace asked.

“Is he Zinnia’s boyfriend?” Calvin then said, just getting an odd stare from both parties before Zinnia started to burst out into laughter.

“Right on the money, my friend!” the Draconid barked, clutching her stomach as she laughed out loud. “Though he’s not my only significant other.”

“Wait…” He said, before turning to Ace. “What does she mean by that?”

Ace sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “I’ll… tell you when you’re older, Cal,” he muttered. “Zinnia, we’re having a talk later.”

“Heh, sure thing big bro,” Zinnia giggled.

It was then that Calvin took his necklace in hand, saying Fuel the flames again and having Spitfire show up next to him. “Sorry to rain on the fun Calvin, but we need to make sure and get back. Especially after we had… accidentally… ran over Twilight with Hot Streak.”

“YOU DID WHAT!?!” a familiar voice cried, Twilight appearing in a nearby doorway.

“Different Twilight, Twilight,” Ace sighed. “Chill out, and look into finding small artifacts known as Skylanders Figures for me please?”

The purple mare gaped at them for a time before sighing, turning and heading off. Calvin though, was seen blushing about the whole running over incident. “O… kay. That felt awkward seeing another Twilight get mad at me.”

“Twilight tends to get mad a lot,” Ace explained. “It comes with being kicked out of your town.”

“Now I just feel real bad for her.” The skyshifter said, looking back in the direction of stomping hooves that echoed throughout the room.

“Yeah dude,” Zinnia muttered, looking around the ruined castle’s throne room at all the refugees. “Is everyone here the same?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Ace sighed. “The Doom Raiders took over Ponyville, and the Golden Queen turned the entire town into solid gold.”

“That bad hunh?” Spitfire asked, folding his burning claws as he looked at Ace. “If Calvin allows it, we can help you when you’re making those doom raiders run with their tails or tailfeathers in between their legs.”

“Heck yeah! I’m always up for something like that!” He smiled, gleefully. “Maybe next time?”

“We’re taking our time here,” Ace shrugged. “But yeah, you’re free to help out. I have no problems asking for help.”

“Heh, always so modest,” Zinnia tittered. “I still remember the time you refused to talk to anyone because you were trying to make me a birthday present and wouldn’t accept any help!”

“Sh-shut up!”

Calvin laughed the second he saw the portal master look embarrassed, turning to Spitfire as he nodded his head. “Well, looks like we're done here. See you guys around!”

“Sure Cal!” Zinnia called, smiling widely. “Hope to talk again soon!”

“Later, little bro!” Ace laughed. Calvin waved back as the energy from his crystal swirled around him, taking both him and Spitfire away and leaving just the two of them along with Spyro, Cynder and Spike. However, there was only one thing that could be said by the two siblings once the youngest of them was gone.

“So…” Ace said, turning to Zinnia with a raised brow. “About our little talk…”

Zinnia gulped nervously.

End Scroll 7

Scroll 8- Major explaining

Beyond the Skies- Major Explaining

Castle of Friendship

By the time Calvin and Spitfire had returned back to his world from where the Displaced Portal Master named Ace lived, the Skyshifter was still trying to get a grasp of having to go through rifts into different worlds. His head was dizzy, and the boy almost felt like he was going to pass out at the rate that he was going. But eventually, he was able to get his bearings as he stood up and looked around, finding himself in Twilight’s Castle again. But things seemed… different. It was actually pretty quiet, for it being an oversized crystalline castle that Spike could not eat even if he tried… perhaps some would say… too quiet?

“Hey, take it easy, Champ… Going through rifts like that only becomes easier the more times you go through them.” The Fire Skylander tried to advise him as he helped him up. “I’m going to go back to Skylands. I need to talk to Master Eon about those Arkeyan remains that we found in Griffonstone. Let me know if you need me.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure about that part just yet. I’ll probably be taking it easy… or at least, trying to.” Calvin replied, looking around a bit. “I’m going to try and find Twilight. I still owe her an explanation before we… well… left.”

“More like we ditched her,” Spitfire chuckled to himself. But all that did was just confuse Calvin as he turned his head.

“What does that mean?” He then asked, causing Spitfire himself to sigh a little as he looked back at him.

“Like when you have to leave so suddenly that you didn’t get the chance to explain why,” the Fire Skylander simplified. “Case in point, when we left on Twilight before explaining why we had to go so suddenly. Now, speaking of which, I need to run. Call me when you need me.” With that, Spitfire disappeared as he brought out Hot Streak and used his Rift Engine to disappear back into Skylands.

As Calvin turned around though, he soon saw the one pony that he was looking for begin to trot out of her study room, surprised to see him. “C-calvin… You’re back?” She said, holding a small gem that was glowing a little. What the human thought of as a crystalline flashlight. “W-when did you-?”

“Just now…” he replied, sighing deeply as he looked back at Twilight. “Look… I’m sorry for… well… ditching you like that.” Taking a moment to try and think of his words correctly, he then cleared his throat and looked back at her. “I think I still owe you an explanation though, if you want to talk about it.” Even if the Skyshifter’s proposal intrigued the Alicorn a little, there was still one obvious flaw that the youngling accidently overlooked as she looked at the clock along the wall before returning her gaze to the boy and returning his sigh with one of her own.

“Calvin, do you even know what time it is?” Twilight asked, causing the confused child to shake his head in response. “It’s four o’clock in the morning. In a couple hours, Celestia will raise the sun.” That little detail, though, caused something in the youngling’s mind to click a little… Especially when he never knew that the reason why the sun would always rise was because of Twilight’s mentor. The only things he knew about her were from the brief interaction with her at the Gala, along with what Discord said about her beforehand.

“Celestia… can raise the sun?” Calvin asked, looking slackjawed at Twilight in the process. “Did you happen to stutter, or did I hear that right?”

“Well, I must’ve forgot to tell you about it, since everypony else knows. It’s common knowledge that Princess Celestia is responsible for raising the Sun, and Luna is responsible for raising the moon,” the alicorn said, looking at him before thinking of something. “Let’s talk about this in my study though, so we don’t wake up Spike.”

Calvin, upon hearing that, agreed with Twilight’s statement as he silently tiptoed across the hall in an effort to not wake the sleeping dragon. Once both of them were inside, Calvin breathed another sigh of relief as he turned around from the door and walked over to the table that was near the windowsill. “So, both of them can do that… anything else I should be aware of before I give you my explanation?”

“Other than Discord’s magic being Chaos magic… I think we can keep everything else on a need to know basis,” Twilight replied, only to get a puzzled look from the boy. “I mean, when you need to know it, I will tell you.”

“Oh. I see…” Calvin said, looking back at her. “Hey, I don’t want to sound rude, but now that you explained to me about Celestia and Luna a bit, can I give you my explanation now? Fair trade, right?”

Twilight nodded her head, sitting down across from him as the boy took a seat on the floor. “I guess so… Now, from what Spitfire said before you left… you two found something in Griffonstone that was not suppose to be there?”

“Well, we found two things… One thing that enhanced my abilities, which was the reason why you saw Spitfire and Hot Streak before we left… Sorry for running you over on accident, by the way,” he said on the side apologetically. “The second thing that we found was something ancient from Skylands that’s… well, let’s say ‘not good’ so to speak.”

Twilight, in response, raised an eyebrow. “How ‘not good’ is ‘not good’?” She asked, not knowing what kind of answer she would expect.

“Think oversized mechanical soldiers the size of a mountain roaming around and causing a lot of destruction. Back in Skylands, they come from an old race of mechanical beings called Arkeyans, and at one point, they almost took over Skylands, if it wasn’t for Tree Rex and the Giants.” Calvin explained, trying his best to recall the information. “Spitfire and I found an old one that looked to be pretty busted up… but the bad news that we heard was that the Griffons there were trying to find a way to make it… uh… I think the word is ‘operational’?”

“Oh my… did they find anything?” the alicorn asked in response.

“I don’t think so… I think what I found first looked to be the power source they wanted to use to start it up. I don’t think we need to worry about that for a while… but Spitfire is making sure to tell everyone else back in his world, so they can get on top of the situation.”

“I see… and by that, you mean other Skylanders?” She then asked Calvin, leading him to nod his head before responding back to her.

“For the most part… there’s also other people that have helped the Skylanders on their adventures and serve at Skylander Academy… which is a big school for teaching students how to be heroes.” Calvin explained, prompting Twilight to follow up on his comment.

“So, like Celestia’s school for Gifted Unicorns?” she asked, causing Calvin to raise an eyebrow in response. “Just a Skylander version of that?”

“I… guess?” Calvin replied, nervously. “Anyways, I think the main thing you want to get to is why I left you so early after coming back yesterday, right?”

“Pretty much. You were like in the castle for almost five minutes, and then you went out the door again, like Rainbow Dash.” Twilight replied back to him, causing the youngling to sigh once more as he cleared his throat.

“That may be… a bit difficult to explain.” Calvin started off, looking around the room before looking back at Twilight. “Remember when I first came here… when I crashed into Rainbow’s house, with me not knowing how I got there in the first place? Well… it seems like I’m not the only one.”

“Calvin, I don’t understand… Please explain what you mean.” Twilight asked, trying her best to understand him.

“Well, from what I was told, there are others like me. Others who had been taken from their homes, thrown into their own version of this world, and in most cases, acquired powers. I think the term used to describe them is… Displaced.” The boy stopped for a second to look back over what he said, making sure it was right before speaking. “Yeah, that sounds about right. I met one who summoned me using a token that was created for me that looks like a replica of my pendant.”

“So, whoever finds your token can summon you?” She asked for clarification. Upon seeing his head nod, Twilight followed up with one more question. “And who was the Displaced that summoned you?”

“His name was Ace, and he also had a sister that was Displaced named Zinnia,” Calvin replied. “Ace was Displaced as a portal master, while Zinnia was… well, I never really found out what she was, I think. I only saw her for a few minutes before coming back. Ace, though, is a portal master, and in Skylands, portal masters are powerful spellcasters that can call upon the power of skylanders and summon them into battle along with controlling other spells. They are very rare though, and some, like Kaos, are evil portal masters. So, good portal masters are really… well… fading away.”

“Wow… that’s quite a lot to take in.”

“Yeah, it is… speaking of the whole summoning skylanders part, I helped him figure out how to do it while I was there.” Calvin told her, taking a few moments to explain how Ace was able to summon both Spyro and Cynder while in his world, along with Drobot as well. He tried his best to recall everything as he told her piece by piece what had occurred there, along with answering any questions the Alicorn had, including things such as who Master Eon was and also what the Doom Raiders were. By the time he was done and Twilight had the chance to speak though, both of them turned their heads to the window as a small sliver of sunlight began to come from over the horizon, lighting up the castle and the room in the process.

“Wow…” the boy was spellbound by the sun being raised in the distance. “I’ve never seen anything like that before… like, at all.”

“You’ve never seen a sunrise before?” Twilight asked, raising a eyebrow.

“No, actually… I’ve mostly lived with my mother and my grandparents, but there wasn’t a time at all during those years where I was able to see anything like this,” he explained, “It’s just… forgive me if this sounds silly, but… it’s just so… magical.”

“Heh, considering that Equus is a world of magic… that is kind of silly… in a good way though,” Twilight assured him, putting a wing around the youngling for a moment… until she realized what Calvin had said. “Wait, don’t you have a father?”

“I… think so… I’ve never met him though. My father left my mother before I was born,” Calvin told Twilight, who was surprised to hear that. She had never actually met anypony that had that happen to them in their life. For all she knew, most of the ponies that she had a friendship with didn’t have family related issues like this one. “I don’t let that bother me though. I just focus on everything in front of me and don’t let it distract me.”

“That’s great to hear, Calvin,” Twilight smiled, taking a piece of parchment and writing something down as she looked at him. “Hey, if you want… maybe you can show me some of the forms that you were talking about earlier. I was going to write a letter to Fluttershy and let her know you’re here, but maybe you can show me those forms while we wait.” The suggestion caused Calvin to smile a little as he grinned and looked back at her.

“Well, no time like the present I suppose… First up, let me show you… The art of war!”

Skylander Academy

“And that’s what we found while in Griffonstone,” Spitfire explained, finishing with explaining his findings in Griffonstone with Calvin to Master Eon as he made sure to recall everything, down to the last detail. “We were able to make sure that the griffons there weren’t able to use the Arkeyan we found there, but it seems that Calvin had acquired a few new abilities as well, similar to that of the Rift Engine.”

“I… see. This is indeed a concern and just makes me wonder what else could’ve fallen underneath the Skylands…” Eon responded as he scratched his chin. “I’ll ask Hugo for what we know so far on the Arkeyans… Right now though, I believe that you should have a talk with one of your other teammates.”

“What do you mean, Master Eon?” Spitfire asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Earlier, Splat had some trouble sleeping and came to talk to me… She said that she saw dreams of what appeared to be some of Calvin’s previous encounters in which he needed to transform… and in two instances, she saw him transform into both you… and her,” Eon replied, nodding his chin in the direction where the magic skylander was. She was fiddling with her brush as she tried to paint something on a canvas… but nothing seemed to come to mind. “You should go talk to her… She needs to know about this, Spitfire.”

“Yes, Eon,” the flaming gargoyle said as he drifted into the direction of the faun, swallowing any nervousness he had as he tried to casually talk to her. Nearby though, within the grounds of Skylander Academy, two things were going on. One was that Mags was causing a racket with trying to work on one of the devices used to scan magic across the Skylands. The other… was Buzz noticing both Spitfire and Splat talking. Something that he saw… was completely odd.

“Is anybody else seeing what I’m seeing right now?” Buzz asked, trying to use the secret gadget in his crutch that served as a spyglass to narrow in on the two of them.

“Seeing what, Buzz? Sorry, but I was busy trying to be first in line at the Nacho bar in the cafeteria,” a nearby pilot and captain said as he walked beside him with a tray of nachos smothered in nacho cheese with a side bowl of guacamole. “And even if I’m a celebrity around these parts, this place doesn’t exactly have a VIP line.”

“Those two, over there,” the head of security (and secret ninja commando operations) pointed out to Flynn with a spare finger. “Normally when I see them, they’re either training or tuning up each others’ vehicles before going out on missions against Kaos’ minions. Never have I seen them… well… act like that!”

“Aww... come on, Buzz. They’re practically teammates… and with the amount of times that the little twerp is hatching up new plans, they might not get the chance to talk to one another about things other than how Kaos tried taking over some place,” Flynn said as he devoured another handful of chips. “Speaking of which… It’s been a while since he had tried some HUGE devious plan to take over Skylands… do you think he’s taking a break?”

“Flynn, his version of ‘taking a break’ is invading a vacation resort so he could have the place all to himself for a day,” Buzz reminded him, “Also, if I may add, if those two are somehow making plans… then why does Spitfire look so nervous? He’s frantically looking everywhere, like we are spying on him.”

“That’s because you ARE trying to spy on him, Buzz,” another voice spoke up as both of them turned to see another familiar face as she folded her arms and tapped her foot.

“Hey, Cali! Didn’t see you there.”

“Flynn, I’ve been standing here the last few minutes,” she reminded him as another friend named Tessa soon walked up right next to him. “Tessa and I can’t hear our own thoughts over the noise that Mags is making.”

“That’s also the reason I went to the nacho bar… other than the fact I was hungry.”

“Flynn, you’re always hungry,” Cali facepalmed herself in response as she reminded him of that, “Still, you do bring up a good point about Kaos… What is he exactly doing?”

“Beats me…” Buzz sighed, looking back at her. “Most of the sightings of Kaos’ forces involved small raids on local villages, but that was only last week. We haven’t heard of any new activity since.”

Cali did not like the signs of that. “That doesn’t add up. From the many years that we have stopped him over the years, Kaos is never known for instances on a small scale. Every time he’s hatched a plan, he’s gone full scale with raiding entire cities, building contraptions to eat up the skylands and even breaking open Cloudcracker prison! This just… doesn’t really make sense… and I can’t believe we actually trusted him to help with the Doom Raid-”

Just as she was almost finished speaking, a gold bolt that was used to hold in certain mechanical contraptions and worth a lot of gold, landed by Cali’s feet. Turning around, she noticed that the machine that Mags was working on to pick up traces of magic wasn’t quite acting… normally to speak. “What the heck!? It’s never picked up reading like this before!!”

“Mags, what’s going on!?” Cali asked as the inventor looked back at them.

“My sensor machine is going haywire. It’s picking up magic signals that’s going off the scale!! It’s just like… just like…” The mage stuttered as she looked back at them. “Just like when the Core of Light was destroyed!” That alerted all of them… but nothing could be seen around them of this. No signs of any massive magical surges at all. Nothing even above them in the clouds…

Unknowingly though… only two individuals on the island knew where it was coming from… and they too… were concerned about what was happening below them.

Some time earlier… (Equestria)

During the course of the early morning, while waiting on Fluttershy, Calvin was demonstrating to Twilight some of the things that he could do in the form he was using of the magic Skylander named Splat. She was a faun that used her artistic abilities and her brush to combat evil. The Alicorn herself was… in no other way to describe it… blown away by the brief demonstration. Not only was he able to get a hand on how to use the abilities so quickly and effectively in combat, but she was surprised when the Skyshifter showed he actually could conjure minions from the paint that was being used.

As he turned back to normal, he shook up his hair a little, noticing some of the colored paint that was stuck in his hair. “So, what do you think? Pretty amazing, right?”

“Y-yeah. You seemed quite talented with that brush,” Twilight replied, giggling from Calvin trying to get the paint out of his hair. “Have you turned into Splat before?”

“Only a couple other times, but I really like it, because it reminds me of when I used to paint back home in school,” he replied back as the Skyshifter walked back over. “Art was one of my favorite subjects in school. I did well in my other classes, but you don’t get to be as creative in math or history like you can with art.” Turning his head, the boy soon happened to notice a familiar cyan pegasus walking with a smaller orange one in their general direction as he smiled a little. “Hey, look! It’s Rainbow Dash.”

“There’s the rascal!!” Rainbow called out as she dashed towards the two of them while the smaller pegasus simply tried to keep up on her scooter. “Calvin, where have you been? Fluttershy was really worried about you yesterday when you didn’t come back to the cottage.”

“Sorry, Dash. Things… got a little complicated.” The young boy replied apologetically as he scratched the back of his head.

“How complicated?” The smaller pegasus soon asked, causing Twilight and Calvin to look at one another in confusion.

“Very complicated, Scootaloo,” both of them said in unison, only to have them look back at each other awkwardly as Rainbow Dash began to quiver a little in laughter. Calvin shook his head a little. Now that the paint from before was gone, he looked back at the young pegasus, who seemed to be really eager about something.

“Well, whatever it is can wait! I’m really looking forward to see Rainbow Dash with her flying practice today!” Scootaloo gleefully spoke up as she looked at her idol. “In fact, she said that she might even try practicing her favorite move!”

Hearing this just caused Calvin to raise an eyebrow as he looked back at Rainbow. “Favorite move?”

“Oh, it’s just a little something special I like to call the SONIC RAINBOOM OF AWESOMENESS!!!” She declared, quickly taking up a heroic pose in the process that just caused Calvin to facepalm himself. “What? You don’t believe me?”

“Oh, I believe you… Once I see it for myself that is,” he sighed, causing Twilight to chuckle a little as Rainbow Dash shot a menacing glare back at him. “Hey, unlike your friends, I don’t know what kind of things you can do.”

“He does make a valid point, Rainbow…” Twilight sighed. But the pegasus ignored it as she spread her wings and began to hover off of the ground.

“Well then… since you asked so politely…” Before Calvin could answer, Rainbow took off, leaving a dust cloud in his face as she accelerated high into the skies above them. “Allow me to give you a demonstration!!!”

“Oh, goody…” Twilight rolled her eyes in exaggeration. “Here we go again.”

“Has this sort of thing happened before?” Calvin asked her as the Alicorn gave off a heavy sigh.

“More than you would think.”

“Get ready!! The Show’s about to start!!!” Rainbow announced as she began to descend downward at rapid speeds. However, while she was doing so, Calvin felt that something was off and noticed something. The elementanium crystal around his neck was glowing rapidly, giving off the same glare that he not only he saw in Griffonstone, but also matched the glow that he saw around the pegasus.

“Twilight… something’s wrong,” he said, causing the Alicorn to look at him with a puzzled glance, only for the glow to get brighter… and for some reason… show the symbol for the skylanders that represented the Air element as she got closer. However, for Scootaloo, who wasn’t paying attention to Twilight and Calvin, she was excited.

“She’s gonna do it!!” Scootaloo squeaked, only causing Calvin to worry even more. But before Calvin could warn Twilight, Rainbow completed the stunt as the bright colorful explosion went off… But there was something that Calvin saw afterwards that really worried him… and soon made him run after Rainbow.

She was in the sky… and plummeting for the ground. Quickly, Calvin chanted Fuel the Fire to himself and used Spitfire’s speed and summoning Hot Streak. He quickly used it to race off of a nearby ledge in order to catch her while she fell to the ground. Once back on solid ground, Calvin returned to normal and dismissed Hot Streak as Twilight checked on her condition.

“Oh, thank goodness. She’s still breathing…” Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as she looked at Calvin. “Thanks for getting to her when you did… Still, how could something like this happen?” The boy had no response for her, but instead, Scootaloo was the one that spoke up next… but not out of concern… but out of fear.

“T-twilight… W-what is that!?” She said, causing both Twilight and Calvin to look to her… and then look behind them. To the giant gaping crack that was in the sky… and the floating islands that could be seen on the other side.

The floating islands that were the Skylands.

Skylander Academy

The force of the explosion that was felt almost rocked the entire academy as the dust was beginning to settle. Everyone was completely confused, but the one that was the most puzzled was Mags as she began to get back on her feet and brush off the dust on her robes. “Hot Buttered Toast!! What was that!?!”

“What? Are we under attack!? Status report, STATUS REPORT-!”

“I SAID ‘What was that?’, NOT ‘We’re under attack!’ Moron!!” Mags shot back at Buzz as she helped him up, while Cali and Tessa helped out Flynn. “Someone go find Hugo. He was in the archives last I checked, and I’d rather not find him underneath another pile of books, again.”

“I’ll get on Whiskers and see if there’s any damage to the academy,” she told the others as she leapt back onto her pet bird and took off, leaving Mags, Flynn, and Buzz to try and find any Skylanders that were at the academy, along with getting in contact with those who were away on missions. Soon, through one of the communication sets, Mags got a message from one of the farther off islands in the Skylands.

One that was the home of the newly enhanced Cloudcracker Prison. “Hey, can anyone hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Snap Shot,” Buzz replied, seizing the walkie talkie from Mags as he took over on speaking duties. “What happened?”

“Well, Tuff Luck, Wildfire and myself were with a couple of the Sensei’s here when we heard a loud BOOM go off near the academy. We could feel it all the way over here. No damage was sustained to the prison, but Tuff Luck isn’t liking what she’s seeing from the lookout tower here.”

That got Buzz a little suspicious as he clicked the talk button and responded. “What is she seeing?”

“She’s seeing a huge gaping crack, like below the clouds!” the Trap Master replied. “We’ll be there as soon as we can when we finish up with things at the prison. Snap Shot out.” The statement about the crack just left both Buzz and Mags confused… until Tessa quickly landed her bird and ran to the two of them.

“Guys, we got a huge problem!”

“Is it about a crack of sorts?” Buzz replied back, “Snap Shot told us-.”

“No, it’s not just an ordinary crack!” she protested. “When I was younger, the village elder told us a story of how the Skylands was created. Twenty thousand years ago, many islands like ours fell down through the clouds and disappeared, but when Mount Cloudbreak erupted for the first time, it cast out a barrier of magic that spread throughout the skies and kept the islands afloat… Only allowing for certain things to fall from time to time when it erupts annually.”

“Then, what you are saying is…”

“That crack… is a crack through the barrier?”

“Yes… and from the looks of it, while I was on whiskers… There’s a living civilization underneath us.” Tessa told them, showing a technological contraption that was called a “camera” by Mags that had a photograph of the fissure… and the land below.

“Boomsticks!! I never thought that there was anything like this… but like they always say… there’s always a bit of truth to legends,” Buzz said as he scratched his chin. But as he turned his head, he soon noticed something completely off. “Wait a minute… Where are Spitfire and Splat?”

That question was answered by the sounds of two rift engines revving up shortly before taking off as two rift portals closed simultaneously from the far end of the Academy.

Worlds were about to collide… and at this point… no one on either side knew about what could possibly happen next.

End Scroll 8

Author's Note

The crack has grown... and world will collide. You may be scared... but there are two definitions to fear.

Forget Everything And Run...... or Face Everything And Rise. The choice is yours.

Now that Skylanders Imaginators had just been released, I'm kicking everything here in high gear... Which may be difficult since it may be a while before I continue playing superchargers since my living room TV died on us last night -_-"

However, I am looking forward to Imaginators Character Creation system... and strangely enough, I was already thinking of one to make. I already have a clear idea in mind for what to pull off, but should I try it in a future chapter? I'll let you guys decide.

Next Scroll: When Worlds Collide...

Scroll 9- When Worlds Collide...

Beyond the Skies- When Worlds Collide…

Skylander Academy

When the explosion below the Academy went off, it wasn’t just the people on the grounds of the campus that felt the blast, but also anyone that was coming towards it. Such was the case for a certain landshark that was on his way back to the island from a “business venture” with a few contacts of his, only to feel the shockwave of an unknown explosion almost knock his ship off course. He was lucky to not have it crash into the academy… but he was also upset at a certain tinkerer, as he soon saw her talking with the chief of security.

As he got closer to Mags, he soon cleared his voice and looked back at her as he condoned her actions. “What did I tell you about attending the "safety in the workplace" seminar? You really NEED to attend it, for your own sake!!”

“Sharpfin! Well, I’m glad you are okay… However, what happened was not me!” She snapped back at him. “In fact, Tessa was just telling us what it could be!”

“Oh, really now?” The Landshark spoke up, sounding unconvinced. “If that’s true and what happened wasn’t because of Mags, then what exactly is going on?”

“We don’t know everything right now, but what we do know is that there’s a tear in magic that is separating the skylands from, as it turns out, the land underneath the clouds,” Tessa started off as she began to explain everything she knew to Sharpfin. “However, my concern is that whatever caused it is really going to attract some unwanted attention. After all, this tear could be seen from a mile away… and if you’re thinking what I’m thinking… then we probably might know who might want to capitalize on that.”

“Kaos…” Buzz grumbled, looking at everyone else before looking off at the clouds in the distance. “Just what kind of diabolical scheme is he trying to come up with now?”

“Dear Diary... of DOOM!!!” The dark portal master said to himself as he took a fresh new quill and a vial of ink as he began to inscribe a new entry into his journal… or as he called it, his ‘diary of doom.’ “Entry 13. As of this moment, I am focusing on a new plan. Not just to take over skylands, but to also invade the land below, called Equestria. Despite some setbacks, I have been making significant progress. Not because I have much less of a reliance on Glumshanks now that he is only working for me part time after the darkness convinced me to fire him, but because I, for once, have an ally that has similar goals to my own.”

For a brief moment, Kaos set down his quill and paused to think of the right words to say before coming up with the right details in his head. From time to time, he had to delay his thoughts, so the words he would write in his diary entries would sound… evil enough to satisfy him. “Unlike previous attempts to ally with other villains, some who recently have given up their ways and decided to reform themselves, my newest ally, Sombra, has been of great use to crafting my next sinister plot, even going as far as providing knowledge on the lands below the clouds. He has also given me a rather evil idea on how to take the fight back to the skylanders this time. Now, before I finalize my next demonic plot, I must dive into a new field of magic that is sure to be interesting. I’m going to give the Skylanders… and that meddling kid, a fair challenge this time around.”

“Well, Buzz, I’m not sure what kind of scheme that varmint is planning, but we need to get to the bottom of this, and quickly,” Mags spoke up as she looked at the crack once again.

“Maybe we can talk with Eon and ask if we can send a team of Skylanders to investigate,” Sharpfin suggested. “It’s worth a shot, right?”

“Yeah… Hate to break it to you, but two of the Superchargers that were here earlier jumped the gun and sped off shortly after that crack was torn open in the sky,” Buzz told the landshark as he looked at everyone. “We should get a headcount of all the skylanders, just to be safe. I don’t want anyone else other than both Spitfire and Splat to be disappearing randomly like this. After that is done, we’ll see what our options are before we send a team.”

“I don’t know, Buzz… Would it be likely that someone down below is probably thinking ahead of you on that subject?” Mags asked.

“Oh, come on now, Mags. I’m the head of security... and secret ninja commando operations... for a reason. I highly doubt that anyone would possibly think of something like that… especially around something that dangerous.”

Elsewhere…

Shortly after diving to rescue Rainbow from falling to the ground, Calvin and Twilight were tending to her on the ground and making sure she didn’t hurt herself. The good news was that she was breathing and beginning to wake up… The bad news? She had absolutely NO idea at all what she had just caused. “O-oww… My head…”

“You okay there, Rainbow?” Calvin asked, trying to help the pegasus as she was regaining her senses.

“Y-yeah… I feel like I got slammed by me performing a Sonic Rainboom though-” By the time she was finished saying that, she lifted her head and finally noticed what was in the sky. “Woah!! What in Equestria caused that!?!” Calvin sighed a little as he looked at Twilight, who was thinking the same thing he was.

“Somehow… you caused that,” he said, trying to not make her scared in response to what he said. “Not intentionally though… Something reacted to you pulling off a Sonic Rainboom, and the amount of power caused that tear to happen. My crystal was surging like crazy when it happened, Dash.”

“Then, what does it all mean!?” Rainbow reacted in a panicked and confused tone, unsure of anything that was going on or happening.

“I don’t know… But something tells me that tear is going to cause a lot of attention… and not the good kind,” Calvin said as he looked back at them. “There seems to be a floating collection of clouds close to the tear. Let me transform real quick, and we can fly up for a closer look. It’s hard to tell what exactly is on the other side from this angle, but I have a feeling we’ll find out what exactly it is once we get closer.”

“What about me?” Scootaloo spoke up as Calvin looked towards her.

“Scootaloo… I need you to tell Spike of what happened and let him know that Twilight, Rainbow, and I are going to investigate. Make sure that nopony does anything crazy in the meantime… Right, Rainbow?”

“Sounds about right… You get that, squirt?” The question was answered by Scootaloo nodding her head as she galloped off to go find Spike. Quickly, Calvin chanted to himself a new phrase as he let the magic in his crystal do the rest of the work as he transformed, now having wings with light blue feathers and mostly turning into a feathered dragon… except for the horn on the front of the head.

“Twists of Fury!”

“Okay, just what did you decide to turn into this time?” Rainbow asked.

“An air skylander named Whirlwind. One part thunder Dragon and one part unicorn. She has abilities that are similar to yours, so I thought that it would be simpler to turn into an air skylander if we are walking on clouds.” he told her, hoping that his explanation was all that he needed to say in order to help keep things brief.

“Good choice, Calvin. Now, I won’t have to worry about the cloudwalking spell I should’ve cast-”

“Uhh... Twilight,” Rainbow interjected before she could finish. “Did you forget that Calvin’s transformations only last for five minutes at most? You’ll still need that spell.”

“Oh… right…” she sighed, looking back at both of them. “So, Calvin, what exactly are we looking for right now?”

“Anything on the other side of that tear that, to you guys, is out of the ordinary,” he told both ponies as he looked at the floating clouds on the other side. “Because from what I know… I think that’s the Skylands on the other side… However, I’m not sure. Therefore, I need to make sure that it is what I think it is before we try to go exploring anywhere, okay?” Both Twilight and Rainbow nodded in response, the Alicorn casting her spell on Calvin just in case for when his transformation ran out as they looked at the clouds. Soon though, they began to see floating islands on the other side of the tear and ships that navigated through the skies.

“Okay, those… whatever they are, they’re not Equestrian. That’s for sure.” The pegasus pointed out as they saw them pass by. Only for Calvin to speak up as he looked back at her.

“Just keep looking. One piece of evidence isn’t enough to confirm anything right now,” Calvin advised as he continued to scan the skies for anything out of the ordinary. “Besides, if any one of them notices this… or us for that matter, someone’s going to come down and investigate. Just be ready for anything.” Both ponies nodded their heads as they turned back to the open rift, still trying to find other pieces of evidence to add to what they already found. Unaware that on the opposite side… someone else was doing the same thing.

Back at the Academy, Mags was trying to see if some of her equipment was still functional after the unexpected power surge that caused the entire school to shake. Fortunately, the technomancer was able to find a bunch of her patented inventions still intact after the blast. One of them being her scanner for signs of life in a general area… and it was picking up some readings that wasn’t like anything she had seen before. “Hey, everyone… come have a look at this. I think I found something.”

Tessa was the first one to rush over and see what she was holding as she looked at it with a curious glance. “What did you find, Mags?”

“There are a couple of lifeforms that are nearby that crack that have very powerful magical signatures… Buzz, remember what you said earlier?” Mags pointed it out to him. “About how you think someone wouldn’t think ahead of you on the subject of sending a team to investigate? Well, according to this… someone did think ahead.”

“Boomsticks!! It must be some kind of recon squad trying to gather intel on us! We need to deal with this, pronto!” The head of security immediately declared.

“Uh, Buzz… That’s probably what Mags is talking about,” Tessa tried clearing things up for him, but her words had fallen on deaf ears, because Buzz was too busy talking to himself in that moment in time. “Well, great… let me take Whiskers and see what’s going on out that way before Buzz tries anything crazy.”

“Alright. Stay safe and use the radio transmitter to report back anything you find. The more on the situation that we know, the better.” The Technomancer informed her as Tessa got back onto Whiskers and took off before Buzz could even say-

“Boomsticks!! Where did Tessa go!?” All Mags could do right then was personally groan to herself. Somehow, in her head, this was going to be one of those days…

“Oh, come on! How much longer are we going to be looking at this strange crack for?!” Rainbow protested, crossing her front hooves before letting herself fall back on a cloud like it was a sofa chair. They had only spent ten minutes looking at the crack that she accidently had created, and now, this whole thing was beginning to bore her. Calvin personally had thought of something, but he was unsure if it could be possible for that to be achieved.

“Not anymore…”

“Oh good,” Rainbow breathed a temporarily sigh of relief.

“Because we are going through it-”

“Are you insane!?!” The pegasus and alicorn both looked back at Calvin in shock from saying that, but the boy still held true to his decision.

“Look, the only way we know if there is anything in there for certain is if we try to go in and take a look. It doesn’t need to be long, but I don’t think we have any other choice,” Calvin explained. “Besides, how else are we supposed to explain to your friends, let alone the princesses for that matter, how in the world this happened?”

“Calvin makes a fair point, Rainbow,” Twilight added on after a pause, “Plus, if this is the same place where that Skylander that was with Calvin the other day comes from, then maybe it won’t be that bad up there.”

“Ugh… I can’t believe you are actually deciding to go along with this crazy idea. And I thought you would be the safety freak, like the time you decided to have Spike be covered in inner tubes from head to toe when he wanted to go swimming with Pinkie,” Rainbow groaned, causing Calvin to laugh upon picturing that in his head. “And this is coming from the same mare who thinks she can learn how to swim from reading a book.”

“Hey, I don’t feel like I need to swim unless I absolutely have to! We don’t know if the next villain we’re trying to face is going to flood Equestria!” Twilight snapped, only causing Calvin to facepalm himself from what was happening. In that moment, the boy saw a medium sized island with what looked like a forest of trees up there as he tapped Twilight on the shoulder.

“Hey, Twilight, you think you can teleport us to that ledge over there? I think that might be a good place to start looking.”

“Doesn’t seem that difficult in order to reach. Rainbow, you coming or staying?” Twilight then asked, only to be followed by a deep groan from the cyan mare as she trotted over to her. “Yep, she’s coming with us. Hang on just a second…” The teleportation was quick in itself, but the after effects shortly came next. It caused Calvin's head to be a little bit dizzy and almost caused Rainbow to slam her head into a tree, even though Twilight was still perfectly fine afterwards.

“O-oww… A word of warning next time before trying to teleport and accidently turning my brains to mush!”

“Oh, you’re fine. Quit exaggerating.” Twilight said to her friend as she looked up. “Uh… Problem?”

“What is it?” Calvin then asked. Judging from the looks of things, Twilight and Rainbow were by a road sign that branched off into two separate paths. Both of them looked rather the same, but the troubling part for the mare was that she could not understand what was on the sign. Calvin could only make out bits and pieces of it, but after pondering on the subject with them for a while, he came up with an idea. “Hey, Twilight, how ‘bout you and Rainbow take the path to the left, and I take the path to the right? If anything seems out of place, we can retrace our steps back here.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t you need some help if you’re in trouble?” Rainbow asked.

Calvin thought this through for a minute, before twirling the crystal around his neck. “If anything does happen, I can transform or summon Spitfire for help. Right now, let’s just go see what’s inside.” Without even getting the chance to hear Rainbow’s protest, Calvin went inside the forest on his path, leaving the pegasus with an overexcited mare to go along the lefthand side.

Five minutes later, two other figures showed up. Faced with the same dilemma, they made a rather quick decision on how to proceed. “Okay then… Whiskers, you take the left path. I got the right.”

As he traversed through the twisting pathway, Calvin did not have many things crop up on his side of the path. To be honest, he was not quite sure what exactly he would find when he reached the end. One thought in his head was that there was something at the end of this pathway, while another thought was that maybe it was a side path that led to some sort of treasure or reward, like in the Skylander games he was familiar with. Truly, it felt like there could’ve been something interesting for him at the end of the path, but what he found at the end was… surprising, to say the least.

What he found instead was what appeared to be a small crystal, buried in the ground, only being noticeable because the light of the gem was reacting to the magic of the Elementanium crystal around his neck. However, shortly after he picked it up, the aquamarine gemstone soon melted in his hands as it soaked into his skin, disappearing without a trace before he was actually able to get up and look back at the patch of dirt he found it in. “Well, that was weird… Felt kind of good, but still really weird-”

However, all that turning around did was give him an unexpected surprise as something rushed by his face, like it was trying to perform a sneak attack. However, who would try something like this was still an unanswered question in the matter… Until he heard the same attacker speak. “How did you dodge so fast?!” That voice was one that he was familiar with for sure, and when he turned back around, he was able to see the one and only Tessa herself. He had no idea that he would run into her in the middle of a random isle like this… but her tone was anything but friendly right now.

Especially with the angry look on her face. “Who are you?”

“Woah! H-hey! Take it easy-” Calvin pleaded with her before Tessa tried lunging for him again, only to duck in the process. “My name is Calvin-!”

Just as he said his name, a crossbow bolt went zipping past his head and into a tree behind him. With Tessa holding the contraption in her left paw and a makeshift knife in the other. And boy… she was still mad at him for his quick thinking.

“Tessa, can you read me?” A faint and static like voice could be heard, causing Tessa to trade out the knife for a communication device.

“I hear you, Mags…”

“Just what in Tarnations are you and Whiskers doing over there? We’re picking up the same energy readings of those three lifeforms from earlier and Buzz is flipping out like crazy over his theory from before, but now adding that they may be ninja’s from a rival clan that want to invade us, or some crazy story like that. In fact, one of them is said to be right in front of you.” That changed things for a moment involving Tessa, but now, she was dead on with trying to get answers from him.

“Hang on a second,” she said, cutting off the mic as she looked back at Calvin firmly. “That crack below us… are you from what’s below?”

“It’s complicated, but yes. We honestly did not think that something like that could happen-” He was interrupted, though, when Tessa looked at him again and her eyes narrowed.

“Wait a second… who’s we?”

“My two friends and I… They took the path on the left while I took the path here.” Calvin tried to explain. “Did you happen to see them by-”

“WHAT THE HAY IS THAT THING!?! AN OVERGROWN CHICKEN?!!” Calvin then turned his head in the direction in which he heard Rainbow shouting as he looked back at Tessa. He sighed, realizing that anywhere she would go, her pet bird Whiskers was not that far behind.

“I think that just answered my own question,” Calvin replied as he looked at Tessa. “Come on, we should get over there before this situation gets any-”

“AGH!! ZOMPONIES!!!”

“-worse.” He groaned, running back the way he came in a full on sprint, leaving Tessa in the dust by how fast he was going. Taking the left path this time, he was hurrying towards where they were… but then heard something that explained what was happening.

Skylanders of the Undead element are stronger in this zone.

“Oh, brilliant…” Immediately after he got there, the Skyshifter found Twilight and Rainbow not fighting, but terrified and holding onto Whiskers, like it was straight out of a Scooby Doo cartoon. He couldn’t just leave them there and had to do something, so quickly, thinking about what he had heard earlier, he chanted a phrase of an undead skylander quickly, just as Tessa soon caught up with him.

Your time is up.

Seconds after saying that, a cold chill could be felt in the air as a light blue glow began to shine from Calvin’s new form… Grim Creeper. Both equines, as well as Tessa and Whiskers, were equally surprised when seeing Calvin transform, but they were also surprised when they saw him disappear, only to reappear behind the undead monsters. “Time to cut and run!” Using the newfound scythe, he slashed and cut through the monsters for a short bit, but then stopped as he heard something. But this something… was actually pretty good.

Reverting back, he soon barreled out of the way once a blazing path was made, courtesy of Spitfire crashing in with Hot Streak out of nowhere. “There you are! I had a feeling I would find you out here, Calvin.”

“Same to you.”

“Wait, you two know each other!?” Tessa asked in shock before turning to Rainbow and Twilight. “Both of you, please get off of Whiskers.”

“Wait… You named your bird Whiskers?” The pegasus questioned before barreling over in a fit of laughter. “Oh, dear Celestia, how hysterical is that for a pet name!?”

“This, coming from the mare who named her turtle Tank,” Twilight reminded out her, sighing in the process.

“Tank is an AWESOME name, thank you very much! Whiskers would more likely be a name for a cat… No offense… uh, who are you?” Rainbow asked out of nowhere, annoying Tessa as she was still trying to wrap her head around what’s going on. Shortly though, another skylander landed by Spitfire, as she too looked at everything that was going on.

“Next time, warn me before you are going to pull off an emergency maneuver like that, Spitfire.” The faun named Splat sighed as she looked at the others, but she soon noticed the human that met the description of the individual that Spitfire was talking about.

“Yeah, not to try and break up the fun here, but we should get going before we run into something-” Tessa’s advice was cut off by a very familiar laughter coming from outside the small forest, as all of them stepped out to face what appeared to be Kaos in his newest and “awesome-est” warship. Looking down over them with a menacing glare. “-unpleasant.”

“Oh, great, it’s the overconfident bald midget that tried to ruin the Grand Galloping Gala, and yet he complains about getting hit in the head with an apple,” Rainbow groaned as everyone else that wasn’t from Equestria was looking in her general direction. “What? It’s true!”

“SILENCE!!! It is I!! KAOS!!” All that was heard afterwards was the sound of crickets chirping in the distance. “Oh, come on?! Seriously!? ...Well, enough about that. I’m just glad that you’re all here… Because I’m betting you’re interested in wanting to know what sort of surprises I have in store for you-”

“Dark villainous army.”

“...Wow, just… kill all the fun…” Kaos groaned, “Put all the fun in prison cells, why don’t you?”

“Yeah, like you are a ‘fun villain’.” Calvin snickered.

“Can you just GET TO THE BUCKING POINT ALREADY!?!” Rainbow snapped, really not liking how Kaos was wasting their time.

“Well, what you have yet to understand is that I have a bunch of surprises in store… Which reminds me… I have a question for the two equines,” Kaos smirked as he lifted a hand, holding something that caused Twilight’s eyes to widen as she stared in shock. “Would you happen to recognize… this?”

“T-that’s… Sombra’s horn. B-but how!?”

“That’s for me and my… partner to know. Now, if you would excuse me,” Kaos snickered, returning the horn to his robes. “I have things to do. But I’ll be sure to see you again… on your world, that is.” With it, a deep and menacing laughter echoed across the Skylands to the point where it could be heard across the planes of both worlds… and that was only the beginning… The worst has yet to come.

End Scroll 09

Author's Note

Two chapters so close to one another!? Blasphemy I say!! Blasphemy! :rainbowlaugh:

Anyways, things... aren't going as well as you would think. Especially with a little twerp causing the same thing his name stands for... and no, not you Discord.
-Frost

This chapters characters:
Whirlwind

Grim Creeper

Scroll 10- Limitless

Beyond the Skies- Limitless

Skylands

Around now, there were a lot of things to take in for just about almost everybody that had seen the dark portal master named Kaos escape. Now, almost everyone present had questions form inside their heads. For Twilight, she wondered how was it possible for him to have Sombra’s horn… and if it meant that somehow… the dark king that once ruled the Crystal Empire was still alive. For Calvin, he was personally wondering what kind of plan Kaos had this time around in order to try and take over Skylands. Tessa had a few questions as well, about who they are and what it was that they knew about the new trinket that the Dark Portal master had.

Rainbow, on the other hoof, was the first one to ask the question that was on her mind. “So, it’s been twice now that we’ve been seeing that bald midget causing trouble… is this going to be some sort of recurring theme?”

“Wait a minute, you’ve seen him before?” Tessa asked, surprised by this newfound information.

“Yes, but the last time around just seemed to be a way to make his presence known… He tried crashing a royal party, only for me to throw an apple at his head.” Calvin added on. “Still though, something doesn’t seem right…”

“Well, he’s a villain. Obviously, something’s not right,” Rainbow interjected before getting elbowed by Twilight. “What? I mean, he’s obviously a bad guy. They’re always trying to cook up evil plans…” After saying that, she turned to her left to see Whiskers staring her down and causing her to back up. “And no, I don’t mean you!”

“Calvin… actually makes a valid point…” Twilight then spoke up. “It can’t be a coincidence for him to just show up after… well, that…” At that point, the alicorn nudged her head in the direction of the tear in the barrier between both worlds, causing Tessa to think of a new question.

“Hold up… you actually know about the tear? What happened?” Tessa then questioned the group, looking at each one of them for a moment. That was when both Twilight and Calvin looked at Rainbow, who was slightly a little embarrassed from having everyone stare at her.

“Uh… why is everypony looking at me like that?” The pegasus asked, only for her to sigh deeply as she looked at them and cleared her throat. “Okay… but if I tell you this… you can’t be mad at me.”

“What… happened?” Tessa repeated the question this time, itching to draw out the crossbow from her holster.

“Okay, first off… I was minding my own business.”

“Baloney!!”

“I WAS!!” The pegasus then complained.

“And exactly what happened while you were minding your own business?” Tessa then asked, pressing Rainbow a little bit more in order for her to spill out what she knew about it.

“So, first, I was relaxing in my home, then I went to go find Twilight, who is a friend of mine. Calvin was there also, and I was telling them about my best stunt that I do during my flying routines… Then, Calvin said that he had not seen me do it before, so I wanted to give him a demonstration…” Rainbow then sighed, trying to catch her breath for a moment… shortly before hearing Tessa speak again.

“Go on…”

“So, I went up to the highest point that I could go in the atmosphere, raced forward with enough force to create a Sonic Rainboom, which is the name of my stunt by the way, and the next thing I know, something hits me and knocks me out… when I wake up, I find that hole in the sky…” Rainbow then sighed, thinking that she had summarized everything… for the most part at least.

“So, in short, Rainbow’s sonic rainboom caused the crack in the sky to open, and we went to go investigate-”

“TWILIGHT!! Why!?!” Rainbow then shouted. Hearing her say that made the pegasus think that she was trying to ruin her plan of NOT making it look like it was her fault.

“What? Your story had missing parts to it, and it would’ve been easier to tell them what happened straightforward,” the princess said, causing the two ponies to argue amongst themselves… while Tessa, Calvin and Whiskers just stood there and watched them go at it with words.

“Is this… normal?” Tessa then asked out of curiosity as the skyshifter soon looked back at her and sighed for a moment.

“Define normal,” Calvin then stated, sighing a little. “I’ve only been with them for a short amount of time, and I can’t even tell what’s normal or not, honestly.” It was around then that Tessa happened to notice the necklace around the boy’s neck and the crystal that was at the end of it. The crystal was what caught her attention the most though as she then asked him a question.

“Hey, is that an creation crystal at the end of your trinket?”

Her question confused the boy as he looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. “Uh… not exactly, It’s elementanium- ...Wait, what the heck is an creation crystal?” That… surprised Tessa… for two reasons. One, there were only two known crystals that she was familiar with, which was Traptanium used by the trap masters, since their weapons were forged out of it. Second, there was imaginite, crystals used by Portal Masters to create their own Skylanders. This… elementanium that Calvin was speaking about… was something she had not heard of before.

“Seriously? I honestly thought that after the Doomlanders fiasco with Kaos a while back, everyone in Skylands would be somewhat familiar with it.” Now that… was news to Calvin. Big time. He had no clue what Tessa was talking about or that Kaos tried taking over Skylanders again… again. “Not to mention that the Senseis have been helping to try to keep things organized as of late, with all the stuff going on.”

“Wait, what Senseis?” The Skyshifter then asked, now really confused at the mentioning of that. “Do you mean like teachers at Skylander Academy?”

“Well… sort of…” Tessa first stated. “Since Creation Crystals allow for Portal Masters to create their own Skylanders, the senseis help train them in preparing to combat Kaos’ forces based on the battle class of the Imaginator. Some of them were even former villains after being tasked with trying to rearrange the books in the academy library… which almost drove Wolfgang crazy. Let alone disappointing the Golden Queen, since so few of those books had to deal with treasure or gold.” Again… that was news to Calvin. He honestly didn’t think that the Villains that were in Cloudcracker Prison could actually be reformed, after Kaos broke the Villain Vault’s traptanium entrapment with the piece of The Darkness he found.

While he was thinking on that though, he almost didn’t hear what Tessa said next. “So… how exactly were you able to turn into a Skylander back there anyway?”

Looking back at her, Calvin sighed as he held out the gem that was around his neck. “Well, that’s the thing… This crystal allows me to shift into the form of a Skylander by saying their catchphrase. The transformations happen for a short amount of time, but the more I use a particular Skylander, the longer I can last in that form.” This… was interesting to Tessa. But, she needed some clarification on this first before acting like Mags and thinking she knew everything.

“So… if you would say Weed ‘Em and Reap, you would turn into Ambush, or if you said Stay Frosty, you would turn into King Pen?” Tessa asked, but that caused Calvin to be a little bit confused as he looked back at her.

“Who are Ambush and King Pen?” He asked out of curiosity.

“They’re Senseis back at Skylander Academy. Ambush is a Life Element Sensei of the Knight Class, while King Pen is a Water Element Sensei of the Brawler class,” Tessa explained, going into specifics. “Unfortunately, I don’t remember them all off of the top of my head. I do know though someone who can explain it better than I can… Only problem is that he’s at the Academy.” Now, Calvin was a little familiar with what she was talking about as he looked back at her.

“So… how is that exactly a problem? Twilight and Rainbow can fly, and I can just get a ride,” That caused Tessa to look at him with a raised eyebrow as he sighed. “Oh yeah… that’s right… I might need to explain something else to you then.”

“Go ahead, I’m all ears,” she replied as she looked at Calvin. He sighed, looking back at her as he held his crystal.

“Well… You know what… how about I show you instead?” He insisted, having his crystal glow a bit as the skyshifter looked back at her and said fuel the flames. In a split second, a rift portal opened up beside him, and Spitfire soon arrived on the scene with Hot Streak. He and Splat had left a few seconds earlier to report their findings on Kaos to Master Eon. But now that Calvin called for his help again, the Supercharger was quick to respond.

“You called, Calvin?” The fire supercharger asked before he noticed Tessa. “Oh. Hi, Tessa. What are you doing here?”

“Spitfire, I came here because Mags was picking up some magic signatures on that contraption of hers back at the academy- Wait, how exactly do you know this kid?” She then asked, realizing that the skylander actually knew Calvin.

“Calvin has been able to communicate mentally with some of the skylanders that he turns into along with being able to call upon them if he needs one to fight alongside him. Case in point would be me, since I’ve had to help him on more than one occasion,” he explained, remembering the time in Griffonstone. “Right now though, can we keep that part to ourselves right now? Only a few of the skylanders actually knows about what Calvin is capable of.”

“Possibly, but I’m not sure, Spitfire. We need to get back to the Academy, and pronto. We just had an encounter with Kaos, and not in a good way,” Tessa explained as Spitfire noticed the pegasus and the alicorn that were behind the two of them. “We don’t know a lot of what he’s planning, but from what he did say, we can only think that it involves both the skylands and the world below us-”

“Equestria,” Spitfire corrected.

“Gesundheit?”

“No, Equestria… That’s the name of the world below us… well, more likely the continent, but you get the picture.” The supercharger replied as he had Calvin get in the back seat of Hot Streak. “Have those two ponies follow us. We’ll be opening a rift portal to get us back to the Academy in ten seconds flat.”

“Hey, that’s my catchphrase!” Rainbow snapped. “Well, one of them at least.” All that caused her friend to do was sigh deeply as Tessa got on the saddle that was on Whisker’s back. Seeing his friends ready, Spitfire rev’d up the engines on his vehicle and raced forward, causing a rift portal to open up as everyone went after him. Just like he said, a few seconds later, all of them arrived at the Academy. Twilight herself was spellbound by how the rift portal thing was possible… while Rainbow… well…

“Oh goddess, I feel like I’m gonna throw up…” The Rainbow maned pegasus groaned, putting her head over the edge of the island and away from everyone else.

“That normally happens when someone goes through a Rift Portal for the first time. I know you like being a speedster, but you’ll get used to it over time.” Spitfire said as he and Calvin hopped out of Hot Streak before he dismissed it. “Now that that’s out of the way… Welcome to Skylander Academy.” Turning around, Calvin himself was completely surprised by what he was seeing. It was exactly like the Skylander Academy he remembered from Skylanders Superchargers. The test tracks, the training grounds, the game room… everything was almost exactly the same aside from a few small differences.

Just as they soon were able to get a bearing on their surroundings though, they heard someone speak up. “Hey, you’re back!” They all turned to see Flynn walk up and notice them. But upon seeing Calvin, his response was not quite what the Skyshifter honestly expected. “Is this the pizza guy? If so, can I have pepperoni?”

“Flynn!” Tessa snapped at him in response, causing Twilight to raise an eyebrow in response as she watched what was going on. “We got more important matters to focus on. Where’s Mags?”

“I think she’s trying to adjust her magic radar after she was getting some strange readings earlier or something like that… Either that, or she’s too busy with her head in a book…” Now was when Twilight’s ears perked up as she looked at the pilot.

“Did somepony say… books?” Now was when Flynn looked back at Twilight… and personally was caught off guard to the point where he tried hiding behind Tessa.

“AHH! Talking winged unicorn!! Tessa, do something!” All that she did was sigh and roughly hit Flynn in the nose before folding her arms and turning around to look at Flynn.

“Flynn, quit overreacting… Twilight’s not going to harm you now… are you?” She asked, for clarification purposes. When Twilight nodded her head, Tessa returned back to speaking. “See, she’s perfectly fine… Now, do us a favor and get Mags and Hugo over here. I need to talk to them for a moment.”

“What about Buzz?”

“I don’t think we would automatically want him to assume that he needs to use his ninja commando skills in this particular situation,” Tessa told him as the pilot soon ran off, scarf flowing in the wind as she turned around. “Don’t mind him… sometimes, he’s a bit oblivious…” When she said that, Rainbow Dash just casually walked back to the group a few moments later, wiping her mouth a little as she looked at everyone.

“So, what did I miss?” She asked, causing Twilight to sigh again as she looked at Tessa.

“Do you want the short version or the long version?” Spitfire asked her as the pegasus thought it through.

“Which one would be easier for me to understand and also sound less… well… boring?” Before Spitfire could answer that, he saw something out of the corner of his eye as he turned to see both Mags and Hugo walking over towards the group.

“Let’s make it simple. You didn’t miss much,” Spitfire told her in order to simplify things a bit as Tessa soon noticed the mage and the record keeper walk over to them. “Right now though, we got company.”

“Tessa, ah’m glad you’re back and all… but why in the world am I picking up the readings I detected earlier from your… companions here?” Mags then questioned as she checked the radar device she was holding onto before looking back at Tessa and her companions. “Matter of fact, who are they?”

“Ah. Right... Well, this is Calvin,” Tessa said, pointing to him first, since he was the one standing to the left of her, before realizing something. “And… aw, whiskers.” She turned around to Twilight and Rainbow, a little bit embarrassed but trying not to show it. “I’m sorry I forgot to ask this, but what are your names?”

Before Twilight could say anything, Rainbow boldly interjected as she pointed a hoof at her friend. “The egghead next to me is my friend Twilight Sparkle, while I am Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in all of Equestria!” This was followed by doing a pose in the air that would remind Hugo and Tessa of Flynn as she boldly began to show off. “Booya!”

Tessa just sighed to herself upon hearing the pegasus say that. “And now I regret asking that question.”

However, one detail still eluded Hugo as he pulled the huge book that he carried out of his backpack and flipped through the pages. “Uhh… Could you say where you are from again? I couldn’t find it in the encyclopedia on Skylands here.”

“Yeah… That’s the thing…” Calvin spoke up this time, noticing that Twilight was staring at the book that Hugo was holding and snapping her out of a small trance she was in. “I’m going to take a wild guess that you already have seen the big massive crack in the sky?” Hugo nodded and was going to ask about something… until he realized why exactly the Skyshifter posed the question for him in the first place. Mags was also shocked once she realized it as well… But she was the first one to speak.

“You’re from the other side…” she said, causing Calvin to nod his head in response. “…Well, Hot Buttered Toast! Isn’t this something?”

“Seriously? Now, you’re just reminding me of Applejack… and not just because of the accent,” Rainbow rolled her eyes, looking at the inventor as her eyes narrowed. Hugo though, was more interested on Calvin though. He had heard Spitfire and Master Eon talking about him once, but he was always confused as to who they were talking about. He originally thought it was a Mabu on an island populated by Griffons when they were talking about the place called Griffonstone. Now though, this changed things.

“So, you’re the one that Master Eon was talking about! Well, it is an honor to finally meet you.” Hugo said to Calvin. “He said that you were capable of incredible things! Can you show me? Please? Please?!”

“Oh boy, why is he reminding me of Twilight like this?” Calvin asked himself mentally. Before he could even say anything though, Rainbow decided to interject… again.

“Yeah, Calvin! Show him how you can turn into one of those Skylander thingies and kick some serious butt!!” That… did nothing to help the situation at all for him. Spitfire himself even sighed as he looked back at Hugo and tried to make sure that he wasn’t going to overreact… But the overreaction instead came from Mags.

“You can WHAT!?”

“It’s true, Mags. I saw it for myself,” Tessa replied to her. “I saw him turn into one of those undead types to get his friends and Whiskers out of a tight spot when they wandered into an undead elemental zone on accident.”

“…Okay, look. Ah’m an undead element, and for me, I would like to see it with my own eyes first,” she replied back, looking at Calvin as she held her staff upright. “Show me what you can do, kiddo.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, stretching his arms as he looked back at them. “Anyone in particular?”

“Surprise me,” Mags insisted. This caused Calvin to grin a little as he stretched his neck from side to side. The crystal glowed around his neck as he said the first phrase that came to his mind. He wasn’t thinking it would be necessary to turn into Spitfire, since the Supercharger was technically right next to him, so he had to go for another phrase… but the one he was thinking about in particular was one that he had on his mind for a while.

“Lights out!” Shortly after saying that, a strong and vibrant glow appeared around him as Hugo and Mags both saw the crescent moon that represented the dark element. This was followed up by Calvin landing on all fours after he successfully changed into the Skylander named Blackout. “So, what do you think?”

“T-that… was incredible!!” Hugo said in shock and awe after seeing Calvin transform into a Skylander in front of him. “How can you do that!?”

“That may be a lot to explain, but I already told Tessa about it,” he replied, taking a moment to change back to normal. “Maybe she can give you the short version of the explanation.”

“The crystal that’s on his pendant can have him change into a skylander based on the phrase that they say. So, for example, if he said ‘Eight legs and no pegs’, he’ll transform into Wash Buckler.” Tessa started the explanation. Allowing for Spitfire to pick up on the other half of it when she was done talking.

“In addition to his transformations, Calvin has been able to call upon me to support him in combat, and also, it seems that if he turns into a supercharger, he can summon their vehicles, too.” The fire skylander added onto the conversation. “Still, there’s a lot more that we can be doing right now besides talking about Calvin.”

“Spitfire’s right. With the crack in the sky and your report on Kaos, something tells us that we are going to have our hands full,” Hugo said, scratching his chin. “What do you think we should do right now?”

“Well, first thing’s first, I have some questions that I would like to ask Twilight and Rainbow,” Mags spoke up, causing Rainbow to worry. “Oh, come on now! It’s not that bad! Besides, it’s not like you have anything better to do.”

“Tessa and I can take Calvin to a training room and see the extent of some of his abilities. I’m also a little curious what would happen if Calvin came across a creation crystal myself,” Spitfire then told everyone else. “If some of the senseis are coming back later, maybe it will be a good opportunity to give Calvin the chance to meet them.”

“That, I agree,” Tessa replied, “I think we might have a spare crystal back in the storage room, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s a creation crystal or an imaginite crystal. I’ll go have a look while you show Calvin were the arena is.” The skylander nodded, having Calvin follow him towards the Academy as Hugo turned around and went to the center of Skylander Academy to tell Master Eon about Calvin’s arrival.

Meanwhile, on the way to the battleground that was used as a training ring, the Skyshifter had a question for Spitfire. “Hey, Spitfire, can you tell me a little bit more about the senseis and the imaginite crystals you were talking about earlier?” He asked, curious to finding out what Tessa and Spitfire were talking about a few moments ago.

“Well, that may take a bit, but I can try my best,” Spitfire acknowledged as he began to speak. “First off, Imaginite Crystals allow portal masters, like your friend Ace, to create their own Skylanders from scratch. They pick their element, battle class, appearance, catchphrase and move set before going out into the field. Second, the senseis serve as teachers for those imaginators, going as far as being able to teach them secret techniques that they can use in combat, along with increasing just how powerful they can grow.”

This made Calvin a little more interested. But one still thing confused him. “What kind of battle classes are there?”

“There’s ten in total and not only does it provide the imaginator some flexibility with the element they choose, but different class and element combinations allow for different varieties of powers.” The supercharger told him as he pointed to a board along the back wall that had a bunch of different symbols. “From left to right, the battle classes are as followed. There are Brawlers, Sorcerers, Smashers, Bowslingers, Knights, Quickshots, Sentinels, Ninjas, Bazookers and lastly, Swashbucklers. Each class relies on a different choice of weapons and sometimes rely on certain key components, like speed or strength in battle.”

Calvin looked closely at each of the symbols and tried to see if there were any in particular that caught his interest. However, there were still some details that he was missing. “What kind of weapons do each of the battle classes use?”

“That is a good thing to take into consideration,” Spitfire replied, amused by Calvin wanting to learn a little more about the classes instead of immediately just picking one off of the bat. Pointing out the first one, he mimicked a boxing stance, like one that Night Shift would make as he began to continue his explanation. “Well, some of the classes weapons are seen in their icons. Brawlers use items such as gloves, gauntlets and at times, brass knuckles since they rely on speed and how fast they can throw a punch.”

After that, he began to copy several of the other senseis. Even going as far as posing to look like the Golden Queen for the next part of his explanation. “Sorcerers use wands or staves that correspond to their element.”

After that, he now pretended to carry a sledgehammer, just like what Crusher would do. That, of course, was followed by several other motions each time he mentioned a particular class or skylander off the top of his head. “Smashers use heavy two handed weapons, like a greatsword or an axe like what Bushwhack or Krypt King would use.”

Now, he began to mimic Flameslinger with the next class. “Bowslingers are basically archers… their weapon is in the name of the class.” This was followed by copying Chop Chop, Trigger Happy and then Splat with the way she would hold her brush like a staff. “Knights use various types of swords. Quickshots use a pair of pistols like what Trigger Happy would use. Sentinels would use long staves and dual blades similar to Fire Kraken or Ember, anything with a blade on the end of it normally does the trick for them.”

Finally, to finish with the whole copycat act that he was doing, Spitfire soon pretended to be like Stink Bomb, Zook, and lastly, Ninjini. “Ninjas use shurikens or sawblades, depending on what sort of skills they know. Bazookers use rocket launchers… and I honestly have no idea why they would let the Chompy Mage have one of those… and lastly, Swashbucklers wield two swords in each hand.”

When Spitfire was done talking, he let out a huge sigh that looked like he was holding back for a while as the skylander looked back at Calvin. “Did that help?”

“It did… a lot,” he said, thankful for Spitfire explaining everything to him. “I would be interested in coming up with one later, but right now, I think we were suppose to do something like… I don’t know… train? You did say to Tessa that you want to know the extent of my abilities.”

That… was a valid point. “Alright, why don’t you tell me what you know as of right now with your powers?”

“Well, other than what we told Tessa and Mags, there’s only one… other thing I noticed.” Calvin replied back to Spitfire. “Like, when I transform into Blackout for example, I can shoot Shadow Orbs like he can, make a small black hole and fight with my wings. But anytime I shoot an orb at a black hole, it wouldn’t exactly erupt or explode like I thought it would.” That made the supercharger scratch his chin for a minute… puzzled, until he figured it out himself.

“I think I figured out what your problem is… You’re missing upgrades,” Spitfire explained. “Normally, when a Skylander gets stronger enough, they go to Persephone for new powers and upgrades. But since you haven’t met her yet, you still have the original abilities that you started with when you first transformed into a particular skylander.”

Now, that made sense… for a little bit. But something else came to Calvin in his mind. “Yeah, but wouldn’t we need to pay her for those upgrades? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any gold I can use to afford something like that.”

“I’ll let you borrow some of the extra cash I have later… Right now though, I think we're about to have company.” Spitfire told him, directing his attention to the entrance of the training hall as the doors began to open. A small chill ran through the room as Calvin heard something like footsteps enter the room… But he was honestly not prepared for who just entered the room.

“Hey, is it just me… or is a little too warm here for my enjoyment?” The voice asked as what looked like an oversized penguin with a pair of metal gauntlets on his flippers and a helmet on his head entered the room. Equally surprised to see both Spitfire… and Calvin. “Oh… so that’s why it’s not so chilly in here.”

“Good to see you too, King Pen.” Spitfire sighed to himself, putting a claw over his face as he groaned a little. “I honestly expected for another sensei to be with you when you came through the door just now. Didn’t you go out with a couple of them to check on the new Cloudcracker prison a while ago?”

“Why, yes, we did,” King Pen replied back. “In fact, Ember, Chopscotch and that one lady who called herself the Golden Queen are reporting to Master Eon as we speak. In the meantime, I thought I would come here to see if there was anyone in the training room, only to find you two.” In that moment, the water skylander turned to look back at Calvin, tilting his head. “Forgive me, but I don’t think we’ve met before. What’s your name, kid?”

“Uh… My name is Calvin,” he said, a little nervous at first before the sensei looked back at him.

“Calvin, you say? Are you a tourist? Possibly a student here that got lost?”

“No, it’s not like that…” he said, looking at Spitfire from his position. “Spitfire and I were talking a bit before you came in here.”

“Really? I didn’t think of Spitfire being qualified for a tour guide, given his impulsiveness and personality,” King Pen replied, while Spitfire was right next to him. Turning around, he then asked a question to the supercharger. “We’re still cool, right?”

He sighed a little, looking back at the sensei as he nodded his head. “Yeah… we’re cool… Say, while you’re here, maybe you can help Calvin with something… You see, King Pen, Calvin here is rather… special.”

“…Let me guess, not from skylands? That’s the same case with Star Strike, Starcast, Flashwing… I have more examples, but those are the only ones I can think of off of the top of my head,” the Sensei replied as he shook his head for a moment.

“To an extent… Calvin though can do something different that not any of the other skylanders are capable of actually,” Spitfire explained before looking at the Skyshifter. “Maybe it’ll be better for him to show you than just tell you.”

“Alright then, kiddo, surprise me.” With that, Calvin’s facial expression changed from nervousness to confident as the crystal around his neck glowed a bit. Stretching out his arms for a moment as the skyshifter said a particular catchphrase that have been in the back of his mind for some time, but up until now, he didn’t exactly want to say it because he knew that this particular skylander… has a problem with anger management.

“Crash and Burn!!” When Calvin landed back on his feet, he was now in the form of the fire skylander named Fryno. Originally, there were a couple of things that Calvin liked about him when he first played as him. One would be his “angry bike” and another would be how he could just easily be able to lay the smackdown on any one of Kaos minions with a flurry of punches. The only catch though this time was that since this was a new transformation, his only abilities involved both punching what was in front of him… as well as the ground to make Fryno’s anger rise, which also increase his attack power. But his concern was if he would go into a similar anger fueled rampage as Fryno… because the last thing he would want to do is hurt someone if he lost control of himself.

“Well… that is indeed something… but where did Calvin go?” King Pen asked, causing Calvin in his current state to groan a little.

“Uh… I’m right here,” he said, only realizing that he was still Fryno as he took the liberty to change back.

“Hey, there you are. I was wondering where you went off to just now. Can’t you just stay for a while and chill out?” That made Calvin a little bit more frustrated. Apparently, King Pen here wasn’t quite understanding what he was capable of… But that was when he remembered something that Tessa said earlier in the day.

“So… if you would say ‘Weed ‘Em and Reap’, you would turn into Ambush, or if you said ‘Stay Frosty', you would turn into King Pen?”

Now thinking this in his head, he let the crystal glow again. Allowing himself to change forms again as he repeated the same phrase. “Stay Frosty.”

“Aw, would you look at that. The kids a fan of me- What the-?!” The sensei himself was caught off guard the moment that Calvin took the chance to transform into an identical version of King Pen. He may have not had the same abilities or skills as the sensei, but the whole point of the transformation was to have Calvin display to King Pen what he was capable of. Therefore, the penguin wouldn’t exactly mistake him for someone else. “Okay, just how did you do that?”

Turning back to normal, Calvin cleared his throat as he began to speak. “The crystal on my necklace allows me to transform into any particular skylander I can think of just by saying either their catchphrase or a line that they would typically say. When I was telling Tessa this earlier, she said your catchphrase as an example, so I thought I would transform into you so you can understand what I can do.”

“Wow… that’s cool… I like this kid already,” King Pen said to him, causing Spitfire to roll his eyes a little in response. “So, who else knows about him?”

“I’ve met Tessa, Flynn, Hugo, Mags… Other than those four, Spitfire, Splat and Eon, I don’t know who else knows about my abilities that’s from here. There’s a possibility that like Spitfire, some of the other Skylanders I transformed into before may know about me like Blackout and Whirlwind.” He said. But there was one particular part that had the sensei confused.

“Okay, but what exactly do you mean by ‘from here’?” King Pen asked, putting the emphasis on the last two words in his sentence.

“Uh… No disrespect sensei, but have you not seen the massive crack in the sky?” Spitfire then interjected. “It’s the reason why almost all the islands in skylands had a massive rupture recently.”

King Pen took a moment to look out the window and see what Spitfire was talking about. “Oh, so that was the cause of the commotion. I honestly thought that one of Mags prototypes for something she was working on exploded.” That caused Spitfire to facepalm himself for the third time today, shortly before someone else entered the room.

“Hey, King Pen, is it just me or is Mags talking to a unicorn with wings and a pegasus with a mane that looks like a rainbow?” All three of them turned to see another sensei come into the room. This time one with a samurai helmet on her head as she floated around the dojo while Tessa soon came inside shortly afterwards. “Uhh… am I interrupting something?”

“Not really…” Spitfire sighed as he noticed Tessa come on down by jumping off of the railing. “Hey, Tessa, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I just came back from the storage room and I couldn’t find any imaginite, but did find ourselves a creation crystal at least,” she told them, confusing Calvin at first before he remembered their conversation earlier.

“Which element is it?” King Pen then asked, looking at Tessa.

“Well, since it’s a burning red, I would have to likely guess that it’s a fire crystal,” Tessa explained, holding it out in one of her paws to show everyone. “However, Master Eon told me something in regards to this particular crystal, and Calvin as well…”

“What about it?” Spitfire asked, a little puzzled by what she said.

“That’s the thing… The crystals… well… asleep,” She explained. “Right now, Calvin needs to wake the crystal by getting enough imaginite energy in order to awaken it… which is another problem, since the academy has no imaginite anywhere. I even checked with that one Mabu that runs the academy store, and he doesn’t have any in his inventory either.”

“Well, fishsticks, that’s indeed a problem,” King Pen replied, folding both of his flippers. “If they’re not here, then where else could they be?”

“How do you guys normally find them?” Calvin asked out of curiosity.

“Normally, it’s random. So, that just makes this even more difficult,” Tessa replied, “Maybe Mags might know someplace to look?” At the mentioning of Mags, Calvin soon realized that it had been a while since he, Twilight and Rainbow had split up earlier. Now, he was curious on how exactly they were handling their time at the academy.

As of right now, Rainbow Dash was trying to personally find a way to cure herself of a severe case of EXTREME boredom, most of it involving Twilight and this “Mags” lady talking to each other for almost an hour. She wasn’t even sure that the two of them were aware of her presence nearby. So, given this, she decided to look around the campus and find something to do while Twilight was talking to Mags and Calvin was with Spitfire. She did remember one of the people here mention that this Academy had a “game room”, so maybe she would find something in order to occupy herself in there.

Upon finally finding the place though… she didn’t really find anyone inside. Granted, she did remember hearing from Calvin that Skylanders were basically heroes, so her only assumption was that no one was here because they were off trying to prevent villains from doing evil doings that they want to eventually… do. But being by herself right now was rather… boring. Besides, if you were suppose to play games in the game room, then why did most of the games require a second player to play against-

Yet, just as she was thinking this, someone else had entered the room as well. Almost startling Rainbow when she heard her. “Hey there. Looking for something?” The mare turned around to see what she saw as a bipedal bird wearing a flight suit. In fact, some parts of this figure… reminded Rainbow of herself.

“Uh… Who are you?”

“I’m Stormblade, the fastest and youngest stunt pilot on the Superchargers,” she boasted for a moment before posing a question of her own. “What’s your name, Kiddo?” Rainbow’s ears twitched upon her hearing that. She wanted to say something back at her, but after what happened earlier, she’d rather not cause any additional problems to what they had already.

“Me? My name’s Rainbow Dash! Fastest flyer in Equestria!!” she boasted in return.

“Well… I don’t know where the heck Equestria is, but I’m glad to see another fast flyer!” She smiled, stretching out her arm to shake Rainbow’s hoof in response. “So, what brings you to Skylander Academy, Ms. Dash?”

“Just call me Rainbow, my friends do it all the time,” she insisted, looking around a little. “As for why I’m here… well… that may be a bit more difficult to explain-”

“I’m going to assume that it has to deal with that fracture in the sky? Because I tried flying down to what’s down there before and couldn’t find anything.” That… had Rainbow’s fur stand up on end as she looked back at her.

“Uhh… well…”

“Ah, there you are, Rainbow,” she turned her head to see Spitfire and Calvin come over to where they were as both flyers turned around. “Making some new friends already?”

“Y-yeah. Something like that,” Rainbow sighed as she looked back at both of them. For a moment, Stormblade was going to say something, but was surprised to see Calvin. Originally, she was cautious, but Spitfire eased her worries once he spoke up.

“Easy there, Stormblade. Calvin’s a friend of mine and also a comrade,” the supercharger replied, calming her down as she looked back at him. “He’s capable of some great things.”

“Oh, really?” Stormblade asked, a little intrigued. “What kind of things can this kid do?”

For a moment, Calvin thought that he had to give another demonstration, but Spitfire himself then sighed as he looked back at Stormblade. “I’ll explain later. Have you seen Mags? We left her with one of Rainbow’s friends earlier, and we thought that now would be a good time to check in on her.”

“She’s probably still where she was with Twilight earlier,” Rainbow replied, pointing a hoof in the direction of where the two of them were earlier. However, it was soon that the Alicorn herself was running towards them instead…. And not in a good way.

“We got a problem!” Twilight called out, trying to catch their attention as Rainbow and Calvin hurried over to her. “I got a letter from Princess Celestia just now, and the tear in the sky is causing problems.”

“What kind of problems?” Calvin asked her in response.

“Problems to where the Princesses needed to have Discord use an illusion to hide it. But it can’t hold forever… And that’s not my main concern…” Twilight said before looking at all of them, causing Spitfire to cross his arms for a moment.

“Main concern?” He then asked, looking at Twilight.

“Celestia wanted to know the cause for the tear between Equestria and Skylands, so…” That made red flags raise up in Calvin’s mind as he looked at Twilight.

“You have got to be kidding me…” he said, looking back at the Alicorn for a brief second. Rainbow herself was also shocked by what Twilight was trying to tell them, but Stormblade was still a bit confused.

“Okay, who exactly is this… Celestia you are talking about?”

“She’s like Master Eon for Twilight and Rainbow. According to what I already know from them, Celestia’s been watching over her kingdom for thousands of years… Just like Eon has with the Skylands,” Spitfire told her. Mags was going to say something next, but all of them soon had to stop their conversation upon hearing Flynn say something the second he stepped out of the cafeteria… and dropped his nachos.

“Uhh, is it just me… or does anybody else see that white winged unicorn flying in from the west side of the academy!?!” Immediately, both ponies, Calvin and Spitfire ran out to the courtyard, passing through some of the other people in the academy as they hurried out to where Flynn had pointed out what he saw earlier. When they got there, Twilight’s eyes widened.

It was Celestia herself… and she and Rainbow felt as if they were in all sorts of trouble. “P-princess… We can explain-”

“It’s alright, Twilight… Rainbow… I already know,” she said, surprising both ponies. But before they could even ask how, the princess answered their question. “I went to your castle, only to not find you there, but instead to find Spike panicking after Scootaloo told him what happened earlier. He soon told me… and now, I’m here. You’re not in trouble though.”

Shortly after she arrived though was when Spitfire turned around and noticed someone really important come out from inside the academy. “Uh… guys… Master Eon, ten o’clock.” Now, everyone soon turned around, facing in the direction of the elderly portal master as he soon approached the group. Spitfire and Stormblade both bowed to him in respect while the ponies just stood there.

“Greetings… I am Master Eon, and I welcome you to Skylander Academy,” he told Princess Celestia before saying one more thing as he motioned everyone to come inside. “I believe we have a lot to discuss... and no time to lose.”

End Scroll 10

Author's Note

One thing to note on this chapter is that since Calvin was displaced before Skylanders Imaginators was released, he has no clue about what an Imaginator is, who the Sensei's are and a lot of other details. Now though, things are beginning to get interesting.

Also, try to see what references you can find. Until then... Kudos!
-Frost

Scroll 11- Major Explaining: Round 2

Beyond the Skies- Major Explaining: Round 2

Skylander Academy

The moment that Master Eon had introduced himself to the newcomers that were at the academy, every one of them had a different thought on their minds. Calvin was blown away by the fact that this time around, he was able to meet Eon in his own home instead of in his dreams. Twilight was wondering who was he and was thinking about possible follow up questions to say afterwards. Celestia herself was curious about another factor… the words of the elder portal master were welcoming, but she was curious as to what this… Master wished to speak to them about. But for Rainbow, her immediate thought was if this old geezer was to be trusted. Like with most new ponies, she didn’t immediately trust anypony that she had just met, and Master Eon was exactly the same case.

Nevertheless, the four of them followed him inside, along with Stormblade and Spitfire, who were there with him at the time as they made their way through the inner hallways of the academy towards the center of the main hall, where Eon’s pedestal resided. Shards of crystal floated around him while the four newcomers saw ten different tapestries along the wall, each one with a different color and a different symbol for each one. There were a few new additions to the academy itself that Calvin himself wasn’t quite familiar with, but he didn’t let these things affect him. Soon though, someone had a question… and it wasn’t one of the ponies or Calvin for that matter.

It was Spitfire. “So, Master Eon… you said that there was some things that we needed to talk about?”

“Indeed there is… but I believe that our guests have some questions of their own that would like to be answered. Especially the Princess.” That… had surprised both Twilight and Celestia, causing them to look at each other for a brief moment before the Princess of the Sun then asked a question.

“With all due respect, how do you know that I’m a princess?” She asked out of curiosity. The answer that the portal master had for her was quite… surprising, to say the least.

“Other than the crown on your head and the brooch around your neck?” Eon then pondered, causing Celestia to realize she still had her attire from day court still on and forgot to take it off before departing to go investigate what was going on. “That answer may actually surprise you.” Calvin was a little bit curious himself. When he first met the Portal Master, he did seem to know a bit about where he was, as well as the fact that Equestria was directly beneath the skylands. Now, he was going to find out about how he knew about it in the first place.

Taking a moment, the portal master soon summoned a book that he soon opened as he began to flip through the pages. “Some time ago, we took some villains that used to be in the Cloudcracker Prison and had them… reformed, by fixing up the Academy’s library. It had gotten to be quite a mess over time, and it almost took a full two years for them to complete. But one of the things that was uncovered from the mess was a journal from one of my predecessors. And it was a journal that had entries about when he met someone from your world.”

All three ponies were confused, and they all had one simultaneous question to say afterwards. “Who?”

“The journal says that this pony called himself… Starswirl the Bearded,” Eon answered, only to see the shocked reactions from all three of the equines in the room. “Oh, it seems that you do know of him.”

“A-absolutely!! He has a very important role in Equestrian history and was Princess Celestia’s teacher when it came to the field of magic!” Twilight stated, shortly before Rainbow rolled her eyes at her friend going full blown egghead again. However, there was one main detail that he noticed in Twilight’s rambling that caught his attention… but waited for a pause in her explanation in order to speak.

“I see…” Eon mentioned. “But I just realized something… I forgot to ask all of you for your names. It’s only proper for you to introduce yourself in return after I introduced myself to you.” The Portal Master… brought up a very valid point.

“Well, I am Princess Twilight Sparkle,” The lavender Alicorn spoke up shortly afterwards. “This here is Princess Celestia, and this is my friend Ra-”

“Rainbow Dash! Fastest Flyer in all of Equestria!! No introductions required!” She boasted, which in turn caused Calvin, Twilight and Spitfire to simultaneously facepalm themselves at the same time. All while Stormblade looked rather… impressed.

“I’m liking her already.” The Air Skylander smirked. But what caught Eon’s attention more than that small remark was what Twilight was saying originally.

“I’m sorry, but did you say Celestia? As in, Starswirl’s student?” That caught the Solar Diarch’s attention rather quickly, almost ignoring Rainbow’s rambling that followed after Twilight’s reaction towards her.

“How do you know that Starswirl was my teacher?” She questioned, curious but also sounding a little defensive.

“He talked about you in the entries that my predecessor recorded. He said that you were a brilliant and remarkable student… but was also concerned a bit about you following an… incident with your sister,” Eon said softly, “He wanted to talk to you about it, but was unsure about how to talk to you about such a… troubling subject.” He didn’t really want to continue on the topic, since he noticed the brief change in Celestia’s facial expression. “Nevertheless, I am honored to meet you in person… and for good reason, too.” The Princess herself was first curious why he said that, but that was when Spitfire, Twilight and Calvin soon explained about the brief encounter they had with Kaos… and the mentioning of the Dark Portal Master really caught her attention.

“So, let me see if I understand this correctly… after the rift in the sky was opened by Rainbow-”

“That was an accident!!! I swear!” Rainbow protested.

“…After the rift in the sky was accidentally opened by Rainbow, you three went to go through it to see if there was anything on the other side,” Celestia repeated herself after the protest from the pegasus interrupted her. “And after a short while, you found the same being that caused a ruckus at the Grand Galloping Gala several weeks ago.”

“Yep. Same bald midget, same prideful ego,” Calvin sighed, “However, there was one significant difference that Twilight noticed though that really made her worried and concerned.” With that, Calvin let Twilight speak up as she soon looked back at the Princess. Even if she was first really nervous in talking about it, the alicorn soon had the courage to tell her what it was.

“Princess… Somehow, Kaos has gotten his hands on the Horn that once belonged to King Sombra.” That… immediately caused Celestia’s eyes to widen in horror. The last that she had heard of King Sombra was that he was defeated when Cadence and the others had reclaimed the Crystal Empire. She was unsure about a lot of the details regarding this discovery, but just to be sure, the alicorn had one question to ask.

“Was it still intact?” That had Twilight and some of the others puzzled as Celestia cleared her throat before speaking again. “When you saw it, was the horn still intact?” Thinking it over had caused a long pause in the conversation, but it was then that Calvin remembered the encounter and answered his question.

“Now that you mentioned it, not only was it intact… but there was something that he said which was rather confusing.” Calvin spoke up as he turned to Rainbow. “Hey, Dash, do you remember when we first saw that and then Kaos saying something afterwards?”

“Yeah, that bald twerp said something like... “That’s for me and my… partner to know”, before taking off in that ship of his,” Rainbow replied, going as far as actually impersonating Kaos in order to get the point across. “But it was weird, because there wasn’t anypony right next to him when we saw him.” Now that Calvin had thought of it… he soon realized something. That horn strangely reminded him of how Traptanium crystals worked, if you were to capture a villain. Which only led for him to have one main conclusion.

“Princess Celestia… I may not be familiar with who this Sombra is or how come he’s such a big deal, but…” Calvin spoke before asking his question. “Are you trying to say that this guy is inside that horn that Kaos has?”

“Oh, come on now, Calvin. That just sounds silly-”

“Actually… He may not be fully correct, but he is on the right track,” Celestia spoke up, interjecting in the middle of Rainbow trying to blow the whole thing off and in turn, causing Rainbow’s and Twilight’s jaws to drop simultaneously. “Twilight, do you remember the report you sent me about the events in the Empire, and how just before the Empire was freed, Sombra took the form of a massive moving shadow?”

“Y-yes?”

“Yeah, that’s right! And it exploded after we saved the empire! There was nothing left of him!!” Rainbow Dash protested. “How could he still be alive then?!”

“The magic of the Crystal Heart is a powerful source to keep dark forces at bay,” Celestia began to explain as she cleared her throat. “When you liberated the Empire, the magic from the Crystal Heart was unleashed, and in turn, it drove Sombra out. But nopony knows the extent of the Crystal Heart’s full power, nor do we know Sombra’s full power, so there is a possibility that the magic may not have been strong enough to get rid of him. Based on what little is known of his origins, it may be possible that he could regenerate himself as long as he has a physical part of his body that isn’t broken. Which, in this case, is his horn… Not exactly what Calvin said before… but very close indeed.”

“And of course, someone has now found it…” Calvin sighed, groaning a little bit to himself. “And just when things weren’t already complicated enough with the rift in the sky.”

“I apologize for interrupting, but what is the Crystal Heart?” Spitfire then asked, catching Celestia’s attention in the process.

“It’s the heart of the Crystal Empire, a kingdom that resides in the north that is ruled by my niece, Princess Cadence.” Princess Celestia replied. “The heart keeps the kingdom safe and wards away any form of darkness.”

“Oh, so you mean like the Core of Light?” Stormblade then asked. But it was in that moment that her question… actually confused Celestia and the other ponies. “It’s an artifact that helped protect Skylands long ago, by warding off the Darkness… Granted it did get destroyed by Kaos… twice. And we did have to rebuild it… only for it to get destroyed when we learned it was incomplete and tried to fix it.”

“Hunh… it seems like our two realms might have some similarities between one another…” Celestia pondered, only causing Spitfire to chuckle a little.

“Oh, trust me… with all due respect, Princess… the Core of Light is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to those kind of things around here,” he informed her, “The first skylanders, the giants, date back as far back at 10,000 years ago. There are a LOT of places here that you can’t even collectively place on a map.”

Spitfire was indeed right about this. In fact, the skylands itself was so big that the mapmakers in the old days were only able to make maps of certain regions in the sky and never found a way to piece it all together. Mostly because all the mapmakers back in the days were actually trolls, and no one could decipher the scribbles that was their handwriting.

“We should discuss about that later. Right now, until we actually figure out what he’s trying to do, our main priority is to see what we need to do to get ready… along with finding the right amount of imaginite to awaken Calvin’s creation crystal-” It was in that moment that the doors soon opened… and the fur on Twilight’s neck began to stand up once she heard a familiar hissing sound. Things only got worse when she turned around to see one of her worst nightmares right in front of her.

A talking snake… matter of fact, two talking snakes. “Oh… I’m sorry, Masssster Eon. Are we interrupting sssssomething?” That comment by the apparent cobra of the two immediately caused Twilight to spring up into the air and caused Calvin to catch her like it was one of those old Scooby Doo cartoons. Just… with Twilight being Scooby that is. She was actually shivering in Calvin’s arms, and her teeth were chattering like crazy. And he had only one response to her in that moment.

“Really?”

“S-snakes… Why d-did it h-have t-to be s-s-s-snakes!?!” She said softly… not expecting to hear Spitfire say something afterwards.

“Actually, that’s Cobra Cadabra and Rattle Shake… ” Spitfire said, until he noticed the Alicorn in Calvin’s arms. “Is she going to be okay?”

That was when Princess Celestia personally chuckled herself. “One of Twilight’s fears from her fillyhood is snakes-”

“NOT HELPING ME HERE!!!” The outburst caused her to still shake as Rainbow was beginning to laugh to herself.

“Shouldn’t we be more concerned about what problems this Sombra guy teaming up with Kaos may bring?” Stormblade asked.

“Oh, so you’re worried about a bald dummy teaming up with a dead/not dead spirit that we don’t know if he’s alive or not?” Rainbow asked, amused about the seeming ‘threat’.

“Well, this dummy that you are mentioning has attempted to take over Skylands multiple times, had a hydra as a pet, turned into an arkeyan robot, took control of the magic of all Skylands for a short while with Crystallized Evil, helped us before backstabbing us when going after the Doom Raiders and their traptanium doomsday weapon, sent a sky eater to try and EAT THE ENTIRE SKYLANDS and also created Doomlanders using Mind Magic… Oh, and should I mention the part where his mother got sealed away in a magic mirror and she was proud of him for sacrificing her as a decoy for his own plans?”

All three Equestrians were startled by Kaos’ track record. However, right now, Twilight’s fear of snakes was still getting a hold of her, as her forelegs were wrapped around Calvin’s neck. Celestia was still wondering how in the name of Faust was someone as small as him was able to do such disastrous things, while Rainbow was still trying to process a few of the key details that were originally mentioned.

“Yeah, I highly doubt that last part is real…”

“Oh, it is, Amigo,” Rattle Shake then spoke up from the end of the hall as he adjusted his hat and looked back at the group. “In fact, ah reckon that her exact words were ‘Kaos! You are going to still carry out your diabolical plans and not sssave your own mother?! I am ssso proud of you!!!’ … Ah was there when it happened.”

That… left Rainbow speechless… even causing her to shake her head a bit and ask for Rattle Shake to repeat that. He did, and it still startled the pegasus. “Uh… I’m going to, uh… you know… go on a walk. I’ll be back uh… soon! Hopefully…” That was followed by her dashing out of the room as fast as she could, knocking Twilight out of Calvin’s grip… only for the Alicorn to teleport herself back to where she was a few seconds ago.

“Seriously, Twilight? At this rate, I’m starting to lose the feeling in my arms.” Hearing that had Rattle Shake look back at Cobra Cadabra for a second as the magician had a suggestion for his partner.

“Maybe we ssshould just come back later. I rather not leave the lady so terrified,” Cobra Cadabra suggested.

“Fine by me. We can alwaysss report back later,” Rattle Shake bowed towards the group Eon was with, taking the cap off his own head as he looked at Twilight. “Hopefully, you will one day find a way to overcome your fears, little lady. Till then, thisss sssnake’s gotta vamoossse,” he then curled the end of his tail to spring up to the ledge of a balcony above them before slithering out of view. Meanwhile, Cobra retracted into a strange wicker basket attached to his tail, said basket soon bursting into confetti and strange musical notes as he vanished from view. Shortly after the two snakes had left the room, Calvin looked back at Twilight as he still tried to not give out on his strength.

“Umm… Can you please get down now, Twilight? I think you killed my arms at this point.” He asked politely.

“Oh, um… right…” She nodded, stepping down from Calvin’s arms before having to apologize for being so… out of character.

By the time she stepped outside, Rainbow was finally able to catch her breath for a moment. Too many things have happened in over a short period of time, and a lot of it only confused her more instead of helped her understand. Most importantly though, some of it seemed to have really caught her off guard. The pegasus just wanted to have some time to herself and catch her breath… But it wasn’t long until someone… or something decided to join her.

It first started when Rainbow turned around after hearing something walk towards her. At first, she thought it was Calvin. But she was startled to see what appeared to be a skeleton in the form of what looked like a dog, just with a green gem on the end of it’s tail. For a moment, this creature really began to make Rainbow feel freaked out and hyperventilate. But after a while, the pegasus was able to calm down, since it hadn’t tried to harm her or do anything threatening.

Thinking it was like Winona, she decided to see if the dog could do some tricks. “Uh… Roll over?” She asked, only for the skeleton dog to do what was requested. “Okay… How about sit?” Once again, it listened and sat down as it looked at Rainbow. The pegasus herself was pretty confident right now that this pet learned the basics of tricks, so it seemed like the right time to do something a little more difficult. “Okay then... how about speak?”

“Hi there!”

“AGGH!!!” Once she heard that, Rainbow bolted behind a nearby concrete pillar with only her head was peeking out and looking at the dog, her teeth chattering a little as she looked at the dog while trying to not act like Fluttershy and actually have some courage. “D-did you just say… Hi there?”

“Why, of course,” it replied, tilting it’s head a little. “You look like you haven’t seen an undead before. They’re common around skylands, even though several of them are well… boneheads.” That kind of humor strangely reminded Rainbow of Pinkie Pie, especially with such a pun. “Nevermind that. My name's Funny Bone. What’s yours? Is it Rainbow Candy? Because your mane and tail look really sweet.”

“Yep, that’s definitely Pinkie Pie’s kind of humor,” Rainbow thought to herself as she chuckled a little. “My name’s Rainbow Dash. It’s nice to meet you, Funny Bone-”

“Ooh! Hey, I got an idea! Play fetch with me!!” The skeleton dog suggested, “Throw me a bone! Here, I can let you use one of mine!!”

“Uh, that’s not really necessary-” Rainbow tried to reason with him before she saw him throw a flying bone disc that landed at her hooves.

“Sure it is! Come on, lazy bones! Let’s play!!” The Undead Skylander insisted, wagging its tail as Rainbow sighed. Taking up the bone disc carefully in her wings, she soon tossed it into the air. For a moment, she thought that Funny Bone would fetch it and catch it in his mouth like any other normal dog as Rainbow saw him chase after it.

But what she did not expect was for another dog made completely out of lava to intercept the pass in mid flight. “O… kay. Now, I believe I’ve seen everything.”

“No fair, Hot Dog! That was uncalled for!!” Funny Bone complained as the magma puppy pushed the undead dog with a paw to its face. “Oww! That’s a bit warm there, hot stuff!”

“Keep the jokes to yourself, Boney head.” Hot Dog told him before noticing the pegasus not far from them. “Hey, who’s she? New recruit for the senseis?”

“Excuse me?” Rainbow Dash asked, raising an eyebrow. “What the hay are you two talking about? I’m just here with Calvin.”

“Who-?” Just as Hot Dog was going to ask, both of them soon noticed someone new to them approach Rainbow. Of course, the pegasus knew who it was, but she was surprised that he was actually here instead of inside with Twilight and Celestia.

“Hey, Rainbow, you doing okay? You kind of just took off after-” He was going to continue, but turned to notice Hot Dog and Funny Bone not far from him. “Oh… am I interrupting something?”

“Well, Funny Bone here wanted to play fetch, but Hot Dog took that frisbee thing of his before he had the chance to catch it,” Rainbow replied, before looking back at him with a pout. “Don’t judge me. I’m bored.”

“I’m not judging, I’m just… surprised,” Calvin responded to her as he came over to stand next to her. “Never thought you would be so quick to make some friends here.” That caused Rainbow to punch him lightly in the shoulder as he laughed a bit. He knew he was messing with her, but he did not expect her to react like that.

“It’s not like that, Calvin. It’s… a bit more complicated than that,” she told him, embarrassed a little bit, but caught off guard with what he said next.

“How is playing fetch with Funny Bone considered complicated?” That threw Rainbow off guard as she turned back towards him.

“H-how did you-!?”

“I was seeing you interact with him just as I was coming outside,” he reminded her, causing the pegasus to blush a little in response. “Hey, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You actually looked like you were having fun.”

“More like processing what was actually going on,” she mumbled honestly. The pegasus was right about that for sure. Twilight, Calvin and her had only been here for a short amount of time, only to discover that the Skylands was nothing like Equestria at all, from its inhabitants to the fact that the whole Skylands itself was in the middle of the sky… actual solid ground floating like pegasi cloud cities. Heck, it even made Cloudsdale look like Ponyville in comparison to the vast stretch of islands up here. But how had this world been hidden up here for all these years? That was beyond her understanding. “This place is cool and all, but there are a lot of things up here that confuse me.”

“Give it time, and you’ll like it just fine. Skylands has been known to have a lot of places where you can go on adventures, lazy bones.” Funny Bone responded. Which, of course made Rainbow Dash both angry… and intrigued at the same time. Mostly because of hearing the word “adventures”, since it reminded her of the adventure Twilight and her were on with Daring Do of all ponies. Ah, good times.

“Speaking of which, who’s the kiddo next to you?” The undead skylander asked, gazing at Calvin with a curious look in his eyes. “Would he be a friend of yours, lazy bones?” Now, if Rainbow were to say something about the repeating of Funny Bone’s jokes, it would be that the first time was funny… second time, not so much… and third time is annoying as hay. But all Calvin did was nod his head in response.

“Why, yes, actually,” he spoke up as both of the dogs decided to run on over and talk to him. “I’m Calvin. Rainbow Dash is a friend of mine, and a couple of friends we know are talking to Eon right now after the shenanigans we have been through in the last couple of days.” That though, got Hot Dog a little curious.

“Would you happen to be the kid that I heard can turn into any one of us? I overheard Spitfire talking with a couple other Skylanders about that on my way over here,” Calvin’s reply was just a nod, which really got the magma puppy excited as he wagged his tail. “If that’s the case, can you turn into me?” The boy’s only reply was a smirk and briefly saying ‘See Spot Burn!’ before turning into Hot Dog himself… which only made Rainbow groan a little and the two other dogs very surprised, going as far as giving him a doggy kiss on the face before trying to play around with him a little.

“Great… now, I can’t tell either of you apart… just perfect…” she deadpanned before Calvin decided to switch back to his normal self in order to not drive her nuts. Around that same time though was when they soon heard something else not that far away. It almost sounded like swords clashing, which definitely caught his attention.

“Hey, what do you think is going on over there?” Calvin asked, leading to Rainbow Dash shrugging her shoulders.

“Buzz must be doing some training with whoever else is at the training grounds again. Let’s go see what he’s doing!” Hot Dog declared before racing off into the distance with Funny Bone right behind him… and only confusing the pegasus that was with Calvin even more.

“Who or what is this Buzz? It sounds like the first name of a superhero space toy for foals,” she spoke, asking Calvin if he knew what Hot Dog and Funny Bone were talking about.

“Well, from what I know, his job is supposedly Head of Security and secret ninja commando operations at the academy. Kind of ironic that it’s suppose to be secret, but he keeps on talking about it whenever it’s on his mind,” the Skyshifter told her, “Come on, I’m actually kind of curious to see what he’s up too right now, actually.”

“Seriously?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I thought we were waiting on Celestia and Twilight?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean we can do something while we wait,” he pointed out to her. “Besides, it would be better than just standing around here and doing nothing, right?” That… was a valid point, Rainbow had to admit. It was better than just standing around completely bored out here right now. So, with that in mind, both of them followed Funny Bone and Hot Dog to where Buzz had his training quarters set up… which was a bit different this time around then he last remembered.

But what surprised him the most was who was in the center of the ring. This figure had garbs and a helmet similar to that of Eon from the angle he was seeing it at, but held a pair of swords in each hand as she was listening to Buzz talk. “Well, I gotta say, Aurora. Even for a sensei, you were quite impressive during that last round.”

“Buzz, how many times do I have to tell you that just because I’m Eon’s niece doesn’t mean you have to go easy on me?” Wait, what was that about being Eon’s niece?

“I know that. Besides, that was just the warmup round-” Buzz was going to continue, before looking up and noticing both Calvin and Rainbow Dash watching them. “Boomsticks!! Who the heck are you two!? You’re not spies now, are you?”

“Calm down, Buzzy Bones,” both of them heard Funny Bone speak up afterwards. “They’re just guests at the academy. These two are Rainbow Dash and Calvin.” In response, they both greeted the Mabu veteran, even though both of them were still seen as suspicious to him.

“Hunh… If they are who they say they are, then I say that then need to prove it!” Oh boy, here we go. “I would like to have these two take part in one of my training exercises. If they do well, then they’ll be welcomed. If not… well, we’ll see about that.” That made Calvin gulp a little, nervous about the last few parts that Buzz had told them.

“Lay off a little, Buzz. This one’s just a kid. No need to try and scare his pants off for no reason now,” Aurora spoke up, causing the head of security to sigh.

“Alright, fine…” he groaned, before using his only eye to look back at them. “But I’ll be watching you… No funny business, you hear?” Calvin wanted to say a witty remark like ‘no promises’ or something like that, but refrained himself from doing so. Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof… not so much.

“Aye aye, captain,” a few seconds later, the only thing she could do though was close her eyes and laugh her head off while flying in midair. Calvin had a feeling she would say something snarky, but it wasn’t until now that he realized that some of the things Buzz had, including his eyepatch and pegleg, did resemble that of a pirate. Yet when he turned to look back at the Mabu, he was surprised to not find him there. Instead, he was behind Rainbow as he smacked the back of Rainbow Dash’s head, causing her to fall face first into the ground.

“Ooh, that’s going to leave a mark,” Calvin heard Hot Dog say as Rainbow Dash got up, only to realize that Buzz was now behind her.

“H-how the hay did you-!?”

“Oh, I have my ways…” Buzz chuckled, “Now, get your lazy rumps to the training course, pronto!!” Now, all that did for the pegasus was just remind her of Spitfire… if Spitfire was an old mabu with a way of sneaking up behind you when you least expect it.

Soon, Buzz had led the two of them, along with Aurora and the skylanders that were there, to the training ground that they were going to perform the exercise at. It looked almost like a track circuit from the olympics. “Now, this exercise is simple. You are to run along the track while hitting targets that are set up along the course. The more times you hit them, the more points you’ll get-”

“Sounds like a piece of cake-” Rainbow Dash interjected, until she heard Buzz speak again.

“BUT, when these targets will pop up will be random and when they do pop up, you have a limited timeframe to attack them to gain points. Get enough points, and you may be able to convince me that you are who you say you are… Oh, and don’t even try going for the academy record. Aurora already broke that record several times by herself within the last few weeks.”

“We’ll see about that-” Around then was when Rainbow Dash got on the track and tried to boast her skills by flying up in a backwards loop… only to hit her head against an invisible barrier in the process. “Oww! What was that for?!”

“Oh, right, I almost forgot,” Buzz sighed, pointing at the barrier that was visible for a split second before becoming transparent. “There’s an invisible barrier along the track to prevent those who have the ability to fly from cheating. Plus, you still need to follow the track. Some of the students learned the hard way, and when they needed to turn, they crashed into a wall.” Given what Buzz said, Calvin decided to stay closer to the center of the track than along the outskirts, like where Rainbow was. “You have 90 seconds to get as much targets as you can.”

With Buzz lifting the small fireworks hand cannon he kept on him in the air, both Rainbow and Calvin took their positions on the track. Calvin smirked though, as his necklace began to glow a little under his shirt. It wasn’t noticed by Rainbow Dash, who was too focused on the challenge of this course to pay attention to it. But the one who did notice it was Aurora.

“On your marks…” Buzz said, looking at both contestants. “Get set… GO!”

“Keeping it cool!” Calvin then said, transforming into the Water Skylander of the Swap Force named Freeze Blade, a blue furred raccoon with ice covering parts of his body, including forming his own set of ice skates. In moments, ice formed beneath his new skates before he started dashing from the starting point. Rainbow Dash herself did a burst straight out the gate and thought that Calvin couldn’t keep up with her, but she was surprised when the frozen chakram he had flew past her head and to the first target that she was closing in on.

All it did though was make Rainbow a little more determined to reach the next target. She got one as they were turning around the corner, but that was also when Calvin got his second one of the test, which in turn made her push herself to go faster to get some kind of advantage. As the two of them were hitting targets and trying to outrace one another, Aurora and Buzz were personally shocked and surprised by what they were seeing. Not only was this new kid somehow able to turn into another skylander, but he was getting the hang of the course rather quickly. How this was possible, they weren’t sure… but it was kind of entertaining to watch. Especially when his pegasus friend tried to accelerate forward and forgot to turn at the last possible moment, slipping across the ground and knocking over some pylons along the side of the track like they were bowling pins.

Of course, it didn’t mean that Calvin was perfect either. There were a couple of times that he threw his Chakram a little too late and missed the intended target while other times his aim wasn’t exactly on point. Like with a lot of the other skylanders he had turned into previously, Calvin had no upgrades for this form. Meaning he couldn’t charge his weapon for a stronger attack, send out icicles to freeze enemies or leave a trail of ice on the ground to slow anyone behind him. Not like that would exactly work against somepony like Rainbow Dash, seeing how she is used to flying with her wings, but it still provided a bit of an advantage for him.

Soon though, as quickly as they started the challenge, the buzzer went off and both of them stopped. Calvin turned back to normal as both Aurora and Buzz addressed them. “Well… that was definitely eye opening…” Buzz commented lightly before looking over the scoresheets. “But based on your performances, I can now tally up the scores… Rainbow Dash.”

“Yes?” She asked, a little nervous as to what she got.

“Based on your score and evaluations… Your score right now is 50 points,” After hearing that, she somersaulted into the air, pulling off several different victory poses in celebration for her achievements and boasting that she might’ve done better than Calvin. Which of course… was wishful thinking. “As for you, Calvin… Your score is 51 points.”

“Oh, COME ON!!!” the pegasus complained, “How is that possible!?”

“Maybe if you spent more time focusing on where you are going instead of crashing into objects on the course, the outcome would be different,” Aurora then commented. She sounded like she really was wanting to get under Rainbow Dash’s fur… and from the looks of things, she was doing a really good job at it. But it was for a reason. Aurora believed in hard work and that it pays off if you don’t slack off on your training and focus. Despite Rainbow’s best intentions, her performance on the course showed that she still had a LOT to learn.

However, before any of them could continue, they soon realized that they had a bit of an… audience. Turning around, Buzz and Calvin soon saw some familiar faces… and heard something that just made him want to facepalm himself. “Hey, what’s the pizza guy doing on the training course?”

“Flynn!!” Tessa snapped at him, bonking him in the head with her boomerang. “How many times have I told you that Calvin does not deliver pizza?!”

“Oh… Does he deliver enchiladas? What about tacos? Isn’t today Taco Tuesday?” Now was the appropriate time for Calvin to facepalm himself. Apparently, after all the explanations that they tried to give him, he still did not understand. It was making him wonder if he actually traded part of his brain, so he could have more of a stomach, because of the amount of times he had mentioned food in any conversation he was involved in.

“Wait a second…” Buzz said, hearing what Tessa said before looking back at Calvin. “How come Tessa knows about you already?”

“Because I ran into her first… I’ve met almost everyone at the academy earlier, except for you. Tessa told me a little about you, and I gotta say… you’re a lot different in person than what Tessa told me.” Calvin replied, smiling a little before waving to them.

“And what’s that suppose to mean?”

“Oh, nothing important…” Calvin shrugged it off, dodging a bullet there with that conversation as he followed Rainbow Dash up the stairs. But just as he got to the top, Buzz remembered something.

“Hold on there, youngster… I still have something that I needed to ask you,” he said as Calvin looked back at him. “How come you were able to turn into a skylander during the training course we gave you just now?”

“That… may be easier to explain once you come up here. I already showed it to Tessa and them, so maybe they could help you understand it more than I can.” With that, the Mabu veteran and Aurora both walked up to where everyone else was waiting. They took the time to explain to Buzz what Calvin can do as well as explain how each of his forms would also need upgrades from Persephone, so he could have some more moves at his disposal. Before Calvin could even ask about how he could be able to get the money needed for the upgrades, he soon spotted Master Eon walking out with Princess Celestia… and a partially timid Twilight Sparkle, who kept looking over her shoulder several times to see if any of the two snake skylanders she saw earlier were following them.

“Is your friend there going to be okay?” Tessa asked, looking at Twilight.

“Yeah… She just happened to run into Rattle Shake at the wrong time,” Calvin sighed for a moment. “Twilight’s afraid of snakes.”

“W-where!?” They heard her say, surprised at the fact that somehow, she overheard the last word in Calvin’s sentence and thought there were actually snakes somewhere.

“Case in point…” the skyshifter replied as they saw the three of them walk over to where they presently were. “Now, that brings up a different question… what do we do now?”

“Well, normally I would suggest for you to ask for Trap Shadow’s help, since he can help track down Kaos’ new whereabouts,” Tessa spoke up, before then mentioning something. “But he’s likely on a mission right now, and we won’t know when he’ll come back. For now, I believe it’s best for you guys to go back and get some rest. We’ll call you when he returns.”

“And who would be this… Trap Shadow?” Celestia then asked.

“He’s a Swap Force Skylander of the Magic element, and an excellent Hunter/Tracker. Was really helpful when it came to tracking down various bad guys across skylands. If we’re trying to find Kaos, he’s our best shot,” Cali then spoke up, explaining to them a bit about the person they were talking about. “But yeah, like Tessa said, we will call you when he comes back. Have a safe trip home you guys.”

“Thanks,” Calvin replied, before noticing Spitfire nearby as he was preparing Hot Streak. “We’ll see you guys soon.”

Back at the Castle of Friendship

“So, let me see if ah can understand what you are trying to tell me…” The Earth pony known as Applejack spoke up. She had gathered with her friends, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, alongside with her sister Apple Bloom and her two friends, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Princess Luna and Discord had also arrived back at the Castle of Friendship. They were trying to talk about and understand a very… peculiar incident that only happened sometime earlier today. “Rainbow Dash was about to do a Sonic Rainboom…”

“Yes,”

“She was gaining enough speed to pull it off…”

“Uh hunh…”

“And when she did it, it tore open that colossal hole in the sky?” The farm pony questioned.

“Yes, like I didn’t just get done explaining it to you already!” Scootaloo pouted, causing her friends to sigh a little as she pointed out one more thing. “That’s the third time you wanted me to repeat what I just told you.”

“Ah’m sorry, Scootaloo, but ah’m having trouble believing that Rainbow could something like… well, that!” The earth pony replied back to her. “Now, not only is Calvin not here, but Twilight, Rainbow and even Princess Celestia aren’t back. I’m just worried that something might’ve happened to them.”

“Oh, come on now, AJ. This only happened two chapters ago, and if some meanie did try to hurt them, they could easily kick their flank! Wax on, wax off!!” Pinkie Pie proclaimed while taking out a white piece of cloth from her mane, tying it across her forehead and adopting a kung fu stance as her front hooves moved in a circular motion.

“She has a point, Applejack,” Rarity then spoke up. “We all saw him be able to defend himself from that mongrel that crashed the gala this year.”

“That may be true, but what if something comes here while he’s away?” Applejack replied, looking back at everypony else as she then spoke up. “I know we sent Tirek back to Tartarus, but that was when all of us were here. That ‘thing’ just worries me.” Luna herself understood what Applejack was going to talk about, but before she could say anything, Pinkie was soon jumping up and down in place before taking off.

“TWITCHY TAIL! Everypony hide!!” Almost everypony except for Discord and Princess Luna ran for cover. Hiding under tables, the stairs, the bathroom and even under the Cutie Map table. All while the Draconequus and the Princess of the Night just stared in confusion.

“Uh… what are you doing?” Discord asked, before hearing Sweetie Belle speak to them from under a chair.

“Are you crazy? Anytime that Pinkie Pie’s tail twitches, something will fall!” She told him before she hid back under her chair… and causing Discord to laugh… and not pay attention to the rift that was opening directly behind him.

“Now, that’s just the silliest and most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard-” Shortly afterwards, the draconequus got blindsided by the front molten grill of the vehicle that was Hot Streak as it skid across the floor before both Calvin and Spitfire got out. Twilight, Rainbow, and Princess Celestia soon emerged as well, only to see the flattened draconequus on the floor reinflate himself as he was trying to catch his breath. “This… proves… nothing-”

“Well, I believe that was a successful landing… other than hitting Discord on accident,” Calvin replied as he looked back at Rainbow and Twilight.

“Actually… that part was kind of hilarious. Almost as funny as you running over Twilight!” Rainbow Dash replied, bursting out into laughter while everypony else in the entire castle was staring at Calvin.

“Oh, really? And how is that going to prove that whole ‘twitchy tail’ phenomenon that you were-” Just as he said that though, Pinkie was hopping in place again before ducking for cover once again.

“TWITCHY TAIL!!”

“ …Seriously? Twice in a row-” That was when a shelf that was previously dislodged from when Calvin and Spitfire originally arrived soon began to fall off of the wall and cause the textbooks that were neatly arranged on there originally to plummet on top of the draconequus as they all piled up on him in a huge mess. Shortly before pulling out his eagle talon and pointing towards Pinkie, even though one of the books covered his eyes. “…Okay, maybe she’s onto something…”

Ignoring that though, it was Princess Luna who soon spoke up, asking the same question that was everypony’s minds. “So, would you care to explain what exactly happened?”

That… caused Calvin to take in a deep breath and sigh deeply. “It’s a LONG story…”

End Scroll 11

Author's Note

Happy Halloween / Hallows eve / Nightmare Night / whatever else you are celebrating!

No tricks here. This is a definite treat. I haven't gotten imaginators yet, but I'm planning to do so soon once I clear up a lot of things on my schedule. Here's the transformations this time around

Along with a few other Skylanders that Calvin happened to meet

And with Aurora right here.

Enjoy! (Also, thanks Regreme for pointing that out)

Scroll 12- When you reach 88 miles an hour...

Author's Note

Another chapter for you guys and this one is Calvin's second crossover. This time with Anubis Cruger from Cyberlord4444's story, SPD emergency. Just be prepared for a lot of stuff to happen... because like with the quote above...

:pinkiegasp: We're going to be seeing some serious [Censored for obvious reasons]!?

No Pinkie... you would be violating the speed limit... But you do make a valid point.

:pinkiehappy: Stay safe, kiddos!!

Back to what I was saying...... if you want to understand what Cruger is actually doing, then I recommend looking here because Cruger uses the equipment of the Sentai/Power Ranger of ToQger (Yes, this is an actual clip from what he tells me). So, given this and the fact that Calvin needs Imaginite... well, I'll let you find out what happens.

Until then, see you guys around
-Frost
EDIT: This got in the feature box again!? Holy hay, you guys are awesome!

Scroll 12- When you reach 88 miles an hour...

Beyond the Skies- When you reach 88 miles an hour...

Castle of Friendship

After their ‘arrival’ back at Twilight’s castle, Calvin and Spitfire, along with everypony else that was with him in the skylands, had to spend the next hour explaining every nook and cranny about what happened and why were they gone exactly. When explaining everything though, some of the details they told the others about confused the others more than helped them understand. Mainly because when they told them about the Skylands itself, they had assumed that it was like some of the other places in Equestria that floated in the sky, like Cloudsdale and Las Pegasus.

“So, this Skylands is a lot like that of some of the places where pegasi live?” Luna assumed, causing her sister to sigh a bit and shake her head in response. Spike, at this point, decided to excuse himself and leave everypony else to their conversation while he decided to go read the newest issue of the Power Ponies that had just been released earlier in the week.

“Not exactly…” Spitfire replied, trying to explain to Luna how there were differences between the Skylands and Equus, “You guys, from the looks of it, have small establishments that rest on top of clouds, like back in the Cloud Kingdom back in Skylands. For most of Skylands though, it’s way different… Hang on just a moment.” With that, the Supercharger took a moment to go back to where Hot Streak was and move some things around. Throwing out some stuff that happened to be in the back of the vehicle, including items that ranged from old soda cans, one of Mags’ tools, and surprisingly, a sheep. “Now, how in Eon’s name did you end up back here?”

All in which, when they were tossed out, hit Discord in the process. “Okay, seriously? Why am I the one that’s getting hit?” The chaos spirit protested, not amused as the sheep that was tossed out landed on his head, making him look like he had just gotten an afro. Some of the ponies in the room giggled at that, only causing him to roll his eyes a little.

Around now, though, was when Calvin turned to Spitfire and decided to speak up. “Spitfire, what are you even looking for in there? Do you need any help?”

“Nah, I got it… I thought I had a camera in here when some of us were on reconnaissance missions, and I thought I had a couple of pictures to show your friends here an example of what we’ve been talking about.” Spitfire explained, looking around a bit more before coming across something that wasn’t quite exactly what he was looking for, but still worked with the current circumstances. “Hunh… well, it’s not a camera, but it’ll do.”

“What did you find?” Calvin asked, looking back at Spitfire with a raised eyebrow for a moment before the supercharger handed him something. That something turned out to be a photograph of a section of the Skylands, and upon showing it to everyone else, everypony’s jaws dropped a little bit… while Pinkie’s jaw literally dropped to the floor.

“One time on a mission I was on with Stormblade, the only way we were able to find where we needed to go was to look for those islands that were in the photograph. I thought I got rid of it after we were done with the mission, but apparently, that wasn’t the case,” Spitfire shrugged. “Still, it should help clear things up a little. Even if it’s just one place of Skylands as a whole.”

“Whoa there, pardner,” Applejack interjected. “That’s only one place!?”

“Why, of course,” The fire gargoyle told the farmer in response as he pointed to the picture that Calvin was holding onto. “Skylands as a whole is a massive sea of floating islands like these ones here. In fact, there’s never been a map in order to cover everything because of how massive it is and with the amount of times that some islands keep moving. They just don’t happen to stay in one place.”

“Remarkable…” Princess Luna commented, amazed by what she was seeing. “I take back what I said earlier. This looks nothing like Cloudsdale or Las Pegasus.” Calvin personally was relieved that both he and Spitfire did not have to continue trying over and over again for them in order to understand. Though, now was when he happened to notice that someone who was in the room earlier… was missing.

“Hey, where did Spike go?” He asked, only for Twilight to giggle a little in response and cause the puzzled Skyshifter to look towards her.

“He excused himself earlier to go down to the basement, so he can read his comic book in peace,” Twilight told him, “I’m surprised that you didn’t even notice him leave or hear the door close.” Just as she mentioned it though, all of them heard a loud crashing noise that was the equivalent of several boxes filled with heavy textbooks. And it came from underneath where they were standing.

“Was that him?” Calvin asked. Twilight herself was unsure at first… until she heard the sound of her assistant screaming.

“OH, DEAR MOTHER OF CELESTIA, HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE!?!” If the sound of things crashing in the basement did not make Twilight worried earlier, hearing Spike scream definitely did now… along with wanting to wash out his mouth with soap for using such language.

“Yeah, we should go check on him and see if he’s okay-,” Calvin suggested, only for Twilight to immediately bolt to the basement door with both Spitfire and the Skyshifter not that far behind. Yet, when all three of them were going down the stairwell in order to see what was happening, they soon heard another voice alongside Spike.

“Whoa… I need to make sure not to tell Hugo about this place. He’ll nerd out the moment he sees all these books down here.” That voice… Calvin knew. So did Spitfire… and once they reached the bottom of the stairs, both of them and the Alicorn that was with them happened to lay eyes on the well known purple dragon himself.

“Spyro? What are you doing here?” Spitfire asked, a little surprised to find the Magic Skylander himself ending up in Twilight’s basement of all places. The purple dragon himself turned to see the three of them, but it was when the Supercharger said that to him that Spike and Twilight stared at him in disbelief.

“Wait a minute… you know this guy!?” Both of them said simultaneously in shock. Calvin just chuckled a bit in reply. He was rather familiar with Spyro with the amount of times he originally played as him when he started collecting Skylanders. But seeing the same dragon in front of you… that was something else.

“Well, Spits, never knew these guys were friends of yours,” the dragon chuckled, “How did you guys meet him?”

“It’s a rather long story,” Calvin then spoke up. “But, just out of curiosity… how in the world did you get in here?” Spyro now just tilted his head and raised an eyebrow, looking at them like they were clueless.

“I walked through the door here.” What the dragon just said made everyone else look back at him in disbelief. “What? I’m being serious. Stealth Elf and I found a door at the end of a tunnel in the M.A.P. that lead straight to here.” That just made Calvin even more confused, along with Twilight. But it was the Alicorn that was the first to speak.

“What the hay is a M.A.P… and what does it stand for?” Twilight then asked. Only for Spitfire to grumble a little in response as he used one of his claws facepalm himself.

It took a moment for the Supercharger to compose himself, but soon, he was able to start speaking. “He’s talking about a place in Skylands that we found around the same time that Kaos was trying to mess around with Mind Magic a few months back. We called it the M.A.P., and it was short for Mysterious Ancient Place. It was mysterious for… well, multiple reasons and mainly because we were able to get to many different locations in Skylands rather quickly as well as the Academy, ancient because it was the home of the ancients and… to be honest, I think these guys just used place so the acronym could spell out ‘map’.”

The dragon just gave Spitfire a deadpanned expression and sighed a little. “Very funny… and normally, I’m the one that tries to say something humorous.”

“So, wait… let me get this straight…” Twilight asked for clarification as she looked back at the purple dragon. “This M.A.P. is somewhere in between Skylander Academy and my castle… and you just happened to find a door that led to you ending up in my basement?”

“Well, both Stealth Elf and I found the door, but she had me go first, since I lost rock, paper scissors,” the dragon grumbled, looking back at them before turning his focus to Calvin. “Say, is that kid wearing an Imaginite Crystal?” Calvin looked back at Twilight and Spitfire for a moment before looking specifically at the Skylander. He was going to ask if he could help them out, but from what it sounded like, he had other priorities to attend to.

“Calvin, I’d love to stick around, but I gotta go back to the Academy and help out Eon for a while. Do call me if something does come up though.” With that, Spitfire disappeared as they heard Hot Streak taking off, and the sound of someone getting ran over soon followed. Followed by Discord shouting ‘Oh, come on!!’, and the sound of Rainbow Dash laughing while Spike walked back upstairs. Turning around, the Skyshifter himself sighed as he looked back at Spyro.

“It’s a lot to explain… but I’ll try to make it as simple as possible,” he assured him as they took a minute to get off the staircase. “In fact, we just got back from Skylander Academy not that long ago and also met Master Eon.”

“You guys met Master Eon?” Spyro asked, looking back at both Twilight and Calvin as both of them nodded their heads. “Wow… Now, I’m curious as to why you guys had to meet him in the first place. Is it because Kaos is causing trouble again?”

Calvin then had to deeply sigh as he nodded his head. “In more ways than one.” That was when both the Skyshifter and the alicorn began to fill him in on all of the details of everything that had happened so far. Twilight, though, focused a lot on making sure all of the details they were providing were both accurate and precise. Yet, the dragon they were telling this to, after listening to them talk for about ten full minutes, decided to speak once there was a pause in the conversation.

“So, to simplify things, you guys live underneath the Skylands and Kaos has another big, but not well thought out, master plan of taking over not just the Skylands, but your home, too?” the dragon said, just making sure that he heard everything correctly. “That honestly sounds like he’s trying too hard to take over Skylands.”

“Well, this isn’t a laughing matter at all,” Twilight told him, her tone being more serious. “Hey, you said that somepony else was with you... If they’re a Skylander, then shouldn’t they be… well, talking with us, too? They should probably be listening as we-”

“Oh, I have been listening…” Both Calvin and Twilight heard the voice echo as Calvin turned to see the elven ninja leaning against one of the crystalline walls. “I was just trying to see how long you would continue your conversation before noticing me…” That was when she turned her head and directed her attention back at the Skyshifter. “And in that time, you still didn’t answer Spyro’s question about the crystal around your neck.”

In response, Calvin himself just scratched the back of his head as he looked back at both the elf and the dragon. “Sorry, I was still… processing everything. But to put it simply, it’s not Imaginite.” That just left both Skylanders more… puzzled than anything else though, causing him to sigh in response. “From what Master Eon told me, it’s a special kind of crystal called Elementanium.”

“Elemen-what?” Spyro asked, still trying to process the name. That just caused Calvin to sigh for a moment as he looked back at him.

“Maybe I should just give you a demonstration instead,” Calvin said, looking back at the dragon in particular and repeating the phrase ‘All Fired up!’ as the crystal glowed and he turned into the magic skylander that was in front of him.

“What the-? How did you do that?!” the startled dragon asked, causing Stealth Elf to giggle a little.

“To put it simply,” Calvin explained as he looked back at the dragon and turned back to his normal form. “The Elementanium Crystal I have around my neck allows for me to transform into any Skylander I think of, just by repeating their catchphrase. Repeating yours turned me into you.”

“Wow… Can I have a try?” Spyro then asked. Only for Stealth Elf to shake her head a bit as the dragon looked at her a bit confused.

“Spyro, it can’t be that easy. There’s probably more to this than meets the eye,” Stealth Elf advised him. “Besides, we should probably know from experience that not everything is what it seems.” Calvin himself chuckled from what Stealth Elf said as he looked back at the slightly embarrassed dragon.

“Stealth Elf’s actually right,” the Skyshifter explained, “The crystal itself is something that only I can use, and if anyone tries to get a hold of it, they’re thrown backwards by a pulse of magic. Trust me, I saw it happen firsthand.”

Spyro looked back at him and then scratched his chin for a moment. “So, you can basically transform into… pretty much any one of us. Any element, any kind… just by repeating the catchphrase… including the Senseis’?” Calvin nodded his head in response, remembering his encounter with King Pen and Aurora sometime earlier. “That just… sounds awesome! Weird, but… still awesome.”

“Yet, that still leaves one mystery unsolved…” Stealth Elf spoke up as she walked up right next to Spyro and turned to face Calvin. “And that is if he has the crystal around his neck, then why would he be holding onto… this?” The moment that Calvin saw what she was holding, his heart skipped a beat. Frantically checking his pockets to see if he was seeing things, he had just realized that Stealth Elf just pickpocketed the Creation Crystal he was holding onto that was in his pockets.

“What the-? How did you-?!”

“Your back was turned to me while talking to Spyro, and I just couldn’t resist,” Stealth Elf giggled, looking back at the crystal for a minute before raising an eyebrow. “Though… this one seems a bit… different than the ones that Spyro and I have seen before.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t they normally be… well, glowing a little?” Spyro asked, only causing Stealth Elf to roll her eyes a little as the dragon looked back at her.

“Wait, you have seen a crystal creation when it’s awake?” Calvin asked, a little bit surprised by what he had heard just now. Though, that just got Spyro to glare a bit at him, and caused the dragon to think that he knew something that they didn’t.

“Hold up a minute… what do you mean by ‘awake’?” the Magic Skylander asked. Calvin took a deep breath as he looked back at the both of them and began to explain once more.

“While we were at the Academy, I was told more about Imaginators and the possibility of me turning into one was what we were discussing. Tessa found a Creation Crystal, but according to what Master Eon told her, this particular crystal’s asleep and can only be awakened with Imaginite. Yet, there was no Imaginite back at the Academy in order to awaken it,” he told them, recalling what Tessa told him and Spitfire during their meeting with King Pen. “So, until we hear back from them about it, that Creation Crystal’s going to be asleep for a while.”

Spyro was a bit skeptical of what he was saying, but for Stealth Elf, she was convinced and tossed it back to him as he caught it. Yet, for somepony else in the room, there was still one other thought that had been on her mind for a while, ever since they started talking with Spyro a few moments ago. “So, Spyro… earlier you were talking about how this… place you two came from brought you here, right?” Twilight reminded him as the dragon turned back around to face the alicorn.

“Yeah. What about it?” Spyro then asked.

“Well… can you two show us this… ‘Mysterious Ancient Place’? I mean, if there’s a door there that leads to my basement and also leads to the Academy, that could be pretty important for us,” Twilight insisted. Calvin honestly thought that she was trying too hard with simply asking them in the first place.

“She does make a valid point… and this isn’t exactly the weirdest thing we’ve come across today,” Spyro pointed out, leading to Stealth Elf soon agreeing with him as they guided the two of them to the door that both the Skylanders found, and out of the tunnel that they soon walked… or in Twilight’s case, trotted into.

“Uh… should I even ask what’s the weirdest thing?” Calvin asked as he raised an eyebrow and looked at both of them.

“One of the local mabu here gave us some… police badge thingamajig and was frantically going on about how he heard some voice speaking from it, like it was haunted… which would make sense in a way because he was running from where the Undead sensei realm was,” Spyro told them before looking back at the two of them once near the end of the tunnel. “But unless Fiesta decided to go do a few stand offs in Iron Jaw Gulch, then I don’t know why something like this would be there in the first place.”

“Well, did it at least have a name on it or something on it?” Twilight asked. “Because that sounds rather important to be just left lying around.”

“Yeah… we’ll let you see for yourself…” Spyro told them, just as they stepped out of the tunnel and into the light. “Right now though, welcome to the Mysterious Ancient Place.” Both Twilight and Calvin were… pretty surprised the moment they first saw the M.A.P. for themselves. It was a lot bigger than the space back at the Academy, with some particular sections being attuned to different elements, which reminded the Skyshifter a lot of the original elemental gates from the first few entries in the Skylanders series.

“Like what Spitfire told you guys earlier, this was said to be the home of the Ancients, but also serves another purpose,” Spyro explained to them as they approached a small bridge that was over a river. “This place is also the place where all of creation itself was… well, created. Mind magic, the magic that resonates in Creation Crystals and Imaginite, also originated from this place.”

“So, wait… are you saying that everything that’s around us… was originally created here?” Calvin then asked, a little surprised as well as confused.

“Apparently… There’s a lot of things in the M.A.P. that we are trying to figure out still,” Spyro replied to both of them as he looked back at both Calvin and Twilight. “But what we do know is that this place can lead to various other locations across Skylands, including the Academy. They also have some places here called Elemental Sensei Realms, where only Senseis of a matching element can access it.”

“So, hypothetically speaking… if King Pen were here, he could enter the Water Sensei Realm and Aurora could enter the Light Sensei Realm?” the Skyshifter guessed, in order to see if that’s how some of the Realms in here functioned. Again, they sounded similar to Elemental Gates, but from how Spyro explained it, he was led to believe that it was for Senseis only.

“That pretty much explains it,” the Magic Skylander replied back to him as they continued to walk through the entire place. The four of them soon came across a table that was nearby the entrance that would lead to Skylander Academy as Stealth Elf took the chance to report back to Master Eon. But what was on the table just irritated the Magic Skylander. “Oh, for the love of… We told that Mabu for him to hold onto it until we get back, so that he can tell us what we heard. Now, he’s not even here and left this… badge behind.”

Calvin himself though… was a little curious when he looked at the ‘badge’ on the table. It looked nothing like any police or sheriff's badge that he had seen before. Then again, the only ones that he had seen before were on TV and also pictures in comic books and magazines back home on earth. Still, there was the likelihood that this, too, could be a token of another Displaced, similar to that of Ace for that matter. “Hey, Spyro, mind if I have a look at this?”

The dragon himself was honestly a bit surprised by Calvin’s comments. Not to mention that his voice sounded like the Skyshifter was taking interest in the particular object that was left behind. “Uh, sure. Why do you want to look at it though?” he then asked.

“I just have a feeling that there may be a little more to this than meets the eye,” he told Spyro. Yet, Calvin’s assuring statement did little to help the dragon understand. The Skyshifter decided to not focus solely on that and instead pick up the silver badge to examine it himself. Once he held onto it though, he soon heard a voice run through his head.

‘I am Anubis Cruger, the Shadow Ranger. If you require my aid, or merely my counsel, call on me. But be warned, you, as well as your foes, shall face my judgment.’

Originally, Calvin was baffled by that sentence. For more than one reason, of course. Mainly though, it was because of him over thinking that this… Cruger was some kind of bad guy. Yet, this also came to another realization that popped in his head. The possibility that this was a token for another Displaced.

The Skyshifter himself was only a little bit familiar with how this whole thing worked, but when he met Ace some time ago, who was a Displaced Portal Master, he and his sister helped explain things to him so he could understand it. That same knowledge that they explained to him was later told to Twilight once he came back. However, unlike with Ace, where he was summoned to him, the circumstances here were different. He came across another person’s token by coincidence. But was unsure if summoning Cruger was actually a good idea right now.

“Maybe this guy could help me out somehow. I mean, he’s probably not as scary as I think he is… right?” he questioned mentally, wondering if he should follow through with this.

However, he didn’t have much time to think on it when Spyro soon interrupted his train of thought. “Uhh… Calvin? That badge is glowing now.”

“Wait, what-?” When he did realize what was going on, the thought of it almost startled him. The Magic Skylander himself, thinking that this was a trap, used one of his fireballs to knock the badge out of Calvin’s hand. By then, the dragon had thought that they had nothing to worry about anymore.

The sound of something crashing just a few yards behind them though told them otherwise. As they turned to look, a figure wearing a darkly colored suit of armor riding an ATV leapt over a bush before skidding to a stop next to them. “No one hit? Good. Much better than my last vehicular Verse Jump,” said the figure riding it.

“Uhh… should I be concerned that this guy just landed here shortly after that weird badge started glowing?” Spyro asked as he looked at Calvin and Twilight with a concerned expression on his face. After taking a deep breath, he then asked another question. “You didn’t accidently bring a villain here now, did you, Cal?”

“I… don’t think so?” he replied nervously. “To be honest, I’m just as surprised about this as you are right now.”

The figure on the ATV chuckled, “No villains here. Just a reality jumping Displaced cop, Anubis Cruger, Shadow Ranger and Commander of Space Patrol Delta, at your service.” Spyro just looked at him rather confused as Twilight and Calvin looked at each other with a surprised look on their faces.

“Is this guy for real?” Spyro then asked them, not even paying attention to the fact that Cruger could hear him. All Calvin did was drop his head down a little as he facepalmed himself in response.

“Okay, just what exactly is going on?” Twilight then asked, looking back at the Skyshifter as he took a moment to compose himself.

“Remember when I told you about the Displaced a couple of days ago?” Calvin asked, causing the Alicorn to nod her head as she listened to him intently. “Let’s just say that Mr. Cruger here happens to be one of them. He just happened to come here on accident.”

“I highly doubt crashing here and then just walking it off can be considered an accident,” Spyro deadpanned before looking at them. “Besides, what proof does this guy have? How are we supposed to know that he is who he says he is?”

“Well, Spyro, I suppose you’ll just have to trust me,” Cruger said as he looked around, “Let me guess, Skylanders?” Calvin himself nodded in response, a little bit surprised that he actually knew about it in the first place.

“What was your first clue?” he then asked, not trying to sound cocky, but to actually ask him the question and hear his answer in response.

Cruger casually pointed at Spyro, “He was the biggest clue. The fact that we’re on a floating island and that crystal around your neck narrowed the options from two to one.” He was honestly surprised by that. It sounded like this guy knew a lot about it in particular, and Calvin… was quite impressed.

“Well, that’s impressive… Ah man, where are my manners? I didn’t even tell you my name,” he said, facepalming himself as he looked back at Cruger. “I’m Calvin. This is Twilight and that’s Spyro, but I would think you would know that already. Welcome to the M.A.P.”

Cruger chuckled, “Talk about your corny acronyms.”

“Yeah. Well, this one’s kind of important… I think,” Calvin replied back, looking back at the Magic Skylander nearby. “Spyro? Can you give me a hand here?”

“Well, the M.A.P. is short for Mysterious Ancient Place… According to what we know on the Ancients, this place was said to be where all of creation began, and it was also the home of the Ancients themselves,” Spyro then explained before looking back at everyone now. “Yet, there’s still a lot that we’re trying to figure out… Hence, the first part of the name being mysterious… I don’t suppose you have any acronyms that are corny, do you?” The last part of the question was directed towards Cruger specifically and made Calvin sigh deeply. For some reason, it may be a bit before Spyro can not see him as some guy who crashed out of nowhere instead of some space invader.

“Not really. Just S.P.D., Space Patrol Delta,” replied Cruger, “but you have to admit, an overworld that’s actually called ‘map’ is kinda corny.”

“Well, this place allows us to be able to travel across to other locations in Skylands rather quickly, including the Academy-,” Spyro was going to continue, until he was interrupted by Twilight.

“And you just happened to walk through a door you found that led directly into my basement… Not to mention startling my assistant Spike in the process,” the Alicorn reminded the dragon as he groaned a little. He didn’t really want to be reminded of his earlier mistakes and just looked back at Twilight with a bit of a glare.

“It was an accident… Stealth Elf and I honestly didn’t know where it would lead to. I honestly did not know that Calvin can transform until he did it right in front of me,” he pointed out. One particular detail in that sentence happened to catch Cruger’s attention.

Cruger raised an eyebrow, “Transform?”

Calvin himself sighed for a moment as he looked back at Spyro and Twilight before turning to the Shadow Ranger. “Maybe I should give you a demonstration then.” He said as he closed his eyes for a moment, and the crystal on his necklace began to glow. The Skyshifter stood there as he thought of a phrase for him to say and then opened his eyes as he thought of it. Saying the words ‘Lights out!’, he soon had some blue flames form around him as he then transformed into Blackout, the Dark Skylander that was the first Skylander that he had transformed into when he first came to Equestria.

“Impressive,” said Cruger, “haven’t seen this one before, but I assume he’s a Skylander?”

“Yeah. This one is Blackout. He’s a Dark type Skylander… and yes, that’s a new one. There’s also the Light element as well, but both elements only have a few number of Skylanders representing it,” Calvin replied as he then shifted back to normal a few moments later, speaking now in his normal voice. “Though, I can’t stay transformed forever. There’s a time limit to my forms, but the more times I use a particular transformation, the longer I can remain in it.”

“And you can turn into any Skylander?” Cruger asked.

“Yes, just by repeating either their catchphrase or a phrase they typically say,” the Skyshifter informed him. “Recently though, I’ve figured out how to call on a Skylander to help me out if I would need help in a sticky situation, and if I turn into a Supercharger, I could also call on a vehicle, depending on if it’s a Land, Sky, or Sea type and where I am at the time…” At that point though was when Cruger noticed Calvin holding onto the creation crystal that he had before putting it back in his pocket. “I still have a long ways to go-”

“So, if say… Twilight became a Skylander, you could turn into her?” Cruger asked.

Calvin… had not thought of that actually. “To be honest, I have not thought of that… It may seem possible… but I don’t Twilight would approve of another her running around all over the place.”

“Oh, I think she’s used to having more than one copy of her friends around,” Cruger said before turning to Twilight, “Am I wrong?”

“Oh, I’m used to it… However, that could be a conversation for another day,” she replied, looking back at Calvin. “Right now, the only priority on his mind in regards to his transformations is to find the imaginite needed to wake his creation crystal.” The young teen almost forgot about the whole imaginite part, given the fact that he was a little focused on not just him meeting Spyro, but also meeting Cruger, too. It was a lot to take in for him personally.

Cruger raised an eyebrow, “I’m sorry, did you say imaginite? As in an imagination based power source?”

Spyro himself decided to speak up around now in order to answer Cruger’s question. “One could say that… Imaginite is what you may think of as a crystallized form of Mind Magic, the same magic that the Ancients used in creating everything around them. Imaginite is used sometimes in order to help create Imaginators, which are Skylanders that a Portal Master can create on their own and can be taught by a Sensei of different Battle Classes.” That was when Calvin took out the Creation Crystal that he had, prompting Spyro to say the second half of his statement. “Creation Crystals, like the one Calvin has, are what’s used to make Imaginators. However, from what Master Eon told him and from what he told me, Calvin’s Crystal in particular is asleep.”

“We were also told that some Imaginite would wake up the crystal, but Tessa and the others at the Academy could not find any last time we were there,” Twilight also added.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that any longer,” Cruger said as he pulled out a silver cylinder and a key ring with several figurines on it, “I think I have a solution.” That caused all three of them to look at one another, baffled and confused at what the Shadow Ranger was talking about.

“Hang on… you do?” Calvin asked, sounding a bit confused at what Cruger was going to do with the cylinder he had.

“Yep. Been looking for an excuse to use this particular key for a while,” Cruger said as he held up the figure he detached from the ring, a red one with what looked like a steam train styled helmet, before flipping the legs up, revealing a key, “Diesel-Oh I think, or its components at least.” Before anyone could ask what he meant, he inserted the key into a keyhole on the cylinder and turned it, causing a white striped line to fall from the sky and land on the ground as a voice called out out of nowhere.

“Ressha ga mairimasu! Hakusen no uchigawa ni sagatte omachi kudasai”

Twilight almost flinched a little at hearing that, raising an eyebrow in response before saying a question that came to her mind. “Is that… neighponese?”

“Yep,” Cruger said as he motioned them away from the line, “‘The train is arriving, please stand behind the line.’” As soon as they were all clear, they saw what looked like a train coming towards them through the air on rainbow colored rails before coming to a stop on the other side of the line.

“Diesel Ressha! Tank Ressha! Car Carrier Ressha!”

Coming to a stop, they could tell it was actually 3 trains. The first was a maroon colored freight train with a diesel engine that was longer than the other 2 put together. The second was a cyan pair of tanker cars, and the third was a bronze car carrier with 5 differently colored racecars inside and on top.

Calvin could honestly not even believe… or quite possibly understand what was going on. There was so much going on that it was a bit difficult for him to process everything at once. Unless if whatever Cruger did actually had some benefit to it, then the young teen would think that somehow right now, he was doing this to show off. Not to mention that the moment he saw the train, he thought of the kid that always happened to get hit by one in that ASDFmovie whenever he said “I like trains”. Yet, he did not say anything and just waited for when the Shadow Ranger was done.

“Man, been waiting a long time so I could summon one of these,” Cruger said as he started walking to the cargo boxes at the back of the first train, “Allow me to introduce the Diesel, Tank, and Car Carrier Ressha, from Ressha Sentai ToQger.”

“Uh… Hi?” Calvin responded, honestly not knowing or even understanding what was going on.

Cruger chuckled as he gripped the handle of the box car, “Anyway, the reason I summoned these three is because everything in ToQger runs on,” Cruger opened it with a flourish, revealing it to be filled to bursting with Imaginite Crystals as he spoke like he was dramatically revealing something to the world, “IMAGINNNAAAAAAATION!”

“Woah… I honestly have not seen that much Imaginite in one place before in… well, ever.” Spyro commented, still surprised that there was actually Imaginite inside the box car. “That should be more than enough to wake up your crystal, Cal.”

“Yeah, it should,” Calvin replied, looking back at his asleep creation crystal before looking back at Cruger. “Thanks… I have to admit… that was both impressive and pretty… interesting.”

“If that last bit is about how I said imagination, let’s just say: if you watched the show, you’d be upset if I did it any other way,” Cruger said, “Besides, like I said, been looking for an excuse to use that key.” That just made Twilight a little… curious at the last particular statement.

“Wait. So, you’re saying that you have more than one key… matter of fact, what are these keys you keep mentioning?” Twilight then asked Cruger. Followed by Spyro speaking up.

“Actually, she brings up a valid point. What are these keys you keep talking about? Because it sounds like you have more than one on you,” the Magic Skylander then asked as all three of them looked back at the Shadow Ranger now.

“They’re called Ranger Keys,” Cruger said, holding up another one that looked like himself, “Got them from a Gokaiger Displaced called Gai. They let me summon the equipment of their respective teams. They can also let me transform into them, kinda like you can, but I don’t really use that feature much.”

“Hunh… That’s actually kind of interesting,” Calvin said, scratching his chin and looking at Twilight before saying something that happened to be on both of their minds. “Does each one have their own abilities and skills that change depending on what you turn into?”

“Everything from ninjas to wizards,” Cruger replied.

“What about going to certain places that only some could unlock or access, like the Sensei realms here?” The Skyshifter asked, remembering what Spyro happened to mention earlier in the day.

“Don’t think so,” Cruger said, “Although… mind if I take a look at one of those?”

“Well, they only open for those of the same respective element,” Spyro added to it. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t try. In fact, the one for the Magic Realm was actually above the entrance we found to Twilight’s… basement.” He wanted to make sure to explain everything, but not annoy the Alicorn on that subject either.

“I’m more of a Tech guy myself,” Cruger said, “Don’t let the heavy magic use fool ya. I’m more at home at a workbench than an arcane enchanter.”

“Hunh… alright. That’s not far from here either. But let’s let Calvin wake up his crystal first-” the dragon said before hearing Calvin then speak up.

“It’s alright. Just because the crystal is ready to wake up doesn’t mean I need to right this minute,” the Skyshifter said as he pointed something out to the Magic Skylander in response. “Besides, who knows how long Cruger is going to be here before anyone back in his world needs him for something.”

“It’s no trouble,” Cruger said, closing the door of the boxcar, “Although, perhaps Spyro could take this back to base while we’re gone?”

“Yeah, I can, along with getting a couple of extra people to help, but we can take care of that. I’ll just make sure to give some to Calvin before he goes back with Twilight,” Spyro replied back to him, handing a few to the young teen for him to keep. “And there you go. You should be all set… I think. I’m not sure how much Imaginite would be needed to fully wake it up, so I gave you a good amount, just to make sure.”

“If not, he can grab more when he gets back,” Cruger said as he tossed him a pass card, “You’ll need that to operate it, and it’ll do what you imagine. Also, the Tank Ressha is full of Imaginite processed into fuel, so make sure to unload that as well.”

“I think this amount already would cover us for a few months. Thanks!” Spyro told him before dashing off to go to the Academy to get some help. Meanwhile, Calvin himself had to lead Cruger over to where the Tech Sensei realm would be… which wasn’t hard, because of the fact that the moving gears all around it made it stand out amongst the rest of the M.A.P.

“I guess this is the place,” Cruger said, placing his hand on the door, “Now, let’s see if being a teacher at a school for Displaced makes me a Sensei.” That caught Calvin and Twilight by surprise for a moment as they both looked back at him.

“Wait a second… there’s a school for Displaced?” They both asked the same question almost simultaneously as they watched the door shimmer a little in response to Cruger’s hand.

“Beacon Academy, and yes, it was founded by a RWBY Displaced,” Cruger said as the door slowly opened, “I’ll give you a copy of his Token later.” Calvin nodded shortly, before looking at the ranger. A bit spellbound by the fact that the door was beginning to open on it’s own in response to Cruger himself. He had originally thought only Senseis could open it, according to what Spyro told him. Now though, this was quite surprising… and honestly, something that he did not expect. “Looks like it does count.”

“Wow… That’s pretty amazing!” Twilight responded, looking at the inside of the realm itself passed the door as she stared at it in awe. It almost reminded her of the many different contraptions that she had back in her old home at Golden Oaks Library. Though… the thought of home… soon made her realize something. More importantly… it made her realize exactly how long they have been gone for. “Oh, horseapples…”

“Twilight, what’s wrong?” Calvin asked, turning to the Alicorn and raising an eyebrow in response, confused at why she was panicking a bit right now.

“Calvin, we need to get back to the castle. We’ve been gone too long, and everypony would think that we’ve disappeared!” she told him, almost freaking out at this point.

“Wouldn’t Spike be able to tell them though?” he pointed out to her in response. Only for Twilight to sigh for a moment and look back at him.

“Everypony we know back at the castle had gone through a lot already after Rainbow Dash pulling off a Sonic Rainboom led to her her cracking open a giant hole in the sky. I think they would be even more worried if we happened to go missing shortly after coming back only a few moments ago.” Calvin had to admit, she did make a valid point there… and given everything that already happened today, everyone back home needed a mandatory break from all the craziness going on around them.

Sighing a little like he was in defeat, he turned back to Cruger for a moment and then spoke up. “Sorry, Cruger, but we need to go. Twilight’s right, and… well, there has been a lot of crazy stuff happening today, so I gotta run.” Taking out a spare crystal that was his token, he tossed it over for Cruger to catch as he looked back at him. “That’s my token, if you want to summon me or anything like that.”

“Thank you,” Cruger said, taking it, “Before I go, there’s something I need to give you.” Cruger pulled out a poster, “This is Basco, a Displaced who’s hobby is murdering other Displaced. You see him, you call me.”

“Will do, chief,” he said, giving a mock salute to Cruger as both he and Twilight made his way back to the door that had led to the Princess of Friendship’s castle.

“Call me if you need anything,” Cruger said, drawing his sword and cutting a hole in reality with it, before mounting his ATV and driving through, leaving behind some burn marks on the ground where his wheels were… and leaving Spyro with having to try and explain things to Stealth Elf… Which was a lot more difficult than he had originally thought.

“So, let me get this straight… this ‘Cruger’ guy happened to just show up from the same badge that was left for us to look at earlier… talked with you guys… and just happened to summon a train that was filled with Imaginite inside?” Stealth Elf asked, trying to see if she could understand everything Spyro was telling her. “I’m not one for tall tales, but your story can be a good book for Hugo’s fiction section at the library.”

“Oh, come on!”

End Scroll 12

Scroll 13- A big learning curve

Author's Note

Well, here we are... A new chapter and this time, it's focused more on after the events of the last one. With Calvin having enough Imaginite to awaken his Imaginite crystal now, the only problem he has now is... well... what exactly to come up with. Luckily, there are a few ponies who can help him out with that.

Cool thing is, the imaginator that he comes up with is based on the first Imaginator I have for Skylanders Imaginators. Currently, I have two, but I want to get back into playing and purchase some of the level pack I don't have from Amazon. Including the one on Crash Bandicoot. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this chapter for now and see you around soon! Also, thank you Regreme for helping edit this chapter!
-Frost

Scroll 13- A big learning curve

Beyond the Skies- A big learning curve

Somewhere in Skylands

For the servant of Kaos named Glumshanks, he was really not liking the current position that he was in at this present moment. Over his years of service with the Dark Portal Master, he had been evilized, had the top and bottom halves of his body swapped out with one another, have gotten himself fired by Kaos and almost pulled into a dimensional vortex from Kaos’ Sky eater while he was ‘unemployed’. Not to mention being a test subject for the Dark Portal Master in order to understand mind magic. However, right now he was just being the messenger and needed to deliver something important to the one he called Lord Kaos.

However, it was something that he wasn’t sure that Kaos would exactly be a fan of, the more that he thought about it. But it would be better for him to bite the bullet and inform him, rather than withhold the information he had. He approached the door to the room that Lord Kaos had for himself onboard his ship, and slowly, he waited for a response.

After a while, he got one. But it wasn’t anything that he expected previously. “Ehh!? Who in their right mind has the nerve to disturb me while I’m crafting villainous plans to take over Skylands!?!” The response, based on the fact that it was loud enough to cause some of the paintings of family members to tilt because of how it shook the hallway, had intimidated Glumshanks at first, but soon, he swallowed any fear he had in his throat as he looked back at the door and began to speak.

“S-sir,” he cleared up his voice, slowly opening the door as he looked inside. “It’s me. A-are you busy right now-”

The Dark Portal Master at first deeply sighed to himself, sounding a little bit frustrated before then addressing his butler as he spoke up. “Of course I am busy, you fool!! I’m trying to piece some things together for the plan that Sombra and I are working on! What do you want!?”

“W-well… one of our scouts had picked up some information that you would want to know about, s-sir…” Glumshanks told him, stuttering a bit as he tapped his two index fingers together for a moment. Of course, he was waiting for a response of some kind… like Kaos asking what kind of information did their scouts find or something a little more composed.

Yet, the response he got in return was the exact opposite. “Well, get on with it! Don’t leave me in suspense!!”

“S-sorry, sir,” Glumshanks apologized before speaking once again. “We’ve received some reports that some of the senseis across Skylands are beginning to notice the rift between the Skylands and Equestria below… but the subject of senseis brings up another concern.” Kaos’ servant took a couple seconds in order to process what he was saying before then fully speaking up. “The boy that you encountered some time back… the one who was able to take on the forms of Skylanders…”

“Pfft, him!? He’s more of a fluke than that old fool Eon was. Besides, if he’s so intimidating like how you say he is, what kind of secret weapon would he have to stand to the might of KAOSOMBRA!!!”

That… had Glumshanks confused for a moment as he raised an eyebrow for a moment, unaware that Sombra was beginning to form right behind him. “Uh… Kaosombra, sir?”

“Your master thought it would humorous to combine parts of our name together in order to show our joint partnership,” Sombra spoke up, startling the butler at first. “Of course, he’s ignoring the fact that such an act is not seen as funny and can also be taken much differently back in Equestrian Culture…” He then noticed how Glumshanks wasn’t as… composed as he was a few moments ago and then proceeded to ask a different question. “Are you alright? You seem… distracted.”

“I… don’t really do so well when someone comes up from behind me out of nowhere,” Glumshanks told him in response. “It’s… something I’ve been trying to work on, but haven’t really been successful at it.”

“I see…” the dark king replied. “So, what was it that you were trying to tell Kaos? I thought that I would want to hear about it as well, to see if this poses some kind of threat to our… plans.”

“Well…” Glumshanks began, repeating what he said just a few moments ago. “I was telling Lord Kaos that the rift between realms has been catching the attention of some of the… Sensei Skylanders that are across the skylands. They’re those who are masters in battle and their own techniques, who go around Skylands to find individuals who are potential heroes to train to fight against evil… more specifically us.”

“Hmm…” Sombra said to himself, processing the information before speaking two words that allowed for Glumshanks to continue speaking. “Go on…”

“There’s also the fact that they also teach Imaginators… Skylanders made by a Portal Master through the power of a Creation Crystal, an Elemental Crystal powered by imaginite that-”

“-Creates Imaginators that will keep on trying to stop us like they did before... Blah blah blah BLAH BLAH!!!” Kaos abruptly interrupted Glumshanks as he hopped onto his chair and slammed both of his hands on the table that he and Sombra were at. “Can you get to the point and tell us what this has to do with that little twerp that was with those two ponies already?!!”

The butler right now… swallowed whatever nervousness was lurking inside his throat at this present moment before he could speak. “Well… it’s been reported that he has a Creation Crystal sir…” That… caught Kaos’ attention almost immediately. Just as much as the next sentence did. “I-it’s unknown as to why he has it, but… it’s rather concerning, wouldn’t you think?” Yet, Kaos being Kaos, decided to completely ignore any possible problems that might come from it.

“So what? He has a Creation Crystal. What’s next? He’s going to have an Imaginator fight by his side while he takes on my minions as a Skylander. Without that necklace of his, how would he defend himself?” Kaos pointed out.

“Uh… sir?” Glumshanks then replied back. “Should we be concerned at all that maybe he could… I don’t know… turn into an Imaginator?”

“Pfft,” Kaos rolled his eyes. “If he were to accomplish such a feat, that kid would barely even know how to fight.”

“Your butler brings up a valid point,” Sombra then interjected, much to Kaos’ and Glumshanks’ surprise. “It may be true that he might not know how to fight. But given the notion that he has been able to turn into other Skylanders and learn how to use those forms rather quickly, it could mean that he is a rather fast learner.”

“Okay, then what would you propose we do, eh?!” Kaos challenged the dark king as Sombra chuckled a bit. “What’s so funny?”

“I believe that you are focusing too much on the child, when you should be focusing on something else,” Sombra then told him. “A common phrase amongst tacticians is ‘know thy enemy’... If we were to learn more about the Skylanders the child can turn into… then perhaps we could find a way to counter those transformations… Would you know of anything that acts like a book of records on these heroes?”

Glumshanks seemed nervous at that… but then looked to Kaos and spoke up. “Well… there is one possibility… but it’s within Skylander Academy… and Lord Kaos has tried to steal it before and-” That only led to the butler getting smacked upside the head as Kaos glared at him in response.

“I TOLD you we weren’t going to be discussing that!” Kaos snapped.

“Discussing what?” Sombra then asked, raising an eyebrow at him before looking back at Kaos, causing the Dark Portal Master to groan in response before giving in to telling Sombra what he was talking about.

“There was this book in that stupid academy that keeps track of all the Skylanders and just by touching it, it affects all the skylanders it records,” he grumbled in response. “However, only a few of those sky-losers know where it is! It’s like trying to find a needle in a huge haystack.”

“I don’t require the book… but the information inside…” Sombra replied, looking back at Kaos. “I can remember anything I read from a book, like the one you say, and then copy it word for word.”

Hearing that… really caught his attention. But it also made him curious about one thing in particular. “And how exactly do you think you’re going to get in there? You can’t just waltz on in there and just expect to be guided there.”

“True… but there is one thing that I believe they will soon come to learn at the end of this,” Sombra replied as he looked back at the Dark Portal Master before wandering off. “Seeing is deceiving.”

Meanwhile…

It was only a short amount of time after Twilight and Calvin returned from the M.A.P., but by the time they were back, there weren’t as many ponies in the castle as there were before. Rainbow Dash was still there, along with Scootaloo and Spike, but mostly everypony else had already left. “Hey, where did everypony go?”

“Well, the Princesses had to return to Canterlot, Fluttershy needed to help her animals after Henry got a stomach ache, Applejack went back to Sweet Apple Acres, Pinkie raced back to Sugarcube Corner and Rarity went back to her place,” Rainbow replied. “I stayed behind because I don’t really have… a lot going on right now, and today’s my day off.”

“Don’t you have the wonderbolts practice later today-?” Scootaloo asked. Only for Rainbow to be acting nervously as she looked back at the filly.

“Day… off…” she repeated, causing Calvin to look back at Twilight for a moment before he spoke up.

“Uh… Are you trying to hide from something?” he asked… only to get a response from Rainbow that obviously made it look like she was trying to hide something from them.

“… Nooooo…?”

“You don’t really sound confident on that…” Twilight then added.

“Come on, who do you take me for? Come on…” Rainbow replied back, even though it was obvious that at this point that she was really sweating bullets. “I mean, who would I want to hide from anyways? I go TO danger, not run or hide from it.”

“Well, good,” Twilight replied, before using her magic to summon her personal schedule as she examined it for a moment. “Oh, right, I almost forgot I was meeting Fleetfoot and Spitfire later today-” That led to Rainbow bolting her way across the room, before they all heard a door being slammed, causing Spike to sigh for a moment before looking back at them.

“Seriously, what is it with everypony wanting to hide in my room? Is there no place in this castle where I can get some peace and a little bit of privacy?” he asked, “Is that really too much to ask for?”

“Apparently, it is,” Calvin deadpanned, before pulling out the Creation Crystal for a moment, along with a few of the Imaginite Crystals that he had with him. “And just when I was going to ask for her… input on something.”

“Input on what?” Spike asked, before looking at the gems. “Are those gems? You look like you’re trying to tempt me with sweets.”

The Skyshifter shook his head in response as he walked over to the table at the center of the castle and began to set everything down, before looking back at Spike and Scootaloo as he then began to explain everything to them. “Well… one of the things that I happened to get when we went to Skylanders Academy on the opposite side of the rift is this Creation Crystal… along with some imaginite from the M.A.P. Creation Crystals are crystals filled with mind magic from imaginite that allow for Portal Masters to create their own Skylanders, called Imaginators…”

“Uh… I’m a little bit lost. Could you explain it to where you don’t sound like Twilight?” Spike asked, which got Scootaloo to giggle to herself as Calvin then sighed. Thinking to himself for a little bit before a good comparison dawned on him… especially since he had seen Spike with his comic books several times around the castle.

“Okay… Imagine it like this… You are into superheroes, right?” Calvin asked, which soon caught the dragon’s attention.

“Of course! I really like the Power Ponies and the adventures they have! Especially with their sidekick, Humdrum!” That last part of the sentence was what Calvin was wanting to hear, as he looked back at both him and Scootaloo.

“Well… think of it like this… the Skylanders that I have turned into are the heroes… but this Creation Crystal I have would allow for me to make a sidekick to fight alongside them.” Calvin replied, trying to phrase it in a way that Spike would understand. “What I’m wanting to ask you guys though is whether you can help me come up with ideas for creating that sidekick.” It was only a few seconds after that that Spike was so excited to the point that he just bolted out of the room and down the hall.

From where Calvin, Scootaloo and Twilight were, all three of them could hear the sound of busting through a door, Rainbow being startled by Spike’s sudden appearance and see the baby dragon go to his room and back several times. Each time though, he got different pieces of art supplies, including paper, pencils, crayons, erasers and markers.

At that point, Twilight was giggling to herself upon seeing everything that had just happened so far. “I think you definitely got his attention now…”

“It just depends on how you get their attention, I think…” Calvin told her, before looking to Spike now and asking him a different question. “What’s with all the art supplies though?”

“What else?” Spike then asked him. “We should take the chance to come up with some ideas on what this sidekick should look like before you try creating it!” That… actually surprised him a little bit as he looked back at the both of them.

“Alright. Let’s see what we can come up with then,” he replied, taking a seat nearby. “Can you pass me some paper and colored pencils?”

“Sure thing! Here you go!” Spike added, passing Calvin the supplies he requested. It was time to get creative… and also see what kind of ideas for Imaginators they could come up with.

Half an hour later

In the half hour that it took for Rainbow Dash to finally decide to stop hiding inside Spike’s closet and come back out, she was surprised to find the massive mess of art that was scattered throughout the center of the castle. She had remembered Spike going in to gather some supplies earlier, but she honestly did not think that it would lead to something like this.

Not only were he and Calvin trying to draw some weird characters on pieces of paper, but Scootaloo was also doing it too… and she even invited the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders to come do this as well… which begged the question… what the hay were they exactly doing?

Fortunately, she found a certain alicorn nearby that was watching them and decided to ask that question to her. “Hey, Twi… not to try and ruin their fun or anything, but what the heck are they doing?”

“Oh! Hey, Rainbow,” Twilight greeted her, looking back at the pegasus before returning her attention to Spike and the others. “Since one of the items that Calvin got while in the Skylands is a crystal that allows Calvin to create his own Skylander, Spike thought it would be a good idea for them to try and come up with ideas on what is should look like.”

“Oh, cool,” Rainbow said, looking back at them for a moment and seeing them hard at work. “How’s that coming along?”

“Well, it started off well…” the alicorn then told her. “The one common thing is that since it’s a fire crystal, it’s a fire element Skylander… the only difference being what kind of class should it be.”

“Class? How does any of this relate to school?” Rainbow then asked, which in turn caused the alicorn to facepalm for a minute. “What? Was it something I said?”

“It’s not that kind of class…” the alicorn began to explain. “From what Calvin knows, the kind of Skylander he could make depends on the kind of battle class he chooses, since different ones have different weapons and abilities. So, given this, they’re trying to see what they could come up with, so Calvin could think of different ideas.”

“Is there a way to get the explanation in non-egghead speak?” the pegasus then asked, to which… the alicorn then pointed towards the piece that Scootaloo was working on.

“Scootaloo was doing her design as a fire based ninja… saying that she wanted to make it look as awesome as you. Though, ninjas are a Skylander class that can only use Shurikens,” she first said, before pointing in Sweetie Belle’s direction. “Unlike Sweetie Belle, who thinks Calvin should have his Skylander be a knight, one that can wield a sword.”

“So, wait… each of them have different kinds of character roles?” That… had Twilight fall forward as she had her face hit the floor before looking back at Rainbow… with a more irritated look than before. “What?”

“Just… Nevermind…” she sighed, trying to keep her composure together. “Also… how do you know of ‘character roles’?”

“I was told by Cadence that your brother still does those tabletop role playing games with some of the members of the Royal Guard,” the pegasus told her, smiling a bit, “Regardless, I’m glad to see that Scootaloo is having fun.”

“She definitely is… Though, I do recall her inviting some of the other ponies in her class, but they haven’t exactly shown up yet,” the alicorn recalled, looking around a bit. “Oh well. Guess I don’t need to worry about it then.” That… surprised Rainbow. She didn’t recall many of the ponies from Scootaloo’s class that would come over during any time that Twilight was doing ‘Twilight Time’, but the two ponies she did remember mentioning were earth ponies. One who wore a crown on her head like a princess while the other one was named after some kind of kitchen utensil.

“So, besides the ninja and the knight, what else are they coming up with?”

That just caused Twilight to raise an eyebrow for a moment as she looked back at her friend. “Can’t you just ask Scootaloo and them yourself? Why are you asking the questions to me?” The alicorn felt that there was another reason behind her friend was acting like this… especially with the way that Rainbow had been acting ever since they got back and how she proceeded to lock herself up in Spike’s room when she mentioned Spitfire and Fleetfoot. “Is something else on your mind, Rainbow? You haven’t been acting like yourself for a while.”

“Really, Twi? How am I not acting like myself?” The Pegasus asked her.

“You were hesitant in saying you had the day off, ran into Spike’s room when I mentioned Spitfire and Fleetfoot coming by later and you’re trying to ask me questions that you should be asking Calvin, Scootaloo and the others,” Twilight named all three reasons rather quickly, catching Rainbow’s attention. “In fact, you’ve been acting odd ever since we got back. Can you at least be truthful and tell me what’s on your mind?”

After hearing all of that, Rainbow personally sighed in defeat. Twilight saw through her act… and the least she could do right now is tell her. “Twilight, I’m just… nervous… I mean, a stunt that I did and one of my signature moves when flying tore open a rift in the sky. How is everypony else going to see me knowing that I did that?”

“Rainbow, you didn’t know that it was going to happen. What happened was an accident, and I’m sure everypony will understand.”

“Pfft, have you seen Spitfire?” her friend asked. “She may act all nice and everything in front of you or Celestia, but when it comes to the Wonderbolts, she’s tough as nails. You were there when she kicked Lightning Dust out of Wonderbolt Academy because of how she endangered you guys… And with me being one of the newest members, I’m worried that Spitfire would kick me out because of-”

“Because of what?” Both ponies turned around upon hearing that, surprised to see Spitfire and Fleetfoot standing at the entranceway to the Castle. Rainbow originally wanted to dash off, but she wasn’t able to get far when Twilight caught her in her levitation spell and set her back down right next to her and in front of the Wonderbolt Captain.

“Oh… Hey… C-captain, I… didn’t expect to s-see you here…” Rainbow replied nervously, which just caused the Wonderbolt captain to raise one of her eyebrows a bit as she stared at her.

“Okay… Did you and that friend of yours that takes care of animals end up switching bodies or something?” she asked, which caused Twilight to giggle in response as she looked back at Rainbow and Spitfire. “Because you’re acting really different than when you were last at practice, rookie.”

“It’s… a lot more complicated than that.” Twilight sighed as she looked back at Spitfire and Fleetfoot. “But nevertheless, thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Thank you for taking the time to answer to my message,” she replied back as they slowly began to walk through the hall to the table in the center of the room. “Everypony in Cloudsdale was going nuts earlier in the day after… well, something tore a huge hole in the sky. Celestia’s already tried contacting us and also the mayor in Cloudsdale to assure us that there’s nothing to worry about, but it makes me wonder what would actually cause such a thing to happen… You don’t happen to know anything about it, do you?”

At that point, Rainbow was beginning to sweat bullets as she looked back at Spitfire, and Twilight just gave the pegasus a deadpan expression. “Uh… I don’t recall anything like that happening around here. Why do you ask?” the pegasus replied, trying to dodge the question as she was trying to find a way out of this mess.

“Well, Cloudchaser saw something similar to your… What was it again, Sonic Rainboom?” she asked Fleetfoot, who just replied with a nod before Spitfire finished her sentence. “Yeah. She saw your Sonic Rainboom shortly before it happened, so I thought I would ask…” That… had Rainbow shiver a little as she looked back at Twilight. Her hooves shaking a little bit and trying to resist the urge to bolt out of there. But all that did was just attract more attention to herself. “Are you okay, rookie?”

“Me? W-why wouldn’t I be?” the pegasus asked, even though it was obvious because of the sweat dripping down her face.

“Because you’re acting like a filly that has a bad case of stage fright being asked to speak in front of a full auditorium,” Spitfire bluntly told her. Which, in Rainbow’s mind, meant that she couldn’t play it cool anymore. “Come on, Dash. Nopony on the team has seen you acting like such a nervous wreck before. Is it still because of that jerk Wind Rider? I made sure he left for good, so he shouldn’t be a problem-”

“No… It’s not that…” Rainbow now spoke up, no longer hiding behind her act from a moment ago. “What you said earlier… what Cloudchaser saw, the rift in the sky… I-i did it…”

For a moment, Spitfire couldn’t really understand what Rainbow was actually talking about as she looked at Twilight and the pegasus with a raised eyebrow. “You did… what exactly?”

“All of this! Everything that’s going on is my fault!! I’m the one who caused it, and I never wanted any of this to happen!!” Rainbow abruptly shot back. Both Wonderbolts could tell that she was clearly upset as the pegasus trotted away, trying to wipe the tears from her eyes. While this was going on, Twilight decided to take over and speak in order to help her friend as best as she could.

“Earlier today, Rainbow was practicing her stunts and wanted to show our friend Calvin what a Sonic Rainboom was like. But when she went too high up in the atmosphere and performed it, the energy from it collided with that of a barrier that was put in place for a world that’s above ours,” Twilight continued on to try and explain it in simplified terms, but afterwards, she got to explaining the reason for why she was acting unlike herself earlier. “Now… as for Rainbow, she was worried that she would not only get blamed for something that accidentally occurred, but she would get kicked off the Wonderbolts because of it.”

“Wow… That is… definitely a lot to take in…” Flitter said, looking back at Spitfire for a moment as the Wonderbolt Captain was processing everything she just heard from Twilight. Spitfire couldn’t agree more… but there was one thing that she knew for sure wasn’t exactly going to happen.

“Really? Rainbow’s getting scared just because of that?” Spitfire asked, followed by chuckling a little as she looked back at the Alicorn. “It takes a LOT more than that just to get kicked out of the Wonderbolts.”

Twilight was honestly surprised by hearing that. “Really? Because Rainbow was convinced that she would be kicked out, like Lightning Dust.”

“There’s a difference between what happened with Lightning Dust, Wind Rider and just now,” the captain began to explain to her. “With Lightning, her actions put the lives of you and your friends at risk to the point that you could be physically harmed. As for Wind Rider, he accused Rainbow of something she didn’t do, and we immediately believed it at first, until your friend Rarity uncovered what was actually going on. Therefore, he was trying to harm her credibility amongst us and the Wonderbolts. However, this incident posed no real immediate threat to anypony in Cloudsdale besides just a big scare. Not to mention that both Lightning and Wind KNEW their actions would pose harm, while Rainbow had no idea at all. Besides, you can’t really blame somepony for something they knew nothing about.” That posed a sigh of relief from Twilight for a moment, relieved at that and was wanting to tell Rainbow the good news.

Until Spitfire pointed out something. “Hey… where’s that kid you’re looking over? He was just with the fillies at the table a few seconds ago.”

Originally, Calvin was just trying to mind his own business as he, Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were coming up with designs and ideas for Imaginators. But the moment that he saw a distressed Rainbow just immediately storm off and away from that of Spitfire, Twilight and somepony else, he felt that he needed to help her out somehow. “Spike, I’m going to take a break. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Spike just nodded his head for a moment, only briefly looking up for a second before focusing back on what he was doing as Calvin began to walk away from the Cutie Map.

Of course, looking for Rainbow was one thing. Finding her though… was something completely different. “Now… if I were Rainbow right now… where would I be?” He thought to himself, looking around as he decided to go down another hallway in the castle. He tried listening out for if he heard Rainbow anywhere… But, it turns out, the answer was much different than he expected. For one thing, he found a couple strands of her mane outside the door to Twilight’s personal study.

The other was the huge pile of books stacked up in the middle of the room like a small fort… with Rainbow’s tail sticking out. “Rainbow? Can I talk to you?”

“C-calvin?!” the pegasus sounded shocked at first… until she tried to play it cool for a moment. “H-how did you find me here?”

“Your tail’s sticking out,” he said… which was followed by him seeing Rainbow trying to hide it with one of her hooves. “Now I just saw your forehoof… Come on, Rainbow, I just want to talk to you.” It took a few seconds, but shortly after saying that, Rainbow began peaking her head out of the book pile.

“Don’t say anything about this… to anypony.” She glared at Calvin, who just replied with a nod of the head as he sat down next to her.

“So, what’s gotten you so stressed out?” he asked, which got Rainbow to look at him with a rather puzzled expression on her face. “I mean, you dashed off into Spike’s room earlier today, acted extremely nervous around Twilight and just now, you seemed distressed when you walked away from them earlier.”

Rainbow herself… only had one question for Calvin. “How do you know of me acting nervous around Twilight and being distressed? You were drawing with Scootaloo and them just now.”

“I sometimes look up so my neck doesn’t hurt,” he replied, before adding one more statement to what he had just said. “That, and you were talking rather loudly.” Of course, that just caused Rainbow to look down on herself for a moment… and left her unprepared for what Calvin did next.

Him hugging her. “Uh… what are you doing?”

“Um… comforting you?” Calvin nervously replied, not sure if he was doing this right.

“Kiddo… your heart may be in the right place,” Rainbow started off, before using one of her wings to tap Calvin around the shoulders. “But your arms, shoulders and hands aren’t right now.” That had him let go for a moment before turning to face the pegasus.

“S-sorry, I just wanted to help you out, and… um… be supportive,” he told her, before asking something that Rainbow… honestly never expected to hear from him. “That’s what friends and family do… right?”

“Yeah… I guess…” she replied, before looking back at him and chuckling a bit. “To be fair though… my parents overdo it when it comes to being supportive.”

“Come on, it can’t be that bad…” he said… before hearing what Rainbow said next.

“They memorialize a ‘first time’ moment for everything. First bite, first passing grade, first everything… I didn’t tell them about me making the Wonderbolts because I knew that with how over excited they are about raising me that they would embarrass me out in public.” The pegasus sighed.

“Wow… That’s… I honestly don’t know how to respond to that,” Calvin mentioned, looking back at her in response. “I’ve never experienced anything like that when living with my grandparents before coming here.”

“Your grandparents?” Rainbow asked, looking rather confused by the statement. “Don’t you have parents?”

“Yeah… but before I came here, I never knew much about my dad at all,” he told her, looking back at Rainbow as he sighed. “As for my mom, I’ve only been with her a couple of times, whenever she’s not working and trying to provide for us. My grandparents raised me in their home, since we couldn’t afford one, but even then, it was hard for us to function as a family. I never got the chance to really bond with my parents, unlike you Rainbow...”

“Would you really call it bonding when they have a plaque in their home that has my first diaper from my fillyhood?” the pegasus then asked, causing Calvin to raise an eyebrow as he looked back at her.

“Um… That honestly depends…” the skyshifter said, sounding a little creeped out because of the imagery of what Rainbow just said. “Was it emptied first?”

“I… don’t know. Does that matter?”

“No. Either way you look at it, that’s just embarrassing,” he sighed, before then asking a different question. One that Rainbow thought he would ask at one point or another, but was surprised about mentioning it now. “So, uh… why exactly did you walk off earlier? Isn’t that Spitfire pony like your boss or something?”

That had the cyan pegasus look back at the Skyshifter with a raised eyebrow, rather surprised to hear him say that. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, Twilight told me about the Wonderbolts since, on the day I got back from Griffonstone, you and her were both there. So, after I explained the reason for why I left so quickly, she told me as part of what happened while I was gone,” Calvin then explained. “So, since Spitfire is the captain of the team, I thought she would be your boss.”

“Well, even though Spitfire can be bossy at times, it’s not quite as easy as you may think,” Rainbow sighed for a moment, thinking everything over. “Being on the Wonderbolts is a dream of mine, but once you make it passed the academy, you need to show that you’re not slacking off, or causing trouble that puts other ponies in harm's way. Given what happened earlier today, I’m nervous that I might’ve just ruined my chances of staying on the Wonderbolts.”

That kind of response though… actually caused a slightly different reaction from the kid next to her than what the pegasus thought he was going to do. He… actually started to chuckle a bit. “Hey! Come on, kid! This isn’t funny!!”

“Actually… it kind of is…” Calvin replied, before speaking up a bit. “Think of it… What happened was an accident, and nopony was hurt, right?”

“Well… Yeah, but-” Rainbow said at first, shortly before the Skyshifter she was talking to cut her off.

“Rainbow, you’re just overthinking things. Why do you have to think about something negatively when it could be the exact opposite?” he then told her, placing an arm around Rainbow’s neck as he smiled, “I originally thought that I wasn’t going to feel like I belonged here several weeks ago, but you and the girls taught me otherwise.” That was a rather valid point… and something that the pegasus honestly did not take into consideration at the time.

“So… you’re saying that I may be overthinking this whole thing?” she asked for clarification.

“Probably,” Calvin replied, looking back at her, “Because it’ll take a lot more than just an accident like that to kick you out of the Wonderbolts. Heck, according to Twilight, you’re one of their best flyers! They would be at a disadvantage if they let you go too early.” That was a rather valid point. The Wonderbolts do see her as a valuable teammate, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to let her go because of an accident.

“Well, Kiddo… that’s honestly something that I did not think about,” she admitted before looking back at him with a smile on her face. “Now, looking back on everything, I just realized that this whole thing’s been rather silly.”

“See? What did I tell ya?” Calvin told her, smiling in response. “Now, come on. Everypony’s waiting.”

“Alright…” Rainbow replied, following him and stepping out of the room. “But after this is over, I want to come up with one of the designs for what you, Scootaloo and the others were doing. You know, to spend time with you guys.”

“Oh? Did you have something in mind?” the Skyshifter asked, looking back at Dash with a raised eyebrow.

“Well… to be fair, I thought you would look kind of cool as one of those guys with the pointy ears,” she told him for a moment, “Also… haven’t you been turning into a lot of those Skylander thingies that like to get up close and personal?” To demonstrate what she meant, Rainbow went as far as pretending to throw a few punches and kicks while using her wings to move around rather quickly.

“So… you think I should make a brawler?”

“It’s your choice. Though, I think it would be rather awesome to be like one of those martial artists who kick butt and take names-” she said, demonstrating a few more times. Until she realized that one of her punches… was bare inches away from Spitfire’s face, almost hitting her if Rainbow didn’t stop herself in time.

“Well, it’s good to see you back in high spirits, rookie,” Spitfire chuckled in response as Rainbow immediately drew back her hoof.

“Oh… H-hi, Spitfire… I didn’t see you there,” Rainbow admitted, scratching the back of her head with her hoof. “Sorry about… well…”

“Dashing off?”

“Yeah, that…” the pegasus sighed, before looking back at Spitfire. “It’s just that-”

“Let me stop you right there, Rookie,” the Wonderbolt Captain told her in response. “Your friend Twilight brought us up to speed on everything… and honestly, I wouldn’t blame you for something like this.” It was something that served as a personal sigh of relief for Rainbow as she looked back at Spitfire. But it was also during this moment that the captain also happened to notice Calvin not far from where Rainbow was.

“Hunh… I remember seeing you before… Yeah, you were the one that Princess Twilight was making a big fuss over…” Spitfire said as she looked at both him and Rainbow for a second. “Are you Dash’s adoptive brother?”

“Pfft, I wish,” he replied. “Though, out of curiosity, what made you think that?”

“Well, given how Twilight was freaking out the last time she was talking about you and about Rainbow leaving you behind, it made me think of when Flitter’s parents would get on her case for leaving Cloudchaser at the marketplace when they were kids.” That… just caused the boy to look at her with a tilted head, puzzled by what she was talking about.

“They’re a pair of twins in the Wonderbolts,” Rainbow added onto that.

“Oh, that makes sense now,” he added on, looking back at Spitfire now. “Nice to meet you, Spitfire.”

“Same to you… though, there was something else that Twilight mentioned that also caught my attention,” the words from the Wonderbolt caught their attention, as both Rainbow and Calvin looked at each other for a moment before looking at Spitfire. “She told me that you three were able to see what was on the other side of the tear…”

“Oh, right. The Skylands.”

That comment got Spitfire to raise her eyebrow in confusion as she looked at both of them. “The… Skylands?”

“Yeah… Think something like Cloudsdale… but the entire world is just a series of huge floating islands big enough to hold up towns and civilizations,” Rainbow told her, which made Spitfire blink a few times in order to try and process everything, because honestly, she wasn’t sure if she could believe something like that.

Then, Calvin showed her the photograph that he remembered that Spitfire, the Fire Skylander, showed them when they originally came back a couple of hours ago. “Wow… That’s… something.”

“Would you like to see it sometime?” Calvin offered. “I figured that I should go back to Skylander Academy soon, in order to get some training with a few of the senseis there, so it would give you a chance to see things for yourself… and also meet the locals.”

“You had the chance to meet somepony on the other side?” Spitfire asked, surprised by this revelation.

“More than one. Some of which... you have to see to believe,” Rainbow added, recalling her initial encounter with Funny Bone and Hot Dog. “Just trust me on that one.”

“Oh, really? Name one thing that I need to see to believe?”

“Two talking dogs. One made out of Lava and the other one being a skeleton with a sense of humor,” Calvin then said before Rainbow looked at him like he just spoiled a surprise. “What? She asked, so I thought it would be rude not to tell her.” All that did was have the pegasus chuckle a little bit… even though what he said really caught Spitfire off guard.

“Well… that’ll be something for sure…” the wonderbolt captain said, shortly before getting an idea as they walked back towards the main hall of the castle, where Twilight was waiting on them along with Scootaloo and the others... Who were rather… eager to show some of the new creations they were thinking about while Calvin was talking to Rainbow.

Though, Calvin had an idea of what he wanted to go with. All he needed to do now was make sure to piece it together on paper, before he tried creating it.

Sometime later…

“So, Calvin, any final thoughts on what your Imaginator’s going to be?” Spike asked after noticing that the boy was just finishing up on something he was working on. For the last half hour, the Skyshifter had been looking at the drawings that Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders made, along with the suggestion from Rainbow Dash as he was beginning to finalize his thought process. But even when he was done, he then surprised everyone with what he had in store.

“Well… since I liked all of your guys’ ideas so much, I decided to have my Imaginator be a little… different than what you might think,” he said. Which, to everypony’s surprise, had them be rather curious by what he meant, as they all wanted to know what he was talking about. “I decided that in order to make the Imaginator I wanted to do, I’d take on different pieces from all of your ideas and combine them together.”

“What the hay do you mean by that?” Scootaloo asked, confused.

“Well, I decided that for the Imaginator itself, it’ll wear the same martial arts tunic that you suggested for the ninja idea, have the same ‘heroic’ voice from Sweetie Belle’s knight, the color scheme would be leather brown like the idea Apple Bloom had for her character, be around even size height similar to that of Spike’s sentinel design, and after a conversation I had with Rainbow earlier, there were two things that she suggested that stuck with me,” he said before catching his breath.

“And those are?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Well, first, to quote what she said, she thought I would look rather cool as a drow elf, similar to that of some of the other Skylanders, like Stealth Elf and Flameslinger,” he told them, while also transforming at will in order to give them a visual reference. “Secondly, she noted that from other times that I tended to transform to get up close and personal, like a Brawler. Though, there’s one final thing I would like to include with the idea I had, but I might need your help on it.”

“What’s that, Calvin?” all of them asked, almost simultaneously.

“Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle… do you still have your Cutie Mark Crusader cape?” he then asked, just as he showed them what he had in mind. “I thought it would be cool that on the back side of the martial arts gi that I would put the symbol of the Cutie Mark Crusaders on it. I’m having a lot of fun with you guys, and even though I can’t get a Cutie Mark myself, maybe I can show that I’m part of the team like this?” That… got all three of the present crusaders in the room instantly excited, almost to the point that they almost tackled Calvin because of how excited they were. “So, is that a yes?”

“Heck yeah it is!” Scootaloo cheered.

Though… Spike almost happened to kill the mood with the single question that was on his mind. “What are you going to name it though?”

That… was a good question… and it took a little bit for Calvin to think of an answer for it. But after a few seconds, he thought of one. “Kai Chi.” For a moment, they looked at him a bit confused, before he began to explain. “Back where I’m from, there’s a kind of martial arts called Tai Chi and also, the word Kai is another way of saying Fire in another language.”

“Ah guess that makes sense,” Apple Bloom then said, before looking back at Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle for a moment. “Hey girls, can ah talk to ya for a second?” For a moment, Calvin was a bit confused at why she wanted to talk to them on their own… but after a while, they actually surprised him with something that he didn’t expect.

Especially when they gave him a sash with the logo of the Cutie Mark Crusaders on it. “What’s this for, girls?”

“Well… Ah thought that it seemed just right to have you be an honorary crusader for the Cutie Mark Crusaders! What do you think?”

Calvin’s eyes widened at that, looking back at the sash before turning to them. “Girls, that’s… that’s the most kindest thing anyone’s done for me. Thank you so much!” After a bit, he soon tied the sash around his neck as the logo for the crusaders was now along the back of his shirt. “You girls are the best!”

“Anything for a friend, Calvin!” Sweetie Belle smiled, before turning to Spike as she then asked for him to get a camera, so they could get a group photo together. Then, a nearby Twilight decided that maybe it was best for her to take the picture, so Spike could be in the picture.

“Alright, on the count of three, everypony smile,” the Alicorn told them as she levitated the camera towards them. “One… Two… Three!”

End Scroll 13

Scroll 14- Igniting the Spark Part 1

Author's Note

Given the amount of content that's being covered here alone, this chapter's going to be split into two parts. Part two will have the creation of Calvin's imaginator as well as finding out what kind of shenanigans is going on at the academy. As for how the creation of an imaginator is going to work, that is based on some of the scenes regarding imaginators in Skylanders Academy. Hope you guys like this for the time being. It also will give you the chance to learn more about Calvin as a character before coming to Equestria.
-Frost
P.S. If your curious as to when this is taking place, it's during 'Amending Fences' in Season 5

Scroll 14- Igniting the Spark Part 1

Beyond the Skies- Igniting the Spark Part 1

After his brainstorming session with the Cutie Mark Crusaders and also finding out that the girls wanted to make him an honorary crusader, the next thing that Calvin was personally trying to figure out with what to do next was a bit more complex. Despite the conversation with Master Eon on Imaginite Crystals and Cruger’s help in awakening the crystal and coming up with the idea on what he wanted to do, there was one thing that wasn’t properly explained to him about the whole thing… and that was how exactly he was going to do it.

Despite all the helpful advice from the Skylanders at the Academy and the ponies that helped him, it didn’t tell him what he needed to do in order to make an Imaginator in the first place. So, it left him with not a lot of options in terms of what to do next… but he did know someone that he could be able to ask. “Hey, Spitfire? Are you busy right now?”

It took a couple of moments in order to get a response, but thankfully, the fire Supercharger was able to get back to him. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry about not responding sooner. We had an accident in the school’s cafeteria involving Flynn and his knocking over a salsa bar that wasn’t held down properly.”

“How bad is it?”

“Well, not too bad. We’re just thankful that he didn’t knock over the hot sauce that only Eruptor, Hot Head and Hot Dog can have. If that actually happened, we would be having problems,” he heard Spitfire chuckle for a moment, before asking a different question. “But more to the point… Is everything going alright down there? I didn’t expect for you to try and reach out to me so soon after you and your friends visited the academy not too long ago.”

“Yeah… that’s the thing…” Calvin originally said, before thinking on something and asking you a question. “Did Spyro and Stealth Elf happen to mention anything the last time they were at the M.A.P.?”

“Ehh, not really. All I know was that you were going to visit, but not exactly what happened while you were over there,” Spitfire explained, “Why?”

“Well, while we were there, Spyro, Twilight and I met a Displaced that actually was able to help us out with our Imaginite shortage problem. Now, the crystal’s no longer asleep, and I spent most of the day with some of Spike’s friends, coming up with ideas on Imaginators…” the Skyshifter summarized for him in order to keep everything brief. “However, the obstacle that I’m at now is the fact that I don’t know how to use the Creation Crystal.”

“Ah, I see what you mean…” he heard Spitfire tell him, shortly before taking a deep breath. “Sorry to break it to you, buddy, but I don’t know much about how that Imaginite or Mind Magic stuff really works. That sounds like something that Hugo or Eon might have a better understanding on, to be honest.” That… had Calvin feel a bit of disappointment, as well as some hope that there was someone who could possibly help him overcome his dilemma.

To which, he cleared his throat and replied back to the Skylander. “Hunh… alright then. I’ll go on over and talk to Hugo. Thanks for the help, Spitfire!” The Supercharger in question that he was talking to was thrown off guard by him saying that and tried to speak to him, but it was something that Calvin couldn’t quite hear.

In any case though, before he could go wander off anywhere, he needed to make sure to talk to Twilight before going anywhere. Just to be on the safe side.

“You want to go for what now?” the alicorn asked, wanting for Calvin to run everything by her one more time. Even though he had already explained it to her once, Twilight was still having trouble processing the fact that Calvin was wanting to head out the door again so quickly.

For Calvin though, it seemed like trying to explain everything to her the easy way wasn’t exactly going to go well for him. So, he decided to try and backtrack it a bit. “Alright… remember when we originally went to Skylander Academy and got the Creation Crystal?”

“Yeah, that was only a few days ago,” the princess replied back.

“Then, we had our visit to the M.A.P. most recently to solve our problem with the crystal being asleep.”

“To be honest, that Cruger person helping you was just… beyond me,” Twilight told her, still recalling the amount of confusion she was left in after meeting him then, “And that was only two days ago.”

“And let’s not forget the afternoon with Scootaloo and her friends,” Calvin also added on to that, which had Twilight nod back in response. “But, out of all those things… there was one thing that wasn’t really… well… explained to us during all those times.”

Now, that had even Twilight curious, causing her to raise an eyebrow in response. “And that is?”

That had Calvin get the Creation Crystal from his pocket as he looked back at her and sighed. “How to actually use one of these… Think about it… We’ve been told that it was possible that I can use one of these crystals to make my own Imaginator, but they never really told us how to do it. It’s like trying to build a bookshelf without a set of instructions.”

Twilight… scratched her chin for a minute with the edge of her hoof, thinking over what he had just said before looking back at Calvin and realizing what he meant. “You know, that’s… a rather valid point. But who would actually know how to use one of those?”

That had Calvin place the crystal back in his pocket first before looking back at Twilight. “That’s what I was asking Spitfire earlier… He told me that it was possible that Hugo might know a thing or two about it… but there was also something else that… kind of confused me. Something about ‘Mind Magic’.”

“Mind… magic?” the alicorn asked. Despite knowing a lot of magic and reading about particular forms of magic like Mind Control or Mind Wiping, this was something she had never heard about before.

“Yeah, but I’m not entirely sure what exactly it is…” Calvin shrugged, before looking back at her. “So… what do you think about all of this?” Twilight herself sighed for a moment before she looked at the Skyshifter and thought over everything that he said… before telling him her answer.

“Well, I do think that a trip to see Hugo could be beneficial…” that got Calvin’s hopes up really high at first. But, what Twilight said to follow up on that soon brought him back down to earth. “But I would think that you should go tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” he asked, sounding rather puzzled by Twilight’s statement as she trotted over to her seat at the Cutie Map while he followed her. “Why tomorrow?”

“Because, after everything that had been going on for the last few days, you deserve a bit of a break from all your heroic endeavours,” she explained to him. “Some days, you are only here for a few moments before running out the door to go do something else. Personally, you’re just as bad as Rainbow…” hearing that… felt a little bit embarrassing to hear from her. But, it didn’t mean that she was wrong.

“S-sorry…” he sighed, sounding as if he was a foal who was caught trying to get cookies out of the cookie jar.

“It’s nothing for you to apologize to me about, Calvin.” Twilight assured him, a warm smile on her face. “I just want to make sure that you knew about it. You don’t have to be in a rush in order to find out how to get this done. It’s not a race.”

She was right about that, he had to admit. But… there was still something on his mind regarding all of this. “I know… but just what exactly am I supposed to do until then?”

“No wonder. He’s just as bad as Rainbow. I feel like I’m talking to another version of her,” the princess thought to herself for a moment, sighing as she tried to compose herself. “Well, you could perhaps help me around the castle and such-”

“Isn’t that Spike’s job?” Twilight’s original answer was going to be a flat out no, but the fact that the baby dragon had just brought her a cup of tea a few moments after he said that would not have helped her case.

“What Spike does isn’t exactly a job, Calvin…” she explained, before looking back at him and thinking of a comparison that would most likely work. “He’s not having to work all day, like if you were a staff member at Canterlot Castle. He has his own room here, and he can do things in his free time.”

“So… you’re saying that helping you out… is like doing some chores around the castle?”

That was actually a rather valid comparison, Twilight had to admit, but hearing that also made her a little bit curious. Judging from Calvin’s tone, it sounded like it was something that he was familiar with, to an extent. “Yeah, you can say that… Did you do something like that back where you were from?”

“Well, yeah, my mom and I was living at my grandparents house, so they had me make sure that I clean up my toys when I’m done playing, take out the trash, help with the dishes and a few other things while Mom worked during the day… I had to make sure I did homework and chores first before getting the chance to do anything fun,” he said to her. “We didn’t have a lot of the things that a lot of families had at the time, but we still had the four of us… well… three of us I mean.”

That… did not sound good to Twilight. Not good at all. “Three?”

That… made Calvin look down a bit, before looking back at her and tried to keep himself together. “A few months ago… my grandpa had breathing problems. I… thought that they would just get better, like a bad cold, but… mom told me that they got worse, that fluids in his lungs were swelling and making it hard for him to breath.”

“D-did they take him to the hospital?” she asked him.

Calvin sighed, trying to keep himself together on such a tough topic. “T-they did… but the doctors couldn’t do anything… When I went to see him one last time… it was when they were taking him to… hospice.”

Immediately, Twilight’s eyes widened. She knew what that meant… but couldn’t believe that someone like Calvin would go through something like that at his age, especially with somepony that cared for him so much. And when she looked back at him, she noticed that a few of the tears that he was once trying to hold back were slowly coming down the side of his face. “Calvin, I… I’m really sorry to hear that…” she said, extending one of her wings and letting him come over to where she was sitting. The young boy did come over, trying to clear up his face a little after everything he just told her.

But… there was still something else that was bothering him. Yet, how it was brought up was by accident. “You don’t need to apologize, mom-” Now, it was Calvin’s turn for his eyes to widen, almost causing him to trip and fall backwards onto the floor. “I-i’m sorry! I didn’t mean-”

“Calvin, please… calm down for a moment,” Twilight ushered him, having him calm down a bit before she continued to speak. “You don’t need to apologize to me… but why exactly did you call me that?”

“W-well…” he said, looking down for a moment before looking back at her. “Remember when I told you that ‘I’d prefer to listen to the Twilight that doesn’t sound like my adoptive mother’?” Twilight nodded her head at that, recalling those same words from him before Calvin decided to go on a trip with Rainbow and Pinkie to Griffonstone. “Well, I said that b-because my actual mother sounds a lot like you… however… it wasn’t really something that I wanted to talk about.”

“Why’s that?” the princess then asked him.

“Because the more that I think on it… and the more that I think about the fact that because of me coming here, I might not see her again…” as he was saying this, Twilight herself was trying to connect the dots on this puzzle in order to understand it the best that she could. And the final piece of that puzzle came when Calvin finished his sentence. “…like I can’t see grandpa anymore.”

With that piece of information, Twilight was finally able to put everything together. And all it did was make her want to help the young Skyshifter even more, which prompted her to ask him something. “Hey, Calvin… if it’s alright with you… would you like to stay here tonight? I can let Fluttershy know, and I think she’ll be okay with it.”

All Calvin did was nod his head, before going over to where Twilight was and gave her a deep hug. “Thank you.”

Meanwhile…

Throughout the halls of Kaos’ new fortress of ‘Titanic DOOM!’, the troll butler named Glumshanks was busy walking through the halls of the new citadel that was now their… temporary abode, for the lack of a better term. Everytime that Kaos had to conjure up a new plan in order to take over the Skylands, he made it important that he and his armies could not reside in the same castle at any given time. Of course, with all of the plans that Kaos had hatched over the years, Glumshanks and his master were constantly moving, and only waiting to unleash their plans once Skylands seemed to be at peace.

Of course, the only thing that was different this time around was the fact that they had Sombra this time. And even though he was wise and pretty evil looking at first glance, it seemed like he always had a habit of popping up out of nowhere, as was the case when Glumshanks was trying to sweep under the table. “Greetings-”

“Wha-” Was practically the only thing that came out of Glumshanks mouth, before he hit the back of his head under the table and stumbled backwards. Flinching a bit because of the pain before noticing Sombra’s presence in the room. “Oh… Hello, Sombra. Um… Were you looking for Lord Kaos? Because he was in his personal study to try and think of something.”

“Oh, he was?” Sombra asked. “Was it something in regards to the overall plan?”

“N-no, it’s……” The troll paused for a moment, before looking back at the shadow king. “Did you give Lord Kaos any… advice recently?”

Sombra paused for a moment, giving himself some time to think before shortly looking back at Glumshanks once something came to mind. “Well, the only thing I did suggest to him was that, when it came to thinking of a plan for how he wanted to prepare his evil doings, was to try and treat it like a campaign. Like when it comes to warfare,” he explained to Glumshanks, before asking the butler something. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, that explains one thing,” the troll replied back. “Last time I went to check on him… he was trying to come up with campaign slogans to try and boost morale amongst the minions that serve him.”

If Sombra had hooves… or limbs for that matter, he would be wanting to place one of them on the front of his face to show his disappointment. But, the only thing that he could do was deeply groan at that, before deciding to ask Glumshanks a question. “Right… I am curious though. What minions does Kaos actually use? I mean, for someone who has been beaten by these Skylanders over and over again, he seems to be rather resourceful.”

Glumshanks, at that point, had to just look around the room for a moment in order to try and get his thoughts together on the subject. Yet… after a minute with no response, Sombra was slowly beginning to lose his patience. “Well?”

“S-sorry… I was just getting my thoughts together,” the troll apologized, clearing his throat and grabbing what looked like a series of picture cards from a nearby drawer. “Well, to put it briefly, his abilities as a Dark Portal Master allow for him to summon numerous creatures from across Skylands. Some include cyclopes, trolls, drow elves and spell punks. Though, he does have backup plans for if his magic needs to recharge.”

That… had Sombra seem a little curious. “Back-up plans?”

“He been a subscriber to the ‘Minions Monthly’ catalogue for several years now. It’s a real pain though, since every year I need to change the mailing address,” Glumshanks sighed. “Aside from that, he’s been able to use numerous different spells in order to enhance the minions that he has in battle. But some of the people he has worked with before have been… diverse.”

Now was when Sombra decided to speak again. “I see… would some of those former associates of his be those Doom Raiders I keep hearing about?” Glumshanks nodded at that, placing a few more cards on the table. One that looked like a queen made of gold, a werewolf in leather pants, a green skinned genius on metal legs with a crooked hat, a mage with the appearance resembling the ‘chompie’ creatures he had seen once or twice in this realm… and a walking pinata, which unfortunately reminded him of the hyperactive pink pony that he saw in the Crystal Empire before… well, getting ‘banished’.

“Yes… Originally, one of Kaos’ plans involved breaking them out of Cloudcracker Prison so he could be the new leader of the Doom Raiders and have them help him in his plan to take over Skylands, but unfortunately, they had other plans for how they were planning to take over the Skylands… and mostly not involving him. Let’s just say he didn’t take it so well…” Glumshanks explained in brief and simple terms. “Also, I think he got mad at them because one of them called him short despite everything he did for them.”

“Why do I have the feeling that Kaos has a neighpoleon complex?” Sombra personally asked himself, before looking back at Glumshanks. “So, where are these Doom Raiders now?”

“Well… most of them still reside inside of Cloudcracker prison,” Glumshanks replied back, while also making Sombra think that this prison is the Skylands equivalent to Tartarus. “But as of recently, Master Eon has had some of the former Doom Raiders become teachers at Skylander Academy… but only after they proved themselves to him.” The troll continued to explain a little more about this, filling Sombra in with as much information as he could in order to answer his questions.

Of course, before Glumshanks was done, they heard a rather frustrated Kaos yell out throughout the castle. “MAKE THE SKYLANDS EVIL AGAIN-! AGH!! WHY DO I BOTHER COMING UP WITH SUCH A STUPID THING IF IT MAKES ME LOOK LIKE A MORON!!?!”

Glumshanks… just groaned at that as he facepalmed himself and looked back at Sombra. “I… better get going. Whenever he gets stressed, he always-”

As if it was right on cue, another shout from Kaos soon finished the troll’s sentence for him. “GLUMSHANKS!!!”

That had the butler sigh deeply, before looking to Sombra and apologizing to him before running out the door. Though, as he left, he didn’t put away the cards of the Doom Raiders that he was using earlier, leaving Sombra to look at them for himself… and more specifically, at the card of one particular Golden Queen as she was holding a few gold coins in her hands.

The shadow now grinned menacingly as he set the card back down, knowing exactly what he was going to do next.

When the morning sun began to peak through the curtains of his room, Calvin was already up and awake. Despite the talk he had last night with Twilight, he still felt as if he was ready to get going. Yet, as he stepped outside of his room, he couldn’t exactly find Twilight anywhere… and he couldn’t find Spike in the castle either. It was strange, because Twilight didn’t tell him that she was going anywhere, and the Cutie Map didn’t light up like it did before, when Rainbow Dash and Pinkie had to go to Griffonstone. Though, it was as he was going back in the kitchen that he found a scroll sitting on the counter with a tag that had his name on it, which made him rather curious as he opened it up.

‘Dear Calvin,

Sorry for surprising you at the last minute, but I have some matters that I need to attend to in Canterlot. Spike and I will be back later this afternoon, so feel free to make yourself at home for the time being. I hope you have fun today, but please don’t do anything reckless.

Sincerely,

Twilight’

Of course, all that meant in Calvin’s mind was that Twilight wasn’t exactly home now, but possibly will be back later when he returned from the M.A.P. So, leaving the scroll on the counter, he proceeded down to Twilight’s basement and to the door that led directly to the Mysterious Ancient Place.

However… there was one small detail on Twilight’s note that he unfortunately did not notice at all. That being the post scriptum, or P.S., at the end of the letter. ‘P.S. I’m having Rainbow and Pinkie stop by to check on you later, and maybe bring you a treat from Sugarcube Corner. Just please don’t have them make a mess. They always seem to do so whenever baking is involved.’

Upon entering the M.A.P. again, it took Calvin some time in order to try and get adjusted with his surroundings and try to find out where he needed to go. The last time he was here, Spyro had told him that the Mysterious Ancient Place allowed for Skylanders to be able to travel to Skylander Academy rather easily while also being able to come back if they were on patrol.

Yet, the only problem was that the last time they were here, Spyro didn’t exactly show him where it was at, leading him to think that he was left on his own to figure out things for himself. Or at least, that was what he was thinking about originally. He knew that he was able to communicate with Spitfire the last few times before because of the fact that he had transformed into him. So, with the fact that he had used his powers to turn into Spyro before, it was likely possible that he could communicate with him, too.

“Well, what’s the worst that could happen?” he asked himself, taking the chance to sit on a nearby rock as he tried to concentrate. Though, before he could say anything, he happened to notice a particular signpost with arrows pointed in numerous different directions. Some of the signs were things that kind of surprised him at first glance, especially with what was put on each of the wooden blocks, how they were colored and also… the way they were angled. But in the center of this entire mess was actually a wooden plaque that had a message written on it to try and simplify things for anyone who was looking at it. Yet, to Calvin… what he was reading was seen as anything but simple.

‘We apologize for the lack of a layout here in this Mysterious Ancient Place, mainly because of the fact this entire place constantly changes all the time. The signs you see now are what we can recall of the layout, to the best of our ability, until we actually get a mapmaker out here to attempt to record everything… but what we do know is that the signs change direction if any of the floating islands that are around here do move to somewhere else in the M.A.P. In any case, we are sorry for the inconvenience. -Blobbers’

That, of course, was followed by a list of the directional arrows that represented different locations on the M.A.P.

→ Mushroom River, Cradle of Creation, Thumpin’ Wumpa Islands, Gryphon Park Observatory, Enchanted Elven Forest

←Scholarville, Fizzland

↖Shellmont Shores, Dragon Temple.

↱Sky Fortress (Be on the lookout for Vultures), Battleship

⤦Ridepocalypse Demolition Derby (Closed indefinitely), Golden Arcade (Special performances by Sal after 8 P.M. every night), Abandoned Amusement Park (Also closed indefinitely, due to numerous safety violations and… tax evasion),

↓Rat Kingdom (AVOID AT ALL COSTS!! -Softpaw)

The list continued on and on, to the point that it made Calvin’s head spin, especially since it didn’t include any of the locations that he was familiar with… And the ones he was familiar with were very few on the list. For one thing, he remembered the Demo Derby that the so called ‘Pandergast, the Magnificent’ once held when the Superchargers had to rescue Glumshanks. So, based on that, he could possibly tell why it would definitely be seen as off limits.

However, the only thing that was bothering him… was that there was no directional arrow for where Skylander Academy would be. He even checked the other side of the post, just to make sure if something there pointed out the direction for it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to find anything, despite his best efforts.

It didn’t help, though, that someone else was trying to talk to him while he was thinking. “Something troubling you, young lad?” When Calvin looked behind him though, he didn’t see anyone there. He looked to his left, his right, in front of him and also behind him just for good measure. But… there was one direction that he didn’t take into account.

“I’m up here, kid,” he heard the voice speak to him again. Doing as he was told, Calvin looked upwards, only to see the Air Skylander he knew as Jet-Vac slowly descend from his position in the air and landing on solid ground. For the Skyshifter, he honestly didn’t expect to run into a Skylander out on patrol… but this could also be a good thing, because he might know the way to Skylander Academy. “You don’t look like you’re from here… are you a tourist?”

Now, that… surprised Calvin. “Um… no. Why do you think I’m a tourist?” he asked the Air Skylander, raising an eyebrow as he turned around to face him.

“Well, you look to have been staring at that board for a while now, and your clothes make me think that you’re looking for a beach,” the Sky Baron replied back to him. “Are you trying to find Shellmont Shores?”

“Uh, no, I’m not,” the Skyshifter replied back, shaking his head and folding his arms. “I’m looking for something else entirely-”

“Well, what are you looking for exactly?” Jet Vac asked him. He was going to label out a few locations that would be seen as ‘ideal vacation spots’, and by ideal, that meant not already invaded by Kaos on more than one occasion. Luckily for Calvin though, he did not have to hear any of this, as someone else soon spoke up.

“Jet-Vac, what are you doing? I thought you were patrolling the skies back at the Sky Fortress,” he heard a familiar voice as he saw Stealth Elf emerge from behind a nearby tree.

“Well, I was doing that, but this tourist here looked to be lost,” Hearing that made Calvin really want to facepalm himself and also try to clarify that he was not a tourist, because it didn’t seem like Jet-Vac was letting him have the chance in order to try and clarify things.

Though, when Stealth Elf actually noticed him, she seemed surprised at first. Before deeply sighing as she looked back at Jet-Vac. “Hey, Jet… would you mind letting me handle this one? I think I spotted some vultures over-”

That immediately got the Sky Baron’s attention, as he began to take off using his jet pack. “Vultures?! Where are they?! Nature’s greatest mistakes will not be doing anything evil on MY watch!!” With that, Jet-Vac took off, leaving Stealth Elf with Calvin… and leaving Stealth Elf to breathe a big sigh of relief.

“That should keep him occupied for a while,” the elf replied, before looking back towards Calvin. “Though, I gotta ask… what are you doing here?”

“Well, I was trying to find my way over to Skylander Academy, but there wasn’t any kind of sign to point me in the right direction,” he replied back. “I mean, there’s a sign for an arcade, but not the Academy?”

“Well, here’s the thing… Chompy Mage was left to try and make it, but his chompies ate the sign before it could be finished,” Stealth Elf looked back at him. “Though, why did you want to go to the Academy? Is it for something important?”

“Well… did Spyro tell you about anything the last time he was here?” the Skyshifter asked her.

“Well, he told me about the fact that, somehow, you met a guy named Cruger, who was able to summon a train filled with Imaginite… however, I’m not really believing Spyro on that, unless you have some proof-” it was around that moment when Calvin actually took out the Creation Crystal that was now awake because of the Imaginite that Cruger gave him, making Stealth Elf blink for a moment before looking back to Calvin. “Wait… is that what I think it is?”

“Technically… this would be called the ‘proof’ you needed to see,” the Skyshifter told her. “Everything with Cruger did happen… but now that it’s charged, I’m not entirely sure what to do with it. So, I was coming here in order to see if Hugo could help me… before being mistaken as a tourist.”

“Right… Honestly, I would’ve expected for one of your friends to be with you, but I can still take you to Hugo,” she replied back, before getting an idea. “Wanna race me there?”

That… had Calvin curious for a moment as he looked back at the elf. “What’s the catch?”

“You and me… however, you can’t transform,” she suggested, “Consider it as basic training in preparation for making an Imaginator.”

That just had the young Skyshifter look back at her with a smirk as he said two words before both of them began to race down the pathway. “Challenge accepted.”

Back in Ponyville

“Yoohoo!! Anypony home?!!” was the sound of Pinkie Pie’s grand entrance into Twilight’s castle, even though the alicorn wasn’t currently home right now. She had asked for both Pinkie and Rainbow to check on Calvin while she was in Canterlot today, seeing some old friends from before she came to Ponyville. However, neither pony expected for the entire castle to be quiet, especially when there was somepony that was supposed to be home.

“Calvin? Calvin, it’s Rainbow!” the pegasus called out… even though the two of them didn’t hear any particular response. “That’s… odd. He’s not one to take so long at responding to somepony.”

“Maybe he’s taking a power nap like you do, Dashie!” Pinkie exclaimed, still bouncing around and trying to look around the castle, thinking that Calvin was hiding somewhere.

“H-hey! I only do that when I get really tired, Pinkie.”

“Oooh!! Maybe he’s trying to play Hide and Seek!! Let’s start looking!” the party pony told her friend, before disappearing down the hallway and leaving Rainbow to facehoof herself before she started searching for him. Though… Pinkie’s way of searching for Calvin seemed a bit… extreme, going as far as trying to look in pantries, closets, under beds, in Spike’s room, under Spike’s bed, in Spike’s closet and so on.

As for Rainbow… she just stuck with the room that Twilight called her ‘guest room’ for the castle. It was where they had Gilda stay for the night upon returning to the castle, before she decided to return to Griffonstone… and right now, there were a few signs that Calvin could possibly be in here, those signs being the extra clothes that Rarity had tailored for him alongside the suit he had from the Gala… or what’s left of it. But there was no sign of Calvin anywhere. “Come on now, where could he be? It’s not like him to be taking off anywhere after his adventure yesterday-”

When she thought that through… was when things began to click a little inside her head. “No way… He couldn’t have left to go through there again… could he-?”

“Oh, wowie, Calvy’s very good at hiding!!” she heard from Pinkie Pie, which derailed her train of thought.

“Uh… Calvy?”

“Duh! It’s my nickname for Calvin! Like yours is, Dashie!” Pinkie giggled in response, which caused Rainbow to roll her eyes for a moment before thinking of something. Of course, it was like Pinkie to come up with nicknames for everypony she liked. “Do you have any ideas of where he might be hiding, Dashie?”

Of course, Rainbow only had one thing to say in regards to that. “Well… I think there’s one possible place he might be…”

“And with that, I think I win the race… even though it was a rather close one.” Stealth Elf chuckled, looking at Calvin as he was trying to catch his breath. The two of them had just finished their race, and even though he thought that he had beat her, he was surprised to find that Stealth Elf was actually waiting for him at Skylander Academy… and that he had been racing a copy of her the entire time.

“Aw, come on… Did you really have to trick me with a decoy in order to make me think I beat you?” the Skyshifter asked her, thinking that Stealth Elf practically cheated and that he should’ve won the race.

“You sound like Spyro when you say it like that,” she chuckled. “Besides… wouldn’t this be considered as good physical training for you? Outside of you turning into your forms, you still need to keep yourself in shape.”

Calvin hadn’t actually thought about it, if he were honest with himself. With the amount of times that he had been fighting in different forms, he never actually considered what Stealth Elf said about keeping in shape. “So… you’re telling me to consider it like training?”

“In a sense… though, I’m not a sensei like King Pen or the others,” Stealth Elf replied, before noticing something on the ground and picking it up. “Here, I think you should have this,” With that, Stealth Elf set something down in Calvin’s hands, and when he looked at it, he happened to find himself looking at what was a gold coin. “It may not be much, but every Skylander has to start somewhere if they want to save their gold for Persephone’s upgrades. They can be a real lifesaver, if you can afford it.”

“Why, uh… thank you…” Calvin replied, scratching the back of his head for a moment before placing the coin in his back pocket. “So, do you have any idea where Hugo might be?”

“The most likely guess is that he’s in the library… He almost panicked when the library got ransacked and some of the books he had got stolen by Kaos,” the elf told him as they both began to walk through the halls of the academy. “Fortunately, we were able to find the books that were missing and return them.”

Hearing all of this kind of puzzled Calvin, for one particular reason. “Why would Kaos want to steal a book exactly?”

“Well, when this was going on a couple of months ago, Kaos was trying to dwell deeper into Mind Magic in order to create his Doomlanders to try and stop us,” after Stealth Elf said that, she happened to see a look of confusion on Calvin’s face, shortly before trying to clear up some of the confusion. “Think of Doomlanders like Evil Skylanders.”

“Well, that makes sense, given the fact that he says Doom a little bit too often whenever he tries something new,” Calvin replied back, “But what did the book have to do with it?”

“Well, the specific book that he took involved not only secrets regarding Mind Magic, but it also involved collecting Imaginite, making him think that with those he would have what he would need to try and stop us with his Doomlanders…” Stealth Elf replied, just as they passed a couple of students that were at the academy and walked up a set of stairs. “Fortunately, we were able to get the book much later on, but the whole thing involving having to stop him with his Doomlanders is an entirely different story.”

“I’ll… just take your word for it,” Calvin said in return, looking around the academy and taking in everything he was seeing. That was... before he thought of something else to ask. “Though, can I ask you about something?”

“Sure. What is it?” the elf asked, raising an eyebrow for a moment.

“Well, Spitfire told me that the Senseis help teach the Imaginators,” the Skyshifter first began to explain to her. “But I never really got the chance to find out more about some of the Senseis other than King Pen and Ember, since I met both of them in person.”

Stealth Elf took a moment to sigh to herself before looking back at him, going as far as taking off her mask and having it hang around her neck like a bandana, something that Calvin thought he would never see happen. “Well, I’m not sure where to start there… because honestly, it depends on the battle class that you choose for the Imaginator you make. Not to mention that Master Eon offered some of the Doom Raiders a chance at reformation and let them become Senseis once they were done with rearranging all the books in the Academy library, something that took them two years to do. Almost drove Wolfgang nuts, and the Golden Queen was in dismay because the task had nothing to do with… well…”

“Gold?” Calvin asked, finishing Stealth Elf’s statement for her.

“Exactly,” Stealth Elf replied back, just as they arrived at a familiar set of doors. “Well, here we are. The entrance to the library.” Taking a moment, she walked up to the door for a moment and looked back to Calvin, before just knocking on it once. The Skyshifter personally thought that one knock wouldn’t do the trick… but was surprised when the doors immediately opened up mere seconds afterwards.

“How… did you do that?” he asked, dumbfounded by what just happened.

“Secret knock,” Stealth Elf chuckled, before putting her mask back on and stepping inside, with Calvin following not far behind her. “Hugo, are you in here? You got yourself a visitor.”

“If it’s Flynn, tell him that I do not have any recipe books that’ll create the best enchilada in the Skylands! I’m a scholar, not a chef!!” Both of them heard what sounded like an exhausted Hugo call out from the back of the library.

“Um… should I even ask… or does this involve that cafeteria spill that Spitfire told me about the other day?” Calvin asked.

“If you’ve been around Flynn for as long as Hugo has, some of the things you hear him say and ask can drive you crazy…” Stealth Elf told him. This made Calvin wonder if the same thing could be applied to that of Twilight and her friends… but before he could really think on that, he then heard Hugo speak up again and walk over to them.

“Ah, hello there. You’re… Calvin, right?” Hugo asked for clarification.

“Yeah, that’s me,” the Skyshifter nodded his head, “I came on by because I wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh?” the Mabu scholar asked in response. “What did you want to ask me?”

“Well… the last time I was here, Tessa found a Creation Crystal that was asleep and gave it to me. According to what Master Eon told her, I needed to use Imaginite in order to wake it up,” around then was when Calvin actually got the crystal out of his pocket to show Hugo. “I was able to get the crystal to wake up… but I’m not entirely sure how to use something like this, and when I asked Spitfire, he told me that it was possible that you could help.”

“Huh… I see,” Hugo replied back, going to a nearby desk and opening a particular book that was on there. “Well, based on what this book says, creating an Imaginator is based on Mind Magic… which is what the Ancients once used to create everything in Skylands. And according to one of the passages in here, Mind Magic allows anyone who’s using it to do pretty much anything as long as they have the imagination and Imaginite to do so.”

Calvin nodded his head in response… but also was puzzled by what Hugo was telling him. “Okay, but how does that relate to an Imaginator though?”

“What Hugo means is that if you think it in your head and channel the crystal’s power, the Imaginator can be made,” Stealth Elf described for him. “A few of us have done it before, but there’s something that I’m wondering about though.”

“What is it, Stealth Elf?” Hugo asked her.

“Well, I’m just wondering about how the magic inside of Calvin’s necklace would react in response to using the Creation Crystal,” the elf then told him, “It is one of a kind, and the only thing we know about at this point is what it can do, based on what Calvin has already shown us.”

“That… is true,” the scholar replied before looking at the Skyshifter. “What was the name of that kind of crystal again?”

“Well… Master Eon told me it was called Elementanium,” Calvin recalled from the first conversation that he had with the elderly portal master. “Think Traptanium, but replace Trap with Element instead.”

“So, instead of containing villains… it contains elemental magic instead?” Hugo asked him in response, “It would explain how you can be able to shift between the forms of Skylanders with different elements so easily… Anything else?”

“Umm… that’s all that Master Eon actually told me about it… I’m still learning new things about it myself from time to time.”

That made Hugo a bit curious as he looked back at Calvin. “Can you give me an example?”

“Well, I’ve learned that I can turn into a Skylander by repeating the catchphrase of a certain one,” he said, demonstrating by saying ‘All Fired Up!’ and transforming into Spyro for a brief period of time, before having to revert back to his original form. “However, whenever I turn into a form, there’s a limit of how long I can be in that form for. Five minutes at most.”

“I see…” Hugo replied, looking like he was jotting down some notes on a piece of paper with a quill before looking back at Calvin. “Have you been able to do anything else besides that?”

“Well, after being in Griffonstone, Spitfire and I found two stones that had different energies. Both of them were absorbed by the crystal,” he added on, pointing at it. “According to what Spitfire told me, one felt similar to that of the Core of Light, while the other was similar to that of the energy in a Rift Engine. And with it, it’s allowed me to call on Spitfire to help me out in certain situations while also being able to summon vehicles, too… but I think the vehicles part only comes into play if I take the form of an actual supercharger.”

That… surprised Hugo and made him think a little bit, before looking to Stealth Elf as he was beginning to speak. “Huh… Well, from that alone, it sounds as if anything that could be a form of magic or power from Skylands can be stored in there… Then again, I haven’t seen how magic works from the other side of the crack, so I wouldn’t know…”

“Well, my pendant hasn’t really acted strange around Twilight or the others, despite everything that has been going on,” Calvin replied back, “And Twilight is an expert in that kind of thing. Heck, she would geek out just from seeing this collection of books alone.”

“Right… though, the point that I was trying to make is that Mind Magic may not be so different when it comes to your crystal,” the mabu replied back to him, “However, it is important to keep in mind that this is something regarding the Ancients. Creation Crystals like the one you have are extremely rare to find, so it’s the reason why you don’t see many other Imaginators roaming around the halls of the academy. And since the magic of the Ancients is rare in itself, we don’t know how it would react to your own crystal.”

“If that’s the case, then how exactly should we proceed with this?” Stealth Elf asked him.

“Well, I’m glad you asked,” he told her, before adjusting his glasses. “Stealth Elf, since you were able to create an Imaginator before, it may be a good idea for you to show Calvin how to do it, since he’s new to the process. If anything does happen though, do feel free to abort if things get out of hand.”

That… only just confused Calvin as he looked back at Stealth Elf. “Hold on… you did this before?”

“Yeah, I did, but it was a while back… I’m still familiar with how the process works though,” she assured Calvin as he got out his Creation Crystal. “The crystal I used was much different from yours though, now that I think about it. But it shouldn’t play that much of a role.”

“Alright… So, how should we get started?” the Skyshifter asked out of curiosity, wondering what exactly was next.

“Well, first, you’re going to need to activate your crystal. Once you do that, the creation process can begin,” the Skylander instructed him, leading to the Skyshifter following what she told him precisely. It took a while at first, but after some time, the magic from the crystal soon began to activate. “Place your hand on the crystal, Calvin… Hugo, can you watch over us from here?”

“You got it,” Hugo nodded. Just as Stealth Elf placed her hand on the crystal though, the coin that was originally in Calvin’s pocket fell out and rolled behind a stack of books on the floor, hiding from view as the mabu scholar took a deep breath. “Alright… at least things are going to be calm for a while now.”

Unfortunately though, it was just as the scholar thought he had a break when he heard Stormblade enter the library. “Umm… Hugo. Is it just me, or is there some pink bubblegum pony chasing Pain-yatta across the courtyard?”

All that did was make Hugo fall face first into a neatly stacked pile of books that he had only straightened out just mere hours ago, falling headfirst into them. “Why is it that when I think I get myself a break from the craziness, something else happens to take its place?” Hugo groaned, before looking back at the Supercharger. “Hang on. I’m coming.”

As the scholar and the supercharger left the room though, that was when the coin that was rolling around on the floor earlier disintegrated… and the shadow known as Sombra began to take form. “Now… what secrets do you dare to keep from me?”

End Part 1

Scroll 14- Igniting the Spark Part 2

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Scroll 15- Lessons from a Master

Author's Note

For this chapter, I decided to have it be a little more focused on one of the things that Calvin originally came to the Skylands to do in the first place. That being learn to fight as an imaginator. So, who else to be a better teacher then that of King Pen himself? Because he's going to need to learn all that he can in order to prepare himself for whatever Sombra, Kaos and one other villain will throw at him.

Fun fact, it was as I was preparing this that I just got started with the new Skylanders Mobile game that's in Beta right now. That and I got back into Imaginators again. In fact, Calvin's own imaginator is based on the fire brawler that I have as my first imaginator for the game right now.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy the chapter and look forward to what else I got in store later on.
-Frost

Scroll 15- Lessons from a Master

Beyond the Skies- Lesson from a Master

“Brace for glory!”

The moment that Calvin spoke those three words, a series of flames began to burn all around him as the crystal that was on his neck began to glow a burning shade of red. The Skyshifter could clearly feel the mind magic from the imaginite crystal all around him as he was beginning to take on the appearance of the imaginator that Stealth Elf helped him create.

The first thing that began to change was his clothes. His sleeveless shirt, shorts and sandals began to turn into the clothes that he had chosen for his imaginator, alongside a pair of gauntlets on his hands that served as his weapons for a brawler class imaginator.

The top piece that he was wearing was that of a leather brown Judogi vest, while he had a matching pair of what looked like a set of matching leggings in the same color. There was also a pair of darkened wrist wraps around his hands, and he had what looked like a hood go over his head to cover his new face, which resembled that of a drow elf. His skin color matched that of Stealth Elf’s, and so was the spiky hair he had under his hood. Though, the two things that did stand out were that his eyes were much different from that of stealth elf’s, and he had a set of leather pauldrons on his shoulders.

As he was able to stand firmly on two feet now and got accustomed to his new form, Calvin now only had one thing to ask. “So… what do you think?”

“That… was…” Rainbow said, pausing for a moment as she was trying to think of what to say. Only for someone else to beat her to it. “... Amazing!!”

“That’s a pretty interesting combination there,” Spitfire replied now as he folded his arms and complemented Calvin on his new form. “Color me impressed.”

“Thank you, Spitfire,” Calvin nodded his head as he turned to Stealth Elf as she was leaning against a wooden post. “I already had an idea in mind for what I wanted to do, but Stealth Elf was the one that helped me make this whole thing possible.”

“Geez, you really don’t have to give me credit for something that you created, Calvin,” the elf replied back to him. “I just showed you the ropes and then let you do the rest yourself. Now though… comes the second part.”

That had Calvin raise an eyebrow as he looked back at the life skylander, before realizing what she meant. “Oh… you mean…”

“I did tell you that imaginators needed to be taught by sensei’s regarding how to fight… Luckily for you, one of them just happened to be with us,” Stealth Elf explained as she motioned her right hand in the direction where King Pen was standing. “King Pen is a sensei of the brawler class, and you just happened to have your imaginator be of the brawler class. So, I’m going to just let him take over from here.” And like that, Stealth Elf disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving him with Rainbow, Pinkie Pie (who seemed to be in the middle of having a nacho eating contest with Flynn), Spitfire and King Pen himself.

“Hey, Calvin, I’m going to go out on patrol with Stormblade. I’ll be back later.” And like that, the supercharger took off with his vehicle and the air supercharger right beside him. Making it just two ponies, a captain who was not paying attention what was going on and the sensei that was now his teacher.

“Alrighty then. Now, before we begin, I think we should relocate to somewhere that’s a bit more… cool,” the penguin told him, before beginning to waddle over to a nearby building and using a flipper to motion Calvin to follow him. Opening the door at the front of the building, Calvin began to realize that he had been in here once before. In fact, he was here when Spitfire was trying to explain to him about the battle classes for the imaginators. “Welcome to the dojo, or duelist’s dojo, to put it in the way Buzz said it.”

“Buzz made this place?” Calvin then asked, looking around the room for a few more minutes and then turning his attention back to King Pen.

“Technically, he did not make this himself… but he claims that since he came up with the original idea for it that he ‘made it’,” the sensei told him, even going as far as to do exaggerated air quotes with his flippers. “Even though Barbella and a few other sensei’s helped with the creation of it. The point is though that we use this facility as training grounds for new imaginators. The mind magic around the room allows for the inside of the arena itself to change depending on the class of the imaginator that is in it.”

At the moment he explained that, Calvin soon noticed a circular sigil with a closed fist in the center begin to glow within the center of the arena as he looked back at King Pen. “Alright… now that it recognizes our presence here, we can get started with the first lesson, which is choosing your combat style.”

Again, the skyshifter was confused as he folded his arms and tilted his head. “Um… what do you mean by that? I thought Brawlers were more focused on martial arts and punching things.”

“Well, yes and no,” King Pen clarified for him, just as Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were taking a seat in what looked like a designated seating section for spectators. Pinkie Pie, herself, was still getting off some of the sticky nacho cheese on her fur as the sensei was speaking. “Combat styles are how we determine how you fight with your weapons. Each imaginator specifically has two. Boxers, which are more focused on multiple attacks in quick succession and Bruisers, which deal slow, but powerful strikes to anyone they’re facing.”

“Hmm… that’s a tough one…” Calvin replied back as he scratched his chin.

“Not really…” Both sensei and skyshifter turned to look directly towards Rainbow Dash as she pointed something out for Calvin. “The last few times that I saw you turn into something, you were really fast in attacking and getting out of the way of incoming attacks. Remember when you kicked Kaos’ butt back at the Gala?”

“Rainbow, that was almost a month ago,” the skyshifter pointed out to her. “Not to mention that I have tried out other forms too.”

“Yeah, but the one form that I sometimes see you use the most is when you turn into that Spitfire guy. And he seems to rely on both speed and strength just from watching you fight as him.” The pegasus pointed out as Pinkie finished cleaning her fur… and then proceeded to checking her tail and mane for any leftover nacho cheese. “Does that help any?”

“Actually… that does,” the sensei pointed out. “Even though he is a supercharger, there are some things that we can take into account. It leads me to think that Calvin is the kind of fighter that wants to quickly deliver devastating blows while also being quick enough to dodge potentially dangerous attacks. Does that sound correct, Calvin?”

The Skyshifter, now hearing what King Pen said, actually nodded in response. “Yes… yes it does, actually.”

“Then, I would think the Boxer combat style would be your best option then, if that were the case,” King Pen informed him. “It would sound like the closest thing we can get towards that same fighting style you’re familiar with. The next part, though, may be something that’s a bit trickier… and that’s for a very specific reason.”

Calvin took a moment to look back at Rainbow for a moment, both of them looking rather puzzled by King Pen’s statement just now. “Why’s that?”

“It’s because it revolves around your imaginator’s elemental powers,” the penguin began to clarify for his student. “Unlike secret techniques or combat styles, elemental powers vary greatly depending on the element of the crystal. For example, an earth brawler’s elemental powers are extremely different from that of a fire brawler, such as yourself. So… instead of having to teach you how to use it, the only way you can be able to learn such abilities is for you to try it on your own.”

“Ooh! Ooh! I got a perfect idea for that!!” Pinkie declared, immediately jumping from the stands in order to take part in the exercise. Calvin couldn’t possibly think of how Pinkie could be able to help… or for that matter, why was she pulling out her Party Cannon.

That is… until things began to click. Literally… “Pinkie, what are you-?”

Click! “Fire in the hole!!” The skyshifter didn’t have time in order to try and finish his question, as what looked like a big ball of confetti just flew past his head, forcing him to bend over as he was trying to dodge each one of Pinkie Pie’s confetti cannon balls.

At one point though… he thought that she was out of ammunition, but he was soon told otherwise when this time, an apple pie flew past his head. “What the? How in the world did you-?” Again, he wasn’t able to finish his question, as he had to keep on dodging.

In doing so though, that was when King Pen noticed something. “Hold your fire now…” He instructed Pinkie, raising a flipper as Pinkie Pie stopped halfway through reloading her cannon with even more ammunition, that was somehow stored in her tail of all places. “I think we’re getting somewhere.”

At first, Calvin was confused as to why King Pen instructed for Pinkie Pie to stop. But as he looked behind him, he could see what looked like scorch marks where he once was to where he was at right now… along with some burning embers on the ground. “Woah…”

“That… looks like your first elemental power right there,” the sensei told him in response, smirking a bit. “A burning dash, allowing for you to quickly move from place to place and leave a burning trail in your wake… ironically, I think Spitfire has something similar to that, but much faster.”

That… was definitely something, especially given the fact that Calvin was rather quick to pick up on it. But instead of asking King Pen about what he just said, the Skyshifter had a rather… different question. “Um... Pinkie… I appreciate you helping out, but where did you get the pies from?”

“Honey bun, where are those pies that Pinkie Pie helped us bake the other day? I can’t seem to find them anywhere.”

“Oh, I just found them.” Pinkie Pie giggled, before putting away her Party Cannon as she looked around at the mess that she accidentally caused and proceeded to clean it up, using her tail as if it was a broom to clean up the confetti while she was holding out a dustpan with her left hoof.

“Anyways…” King Pen spoke up as the embers from the scorch marks on the floor began to flicker away. “Elemental powers do vary depending on the element, but it’s also what makes certain imaginators unique, since what they can do is much different. It can also allow for you to test new things and experiment with new abilities. Now though, I think it’s time we move on to one of my favorite parts of teaching new imaginators.”

“And what exactly is that part?” Rainbow then spoke up.

“Why, secret techniques, of course,” the penguin grinned, unfolding his flippers as he redirected his attention back towards Calvin. “They’re special and powerful abilities that can only be taught by a sensei of the same class, and also by defeating Doomlanders of the same class. For example, brawler sensei’s can only teach brawler secret techniques. And they’re specialized to fit the imaginator.”

Hearing that had Calvin blink for a moment, before he asked something. “I heard Tessa mention Doomlanders before and Stormblade say that they were made using Mind Magic… would it be safe to assume that it was another botched attempt at domination of the Skylands by Kaos?”

Both Pinkie and Rainbow looked at Calvin, rather surprised to hear that from him. Because unlike that of Twilight, both of them did not know anything about the whole Doomlander fiasco. To King Pen though, he just smirked and asked a simple question. “What gave it away?”

“I think with the amount of times that Kaos says ‘doom’ at the top of his lungs, I think it’s kind of obvious,” Calvin chuckled as he looked back at the penguin. “I mean… for someone who thinks of himself as an evil genius, he doesn’t seem to think outside the box as to what other words he could use to describe his minions.”

“Wait… you guys faced evil versions of Skylanders?” Rainbow then asked. “What other kinds of bad guys have you faced before? I mean, the biggest villain I know that we have faced was a centaur that tried swallowing all of Equestria’s magic like it was for dinner.”

“Oh, really now?” King Pen asked, smirking as he folded his flippers. “Well, from what I know, the Skylanders have faced numerous foes on their adventures. Including, but not limited to, a four headed hydra that Kaos called his pet, the dark spirit Hektore, a singing drilling machine, an army of arkeyan soldiers that were over 10,000 years old, Robo-Kaos, the giant Captain Frightbeard, Count Moneybone’s attempt to turn all being’s undead, Kaos’ mother, giant petrified darkness Kaos, villains that were imprisoned in the strongest prison possible before Kaos broke that open, traptanium Kaos and a literal sky eating machine that was fueled by the darkness that almost consumed all of Skylands and secretly powered by a multiversal entity of living darkness. A few Doomlanders is nothing compared to that, even when Kaos was empowered by the mind magic that made them.”

That… left both ponies completely speechless for a while. Especially Rainbow, who was personally trying to comprehend everything that she had just learned. “Wow… I really wish I could go on an adventure like what you guys have.”

“I think you forgot to mention the Fire Viper,” Calvin then pointed out for King Pen as he realized what the Skyshifter just said.

“Ah, yes, the Fire Viper that once swallowed Skylanders whole, only to be defeated from inside it’s own belly,” King Pen laughed at remembering that, which did not help with the fact that Rainbow and Pinkie were still trying to wrap their heads around what he previously said, and they weren’t expecting for him to add on to that. “Ah, good times.”

While both ponies were still trying to comprehend what was just added on to what was just said by King Pen, Calvin decided to redirect the conversation back to the original topic. “So, sensei… you were mentioning something earlier about secret techniques?”

“Ah, yes, of course! Sorry, I was getting a bit carried away,” the penguin apologized as he turned his attention back to the Skyshifter. “There are four different secret techniques that brawlers can use. Two standard, one that I can teach you and the other you would normally have to acquire from a Doomlander… but we’ll have to figure out some kind of workaround for that in the future.”

Calvin nodded his head as he cracked his knuckles and looked back at his teacher. “Alright, so what’s first?”

“Well, the first one is rather simple, and it’s called the ‘Megaton Punch’,” King Pen began to explain, even going as far as to take up a stance in order to give Calvin a visual demonstration. “It’s a special kind of punch that’s charged up with your power. If you hit an enemy with it, you can send them flying… but it takes time for the attack to charge up properly.”

Taking what he saw from King Pen, he began to try it himself. Following the sensei’s instructions, Calvin began channeling the energy from his body into his right arm as he swung forward. After he released the energy from the technique, the skyshifter began to stretch out one of his hands as he looked back at King Pen. “This one is good… but it might not be ideal for someone like me. What other ones are there?”

“The second one is what’s seen as a ‘Knockout Clap’,” the penguin explained, while demonstrating the technique by clapping both of his flippers together. “It may not be much, but it’s supposed to release a shockwave that stuns and staggers any enemies who get too close to you. But I think you personally might like the third technique I’m about to show you.”

Hearing that made Calvin a little bit curious as he looked back at the sensei. “Oh? What technique is that?”

“It’s the technique that I can teach you right now,” King Pen responded back to him as he prepared a demonstration once again. This time, though, he stepped on what looked like a contraption on the floor as a few Greebles landed in one section of the dojo from a minion dispenser that was hidden in the ceiling. Though, it was as the Greebles were trying to wrap their heads around what just happened that King Pen charged forward, before sending them flying upward with a powerful uppercut as the minions dispersed into experience balls. King Pen gracefully landed back on the ground as the penguin sensei redirected his attention back to Calvin.

“This is the technique that is called the ‘Dashing Uppercut’. It combines the speed of a dash, like your Fire Dash just now, with a powerful uppercut that can knock opponents up into the air,” he further clarified for him, before pressing the same panel on the floor and having a few more greebles pop on in. “Alright, your turn now. Go ahead and give it a try.”

At first, Calvin himself was caught off guard by that. He did not expect for King Pen to suddenly tell him to test out the technique that he only learned just a few seconds ago. Though, there was no better time than the present. As he looked back at the greebles, he began to picture how to try and perform the technique inside his head first before executing it, dashing forward and performing the uppercut. However, the only thing that he did not exactly do well at was the landing, as he had trouble trying to stay on both of his feet on the way back down.

“Good… for a first try,” King Pen complimented him. “But I know that you can do better with some practice. Why don’t we practice some of your basic fighting moves first before continuing? That sounds a little easier.”

All Calvin did was just nod his head in agreement, before stretching out his arms and adopting a fighting stance as he looked back at King Pen. Readying himself as King Pen had another few Greebles be dispensed on the floor of the dojo, the minions soon focused their attention on the Skyshifter. This exercise allowed for Calvin to not only practice his boxing based combat style, but also get used to having to fight in the body of the imaginator that he created, since it was much different than that of the Skylanders that he had transformed into before.

His first move against the small group of greebles was to dash at the first one and swiftly deliver a combination of quick jabs, striking the greeble in the chest as it was thrown backwards and quickly defeated. The second move he had to make came when one of the greebles that he was fighting attempted to throw what looked like a tomahawk at him, forcing Calvin to dash out of the way of the attack and attempt to strike the greeble shortly afterwards.

Out of the five greebles that were his opponents though, the last three turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated, primarily because one of them used what looked like an oversized cannon and attempted to try and shoot at him from long range, while the other two were a pair of Greeble ironclads that had metallic suits of armor covering everything except for their heads.

“Man, it’s been a long time since I last saw these.” Calvin thought to himself as he had to dodge an incoming cannonball and proceed to get out of the way of the incoming series of punches from the ironclads. Memories of playing some of the Skylanders games back home returned to him as he tried to remember how exactly he was to defeat some of the foes that he was facing off against. He knew that the ironclads themselves mostly stayed in a defensive state to protect themselves, but only let their guard down at one particular moment.

However, trying to remember when that moment occurred was another story. Because when trying to dash towards them, he found out that they were able to block his incoming attacks and even knock him back when he tried to face them. “Come on… there’s got to be some way to beat them…”

Though, it was as he was thinking this that he happened to notice a pattern. After the ironclads attacked three times, the third attack made them disorientated and vulnerable. It was something that he noticed when one of them looked to be seeing stars after slamming both of his fists in the ground, providing an opening for him to strike as he took down one of them, but he almost got hit by another incoming cannonball in the process. “Okay, that guy is just being annoying…”

So, instead of focusing on the other ironclad now, he focused his energy on the Greeble Blunderbuss that was shooting the cannonballs at him, using his fire dash to dodge several shots and closing in while the greeble was trying to reload. This made it much easier for Calvin to try and focus on the final opponent without having to worry about a cannonball hitting him in the process. “Okay now. Just wait for him to attack first… let his guard down, and-”

Of course, what he did not expect was for the crystal around his neck to glow again, which caused him to revert back to his human form as he stared directly at the greeble. “…… Oh, come on!” Luckily though, before the ironclad could do anything, that was when King Pen let out a powerful Frost Breath from his beak to freeze the Greeble in place.

“Well, seems like everyone has their limits…” the penguin sensei said to him as he had the frozen Greeble fall over and shatter to pieces. “But I think this could serve as the perfect chance for a break. I must say though, you are a pretty fast learner. Handled the basics in no time at all.”

“Um… thanks?” Calvin said in response, a little bit unsure if that was supposed to be a compliment or not, before asking King Pen a question. “So, how well did you think I did?”

“Well, like I said, you handled the basics well,” the penguin began to explain as Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie trotted down to where they were beside Calvin. “You’re doing quite well with your elemental powers, but the only thing I can think of is that you need to practice your secret technique more. Whichever you decide to go with is your choice, but you should find a way to practice this and your other abilities as much as possible.”

“He’s got a point: Practice makes perfect,” Rainbow added, which made Pinkie Pie chuckle as the pegasus looked back at her friend. “What? What’s so funny, Pinkie?”

“Oh, silly Dashie… It’s silly to hear you say that given how much time everypony finds you napping in the clouds,” Pinkie giggled.

“She’s got a point there,” Calvin then added.

“You two aren’t helping…” Rainbow deadpanned.

“In any case,” King Pen now spoke up, catching their attention as they all looked back at the sensei now. “Even though I would want to continue testing your abilities, I don’t want to keep you away from your home too long. So, how about this…? Calvin.”

“Y-yes, sensei?” Calvin asked, sounding a bit caught off guard at first.

“I’m going to give you a week in order to try and practice your secret technique and hone your skills,” the sensei told him. “When we meet again, I will have you run through the same test that I had you go through just now, only with more enemies, so I don’t want you to end up sleeping on the job, like your friend here.”

“H-hey!! Not cool!” Rainbow Dash said, not really liking being called out like that.

“Technically, I am cool,” King Pen smirked, causing the pegasus to facehoof herself. “However, I don’t see laziness as cool. Perseverance is the key to anything, and it can help you with any door, except those weird lock puzzle ones.” That had Calvin chuckle a little bit while Pinkie Pie just tilted her head, a little puzzled by what the sensei just said as she was trying to understand it. “So, with that in mind, I’ll see you next week… Have a good day now.”

“You too, sensei,” Calvin replied back as he began to leave the dojo with Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash right next to him. And then, one of them asked him something.

“So, Calvin... can you show us this ‘shortcut’ that you were talking about earlier?” the pegasus that was next to him asked.

“Oh, you mean the M.A.P.?” Calvin asked the two of them, which left Rainbow blinking for a moment before shaking her head.

“That’s literally the second time I’ve heard that, and nopony’s actually explained to me what the hay that is,” Rainbow sighed, recalling her earlier conversation with Spitfire not too long ago. “Is it just some fancy way to say map?”

“Technically, it actually means something,” the skyshifter explained as they reached the entrance that linked Skylander academy to the M.A.P. as all three of them stepped through the portal that connected the two of them. Once they actually reached their destination, both Rainbow and Pinkie were rather surprised to see the massive collection of floating islands that were all together in a single place. “M.A.P. literally stands for ‘Mysterious Ancient Place’. Mysterious because of how many different locations in skylands that skylanders can travel to through here, Ancient because it was home to the original ancients a very long time ago… and honestly, Spitfire thinks that they added place at the end so the acronym stands out as ‘map’.”

“That would explain a lot…” Dash said, still amazed by all the things that were here as she and Pinkie continued to follow Calvin over to where there looked to be some kind of brick wall with a eight pointed star, the skylands symbol for magic. As they approached the wall, the bricks began to split apart, opening a pathway for all three of them to pass through and up a stairwell.

Only to find themselves walking up to what looked to be one of the rooms in Twilight’s castle as he looked back at his friends. “So, how’s that for a shortcut?”

“That’s… actually pretty convenient,” Rainbow replied back, while Pinkie Pie nodded her head in response as well. Of course, it was around this time that somepony else soon noticed them as they began to hear her voice from the other end of the hall.

“There you are,” Twilight said, letting out a sigh of relief and wiping her forehead with her left forehoof as she looked back at all three of them. “I was beginning to wonder where you were at.”

“Hey, Twilight,” Calvin greeted the alicorn as he entered the main hall of the castle while Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie decided to sit down at their respective chairs around the cutie map. “How was your trip to Canterlot?”

“It was pretty good-” Twilight replied, before her assistant soon cut her off.

“-Until she realized that she forgot to tell Rainbow and Pinkie where exactly you were going and freaked out for five minutes,” Spike added on as everypony was now looking at him. “What? It’s true.”

“Yeah… funny story about that,” the skyshifter replied, soon scratching the back of his head as he looked back at the alicorn. “Rainbow and Pinkie actually came looking for me and found their way up to Skylander Academy.”

Hearing that had the alicorn look back at Pinkie Pie, before looking back at Calvin and trying to understand what he just said. “Okay… how-?”

“Perhaps we should tell her the full story,” Rainbow then spoke up, straightening up her posture as she looked back at them. “It first started when Pinkie and I came to check in on Calvin earlier today…”

Meanwhile…

Inside Kaos’ fortress of doom and despair, the dark portal master right now had the utter displeasure of telling his newest ally about the one thing he detests just about as much as he detests about the Skylanders. That, of course, being his mother. Even though she herself was as skilled of a dark portal master as he was, his mother would always try to criticize him for everything that he did poorly, from failed conquest attempts to flawed schemes to even his ego, depending on the situation.

However, Sombra only saw this as one side to the story and also only one opinion about him. So, when Kaos left in order to go take a shower, he then asked Glumshanks about Kaos’ mother and what he found out from him was much different. Turns out, her name was actually Kaossandra and unlike how he treats those under his command, she sounded rather… different.

For one thing, she treated her underlings rather well, going as far as to play games and enjoy treats with them, instead of taking out her frustration on them, like that of her son. Another was that her actions seemed more planned out, unlike that of Kaos, using specific strategies to catch the Skylanders by surprise instead of throwing everything that they had at the enemy.

It was all the more reason to have her as an ally, despite Kaos’ objections to it. So, after having Glumshanks explain to him what he thought of Kaossandra, Sombra asked the goblin to show him where she was being held now, because if she was able to still send ‘self help books’ to her son, it meant that Kaos must’ve still had possession of the mirror that she was imprisoned in. And, as it turned out, he did.

Where he kept the mirror was actually the part that surprised Sombra personally, because, in his mind, he would think that Kaos would keep a mirror like this in a certain room that he would keep under lock and key. Instead though, that ‘room’ turned out to be the basement that was filled up with junk, oil paintings, what looked like broken wooden dolls and other useless items, with the mirror itself being hidden in the back of the room.

“So… this is the mirror of the one called Kaossandra?” Sombra asked Glumshanks upon the two of them approaching it. “It’s… much bigger than I anticipated.”

“Well, yes… I believe her plan originally was to try and seal the skylanders in the mirror herself as a backup plan,” Glumshanks told him as he looked back at the mirror. “But I think it backfired somehow. Master Kaos never really explained to me how exactly it happened though.”

It was only after the two of them began to speak that they noticed what looked like smoke began to form inside the mirror before they heard a voice. “Who dares disturb my slumber now-?” As the dark portal master known as Kaossandra began to take form inside the mirror, she first happened to notice Glumshanks as he just simply waved. “Oh… why hello there, dear. For a moment, I was expecting Kaos to be here.”

“A-actually, he’s upstairs, taking a shower,” Glumshanks told her, before looking back at Sombra. “However-”

“Allow me,” Sombra interjected as the attention of the dark portal master was now focused on him. “I was told that you were a very strong dark portal master, so I wanted to come see you myself.”

“And you are?” Kaossandra asked, looking at him with a suspicious expression on her face as she folded her arms.

“My name is Sombra. I come from a land below the clouds, and I have been working with your son on his next plan for conquering the Skylands,” Sombra explained to her, before looking back to Glumshanks for a moment. “Glumshanks, could you allow for the two of us to speak in private? I would very much appreciate it.”

All the goblin did was just nod his head as he made his way to the basement door, flicking on the lightswitch for them before closing the door as Sombra continued where he left off. “Now, as I was saying… I’m working with your son on his next plan for conquering the Skylands. And it is something that I would like for you to be a part of.”

Kaossandra, looking back at Sombra now, just scratched her chin before letting out a low sigh. “As tempting as that sounds, I would not be of much help inside of this forsaken mirror.”

That had Sombra curious as the shadow king raised an eyebrow, but then, he thought of something. “You don’t need to worry. You won’t be in there for long.” Before Kaossandra could say anything, the red horn that belonged to Sombra glowed brightly as the magic from it began to cover the entire mirror. In a matter of seconds, the shadow king used his power to form a crack in the mirror itself, providing an opening for him as Sombra used his magic to be able to pull Kaossandra out of the mirror that was originally her prison as it fell onto the floor and shattered into pieces.

“Wow… all that power, and you say that you aren’t from Skylands at all?” she asked, brushing off some dust that was on her shoulder as the two of them heard the basement door open.

“Is everything okay down there?” Glumshanks asked. “I thought I heard something break.”

All Sombra did was smile as he followed Kaossandra to the set of stairs leading out of the basement, allowing for the dark portal master to go first as she spoke up. “Why yes, everything is just splendid, dear…”

“M-ma’am? H-how did you-?” Glumshanks asked, but his sentence was cut off as Sombra soon went up the stairs alongside that of Kaossandra.

“I let her out,” Sombra simply replied, “I thought it would be better to have more than one dark portal master help with our plans. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my partner.”

“Well said,” Kaossandra complimented the shadow king. “Now… would you mind giving me the grand tour of my son’s new lair, Glumshanks? I think this has been… oh, I don’t know, the third time that he’s had to move.” The goblin nodded, before guiding the two of them through the halls of Kaos’ new labyrinth.

The one thing that they did not see at all though… was the dark violet feline that was hanging from the wooden rafters, spying on the three of them as the only thing that was left behind was a series of lavender pawprints.

End Scroll 15

Scroll 16- Fright Night

Author's Note

Thanks for being patient with me on this one. I came up with this specifically for when ~~Halloween~~ Nightmare Night comes around and I hope you guys like what I have in store. Plus, for those who have read one of my other stories, you might get a special treat at the end.
-Frost

Scroll 16- Fright Night

Beyond the Skies- Fright Night

It had been around two weeks since he had his first lesson with the sensei named King Pen, and in that time, Calvin had been taking part in a few additional lessons with the sensei. Some even took place back outside of the academy so that he wasn’t just comfortable with one kind of environment. King Pen and another sensei brawler that he happened to meet, named Air Strike, saw it as important for him to be comfortable to the changing environments, whether he was in a zone that was specifically strong for fire type skylanders or something completely different. That, and also the greebles that Buzz kept ordering with the Minions Monthly catalogue weren’t going to prepare him against other types of bad guys outside the academy.

Back in Equestria though, it was now in mid fall, and the month of October had just begun, meaning that there was one holiday that everypony this year seemed to be looking forward to the most: Nightmare Night. But unfortunately for Calvin… during the first week that he was noticing the changes, he had no idea what exactly they were talking about or why everypony was so excited for it. By the time that the decorations were being brought up and he saw some ponies carving out pumpkins for jack o’lanterns, he began to wonder if this ‘Nightmare Night’ was just another way to say Halloween.

There was only one way that he could confirm his suspicions though. Like his mother back home would tell him all the time, if you don’t know something… just ask the question. “Hey, Twilight… What’s Nightmare Night?”

In the moment that Twilight heard that question being asked, she was in the middle of having some cookies with milk while reading a new book that just came in for her. And as she heard that, the alicorn almost swallowed too much of her cookie without chewing it first as she was forced to cough it up in a trash can. “I-I’m sorry, what was that, Calvin?”

“Nightmare Night,” he repeated to her, “I keep hearing everypony talk about it, but nopony has really told me what it is… So, what is it?”

That… took a few seconds for Twilight in order to process, before she closed her book with her magic and set it back down on the cutie map table in the center of her castle. “Well…” she paused for a moment, realizing a new dilemma. Normally, when somepony would ask her what something was, she would give a rather long explanation that was full of information. But for someone of Calvin’s age, she needed to find a way to condense that kind of explanation to where it was somewhat shorter. “Nightmare Night’s a holiday at the end of the month, where everypony dresses up and goes door to door in order to get candy from other ponies houses. Mayor Mare also has the town set up some games for everypony to play, too-”

“That kind of sounds like Halloween back home.” Upon hearing that, the princess twitched. She honestly had no idea what kind of holidays or festivities Calvin had back home, and just now, he told her that one of Equestria’s own holidays sounded a lot like something back from his home. “Uh… are you okay?”

“W-wha-?” Twilight replied back, shaking her head before looking back at Calvin and chuckling a small bit. “O-of course, I’m fine! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well… you were kind of staring off into space just now,” he pointed out to her, before following up with something else to ask her. “You know, when I mentioned the whole thing with Halloween just now.”

It was when he mentioned the name of that holiday again though that it gave the Princess of Friendship an idea as to something that she wanted to ask him. “Actually… now that you mention it, I’m kind of curious about this ‘Halloween’ that you mentioned. What is it like?”

“Well, it's kind of similar to what you were saying about Nightmare Night,” he explained to her. “It happens on the last day of October, where everyone, whether it be kids or adults, would go door to door around their neighborhood to go trick or treating. And when you mentioned the activities around Ponyville, that reminded me of a halloween festival that was held at the church near my neighborhood.”

At first, Twilight just blinked… but then looked back at Calvin with eyes of wonder and curiosity. “Wow! I never knew that your world had a holiday that was similar to ours.”

“And I honestly did not know that you guys had a holiday that was similar to one of mine,” Calvin replied back to her, before realizing something, “Though… now that I think of it… I just realized something.”

“Hunh? What is it?” The Princess of Friendship now wondered, a little curious to hear what he had just thought of.

“I don’t have anything that could serve as a costume,” he replied back to her as he put his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “I mean, the only clothes that I technically have are these ones, the training clothes from King Pen, and that other suit that Rarity gave me… You know, the one that didn’t burn to a crisp at the gala?”

Twilight remembered… and then realized that Calvin brought up a rather valid point. He didn’t have anything that could technically qualify as a ‘costume’ for Nightmare Night, but she did think of somepony who could help make one for him. “Well, maybe Rarity could make one for you? She did help us with our costumes before.”

“Yeah, but it’s hard to think of something when you don’t exactly know what you want to be,” the skyshifter replied back. “Almost every time I’ve been out for halloween, I’ve seen kids dress up as superheroes, characters from movies or TV shows, movie monsters and so on. And it’s a little hard to think of something when… well… when thinking about all of this reminds me of before I came here.”

Twilight knew what he meant, especially when Calvin told him about how he missed his family and the place that he called home. And since then, the Princess of Friendship was doing everything she could with the help of her friends to make Ponyville seem more like a home to him, just like how her friends helped make this castle more like a home to her as she looked at the chandelier that was hanging above their heads. “Well… let’s see… Back in your world, do you have movies?”

“Yeah, I do. When I was younger, mom and I would reserve friday nights as movie night,” he replied back, nodding his head in confirmation.

“Well… why don’t you think of a character from your favorite movie, and when we go over to the carousel boutique later, you can describe them to Rarity and I? Maybe even draw them out for her. She did say that she prefers visual references when a customer has a specific request for her to make,” she suggested to him as she trotted over to grab some parchment and a couple of pencils.

For Calvin though… nothing really seemed to click at first. He couldn’t exactly remember the last time that he saw a movie or what exactly that movie was or any others. But… there was one exception, that being one of the first movies that he saw when he was younger. One that would forever be one of his favorites.

“My word, these designs! That cloak! This is MARVELOUS!!!” An overly dazzled Rarity proclaimed as she disappeared into the back of her design studio to get the necessary materials that she needed. In that same moment though, Twilight was trying to understand more as to what Calvin had shown her… or more importantly, try to make sense of what it was.

“So… this character is supposed to be a wizard?” she asked, holding the piece of parchment that Rarity dropped on the floor in her mad dash of inspiration.

“Yeah. He’s in one of the first movies I saw when I was younger,” the skyshifter replied back to him. “He’s a wizard named Howl that lives in a moving castle-”

“Wait… moving castle?” Twilight then asked, trying to picture a castle like that of Canterlot actually moving on its own. “How does such an idea even work?

“Well, yeah, the movie is called Howl’s Moving Castle…” he told her, looking back at the princess as he took a seat in a nearby chair. “As for how it works… well, I’d rather not go into details, because it would kind of spoil the movie. And Spike told me that you had a strict rule of no spoilers for anything you haven’t seen or read back at the castle.”

That… was true. She had to put that rule in place when she was able to finally get Rainbow Dash to stop borrowing her Daring Do books, only to read the newest one and finish it before Twilight could be able to start it. It’s one of the reasons why she hated last minute meetings with delegates, especially when it cut into her ‘reading time’. “Tell you what… if somehow, you happen to meet another one of those displaced again and you get a copy of that movie from them, I’ll see it with you.”

“Really? You would do that?” Calvin then asked her, a bit surprised to hear such a proposal from her.

“Yes, I would,” Twilight said with a confident smile on her face. She was glad to see Calvin look happy in response to her offer, because no matter how hectic life would be like for somepony like her, she would find a way in order to be able to help him out and spend time with him. That, and she did need a break from the job of being a Princess every now and then. “Besides, it would be an interesting change of pace to see a movie from your world.”

“Really? I don’t really think the movies we have are that different,” Calvin replied back as he scratched the top of his head. “I mean… There are a lot of types, but back home, I couldn’t see a lot of them because of what they were rated.”

“There are ratings to those movies?”

“Well, yeah… I don’t remember them all or what some of them stand for, but I remember that some movies were G, PG, PG-13 and then there were those that were R rated. I just knew that R meant restricted, and that I couldn’t see PG-13 movies unless I had an adult with me, because I wasn’t old enough.” When Twilight heard Calvin explain that to her, she thought about how some of the things that were said were almost exactly the same. From what she knew, the rating system for movies sounded similar, with some being movies being for general audiences while others required a parent or legal guardian to be with a child if they were too young.

But instead of wanting to ask about that though, Twilight thought of a different question to ask. “Hey, Calvin… What kinds of movies do you like?”

“Well, it depends… though, it’s hard to think of all of them right now. Besides… it would be a bit hard to explain a majority of them, because back home…” For a moment, he stopped. Trying to think of the right words to say before he would tell the Princess what he was thinking. “Not every movie’s the same. There are a bunch of different types. Some that I have seen are movies that are based on actual stories and events, some are based on comics, books and games-”

“You mean like adaptations of a popular book into a movie?” she asked, surprised that such a thing existed in his world as well as in Equestria.

“Yeah, exactly like that! Though, I suppose it depends on what you are into…” Calvin replied back. “Though… sometimes some of the stuff my mom watches is a bit scary, and… well, creepy.”

That… had Twilight raise an eyebrow for a moment as she looked back at the young boy, a bit curious as she proceeded to ask a follow up question. “How so? Was she into scary movies?”

“I… don’t know. But one time when I was younger, I woke up late, because I needed to use the bathroom… and while I was up, she was watching this old movie, and one of the characters was trying to hide from something… before an axe came through the wooden wall they were hiding behind, and whoever was there said ‘Here’s Johnny!’. I… used to have nightmares about that same guy breaking through our home the same way.”

Twilight blinked upon hearing that. Even though she didn’t have much context, hearing that alone sent a shiver down her spine. Luckily though, she didn’t have to think about it much as Rarity soon trotted back into the room. “Calvin, dear… Can I borrow you for a second?”

“Um… Sure, I guess,” he replied back. “What is it?”

“Well, I was really tempted to begin your outfit, but I wanted to double check to see that your measurements were correct,” the seamstress replied back, “because it looks like you’ve grown a bit since the last time I saw you at the boutique.”

“I have?” he asked, looking around for a moment as stretching out the shirt that he had on. “I don’t feel like I’ve grown… but if you think it’s a good idea, then why not?”

“Thank you, darling. I was wanting to make sure that your measurements were accurate, so you could be as comfortable as possible when it's time for you to wear it,” Rarity replied back as she had Calvin follow her into the back of the boutique, using her magic to get some measuring tape so she could be able to start getting the measurements that she needed.

She first started with getting his height from head to toe, before measuring his arms, legs, waist, ankles, and wrists. Recording the results on a clipboard that had his previous measurements, Rarity jotted down the results down after each measurement. Though, it was when she was finished that Calvin then found it as the right time for him to ask a particular question. “So… out of curiosity, what do you girls normally do during Hallo- I mean Nightmare Night?”

“Well… most of us normally participate in the things going on around town,” Twilight replied back.

“Wait… Most of you?” Calvin questioned after hearing that. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well…” For a moment, the Princess of Friendship looked back at Rarity for a moment, before letting out a sigh as she looked back at Calvin after a few moments. “Fluttershy doesn’t really take part in Nightmare Night because of how easily scared she gets. Last year, she boarded up the windows and doors to her cottage and just waited it out until morning.”

“Oh… wow, I’m sorry to hear that. She’s… really missing out. Being scared sometimes is part of the whole experience,” he replied back. “What about everypony else?”

“Well, if I remember correctly, Applejack told me that her family are doing a haunted corn maze by Sweet Apple Acres this year that Granny Smith’s running,” Rarity then chimed into the conversation. “Though, I haven’t heard much as to what everypony else is planning this year.”

“Do you think it would be possible that something would be done at the school where Sweetie Belle and her friends go, too? Like a festival?” Calvin then asked.

“It’s… possible. But normally, if such a thing were to occur, we would be notified about it sooner,” Twilight replied back. “If many ponies were to host a big festival for a holiday such as this, sometimes ponies from the school would either go door to door in order to inform them about what’s going on. Otherwise, the mayor's office will get flooded with noise complaints.”

Around the time that Princess Twilight said that, they all heard the door to the boutique open up as somepony entered the building. And soon, they realized who that somepony was. “Rarity, I’m home!”

“I’m getting a weird feeling that you spoke too soon,” the Skyshifter told both Twilight and Rarity as the mares looked at each other for a moment, puzzled expressions on their faces as they tried to make sense of what he was saying.

“What do you mean, Calvin?” All Calvin did was point to the filly as both of them turned back to Sweetie Belle. This time, they were seeing her hold an orange piece of parchment in her hooves, as well as what looked like a notepad, but the parchment itself looked to resemble that of a flyer as three words stood out across the top of the page.

Nightmare Night Carnival.

“I saw a couple other ponies around Sweetie Belle’s age leaving the schoolhouse with the same flyer, so I kind of guessed she had one like this,” he then added on as Sweetie Belle now came trotting over to them, carrying the flyer with her magic as she set it on the table where Rarity was recording Calvin’s measurements.

“Sweetie Belle, dear,” Rarity then spoke up, putting the quill that she was using down on the table with her magic as she now picked up the new piece of paper. “What is this for?”

“Well, all of us got it on the way out from school today. The girls and I were thinking that we could go help out or just have fun there, since you normally spend Nightmare Night with Twilight and the rest of your friends,” Sweetie Belle replied, before noticing that Calvin was actually in the same room as a small look of embarrassment was present on her face. “O-oh... hi, Calvin. I d-didn’t see you there.”

“Hello, Sweetie Belle,” the boy said, waving to the filly with his hand, now that he didn’t have to hold his arms in an upright T position. “Rarity was just getting my measurements so she could help me with my Nightmare Night costume.”

“Oh, cool!” she replied back, before thinking of something. “Hey, I got an idea… How about you come hang out with the girls and I for Nightmare Night? The carnival’s supposed to have a lot of carnival games, catering from Sugarcube Corner, and many other fun things, too! Plus, Twilight won’t have to worry about having to keep an eye on you all the time.”

“Uh, Sweetie Belle? Why would you think I would be worried?” Twilight then asked.

“Actually… she brings up a good point,” Calvin admitted as he looked back at the alicorn now. “I’d rather not have you worry about trying to keep an eye on me while also trying to have fun with everypony else.”

Personally, Twilight was a little bit unsure of what to say. She wanted to make sure that he had fun, since this was his first Nightmare Night, but she also wanted to be there in case something did not go well for him. But then again, if his response to wanting to go to Griffonstone was anything, she didn’t want to come off sounding like the ‘adoptive mother’ again.

“Well, if you think it’s a good idea, then I’m fine with it,” the alicorn now replied, looking back to Calvin. “It’s still a bit of a ways though. It’s three weeks until Nightmare Night, so it would give you some time to see what you want to do with Sweetie Belle and her friends.”

“Thanks, Twilight!” Before she could react, Calvin pulled her into a hug that accidentally yanked a bit on the back of her neck before turning towards Sweetie Belle, the filly taking him towards their clubhouse so they could be able to come up with some special plans for the carnival… all while Rarity looked back at Twilight for a moment.

“You okay, darling?”

“Y-yeah... I just… didn’t expect for him to pull on my neck like that…” she said, holding a hoof up. “J-just give me a moment.”

Meanwhile…

“Ugh! Mother?! What is the meaning of this!?!” Kaos shouted as he stomped through the door of his study in the castle, only to find none other than his mother inside. Over the last two weeks, he was trying to comprehend the fact that Sombra somehow had the power to let his mother out of the mirror prison of oblivion that she was once in. That, also the constant nitpicking and his mother talking about how exactly she would do things as a way to try to get him to learn something. “What are you doing in my study?!!”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Kaossandra replied to her son, who was standing at the table as she was preparing to perform a spell as a crystal ball stood in the center of the table.

“You are standing… in… MY STUDY!!” Kaos snapped again.

“Aside from that.”

“Well… what exactly are you doing anyways?!” That just had Kaossandra let out a deep sigh as she snapped a finger, causing the crystal ball to light up as she looked back at her son.

“I’m about to perform a scrying spell using the crystal ball here. Your new ally, Sombra, has told me much about the world below the Skylands. But with this, we could actually be able to see what it’s like down there.” That had Kaos stop talking, making himself think about why he didn’t think of such a thing sooner as he watched his mother cast her magic from a nearby chair. Originally, the crystal ball that was on the table was about the size of a ball from a game the Mabu would play called ‘Soccer’, but as she channeled more power, she had the ball grow in size, so both of them could be able to see what was there.

Though, after a few moments of cloudy smoke, what they did find was… to put it lightly, what they didn’t expect. It was a town that was on solid ground. Not an island like that of most of the skylands, but real solid ground. They first saw a huge banner that read ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ against an orange banner as they watched multiple different species of ponies putting up decorations, such as paper cutouts of spiders and bats as well as carving out pumpkins. A few of them were even holding up what looked like strange outfits as they watched some put on what Kaos saw as the dog spawn of trees.

They were able to see a few more places over the course of the spell, including what looked like a crystalline tree palace… which Kaos saw as infuriating, given it’s the one kind of tree that he could not be able to cut or burn down, a red barn with numerous apple trees and back in town, a pastry shop that looked like a gingerbread house. But it was as they were closing in that they heard something let out what could be described as a gigglesnort.

Just before the pony that Kaos saw as the living embodiment of pink pop in out of nowhere. “Oooooooh!! Hi there, snoopy bad guys!!”

“AHH!!” That moment caused Kaos to fall back off of his chair and back onto the floor as his mother just raised an eyebrow, before saying something herself as she let out a small chuckle.

“Oh, so THAT’S how it feels like… No wonder it was so fun to do that to the Portal Masters.”

“Oh, brilliant…” the two portal masters now heard a third voice enter the room as Sombra made his presence known. “Just what exactly are they doing now?”

“Hmm…” Kaossandra scratched her chin for a moment, before thinking of something. “Judging from what I’ve seen, some of the decorations and things that they are doing are no different from a holiday that some islands celebrate called Hallow’s Eve.”

“And how does that holiday work exactly?” Sombra now asked.

“Well, for one night of the year, children from all around the island… or Skylands in some cases, would dress up in costumes and go door to door all around the neighborhood, asking for candy. A process that they call ‘trick or treating’,” the dark portal master replied back now, “And judging from the brief glimpses of what we’ve seen, this looks no different.”

“Pfft, big deal! It’s a stupid holiday to get candy! How is this supposed to help us with our SINISTERLY EVIL plans for domination, mother?!”

“If you would let me finish…” Kaossandra glared back at her son, who just pouted as she picked up where she left off. “I believe this may provide us an opportunity. With the festivities of the holiday and the fact that everyone down there is dressing up, it is more than likely that we could send in a few minions in order to survey around the town, disguised as some of the creatures of their world.”

“And why would we do that?”

“If you were paying attention, some of their costumes looked to resemble that of ferocious creatures, such as dragons and the like… It still looks to be in the early stages, but I guarantee you one thing. When they hold that celebration… we’ll be ready,” she assured him. “Especially when they won’t be able to tell a costume from the real thing.”

The days that lead up to Nightmare Night flew by particularly fast for Calvin as everyday had something new come up. A few days after originally coming into Carousel Boutique, Rarity had finished his costume and asked him to come over again to try it on so he could feel comfortable moving around in it before the carnival. It wouldn’t look good for him to accidentally trip over any part of his costume that was too long, so this allowed for both the seamstress to make any final adjustments and for the boy to provide her feedback on those adjustments.

But it wasn’t just the final details of his costume that he had to work out though. There was also what he and the rest of Sweetie Belle’s friends were planning to do during the carnival. Several of the ponies that were in their class were either going to be participating in some of the major events of the carnival or volunteer at the carnival to get extra credit for their grade. Some ponies, such as a young pegasus colt named Rumble, had family members that were going to be volunteering for several of the carnival games that would be happening tonight.

As he let out a deep breath, he now stepped out of the carousel boutique. Looking more like that of Howl Pendragon as he began to walk around in his outfit towards the castle of friendship. The plan was for him to meet with Sweetie Belle and the others outside the castle since Spike was going to be joining them this evening for the carnival by their school. Though, it was as he was walking that somepony accidentally bumped into him… and when he turned around, he found that it was the last pony that he honestly expected to see.

“Fluttershy?”

The timid pegasus looked up, scared at first. Only to realize who exactly was talking to her a few seconds later. “C-calvin? Is that you?”

He first nodded in response to the pegasus’ question, before taking a moment to speak. “Yeah… Rarity made this costume for me, so my appearance is kind of different from what I normally wear,” Calvin explained to her, before looking around and asking a question. “So… where are you going? I can walk you over there if you like.”

“A-actually, I was just heading to the c-castle…” she said, shivering a little at the sight of somepony that was dressed up as a creature in the Everfree Forest called a Manticore.

“Oh, cool. That’s where I’m headed, too,” he replied back to her. “Wanna join me?”

“S-sure,” the pegasus squeaked, before scurrying over to his left side to hide from the light that was being given off from a pair of jack o'lanterns on somepony’s front porch, slowly following behind Calvin as he made his way to Twilight’s castle. When they made it, the two of them saw no sign of the Cutie Mark Crusaders anywhere as they entered the castle, just the sound of thunder going off as they walked through the castle doors.

“T-twilight? Hello?” Fluttershy asked, before letting out a scream as she saw what looked like a two headed dragon… or more likely, Spike in a suit that made him look like one as he chuckled a little bit.

“If you think that’s scary, wait till it’s done!” the dragon replied, before looking to Calvin. “Hey, Calvin, you look rather nice.”

“Why, thank you,” he replied back, bowing in respect since it would be something that Howl would do. “I appreciate the compliment.”

“I-I’ll just take your word for it,” Fluttershy responded, looking away for a moment, just as Spike soon realized something.

“Hey, wait a minute! It’s Nightmare Night, and you’re here instead of being holed up in your cottage,” the dragon spoke up as the pegasus now turned back towards him. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

Fluttershy, though, had a swift retort for the dragon. “That I foolishly forgot to stock up on food for Angel and had to go out to get something, but got spooked in town and come here hoping that Twilight had some lettuce I could give him.”

“I’ll just… wait outside,” Calvin said, before stepping out and leaving Fluttershy as Spike continued to talk without interrupting them. The Skyshifter himself didn’t mind waiting, but as he leaned against the outer walls of the castle, he turned his head to see Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, all in their Nightmare Night costumes and racing to join up with him. Apple Bloom was wearing a costume that made him think of a scarecrow, Scootaloo was wearing what appeared to be some kind of racing suit with a pair of goggles around her neck and Sweetie Belle herself had what looked like the robe of a wizard, fancy hat included. “Hey, girls.”

“There you are, Calvin!” Sweetie Belle proclaimed as the three fillies rushed over to him, only to notice that someone else was missing in that moment. “Where’s Spike? I thought he was going to be with you?”

“He’s putting the final touches on his costume,” the Skyshifter replied back to them, “Speaking of costumes, I like the ones you guys are wearing. What did you guys choose to be this year?”

“Ah’m a scarecrow!” Applebloom declared, moving her front hooves as he saw some of the straws of hay sticking out of the sleeves of the checkered shirt she was wearing.

“I’m a junior cadet of the wonderbolts!” Scootaloo spoke up next, striking a heroic pose as the lightning bolts on her suit began to flicker.

“And I’m a traveling wizard-” Sweetie Belle was going to try and get into a pose as well, but the hat she was wearing fell off her head and began to roll away from her. “Oh no!”

Calvin just smiled in response, before pushing himself off of the castle and grabbing the hat for Sweetie Belle before it can rolled off anywhere. Thinking of something to say, he looked back at the young unicorn and pretended to be the character he was dressed up as. “You’re wearing this hat? After all the effort your sister did to make you look pretty?” smiling, he gave the hat back as Scootaloo and Applebloom just stared at him.

“Um… what was all that about?”

“Oh, right. I almost forgot,” he replied, before turning towards the rest of the fillies, “My costume is based off a character in a movie I love named Howl. Just now, I recited one of the lines he would say… just with a few changes.”

“Oh, so this is what that wizard guy in the moving castle looks like,” Scootaloo then replied back, looking back at Apple Bloom for a moment before returning her gaze to Sweetie Belle and Calvin. “Gotta admit, when I heard you say you were going to be a wizard, I thought it would be something similar to that of Sweetie Belle’s costume, or more like the one Twilight did last year.”

“You really think I would try to go for the bearded guy? This one’s supposed to be of his apprentice, Clover the Clever!” Sweetie Belle pouted as she looked back at her friends. “She’s supposed to be WAY cooler-”

“Uh… Sweetie… Clover the Clever was a guy.”

“WHAT!?” Just as the fillies began to discuss among themselves and almost get to the point that they were bickering with each other, that’s when Calvin turned to see that Spike was coming outside. And he was startled by what he was seeing.

“Uh… what’s going on?”

“Scootaloo kind of dropped a bombshell on Sweetie Belle and told her that somepony called Clover the Clever was actually a he instead of a she.”

“Oh, that?” the dragon asked. “Everypony knows that by now.”

“Seriously?!!” They both heard Sweetie Belle cry out as they looked back at the trio, who were just now noticing that Spike was outside as he let out a deep breath.

“And just when I thought Fluttershy actually taking part in Nightmare Night was a bit of an eye opener,” he mumbled, before trying to change the topic of the conversation. “On a different note, I like all of your costumes.”

“Thanks,” Apple Bloom replied back. “We’ve all been working very hard on these!”

“I’m betting that everypony else we’re going to see at the carnival is going to say the same thing,” Spike replied back, before thinking of a different question to ask. “Speaking of which, you girls have any idea who's going to be there?”

“Well, I know that Rumble’s going to be there,” Scootaloo spoke up first. “His brother’s volunteering at one of the games this year. Though, I can’t say I know which one it is, specifically.”

“Ah think Diamond and Silver are going to be there, too, though her parents are gone on a business trip.”

Hearing those names had a brief memory come back in Calvin’s head, the one where a huge chompy pod was in the school garden, and those two fillies automatically assumed it was the Cutie Mark Crusader’s fault, even though they were in another place entirely. In fact, part of him hoped that the two of them learned their lesson and not automatically pointed fingers… or hooves at ponies they could not tolerate. But that was not the focus for tonight. Tonight was just about having fun with friends… well, there was also getting candy, too, but that was more of a bonus.

Though, it was just as they made it that they happened to notice one of the main attractions that was getting a lot of attention to the carnival… and the disgruntled pegasus that was sitting at the top of it. “I can’t believe you’re having me do this, Soarin. You told me that this was supposed to be a carnival game, not dunk the pegasus into a freezing tank of water!”

“Hey, it’s not my idea for this either. Yet, Bulk’s too big to fit in there, and Rainbow’s not going to be with us tonight. Plus, you did hear the captain earlier,” the pegasus replied back as he finished what looked to be a slice of apple pie as he turned to his friend. “Once you fall in, we trade off, and then, I get to sit up there.”

“And so far, it’s been nearly half an hour, and almost everypony who has tried has either missed or not hit it hard enough in order to knock me in,” the pegasus up top grumbled. “What did I ever do to you in another life to deserve something like this?!”

The commotion from both of the pegasi soon caught Calvin’s attention, turning towards Scootaloo for a moment as he looked at the filly. “Hey, do you happen to know who that guy is up there?”

“Oh, him?” the filly asked, looking back at the stallion up top. “That’s Thunderlane. He’s part of the Wonderbolts, like Rainbow Dash. If he’s nearby, then maybe Rumble’s here, too.”

“I’m right here…” they all heard what sounded like a disgruntled colt say to them as they looked at Rumble, who was dressed in what looked like a pegasi royal legion uniform. But instead of carrying a shield, he was stuck with holding a cardboard sign that pointed at the dunk tank.

“Rumble, there you are,” Spike then let out a sigh of relief. “Are you okay? What’s up?”

“Well… my brother’s not letting me leave until he gets dunked once. Then again, he would’ve thought that some ponies had better aiming when it comes to throwing.”

That… gave the girls an idea, as they all went up to Soarin, now asking for some balls as they had their turns to try and hit the target. Most of their throws were dead on, but it was when one from Spike that hit the target, pushed it back a few centimeters… and did nothing to Thunderlane that really got Calvin’s attention.

“Wait just a minute. That was right on point! How come he didn’t get knocked in?” Calvin then asked.

“Well, hello there…” Soarin said, now noticing him as he looked directly at him. “You see, you have to knock it back much farther in order to get him to fall. What’s the matter? You kids giving up?”

Calvin looked back at Scootaloo, who was being held back by her friends like she wanted to smack the Wonderbolt upside his face as he looked back at one of the balls on the table. Picking one up, he then looked back at the target and back at Soarin as he let out a deep breath.

“Okay… my turn.” Before Soarin could say anything cocky in response to the boy, Calvin held back his arms and threw the ball forward. Launching off, it knocked the plate back far enough to be able to have Thunderlane do an unexpected dunk in the water as his teammate just stared blankly, still trying to process what in the world just happened.

All before Scootaloo said two words to proclaim their victory. “Knocked OVER!!!”

Calvin was glad that it worked out, but as he looked back towards his friends, a small glimpse of something in the left hand corner made him a small bit uneasy. He thought he saw the shadow of a greeble. And not just one, but a few. At first, he tried to ignore it… though, when this began to happen again and again while he was out with the Cutie Mark Crusaders and they were having fun and games, he felt as if he needed to do something about it.

“Hey, Spike, where’s the restroom at?”

“Uh, it should be outside the carnival and to the left.”

“Thanks,” he replied back. But the moment that Spike’s back was turned, he moved in the opposite direction, outside the carnival and towards the backside of the school house. Holding the crystal around his neck and concentrating, he chanted a phrase he once said before as green magic began to flow from his hands. “Silent, but deadly…”

The green magic formed that of a leaf on the ground as Stealth Elf soon appeared in front of him. Only this time, she was wearing the ninja costume that Calvin remembered her having in Swap Force. As the elf landed on her feet though, she seemed… a bit puzzled by her surroundings. “Calvin? Is everything okay… and why are you dressed like that?”

“I’m dressed in a costume with my friends… as for your first question though, I’m not sure if everything’s okay,” he replied back to her. “I think there are some greebles trying to hide in among the crowd at the carnival here. If they realize I’m onto them, they might start attacking everypony and cause a scene.”

“So, this is a task that needs to be done quietly?” she asked, which only caused Calvin to nod his head as she spun both of her blades. “Alright. I’ll be out of sight then. Those guys won’t know what hit them.”

“Thanks, Stealth Elf,” he smiled back. “I’ll set aside some candy for you, if you want that later.” All he heard was Stealth Elf chuckle before she disappeared in a puff of green smoke as he walked back over to catch up with the rest of his friends.

“So, Greebles, huh?” Stealth Elf murmured to herself as she jumped onto the top of a building that was overlooking the carnival and the rest of the town. “Shouldn’t be too hard… Now, if I were a greeble, where would I hide?”

The elf scanned over all of the crowd, looking for anything that looked to be seen as ‘out of the ordinary’. Of course, everything in this town could potentially qualify as that… but she was looking for anything that was not either a pony, Calvin, or the dragon that was with him and his friends. She was sure that there was nothing stood out from inside the carnival after looking at the entire venue from three different rooftops.

Though, it was after looking at it for three times when the elf began to look at some of the things that were outside of the carnival that she began to find something. Signs of Greebles. More specifically, a club lying on the ground that a greeble would use… and also, what looked like empty candy wrappers that littered the ground. Following around the corner in a line, Stealth Elf narrowed her eyes. “There we go…”

Leaping back up, she followed the trail from the rooftops, carefully crossing from roof to roof as the life skylander got closer to the source. Turns out, a bunch of greebles had stolen what looked to be candy that was left out on the porches of a few homes, and by the time that Stealth Elf caught up with them, they had cornered one pony in an attempt to steal their candy bag.

“H-hey! Back off, this i-isn’t yours!” the earth pony snapped. She was around the same age as the ponies who were with Calvin at the carnival, but she had a silver mane, grey body and a pair of cyan colored glasses. And judging from her actions alone, she was not quite in a good position at the moment, as one of the greebles just yanked her bag away from her.

“Not on my watch, you don’t.”

Immediately, Stealth Elf’s first action was to somersault forward from where she was on the rooftop, landing in between that of the Greeble and the pony before striking down the greeble with her blades. As the others notices her and began to charge, Stealth Elf clasped her hands and blades together, performing the hand signs that she needed to activate her next move.

“Shadowsbane Blade Dance...”

Instantly, a pair of four magical blades began to float above the ninja, lashing out at the greebles as Stealth Elf went after each one. Of course, it turned out that it wasn’t just the standard rank and file greebles that were here, but there were also a pair of ironclads, which forced the life skylander to have to retreat into stealth and leave a scarecrow dummy of her behind so she could wait until they tired themselves down.

It took around a few minutes, but soon, she was able to defeat all of the Greebles. Putting her blades away, the life skylander turned back to the pony that was still standing there. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah. T-thanks for saving me…” the pony stuttered, before asking a question. “But who, or what, are you though?”

“Well, my name is Stealth Elf and… well, my name pretty much says what I am,” the life skylander replied back. “What’s your name?”

“Silver Spoon,” the filly replied back to her, “H-how did you know that those… things... were here?”

“Well, my friend Calvin thought he saw something-”

“W-wait, you know C-calvin?” Instantly, a small blush formed on the pony’s face, one that was very noticeable to Stealth Elf as Silver tried to look away.

“Yeah… Look, it’s a bit hard to explain, but the point is you’re safe now,” Stealth Elf summarized, attempting to get straight to the main point. “If you go back to the carnival, you’ll find Calvin with a few of his friends. I’ll take care of any more bad guys that’ll show up, okay?”

All Silver Spoon did was nod her head, before picking up her bag and galloping off back towards the carnival as the elf looked back up to the next rooftop, back to searching the town to see if there were any more greebles lurking about.

“Man, that was crazy…” Calvin let out a deep breath as he picked up the complimentary candy bag that they gave to all of the ponies who were at the carnival. It was almost completely filled with candy that he had gotten from all the activities and games that Apple Bloom and her friends were having him come and participate in, despite the fact that keeping up with them was a tricky challenge in itself.

Now though, he was lucky to find a place to sit down and catch his breath as he watched Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders begin to bob for apples. But, before he could even unwrap a candy bar and have a bite, that was when he heard something. “Calvin, can you hear me? …Dang it, leave it to Spitfire to say that something like this is ‘easy’.”

“I hear you, Stealth Elf,” the Skyshifter thought, dropping the piece of candy back into his bag. “Did you find anything?”

“Not just anything. I found exactly what you were concerned about,” the elf replied back. “I’ve already found two groups of greebles within the town, one of which was trying to steal from one of the ponies in the neighborhood. Though, the more that I think about all of this, the more that this doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

“Greebles in Ponyville itself doesn’t make any sense.”

“True, because normally, they don’t usually come this close to a densely populated area. Instead, they attack those who are traveling to and from different places, like merchants,” Stealth Elf added on, the sounds of her walking on rooftops echoing in the background. “If they’re this close, then someone might want for them to be. Like, there’s something here that they want to find, and they’re using the carnival as cover to do it.”

“Okay, but the only question in my mind is… what?” Calvin then thought. “It’s not like Kaos to try to be sneaky. If anything, he goes for the overly huge and dramatic entrances. Like, all the times he uses his big giant floating head as a way to try to induce fear.”

“You’re not wrong there…” the life Skylander replied back, before saying one last thing, “I’m going to be keeping an eye out for any other groups. Oh, and expect a pony named Silver Spoon to be looking for you soon.”

“Wait, what-?”

“Hey, there you are!” the sound of Scootaloo’s voice snapped Calvin back to reality as he looked up to find that there was now one more pony in their small group. “We were wondering where you were at, Silver Spoon. Almost thought that you were too scared to come join us.”

“That’s not it at all! I just got lost. That’s all,” the silver earth pony pouted. She was wearing a blue dress and what looked like a rather big hat with a bow on it. And oddly enough, this reminded Calvin of Sophie, the same character that fell in love with Howl in Howl’s Moving Castle. At first, he thought that was just a coincidence. Though, when Silver actually noticed him, he could actually see what appeared to look like a blush appear all over her face. “O-oh... Hello…”

“Hi there,” he replied back, getting up from his chair and walking over to her and the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “It’s good to see you again… Though, I almost thought you were here with your friend.”

“Huh… Calvin brings up a point,” Scootaloo spoke up now. “Where is Diamond Tiara, anyways? Please don’t tell me that her parents forced her to not participate in Nightmare Night now.”

“N-no, it’s not like that at all,” Silver shook her head. “I saw her earlier at school, and both of us were going to meet up and join you guys. However, I haven’t seen her since then.”

“I think she’s just playing chicken because of all the spooky stuff going on,” Rumble grumbled to himself.

“Come on, Rumble. Don’t assume that,” Sweetie Belle responded back to the colt. “Diamond’s not like Fluttershy.”

Of course, in Calvin’s mind, he was thinking of something differently. “Stealth Elf? I know that you might be busy, but it sounds like Silver’s friend hasn’t shown up either. Can you be on the lookout for a pink pony around Silver’s size. She normally wears a tiara on her head too.”

“I’ll be on the lookout, but I’m on the trail of where all of these greebles are coming from.”

“Thanks, Stealth Elf. I really appreciate it.”

“And just when I thought things would begin to settle down for just a little bit…” the elf murmured to herself. It had been tricky for her in order to try and find something that could be a lead for her, but the only thing that she was able to find looked like a sloppy map written on a piece of tree bark in greeble handwriting. At first, it looked just like a bunch of scribbles on there. But… the more that she began to analyze it, the more she soon recognized a pattern.

On the map were what looked like a pair of X’s and one red circle on the self made map. The X’s matched that of the two different locations that she had found Greebles at and eliminated them, including the one where she found Silver Spoon. Retracing her steps, she began to think that the circle represented their main camp. And maybe, just maybe… she could find something there.

However, there was one slight thing that she needed to take care of. “Silver! Silver, were are you?” Looking down from atop the roof, she saw a pink filly wearing a tiara looking around for someone. “Darn it. The moment that I forget to grab my tiara and come back, I end up not finding her. Where could she be?”

“Oh no… that could be a problem…” she thought to herself, before looking at the filly from her position on the roof as she tried to get her attention. “Psst… Hey.”

It took a few seconds for the pony to look around and try to find out where the noise was coming from. But soon, she looked up to see the Skylander standing on the roof, a little startled by her appearance. “W-what the-?! Who... or w-what the hay are you? Are you a m-monster?”

“What? No. I’m not a monster,” Stealth Elf shook her head as she looked at the earth pony. “But I do know where you can find your friend. Silver Spoon, right?”

For a quick moment, the filly narrowed her eyes. Glaring directly at her. “Did you… do something to her?”

“No no no… it’s nothing like that,” Stealth Elf replied. “I’m making sure that monsters don’t try to ruin the carnival here… Which, by the way, is where your friend is at right now. She’s with the ponies you were going to meet up with.”

Diamond stopped, looking back in the direction of the carnival before looking back at the elf. “And how am I supposed to know you’re telling the truth?”

“Don’t take my word for it,” Stealth Elf replied, pointing towards the exit of the carnival as she saw what looked to be Calvin and the friends he was with leave the carnival. “Look for yourself.” The moment that Diamond Tiara fully turned around, Stealth Elf used her powers to go invisible as she got back on track to where she needed to be going.

If what she was reading on the map was correct… this circle was in the forest that was near the town. Meaning, it could be a much bigger camp than the small groups that she happened to find earlier. But unlike the other two, she decided to stay hidden, thinking that by doing so, she could be able to spy on them.

Once she was closer, she watched what appeared to be the leader of the group (since this one had some kind of fancy hat) hold out a crystal of some kind as a dark mist began to take form into a figure. But who it took the form of was something that made Stealth Elf gasp.

Kaos’ mother. “So then… did you happen to find anything of value?”

The other greebles looked at one each other for a moment, while another one let out a loud burp as they fell backwards into a pile of candy wrappers. But, the one with the fancy hat just sighed before holding out a series of pictures that it happened to have, pictures of Calvin as he was with his friends and when he was knocking Thunderlane into the dunk tank.

All of that… just made Kaos’ mother sigh before she turned around. “Really now, Kaos? This young child is the source of all your troubles? He looks just like you when you still had a head of hair.”

“I thought I told you to NEVER SPEAK OF THAT AGAIN!!!!”

“Still, I don’t see any proof that this child looks to be a threat… Even with what you and Sombra told me, I don’t see a single shred of-” Around that point was when the greeble showed one last picture, one that looked to be Calvin leaving the carnival, with the crystal around his neck partially glowing. “-evidence.”

“Oh no… That’s not good…”

“What? What’s not good, Stealth Elf?” she now heard the same person ask her mentally. “Did you find where the greebles are?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the only thing I found out…” the life skylander told him mentally as she scanned the camp where all the greebles were stationed. “I just found out that we got another potential problem that we have to handle with who’s working with Sombra and Kaos.”

“Seriously? What could be worse than either of those two?”

Stealth Elf took a moment to let out a small sigh, before speaking mentally again as she began to back away from the camp. “Kaos’ mom.”

“Woah there… Isn’t she imprisoned in that mirror that belonged to Kaos?” the Skyshifter replied back to her.

“Not anymore, from what it seems… and what’s worse is that she’s beginning to take an interest in you,” the Life Skylander told him, “The greebles weren’t sent here to cause trouble. They were here to spy on you. And they got a picture of you and your crystal glowing just before you summoned me.”

“That’s not good… not good at all,” she heard him respond back. “Are they doing anything else?”

As the elf turned around, she soon realized that the entire camp that was here only a minute ago was now gone. Empty. As if it never existed. “Calvin… They just vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“Like... disappeared. They’re no longer here…” she said, before looking into the center of the clearing and realizing something. There looked to be some kind of crystalline bead with a symbol on it. “But… they did leave something behind. I’m coming back to you. We need to talk about what happened tonight with that pony friend of yours. She must know about this.”

“And just when I thought that things could actually be calm for one night,” Calvin sighed, coming back into Twilight’s castle and returning back to his room. He set his candy bag down as he let out a deep breath, the bag toppling over as some of his candy from the night spilled out across the floor. Yet, out of all the things that he did collect… one thing stood out the most.

It was a feather. A red one that somepony gave to him because it looked like a special quill (since one of the booths was run by the owner of the Quills & Sofas store). But when he touched it, that was when something else happened.

He heard a voice. “I am Ember Valkyr, the heart of the phoenix. Call my name and I will let my flames help you anyway I can.”

He backed up for a moment, almost dropping the feather upon hearing that. And in that moment… he began to wonder to himself. Who was this person? Why did she seem so familiar?

And most of all… why did they share the same last name?

End Scroll 16

Scroll 17- Time's Up

Author's Note

And now to get things back on track. I had a little bit of fun with this one since it allowed me to be able to tinker a little bit with the events of 'What about Discord?' and also provide a different kind of ending to the Season Five Finale. All while introducing a new skylander to the mix and getting a bit... creative with some of the powers that Skylander has.

Deja Vu:

Hope you guys enjoy it. This took me a majority of my three day weekend to complete, but I believe it was worth it from the way it turned out. I want to hear what you guys think as well as hear out any suggestions for other Skylanders that Calvin should meet in the future.

Also, big thanks once again to Regreme for helping proofread and edit the story so far.

Until then, I hope you guys enjoyed this update. See you around.
-Frost

Scroll 17- Time's Up

Beyond the Skies- Time’s Up

Some time after what happened during Nightmare Night, things were beginning to settle down a bit in Ponyville. Nothing really major was going on for Calvin aside from him visiting Skylander Academy every couple of days in order to learn new lessons from that of the sensei’s, and that only took a few hours. The rest of the time he spent either in Twilight’s castle or having fun with Apple Bloom and the rest of her friends.

Today though, he was just taking the time to find a way to rest a bit. He had just come back from another lesson with King Pen, this one being a combat exercise, and he needed to do something in order to pass the time. Yet, as he began to walk towards the room, that was when he looked at what appeared to be a rather tired out Spike walking alongside a rather cheery Twilight Sparkle.

“Oh, hi, Calvin!” she happily addressed him.

“Um… Hi?” the boy responded, confusion in his voice as he took a look at Spike, before looking back at the alicorn. “Why are you so cheery all of a sudden?”

“We spent the last three days over the weekend sorting out all the books in the library,” the dragon groaned. “Twilight told me that this was supposed to be relaxing. Now, I’m just glad its over. I feel like I got tricked into doing this.”

“Oh, come on now. We did relax during our book-sort-cation,” the alicorn replied back, “Hey, how about we go outside and head to Sugarcube Corner? That way, we can see the girls, have something to eat and get some fresh air.”

“I-I guess,” Spike shrugged, rubbing his eyes with his claws to wake himself up. “I could go for some hot cocoa right now. Would you like to join us Calvin?”

“No thanks,” the Skyshifter declined the offer. “I had lunch with King Pen earlier today, so I’m still kind of full. You two have fun though.” With those words and a spring in the alicorn’s step, both her and the dragon made their way out of the castle, leaving Calvin by himself as he began to look around and try to find something for him to do to pass the time.

A few hours and three Daring Do books later, that was when he heard both of them come back through the door of the Castle of Friendship. However, the cheery attitude that Twilight had earlier in the day was replaced by something else. “I’m not buying it. Not even for a second! There’s definitely something going on here, Spike!”

As Calvin placed the last book he read back on the shelf and stepped out of his room, that was when he saw both of them talking. But, he couldn’t quite grasp what exactly they were talking about. “Or maybe there isn’t, and you should just drop the whole thing and admit that you’re a little jealous?”

Before Twilight herself could be able to respond with a counter argument, both of them heard Calvin walk into the room as he looked back at them. “Um… welcome back? Did something happen while you were out?”

“Yeah. Apparently, my friends had some kind of fun and hilarious time with Discord to the point that I can’t even comprehend it! It just doesn’t make sense at all!!”

As for Spike, he just let out a sigh after Twilight spoke as he shook his head. “Twilight, you do realize that some of the things that Pinkie Pie can do can’t really be explained. You even tried experiments to understand her ‘Pinkie Sense’, and all that did was cause an anvil to drop on your head.”

“Yeah, but this is different! This is Discord we are talking about!” Twilight spoke up. “I mean, our friends having a great time without me while I was away? That’s beyond absurd. They must be under a spell of some kind!!”

Now, though, was around the point that Calvin decided to interject. “No, I highly doubt it was that.”

“Calvin?!” both Spike and Twilight said at the same time, startled by the boy’s words as he looked back at them.

“I might not know much about the entire situation, but from what I can gather, it just sounds like Discord and your friends decided to have some fun by themselves because you decided to lock yourself in a library for three days. You had other plans going on at the time, so he probably just decided not to invite you to come along because he didn’t want to disturb you,” he told her, placing his hands in his pockets. “Heck, you kind of do that with me, you know?”

That just caused Twilight to blink a little as she looked back at the Skyshifter, puzzled by what he just said. “W-what?”

“Remember my lessons with King Pen and the sensei’s? Well, Spike told me that there were a couple of times that you went to go visit some places and thought I could come along, but I had my lessons around the same time,” Calvin explained, looking back at her. “Besides, instead of trying to figure out if its some kind of spell or whatever, shouldn’t you just ask Discord yourself?”

“Pfft, like he would admit his secrets that easily,” Twilight rolled her eyes, going to the kitchen to get herself something to drink. “I mean, he’s got plenty of things to hide.”

“Okay, name one.” Calvin’s simple sentence led to the alicorn trying to come up with an answer for him, but anytime that Twilight looked like she was about to say something, the Princess of Friendship immediately backtracked. It got to the point that this began to last well over ten minutes, and Spike had gone to his room to get himself a Power Pony comic book before returning and taking a seat up on Twilight’s chair at the Cutie Map. But still, there was no answer from the alicorn...

...which led to Spike finally saying something to break the silence as he opened up his comic book. “Twilight, just stop. I can already tell that you don’t have an answer, and I was the one who told you that you should just drop the whole thing. You’re just jealous, and you know it.”

“I am not!”

“Twilight, are you trying to say that you have never been jealous at all?” Calvin then asked as he took up another seat not that far from Spike as he looked back. “Because I find that even harder to believe.”

“I’m the Princess of Friendship for Celestia’s sake. I can’t be jealous! It would interfere with my duties-”

“Twilight, you do realize that jealousy is an emotion and not some kind of illness, right?” the Skyshifter interjected before the alicorn could go any further. “You can’t just get a vaccine that makes you immune to it. Besides, if anything, we should at least hear Discord out before you start accusing him of something he didn’t do.”

“Twilight, please… let’s not have a repeat of the ‘want-it, need-it’ incident and just try to not do anything without thinking it through first,” Spike’s words seemed to have a bit of an impact on Twilight. At least, that was what Calvin could tell. He didn’t quite understand what this incident he was talking about was, but from Twilight’s reaction to it alone, it was enough to make him think that it was rather important.

That was when Twilight let out a deep breath and looked back both of them. “Okay, fine. We’ll ask Discord.”

“You called?” As Twilight turned around, that was when all three of them saw the draconequus just standing in the room, wearing a black and white suit that had vertical stripes all over it. It was enough for Twilight to be startled by his sudden appearance and for Spike to almost fall out of his seat. But Calvin wasn’t really too surprised, because the Spirit of Chaos seemed to have a habit of showing up out of nowhere whenever somepony said his name a few times in a row.

“Just the person we needed to talk to,” Calvin smiled as he looked back at the draconequus. “Can you help clear something up for us? After seeing how you were interacting with her friends earlier, Twilight’s beginning to think that you put them under some kind of spell.”

“Are you kidding me?” Discord blinked, snapping his finger and having the suit disappear. “Why would I go back to the habits that the old me would do…?” For a moment, the spirit of chaos scratched his chin, trying to ponder everything that was going on, before realizing what the whole thing was about. “Oh, wait… is this because of the fact that everypony seemed to be having a good time and everything while you were on your book-sort-cation?” Even though Twilight was going to shake her head in a ‘no’ like fashion, Spike immediately answered yes before she could be able to do that, leading to Discord finally seeing what the problem is. “I think I see where the problem is now.”

“You do?” Calvin asked.

“Yeah,” Discord replied. “She’s trying to understand some of the inside jokes that I have between the rest of her friends because she wasn’t there to see it… Though, part of this problem might be my fault-”

“I knew it-!”

“Twilight, don’t assume,” Calvin told her, before looking back at the draconequus, “As you were saying.”

“Well, part of the whole debacle is kind of my fault because, originally, the girls wanted to to invite you to the get together that we had over the weekend,” Discord began to explain, “However, I was the only one that knew that you had something going on over the weekend that you really wanted to get done and not be interrupted by anything. So, I kindly suggested to the others that we shouldn’t invite you, because you had other things going on. I now realize that it was a bad choice, and I feel terrible about it.”

“So, you weren’t intentionally trying to make Twilight feel jealous or anything?”

“Dear chaos, no! What, are you crazy? That was an accident,” Discord replied back. “Look, how about I make it up to you and the rest of the girls next weekend? That way, we can be able to create some new memories, and you’ll be there to see them.”

For a moment, Twilight scratched her chin, before looking back at a calendar that she had in the kitchen, before looking back at Discord and letting out a sigh. “I got Sunday free. I’m going to be giving a lecture on Cutie Marks at Celestia’s school for Gifted Unicorns this Saturday. Does that work?”

“Any time works for me,” Discord replied back, extending his lion paw out as if he was asking for Twilight to shake on it “So, do we have an agreement?”

At first, the alicorn looked skeptical, but after a few moments, she extended her hoof forward as she looked back at the draconequus. “Yes, we have an agreement.”

“Wunderbar!” the spirit of chaos proclaimed cheerfully, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got some planning to do!” With a snap of his talon, the spirit of chaos took off, disappearing and leaving the three of them in the middle of the castle as Calvin looked back at her.

“See? What did I tell you?” he said, “Not everything is what it seems to be.”

“Yeah… I guess you have a good point. I’ll be at my study if you two need me,” Twilight replied back, before trotting down the hall towards the library and closing the door behind her.

Few days later…

By the time that Calvin had woke up and had to get breakfast, both Twilight and Spike were gone. They had already taken off to Canterlot for the lecture that she was giving in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, meaning that he was all by himself again. Part of him wanted to go check on the Cutie Mark Crusaders and see if they were doing anything today, but then he remembered that it was more than likely that they would be in the middle of doing their weekend chores before having to go out and do any crusading.

At one point though, as he was washing his dishes and putting them away, he began to walk back through the room where the Cutie Map was, only to realize that he wasn’t the only one in the castle. There was a mare sitting at the Cutie Map, one with a light lilac colored fur and a violet and cyan mane tied up in a ponytail that was just sitting with their back hooves up on the table, laughing to themselves as if they got away with something.

Of course, that was until the boy actually spoke and got the mare’s attention. “Um, excuse me? Is there something I can help you with?”

The comment had the unicorn almost fall off from her seat on one of the thrones as she looked back at him. “W-what the-? Who are you? What are you doing here?!”

“Uh, I live here,” he replied back. “And I don’t think Twilight’s supposed to have any visitors today. So, I would be the one who should be asking that last question.”

“Oh, I’m just an old acquaintance… I just wanted to drop by and say hello,” the mare replied, before looking back towards the door, almost as if she’s anticipating for the door to open.

“And just how do you know her exactly?”

“Long story, don’t have the time to share it all or how she ruined my entire life,” the mare said, the last part being muttered in a whisper like tone that he could barely catch, not to mention the fact that she was becoming a bit more agitated with each passing moment. “So please, can you oh so kindly, like… leave?”

That had Calvin look back at her with a deadpan expression as the Skyshifter looked back at her. “Look, I know that I’m only just a kid, but I’m not stupid. You can’t just convince me to leave. What do you think I am, a pet?” The mare now just looked even more agitated now, going as far as to stare down the boy and give him one final warning.

“Look, if you know what’s best for you, you would leave right now before-” Before the mare could finish her sentence, that was when the doors to the castle opened as they heard the sound of hoofsteps coming through the door, and an all too familiar voice spoke up.

“Yeah, now that you put it that way, it does sound kind of silly.”

“Or it’s totally true!”

“Well, there goes the grand entrance that I wanted,” the mare groaned, before facing the other mare as she looked back at the alicorn. “Welcome home, Twilight.”

“Starlight Glimmer… just what are you doing here?”

“I would tell you, but I think that would ruin the surprise.” As Starlight spoke, she used her magic on a piece of paper that she was holding. Calvin could briefly read the words ‘time travel spell’ on the top, before the mare crumpled the paper and looked back at the alicorn, magic channeling through her horn. “I won’t be needing this anymore.”

“Calvin, stay back!” Twilight shouted, before blasting a bolt of magic as Starlight dodged it, all before the unicorn began to channel a huge amount of magic as a giant gate began to tear open in the ceiling. Numbers were running along the edge like it was an ancient clock as the mare began to get up.

“Let’s save this for another time, Sparkle!”

However, there was one thing that the unicorn did not take into account, and that was the fact that the boy she encountered earlier was not one who would just stand back and watch. His amulet glowed purple as he looked back at her.

“Did that just happen?”

The violet magic began to take the form of a figure that now stood next to Calvin. To Twilight and Spike, this would be the first time seeing this particular Skylander. But to the Skyshifter, this wasn’t exactly the first time he met the Magic Skylander named Deja Vu. In fact, as of recently, she was one of the Skylanders that King Pen asked to help him in a few lessons. This, though, was the first time that he had summoned her on his own.

“Calvin, why exactly did you call me here? I was in the middle of-” the Magic Skylander, upon seeing what was going on, stopped speaking as she looked back at him. “Oh no… That’s not good.”

“Yeah, I think you might know the reason why I called you now,” Calvin replied now, “Some mare named Starlight Glimmer cast some kind of Time Travel spell before taking off. Given how the situation is, is there some kind of way to-”

“There’s only one thing that could be done before she attempts to change the past,” the Magic Skylander said, grabbing the hourglass at the end of the chain that she was holding. Around this time, Twilight and Spike were about to try and go through the gate that had opened. But before they could, they noticed both Calvin and the Skylander as she grabbed both ends of the hourglass and twisted it.

“Rewind!”

The moment that Calvin heard Deja Vu say that, he felt as if his body was forcibly thrown backwards and across the hall. Everything around him was going in reverse as he found himself crashing back in his room, while the Magic Skylander herself landed softly on the floor.

“Oww… could you have given me a bit of a warning first?”

“There wasn’t enough time,” she simply replied, “The only real way to prevent any damage would be to go back and stop it before casting the spell.”

“Hang on just a minute,” Calvin asked, before looking at her. “What do you mean?”

“I turned back the clock as far as I can right now, which gives you half an hour at most,” Deja Vu then told him, “Aside from that, you would need to come up with a plan of how to stop her, because I can’t do this consecutively.”

That got Calvin to scratch his chin for a moment, just before realizing something. “You know… come to think of it, it seemed like this ‘Starlight’ mare only seemed to know the time travel spell after getting it off of a piece of paper,” he said, just before an idea came to him. “So, if the paper is taken beforehand.”

“Then, that could prevent her from casting it,” Deja Vu followed up on what he said, “I’m liking it so far. But who would be able to take it without her noticing?” Of course, all that did was just cause Calvin to look at her with a deadpan expression, before she realized what he was thinking about. “Oh, I see now.”

“Yeah, Stealth Elf,” Calvin nodded as he looked back at his elementanium pendant. “She’s the only one that can do it without getting caught.”

“True, but that would mean I would have to go back, since you can only have one Skylander present at a time. And if I’m gone, that means you don’t get any second chances.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he replied back, “After all, you and King Pen were the ones who taught me that it's not always ideal to play things safe all the time.”

“That we did,” she said, watching a green aura fill the crystal now as she looked back at Calvin, “Good luck now. Get her this time.”

The Skyshifter himself wasn’t quite sure if that last part he heard Deja Vu say was either intentional or a pun, but that was not his focus now. Instead, he placed his power into summoning Stealth Elf as the Life Skylander landed before him, looking back as he greeted her.

“Hey, Stealth Elf. Are you up for pick-pocketing something valuable?”

“Welcome home, Twilight,” the mare named Starlight Glimmer greeted the Princess of Friendship and her personal assistant as they walked through the door. So far, everything with her plan had been perfect. She was able to enter in without attracting attention. She had everything that she needed in order to pull off this plan. There was absolutely nothing that could possibly go wrong.

“Starlight, just what are you doing here?” Twilight replied back, staring down the unicorn that had been lurking around in her home.

“I would tell you,” she said, using her magic to pull out something that was behind her as she looked back at Twilight with a evil look on her face. “But I believe that would ruin the surprise-” Of course, what she did not realize was that instead of the paper that she wanted to see floating in front of her, it was instead the list of buckball scores in the sports section of the Daily Hoof newspaper. “What the?! What’s this doing here?! I swear to Celestia that I just had it right here!”

“Oh? Really?” Every pony (and dragon) in the room heard a voice from one of the arches in the hallway as Stealth Elf soon walked over to Twilight. “Would this happen to be what you’re looking for?”

Upon seeing the paper that contained the time travel spell from Starswirl the Bearded in her hands, Starlight was shocked. “H-how did you-?! What do you think you are doing?! Give that back!”

“How about no?” Calvin now emerged from the other side of the room as he looked back at Stealth Elf with a smile. “I really don’t think that we should trust somepony like you with a time travel spell of all things.”

At that moment, Twilight was given the piece of paper from Stealth Elf, who looked it over, and not two seconds later, had Spike set it on fire and send it to Celestia with a note to have it be locked up tight, shortly before Calvin picked up right where he left off. “I mean, honestly, did you put any kind of planning into trying to pull this off?”

“Excuse you? Who do you think you’re talking to, kid?!” Starlight snapped, which had Calvin let out a deep sigh before he looked back at her and folded his arms.

“Look, if you really thought this through, then you would realize how much of a disadvantage you are at,” the boy told her as he looked back at everyone else next to him. “I mean, you got me, Stealth Elf: the same one who just pick-pocketed you without even noticing she was there, and Twilight: who’s a princess and knows more spells than you can count. Not to mention the fact that there are a few guards that are standing directly outside and Discord just so happens to be a good friend of ours, while also having the power to turn your horn into an ice cream cone. So, how about instead of doing all of this out of anger, you try talking out your problems and resolving it in a healthy manner?”

That last part had Spike look back at the boy with a puzzled look on his face. “Um… where did you learn about that last part?”

“Fluttershy said that to calm down another beast that was wandering around in the Everfree,” he told him to clear things up.

Of course, it was also around then that Starlight snapped back. “S-shut up! You wouldn’t understand how I feel!! None of you would!!!”

“Would that be because you didn’t actually tell anypony how you feel?” Calvin retorted, which only caused Starlight Glimmer to get even more angry and blast a bolt of magic past his head. “Okay, fair enough.”

“Look, you would not even begin to comprehend how much effort to took into getting this plan ready. It took me months! Months of looking through old tomes, spying on Twilight at restaurants and making sure I had enough magic to pull this off!! My plan was perfect!!” Starlight snapped again, even catching Twilight off guard when the alicorn heard about the unicorn spying on her.

Yet, it was as Starlight was speaking that she got a response from someone else. That being Stealth Elf. “So, explain your plan then.”

The unicorn just blinked, before blankly staring at the elf as she tried to comprehend what she just heard. “I-I’m sorry… what?”

“You heard me,” the Life Skylander retorted as she walked over to a crystalline pillar and began to lean against it. “You said that you had been planning this for months, so it shouldn’t be that hard in order for you to explain what your plan actually was. Besides, based on how you’re acting, you don’t really seem to have any kind of fallback plan here.”

What Stealth Elf brought up was indeed a rather valid point. Even though Starlight had said she was planning this whole revenge plan of hers for months, she never really said what exactly that plan was supposed to be. All they knew was that it involved a time travel spell that was originally created by Starswirl the Bearded, but nothing else aside from that. Twilight also thought that it would be rather difficult to actually get Starlight to tell them anything, because of how rigid she was acting right now.

So it was much to her surprise that, after what was about almost ten minutes of nothing but silence, Starlight actually began to say what her plan was. “Look, all I had to do for my plan was to use the time travel spell… go back into the past… and prevent Rainbow Dash from performing her first ever Sonic Rainboom. After that, Twilight and her friends would not be able to awaken their cutie marks, and-”

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to stop you right there,” Twilight immediately interjected. “Do you even realize what would happen if my friends and I never got our cutie marks in the first place?”

“Um… you would never have come to my village and messed everything up.”

“No, outside of that,” the alicorn countered “Why, yes, if you did stop the rainboom, you would stop us from obtaining our cutie marks. But that would also mean that your actions would prevent us from becoming the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. And if there were no Element Bearers, then Equestria would’ve already been conquered, taken over, or completely wiped off the map by any villains that we had already defeated before.”

At one point, Starlight was going to interject, only to be cut off again by the princess as she continued to speak. “While I will admit that I am not certain of my own importance beyond how important it is to my friends and I, you can’t deny the importance that the elements had in regards to stopping the numerous villains that we’ve encountered over the years. As bearers, we prevented Nightmare Moon from making night eternal, we stopped Discord from making Equestria his chaotic playground and later reformed him, prevented Chrysalis from tricking everypony in attendance at the Royal Wedding and the invasion that followed suit, brought the Crystal Empire back while also having Sombra no longer be in control of it and lastly, sending Tirek back to Tartarus after he had stolen almost all the magic in the entire population of Equestria. Without our friendship leading us to become chosen as bearers of the elements, Equestria would’ve been lost years ago. Maybe longer.”

At first, Starlight was a bit baffled by everything that the Princess of Friendship was saying. But she was still not backing down just yet. “Couldn’t the elements have chosen other bearers?”

All that did was cause Twilight to let out a sigh, before facepalming herself with one of her wings as she began to speak again. “We don’t know how the elements choose their bearers. They’re a series of magical artifacts, not a fortune teller you meet that tells you that you are ‘destined for great things’ in exchange for you paying some bits.”

It was after this, though, that Twilight trotted closer to the table, staring directly at Starlight before asking her one question. “So, after taking into account everything that I just said, is one personal vendetta against the friendship between me and my friends really worth the risk of ruining the lives of countless innocent others?”

Once again, more silence began to drift around the main hall of the castle. Starlight didn’t even respond to Twilight’s question, mostly because of all the information she still needed to process from the princess. Though, much to the surprise of everyone in the room at the time, Starlight was not the next person to say something.

Instead, it was Calvin who actually began to speak now as he first looked to Twilight. “Um… Can I step in and ask something here?” the Skyshifter’s question was followed up by him turning back to Starlight, “I don’t really know much about what’s going on or what kind of troubles you two had in the past, but there’s something that just bugs me. Why exactly are you against the concept of friendship? I mean, don’t you have any friends?”

Upon hearing his question, the expression on Starlight’s face began to look like she was remembering something that she wanted to forget. But, even so, she found the strength in herself to speak as her tone began to change. It was no longer that of a hostile mare that was bent on trying to enact revenge, but more of somepony who was being honest with herself. “I had one once… but they left me. His name was Sunburst. We were very close friends. One could say we were even like family. But the moment that he got his cutie mark, he took off to Canterlot. Leaving me alone, without a friend and with the fear of losing potential friends I meet in the future the same way.”

“Wow… what a jerk,” Calvin said.

“What happened back then made me who I am now… My friendship with him was torn apart because of his stupid cutie mark. He got his before I did. He left; I stayed behind. Because we were different, I only thought that if everypony were the same, then nopony would be separated from one another!” she told him, getting emotional while glaring at Twilight, “Of course, you and your friends had to ruin everything!”

That was when Calvin let out a sigh and looked back at the mare. “You do realize that friendship is more than that, right? I’ve only been here for a few months after being taken away from the place that I call home, only to have Twilight and her friends welcome me into their lives with open arms… or forelegs… or however its phrased. The point being that friendship is more than what you think it is. And if it didn’t work out the first time, then you shouldn’t just give up on it altogether.”

“He’s right,” Twilight then added on. “Try making friends again, meet some new ponies, and if something happens that you don’t have control over, find a way in order to be able to work out the problem together, because that’s what friendship is. And it’s not just my friendships that are important. It’s everyponies’. Think about all the ponies that are waiting out there for you to meet if you gave them the chance.”

“I had friends-”

“Not ones that you tricked, lied to or deceived,” the princess countered. “We talked to Sugar Belle and the others when we visited there. You put them through emotional turmoil that they hid from you. They told us about it, and they were too afraid to tell you.”

“T-they… what?” Starlight blinked, almost staring in disbelief. “B-but they were happy. We were happy!”

“Only because they wanted to make you happy. In reality, they were sad and in pain. All they ever wanted was to be able to be themselves again, but they didn’t want to make you upset,” Twilight then explained to her. “Just because you treat everypony equally does not mean that they would all equally feel the same about it. And taking away their cutie marks? That’s not the problem. That’s a part of who they are. Their cutie mark is a reflection of their talents and who they are as a pony. It’s a summary of everything they can do and everything that they feel. Taking that away takes away everything that’s unique about them. Just because one pony did something horrible as a colt doesn’t mean that’s what everypony else is like.”

“She’s right, you know?” Calvin added on as he placed his arms in his pockets. “If only some people knew that back home and not put the world at risk.”

Hearing that just caused everyone, including Stealth Elf, to look back at Calvin with a shocked expression on their faces, all before the elf just raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry… how does that relate right now?”

“Well, back where I’m from, conflict between other countries has happened before, to the point where a war would expand across the entire globe. But in one case, there was a leader of another nation who thought that a group of people were the source of all of humanity's problems and blamed them for anything wrong that other people did,” around that point, Calvin looked at everypony else and, based on their overall expressions, decided to not go any further. “Let’s just say that it wasn’t really good for anybody involved.”

Of course, that just led to Twilight letting out a sigh as she redirected her attention back to Starlight. “More to the point though… Do you realize now that in your pursuit of happiness, you only caused suffering to everypony else you saw as your friends?” To the alicorn, it seemed like everything else that they had said up to this point was not really getting through to her. So this time, she hoped that spelling it out to Starlight would lead to her realizing the severity of what she had done.

Luckily, just a few seconds after saying that, things did begin to change. Starlight, the composed and sinister mare from only a few minutes ago, was undergoing an emotional breakdown, fully realizing what she had done as her pupils began to shrink. “Oh dear Celestia… what have I done?”

Her realization was followed by another moment of silence, until Stealth Elf herself decided to speak now. “Maybe I can help a bit here,” she said, taking a seat on the Cutie Map that was not far from the unicorn. “Back where I’m from, I knew a couple of people, including myself, that were rather… self-centered. One of them is even a purple dragon that’s my best friend. However, the difference is that all of us realized that we have these flaws of ours. We realize the kind of mistakes that we make and in doing so, work even harder to atone for them.”

As Stealth Elf spoke, Starlight looked up to the elf. Instead of trying to shut her out and ignore her, the unicorn actually chose to listen to her as the Skylander continued to speak. “Even though it may take some time, as long as there is no permanent damage and you put the effort into making amends, you can be forgiven for anything.”

“Y-you really think so?” Starlight asked her.

“Of course,” the elf nodded her head.

It was around this time that they heard the doors to the castle open, and they watched as the rest of Twilight’s friends began to trot inside, prompting the princess to turn back around and look at them. “Could you excuse me for just a moment? I promise this won’t take long.” That just had both Calvin and Stealth Elf nod their heads in response as Twilight trotted back over towards the others, with Spike joining alongside her.

As they walked back over, Calvin redirected his attention back to Starlight as he asked her a question. “So, how do you feel now?”

“A b-bit better,” she responded back. “I’m just trying to think about what’s next. I really don’t think I’m just going to get off scot-free for all of this.” For a moment, Starlight briefly looked back towards where Stealth Elf was, before returning her gaze to the boy. “But if I’m to make amends, then I guess I’ll just take whatever punishment that’s in store for me.”

“I… don’t really think Twilight’s the kind of pony to do something like that,” Calvin responded, scratching the back of her head.

“Well, how else do you think I’ll be able to make amends?”

“I don’t know, community service?” Stealth Elf shrugged. “I don’t entirely know how things work down here.”

That just had Starlight pause for a moment, before looking back at the Skylander as a new question began to form inside her head. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘down here’?”

“Oh… right,” the Life Skylander realized the problem as she looked back at Calvin. “She doesn’t know yet, does she?”

“The subject never really came up,” the boy told her, “But I guess now is a good time to bring her up to speed. Something tells me that it might be a bit before Twilight comes back.”

“So, let me get this straight… you live up in the sky?” Starlight asked. Over the last fifteen minutes, Calvin and Stealth Elf were trying to explain to her more about the Skylands as well as the Skylanders themselves. Now, the unicorn was trying to understand and comprehend everything that she heard them say. “And you’re not talking about Cloudsdale?”

“Not at all,” Stealth Elf replied. “Trust me. Many of my fellow Skylanders originally had a bit of difficulty trying to comprehend that there is indeed a civilization under the clouds and not just a landfill of unwanted items like tax collections or sheep.”

“But if what you say is true, then how in the world have the pegasi not found it?” The unicorn asked a follow up question.

“The Skylands and Equestria are separated by a invisible web of magic that acts as a barrier that looks exactly like the blue sky,” Calvin now spoke up, taking his turn into answering this question Starlight had for them. “Of course, the only real way that we actually knew about it was when Rainbow accidentally performed a sonic rainboom too close to the barrier, and the resulting blast caused a tear in the barrier to open. That’s how we found out about the Skylands, and in turn, how the Skylands found out about Equestria. The tear has patched up since, but there’s another way that we can travel to the Skylands.”

That had Starlight raise an eyebrow, a bit curious by the Skyshifter’s words. “What’s that?”

Stealth Elf was the next one to answer her question as she looked back at Starlight. “We found out that the basement door in Twilight’s Castle here is linked to the M.A.P. Short for ‘Mysterious Ancient Place’ and what allows us as Skylanders to travel to other parts of the Skylands quickly. The M.A.P. even has a doorway to Skylander Academy, what some would consider as our base of operations. But I’m not sure if we have the time right now to go there, all things considered.”

“Yeah, I think it would be best for me to stay on the ground for a little while,” the mare replied back. “Try to work more on redeeming myself first.”

“Fair point,” Stealth Elf replied, “Is there anything else you want to ask?”

“Well, there is one thing I’m kind of curious about, now that you mention it,” Starlight responded, turning around to look towards Calvin and pointing a hoof towards the pendant on his neck. “I’ve been kind of wondering a bit about that necklace you’re wearing. I can feel magic from it, but I can’t tell what its supposed to be. Is it some kind of charm?”

All that did was have Calvin shake his head for a moment. “Actually, it’s a bit more important than that. The crystal on the necklace is a rare one that only I can use, and it allows me to transform into any Skylander for a short period of time by saying their catchphrase or summon them here. It’s the reason why Stealth Elf’s here, since I summoned her earlier.”

“And what happens if somepony… else tries to use it?” Starlight then nervously asked.

“Personally, I haven’t met anypony that tried that, and I probably don’t want to know what would happen if they did,” he replied back, scratching the back of his head and turning around a bit, before noticing that Spike was walking back towards the three of them as he made his way to the table.

“Hey there,” he spoke up, sounding a bit surprised. Either that, or he was still trying to get used to the fact that Starlight was now a good pony instead of one who wanted revenge on Twilight. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“No, not really,” Calvin shook his head, briefly looking back at Stealth Elf and Starlight before returning his gaze back to him. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, Twilight said that she wanted to speak with Starlight now, so she asked for me to let her know,” the dragons words prompted Starlight to get up from her seat and back on her hooves as she turned to look back at both the Skylander and the Skyshifter.

“I guess it's time for me to make amends. Wish me luck,” she said, before following the dragon back to where Twilight and the rest of her friends were. Though, instead of just sitting at the table and waiting, both Calvin and Stealth Elf decided to actually follow her. They wanted to hear about what Twilight decided as well, after all.

When the unicorn approached the bearers of the elements, she swallowed any doubt that she had, exhaled and began to speak. “Twilight, I know that there’s no excuse for what I did as well as what I had planned to do, but I want all of you to know that I’m ready for whatever punishment you think is fair.”

For a moment, Twilight just raised an eyebrow, before letting out a low giggle that confused the unicorn that was talking to her. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about it and about what you said earlier… I want to make you an offer.”

The unicorn blinked, caught off guard by what she was saying for a brief moment. “An offer?”

“If you are really committed to change and you are willing to learn, then I am willing to teach you what I know about friendship and take you on as my student,” the alicorn’s words were a shock to the system for Starlight. No less than a few hours ago did Starlight see Twilight as her sworn enemy, but now, she has a chance to be the student of a princess? “Equestria can use somepony like you. You have the power to make it an even better place.”

Starlight, in that moment, was shocked and surprised beyond belief. But with all of this, she still had another question to ask her. “H-how do I start though?”

“Starting’s easy! All you have to do is just make a friend,” Twilight smiled, pointing a hoof to her friends as they waved to her. “And if you include Calvin, you got eight of them right here.”

“Don’t forget about everyone up in the Skylands either,” Stealth Elf then chimed in, “I betcha you’ll fit right in when you come visit the academy one day.”

“I-I don’t know what to say,” the unicorn said, overwhelmed by everything that was happening as Calvin walked over to stand next to Twilight. “T-thank you… All of you. Y-you don’t know how much this means to me.”

“Well, don’t be thanking me just yet,” Twilight chuckled. “We still have to introduce you to everypony around town first-”

“-And throw you your first ever, super duper ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party!! Ooh ooh! In fact, let’s do that right now before the baked goodies at Sugarcube Corner get cold!” Pinkie interjected, confetti flying out of her mane as she began cheerfully jumping for joy. That was followed by everypony else, including Spike, quickly making their way back down towards Ponyville, leaving Calvin and Stealth Elf behind as the two of them just watched.

“Well, I guess everything is done here now,” the Life Skylander broke the brief silence as she looked back at the Skyshifter, “Prevented the timeline from getting changed, having a pony see the error of her ways, and now, she’s reformed, all without having to have her prove herself by having to re-arrange all the books in the academy library for two years. I call that a success.”

“Yeah, I can agree,” Calvin nodded his head as he looked back at the elf, “Besides, with everything going on having to deal with Kaos right now, it’s good to see that we have somepony else that can help us out.”

“Indeed,” Stealth Elf spoke, shortly before stretching her arms and looking back at the Skyshifter. “Though, I guess it's time for me to go back now. If I stay around here for two long, Spyro and the others get a little antsy.”

“If you say so,” the boy replied, shortly before remembering something as he placed one of his hands on the necklace around his neck. “Oh, and when you get back, can you let Deja Vu know that everything down here’s okay? I think she would wanted to be updated on everything by now.”

“Don’t sweat it,” she chuckled as the light from his pendant began to surround her. “I’ll make sure to let her know. Just don’t do anything reckless in the meantime, alright? You deserve a break after everything today.”

With that, Stealth Elf disappeared a few seconds later, leaving Calvin by himself as he stood in front of the Castle of Friendship. The boy began to wonder if he should head back inside the castle or not, but after a little bit, he heard something from in town that made him change his mind.

“Wait, Pinkie, don’t do-!!” SPLAT!!

“Pinkie!!!” he heard Rainbow holler out as Calvin noticed that the windows of Sugarcube Corner looked to be covered in vanilla frosting now.

Which was later followed by him immediately sprinting into town and hurrying over to the bakery as fast as he could. “Oh, what the heck? Save some for me please!!”

End Scroll 17

Scroll 19- Major Explaining: Round Three

Author's Note

This chapter mostly consists of bringing a few ponies up to speed on everything that happened while the Mane Six were in the Crystal Empire for the Crystalling, getting a lesson in magic from a beaten up draconequus as well as trying to figure out how to move on from there. That and Kaos happens to get himself involved in some shenanigans again.

Hope you guys like it. Feel free to comment on things you might like to see in the future. It keeps me motivated.
-Frost

Scroll 19- Major Explaining: Round Three

Beyond the Skies- Major Explaining: Round 3

A few moments earlier…

“Well, despite the whole thing with the Crystal Empire almost getting swarmed by the fury of the arctic north, Flurry Heart almost destroying the palace and the fact that I didn’t quite give you a proper first friendship lesson, I think this trip has mostly been an overall success,” Princess Twilight Sparkle told Starlight Glimmer while on the train ride home. They had left from the train station of the Crystal Empire only a little while ago and right now were heading back home to Ponyville. “I’ll have to make sure to make it up to you once we get back to the castle.”

“Yeah, um... can I ask you something?” her student now asked, sitting across from the princess while some of her friends were still around the cabin. Yet, there was one slight change to all of them that she wished to ask Twilight about, since she had been to the Crystal Empire before. “How long does it usually take for this to… well… wear off?”

“You mean the crystalline form?” the princess’ question was followed by a brief nod from her student as she let out a sigh, “Well, the last time we went there when the Crystal Heart’s magic was activated, this only lasted for about a day or so. It’s likely that we’ll be back to normal by tomorrow. Why?”

“Well, it just… I don’t know… feels weird. I mean, it looks nice, but the whole reflective ‘see through’ thing makes me feel like I’m some kind of ghost pony,” Starlight nervously admitted as she looked at the rest of her newfound friends, before noticing one particular friend who didn’t undergo any particular change. “How come it didn’t affect Spike?”

Twilight, upon hearing that question, looked at her number one assistant while he was having a conversation with Rainbow Dash by a nearby window and eating some snacks. She took a moment to try and process the question, but all that she could really do was just give a shoulder shrug. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. My only guess would be that it's just something that affects ponies. He was present during both times that the Crystal Heart’s magic was activated, and he didn’t change.”

“Alright, I guess,” Starlight replied back, looking out the window as she began to think for a moment. Before asking a new question. “So, what do you think Calvin has been up to since we left for the empire?”

“If I had to take a guess, he might have noticed the note I left for him and decided to be with Apple Bloom and the Cutie Mark Crusaders today.”

“They’re the fillies that are the little sisters of Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow right?”

“The first two are, yes,” the princess corrected her. “Scootaloo see’s Rainbow Dash like an older sister, but they aren’t related by blood. Though, she wishes that they were, just because that would be ‘awesome’.” To add more emphasis, Twilight even used her wings to do the air quotes near the end of her sentence to prove her point further, which made Starlight giggle a bit, since she didn’t really think a princess would use them for that purpose.

“You think they probably behaved themselves while we were gone?” the unicorn now asked. But before her mentor could respond, an announcement began to play on the intercom of the Friendship Express.

“Attention, passengers, we are now arriving at Ponyville train station. Please wait in your seats until the train comes to a complete stop and make sure that you have all your belongings with you before you leave. If you are having trouble retrieving something that you brought on board with you, let one of our crew members know, and they’ll be more than happy to assist. Thank you for riding the Friendship Express!”

As Twilight heard that, she took a moment to look out through the window, seeing the town of Ponyville as the train was approaching the station. “Well, everything seems normal. So, perhaps they decided to go see some friends today.”

Starlight herself wanted to follow that up with something else, but the sound of the train’s brakes and the whole entire Friendship Express coming to a complete stop had her rethink that and decided that it would be better not to say anything. Now that they’ve come back, she and her friends can take the time to come back home and possibly take a break from everything that had happened in the Crystal Empire.

Or... so they thought… “Oh, thank Celestia, you’re all back!!”

“Where were you?! This place was a nightmare!”

“By the Stars, why didn’t you come back sooner!?!”

All seven ponies and one dragon were baffled by what they were hearing. When they left, the town was as peaceful as ever. But now, the civilians were acting like they had just escaped a haunted castle in Trotsylvania. It was so strange to the point that even some ponies were leaving the safety of buildings like they had retreated there for cover, reminding Twilight of when much of Ponyville did the same thing when they thought Zecora was nothing but an evil enchantress. Even her friends couldn’t quite make heads or tails of what they were talking about.

Luckily though, it was as the crowd was beginning to disperse and everypony else was beginning to return back to what they were originally doing that two other ponies caught their attention. “Princess Twilight!”

The alicorn turned around at the sound of her name, only to see Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were galloping over to them. “Diamond? Silver? What’s going on?”

“Yeah, why was everypony acting all weird all of a sudden? We weren’t exactly gone for long, so what happened?” Rainbow Dash asked now, with everypony else nodding their heads. Both fillies looked back at each other, trying to think of something to say before Diamond just let out a breath and began to speak.

“A lot of things happened. Some I’m still trying to process.”

“Could you be a bit more specific?”

Of course, it didn’t help any that as Diamond was trying to come up with a response, some of the children from Ms. Cheerilee’s class were talking amongst themselves pretty loudly, with some of the details of what they were discussing catching their attention immediately. “Hey, guys, did you see what happened earlier in town square?”

“Yeah, that green pointy-ear guy sent Discord flying! With one punch!”

“Who or what was that anyways?”

“No idea… do you think he’s like the new protector of Ponyville now that Rainbow Dash isn’t doing that anymore?”

“Hey!! I’m right here!” the rainbow maned pegasus retorted, catching their attention before they ran off.

“Was that really necessary, sugarcube?” Applejack asked her as she used her hoof to adjust her hat.

“What?! I’m not letting ponies get away with sly remarks like that.”

“Darling, they’re just foals. They don’t know any better,” Rarity soon added on.

“Um… I think we’re getting a bit sidetracked here,” Twilight spoke up as she refocused her attention back to the two fillies in front of her. “What was that about Discord?”

“Yeah, um…” Silver looked back to Diamond for a moment, contemplating what they should do first before following up and finishing her thought. “Perhaps it would be a bit easier if we talked about this at the castle, because there’s a lot that we need to catch you up on.”

“Alright, but can I ask you something, dear?” Rarity now spoke up, “Where’s Sweetie Belle and her friends? Normally, they would be out and about around this time of day, so it’s a bit odd to not see them doing anything.”

Silver only had one response for that. “They’re back at the castle… and for good reason.”

“Do you have any threes?”

Calvin shook his head as the girl that sat across from him drew from the pile of cards that were in the middle of the Cutie Map. After coming back to the castle, all four of them agreed that they should wait for Twilight to come back first before trying to figure out if there was a way to reverse the transformation that was put on the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Though, to pass the time, the four of them now found themselves in what felt like the longest game of ‘Go Fish’ that was ever played.

Oh, and Discord was on a bench with a bag of ice over his face. That was a thing.

“Scootaloo, do ya have any queens?” Apple Bloom was next to ask, followed by her disgruntled friend handing one card to her friend, leading to her turning back to Calvin and asking her a different question. “Calvin, do you have any eights?”

“Nope, I don’t. Go fish.”

“Aww man...” Applebloom pouted, before drawing a card. Though, as it was now Calvin’s turn, he now thought of something different to ask.

“Hey, before I take my turn, I wanted to ask something,” the Skyshifter asked them as he looked back at his cards. “How do you think Twilight and the girls are going to react at your new… well… appearance?”

“Not well,” was the only thing that Sweetie Belle said. “My sister’s known for freaking out over any big changes. Heck, she freaked out after I got back from the market to find that I got ruby colored fabric instead of garnet. How was I supposed to know the difference?”

“Fair point,” Calvin retorted, “Who would you think would be the first to… well, overreact?” His follow up question lead to all three girls looking at one another for a moment before each of them gave their answer.

“Rarity.”

“AJ.”

“Rainbow.”

“Really? If anything, I think Twilight might be the first to overreact, all things considered,” Calvin added, before looking back to Sweetie Belle. “Sweetie, do you have any fives?” That led to her handing over two of the ones that she had in her hand, shortly before Calvin added those two to another set that he had and placed the stack of four cards on the table. “Scootaloo, do you have any kings-?”

Unexpectedly, the sound of the door to the castle opening up echoed throughout the place as all four of the players looked towards the door. Twilight, her friends, Spike and Starlight Glimmer had just gotten back from their trip from the Crystal Empire, and as they were coming in through the door, Twilight immediately noticed them and responded in the most appropriate way possible.

“WHAT THE HAY HAPPENED TO YOU!?!”

“Called it,” Calvin chuckled. Though, it was shortly afterwards that the rest of her friends soon followed up with their overreactions, some of them sounding more shocked than others.

“What in tarnations!?”

“Dear Sweet Celestia, what happened!?!”

“O-oh my goodness!!”

“S-scootaloo?! W-what in the name of-?!”

“Holy schnikes! You girls look just like Calvy! That’s so amazing!” For a brief moment, everypony just stared as Pinkie Pie as the party pony just stood in place. “What? It’s what I say when I’m super duper shocked, but also super duper surprised at the same time.”

Twilight herself, just let out a sigh, her eyes drifting back towards Calvin and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, the gaze in her eyes looking less like that of a friendly pony that you were passing in town and more as she was trying to demand answers with her eyes. “Calvin… What happened?”

“Um. Would it somehow involve Discord laying down over there?” Spike’s question only just resulted in the girls looking towards where the dragon was pointing as they heard Discord groan out in pain. “And why is he laying down over there?”

Calvin let out a deep breath, putting his cards face down on the table as the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders put down their own cards, so no one could take a peak and cheat. “That is a LOT to explain,” he said at first, before looking back to Twilight, “It first started when I got up and found the letter you left behind. Taking your advice, I went to go find Apple Bloom and her friends-”

“Did ya go into the Everfree?”

“Did you fall into some poison joke?”

“Did somepony place a wicked curse on you!?”

“No, no, none of those things happened,” Calvin immediately shot down the questions that were fired from Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie before trying to continue with what he was saying, “We went over to Fluttershy’s cottage, because we thought that we would be doing a good thing if we kept an eye on her animals while you guys were away. Shortly after we got there, we met up with Discord, and while the girls were feeding Angel, Harry and all the other critters, he was talking to me about something that he had been thinking on for… I would guess a long time.”

“That being?” the alicorn now asked.

“He was getting rather curious about my pendant, my transformations, and all the things I can do with it. He wanted to find out more, and in my mind, lead me to think that he wanted to take a closer look at it,” As he said that, he pulled out the necklace that was under his shirt briefly, before putting it back inside. “However, since I promised a friend that I would keep it safe, I had to tell him that I couldn’t let him mess with it. But, at the time, I told him that I can tell him something that might answer whatever questions he might have.”

“I got a bad feeling about where this is going,” Starlight now spoke up as she looked back at Twilight.

“Of course, at the time I said that, it wasn’t until a few seconds later that the girls told me that promising that might not have been the best idea.”

After Calvin finished, that was when Apple Bloom herself now took a turn to speak. “We told Calvin that we knew from experience that if ya try to help him out for anything, if his intentions were good, something always seems ta’ go wrong.”

“So, Calvin suggested that we listen in on what Calvin had to share, just so nothing bad happened,” Sweetie Belle now added, “Needless to say, it didn’t quite go the way that we wanted it to.”

“Could you clarify on what you mean, Sweetie?” Rarity now asked her little sister, raising an eyebrow at how Sweetie Belle finished that sentence.

“And what exactly did ya tell him, Calvin?” Applejack’s question made Calvin feel quite nervous, especially since the last time that he had told somepony about this, it led to the fiasco that they just pulled themselves out of fifteen minutes ago. Though, he knew that lying about it or trying to dodge the question would not help with anything at all. If anything, it would probably just make things worse.

“I told him something that Twilight, Rainbow and Pinkie already know by now,” He started his sentence, waiting to see their reactions first before continuing. “I told them about the fact that the Skylands were an actual place,” immediately, he saw the pupils in Twilight and Rainbow’s eyes begin to shrink. Most of their friends looked rather puzzled, while Pinkie looked like she knew exactly what he was talking about. But he was quick to retort. “But he didn’t believe me at first! In fact, the only way I was able to prove it to him was when I transformed into a Skylander that did not look anything like what could come from Equestria.”

“And with that, that’s when things began to go wrong,” Scootaloo said as well, all three of her friends looking at her now, “What?”

“Could you care to explain that Scoots?” Rainbow then asked.

“After Calvin changed into some skeletal knight guy, Discord began to freak out, trying to ask where the Skylands were, as if he was Pinkie Pie when she had not had sugar for a few days-”

The comment from Scootaloo had everypony look back at the party pony now as she was giving Scootaloo the equestrian equivalent of a 1000 yard stare. “Never again…”

“-Which soon led to him flipping out, asking questions like ‘Do you know how many centuries has it been since I’ve found something not created by myself, or something like that,” Scootaloo continued speaking, while also giving off what would be seen as her best impression of Discord, all while the Draconequus held up a judges score card from a dancing competition in his pain ridden state that read ‘5’. “Next thing we knew, he was trying some kind of spell in order to try and see this place for himself from the center of Fluttershy’s living room.”

“How did that go?” Spike now asked.

Calvin was quick in order to pick up the conversation after that. “Very bad.”

“How bad are we talking about? Like ‘want it, need it’ bad, or-” Now, it was Twilight that was giving off the same stare that Pinkie Pie had just mere moments ago as it sent a shiver down the dragon's spine. “I’ll stop talking.”

“Discord was using a scrying spell to see everything that was a part of the Skylands, but the more things that he began to see, the more excited that he became,” the Skyshifter continued to speak. “And with it, it got to the point that he was seeing so many things and speaking so fast that he put himself into a hypnotized state. Not to mention that when the girls made eye contact with him, they were also hypnotized as well.”

“D-did you try to get help?” Fluttershy now asked.

“I did… Yet, they did more harm than good,” he grumbled, “I tried summoning a Skylander named Hoot Loop, somebody who knew a thing or two about hypnosis, hoping that he could find a way to help snap them out of their trance. Yet, the first thing that he did was not help them, but instead had them dance in Fluttershy’s living room, which made things worse because he did not know anything about Discord’s magic, and he turned the dance Hoot Loop was having them do into an actual circus act.”

“Oh no,” Twilight now muttered, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates at the implications.

“Ooh ooh!! Did he dress up like PT Barley? Did he?!” Pinkie Pie now asked, once again getting a few of her friends to stare at her as the party pony looked rather confused. “What? He was a legend!! I did my party cannon based off of the cannons from his shows when I went once as a filly!!”

“That explains a lot,” Applejack mumbled.

“Um… dear? I know that this is important and all,” Rarity soon spoke up as she trotted a little bit closer to the Cutie Map. “But how does this relate to Sweetie Belle and her friends?”

“That part actually came next,” he replied back to her, “Because it was during the circus act that he used some of his magic to turn the girls into humans. I think his reason why was because he thought that I was lonely being the only one of my kind here, so he wanted to try and help.”

“O-oh my,” the seamstress spoke again, “I-i didn’t even consider that.”

“Rares, ah don’t think-”

“No, no! We’ve been there for him since he came here, darling. Had any of us ever considered the possibility that he might have been lonely being the only one of his kind here?”

“Rarity, I think we’re getting a bit off topic,” Starlight then spoke up, “Besides, I’ve only been here for a couple of weeks, so I don’t really think I would know the answer to that.”

“Starlight’s right. Let’s hear the rest of what happened first before we jump to conclusions on anything,” Twilight added on to her student’s comment before turning back to Calvin, giving him a nod as a way to tell him to keep on talking.

“Immediately after the girls were turned into humans, Hoot Loop broke the trance on them, and they came back to their senses. However, Discord himself had left the cottage and was taking his show to Ponyville. By the time we got there, he had changed the water in the water fountain to cola, had flying cakes everywhere and literal cherry bombs were raining and exploding on the ground. That, and he had locked up Hoot Loop in a bird cage.”

“Heh. Serves him right,” Rainbow retorted.

“We took shelter at Sugarcube corner while everypony else was running into their homes and locking up the doors. From there, we met Diamond, Silver and Rumble and explained the situation with Discord. I tried talking to Spitfire-”

“Wait, Spitfire? As in the Wonderbolt?” Starlight blinked, honestly surprised to hear that.

“No, no, different Spitfire, Starlight,” Rainbow commented, “He’s a skylander who we’ve met before… He also ran over Discord one time, but that’s not important. Keep going, Calvin.”

“I told him what was going on and how Hoot Loop made things even worse, so he went to go get Master Eon,” as he said that, he looked back at Starlight and added on something to help her understand, “He’s like their version of Princess Celestia.” Once he made the clarifying statement, he then went back to what he was speaking before, “Eon himself talked with us… and yes, I say us, because the girls were somehow able to hear him, too-”

“What did he say?” Twilight asked.

Now though, Calvin seemed a little bit irritated by the amount of times that he was getting cut off. But, he tried to be as calm as possible and not let that show. “He told us that Discord’s chaos magic was, in his words, a sub-variant of mind magic, and that I could possibly beat him if I were my Imaginator,” for a brief demonstration, Calvin used his necklace and said the catchphrase of his Imaginator to turn into Kai Chi to provide a visual reference, before changing back a few seconds later. “That, and he kind of gave some advice that I followed through on.”

“That advice being shooting himself out of a cannon was usually the best way to surprise villains… and a few seconds later, Calvin followed through on that,” Scootaloo added, “We were all helping him as he used Pinkie Pie’s party cannon to launch himself at Discord,” Now everypony was staring at the four of them, even Pinkie Pie, though her stare was accompanied with a small smile. “And the crazy thing is, it actually worked.”

“Worked… how?” Applejack now asked, a little bit puzzled, but also wanting to learn more.

“Well, getting launched helped me get up to his position in the air, and once I got close enough, I hit him with the most serious punch I can possibly throw,” Calvin explained, “It sent Discord flying into the lake outside of ponyville and also had everything in Ponyville go back to normal… well, everything except Discord.”

“S-should I even ask-?”

Twilight’s question was met by the sound of a loud groan as Discord seated himself upright as he had to adjust his jaw, since it was a bit crooked. Some of his teeth were missing, and he had ice over what looked to be a black eye on the left side of his face. “Ugh… m-my head…”

“O-oh my goodness!!” Fluttershy immediately rushed over to the draconequus after seeing his bruised and beat up state. “A-are you okay!?”

“A-aspirin…” the draconequus groaned, having to hit the other side of his head with his lion paw so that his right eye was not twitching all over the place as he looked back at Fluttershy and the rest of her friends that were standing in the castle. “D-does anypony have any a-aspirin? M-my head f-feels like a volcano right now.”

After he asked that, Spike looked back at Twilight, before the dragon walked upstairs for a moment. When he came back down, he was carrying what looked like a box of medicine and a glass of water as he handed the aspirin to Discord for him to swallow, followed by the glass so that he had something to wash it down with. “Thank you… so where were we-?”

“Ya got a LOT of explaining to do, mister!!” Applejack now took a turn to speak as she trotted over to where Fluttershy and Spike were. Yet, instead of trying to help, Applejack’s first action was to go over to the draconequus, stare him dead straight in the eye and tell him one thing. “Change Bloom back. Now!”

“Applejack, stop! He can’t-” Apple Bloom tried to tell her sister, getting up out of her chair. Yet, she was only able to walk a few steps before she fell forward. Luckily, Calvin was able to catch her before touching the ground.

Applejack though, remained unfazed. “He can, and with Celestia as my witness, ah will make him use that darn magic of his if ah have to-!”

“That’s the problem!! He’s out!!!”

Calvin’s outburst immediately made the whole room silent, and with it, had Applejack back off from Discord before the farmer turned to face him, “What… did ya say?”

“He’s out. He’s out of magic,” Calvin tried to tell her, while helping Apple Bloom back up onto the seat she was sitting on.

“How the hay can he be out of magic though? He’s Discord for crying out loud!” Rainbow now retorted.

“If I may interject,” everypony turned back around in order to look back at the draconequus that they were talking about, “Perhaps you should let me explain why.”

It took Discord a couple of tries to properly be able to snap his paw, but when he did, something new appeared over the heads of every creature in the room. Mostly everypony aside from Calvin had what looked like a green and blue bar over their heads, while the Skyshifter only had a green bar above his with a circle next to it on the left, and Discord had a green bar that was half filled with the bar underneath being almost empty and colored red instead of blue. In fact, they reminded Calvin of some mechanics that he might see in other role playing games. “You see, my magic works differently for one key reason,” he then looked over to Twilight and then gave her a request. “Twilight, can you teleport as far as you can and then come back? There’s something I want to show that relates to this.”

The alicorn herself was a bit puzzled by the request, but begrudgingly followed through on it. Teleporting to the other side of Ponyville before coming back. “Discord, what did you have me do that for?”

“The reason why I had you do that is because of the visual,” he said, pointing to the bars above Twilight’s head. Everypony in the room noticed that a portion of the blue bar that Twilight originally had was gone. Yet, as she felt more rested and relaxed, it started to come back to her. “Whether it’s earth pony magic, unicorn magic, weather magic or magic from another species, the amount of mana that they happened to use slowly returns to them while they rest,” the draconequus then let out a sigh, shortly before looking back at everypony. “Mine though does not work in the same way because I’m not fully a pony, at least not to the same effect. I’m only half.”

“How does that explain everything you did before then? Even before being reformed?” Rainbow asked as she folded her forelegs.

“Have you girls ever noticed that when I use my magic for anything, like a cup of chocolate milk, that it explodes a few moments later?” Each one of the mane six looked back to each other at that. They did happen to remember that happening in some cases, but not too often. “That is how my magic functions. Sure, how it works might not make any sense to most ponies, but one thing that does is that the more that I conjure, the more mana I use up. Since I can’t be able to have my mana come back to me as naturally and as quickly as most of you, I have to destroy the creations that I make in order to have my mana restored quickly.”

It was then that Discord turned his head, now looking directly at Calvin. “When I was in that trance that Calvin mentioned, I don’t remember a lot of what happened. But based on what he and the girls told me, I can say this. Because of the fact that I was not able to end the spells myself and I did not destroy what I created, when Calvin defeated me and everything disappeared, none of that mana returned back. I can’t even go back to my home in the Chaotic Void because of the amount of mana I lost.”

That had Rainbow and Applejack look back at each other for a moment as they were trying to contemplate what they heard, before somepony else had a new question. “I guess that kind of makes sense…” Starlight replied back, before noticing something with Calvin’s that was kind of different. “Why does Calvin’s have that circle on it though?”

“Hmm?” Discord himself, looked back at Calvin’s bar shortly before scratching his chin. “Calvin, can you-?”

“Transform?” he asked. His question was followed by a nod from the draconequus as Calvin turned back into his Imaginator again. As they looked at his bar now, the grey circle that was originally there now had the symbol that represented Skylanders that were of the fire element. And after he had stayed in it for a few moments, they noticed that the top half of the symbol was beginning to shrink down. When he changed back to normal, the symbol was gone. “So, did you figure out what that could mean?”

“From the looks of it, it seems to be that what’s on it changes when you transform,” Discord mentioned, before looking back towards everypony else. “I think there’s something else to it, too, but I can’t really put my talon on it.”

“Ooh! Maybe it’s like a scented candle or something!!” Again, everypony turned back around to look back at Pinkie Pie. Since her comment came out of nowhere, they were waiting for an explanation. “What? Didn’t anypony else see it slowly disappear?”

Of course, it was after that when one of her other friends soon spoke up. “N-now that I think of it, it did kind of make me think of one,” Fluttershy herself admitted.

“Yeah, but what is it supposed to mean?” Rarity soon asked as she looked back at her friends, scratching her chin with a hoof. “Is it a metaphor? A reference to something-?”

“Umm… girls?” everypony now looked back to Calvin again after hearing him speak up, looking as if there was something that he wanted to say. “Maybe what you’re seeing is some kind of timer?”

“A timer? Why would-?” Twilight’s question was soon met by a sudden realization as she looked back at her friends, remembering a key detail about Calvin’s pendant and also the power that came with it, “Oh yeah! I see it now! Because you can only stay transformed for so long before you change back!”

“Aww, phooey! That was going to be my third guess,” Pinkie Pie muttered as some of her friends looked back at her.

“What was your second?” Rainbow now asked.

“…Birthday Candles?”

“Hey uh… girls?” they all heard Spike now speak up as he pointed towards Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, “I’m not sure if I’m seeing things or not, but they also have the circles, too.”

As everypony looked back at the Cutie Mark Crusaders now, they looked up to see that they did have the same grey circle that was to the left of their bars, too. They were a mirror image of the one over Calvin’s head, aside from the blue bar under the green one. Even Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were just as shocked and surprised at seeing this, too. Though, they weren’t entirely sure what it meant or why it was actually there.

Before they could ask about it though, another pony decided to speak up as Starlight looked back at everypony. “Um, I know this sounds great and all, but what exactly are we going to do now?” The unicorn then asked. “I mean, as of this moment, your sisters have been turned into a completely different species, Discord can’t change them back because he’s out of magic and I have so many questions about practically everything regarding what you were just talking about that it’s enough to make my head explode-”

“Woah there, Glimmy!!” Pinkie interjected. “This story has an E10 rating! Let’s not try and imply anything over that.”

Starlight just stared back at Pinkie for about two seconds, before shaking her head and returning her focus back to what she was talking about. “My point is still the same. Does anypony have any idea as to what we’re going to do now?”

The question from Starlight soon had the entire room be silent. Even Pinkie Pie, a pony who would usually be seen as the most chatty amongst her friends, was rather quiet. Everypony seemed to try and think of something that they could possibly do, but they seemed to be having trouble with finalizing what those ideas consisted of. The Cutie Mark Crusaders themselves were unsure about what to do, mostly because they were not entirely familiar with their newfound bodies. Yet, they still felt that they should do something to at least be able to help, since they were in this mess, too.

Though, after some thinking, Calvin had a different question to ask. This time, it was specifically for Discord. “Hey, Discord… can I ask you a question about your magic?”

“Go ahead.”

“I know that you can use your magic for visuals, but is it possible that you can do sounds?” the question was met by Discord scratching his chin, before nodding briefly as the Skyshifter picked up on that cue and continued to speak. “Could it be possible that you replay a piece of what you were saying when you were looking into Skylands?”

“Now, why exactly would you have him do that?” Scootaloo asked. “Most of the things that he said was just gibberish.”

“Okay, but I think there was something at the end that might actually be important. I just want to make sure.”

Within seconds, Discord was able to actually properly snap his paw carefully now as a tape recorder landed in his paw a few seconds later. “I’m going to have to start from the beginning, so tell me when to slow down.”

Click!

“Um… Discord? What exactly are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m using scrying magic to see the Skylands for myself… Oh my… Is that… a land of food creatures? With a unicorn that has a churro horn!? Why did I not think of that sooner?!”

In that moment, Rarity turned to Pinkie Pie, who looked to be staring at her horn. “Don’t even think about it, darling.”

“Oooooh… Ghost possessing machines! Machines controlling the dead?! A skeletal Jazz band, complete with my list of greatest hits?! A dancing undead mariachi city!?”

“He has a list of them?” They all now heard Calvin’s voice on the recording, shortly before going back to Discord’s rambling.

“My goodness, a gravity distorted prison? Land of the Tikis? A shrine on the back of a mountain dragon? Magical artwork coming to life?!! Floating eyeball fortune teller!? Robots that know archery? A city where Time Distortion is strangely normal, even amongst the townsfolk?! Solar systems that flash to the sound of music? Sand rivers?! Deadly ammunition races that are legal!?! A library where books come to life and pull in the readers!!?!”

“And just when we all agreed not to tell Twilight of that one,” Apple Bloom mumbled, just as they heard her voice on the recording stressed that they should not tell the princess about it.

“Living Statues?! Machines flying with just mechanical wings!? A dragon that flies because of a robot suit?!! Talking trees?!!? Tree Fire Fighters!? ALL THE TREES!?! Giant floating eyeball and a ghost possessed headless armor joining forces!? Mechanical wings to help young ones fly?!!!”

“I want that.”

“Scoots.”

“What? How exactly am I going to be able to learn how to fly using these?!” As she heard that and saw Rainbow Dash looking at her direction, Scootaloo began slumping in the chair she was in, trying to avoid eye contact as the recording kept playing.

“Museum where the world is like living shadows?! Orbiting wishing stars housing ancient wish granters?! Vortex Sheep Tossing is a sport!? A place where musicisactuallyinasolidphysicalform!?-”

“Right there! Slow it down!” Calvin told the draconequus.

Click! Click!

“A couple of villains scrying us as I scry them!?!” the recording played, sounding as if it was spoken rather slowly as Calvin’s eyes widened at hearing that.

“Okay, I think we might have a problem,” Calvin looked back towards Twilight and Rainbow, who were both equally shocked by what was said on the recording, “I got a bad feeling that one particular villain we’ve seen before tried spying on us while Discord was trying to see the Skylands for himself.”

“Wait… are you telling me that it’s the same bald midget from the gala that somehow had Sombra’s horn with him-?”

“HE HAD WHAT?!!” Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie and Spike shouted at the same time. Fluttershy herself just shivered at the sound of the name of the former king. Yet, one pony in the room was kind of puzzled at what was going on.

“Uh… who’s Sombra?”

“It’s a bit of a long story,” Spike looked back at Starlight as he did his best to try and find a way to simplify explaining to her. “He was the former ruler of the Crystal Empire, who tried hiding it from the world. We kind of beat him like… a year and a half ago, I think. Let’s just say that many of the crystal ponies are thankful that he’s gone now.”

“That’s not what we should be worried about, Spike,” Twilight was quick to intercept the conversation after her assistant finished explaining, “When we told Celestia about it, she told us that since his kind of magic is unknown, there’s no telling if he’s gone for good or not. But the thought of him following the orders of somepony else and working for them? That in itself is worrisome.”

What the princess herself didn’t expect to hear, though, was Calvin actually chuckling a bit as she turned around to face him. “What’s so funny, Calvin?”

“Uh… I wouldn't be so sure about that.”

“Why not? Giving orders to others sounds exactly like something he would do,” Twilight tried to reason with him.

“Twilight… let me fill you in on something,” the Skyshifter told her. “Kaos’s moments of genius and stupidity are kind of interchangeable, unless somebody else gives him the idea first… Then again... knowing how often Kaos isn’t alone without Glumshanks…”

“Glumshanks?” the princess now asked.

“His servant, personal butler and full time voice of reason,” Calvin sighed, “Think of him like Spike… except he’s rather timid, always gets shouted at, gets his ideas claimed as Kaos’s own, is used to being tortured as his master’s whim and isn’t really appreciated for his services.” Shortly after he said that, everypony seemed to notice Spike letting out a small sigh or relief and wiping his forehead, almost as if he was glad that this Glumshanks characters was not like him.

“Moving on… ah have something I want to say. Is it just me or does it seem a bit concerning to ya that everything we heard on the recording might sound like something that Kaos fella might make use of?” Applejack now asked.

“Maybe,” the Skyshifter replied back with a small shrug of his shoulders. “I mean, I’m familiar with most of those things. But there are some things like the wishing stars that I haven’t heard about before. Yet, something about wishes was mentioned as part of the backstory on a Skylander named Flashwing.”

“What about Sweetie Belle and her friends?” Rarity now spoke up as she looked back at the three of them. “What are we going to do about that?”

“Well, personally, I would ask Discord to check what he did to them, buuuuut…” he looked back at the draconequus, who still had the ice bag over his face as Calvin looked back to Rarity, “I think he’s out for the count right now.”

“So, what exactly can we do right now?” he heard Rainbow then ask, “What’s our Plan B?”

Calvin folded his arms, taking a couple of moments in order to try and think of a proper response to the question. A couple of moments later, he had thought of something. “Well, I have a couple of ideas. One for right now, and one for a bit later.”

“Well, we’re all ears, darling.”

“First, since Discord can’t exactly change the girls back, we should take the time in order to help the girls feel… what’s the word… comfortable with this new form,” he first explained to Rarity, Rainbow and Applejack. “Help them with the basics. Knowing how to walk, run and also using their hands, since they’re going to be doing a lot of things on two legs instead of four.”

“What’s the other one?” Applejack asked.

“Well, once they know how to walk on their own without somepony needing to help them, I think it would be best to have them come with me to see Master Eon,” Calvin told them, looking briefly at Twilight for a moment to see if she had any kind of reaction to that idea before continuing. “He might know what exactly is going on, since he had helped us out before and knows quite a bit about magic that’s not native to Equestria.”

Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Rarity looked at each other for a moment before heading off to the side. They looked to be discussing what Calvin had suggested, because every couple of seconds, one of them would look back towards Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. So for the moment, Twilight took the initiative to speak up. “Calvin, if you do plan to take the crusaders with you to the Skylands when they’re ready, I’m going to come with you.”

Calvin was kind of surprised with Twilight saying that, mostly because it did not sound like her asking if she should come and instead, coming off as she was boldly declaring that she was coming with him. “Um… may I ask why?”

“Well, there’s the fact that you always seem to be a magnet for some kind of trouble. Who knows what would occur if you went there alone?” she told him in response.

“But I won’t be alone. I can have Spitfire be with us,” he replied back to the princess, puzzled by what Twilight was trying to say to him.

“T-there’s still the fact that you need an adult-”

“Twilight, we would be going to an academy that can best be described as a literal home for heroes. I don’t see what the problem is there,” Calvin countered, looking at the girls for a moment to see if they knew possibly what she was trying to do. Of course, as they looked at Spike, all he did was roll his eyes and face-claw himself before walking over to them, getting up on the table and speaking up.

“Twilight, just tell him why you really want to go up with him. It’s already painfully obvious that there’s something you want up there that doesn’t involve foalsitting Calvin.”

The alicorn now was looking a bit flustered, before letting out a small breath and beginning to speak once again. “O-okay, okay. I just… well, I just wanted to learn more about the Skylands. I thought that the more I knew about it, the more that I would be able to help you.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Spike chuckled, before getting a glare from the princess.

Calvin’s response was a bit different from Spike’s. Though, the message was clear. “Well, why didn’t you say so? I’m fine with letting you come along, Twilight. Just… don’t do anything like what happened last time.”

“What happened last time?” Sweetie Belle then asked, something that made the princess shiver a bit.

“She saw two Skylanders that were snakes and jumped into my arms a few seconds later. Celestia said that it’s a fear of hers.”

The crusaders, upon hearing that, just giggled amongst themselves for a moment, with Spike soon joining in, confusing both Twilight and Calvin as the girls looked back at them a few seconds later. “I-i’m sorry Calvin, but the thought of you holding onto a scared princess just sounds so cute.”

“I was terrified for my life!” Twilight’s remarks didn’t really help any. For now, Pinkie Pie was rolling on the floor in an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and Spike was now giggling alongside the crusaders.

“Snakes can be heroes?” Fluttershy now asked, not sounding scared upon hearing it. In fact, she seemed a bit interested at the possibility, shortly before noticing Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow returning back to the group.

“Alright, we made a-” Rainbow was going to say something, but upon noticing everything going on, she turned to Fluttershy and then asked a question. “Um, Fluttershy? Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“Calvin mentioned that he met some heroes in the Skylands that were snakes and how terrified it made her,” Fluttershy summarized, looking back at her friend now.

“Heh, if you think that’s strange, I met a skeletal dog and another one that was made up of lava.”

“A-actually, I-i don’t think it’s strange,” she shook her head, surprising her friend. “In fact, I-i actually would like to meet them. Maybe even be friends with them, and all the other animals, too.”

That just had Rainbow, Rarity and Applejack all look at each other with nervous expressions before looking to see if they could talk to Twilight. “That’s… uh, very nice, sugarcube,” Applejack spoke up as she looked to where Twilight was with Calvin. “Hey, uh, Twilight! Ah believe we made a decision.”

That immediately had Twilight whip back around, facing her friends now as she let out a sigh of relief, seeing this as an opportunity to get out of a rather embarrassing situation with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Yes, girls? What did you decide?”

“We think that Calvin’s plan is a good one,” Rarity was the next one to speak as she looked towards the princess, just as Calvin himself was turning back around, “Though, we have one condition.”

“What's that?” Calvin then asked.

“Applejack is a bit unsure whether or not she and Rarity can really be able to trust Master Eon and everypony at the academy,” Rainbow soon took the initiative as she looked back at both Twilight and Calvin. “So, they want to come with you when we go over there, just to determine if Master Eon is as trustworthy as we say that he is.”

Both Calvin and Twilight looked back at each other for a moment, surprised by the condition that the girls had placed, all before he looked back and smiled. “Sure, I guess. Geez, at this rate, it feels like we’re all going to be taking a field trip up there.”

“Mind if I come too?” Starlight now asked, “You know, since pretty much everypony else is going?”

“Count me in, too!!” Spike added on.

“Guess we might as well have everypony go at this rate,” Twilight then muttered.

Of course, even though everypony was excited for going, one of Twilight’s friends soon had to ask a different question. “Everypony, I know that going to see this place is exciting and everything, but when should we actually go? Some of us might have things going on, so we should figure out a time to go when everypony’s not so busy.”

That was a rather good question, something that Calvin didn’t even take into consideration until it was brought up just now. “That’s… a valid point,” he said, looking back at the three of them now, “That, and it would take us a while to help make sure you can handle your new bodies without needing help.”

“Come on, Rarity,” Sweetie Belle now spoke up, “I know for a fact that you’re not always working. Can’t we choose a day where you don’t have anything going on?”

“Sweetie Belle, it might not be such a good idea to try and rush things,” Twilight told her in response, “Heck, when I was a filly in Canterlot, it took my brother and I about two weeks to help Spike get to the point where he can walk on his own.”

“That’s when I was a hatchling, Twilight,” Spike pointed out to her, “The girls are much older. There’s a pretty big difference there.”

Everything seemed to grow a bit quiet again… though, it was after some time that Starlight herself began to pitch in. “How about we take a week or two to see how far we’ve come along with helping the girls first before we plan traveling anywhere?”

For a moment, Twilight was going to say something. But as she let her student’s words sink in, the princess began to realize that what she was saying might possibly be a good idea. In fact, Calvin actually agreed with what she was saying. Everypony else seemed to like the idea as well once they had the chance to think on it, including the Cutie Mark Crusaders themselves. “Alright, I guess we’ll go with that, then.”

“Brilliant! Nicely done!! Now, there’s one last thing that I think we need to discuss,” They all looked now to Discord, who still had the ice over his eye. Yet, this time, he seemed to have a small suitcase by where he was sitting. “Would you be so kind as to let me stay here? Without my magic, I’m… kind of locked out of my home.”

That question alone was all Twilight needed to hear before she fell forward, landing face first on the ground and groaning at the question, prompting Calvin to turn to Spike. “Hey, Spike? Would you like to join us? We were playing Go Fish earlier, and I was thinking about starting a new game, since our last one got interrupted.”

“Count me in,” the dragon smirked.

Meanwhile…

“So, let me see if I get this straight,” the dark portal master named Kaossandra now spoke as she looked at the room where Kaos’ portal of power was as well as her son. “You tried a scrying spell to spy on the boy, which led to Sombra getting hypnotized… and now, you’re using him as a set of curtains?”

“What? There was too much light in here to begin with, mother!! I needed to dim the room in here in order to focus!!” her son snapped, which caused her to roll her eyes as she looked back at Glumshanks, who seemed to be sitting in a corner.

“Glumshanks, dear, please look after him. I need to take a moment to rest my head in my private quarters,” she said, walking away with a disgusted look on her face and slamming the door behind her, leaving Kaos with just his butler and a set of Sombra-curtains.

Of course, Glumshanks himself now looked back at the dark portal master, who looked to be deep in thought as he tried to get his attention. “M-master? Can I-?”

“What is it, fool!?” Kaos snapped, “Can’t you see that I’m busy with something-?”

“I-i might have an idea for you regarding our… partnership,” Glumshanks told him, motioning his head in the direction of the curtains to see if he could pick up on the cues.

Yet, it was only after a few seconds did his master suddenly display his impatience again. “Well? Spill it out already!!”

“W-well, sir, I was thinking… S-sombra is a powerful ally for us, with a lot of insight on what’s below the Skylands,” Glumshanks paused, before gulping down what was in his throat. “M-maybe we can use this… state he’s in to make sure that he doesn’t b-betray you?”

“Oh, really now? What would make you think that he would betray the likes of Kaos?!” He now asked.

“He might have his own reasons for h-helping us… W-we don’t want to have a repeat of what happened with the Doom Raiders, right?” The mentioning of the Doom Raiders was something that didn’t exactly thrill Kaos at all. The dark portal master still remembered all the trouble that he went through to steal the Fork of Infinite Resonance in order to break open Cloudcracker Prison in the first place, and even after setting them free, the raiders did not even give him so much as a ‘thank you’ for freeing them in the first place.

“How dare you think that I would allow a different no-name villain to humiliate me again with a disgusting act of BETRAYAL! Never again, I say! NEVER!!”

“O-of course not, Lord Kaos,” Glumshanks told him.

“After all, I shall use this predicament of ours to make sure that doesn’t happen!!”

Glumshanks just blinked for a moment, trying to process what had just happened. “Uh, wasn’t that what I just said-?”

“SILENCE!!” the Dark Portal Master snapped at him, before giving his butler a new order. “If you want to make yourself useful, prepare some of our troops to start looking for those so called ‘wishing’ things that chimera like creature mentioned earlier in his nonsense rambling.”

“W-what are you going to do though?” Glumshanks then asked his master.

“What else do you think I’m going to do, fool!?” his master asked him, “I’m going to pry as much information from him as possible, including anything that their kind might see as ‘legends’. Both of us know by now that there’s always some amount of truth to legends. You never know what could be useful.”

There was a moment of silence as Glumshanks was trying to process. Though, he could only get so far before his master soon shouted once more. “Why are you STILL HERE?!!” Immediately, the butler ran for the door, closing it behind him as the Dark Portal Master now looked back to the curtains in the back of the room.

As Glumshanks stood outside the door though, part of him felt a bit sorry for Sombra. But not because of what Kaos was doing now, instead of what he was about to do. “Did I tell you to stop being my curtain!?! KEEP THAT WINDOW SHADED!!”

End Scroll 19

Scroll 20- Mixed Up Mishaps

Author's Note

As the title suggests... well mostly suggests, this chapter is less of something that's focused on Calvin and instead is focused on the Cutie Mark Crusaders. More specifically, the kind of trouble they get themselves mixed up in.

This also is a crossover with one of my other stories that I have here on FimFic. You'll begin to realize who it is if you have read it already.

Fun fact, my editor and I had a lot of fun with this one. Not just because of the sheer craziness that we could think of for this chapter, but the amount of references we were able to sneak in here. Not just to pop culture and games, but also references to two of my favorite stories on here. Have fun going through and trying to find everything. :raritywink:

Until next time!
-Frost

P.S. If you're stuck on the references, feel free to let me know and I can fill you in.

Scroll 20- Mixed Up Mishaps

Beyond the Skies- Mixed Up Mishaps

It had been a few days since Princess Twilight and her friends had come back from the Crystal Empire, and for them, things have mostly returned to normal, mostly being the key word in that sentence. Due to an incident involving Discord, a scrying spell gone horribly wrong and Hoot Loop not knowing any better, many of the townsfolk in Ponyville were still trying to move on from what happened while they were away. In fact, not only did it leave a bit of an impact on the citizens of Ponyville, but it led to the faculty at Skylander Academy drafting up a multi-page bullet point list of the ‘Things that the Skylanders are not allowed to do in Equestria’, just to be sure that something like this never happened again.

Of course, there were three ponies that couldn’t quite simply move on from what had happened, especially since they were caught in the whole mess and changed because of it. Those three were none other than Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Because of a spell that Discord used in his ‘tranced’ state and him being nearly depleted of all the magic he had when punched with enough force to send him flying to last week, the three fillies-turned-human kids were now trying to get used to their newfound bodies. Their friend Calvin had been helping them over the last couple of days with trying to get used to them, but today, he happened to be in Manehattan, helping Pinkie Pie find a gift for her sister Maud, leaving the three of them in Twilight’s castle as they all sat at the Cutie Map.

“Ah’m tellin ya, even though this body felt strange at first, ah’m kinda getting used to it,” Applebloom told both of her friends. “Even though trying to walk was a bit tricky, ah have been finding it easier to use some of the tools that mah folks have in the barn,” the former earth pony turned back to both of her friends now, “What about you girls? How are ya handling it?”

“Kind of the same way, really,” Scootaloo then added, “It’s a bit easier to hold onto my scooter to do tricks. Plus, it’s easier to play soccer on the playground, since I don’t need to worry about tripping over my forelegs now.”

Apple Bloom nodded in agreement with Scootaloo’s response, before turning to the one girl that had not spoken yet. “What about you, Sweetie-?” Of course, what Sweetie Belle was doing in that moment was somewhat different. She had a ball of emerald colored yarn at her side of the table and was wrapping the yarn around the fingers on both of her hands as they watched her. “Um… Sweetie? What are you doing?”

Sweetie Belle, upon hearing her name, looked up and turned her head back towards Apple Bloom. “Oh, sorry, girls. I was trying to do this cat’s cradle thing that Calvin taught me.”

“Cat’s cradle? Isn’t that something you would do with Opal back at your place?” Scootaloo then asked her.

“No, no. Nothing like that,” she told her friends, trying to think of a reasonable way to explain to her what she was talking about. However, when no solutions came to mind, she decided on something else. “You know what? How about I show you girls what I mean? Because it’s actually pretty fun.”

Her demonstration started with a long loop of string that she looped over her palms and under her thumbs. Taking both of her middle fingers, Sweetie slid them under the yarn that looped around her hands as it became a zig-zag pattern. “See? Calvin was teaching me how to do this when he and Pinkie were waiting for Rarity at the boutique this morning.”

“Huh… Can I try?” Now, both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were looking at her with puzzled expressions this time, as their friend tried to explain why she asked. “What? It beats just sitting around with nothing to do while Calvin’s out of town.”

Scootaloo’s comment alone was the best way to summarize the current predicament of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The three of them were wanting to see if Calvin was up for anything, but at the last minute, he told them that Pinkie Pie wanted his help when she and Rarity were going up to Manehattan with Maud Pie. Not to mention that with Twilight and Spike in Canterlot Castle right now, there really wasn’t anything for them to do aside from what Sweetie Belle was showing them.

Yet, even though she showed her friends how to do it step-by-step, it did not mean that they were going to get it right on the first try. “Um… help?”

As Sweetie Belle finished showing Apple Bloom how to successfully do the cradle, both of the crusaders turned their heads to find their friend’s hands all tangled up in yarn. Any attempts in order to try and pull her hands out were unsuccessful and led to the yarn tightening around Scootaloo’s wrists.

“Apple Bloom, go find some scissors. We might need to cut the yarn if I can’t untangle this.”

“Where should ah look?” Apple Bloom asked as she got up from her spot at the Cutie Map.

“You should check Calvin’s room,” Sweetie replied back to her as she got up and walked over to where Scootaloo was sitting as she tried to take a look at the mess her friend got herself into. “I think he still has the art supplies from when we were helping him try to come up with that Imaginator thingy a couple weeks back.”

Apple Bloom’s only response to that was a quick nod of the head, before making her way over to Calvin’s room. She had to take it easy though. Her newfound body had only grown accustomed to walking over the last few days, so the last thing that she would want to do was run and trip over something. Stairs were also tricky, because there weren’t exactly any handles along the side to help guide her up.

Once she overcame that obstacle, another one stood before her the moment that Apple Bloom opened the door to Calvin’s room. Despite the Skyshifter’s best attempts to organize it, a decent portion of the room was still a rather big mess. “Lands sake, Calvin! How hard is it to keep one place clean?” Apple Bloom thought to herself as she began to rummage through the supplies that ended up getting scattered in one corner of the room, having to move papers that had the sketches of the ideas they had for Skylanders to the side, along with a small pad of paper that said ‘Important Notes’ on the front cover.

Only when she got to the bottom of the pile did Apple Bloom find something that could possibly help. It looked like some kind of knife, but the blade itself was hollow in the center. It looked as if there was one attached to another, almost as if it was a pair of scissors. Yet, she wasn’t entirely sure.

Though, there was no time for her to go back through the pile in order to find an alternative. The girls were waiting on her, after all, and even though they have changed physically, Scootaloo didn’t change when it came to patience. “Hey, Bloom, what’s the hold up? I need help down here!!”

“C-coming, girls!” Apple Bloom replied back, pushing the rest of the supplies back to where they were and taking the tool that she found with her downstairs before setting it on the Cutie Map. “S-sorry... this was the only thing ah could find up there.”

“Really? The only thing you could find was an oversized sewing needle?”

“Well, it was not like ah had a lot of time to look-”

“Girls, arguing is not going to get us anywhere,” Sweetie Belle then interjected, picking up the blade with a free hand and bringing it over to where the yarn was wrapped around Scootaloo’s hands. She tried to move it like it was a pair of scissors at first, only for her attempt to be unsuccessful. So, she proceeded to move the edge of the blade back and forth, as if they were using a saw to cut through. Once the cut was made, the rest of the yarn came loose, and with it, freed Scootaloo’s hands.

“Aw man, it’s good to no longer have myself tangled up like that,” Scootaloo told her. “Thanks, Sweetie.”

“No problem, Scootaloo,” her friend replied back, setting the blade back down on the table as she began to pick up the yarn so she could throw it away. “I guess you would not want to do that again?”

“Probably not,” she sighed, placing her hands on her wrists as she looked back at her friends, “Let’s go put this away before Calvin comes back. He might not like it if we took something from his room.”

Both of her friends nodded in agreement, shortly before the trio went up the stairs and hurried over to the Skyshifter’s room. Both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were appalled by the arts and crafts clutter that was on the floor, but they couldn’t waste any time cleaning up the mess for him.

As they were turning to leave though, they heard somepony… no, someone speak. “Hello? Uh... excuse me? I know that you might be busy, but could you help me? I really need some assistance right now.”

Immediately, the Crusaders stopped, just before Scootaloo began to shiver a bit. “W-was that a… g-ghost?”

“Scootaloo, ah highly doubt that Princess Twilight’s castle is haunted.”

“You don’t know that!!”

As both of her friends were arguing over whether or not it was possible that there were spirits lurking around the castle, Sweetie Belle’s response to what she heard was much different compared to that of her friends. “Girls, do you really think that a ghost would be wanting our help? What if that voice belonged to somepony else?”

“Y-you mean like a spirit-?”

“Somepony that’s alive, Scoots,” Sweetie Belle was quick to correct her friend, “Maybe they’re just asking tele… tele…”

“You mean like speaking to your mind?”

“That’s EXACTLY what a ghost would do!!”

“Scootaloo, I’m talking about a spell here. Princess Twilight has it in one of her books,” Sweetie Belle replied back, shortly before turning around and having the girls follow her downstairs towards the castle library, spreading a book out on the table as she quickly flipped through the pages. “Aha! Here it is!” she proclaimed, putting a finger down on what she was looking for triumphantly as both of her friends began to read what she was pointing to.

“Telepathy, ah mid level spell that allows the caster to communicate with somepony by using their minds. Any conversations between the caster and the one they’re communicating with cannot be heard by anypony else watching them,” Apple Bloom read the sentence out loud as she looked back at Sweetie Belle. “That… sounds reasonable, ah guess.”

“Oh, come on, Apple Bloom! Don’t you think that what we just heard now was rather fishy?” Scootaloo complained, “I mean, all of those ghost stories that we hear Rainbow tell us have evil spirits luring somepony away before-”

“Scootaloo, this could actually be somepony who is really asking for our help, but they’re too nervous to tell us face to face,” Sweetie Belle told her, “Are we really just gonna ignore somepony in need because you’re scared?”

“I-i’m not scared!!” Scootaloo defiantly told her friends, even though she was still shivering a little and didn’t want to admit that she was mortally terrified out of her mind right now.

“Okay, then. It’s settled. Whoever or whatever they are, we’re helping them. No questions asked-”

In a matter of seconds, all three of them felt a strong pulling sensation tug at them as they felt something pull them away from the library, as if they were being pulled by powerful magic. It happened so fast that Sweetie Belle could only think of one thing before everything became a blur. “I feel like we’re under prepared for this.”

A few moments earlier...

In the town of Ponyville, everything was quiet. Which, under normal circumstances, would seem downright unusual, since some strange occurrence that would happen in their town was treated as something that occurred on a weekly basis. But, in one of the upstairs rooms at Sugarcube Corner, somepony… no, someone was hard at work with trying to finish a project they were hard at work on, much to the dismay of those who were trying to help her.

“Ms. Faith, you’ve been hard at work for the last few hours. I advise that you take a break-”

“Remy, I’m so close to figuring out the solution for the problems I’m having. I can’t stop now,” the girl named Faith responded, turning her head towards a white colored drone that was on her right. One of her hands was on a holographic set of keys that were under a screen that had code scrolling all across the page while another was analyzing a crystal. “If I’m able to figure out how to use this properly, I can find a way to overcome my own limitations. I can-”

“Ms. Faith, we wouldn’t be telling you to stop unless we are absolutely sure that it’s necessary,” a second drone on Faith’s left hand side named Moby took the chance to speak now as Faith turned her head in Moby’s direction. “You still haven’t come downstairs yet, and Pinkie Pie wants to make sure you have breakfast.”

The white haired girl paused, hearing what he said and letting out a breath, shortly before having both the keys and the screen disappear with a swipe of her fingers and placed the crystal back on the table of her workstation. “Alright, I guess a break wouldn’t hurt.” She began to turn around, flicking the fingers with her left hand a couple of times to have the pajamas that she was wearing be traded out with a relaxed dress as Faith stepped out of her room, having both Remy and Moby transform into their standby form as a set of earrings while she closed the door.

However, she wasn’t able to take a few steps away from the door before Remy soon picked up something. “Incoming void signatures. Three of them.”

That had Faith stop in her place, just a few feet from the edge of the stairs as she turned her head. “Where are they-?”

“Well...” before he could finish, Faith felt something tingle from above her head. Yet, she did not have the chance to figure out what was going on before she felt three bodies crash on top of her. She couldn’t quite tell who landed on top of her, but the way that Remy finished his sentence did not help any. “... they seem to be on top of you at the moment.”

‘T-thank you, Captain Obvious,’ she thought, trying her best to move.

“O-oww… W-what the hay happened?” the moment that she heard that, Faith’s heart skipped a beat. She knew that voice. It belonged to Apple Bloom, the younger sister of Applejack. But she was supposed to be in Appleloosa with her sister today. So, why would-?

“D-don’t look at me, Bloom. T-this was Sweetie’s fault!” Again, Faith was caught off guard. The voice belonged to Scootaloo, but she was with Rainbow Dash in Cloudsdale. Something did not make sense here. Void signatures were the energy that Moby and Remy could sense if a Displaced were either calling for her help or coming here. So, why would-?

“Hey! We all heard that voice asking for our help! I did not expect anything like this to happen!”

‘Well, that pretty much just answered almost every question that I had in my head,’ Faith thought. These three girls, even though they were the Cutie Mark Crusaders, were not the Cutie Mark Crusaders that she knew. In fact, these three were strangely more human like in appearance. Of course, that still leaves the question of how did they end up here in the first place.

“Yeah yeah, we hear you, Sweetie,” Scootaloo soon let out a sigh as she tried to look around for a moment. “So, where is this pony anyways? That… whatever it was said that they needed help, so where exactly are they?”

Now was the time that Faith herself began to speak. “Maybe try looking at what you landed on top of?” All three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders paused, before slowly looking down at the floor as Faith turned her head to make eye contact with them, which was a bit hard to do with somepony sitting on your back, but she managed nonetheless. “Hi.”

Immediately, all three crusaders backed away from Faith. As the white haired girl immediately felt their weight no longer pressing down on her, she turned around and slowly got back up on her feet. “W-woah! Y-you’re human!”

At first, Faith felt the urge to correct the three crusaders. She was mostly human, but she was also part nasod, because of her displacement. But if these three were anything like the Cutie Mark Crusaders she knew, they really weren’t the kind of ponies to go deep into details. “That I am, yes,” Faith spoke, bending her knees in an attempt to get closer to the floor and be on the same level as them. “Though, you say that like you haven’t seen another one before.”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Well, aren’t you technically human?” she asked them.

“Hey! It’s not like we asked to be like this!” Scootaloo immediately quipped, taking offense to Faith’s question.

“Scootaloo, I don’t think she meant it that way,” Sweetie Belle interjected before looking towards Faith. “We’ve only been like this for a few days. Our friend Calvin back home is human, but we were our usual selves before-”

Before Sweetie Belle could finish, all four of them now heard a voice from the bottom of the stairs as the smell of pancakes and maple syrup began to drift its way upstairs. “Come on down, Faithy! Breakfast is ready!! Don’t have your pancakes get cold!”

“Was that… Pinkie Pie?” Apple Bloom now asked as she looked back at her friends, just before they heard Faith respond back. Yet, what she said left the crusaders with even more questions.

“I’ll be there in a moment, mom! I just had a couple of… friends drop in!”

“Ooh! Have them join us! I got pancakes for everypony!!”

Now, the Cutie Mark Crusaders just stared blankly at Faith, with only one question that’s on their minds. “Pinkie Pie’s your mom!?”

At first, Faith let out a small sigh, shortly before turning back towards the three crusaders. “It’s a bit of a long story. How about we talk about it over breakfast? You girls hungry?”

The three crusaders looked at each other, unsure how to respond to the question. Though, the fact that they did not have lunch yet, which was accompanied by the sound of Apple Bloom’s stomach growling soon had them make a rather quick decision. “That sounds like a good idea.”

With a small nod and a motion of Faith’s hand, all three girls followed her down the stairs. It was around this time that they began to realize that they ended up in Sugarcube Corner, but something seemed different. They first noticed it when looking at a few picture frames on the wall. They recognized the Cakes, the Cake Twins and Pinkie Pie in the pictures, but what was different was their appearance. They looked equine, yet they stood up on two legs and had hands like a human would have. It was much different from what they were familiar with.

As they finally finished coming down the stairs, they found Pinkie Pie herself behind the counter, wearing a short blouse with an apron that had the words ‘kiss the cook’ sewn in pink letters. “Oh my! Who do we have here? Are these friends of yours Faithy? Are they?!”

Faith’s first response to the baker was a simple nod of her head, shortly before adding on to that. “Mom, these are a couple friends that I just met-.”

“Oh? Then, why do they look so familiar?” she said, turning her head and trying to get a closer look at the girls by stretching herself over the counter.

“They’re Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo… just not our Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo,” Faith had to clarify so that Pinkie Pie did not stretch so far off the counter and scare the crusaders in the process. “They’re from another Equestria.”

“Ah, well, I guess that makes sense,” DING! “Ooh! Pancakes are ready now!!” Retracting herself, she turned around and began flipping some pancakes that were on the griddle as the ones that were finished cooking began to land on a few plates she had set on the counter.

As Faith took a seat by the counter, the rest of the girls soon took up a seat right next to her, with Sweetie Belle being the next person to speak up. “Pinkie seems pretty relaxed for finding out we’re not from this Equestria.”

That had the white haired girl look back at her for a moment as she let out a soft chuckle. “Yeah, she is. She even met an alternate version of herself and treated it like meeting somepony new for the first time,” she told them, just before Pinkie Pie placed a plate of pancakes in front of her along with a glass of water. “Though, that’s a story for another day. Why don’t we pick up where we left off?”

“Sure, uh…” Apple Bloom paused for a second, before looking back to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle as she was trying to process something. “Where did we leave off at again?”

“You were explaining how you ended up turning into humans.”

The new voice that spoke up startled the three newcomers as they looked back at Faith. Yet, Faith didn’t seemed put off by anything as she let out a small breath. “Moby, you could’ve introduced yourself first.”

The sentence was followed by one of the earrings that Faith was wearing transforming into a black circular drone that floated around Faith’s head. “My apologies, Lady Faith. I was just trying to be helpful.”

“W-what is that?” Scootaloo was first to speak.

“This is Moby. He’s one of two nasod drones that helps me from time to time,” Faith’s reply was followed by Moby turning back into his standby form as the earring was back on her ear, before pointing to the other one. “The other is named Remy, but right now, they’re on standby, since I don’t really need them for anything at the moment. But, he did bring up something important.”

“Oh. Right,” the crusaders soon realized what she meant as they looked back at one another, just as Pinkie Pie was setting down a syrup bottle and a small pancake decoration kit in front of the crusaders. With that in mind, Apple Bloom picked up where they left off. “So, back where we’re from, we’re ponies. The only human back home that we know is Calvin, who’s a boy around our age. However, we ended up like this after we got caught in the middle of an accident involving Discord and his magic.”

Yet, even though that explanation sounded simple enough on the surface, Faith was still puzzled by a few things. “Could you explain a bit more?” she asked, taking a knife and fork as she began to cut a piece of pancake to eat. “What kind of accident are we talking about here?”

“Um… well, where we are from, our friend Calvin can be able to transform into heroes called Skylanders,” Sweetie Belle now took the opportunity to speak up, “He even goes to their home in order to learn from them. Though, when he told us and Discord about where they’re from, he got a bit too excited and tried to use a scrying spell to take a look at the Skylands for himself.”

“How did that go?” the code queen asked her.

“Not too great. He saw so many things so quickly that he ended up hypnotizing himself… and then us when he looked at us,” Scootaloo now mentioned as Faith began to chew on a piece of pancake. “From what Calvin told us, he tried calling for help, yet all they did was make the situation worse, and when Discord was in that trance, he changed us into humans because he thought Calvin was lonely being the only human in our world. He broke Discord’s trance, but now, he doesn’t have enough magic to change us back.”

As she heard that, Faith took a drink from her glass and set it down on the table, before looking back at them. “So, what you’re saying is that you’re stuck like this until Discord makes a full recovery?”

“Pretty much. Though, some things back home leave us with more questions than answers,” Sweetie Belle nodded, just as Pinkie Pie had set down three more plates of pancakes, one for each of the crusaders as Apple Bloom and Scootaloo immediately began to dig in while the party pony was placing glasses of water out on the table. “Though, perhaps it should be us listening to you now.”

The code queen had finished her food by the time she heard that, drinking it down with some water before turning back to her. “Ah. Right. I did say we would talk about it over breakfast,” she said, before looking back at the Crusaders. “My family’s a bit… complex. It’s not just me that’s over here in Equestria, but many other family members I know. Though, I wasn't born here. My dad raised me for a long time on earth before I came here by accident.”

“Earth?” Apple Bloom asked, wiping some syrup off her face with a napkin. “What does this have to do with the ground?”

“No no, not that Earth. Where most humans are from, Earth is a planet. Kind of like this, actually,” Faith’s explanation was followed by pinching three of her fingers for a moment, before releasing it as a holographic sphere was seen with different shapes on it. “I lived here for the first part of my life, but… I lost my mom.”

“Lost? What do you-?” Apple Bloom’s question was interjected with an immediate realization. Faith was like her. She, too, had lost somepony that cared for her and her siblings back home, just like how Faith had lost someone that was important to her. “Oh, A-ah’m so sorry. Ah didn’t know-”

Faith just shook her head, waving her off as the sphere that was originally present now disappeared. “It’s okay… Don’t worry about it. It happened a long time ago, when I was just a child,” she insisted, before looking to Pinkie Pie and letting off a smile. “Pinkie Pie has known my father for a long time, and just recently, they decided that they were going to get married. So that makes Pinkie my new mom now.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Scootaloo explained to her, just before asking a new question as she was using her hands to spread some butter and syrup over her pancakes. “Though, how is that complex? If anything, that sounds rather simple.”

“Well, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. We still haven’t covered the rest of my family,” the statement from the code queen had all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders look at one another with puzzled expressions on their faces, shortly before Faith began to speak again. “There’s my dad, my two uncles and who are with them, as well as my grandparents. Where would you like to start?”

“Um… your dad?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Well, he’s the easiest,” she chuckled, “My dad’s a warrior. There are numerous names for his job class, but his abilities remain the same. He can conjure multiple swords at will using his magic and use them when fighting opponents. He helps out Princess Twilight as well as Celestia and Artemis from time to time-”

“Who’s Artemis?”

That question led to an immediate realization by Faith as she now had a question for the crusader trio. “Does your Celestia have a sister named Luna?” The question led to all three of them nodding their heads as the code queen now had a proper way of explaining this to them. “Alright, think that… but in this world, Luna is a guy. His name’s Artemis and despite the fact that both of them are considered to be ‘retired’, they still help out Twilight and Cadance with their duties at Canterlot, and-.”

“Hold on a second,” Scootaloo interjected as she looked back at Faith. “What do you mean by ‘retired’? Back home, our princesses are still running things like normal.”

The statement from Scootaloo had Faith realize something. Something that she should’ve asked earlier but completely forgot about. “What year is it back in your world?”

“What?”

“Back in your world, what’s the year?” Faith repeated herself.

The Crusaders looked at each other again, puzzled by what the code queen was asking for, just before Apple Bloom responded. “Around 1006 CE?” Faith’s eyes widened immediately at that, shortly before the former earth pony added on. “Is… something wrong?”

“Girls, right now for me, the year is 1011 CE,” the code queen’s words were followed by another thing she told them that had the gravity of what she was saying begin to set in. “My world right now is five years ahead of you.”

“Woah, woah, woah. Hold on a minute,” Scootaloo now interjected. “You’re telling us that not only did we somehow find ourselves in another world, but we also found ourselves in the future? That’s a lot of info to just tell somepony about.”

“No, it means that there are some things that I can’t tell you, because they probably have not happened yet,” Faith corrected her, “So, forget what I mentioned just a couple of moments about Celestia and Artemis, okay? I don’t want to accidentally cause something if you tell somepony you know back home everything I told you.”

All three of the crusaders nodded in response as the code queen picked up where she left off before that point. “So, aside from what I mentioned about my dad, there’s not really much else that I can explain. Though, my uncles are a bit of a different story, especially Uncle Nicko.”

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow at that, just as she finished her drink. “How so?”

“Well, for one thing, Uncle Nicko knows magic. Not just any magic though, but rune magic. It’s a form of magic so ancient that it was once considered as forgotten, because the only other pony who used it was Starswirl the Bearded,” it might have been a simple explanation, but what Faith told them was something that was eye opening to the girls. Unlike Calvin, who could only be able to access his powers and abilities through the magic of his necklace, the person that Faith was describing was able to channel and control magic directly, without having to use something else to access it.

“Wow! That sounds amazing!” Sweetie Belle asked, “Do you think we could meet him?”

The question led to Faith expressing a bit of uncertainty. “I’m not sure. If I remember correctly, he’s kind of on his honeymoon with Eris and Moondancer-”

“Eris? Who’s that?” Apple Bloom now asked, which led to Faith taking another drink of water as she looked back at the trio.

“That’s… complicated,” the code queen told them. “She’s what Discord calls his daughter. A draconequus that he created with his chaos magic, so he did not have to be lonely during his original imprisonment. Of course, she actually had been with my uncle for the longest amount of time, and… well, now they’re married.”

“Wait… so your uncle is married… to two-?”

“Like I said, it's complicated,” Faith cut off Scootaloo before she could even finish.

“Fair enough ah guess,” Apple Bloom now spoke up as she thought of a different question to ask. “What about your other uncle and grandparents?”

“Well, to summarize him up, he has a mechanical arm and also is engaged to Applejack. My Applejack,” she specifically explained, before looking back at the trio. “As for Grandpa Luke and Grandma Ciela… well, they help out around Canterlot, and they don’t really come by that much. Both of them are part demon, so they try to keep their distance so they don’t accidentally scare anypony.”

As the rest of the crusaders finished their dishes, Faith brought out Moby and Remy and had them pick up the empty dishes and bring them to the sink. “Now then, I know that you might have some more questions, but I think it would be better if you followed me upstairs.”

“What? Why?” Scootaloo now asked.

“Well,” she said to them as Moby and Remy returned to her side. “You did say that you were going to help me after all. It’s time to get back to work.”

“B-but, we still have some questions.”

“That I can answer while you’re helping me,” the code queen insisted, “Also, mom might try to give you a lab coat and say that you need it, but it’s not required, unlike that alchemist shop in Rainbow Falls.”

Out of all the possibilities that Faith took into consideration for how the Cutie Mark Crusaders would come across her token, mistaking it for a pair of scissors and using it to break Scootaloo loose of a cat’s cradle gone horribly wrong was not one of them. If anything, she would think that her token would be mistaken for a spearhead instead of a pair of scissors. But explaining what tokens were and how someone would use them was only a side piece to what Faith was trying to work on.

Similar to what the Crusaders heard before coming here, the Code Queen was working on trying to overcome her limitations. Those limitations in particular being with regards to her power and what she was capable of. When an invasion of demons swarmed her Equestria in hopes of overtaking it, Faith had to use every ounce of what she could do in order to keep them from overrunning much of Equestria. She didn’t want to find herself in the same position for whenever there was another threat, especially one that could be far greater than what they have faced before.

Of course, there was a different question that was on her mind now. “So, let me get this straight. This Calvin is the one who is Displaced?”

“Uh, yes?” Sweetie Belle replied, “Why-?”

“Then, how exactly were you three able to hear me? Matter of fact, actually come here?” Faith now asked, “All of my previous interactions with other Displaced over the time that I was here suggest that only other Displaced can respond to a summoning. It shouldn’t have worked for you three.”

“I don’t know, maybe something with what Discord did?” Sweetie Belle shrugged in response, looking back at her friends for a brief moment, “It was my idea to come help you, but we honestly don’t know how chaos magic works.”

There was a pause in the room. The four of them found themselves at a question that they couldn’t possibly be able to answer on their own. Though, it was around this time that one of the drones that was with Faith had an idea. “Chaos magic is only used by a draconequus, correct?” The question was met by a nod from all four girls, shortly before they heard Moby’s proposition. “Then, why don’t you ask one?”

“Pfft, like that would be so easy,” Scootaloo shot back with a detested look on her face. “Who would we even ask?”

“There are three options,” Remy himself now explained to the trio, “The first one is Discord himself, but right now, he’s on a royal holiday with Celestia. The second is Eris, but like Lady Faith mentioned earlier, she’s on her honeymoon with Nicko. The third one is Chaotic, but he is with Celestia and Discord.”

“Who is Chaotic, anyways?”

“Discord and Celestia’s son,” the drone responded to the question as they noticed the trio’s shocked reaction to the statement, “Unlike other worlds we’ve been to, in ours, Discord and Celestia were able to overcome and accept their differences. They’ve been married for the last few years.”

“So, no matter who we choose, they would somehow be unavailable?” Sweetie now asked.

“Not… entirely, per se,” Moby corrected her, “Eris is known to be rather flexible if she’s needed in more than one place. It would not hurt to ask for her help.”

“So, what? We just say her name, and she’ll appear? Just like that?” both of the drones and Faith nodded in response to Apple Bloom’s question, which in turn had Apple Bloom raise an eyebrow, “Just Eris? Not ‘Eris, we need your help’, or-”

FWOOSH!!!

Only mere moments after Apple Bloom said that, she found herself covered in salt water as a female draconequus that almost looked exactly like Discord stepped through what looked to be Faith’s closet door, wearing a haywaiian shirt and a luau around her neck as she looked at everyone in the room before pulling off a crab that landed on Apple Bloom’s head and throwing it back through the door and slamming it. “Somepony called my name?”

“We did,” Faith replied, “Sorry about interrupting your little getaway, but we need some help with something.”

“No, no, don’t worry bout a thing. We were going to be coming home soon, anyways-” Eris was going to continue speaking, but it was in that moment that she turned her head around and looked at the Cutie Mark Crusaders that were in front of her. “Oh boy… What did you three do-?”

“Actually, Eris, they’re not our Cutie Mark Crusaders,” the Code Queen told her, which had the draconequus pause for a moment before asking a new question.

“So, what? Are they a trio of Displaced or-?”

Faith just shook her head and folded her arms as she looked back at Eris. “They aren’t that either. They’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders that know another Displaced, but somehow, they were able to respond to me and come here.”

Just that statement alone had Eris pause for a moment, snapping her talon as the shirt and luau disappeared before looking at each of the Crusaders. “So, let me get this straight. These three are not Displaced… but they know a Displaced… and they somehow were able to answer your summons and come here anyway?” All Faith could do was nod her head, followed by all three of the other girls doing the same thing, “What’s next? A bunch of Sweetie Belles running around in the void?”

“I’m not sure if I want to think about that,” Sweetie Belle mumbled to herself.

“We needed you here because we want to figure out how exactly they could be here in the first place,” Faith now took a chance to fill the draconequus in on what was going on, “They wanted to help me out with something I was working on, but I wanted to get to the bottom of this first. Because for starters, they say that their Discord is the reason why they’re human right now.”

That statement alone just had Eris roll her eyes. “Of course it’s due to him. If anything unusual occurs in the world, it’s often caused by him.”

“Right. Though, I’m pretty sure that turning somepony into a human doesn’t automatically have them become Displaced,” Faith pointed out to her.

“Umm… Can I say something?” Scootaloo now asked the two of them as both the draconequus and the code queen looked back at her. “Back in our world, Discord did something to explain how his magic recovers by showing some magic bar thingy,” now, she looked back to Eris, “Could you do something like that-?”

SNAP!

“Already got you covered,” the draconequus smiled as the same visual that the Crusaders saw last time appeared. The crusaders had a health bar that was similar to the one that Calvin had when Discord did the same thing back in their world, while Eris had a full green bar with a blue one underneath. Faith’s was similar to Eris, but hers had what looked like three red beads that were on the left side of the health bar. “Huh… Yours looks different from what I thought it would be like.”

“Yeah, that’s what we noticed, too,” Sweetie Belle added on as she looked back at the draconequus. “The only other one that we know back in our world that would have the same thing was Calvin.”

“Who?”

“That’s the Displaced I was mentioning. The one that they know. His name’s Calvin,” Faith clarified for Eris as the draconequus began to scratch her chin, “Their Discord tried to make them like him because he thought that he was lonely being the only human in his world.”

That statement soon had Eris opening her eyes up as she looked back at the girls as well as Faith. “Make them… like him…” she mumbled, pondering something as she looked back at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Girls, this Calvin person… is there anything special that he could do?”

“Well, he has this special necklace,” Sweetie Belle began to speak, moving her fingers to try and draw out a loop for them, “It’s magical, and only he can use it. But, by repeating certain phrases, he can transform into a series of heroes that he calls Skylanders. However, he can only be transformed for a short amount of time,” that was soon followed by a new question for the draconequus as she looked back to her. “Why do you ask?”

“Well… hear me out when I say this,” the draconequus began to speak, “What if your Discord… tried to make you like him? Not just change how you look physically, but also allowed you to do the same things that he could do.”

“That doesn’t explain the summoning though-”

“I was getting there, Faithy,” Eris teased, before going back to her explanation, “When I mean make you like him, I don’t just mean power wise. I mean making you just like what he is. A Displaced,” for a moment, Faith was going to try and respond back to the draconequus, but once again, Eris cut her off. “I know what you’re thinking… ‘That doesn’t make any sense. A Displaced can only have one token for themselves’. Let me remind you that there really isn’t any set rules as to how that one token works. If anything, their Discord could’ve just connected all four of them to the same token.”

Faith blinked for a moment, wrapping her head around everything that she just heard from Eris before coming up with something to say. “So, you’re saying it’s all likely possible that even though I thought I intended to summon Calvin, I ended up summoning Sweetie and her friends instead? And it's all the more likely that they have the same powers that he does?”

“Correct-”

“Well, honestly, it sounds really cool… but part of me thinks that it also kind of sucks.”

That had everyone, including Faith, look back towards Scootaloo. Even both of her friends, who were beyond excited at the possibility of what Eris just said, looked back at the former pegasus in shock as the Code Queen began to speak. “Why exactly would you think that the possibility of going on numerous adventures would suck?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as excited at that possibility as the rest of the girls. I just see a slight problem,” she replied back, while also pointing at her neck, “We don’t exactly have the necklace Calvin would have in order to do the things he can do. It’s like riding a scooter without wheels.”

“Come on, Scootaloo. It can’t be that bad! Think of the kinds of people that we could meet!”

That just had Faith let out a sigh. “Sure, I can introduce you to a few. There’s a dragon with enough power to cause a planet wide cataclysm, a pair of wolves considered as god like deities, a couple of Persona’s, also known as demonic personification of personalities, with one of them dragging a series of coffins behind him, a Displaced Nightmare Moon, a human with dragon dna and enough power to level a continent that’s the teacher of my Uncle Nicko, a frost spirit urban legend that you need to believe in in order to see named Jack Frost, an alternate Pinkie Pie named Blood Cleaver, a reaper of souls that looks like he’s wearing pajamas, a high tier undead dragon known as a dracolich, two digimon, also known as digital monsters, with one of them having a complex for if they’re called ‘short’, a monkey guy named Sun, some dude named Craig and that is only the tip of the iceberg considering that I’ve only met a few of them, and they turned out to be friendly.”

At first, the girls were liking the things that Faith told them. But the expressions on their faces immediately begin to change once the last sentence began to sink in. “N-not all of them are friendly?”

“Oh, most definitely not! There’s still ALL of the numerous different horrific monsters and threats that human society has in fiction. Fiction that many displaced tend to get themselves involved in without knowing that what happens to them remains permanent. We’re talking undead, monsters that would devour other creatures for breakfast and has an unending hunger, creatures that like to harm others just for fun, vampires that can stop time by shouting ‘Za Warudo!’, beings that can suck the soul out of your body while you remain helpless and taunt you about it afterwards, animatronics possessed by vengeful spirits, living bug shadow knights, living infections that spread, control and mutate uncontrollably, dead corpses forced into an endless cycle of living, fighting, dying and repeating all over again on a prison like island, nightmares that can continue to plague those who are affected in both the living and dream worlds, creatures that can be spawned by erupting out of someone’s body, turning inanimate objects into mobile monsters, even food, monstrous living plants, beings that can bend space and time at a whim, creatures who turn whatever they devour into part of their bodies, a living swarm that have such a hive mind that they form into a larger living monstrosity and individuals whose physical might is enough to create canyons without even meaning to do so. Not to mention various horror monsters where their very presence can distort reality into a living horror house. Anything is fair game,” she let out a breath as she looked back at the three of them. “Also, those who can meddle with other people's souls and minds. I think I forgot to mention that.”

“I don't know what's worse. Worlds where there are swarms of monsters, or worlds where the monsters work behind the scenes to control and turn the public and one's loved ones against them, no matter what they try to do,” Eris then added as she shrugged her shoulders, “Like what Faith said, anything’s fair game really.”

That just had all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders just stare at her with widened eyes, shocked and scared out of their minds at some of the dangers that she happened to mention. “Um… O-on second thought, w-we might want to wait first before going anywhere, even if we do happen to find something to channel our power through.”

At first, both Faith and Eris were a bit relieved to see that the Crusaders were taking everything seriously. But for the Code Queen, what she just heard had given her an idea. Something that could possibly help her overcome the dilemma she was facing right now. “Something to channel power through… That’s it!!”

“Wait, what’s it? I was just saying that-” Sweetie Belle’s words were cut off the moment that Faith had used her fingers to open up a holographic screen with multiple different buttons and contraptions, all at the same time. “Faith? Faith, what are you talking about?”

“That’s probably not going to work,” Eris told her, reappearing alongside the girls now, “Whenever Faith gets an idea, she immediately gets to work on it and doesn’t stop until its complete. Personally, its something I think she picked up from Twilight.”

“That makes sense,” Scootaloo added on, “As strange as it might be.”

“Girl, strange is just the bare minimum of what goes on around here. We know a Displaced around here that did whatever she wanted, including make Canterlot Castle look like a crime scene, because she was ‘having fun’,” the draconequus remarked, watching the Code Queen as she was hard at work, her drones bringing her what looked like a magical crystal as they began to siphon the magic inside. “If anything, despite Faith’s… antics, she’s a bit of a genius. Even though it doesn’t always show-”

“That’s it!! Almost… There… THIS IS SO EXCITING!!!” Faith’s words were followed by the sounds of laughter, almost as if she was a mad scientist, which made the Cutie Mark Crusaders shiver a bit, but just had Eris facepaw herself, “Come on! COME ON!! I will NOT allow myself to BE HINDERED BY MY PREVIOUS LIMITATIONS!!!”

“Told you it doesn’t always show-” Before Eris could finish speaking, she had to snap her talon and conjure a barrier spell as a powerful surge of energy set off around Faith, shielding them from debris as Faith’s overall appearance began to change. Her clothes from before were replaced with a set that looked like battle armor than actual clothing, complete with a black crown that covered her forehead. The Code Queen’s hair, once cut short, now stretched past her waist and her two drones had their appearances change too.

The most noticeable change though was one that the girls never expected to see. But it was the first thing that Scootaloo commented on. “Oh, come on! How did you get wings!?”

At first, the Code Queen did not notice what Scootaloo was talking about. But as she turned her head, Faith found herself looking at a pair of jet black wings, made out of the same metallic materials as her drones and the rest of her equipment as she tried to move them. Though, because of their sheer size, she could only stretch them as far as the length of her room. “Well, this is unexpected.”

“Wasn’t this what you were trying to go for though?” Sweetie Belle then asked.

“I was seeking a way to overcome my limitations, yes. Though, I did not think that completing such a feat would lead to me having a complete overall change,” the Code Queen told them. As she moved her wrist, a newfound weapon was conjured in her hands, one that was shaped like a spear that had formed from the blades she had used in her ‘Code Nemesis’ form. A second wave of her hand had the spear disappear, shortly before looking back to Moby and Remy. “How do I look?”

“Do you mean appearance wise or physically?” A deadpan stare from Faith was the only thing that the drone got as an answer as Remy began to do some calculations. “Alright. Well, according to these readings, you were successful in breaking through your limitations. Using the energy of the El that reacted to your will, a new code was formulated, and with it, you have a whole new set of capabilities to add to your already expansive arsenal. Though, it lacks one thing.”

“And that is?”

“A name.”

Hearing that, the girls could only just look back at the drone as Sweetie Belle began to speak. “You’re telling me that you were able to come up with the ultimate power boost for her, yet the only thing that you’re missing is a name?! How exactly is that important!?”

“More than you might think,” Eris now interjected. But before she could explain further, the draconequus was interrupted as Faith now took a moment to speak.

“Ultimate…” she said, looking in Sweetie Belle’s direction now, “That’s what I’ll call it. Code: Ultimate.”

“Heh, looks like we did help out after all,” Scootaloo snickered, elbowing Sweetie Belle’s shoulder as she just stared blankly at Faith. “Now, if only we could be able to figure out how to get back to our world without ending up in someone else’s by accident.”

The Code Queen looked back towards her desk for a moment, picking up a particular crystal that was on the table as she looked back at them. “I think I got that covered. Tell your friend that I would like to meet him sometime, alright?”

“Wait, what-?”

“Our contract is complete.”

POP!

In the blink of an eye, all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders were gone. Leaving both the Code Queen and the draconequus by themselves… and the latter kind of disappointed. “Wait, that’s it? I thought their exit would be a bit more dramatic than that.”

“Perhaps that would happen if we actually summon Calvin next time,” Faith replied back as she looked back at Moby and Remy. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have some tests I need to conduct.”

By the time Calvin finally had returned to the castle, he was greeted with the sound of silence. No one seemed to be around or waiting for him to come back, which was odd because he was expecting for Apple Bloom and her friends to still be here by the time he returned from Manehattan. Yet, it was once again just as quiet as an undead sensei realm-

CRASH!

Calvin did not have enough time to react as he was knocked to the floor. Falling to the ground as he felt something pin him down when he tried getting up. At first, he thought it was some kind of villain that broke into the castle as he tried to grab his necklace. However, just as he was about to transform, he heard an all too familiar set of voices.

“O-ow… S-she could’ve given us ah warning before doing that.”

“N-never mind that. Did we at least make it back? Where’s Scootaloo?”

As Calvin turned his head, he immediately came face to face with Scootaloo. Who’s eyes were closed and whose face was smashed against his. What’s worse… was that she was kissing him. And in his head, he was freaking out. “Oh, DEAR ELEMENTS!? WHAT IS HAPPENING!?”

At this point, Scootaloo herself was beginning to slowly come to her senses… and realize where exactly her face and mouth were in that moment. Quickly, she tried to retract herself and get off of Calvin before anyone saw her or the blush that was on her face. “W-what-?!”

Unfortunately though, she was too late, because as both of them were trying to scramble to their feet, they both saw Rainbow Dash standing in the doorway. “Oh man, I am so proud of you two!!”

A few things came up in Calvin’s mind right around now, just as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle both extended a hand to help him and Scootaloo get back up on their feet, both of whom had mixed expressions on their face after what they had just witnessed. Of course, he only had one question to ask as he turned to face Scootaloo. “Did we just-?”

“Heck yeah, you did! You two are growing up so quickly,” Rainbow spoke up again as she trotted inside, the blush on Scootaloo’s face becoming a lot more noticeable the more that her idol continued talking.

“Rainbow, that was an accident. Scootaloo didn’t mean to fall on him like that,” Sweetie Belle tried to reason with the pegasus, only to fail horribly and for her expression to stay the same.

“Didn’t mean to, my flank! This is exactly like all those cheesy romance books your sister has, Sweetie!”

“… well, she’s… not wrong-”

“My novels are NOT cheesy, Rainbow!” the voice of Rarity could be heard from outside as she and Pinkie Pie now entered the castle, “And can somepony please explain to me what’s going on?”

“Well, you just missed-”

“Nothing HAPPENED!!!!”

In a matter of seconds, the whole room immediately went silent as everypony stared at Scootaloo, including Rainbow, who was just as puzzled as she was shocked by Scootaloo’s outburst just now. “Hey uh… why are you so angry, Scoots-?”

A glare of seething rage was the only thing that Rainbow got from her as one of her friends decided to speak up instead. “Perhaps it would be better if we did the explaining. It’s… kind of a long story.”

End Scroll 20

Scroll 20.5- Memo to the Academy (Bonus)

Author's Note

This chapter has been one that I have been wanting to do for some time, but haven't found the right time to do it. This chapter is more of a comedic fun chapter than a serious one and it was inspired by a few different 'Skippys List' prompts that I've read which include the following

The Things Dr Bright Is Not Allowed To Do At The Foundation (SCP)
Things X-Com Operatives are not allowed to do, including the 'Foreign Deployment Edition' one from the story Mente Materia by Arad. Go check out his stuff. They're freaking awesome.
And most importantly, the 'Memo' chapters from the story 'The Potion Shop' by AshFur. Heck, the name for the chapter is a reference to that. Go check him out, he's got a lot of great works

Hope you guys enjoy this. If you have any ideas for any future rules, I would be happy to hear them for you. After all, there are going to be more added to this over the course of the story.

In the meantime, I hope all of you enjoy what I have here and stay tuned for more.
-Frost

Scroll 20.5- Memo to the Academy (Bonus)

Beyond the Skies- Memo to the Academy

If you are a Skylander and you have stayed long enough at Skylander Academy, getting a request to be seen by the staff members meant one of three things: A) there was an important matter regarding security at the academy or conduct outside of the academy that needed to be addressed immediately, or B) there was an emergency going on and they need all active Skylanders on standby. Yet, in Spyro’s experience at the academy, the latter of the two was rather rare, considering that many of them have been false alarms, mainly due to accidents that were mostly caused by Flynn accidentally knocking something over or doing something that he was told not to do.

So, it was a bit of a surprise to him when he ran outside to find a few other Skylanders waiting nearby where Tessa and Whiskers were standing. He could see Stealth Elf, Jet-Vac, Pop Fizz and even Cynder as he got closer, all four of them turning around at the sound of his footsteps as he looked back at them. “Hi, guys. Sorry I’m late.”

“There you are, Spyro. Haven’t I told you that you should be here as quickly as possible when it comes to emergencies?” Jet Vac asked him.

The dragon was going to respond, but he was soon interrupted as both of them heard Stealth Elf interject. “Jet-Vac, I don’t believe Tessa asked for us to gather here just so you can tell Spyro the importance of being here on time,” she said, before looking back to Tessa, “Isn’t that right?”

The fox nodded in response to the elf’s comment as she looked back at the other Skylanders. “Why, yes, actually… but before we get started, let me ask a question. Who here is familiar with a boy that comes here named Calvin? Kind of looks like this,” Tessa now held up a photograph of the boy that Mags took of him the last time he was at the academy, handing it to Stealth Elf so she could show the other Skylanders that were there. Both Spyro and the elf were quick to respond as they simultaneously nodded their heads.

Cynder was the next one to reply as she looked at the photo that Stealth Elf was holding onto. “I think I’ve seen him a couple times around the academy, but I never really got his name,” she replied honestly.

“First time I’ve seen him before,” Pop Fizz added.

“Hang on a minute,” they now heard the sky baron speak up, walking over to where Stealth Elf was standing as he took a closer look at the photograph. “I recognize this one!”

“Oh, here we go,” Stealth Elf rolled her eyes as she facepalmed herself.

“You’ve seen Calvin before, Jet?” Spyro now asked, a bit curious by what he said.

“Why, of course!” the sky baron proudly proclaimed, “I was on patrol a while back, and I found him staring at the signs that were posted in the M.A.P. Based on his confusion, the M.A.P.’s lack of a proper navigational layout and his appearance, I deducted that he was a lost tourist looking for someplace to have a vacation without having to worry about getting attacked by monsters. But all the places I thought he would go, I wouldn’t think that the academy would be the most ideal choice.”

That alone was enough to draw out laughter from both Spyro and Tessa as both of them looked at Jet-Vac, all while the sky baron had a rather puzzled look on his face. “I don’t seem to understand. What’s so funny?”

“Jet,” Stealth Elf now took the initiative to speak, “Calvin wasn’t, and frankly never was, a tourist. He was looking for the academy because he wanted to talk to Hugo, and now, he comes here to undergo training with King Pen.”

“Now, why would a lad like him want to take on something like that?”

Since he was seeing that Stealth Elf was not getting anywhere with what she was saying, Spyro now took it upon himself to speak. “Because he’s more than what you might think. He can turn into other Skylanders because of the necklace he wears. Heck, he even created an Imaginator by himself! Trust me, Tessa, Stealth Elf and I have all seen him do it before.”

Cynder and Jet looked at each other for a moment, a bit baffled by what the purple dragon just told them. “Y-you’re serious?”

“Definitely. Heck, Spitfire told me that he even transformed into King Pen in front of King Pen himself. He’s the real deal,” Spyro told them, shortly before turning back around to Tessa now as a new question began to surface in his head. “Though, what exactly does he have to do with this?”

“Well, based on what Buzz told me, there was a recent incident where Calvin summoned a Skylander to help fix a problem and ended up making it even worse, worse to the point that Master Eon himself had to be notified of everything,” Tessa told them, before turning to Whiskers as she grabbed a series of scrolls that she had in the pouch compartment of the bird’s saddle. “So, to prevent any more of these instances from happening, Buzz, Master Eon and a few members of the Academy’s staff had to come up with this.”

Once she turned back around, she handed a scroll to each one of them. The scrolls had a red ribbon wrapped around it, and it was held together by the Skylander Academy seal. “What is this exactly?”

“That is a series of rules and guidelines for any future missions that might involve you guys going to where Calvin is down below in Equestria,” Tessa answered the dragon’s question. “Of course, Cali says that we should take these rules seriously, even if some of them are… well… strange.”

“How strange are we talking about here?” Cynder herself now asked, “I mean, I’ve only heard about this Equestria from what a few other Skylanders told me, but we have all had to handle strange things almost every day around here. Surely, it can’t be too strange... right?”

Stealth Elf and Spyro just looked at Cynder for a moment, before the dragon let out a sigh as they began to open the scroll. “Oh, you have no idea.”

For all Skylanders and Academy personnel, after consulting with Master Eon in light of recent events, we have composed a list in regards to how you should act with our Equestrian allies. I suggest you review these carefully in the likely event that your assistance may be required on future matters. Any future changes or additions to the rules will be added onto this page by magic, so don’t misplace this!

-Head of Security (And Secret Ninja Commando Operations), Buzz

THINGS THAT THE SKYLANDERS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO IN EQUESTRIA

1- Before we begin, I want everyone reading to take a look at the picture that’s on the back of this list. The human on the back is named Calvin. He is an ally and someone who’s helping us with handling everything going on in Equestria while also taking lessons from King Pen and the Senseis.
1a- He is not the pizza delivery guy
1b- Or the enchilada delivery guy
1c- Or the sushi delivery guy
1d- I cannot stress this enough. No matter how many times Flynn may tell you otherwise, Calvin is in no way a food delivery guy! How many times do I have to tell you that!?
2- Why, yes, Equestria is a continent filled with sapient talking ponies. This does not mean that Equestria is considered Trail Blazer’s homeland. He’s already confirmed that he’s not from there, and ever since its discovery, he has been asked about this non-stop to the point that he’s now in the same anger management class as Fryno.
2a- Trail Blazer is also not the official Equestrian tourism ambassador either. He will not provide any vacation getaways if you ask him.
2b- For the love of the elements, stop assuming that Equestria is Trail Blazer’s homeland! You’re making yourself look like a bunch of fools at this rate.
3- The equestrian named Twilight Sparkle is a princess of Equestria and must be treated with the utmost respect, unless she says otherwise.
3a- While it may be true that Princess Twilight does live in a castle and she travels to Canterlot Castle to conduct official royal business, you are not allowed to say the phrase ‘I’m sorry, but your princess is in another castle’ if you’re there when she’s absent. Nobody gets the reference, so let’s move on.
3b- You must also treat her friends with the same amount of respect as well, along with her assistant Spike and her student, Starlight Glimmer.
4- Just because the dragon named Spike can eat and digest crystals doesn’t mean that any dragon Skylanders should attempt to do the same thing for ‘nutritional benefits’. Bash has been in the infirmary with a major toothache for the last couple of days after trying to attempt it himself unsuccessfully.
5- One thing that I must stress is that in no circumstance are any Skylanders allowed to use any form of spellcraft that involves hypnosis or mind control. Recent events have shown that equestrians are very susceptible to such magic and will get out of control if left unchecked.
5a- This is further stressed when interacting with the being named Discord. We do not want a repeat of the ‘traveling circus’ incident from last week.
6- Speaking of which, all Skylanders and academy personnel must take extreme caution when interacting with the draconequus (half dragon, half pony, half who knows what else) named Discord. Eyewitness accounts from numerous people suggest that he has enough raw magical power to classify himself as a force of nature.
6a- No, there is no such thing as a ‘Discord Insurance Policy’ to cover for any damages that may result from interacting with him.
6b- Even if Discord provides proof that it exists.
6c- Especially if Discord provides proof that it exists. The fact that you are believing something that he told you directly is already questionable in multiple ways.
6d- ~~Come on now, what do I have to hide?~~
6e- Discord himself is not allowed to edit or make any changes to this document.
7- If you happen to find yourself interacting with the Cutie Mark Crusaders (whether they are fillies or in their human forms) and they request for your help with something that’s unrelated or might get the three of them in trouble, please respectfully decline.
7a- This rule still applies if they say ‘pretty please’ and/or ask nicely.
7b- It also applies if they try doing pouty faces, too.
7c- Okay, after further review with Princess Twilight, only Skylander Academy Personnel and Senseis can interact with them.
7ci- No, Flynn does not count in the above category and is not allowed to supervise them, especially after the lava tamale incident at the academy food court.
8- It’s most likely that the first pony that you would be able to meet aside from Princess Twilight is her friend, Pinkie Pie. Otherwise known as the Element of Laughter.
8a- If she gets excited from meeting you and seeing you as somepony new to Ponyville, that’s normal.
8b- If she sets up a special ‘WELCOME TO PONYVILLE’ surprise party for you, that is also normal. She’s known as Ponyville’s pristine party planner for a reason.
8bi- The party in itself is not optional under any circumstances.
8c- Under no circumstances should you ever make a ‘Pinkie Promise’ with Pinkie Pie.
8ci- If you do end up making a Pinkie Promise with her, you MUST fulfill that promise and cannot ask for anypony or any Skylander to help get you out of it. They will just laugh at you if you try.
8cii- Breaking a Pinkie Promise is its own punishment.
8d- Do NOT try to apply logic and common sense to Pinkie Pie. Not only for her actions, but also for what she’s capable of.
8di- The above rule also applies to Discord as well. Even he doesn’t know how Pinkie Pie does what she does on a daily basis, and that’s saying something.
8e- Do NOT try to figure out how Pinkie Pie does the stuff she does. We'd rather not lose a Skylander to mental breakdowns caused by trying to figure her out, like I almost suffered.
8f- Under no circumstances is Pain-Yatta allowed to come to Ponyville whenever Pinkie Pie’s in town. Her first instinct would be to chase him with his own lollipop, something that even we didn’t think was remotely possible.
8fi- This also applies to both Master Flare Wolf, Trigger Happy, Boomer, Countdown and Fire Kraken as well. For the love of Skylands, DO NOT let any of them meet her. That’s a recipe for disaster just waiting to happen.
8fii- While we’re at it, don’t let her meet Wrecking Ball, especially in regards to anything involving food.
9- For all Skylanders Academy staff, please bare in mind that no one is allowed to throw anything into a spinning vortex that just happens to be flying by. Princess Twilight has been receiving complaints of how items from the academy have been dumped into the front and backyards of some of the locals homes in Ponyville.
9a- Furthermore, if any Skylanders are in Ponyville, please keep an eye out. We got a report saying that the villain named Sheep Creep was recently thrown into one of these vortexes and might be on Equestrian soil right now.
9b- On an unrelated note... Hugo, Master Eon and I would like to have a word you in my office.
10- If you happen to meet an orange colored earth pony wearing a stetson hat, has a blonde mane and tail and a cutie mark of three apples that speaks almost like Mags, then that is Applejack. A friend of Princess Twilight, Element on Honesty and farmer at Sweet Apple Acres.
10a- Under no circumstances are you to try and lie to Applejack to get out of something. She can tell that you are lying, and it’ll make you even more suspicious around her.
10b- Applejack is willing to allow some Skylanders be able to help out around her farm. However, if you choose to help, you MUST listen to everything she tells you to do and not ignore them. There will be grave consequences if you do.
10c- If you cause any damage to either the barn or the orchard, you are solely responsible for fixing them. Don’t even think about trying to make the academy responsible for your mistakes.
10d- Do not drink any hard apple cider from Sweet Apple Acres. It’s effects are as disorientating as drinking some of the unfinished potions from Fizzland.
10e- Furthermore, do not let Pop Fizz have a taste of hard apple cider either. That would just make things worse.
11- If you happen to find yourself meeting a light yellow pegasus with a pink mane and tail with a cutie mark of three butterflies, please be cautious. That is Fluttershy, another one of Twilight’s friends and the Element of Kindness. She’s very friendly around her friends, but extremely timid around new creatures that she hasn’t met before. So, don’t startle her.
11a- While it is true that she does happen to enjoy interacting with and taking care of animals, it doesn’t mean that you can call her home a petting zoo. The animals that she cares for would not be amused by you saying that, including the bear that’s three times Fluttershy’s size.
11b- If she wants to be friends with you, do not come off as a jerk and say no. That would just end up hurting her feelings and have her friend Rainbow Dash get on your case.
12- Speaking of which, the cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail with a cutie mark of a rainbow lightning bolt is known as Rainbow Dash, a member of the Wonderbolts and Element of Loyalty.
12a- Rainbow Dash, as per her element, is rather loyal to her friends and doesn’t take any stray comments about them lightly. Please watch what you say around her.
12b- Under no circumstances are you to challenge her to a race of any sort. She’s a member of a pegasus flight team that consists of some of the fastest and most talented flyers in Equestria, so challenging her to something that you are obviously going to lose at is just plain pointless.
12bi- The above rule is applied further to speed type swap force members. Just because you can break the speed record on a track doesn’t mean you have any chance of beating her when you can’t fly.
12c- While it is true that pegasi and griffons are able to walk on clouds, that’s because they have the magic that allows them to do so. No Skylanders should attempt to try to walk on it themselves.
12ci- This goes furthermore for Air Skylanders. Aside from the exceptions of Sonic Boom, Whirlwind, Scratch, Stormblade, Free Ranger, Thunderbolt, Lightning Rod, Bad Juju and Jet-Vac, other Air Skylanders who have attempted to walk on clouds have failed and ended up falling through. Please stop trying to prove otherwise.
12cii- While it is possible to have a pony cast a spell on you to allow you to walk on clouds, this solution is only temporary and will still lead to you falling through when it runs out. So, don’t even think about it.
12ciii- I said stop thinking about it!!
12d- Unless you have a lot of time to waste, do NOT get Applejack and Rainbow Dash to compete against each other over ANYTHING. You'll regret it if you do.
13- Another one of Princess Twilight’s friends that you’ll probably meet is a white unicorn with a purple mane and tail and has a cutie mark of three diamonds. Her name is Rarity, Element of Generosity and owner of the Carousel Boutique.
13a- Just because it is called the Carousel Boutique does not mean that there’s an actual carousel. The fact that I have to bring this up in itself is just embarrassing.
13b- Despite her insistence on the matter, there will be no such official Skylander Academy uniform for the students that are attending. More than likely, the uniforms would not stay in one piece after a few days.
13bi- Even if she already has a design for it. The fact that she hasn’t even met some of our students here doesn’t help her in this case.
13c- Yes, Rarity does have a spell that allows for her to look for and find diamonds and crystals. No, it doesn’t mean that you can go with her on her next diamond hunting expedition just so you can have enough gold to buy those upgrades you desperately want from Persephone. We know that one of you would try that at some point.
13d- Please try to prevent Flashwing from meeting Rarity, for all of our sakes.
13di- Matter of fact, prevent the Golden Queen from meeting Rarity either.
14- Now that I’ve explained each of Princess Twilight’s friends, one thing that I absolutely want to make sure that everyone is aware of is that she and her friends are collectively known as the six Elements of Harmony. This is much different than the element system that we have for the Skylanders and are based on personal virtues, so let’s not try and get them confused.
14a- Furthermore, there is no such thing as a ‘seventh’ element of harmony, nor is it known as ‘The element of BOOM!!’ and neither is Flynn the bearer of said element.
14b- Taking a piece of rope and tying it to an imaginite crystal to prove the previous statement false will be met with disciplinary action. I’m watching you, Flynn.
15- Princess Twilight has also informed us that right now, she has taken a student under her wing by the name of Starlight Glimmer. As such, the following rules apply when interacting with her:
→ Just because Starlight is seen as a reformed villain does not mean she will ‘fit in’ with the other reformed villains that are senseis at the academy. She hasn’t met many of the Skylanders yet, so let's not rush anything.
→ We aren’t going to have Starlight Glimmer sit in on any of the classes that we would be teaching at the academy. Not only is our curriculum much different from that of Princess Twilight’s, but her presence alone would be distracting to a lot of the students.
→ No, we are not opening up a foreign exchange program so we can have Starlight come here. Now, stop asking!
16- If any academy equipment malfunctions while on campus or in Equestria, blaming said malfunctions on ‘the ghost of Master Eon’ is no longer a reasonable excuse. Master Eon has expressed his dissatisfaction with the phrase and wishes that you stop saying that.
17- For all Supercharger Skylanders, you are only allowed to bring your vehicles to Equestria if there’s a situation that would require it or if its an emergency, or if you’re specifically allowed it by one of the princesses.
17i- And no, this doesn’t count permissions gained from Princess Twilight while she’s distracted with books. Please get her full undivided attention first.
17a- No, making waves in the Ponyville lake so that the locals can go surfing and cool off during the summer doesn’t count as an emergency.
17ai- The above statement does not apply if Equestria happens to be going through a heat wave. In which case, it can be treated as an emergency.
18- On the outskirts of Ponyville, there lies a pool that can replicate anything as long as you repeat a specific phrase. No, I am NOT telling you the phrase because I am not letting this be an excuse for you to be in two places at once
18i- Or train against yourself
18ii- Or challenge yourself to a dance off.
18iii- Or practically any other form of competition
18iv- There is no legitimate reason for me to tell you the phrase, so stop trying to convince me otherwise
18a- Furthermore, the Mirror Pool is NOT to be used by Dr. Krankcase to in order to replicate any patients in the infirmary so he could ‘give one a placebo and see what happens’. That was a bad idea the moment that you decided to speak it out loud.
18b- You know what, no Skylanders are allowed anywhere near the Mirror Pool… ever.
18c- And no to any friends of said Skylanders being used as a middleman for the Mirror Pool for whatever reason.
19- Whenever in Equestria, please keep in mind that Princess Twilight is in fact only one of four princesses in the Equestrian Monarchy, and she is the newest one. The other three are Princess Celestia, the princess of the sun, Princess Luna, the princess of the moon and Princess Cadance, the Princess of Love.
19a- Like what was previously stated in section 3, you are to treat all three with the utmost respect unless they say otherwise.
19b- In Equestria, both Celestia and Luna are responsible for the day-night cycle, at least in the lands below. Don’t tell anypony that you happen to meet otherwise.
19c- Just because Princess Cadance is the Princess of Love does not mean you can hire her as your relationship counselor. She has better things to do with her time, and you all have work to do.
19ci- Please refrain from any ‘ship’ jokes around Cadance. To her, ship is an abbreviated term for relationship and not anything regarding the actual vehicle.
19cii- The above rule applies furthermore to Flynn. Knowing him, he’s bound to do it unintentionally at some point.
19d- Why, yes, it is true that Luna has the power to walk inside dreams and meddle with them to protect the dreamers from nightmares. Please do bear in mind that you cannot request specific kinds of dreams from her. Elements knows that Flynn would try and ask for her to use her powers in order to get good dreams all the time, and most of those dreams will probably involve food.
20- Princess Celestia, as far as we know right now, is one of the most powerful beings in Equestria right now and has been ruling over her kingdom for more than a thousand years. Antagonize at your own risk.
20a- If you happen to witness Princess Celestia eating any form of dessert, especially cake, do NOT ask her about it. That, in itself, is its own punishment.
20b- Although some ponies find it funny, do not even consider pulling a prank on Princess Celestia under the pretense that you will get away with it. She will look for you, she will find you and she will get you back. No questions asked.
20bi- The above rule also applies to any of the other princesses, too. The last thing we want is for you to be banished to the moon because you did something stupid.
20bii- Yes, you actually can get banished to the moon. Don’t ask me how, but it's somehow happened before.
21- On the outskirts of Ponyville is the Everfree Forest. A dark woodland thicket that’s home to many of the most dangerous creatures in Equestria. Enter at your own risk.
21a- No Skylander is allowed to do ‘training’ in the forest by picking a fight with every living creature in it. This is their home, not your personal training ground. They’re only attacking because you are causing a ruckus in there.
21b- If you find a patch of blue flowers at any point when in the Everfree, STAY AWAY from them. Those are poison joke flowers and stepping in them will only be the first of your problems.
21bi- To give you some insight, poison joke is a plant that causes ridicule-inducing afflictions to those that come into contact with it, with each case being different depending on who is affected. We can’t even produce a list of side effects for being exposed since they are so vast and varied.
21bii- Despite the fact that the word ‘poison’ is in its name, poison joke is much different from its counterpart, poison oak. Poison oak is a flower that poisons anyone that comes into contact with it while poison joke afflicts its victims through the use of practical joke curses.
21c- A cure for poison joke can be found at the home of the zebra alchemist who lives in the Everfree named Zecora, provided that you tell her that you are a friend of Princess Twilight.
21ci- Please do not try to question her use of rhymes while she’s speaking. It is how she normally talks to anypony that she meets.
21cii- Any attempts for Zecora to create a potion that would make you more awesome or make things go BOOM has been unanimously rejected. Please request her to make something that actually exists.
21ciii- For those who want to help her with the potions that she makes, please note that dumping random ingredients into her pot to see what would happen is NOT advised in any way. It may work with Pop Fizz’s soda’s, but the same logic does not apply here.
21civ- Furthermore, like with Rarity and Flashwing in section 13d, please try to prevent Pop Fizz and Zecora from meeting at all costs.
21civ1- That also includes Double Trouble as well. He may know about potions, but he is not known for fully reading the instructions on how to make such potions, nor does he take proper safety precautions for his creations. So yeah, don’t let him anywhere near Zecora’s hut.
22- While it is encouraged to be friendly with the locals in Ponyville and to spend time with the children at the school playground, please make sure that all activities that you choose to have them participate in are safe and would not cause any injuries.
22a- Master Boom Bloom, please keep in mind that having the children play jump rope with your vines is not a good idea.
22ai- Even if you think that it’s perfectly safe.
22aii- Especially if you think that it’s perfectly safe.
22aiii- Even if the children agree with you that it's perfectly safe. We’ve already had too many instances where someone would say that and then karma kicks in ten seconds later.
22b- Wolfgang, while we like your enthusiasm in wanting to interact with the children and townsfolk of Equestria, we are not moving forward with your idea of loudly playing hard rock music during sing along hour at the Ponyville Elementary School.
22bi- No, this decision is not because we hate your music. It’s because we’re worried that playing it loudly would cause irreversible hearing loss or deafness to the children as well as the staff at the school. Besides, I don’t think ruined eardrums are a best first impression.
23- As far as we know of right now, there are no living plants like those that we have seen in the Skylands, so please stop asking.
24- For all Skylanders, if you want to improve the training regimen of the Equestrian Royal Guard, please make sure not to do anything that could inflict lasting harm. As far as we know right now, Equestrians have not harnessed the Skylands elements, and we are still trying to learn how Equestrian magic functions.
24a- Yes, we are aware that several Skylanders have served as guards before becoming Skylanders, and each one of you might have been trained differently. However, please bear in mind that we are all working collaboratively together for the next time that Kaos tries to attack the Skylands or Equestria. Leave any personal grudges or rivalries in regards to enhancing their training at the door.
24b- Wildfire and Master Ember, please be careful when using your equipment around the Equestrians. Unless they have a heat resistant spell active, equestrian fur is known to be extremely flammable. Combusting ponies is the last thing that we would want right now
24c- High Volt, please bare in mind that playing ‘Dodge the Static Spear’ with new recruits is not considered as the best way to test someone’s endurance. Please do something else.
24d- Knight Light, you are allowed to use your traptanium scimitar to help with weapons training, but do bear in mind that we currently do not know if traptanium or traptanium weapons work in Equestria the same way that they do in Skylands. So, please be careful.
24di- The above rule also applies to all Trap Masters, too. Including Snap Shot, who is helping teach archery at the Canterlot Archery Range.
24e- Grilla Drilla, please bare in mind that many Equestrian species aren’t monkeys. So, with that in mind, they can’t do climbing exercises the same way you can.
24ei- We are also not providing the entire royal guard drills similar to the ones that you have either, because that is not what we mean when we asked if you want to oversee combat drills.
25- To all undead skylanders, do take note that most Equestrians do not exactly see walking skeletons, skeletal dogs, floating eyeballs, ghosts, vampires, undead vampires, ghouls, spirits possessing suits of armor, werewolves or anything else as normal creatures that you would see on a daily basis here. If anything, they might see anything that was just mentioned as something they should hide from. So, please do your best to not spook them.
25a- The above rule applies further to Funny Bone. We already know about how you startled Rainbow Dash when she first came to the academy. Please don’t try that again.
26- To Pit Boss, Rattle Shake and Cobra Cadabra, if you do happen to meet Princess Twilight Sparkle, it is more than likely that she will either jump into the arms of the nearest person there or try to hide up on the rafters of wherever you’re at. This has nothing to do with you. Princess Celestia has confirmed that Twilight has a long standing fear of snakes.
26a- No, this is not one of those ‘fears’ that can easily be fixed. Celestia has tried that, but it only made things worse.
27- Trigger Happy, while it might be tempting, please don’t use any Equestrian bits as ‘extra ammo’ for your pistols. While blowing up enemies is one thing, blowing up the Equestrian economy is something that should be avoided at all costs.
28- If any tech skylanders happen to find themselves encountering either Princess Twilight or her student, Starlight Glimmer, make sure to set limits to the inevitable barrage of questions on how Skylands technology works. There are doubts about being able to last through their stamina when they get going.
28a- This also applies to anything else that they might ask about Skylands, too. We all have a job to do, and it’s not playing twenty questions.
29- For those who are interested in taking part of some of the games and sports that Equestria has or plan on teaching some games from Skylands to the Equestrians, please make sure that they can be able to perform the actions of the particular activity first without causing harm to themselves or others in the process.
29a- Skystones (and the numerous variations of the game) is one good example of a game that you can be able to teach the Equestrians how to play. Reviving Roboto-ball? Not so much.
29b- Also, Equestrians have outlawed any form of gladiatorial combat, so you are not allowed to challenge each other like at the academy unless it’s non-lethal. They don’t have a safety recall spell to prevent death for such duels.
29c- As a side note, Cali has a few extra playing card decks if you want to borrow one from her.
30- For all dragons that happen to go to Equestria, please be careful of your actions. As far as we know, outside of Spike, most ponies are afraid of dragons and see them as greedy and self centered brutes. Try to show them otherwise.
30a- This also applies furthermore to Blades, since he has a tendency to use his blades more than his head.
30ai- No, that was not intended as a cheap pun.
30b- Also include Sunburn on that list, too. I know that he’s only part dragon, but it still applies. Besides, I don’t think we want for this newfound partnership to go up in flames.
30bi- Okay, that one was intentional. But I think all of you understand by now how serious this is, so I’m not sorry.

As mentioned in the beginning, more rules will be included over time once we have learned more about Equestria and the creatures that call it home. So, please make sure to keep this on you.

After Tessa finished reading, Spyro just stared at her for a moment. Looking at all of his companions, he could only find it in him to ask her one question.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

Scroll 21- A Change in Plans Part 1

Beyond the Skies- A Change in Plans Part 1

After a nice long afternoon in Manehattan and finding the perfect establishment to open up a Manehattan branch for her business, the only thing that Rarity wanted to do once she came back home in Ponyville was to relax. Unfortunately, upon arriving with Pinkie Pie at the Castle of Friendship to check up on Sweetie Belle, the situation that they found themselves in was anything but relaxing.

For one thing, Rainbow Dash had the nerve to call her choice in romantic literature ‘cheap’. Which, to her, was rather insulting and the equivalent of calling one of her dresses ‘tacky’. Then, there was Scootaloo snapping at Rainbow before she could explain what was going on, which was a bit of a first considering that Scootaloo normally idolized the pegasus. It didn’t help any either that when Rainbow tried to ask what was wrong, Scootaloo’s only response was a glare of pure rage.

Fortunately though, all the tension began to recede once Rarity’s little sister, Sweetie Belle, now decided to speak up in her friend's place. “Perhaps it would be better if we did the explaining. It’s… kind of a long story.”

“How long? I mean, we have only been gone for a couple of hours,” Calvin himself now asked, turning to face the Cutie Mark Crusaders. He had been with Pinkie Pie most of the afternoon when in Manehattan and wanted to go back to the castle while Pinkie herself was putting some things away in her room. “What did you girls do while we were away?”

“I betcha that Scootaloo was just waiting to surprise Calvin when he came back-” Rainbow’s comments did not help any as another glare from Scootaloo caused Rainbow to stop talking.

“Alright, what the hay is causing all this racket?” Everypony now turned towards the door as they saw Applejack trotting into the castle. “Ah came here to check on my sis, and then ah hear Scoots snappin’ at Rainbow.”

“Hey, sis,” Apple Bloom waved her hand to her sister as she came on inside, “We were gonna tell all of ya about a new friend we met today.”

That had Applejack look at everypony else, including Calvin, for a short moment as the earth pony began to process what she just heard. “Ya made a new friend? Alright, shoot, what’s her name?”

“Well, her name is Faith, and she kind of wanted somepony to help her out,” Apple Bloom told her. “Of course, ah think she was trying to ask for Calvin’s help, because the three of us ended up gettin’ called to another Equestria instead.”

Upon realizing what she said, all Calvin could do was facepalm himself. “Uh oh… I think I might have an idea of who you were talking about.”

“What do ya mean, Calvin?” Applejack now asked, “Do ya know who they were with?”

“No, but I might have heard the same thing they heard. Yet, at the time, I was with Pinkie Pie, and we were…” It took a moment for Calvin to find the right words to say, but he had to try and keep it as simple as possible. “...preoccupied.”

“So, let me see if I get this straight… You want Pinkie Pie to give up her Party Cannon just for a rock pouch? That doesn’t seem like a fair deal to me.”

“Nopony asked for your input, kid. Besides, this is between me and the lady over here-”

“And I’m with her, and I say that you’re full of it. You’re not answering any of our questions, and you’re looking left and right every two minutes. I would even go as far as to think that you stole this pouch-”

“Kid, I don’t know who you are, but I don’t like how you’re speaking to me. I’m not afraid of you, even if you do look like some kind of monkey.”

“ …I got my eye on you.”

“Wha-?” BOOM!! “W-what in the-!?”

“Are you afraid now?”

“Anything you want to add to that, Pinkie?”

“Nope! I think we’re good, Calvy!” the party pony shook her head as she looked back towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders now. “So, where-?

“Nuh, uh… ah don’t think, so you two,” Applejack shook her head as she looked at Calvin. “Ah’m gonna need to know a bit more than just you using a transformation, Calvin. Ah mean, what did you even turn into-?”

“Eye Brawl,” Calvin’s original response only caused everypony in the room aside from Pinkie Pie to raise an eyebrow, prompting the Skyshifter to clarify a bit further, “Undead Skylander that’s as tall as this room and consists of a giant headless suit of armor and a flying eyeball that shoots laser beams and often acts as the giant’s head.”

That statement alone had Rarity and Applejack stare at the Skyshifter in shock, but had Rainbow staring at him in awe, which only caused the farmpony to groan as she looked back at Calvin. “Ah’m beginning to think that Rainbow’s having too much of an influence on ya.”

“Come on, AJ. It can’t entirely be that bad. I mean, at least he was able to get what Pinkie wanted, right?”

“Technically, that’s not everything that happened darling,” Rarity soon chimed in, “When I met back up with them, Pinkie Pie was trying to convince Calvin to hold onto the bag. Yet, Calvin decided not to and returned it back to the store that they originally found it at.”

“Wait, what? Why would you do that?” Rainbow then asked.

All that did was have Calvin fold his arms as he looked at the pegasus now. “I think the reason why is a bit obvious, Rainbow. It was never ours to begin with, and it never belonged to that stallion in the first place. When we returned the pouch, we learned that the stallion that we met had stolen the pouch a little while after Pinkie Pie originally saw it in the store window. Fortunately, when we told him that Pinkie wanted to get it for her sister but it was out of her price range, the store owner was able to give us a discount so Pinkie could be able to afford it,” As he explained, he watched as Pinkie Pie happily bounced in place as she nodded her head in response to what the Skyshifter was saying. “I just think that if you were to get something for a friend or family member, you should do it the right way.”

That just had Rainbow look back to Applejack now as she narrowed her eyes. “Too much of an influence, huh?” The only response that the farmpony gave was a roll of the eyes as both mares looked at each other.

“More to the point,” Rarity now chimed in as she looked back towards Sweetie Belle and the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, “You were mentioning somepony named Faith? Who’s in another Equestria?”

All three of the girls nodded in response to what Rarity now said as her sister began to speak up. “Yeah, she was a girl who… kind of seems to be around the same age as Calvin, but much different. She was pretty nice, too. Showed us around her home, told us a bit about her family, and… after a little while, she was trying to figure why we came here instead of Calvin.”

Hearing that caught the Skyshifter’s attention as he looked back towards Sweetie Belle now. “Really? What did you figure out?”

“Well, it’s… more of a guess really,” Scootaloo replied back now as she looked towards her friends for a brief moment before she continued speaking. “Personally, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, because it seems… what was the word Twilight would use, girls? I remember it starts with ‘Theo’.”

“Theoretical?” they heard Rarity now ask in an effort to help.

“Yeah, that,” Scootaloo nodded her head, “Besides, it came from that other draconequus that was there.”

“Wait a darn minute,” Applejack now spoke up, caught off guard the moment that she heard that this ‘theory’ came from another draconequus. “Are ya talking about Discord? He’s the one who got ya into this situation in the first place-!”

“No, sis, it was somepony else,” they now heard Apple Bloom speak up and interject, “She wasn’t like Discord at all. If anything, she was… kind of nicer. Ah know it sounds weird, but ah think what she told us might actually explain some of the things that we’re having trouble trying ta figure out.”

“We should at least hear them out, AJ,” Calvin now spoke up as he looked at the farm pony. “If this is a draconequus that’s different from Discord, then what she told them might give us a clue as to why they were brought over there instead of me. Besides, we don’t really have a lot that we can go off of right now.”

Applejack grit her teeth at that. Taking advice from a draconequus, especially after the kind of mess that Discord had made before, was not something that she honestly thought that she would find herself doing. Yet, it seemed like there wasn’t a lot of options otherwise. Groaning a bit, she readjusted her hat and let out a small breath. “Fine… go ahead.”

“Where should we start, sis?” Apple Bloom asked.

“You mentioned that this draconequus was a she, right girls?” the question from Rarity soon had all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders nodding their heads, which led to the unicorn’s follow up question. “What was her name?”

“Her name is Eris,” Sweetie Belle simply replied, “We asked her if she could do the same thing that Discord did to show how his magic works, and when she did, we told her about how Calvin could do his transformations. Then, she began to tell us her theory.”

“What did she say?” Calvin asked, now sounding a bit intrigued by this.

“When we explained to her about how Discord over here changed us to make us like you, she thought that it went a bit further than just turning human,” Scootaloo continued as she held up a pair of fingers, “Primarily, in two particular ways.”

On that note, Sweetie Belle took it upon herself to pick up where Scootaloo left off as she began to go a little further into detail. “Eris told us that she thinks that because of what Discord did, we might have ended up getting the same kind of powers that he does, which is why those bar things that Discord did before had ours look similar to the one Calvin had,” she took a moment to catch her breath and recompose, shortly before Sweetie Belle continued right where she left off. “She also said that he might have ‘connected’ all four of us to the same token.”

Hearing that last part really caught Calvin’s attention, especially when he realized what that could possibly mean. “So, you’re saying that if someone wanted to summon me… it’s all the more likely that they might accidentally summon you girls instead?” The only response to the question was a nod of the head from the girls as he let out a sigh. “That could definitely be a problem.”

“Come on now. Are we really just gonna believe everything that another draconequus told them? Heck, who knows if she’s lying to them? Right, AJ?” Rainbow’s reply was followed by the pegasus looking back at the earth pony, expecting her to agree with what she was saying. However, all she got from the earth pony was silence as Rainbow looked back towards her friend. “AJ? You’re not actually believing any of this now, are you?”

A part of Applejack wanted to say that she didn’t believe it. But after hearing Apple Bloom and her friends explain everything to them, the earth pony knew that she couldn’t. “Sorry, Rainbow, but the girls are telling the truth. Even if it's just ah theory, ah think there’s enough in what the girls said to make me believe that this ‘Eris’ isn’t lying.”

Of course, even though hearing that alone had the three girls sigh in relief, Applejack wasn’t exactly finished either. “Of course, that doesn’t mean we should just sit around on something like this.”

“What are you suggesting, Applejack?” the Skyshifter now asked as he now stood beside Apple Bloom and the rest of her friends.

“Ah change in plans,” the Element of Honesty told them straightforward as she looked at all four of them. “We had originally agreed to wait before we all go up to see that Eon fella you were talking about. However, with what just happened, ah think we need to see him sooner rather than later.”

“How soon, dear?” Rarity then asked.

“By soon, ah mean tomorrow soon.”

“Ah, phooey,” they all heard Pinkie Pie let out a groan as the party pony looked back at all of them. “Sorry, girls, but I can’t come along. I promised the cakes that I would babysit the twins tomorrow.”

“That’s okay, Pinkie. We can still have everypony else come instead,” Calvin told her, shortly before looking back at Applejack. “When were you wanting to head over?”

“First thing tomorrow morning, once everypony’s up,” Applejack told them affirmatively, “The sooner that we get on top of this, the better.”

Of course, that led to Rainbow looking back at her friend as she soon realized something. “Uh… not to sound like a downer or anything, but wouldn’t this be going against what Twilight originally wanted for us to do?”

“Ah’ll talk to her about it tonight,” the earth pony was quick to respond back to the pegasus. “Given the situation, ah think she’ll be fine with it. Besides, she doesn’t have to go with us.”

Now, Rainbow was beginning to feel a bit nervous as everypony else began to look back at her. “W-what do you mean by that?”

“Oh, I get it now,” She heard Calvin speak up, adding on to what Applejack was saying, “Out of all six of you, Twilight, Pinkie and Rainbow have all been to the Skylands before, meaning that you are already familiar with the academy and everyone there.”

“With Pinkie looking over the twins and Twilight possibly being busy with teaching Starlight,” Rarity herself now spoke, much to the pegasus’ dismay as she came across a conclusion that Rainbow found herself extremely uncomfortable with. “It just means that it’ll fall on you to show us around, darling.”

“D-don’t I get a say in this?” the pegasus asked, only to look back at everypony else. Realizing that the longer she tried to be defiant and resist, the more that she was just practically preventing the inevitable. “Aww... horseapples.”

“You want to do what?” Twilight asked as she looked back at her friend Applejack. Both ponies were sitting at their specific seats at the Cutie Map as the earth pony was trying to explain everything that they had just heard from the girls this afternoon.

“Twilight, ah know ya really wanted to come with us,” Applejack told the alicorn, “But ah think after everything ah told ya that we need to address this now rather than later. We can’t just sit around while it's likely that some other being could just end up calling on mah sister and her friends when they meant to call for Calvin instead.”

“I know, but… I had this all planned out and everything. I had just rearranged everything that I was going to do for the whole month to accommodate for this, only to hear that-”

“Twi, yer overthinking this,” the earth pony stopped the alicorn before she could continue, “You can just as easily go there another time for a different reason. Besides, Rainbow’s gonna be with us, and she’s been there before.”

“What about Pinkie Pie? Is she coming?”

Applejack shook her head as she looked back at Twilight, letting out a small breath in response. “Pinkie Pie is babysitting the Cake Twins, and Fluttershy said she needed to take Angel in for a checkup at the Vet.”

“Well, we could still-”

“Starlight also happened to mention that you had planned out a friendship lesson tomorrow morning for her, around the same time that we were gonna head over,” the earth pony interjected. “Besides, after ya admitted yerself that what happened in the Crystal Empire was not an ideal friendship lesson ya had in mind, the last thing ya want to do is disappoint her, right?”

“Y-you can’t be serious…” the alicorn blinked as she stared at her friend.

“Ah am, sugarcube. Because all of us, including Calvin, agreed that this needs to be done now,” Applejack confirmed with her. “Ah don’t want to sit around and wait if going now can help my sister and her friends. The others agree with me, too.”

Twilight herself, was not entirely thrilled with the prospect of her friends going without her. Especially since, in her mind, something important could potentially happen while she was not there. Though, after a little bit, the only thing that she could really do was let out a sigh. “I may not be entirely on board with this… but if you say that it’s important, then do what you have to.”

“Thanks, Twi,” Applejack smiled as she looked back at the Alicorn, “Ah knew you’d come around eventually.”

That comment alone just made Twilight twitch in her seat as she stared at the earth pony while she was getting off of her seat. “W-what do you mean ‘eventually’!?! Am I that predictable!?”

“Ah think ya just answered yer own question there.”

Next Morning…

By the time the sun began to rise again, Calvin was still sleeping in bed, trying to hide himself from the rays of light that pierced through his curtains as he tossed and turned a bit. Yet, it was also around this time that somepony in particular decided to visit him as she was trotting over to his bedside. “Come on now. Rise and shine, kiddo.”

“Mhmmm… F-five more minutes, m-mom,” the Skyshifter mumbled, the feeling of a hoof nudging him having one of his eyes slowly open. It took a little bit in order to realize that the figure in front of him was not who he thought it was. But when Calvin did, he immediately reacted, moving his legs outward as the bedsheet that was covering him was now covering the earth pony that was trying to wake him up, drifting over her like it was a self made ghost costume for Nightmare Night.

“Was that really necessary, Sugarcube?”

“Y-you scared me, Applejack!” Calvin spoke, still a bit startled from seeing the earth pony in his room. “W-what time is it, anyway?”

“Six o’clock at the crack of dawn.”

“S-six?!” Calvin blinked, looking at the alarm clock on the table by the window to see the time, “Applejack, I don’t usually get up until seven-thirty! This is a bit too early, don’t you think?”

“Nah, this is usually when ah get up. Seven-thirty sounds more like Apple Bloom on the weekends,” the farm pony told him, taking the sheet and throwing it back at him. “Now, come on and get yourself ready. Once everypony’s had breakfast, we’re going!”

That was the only thing Calvin needed to hear before he slowly rose up, took a moment to get himself dressed and slowly proceeded to go downstairs. The first thing that he could see was that Rainbow looked to be trying to give Scootaloo some form of advice… while Scootaloo was trying her best to ignore it. Sweetie Belle was insisting to Rarity that she did not need to bring several bags of luggage with her for a trip that was only going to last for a few hours, and Apple Bloom looked to be waiting patiently at the table for breakfast, though glancing over towards Scootaloo and Rainbow a couple of times while she tapped her fingers against the table.

Speaking of breakfast, one particularly pink pony was already working hard on that, working with that of the castle’s resident dragon to prepare a perfect morning meal as the Skyshifter reached the bottom of the stairs and let out a yawn before slowly walking over and taking a seat that was to the right of where Apple Bloom was sitting.

“Morning, Calvin.”

“Morning,” he mumbled, trying to prevent himself from having his head hit the table.

“Didn’t get enough sleep?” Apple Bloom then asked.

“Nope. Your sister was my alarm clock this morning,” the Skyshifter told her, rubbing his eyes so that he could at least try to feel awake.

“Ah know how that feels,” she chuckled in response to Calvin’s comments, “Can’t even count the number of times that Applejack woke Mac and the rest of us up early to prepare for harvest season.”

“Did you wake up and accidentally cover AJ in a bedsheet, too?” All Apple Bloom did was nod. But before she could say anything else, several plates of pancakes, all with different variations and toppings, were spread out along the table as both of them turned to see Pinkie Pie pushing a cart that had enough pancakes for a stack to be as tall as one of the chairs at the Cutie Map.

“Breakfast is ready, everypony!!”

That just had the Skyshifter look back at her with a puzzled look on his face. “I thought you said yesterday that you weren’t coming with us, Pinkie.”

“Oh, I’m still not going to make it. But that’s not until later, silly,” Pinkie Pie giggled as Applejack joined everypony else at the table. “So, I can still help everypony make sure that they have a filling breakfast before your big adventure!”

That… almost had Calvin’s face fall into his pancakes as he looked back at Pinkie. “Big adventure? We’re just going to see Eon, Pinkie.” By that time, a glass of water was placed at his table as he began to drink from it.

“Oh, you never know, silly Calvy… and be careful of falling books,” the party pony chuckled as she continued to hand out pancakes to everypony else, which just made the Skyshifter even more confused as he looked back at Apple Bloom.

“Any idea what she means by that?”

Apple Bloom just only shrugged at that, before taking the knife and fork she was given and began cutting into her pancakes, prompting him to do the same a few moments later as he began to eat the meal Pinkie prepared for them. Each plate was decorated in a particular fashion, depending on who’s it was. For Applejack and Apple Bloom, their pancakes had cut up apple pieces sprinkled over them with caramel syrup, Rarity and Sweetie Belle had their plates covered in what looked like a mountain of different colored sprinkles, and lastly, Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash had the designs of their pancakes somehow match the look of the flight suits used by the Wonderbolts, complete with cupcake toppings in the shapes of lightning bolts.

As for his, Calvin just thought that his was a normal stack of pancakes with syrup and butter. But, as he began to cut it into pieces, he noticed that Pinkie Pie had actually mixed chocolate chips into the pancake batter. It was something that he did not expect, but was still quite tasty and what he needed in order to help wake himself up right now, especially with what was planned on the agenda for today.

After all of them had finished breakfast and left their dishes in the sink, it was time to head on over. As everypony… and everyone was getting ready by the gate, Pinkie Pie herself was at the top of the stairs that led towards the basement door, holding a hoofkerchief in her hoof in an attempt to wipe away some of the tears that were falling down her face. “I’m sorry I can’t join you, everypony! I really wanted to be able to make some new friends again!!”

Calvin himself just smiled as he looked back towards the party pony. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure that next time, you can make as many friends as you want.” As he said that, he thought that he heard Pinkie Pie say something else, but his attention was more focused on the door in front of him as he began to push it open, allowing for everyone that was with him to come through to the other side.

Meanwhile…

In the M.A.P. this morning, there were already a couple of Skylanders that were either just starting with their morning patrols or were taking a break as they were sitting by the entrance that would allow for them to return to Skylander Academy. Of course, as they were resting their bones, the topic of conversation among a few of the Skylanders that were there involved something that all of the Skylanders at the academy happened to receive from Buzz. For some, they thought that this was important after what happened last week.

However, there were others that weren’t entirely so enthusiastic about what was on there. Even though they agreed with a lot of the points that were made on the list, some of them were a bit confused as to why some rules were specifically written about them in the first place. One particular Skylander in question was the crystalline dragon named Flashwing. “I’m just saying, why would such a rule have to be written about someone as mesmerizing as me? What would be the harm in meeting this ‘Rarity’ pony? She sounds rather regal, if you ask me.”

The other two Skylanders that she happened to be talking to, the first being the Supercharger of the magic element named Splat and the second one being the Life Skylander named Stealth Elf, were standing in front of each other as they listened to Flashwing, before the elf decided to comment. “I know that some of the rules seem odd, but think about it. Buzz would have not put them on here unless he had a specific reason for it.”

“Of course, I would understand if someone like Ka-Boom was put on there, but what’s the harm in putting up these rules if it’s very unlikely that we could meet them?” Flashwing then asked, having a crystal come out of the ground as she poked at it with a claw. “I mean, the language in this sounds as if it’s only focused on if we go to them, not if they come to us.”

“I’m pretty sure the reason for both those things is because Buzz can’t exactly give orders to those who aren’t under his jurisdiction,” Splat now took a turn to speak as the faun decided to use her brush to cover the crystal that Flashwing was messing with in ink. “So, he’s trying to work with those that he does. More specifically, us.”

“Splat’s got a point,” the elf replied back as she folded her arms and began to lean back against a nearby stone wall, “Besides, it’s always best to be prepared. Who knows what might happen?”

At first, the faun just saw that as just a simple comment from the fellow Skylander. But as she turned her head, she happened to catch a glimpse of something, Something that the three of them weren’t exactly ready for. “Um, Elf? Remember that friend of yours that was mentioned on Buzz’s list?”

“You mean Calvin? What about it?”

“Well, it looks like he decided to stop by… and he brought some friends with him,” Splat told them, pointing towards the other side of the M.A.P. as both the elf and the dragon moved closer to her to see what she was pointing out. They could see Calvin, along with what looked like three other humans, a unicorn, an earth pony and the same cyan colored pegasus that happened to come to the academy the last couple of times that he was over.

Which only led to her letting a sigh out the moment that she realized that Flashwing was already heading towards them before she could say anything. “Well, let’s go say hello, I guess.”

“Welcome to the M.A.P. everypony,” Calvin told them, mere seconds after stepping forth through the doors and out into the world of Skylands. Upon first glance, almost everypony was caught off guard by how vast and expansive their first look at the Skylands was. Of course, Rainbow Dash herself had seen it once, but did not exactly have the time to gaze at everything around them when the Skyshifter was showing her and Pinkie Pie where the basement entrance was. “The academy’s not far, but I thought you would want to have a look at everything first.”

“What does M.A.P. stand for anyways?” Scootaloo now asked, looking to see some of the islands in the distance as she saw water falling off the edge of one of them.

“Based on what Spitfire and Spyro told me, it’s supposed to mean ‘Mysterious Ancient Place’. Mysterious for numerous reasons apparently, Ancient because it was home to the Ancients that first created the Skylands and-”

“This is… so INSPIRING!!!” Both of them now turned to see Rarity stare in wonder at everything around her, seeing the sparkles coming off of her eyes as she began to take a look at all the numerous different areas around her. “So much wonder! So much creativity!! So much everything!!”

“Rarity, we’ve only been here for two minutes,” Rainbow tried to explain to her, even though the unicorn was not hearing a word she was saying, “We’ve barely seen anything yet.”

“We haven’t!?” the unicorn now spoke up, sounding mostly shocked by what her friend told her, even though it did not do anything to try and get her to snap back to reality.

“Dash, ah don’t think that’s really gonna help any,” Applejack now decided to speak as she looked at some of the floating islands that were off in the distance, “Though, ah must admit, this was much different than ah was anticipating.”

“What were ya anticipating, sis?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Remember when that friend of Calvin’s had that photograph? Ah thought of it like that,” the farm pony responded, “Though, to see the real thing and to see everything moving with the clouds and what not, that was something ah wasn’t expecting.”

“Just wait until you meet some of the people that live here,” as he said that, that was when Calvin turned his head to the right and noticed something coming towards them in the distance. “Oh, hey, there’s some right now.”

“Hey, isn’t one of them that elf girl that helped you with your Imaginator thing?” Rainbow now asked as she tried to get a closer look from a cloud that was in the air. “Hey, it is! And there’s two others with her.”

The Skyshifter was a bit curious right around now. He knew that the elf was indeed Stealth Elf, but he was wondering who else could be with her. The first two Skylanders that would come to mind would be Spyro and Spitfire, but it didn’t quite look like that from a distance.

Before he could ask anything though, somepony else beat him to it. “Who else can you see up there?” Sweetie Belle asked as she joined up with Scootaloo.

“Well, from the looks of it… one of them looks to be that Skylander that fights with a paintbrush when you and I first came here with Twilight,” Rainbow’s statement had Calvin recognize who it was. That definitely had to be Splat. But who could the other one be? “And the other one looks like some kind of… crystalline dragon-?”

Those last two words triggered a shocked gasp from Rarity, just before the unicorn’s eyes locked on to the direction of where all three of them were coming from and took off. “I absolutely MUST MEET THEM!!”

“Dang it, Rares!” Applejack snapped, missing her chance to stop the unicorn as she tumbled face first into the ground, “After her!”

Everyone else didn’t need to be told twice as Rainbow, Calvin and the crusaders all took off after Rarity, trying their best to either slow her down or stop Rarity, even though they were unsuccessful at each attempt they made. Rainbow tried to fly past her and use her advantage in the air to intercept and capture her. However, the unicorn used a spell to move herself back a few feet before galloping over the pegasus as Rainbow crashed into the ground.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders themselves weren’t having much luck either, mostly because they were having trouble keeping up with her in the first place. Calvin, though, was trying something different as he grabbed hold of his necklace as a grey like color began to illuminate from it. “Let’s Roll!” Transforming into the undead Skylander named Roller Brawl, he now used the skates that were on his feet to speed up and get closer to Rarity. In fact, he was getting close enough to try and grab her.

Of course, one thing that he did not take into account was the pieces of broken rocks that were directly in front of him, which clipped the saw blade skates he had on as it sent him tumbling forward onto the ground, forcing him out of his transformed state. “Darn it! I almost had her!”

They could only watch as Rarity was zoning in on her target. The other two Skylanders just backed up and out of the way as the crystalline dragon turned her head to come face to face with the unicorn that was racing towards her. “You INSPIRE me!!”

Of course, that only had the crystalline wings of the dragon grow as the Skylander named Flashwing closed her eyes and emitted a bright light around its body as well as directly in the unicorn’s face. “AGH! MY INSPIRATION’S BLINDED ME!!”

“In more ways than one,” Calvin now heard Rainbow say as the pegasus floated beside him, offering a hoof for him to use to get back up on his feet as Applejack and the crusaders finally caught up with them. The farm pony was not entirely sure what just happened, with Rarity or what resulted from her mad dash just now.

“Consarn it, Rarity. Why’d ya have to go run off?”

That was honestly the only question that everyone had in that moment, including Calvin. Yet, for the two Skylanders that were nearby, the questions that they had were different than the one that they were thinking of right now. Much different.

“Should I even know what exactly just happened?”

“I… am honestly still trying to process that myself,” the Skyshifter admitted to the elf that asked the question, “One moment, we walked into the M.A.P. so we could go to the academy and see Eon. The next thing we know, Rarity takes off, and-”

“Wait, did you say Rarity?” Splat now asked, her eyes widening when Calvin nodded his head as she looked to Stealth Elf. “Oh, no… That’s not good.”

“What’s ‘not good’, sugarcube?” Applejack herself now spoke up as the faun looked back at the earth pony that wanted clarification on what was going on.

“We’ve had some rules put in place after the… mess that happened last week with the one you called Discord,” Stealth Elf now took a turn to speak as she looked back at the six of them, “One of them being that Rarity should not meet Flashwing over there under any circumstances.”

That just left all six of them confused, just before Sweetie Belle asked a question. “Um… Miss? Why exactly is my sister not allowed to meet her-?”

“Oh, my goodness! I’ve never seen a creature with such shiny and pristine fur as yours!!” They now all heard Flashwing proclaim as everyone turned to face the crystalline dragon. Despite having to defend herself earlier, both her and Rarity were quick to forgive each other as the two of them were now gossiping over both of their remarkable appearances.

“And I’ve never seen a dragon with such miraculous scales and majestic crystals for wings!! Dear, you must tell me everything!” They now heard the unicorn herself speak as she looked back at the dragon. “But my apologies, where are my manners. I’m Rarity-”

“You’re Rarity!? Why, I am honored to have the privilege to meet you in person,” the dragon herself spoke again, just before introducing herself now. “My name is Flashwing.”

“My, such a mesmerizing name you have, darling.”

“Well, I am mesmerizing, after all.”

As the two continued to talk, everyone else just stared at both of them as they talked about almost everything they could think of, shortly before Splat herself was able to break her silence. “Yeah, I think I’m beginning to see why having them meet is a bad idea,” the faun then turned back to Calvin as she thought of a different question in order to ask him this time, “So aside from the two of them gossiping, what brings you to Skylands?”

By the time that everyone got back to the academy, several of them were trying to do their best to outright ignore the continuous chatter between Rarity and Flashwing while the Cutie Mark Crusaders had to outright cover their ears. The talking between both the unicorn and the dragon was ongoing, raising in volume and most likely not ending anytime soon. It was getting to the point that even some of the staff members were beginning to take notice.

“Hey there, Calvin. Welcome ba-” Tessa tried greeting them, shortly before noticing both Rarity and Flashwing off to the side as she looked back to everyone else that was behind him. “Okay, who broke rule 13d?”

“13d?” Calvin asked in confusion.

“The rule that Flashwing and Rarity are not allowed to meet under any circumstances.” Stealth Elf reminded him.

“Oh,” the Skyshifter replied, shortly before pointing to the cyan pegasus that was floating above him, “In that case, it’s Rainbow’s fault.”

“Wha-? Hey! What did I do!?”

“Didn’t you point out where they were and also mention seeing a crystalline dragon?”

“Well, obviously, I did not expect for her to take off like that! I was just trying to tell you what I was seeing,” the pegasus grumbled as she lowered herself down on the ground next to where Applejack was standing, “Besides, we did not know about this rule until after we met up with Stealth Elf and Splash.”

“Splat,” the faun corrected, which just resulted in the pegasus grumbling a bit as the Magic Skylander looked back towards Tessa, “Though, Calvin didn’t come here to break any rules he was not aware of. He wanted to see if he could talk to Master Eon.”

“Yeah, there’s something important with him that we wanted to ask him about,” the Skyshifter took a turn to speak now, “Is he available right now?”

“I’m not sure,” Tessa replied, looking over her shoulder at the academy building behind her as the fox looked back to him, “But I can go check. Just give me a moment, and I’ll be back in a flash.” With that, she began to take off towards the school, leaving Rainbow, Calvin and the Cutie Mark Crusaders to sit down on a patch of open grass as they looked out towards the vast expanse of sky that they could see from where they were sitting.

Of course, Applejack took it another step further when she decided to have herself rest against what looked to be a wooden log that was rolled on its side, which seemed fine at first. However, when Calvin took a closer look at what she was resting up against, he was not sure if what she was doing was a rather good idea. “Applejack… I’m not sure if you should sit over there.”

Applejack herself, just looked up and turned to the log behind her, not quite understanding what Calvin was talking about as she looked back at it. “What do ya mean? This old thing looks sturdy enough,” Of course, it didn’t exactly help any when, much to Calvin’s horror, she kicked the log with her back legs. “See? Sturdy enough-”

“Are you crazy?! Why did you do that to him!?”

“What do ya mean? Ah just-” In that moment, one particular phrase caught the farm pony’s attention as she felt the wooden log shift behind her… and slowly rise up from the ground. “Wait… Him?”

“Who the bark just kicked me!?” the Skylander Giant that Calvin knew as Tree Rex bellowed as he turned around, looming over Applejack and everyone else nearby. The farm pony herself just stared with wide eyes as the giant living tree looked at each and every one of them before it looked directly at her.

Just the gaze alone was enough to make Applejack fall on the ground, shaking in place as Tree Rex stared at her with a menacing glare. “A-ah’m sorry! Ah didn’t realize you weren’t a-”

“I was trying to mind my own business and take a nap without anyone disturbing me, and then, I get kicked!” Tree Rex spoke up, before looking off to the side and letting out a sigh. “I should really put a sign that says ‘Giant Sleeping, Do Not Disturb’ up whenever I take a rest now…”

Calvin himself felt like he should say something in that moment, something to help clear up the confusion. Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash beat him to it… and all she did was make things worse. “Hey, big guy! It’s not like she knew you were sitting there! So, leave my friend alone, alright?”

From Tree Rex’s shoulder, they could now see a woodpecker sitting there, just before Tree Rex nudged his head towards the pegasus. Before Rainbow could understand what the Giant was doing, she soon found herself being chased by the woodpecker as the pegasus desperately tried to get away from it.

As for the Giant itself, while the woodpecker was chasing Rainbow, that was when he redirected its attention to the earth pony. “If you like hitting things so much,” he declared, raising his right arm into the air, “Let’s see how you like it!”

In a matter of seconds, Applejack closed her eyes and turned her head, not wanting to see what was to come next. Yet, the outcome that she anticipated… wasn’t entirely what happened.

“Full Scream Ahead!”

When Applejack opened her eyes, she watched as Tree Rex’s was knocked a bit off balance as a black griffon with silver braces around its claws stood in between her and the giant, knocking him back with a sonic scream.

“What’s the big idea in trying to harm someone over an accident!?” the griffon snapped at the Giant, which only had Applejack back up farther in an effort to get away from the two of them. But it was as the earth pony had returned to where Splat and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were did she hear the faun say something.

“So, the rumors are true.”

“W-what?” Applejack asked, “Rumors? About what?”

The faun turned back to the earth pony, “About your friend transforming into Skylanders. Spitfire told me he could do it, but I have not seen it before until now.”

“Oh, how marvelous!!” Both of them now heard Flashwing exclaim from right behind them, startling the two as the dragon began to speak. “His power is just as wonderful as his instincts!! Only the might of the ferocious winds can stop the rampant brute force of nature!”

“Uhh…” Sweetie Belle, who happened to be with the other crusaders while this was happening, had a new question now. “Can somepony translate that? What exactly is she talking about?”

“She means elemental weaknesses,” they now heard Stealth Elf speak as she appeared on top of a stone wall that was behind Splat, looking at the confrontation. “Each skylander here is represented by an element, and the elements were once in sync. But, when Dark and Light elements were unsealed, everything became in flux, and the balance was destabilized further when Mind Magic was brought out of dormancy. They only began to stabilize recently, but with new… qualities.”

“You mean the weakness thing?” Apple Bloom now asked.

“Exactly,” the elf responded, “You see, Tree Rex is a Skylander Giant of the Life Element. Life Skylanders are strong against Water and Tech elements, but weak against Undead and Air. What Calvin transformed into was the Air Skylander named Sonic Boom, and Air Skylanders are strong against Life and Earth elements, but weak against Fire and Magic.”

“D-do you think it’s possible that he knew about that though, darling?” Rarity herself now asked from behind Applejack, something that the farm pony herself did not notice until now.

“It’s unlikely,” Splat now spoke up, “Flashwing mentioned earlier about his instincts. If he was going off of those, he would not even think about element types and instead focus on protecting his friend.”

“So, it’s a mere coincidence then?”

“Most likely,” Stealth Elf added, “Given how elemental weaknesses is still relatively new, I don’t think even King Pen’s talked to him about it.”

“King… Pin?” Scootaloo herself said with a puzzled look on her face. “Is that some kind of comic book villain?”

“No, King Pen,” the faun corrected her, “You know, since he’s a talking Penguin?” All three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders just stared at Splat when she said that, causing her to let out a small sigh, “Right… I forgot that this is your first time here. Sorry about that.”

Before anyone else could comment further on the matter, they all turned back to see Tree Rex standing there by where Calvin was. But unlike earlier, the Giant was acting differently. “Listen, I didn’t mean to come off like that. I was just angry-”

“Angry to where you think hitting others is okay? You could’ve crushed her,” he said, his words echoing in Sonic Boom’s voice.

“I was holding back. I wasn’t intending to actually hit her, Boom,” Tree Rex replied back.

“Boom?” the griffon blinked for a second, before shaking its head and holding up a talon. “Oh, right… hold on a second,” letting out a small breath, the griffon began to glow as Calvin began to change back to his human form, “There, that’s better. Not sure if I’ll ever get used to that.”

“Huh-?!” Tree Rex himself asked as he looked back at the Skyshifter, “What-?! How-!? Why-!?! I have so many questions!!”

“Yeah, I don’t believe the two of us had the chance to meet until now,” he replied back to the Giant, who was still trying to process everything that he had just witnessed, “My name’s-”

“Calvin!” the sound of a familiar voice had the Skyshifter turn his head back towards the academy to see Tessa coming back to where they were, with Cali right next to her. Turning back towards Tree Rex, he motioned towards the fox as he let out a small sigh.

“Yeah. That.”

“Calvin, what’s going on out here?” Tessa then asked as both her and Cali noticed the Giant that was nearby, “We heard someone shouting and came out as soon as we could.”

“You two know this child?” Tree Rex then asked, before adding an additional question, “Also, how the bark is he able to transform like that?”

“Transform?” Cali asked, before looking back at the Skyshifter now. “Wait… did you-?”

“Only because Applejack disturbed him from his nap, and I thought he was going to crush her,” Calvin quickly retorted as the woodpecker that was originally chasing Rainbow Dash had returned to Tree Rex, with some hairs from Rainbow’s tail in its beak. “Only afterwards did I hear from him that he was bluffing.”

“Calvin has the ability to turn into other Skylanders by saying their catchphrase for a short amount of time, Tree Rex,” Tessa now took the chance to fill the Giant in, “He’s one of King Pen’s students here at the academy.”

“That… explains a few things,” the Ent grumbled before turning to the human. “Though, did you have to turn into an Air Skylander of all things? That’s one of the elements I’m weak against.”

That had a puzzled look form on Calvin’s face as he looked back at the Giant, “Weak against? What are you talking about?”

Both Tessa and Cali blinked for a moment, before looking back to the Skyshifter. “Calvin, has King Pen taught you anything regarding different elements strengths and weaknesses?”

The question was followed by Calvin shaking his head from side to side. “No, we’ve mostly been focusing on having me learn different techniques with my Imaginator. Why, is… that important?”

“Quite actually,” Cali now took a turn to speak, “We’ll fill you in on the way. Master Eon’s ready to see you now.”

“Alright. I’ll go let everyone else know,” Calvin said as he looked to Tree Rex one more time. “Nice to meet you, Tree Rex!” The giant could only grumble as he got up and moved farther to the side of the academy, before lying back down again and having the woodpecker keep watch.

Though, that was also when Cali had a new question for Tessa this time. “Everyone else? How many people did he bring with him?”

Tessa only had one reply for her friend in that moment. “More than you might think.”

End Part 1

Author's Note

For this chapter, given its size and the amount of stuff that will be covered in this, I have to split this one into multiple parts. If you're curious as to where on the season six timeline this follows, it takes place after 'The Gift of the Maud Pie' and occurs in the days afterwards. So this would be replacing 'On your marks'.

One of the things that is talked about in this chapter and will be referenced as well is Elemental Strengths and Weaknesses, a mechanic that's introduced in the Mobile Game called Skylanders: Ring of Heroes. Here's a simple cheat sheet.

New Skylanders-

That's all for part one. Hope you enjoy the shenanigans so far, because there will be more that comes up in part 2
-Frost

Scroll 21- A Change in Plans Part 2

Author's Note

Like what was mentioned in the previous chapter, given the amount of content that is covered in this chapter, Scroll 21 will be split into multiple parts. More specifically, three. The second chapter focuses more on the meeting that happens with Master Eon, explaining to him what Calvin and the others found out over the course of the last couple of chapters, figuring out what to do next as well as a subsequent trip to the Skylander Academy Library to try and see if there's anything they could find out about the crystal that allows Calvin to transform.

Oh and Flynn does something that he will end up regretting. What it is? You'll have to read and find out.

Part three will come as soon as I can. I want to try and tackle some of the other things that I have been hard at work on, but between that and helping out a friend with some of their stories in the works, I might have my hands full. I hope you happen to like what I have so far though and look forward to part three.

Let me know what you guys think of the chapter because I'm trying to put my own creative twist on how things work and operate inside the academy. I really would like to hear your feedback on that.
-Frost

Scroll 21- A Change in Plans Part 2

Beyond the Skies- A Change in Plans Part 2

As Tessa and Cali lead Calvin and everypony else through the halls of the academy, there was a lot for the group to see, not just in how the academy looks or what was going on in some of the classrooms, but also seeing the numerous different creatures and individuals that were in attendance at the school. From seeing a workshop where some Tech Skylanders were hard at work at creating new inventions or upgrading their own equipment to seeing the Magic Skylander named Deja Vu give a presentation on the history of Skylands to a class of students, there was a lot of things to see and watch. Stealth Elf, Splat and Flashwing were also helping to answer any questions that the Cutie Mark Crusaders or their sisters as they traversed through the halls.

Meanwhile, for Calvin, he was being brought up to speed on the element strengths and weaknesses that Tessa was asking about earlier. Of course, the whole system of what things were strong and weak against was pretty complex. The only things that he could really remember was that Dark and Light were both Strong against each other and Water was rather powerful against Fire, but not Life. The second one was easy to remember because it reminded him of some of the Pokemon games back home where you choose between a fire, water and grass starter Pokemon, but there were a lot of differences that set itself apart from how the Skylanders one works. Fortunately, Cali was going to provide him a small little guide on the subject after their meeting with Eon to help make understanding everything simpler.

Of course, at one point, the group passed by a huge open area that served as the training grounds for the academy. When Calvin had a glimpse of the arena, he saw two Skylanders doing combat against each other, with Buzz overseeing the match. The first one was the Earth Skylander named Terra Fin, while his opponent was the Undead Skylander named Cynder. The two of them were going to head to head as Terra Fin was trying to get up close and personal with his gauntlets, only for the dragon to use her Shadow Dash ability to move out of the way and summon a series of ghosts for the land shark to deal with.

Even though the battle between the two of them was fun to watch… one particular member of the group wasn’t enjoying it as much as she wanted to, that being Scootaloo. If there was anything in the world that would make her uncomfortable, it was ghosts. So, seeing ghosts being summoned from one of Cynder’s abilities was not exactly fun for her to watch. Luckily though, they didn’t stay around for too long, and when they got back to walking, she was glad to let out a small sigh of relief.

However, that was only temporary, because as they passed by the teachers lounge, she saw five skeletons performing music for the Skylanders that were inside. One was on the microphone, another on drums, two more were the guitar and the base, with the last one of the group operating what looked to be a spooky DJ table. The sign at the front of the stage said ‘The Skaletones’, and they were beginning to prepare for their next song, just before the arm of the vocalist fell onto the stage. “Oh, whoops. Hold on, folks. Need to give myself a hand here.”

Scootaloo did not want to stick around to see what would come next as she found herself racing over to where Rainbow Dash was in a heartbeat, something that definitely caught the pegasus’ attention. “You okay there, Scoots?”

“Y-yeah, yeah, totally fine! Nothing wrong here!” she hastily told her, not even allowing for Rainbow to have a chance to ask any follow up questions.

Soon, the group had arrived at the doors to Eon’s Chambers, shortly before Tessa knocked on the front door. “Master Eon, we’re back. May we come in?”

The doors to the chamber opened shortly after Tessa spoke, allowing for the group to come inside. Several different bookcases were spread out along the walls of the room, along with several other small treasures and trinkets. In the back of the room was an open window with a desk by it, almost similar to the one that Calvin had in his room at Twilight’s castle. As the Skyshifter looked around, he soon saw the exact person he was looking for standing in the center of the room.

“Well, good morning everyone,” they heard Master Eon address them. Though, even though Calvin, Tessa, Cali and Rainbow were familiar with the elderly Portal Master, this was the first time that everypony else had the chance to meet him, including the Crusaders, since this was their first time meeting him in person.

“Wait… You’re Master Eon?” Sweetie Belle asked, staring at the Portal Master in disbelief. “You look… much different than I thought. I thought you would be… a little bit younger.”

“Why, thank you for the compliment,” Eon chuckled a bit as he had a chance to look at everyone that had just entered the room before turning his gaze to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, “It’s nice to have the chance to see you and your friends in person, Sweetie Belle,” yet, after he said that, the Portal Master then looked towards both Rarity and Applejack. “Though, I’m afraid that I haven’t had the honor of meeting everyone that is present.”

Both the unicorn and the earth pony looked at one another for a moment, just before Rarity began to speak. “Well, let us fix that then. My name is Rarity, Sweetie Belle’s older sister and the proud owner of the Carousel Boutique!” If that wasn’t enough, the unicorn went as far as to move one of her front hooves to dramatically flip her mane, followed with gentle eye flutter and confident pose. Yet, even though Sweetie Belle saw this as going overboard, someone in the room was rather captivated by the display.

“So, cool…” Flashwing said as she watched Rarity in awe.

Of course, that was soon followed up with the earth pony taking the chance to speak now. “And ah’m Applejack. Apple Bloom’s mah little sister.”

“A pleasure to meet both of you,” Master Eon replied back to both mares, “Now that the introductions are out of the way, what brings you to the academy? I believe you're here for another reason aside from making polite conversation.”

As soon as he heard the Portal Master say that, Calvin decided to speak up now. “Actually, now that you mention it, there is something that we did want to talk to you about,” the Skyshifter told them, “Do you remember when you helped us out when Discord had that… accident of his?”

Master Eon’s first response was to let out a sigh, before nodding his head. “Indeed. We’ve had to make a few changes of our own since then,” as he spoke, the Portal Master briefly looked over to where Flashwing was at, before looking back to Calvin, “Why do you ask?”

“Well, we have reason to believe that Discord did more than just change the appearance of Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo,” the Skyshifter explained a bit more, “We think that he changed them to be like me… not just in how they look, but in what they could do.”

At first, Master Eon was confused. The Skylanders in the room were also puzzled by what Calvin was saying, along with both Cali and Tessa, but it was the Portal Master who was the first to speak. “Could you explain a bit more about what you mean?”

“Well, what I mean is that we think that Discord not only turned the Cutie Mark Crusaders into humans, but also linked the three of them to the token you helped me create and gifted them with the same powers I have,” the Skyshifter began his explanation, “I know it sounds strange, but yesterday, the three of them got summoned by another Displaced and a draconequus in that world they were summoned to named Eris had the same theory.”

“All of this really seems a bit hard to believe,” Tessa now added.

“If ah may interject,” Applejack now spoke up, “Ah once though the same thing. Though, when mah sis and her friends were explaining it to me yesterday, ah can tell that it was true.”

“How exactly can you tell that?” Cali now asked.

“Ah can easily tell if somepony is lying or not, even if what they say is what somepony else told them,” the Earth Pony explained, “Ah admit, ah was a bit skeptical at first, since beings like Discord aren’t entirely known for being honest. But after Apple Bloom told me what they were told, ah knew that they were being truthful.”

“We’re still talking about the being that we classified as a force of nature, right?” Tessa’s comment was followed up with a blank stare from Calvin and the equestrians, shortly before realizing her mistake. “Oh. Right. They haven’t seen the list yet.”

“You mean the one that Stealth Elf had mentioned before?” Scootaloo now asked.

“The very same. Though, that’s a completely separate topic,” Stealth Elf herself now spoke up, “Though, there’s one thing I want to ask now that you mentioned it. If your friends have the same powers as you, then can they use them?”

That was met with all three of the Crusaders shaking their heads as Calvin looked back to the elf. “It’s not that simple, really… Master Eon told me that the Elementanium Crystal around my neck is the source of my power and what allows me to transform. If the girls have the same power as me, then they would each need one, too.”

“If it helps any, I said that it’s like trying to ride a scooter without wheels,” Scootaloo added on.

“Or if Jet-Vac tried flying without the Vacuum Pack on his back,” the comment from Stealth Elf soon attracted the attention of almost everyone in the room as she looked back and shrugged her arms, “What? Too soon?”

“Most definitely,” Master Eon now responded, “Though, you bring up a valid point. Your friends would each need an Elementanium Crystal in order to use the same powers you have, but-”

“Then, let’s go find them! Where do we start looking?” Scootaloo impatiently proclaimed, much to the Portal Master’s displeasure.

“That, I’m afraid, is the problem,” Eon explained, “Elementanium is very rare and rather difficult to find. The equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack, yet the haystack is the size of all the numerous islands in the Skylands combined together.” Hearing that comparison alone was enough to have Applejack’s eyes widen in response, alongside Rarity and everyone else in the room.

Calvin himself was just as shocked as everyone else, but he had a question to ask in response to what the Portal Master told them. “Um… is there any way that we could make that haystack… smaller?”

The room went quiet for a moment as everyone tried to think of a possible way that they could improve their situation, yet for a while, no one said anything. Then, after what felt like five minutes, Stealth Elf got an idea. “I think I might have an idea.”

“What kind of idea?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Anytime we’ve had to handle something that’s rather ancient and has been around in the Skylands for a long time, it’s sometimes in a book that we find in the Academy’s library,” the Life Skylander began to explain as she looked to Tessa and Cali first before turning her gaze to Master Eon, “We’ve just had to return a whole collection of books that got scattered after Kaos’ attempt to take over Skylands with Mind Magic, so it’s possible that one of those books might have what we’re looking for.”

“So, wait… you’re telling us that our only hope to do the same stuff Calvin does… is by reading books?” Scootaloo asked, which only led to Stealth Elf nodding her head in response, “Why does that sound like something Twilight would say?”

“I don’t exactly think we’ll be reading books for the sake of reading them, Scootaloo,” Calvin himself added, only to turn to Stealth Elf a few moments later as he had a question for her, “We’re not, are we?”

“No, we’ll be going through them to see if there’s anything in them that could either relate to or is about Elementanium, perhaps even a place for us to start looking,” the elf explained carefully to all of them, “We went through the same process when we were first learning about Imaginite, since Kaos happened to steal the book on Mind Magic, and we needed to find another way to know where the Cradle of Creation was,” around now, confusion seemed to lurk on their faces, much to Stealth Elf’s dismay, “I could go all day, but I don’t think we have that kind of time. Besides, you would want to find those crystals sooner rather than later.”

“That, I believe, we can all agree on,” the Portal Master responded, “Tessa and Cali can show you where the Academy’s library is located at. I’ll come over to check on you later.” Both the mabu and the fox nodded, telling the others to come follow them as they all went out towards the door. But as Stealth Elf was walking, that was when she heard Eon say something else. “Stealth Elf, could you stay behind for a bit? There’s something I want to discuss with you.”

“This is your library!?!” everypony exclaimed from outside once they went through the doors of the academy archives. Out of all the places that they have been to where there was a library, this was undoubtedly the biggest library that the Crusaders, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow had ever seen. It was much bigger than the one in Canterlot and all of the books were organized in a manner that, if Twilight actually came here, she would never want to leave.

As they were stepping foot/hoof inside, they went over to the front desk as Calvin recognized a familiar face that was sitting behind it. They were staring at the large book that was on the table, only lifting his head up when he heard the encroaching sound of foot and hoofsteps. “O-oh, hello! S-sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“Was it because you were stuck in a book?” Rainbow asked, only to get jabbed in the shoulder by Applejack’s elbow, “What? It’s an honest question.”

“Hey, Hugo, can we get your help with something for a moment?” Tessa asked as she hopped up and sat on the left corner of the table.

“Sure, but… uh,” the mabu paused, shortly before looking at Rainbow and the handful of new arrivals that had just entered. “Aside from Rainbow and Calvin, I don’t think we’ve met before,” that comment was followed by him looking at both the Skyshifter and the pegasus now, “Are they your friends?”

“Yeah actually,” Calvin then spoke, before looking towards the others, “This is Applejack, Rarity, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. They’re friends of ours from Equestria.”

“N-nice to meet all of you,” Hugo replied back, just before introducing himself, “I’m Hugo, Master Eon’s assistant. Is there anything I can help you all with today?”

“Actually, there is,” Splat herself now decided to speak up. The faun entered the library last and had just caught up with everyone else before taking a chance to ask her question. “We were wanting to see if there were any books in the library that could help us find more info on the elementanium crystal Calvin has.”

At first, Hugo seemed a bit surprised by the request. It wasn’t exactly the most common request that he would hear from the students, but it was still one that he could assist with. “I would believe it’s within the research department of the library. We keep all the information with magical artifacts and such from previous events such at Traptanium and Imaginite, so it’s likely that there might be something there.”

“Thanks, Hugo.”

“No problem,” the scholar replied as he closed the book that was on his desk and got up from his chair, “Follow me, please. It’s right over this way.” They began to follow Hugo as they went down what looked to be a long hallway that was on the right side of the library. Several different paintings of various locations from across Skylands were hanging on the walls, some that Calvin was familiar with and some that he hadn’t exactly seen before. He could make out Woodburrow and Mount Cloudbreak, but some of the paintings were of places that he had once heard of, but had not seen in person, including the Golden Arcade and the town called Scholarville.

Of course, it was not just paintings that were on the walls of the hallway that caught his attention. It was also the different rooms that they were passing through. For one thing, some of the rooms had books that were floating on their own, something in Equestria that’s not exactly common considering that most of the time, the reason for floating objects would be a levitation spell from a unicorn. Another was that there were floating platforms that would take anyone who stood on them to another section of the library, whether it was farther down or they were looking for a book that was much higher up than anticipated, something that they saw in action when they saw a platform raise a mabu up to the top of a bookcase to find what they were looking for.

“Let’s all agree that when we go back, we don’t tell Twilight about this place,” Applejack’s comment was followed by a quick nod from everyone else.

“And here we are,” they heard Hugo address them as the mabu guided them to a room that was on the far left side of the hallway. Like with a lot of the other rooms that they had glimpses of so far, there were floating books and moving platforms, but one of the things that was different was that there were numerous different mechanical contraptions on the back table, some that were set up to be workstations while one particular desk in the back looked to be where some things would get repaired. “This is the research department. Mags also uses a lot of the stuff in the back, since it’s her workshop, so please don’t touch anything back there.”

“Uh… who’s Mags?” Applejack now asked.

“She’s the chief inventor and architect at the academy as well as really smart,” Splat now spoke up in response to the earth pony’s question, “Trust me on that one. She asked Eon if she could include ‘inventor of every cool gadget at Skylander Academy and 87 million other things’ to her job description.”

The faun’s response just only led to the same kind of response everypony had earlier when Eon did his needle in a haystack comparison. Of course, Calvin and Rainbow weren’t entirely surprised this time around, mostly because the two of them have met her before the first time that they went over to the academy.

“So, where do we-?”

“Hugo,” everyone in the room now heard a voice that was strangely similar to Applejack’s echo from behind them as they found none other than Mags herself walking through the front door. “What the heck is going on in here? Ah hadn’t had the chance to properly clean up mah workstation yet.”

“M-mags! What a nice surprise,” Hugo himself responded nervously, “H-how did you know we were here-?”

“Ah passed by Cali in the hallway, and she asked if ah can give you a hand. She wanted to help, but Buzz asked for her assistance with team building exercises for the students at the last minute,” the tinkerer said, just as she noticed some of the new faces that were in the room right now along with two familiar faces, “Well, howdy there you two. Are these some of your friends?”

Calvin could only nod his head as he looked at everypony else, before they decided to introduce themselves. “Why, yes we are,” Rarity was the first to speak as she trotted over to where her sister was standing, “My name is Rarity, and this is my sister, Sweetie Belle.”

“Ah’m Applejack,” the farm pony introduced herself next, who was also standing not that far from Apple Bloom, “And this is mah sister, Apple Bloom.”

“And I’m Scootaloo. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle are my best friends,” Scootaloo herself rounded out the introductions, sitting in between both of them. “The three of us back home are the Cutie Mark Crusaders!”

“Pleasure to meet all of ya,” Mags smirked, before asking the first thing that came to her mind, “Though, if Bloom and Belle are yer sisters, how come they’re all… well…”

“Human like?” Calvin then asked, taking the words right out of her mouth.

“Yeah, that,” the inventor nodded as she looked back at everyone.

“Wait… are you saying you don’t know about what happened, Mags?” Tessa soon asked shortly afterwards, “Buzz had called a staff meeting on it and everything.”

“He did?” Mags asked, “Ah must’ve been outside of the academy at the time. Ah was working with Sharpfin and his crew to try and find some parts in an old scrapyard they found at one point. Besides, ah couldn’t have missed anything too big, right?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just the equivalent of what happens when you have our friendly neighborhood Spirit of Chaos put himself into a self induced trance and turn our hometown into a living Bridleway theater production,” Rainbow sarcastically told her.

“Remind me to have Master Eon explain to you about the ‘traveling circus’ incident later,” Tessa let out a sigh as she looked back to Mags, “For now, we need your help. We’re trying to see if any of the books here in the research department contain anything about the Elementanium crystal Calvin has. Do you know where we can start looking?”

The tinkerer herself grinned, just before walking past them and heading to the center of the room. “Do I? Is that a trick question?” Taking her staff, she tapped the floor with the bottom of the staff. However, instead of hearing the impact of it hitting the floor, they heard what sounded like a loud clicking noise, almost as if a key had been inserted into a lock. Shortly after, a part of her staff popped up, resembling a handlebar as Mags looked back at them. “Fair warning, yer gonna feel a bit of movement. Ah suggest ya either hold onto something or keep yourself balanced.”

The moment that Mags pushed forward, the entire floor began to shake. The bookshelves and platforms that were once there retreated behind the walls as the floor began to turn in a circular pattern. The workshop that was in the back also began to change too, as many of the mechanical parts and contraptions had either disappeared or were stored someplace safe.

“Alright, this was at magical objects. Now, if ah recall correctly, what ya might be looking for is this way,” they could hear Mags talk to herself as she continued to push. At one point, it looked like the inventions in the back of the room were replaced with what resembled a greenhouse, but that was only for a few moments.

“Not there, but the next subject over…” the tinkerer spoke to herself again, just as the greenhouse disappeared and was replaced with a series of mining tools, samples of different colored crystals and special ores. “Aha! Here we go!” Mags stopped, and with it, the bookcases that originally disappeared had returned, sliding back in as if they had always been there. “That should do the trick.”

“W-what was that?!” Sweetie Belle asked, “It felt like the whole ground was changing!”

“Technically, it was,” Mags replied back. “Given how vast and diverse scientific research is in Skylands, ah designed the research wing to where the contents of the research wing can change depending on all the different and vast subjects the Skylands has,” taking a moment, she pointed out to where all the equipment was in the back of the room. “Originally, we were on ‘magical objects’ and ah had a bunch of artifacts in the back, but since you all were wanting to find out more on Calvin’s crystal, ah figured the best place to start looking was in the geology section, since it’s the same kind of research we use for understanding Traptanium.”

Of course, that was followed by a new question from Apple Bloom as she looked back at Mags. “Ah’m sorry fer interrupting miss Mags, but why are some of the shelves in the back empty?”

It was then that Calvin noticed what Apple Bloom was saying. The last two bookshelves near the back of the room did not have their bottom shelves filled, unlike that of what they saw earlier. Of course, when Mags heard that, she didn’t shy away from responding rather promptly. “Well, that’s because sometimes, certain subjects happen to have more research than others depending on the field,” the tinkerer explained simply, “But enough about that, let’s get started. We won’t be getting anywhere if we’re just standing around and talking all day.”

“But where would we even start?” Tessa then asked her, “There’s like six bookshelves in here, and most of them are full.”

“Well, we got enough people here to divide and conquer,” Mags then proclaimed, “So, let’s split into groups. I’ll be with Hugo and Tessa, Splat can be with Calvin, Rainbow will be with Applejack and Rarity and the… Cutie Mark Crusaders can be our last group. Sound good?”

“Sounds good to us!” Apple Bloom declared with both of her friends nodding in response. Applejack and the others also liked the idea, too, since it would be easier for them to look through everything if they worked as a team. The same was said for the other two teams as they all gave confirmation to Mags that they were on board with the idea.

“Alrighty then. Let’s get started,” the tinkerer told them as she assigned each of the teams a bookshelf to start looking through what was on the shelves. At first, it was simple, since none of the books that they were going through were too big in order to handle as they tried to find anything on Elementanium. But after the first couple of shelves, Calvin noticed that his vision was getting a bit blurry, and at some point, he felt as if he wanted to take a nap on the table that Splat and him were sitting by.

Of course, this did not really go unnoticed by the Supercharger as she tapped him on the shoulder around the second time that he was about to drift off. “Hey there, are you doing okay?” she asked him, “You looked like you were about to doze off for a minute.”

“Huh?” Calvin blinked, not realizing what she said until after he shook his head as the Skyshifter rubbed his eyes. “Oh, uh, sorry… Applejack had us wake up rather early this morning. I think some of that leftover sleep is getting to me.”

“Well, it won’t exactly be doing good if you happen to fall asleep when we actually find something,” the faun told him, “How about we step outside for a bit and head to the cafeteria? Get something that can give you some energy back?”

Calvin could only nod his head as they got up. Anything that could help him be a bit more awake right now would be a plus right now. As they got up and headed out of the library, Splat led him towards where the school’s cafeteria would be. Since it was between the hours of when breakfast was usually served and just before lunch, there weren’t a lot of people at the tables in the dining hall, which felt like a good thing since it always seemed that, wherever he went, he always seemed to attract some kind of attention.

Unfortunately, as he was waiting for Splat to come back, someone else decided to sit across from him at the table. “Well, hello there, little guy,” the words of Captain Flynn prompted him to look up to see the airship pilot sitting across from him. “You doing alright? You look a bit sleepy.”

‘Why thank you, Captain Obvious,’ he internally thought to himself as he looked up at Flynn. “That I am… Woke up much earlier than normal today. Splat brought me here so I can have a bit of a wake up call.”

For a moment, Flynn remained silent as he processed what Calvin said, “A wake up call? Well, I can get that for you right now. Hold on just a moment.” As he got up, he immediately proceeded to head to where the drinks were at as Calvin closed his eyes for a moment to let out a yawn. When he opened them back up and rubbed his eyes to make sure he didn’t feel drowsy, he found that the pilot had come back, holding what looked like a medium sized disposable drink cup that would most typically be used for warm beverages. “There you go. One wake up call, just for you.”

At first, Calvin was hesitant. He was not exactly sure what Flynn just got for him and was definitely not sure if he should be drinking it, but if this was able to help him get his energy and focus back, then it meant that he could get back to helping the Cutie Mark Crusaders and everyone else back at the library. So, he cautiously took a sip from it… before taking another… and another. Each time he took a drink from the cup, he felt a jolt of energy surge through him. It got to the point that when it was half empty, he threw caution to the wind and drank the rest of it in one giant gulp as he looked back at Flynn.

“Thanks, Flynn, that’s definitely what I needed. If Splat comes back, tell her I’ll be back at the library!”

Before Flynn could even say anything, Calvin had already bolted out of the room, the door slamming behind him just as Splat had come back. She had got him a cup of hot cocoa to help him wake up, but by the time the Supercharger had come back, Calvin was not at the table. All that was there was an empty cup and Flynn.

That alone was enough for her to put two and two together as the faun looked at the airship pilot. “What did you give him?”

“What? He said he needed a wake up call, so I gave him one,” Flynn replied. Though, to Splat, that was not enough information for her to go on.

“What exactly is in your ‘wake up call’, Flynn?”

“Nothing too much,” yet, as Splat was about to realize, what Flynn was telling her was the complete opposite of that. “Just a grande sized cup of vanilla flavored coffee, along with chocolate and caramel syrup, whipped cream, half a bottle of regular vanilla creamer and about twelve sugar packets just to give it that right amount of kick.”

Splat, in that moment, did the only thing that seemed reasonable at the time… and threw the cup she was holding at Flynn, covering his head in Hot Cocoa as he scrambled to get a few paper towels to clean the cocoa that spilled all over him. “Hot! Hot!! HOT!! What was that for!?”

“What was that for?! You gave Calvin an overdose on caffeine & sugar and didn’t even check to see if he had coffee before or not!! He needed a bit of energy for him to focus, not for you to send him into overdrive!” the faun snapped at him, shortly before asking another question as she glared directly at her. “Where did he go?”

“Uh… I…”

“Flynn, I’m not in the mood for games,” the faun sternly spoke to him, the paint from her paintbrush touching the ground as a pair of inklings now jumped up on the table and stared him down. “Where… did he… go?”

“L-Library!! He said he was going to the library!!” Flynn pleaded, closing his eyes and waiting for something to happen. But just as soon as the confrontation happened, he opened his eyes to find that Splat was gone, and that the inklings on the table were gone. At first, he thought that it was all over. That he could just go back to his ship and pretend like it never happened.

Unfortunately for him, he turned around to find that those two inklings from earlier now had twenty more of them up on the table alongside a shade of pain that loomed over him, leaving him stunned as he could only find the words to say one thing.

“Oh, tater tots…”

By the time that Splat had ran back the library, she was solely focused on trying to find Calvin. If he had immediately went back to the library under the influence of whatever Flynn gave him, it was not going to be good if he ended up crashing into something or crashing because of the lack of caffeine. The likelihood that it was the first time that he ever had coffee only made the whole thought of what could potentially happen worse.

As she hurried over to the research department, the faun was only getting more concerned. How was she going to explain all of this to Hugo and Mags? Or for that matter, how exactly was she going to explain this to the people that he came here with? They already had one incident between both the Skylands and Equestria, and they most certainly did not need a second one.

Unfortunately, just as she made to the door, the faun found herself witnessing Calvin tripping over Hugo’s bookpack, shortly before sliding and crashing into a bookshelf as several books began to fall on him. “OW!!”

“Calvin!!” Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing to help him as Splat joined back up with them, which prompted Tessa to ask the faun something, “What happened while you were outside?”

“Flynn gave him some of the coffee that he uses to wake himself up in the morning, not knowing that Calvin has never had it before,” Splat told her, which had the fox facepalm herself, “Apparently, he calls it the ‘wake up call’, so when Calvin told him that he needed a wake up call, Flynn thought that he needed a cup of joe instead of something else.”

“Why do ah have a feeling that this ‘Flynn’ guy causes a lot of trouble unknowingly?” Applejack asked.

“He sometimes doesn’t realize that his solutions to something only cause more problems until after he does it,” Hugo told the earth pony as another book fell on top of Calvin’s head before falling onto his lap, “Now, we have to stop what we’re doing to clean this up this whole mess, and-”

“Forget about the mess! Calvin, are you alright?” Scootaloo snapped, before getting close to Calvin as he scratched his head, coughing a bit after everything that had just happened.

“Whatever Flynn gave me… I’m not having that again,” he groaned, looking around for a moment as he tried to readjust himself. His head was beginning to hurt a bit, but as he looked down towards his lap, the Skyshifter looked at the book’s cover. The title said ‘Ancient Minerals and More, A Reference Guide’ and something about it… got him thinking.

“Oh, you never know, silly Calvy… and be careful of falling books.”

“Hey Mags,” he then spoke up as he slowly tried to get up, handing the book over to her. “Could you take a look at this one?”

“Uh, sure… why this one in particular though?”

“I just… had a feeling,” the Skyshifter replied the best that he could as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo helped him back up to his feet. Rarity began to channel a levitation spell to start organizing the books that fell on the floor while Splat began to explain more about what happened with Flynn to Hugo and Tessa.

Of course, everyone was thrown off guard again a few seconds later. But this time, instead of Calvin, it was Mags that caught everyone by surprise. “Hot buttered toast! Ah found something!!”

“Uh… what?” Apple Bloom asked.

“I think that’s her way of saying ‘dear sweet Celestia’, Bloom,” Sweetie Belle told her friend, before looking to Calvin as his only response was just a nod.

“You actually found something, Mags?” Tessa then asked, which was followed by the inventor nodding her head as the fox got curious, “What did you find? A sentence, a paragraph, a page?”

“Ah found more than that,” she replied back, “In fact, it might be short, but there’s an entire chapter in here about it.”

That definitely sounded promising, especially considering that aside from the name and knowing little to nothing about it except that it allowed Calvin to transform, they knew nothing about Elementanium. “Does it say anything about where it could be found?”

“Gimme a second, and let me see what I can find,” Mags told the Skyshifter as she began to skim through what was on the pages, carefully combing through as the inventor patiently analyzed the text. For a moment, Calvin thought that it would take her some time in order to try and find something, but just as he thought that, she made a breakthrough. “Eureka!”

“Sounds like I arrived at just the right time,” everyone turned to the front of the room to see Master Eon himself walk on in, “Did you happen to find the answers you were looking for?”

“I believe so, Master Eon,” Splat then spoke up, just as she turned to see Mags looking back at Calvin now.

“Just what exact kind of feeling did ya have that led to you picking this one?” the inventor asked Calvin as he looked back at the inventor. He only had one kind of answer for her, and it was one that Rainbow Dash and the others understood all too well.

“A ‘don’t question Pinkie Pie’ feeling.”

“Really? You mean the pink pony that was chasing Pain-Yatta around with his own lollipop axe the last time Rainbow Dash was with you?” she asked in response, which just led to the Skyshifter nodding his head, “Now ah’m beginning to wonder just how her mind works.”

“Here’s a suggestion. Don’t,” Rainbow bluntly stated, “There are times that even we can’t understand her. Even Twilight, the smartest out of all of my friends, couldn’t even figure anything out either. Just trust me here.”

At first, the inventor looked a bit puzzled. She didn’t consider taking Rainbow’s words seriously, but the look on the faces of Applejack, Rarity and the Cutie Mark Crusaders told her otherwise as she decided to refocus her attention on something else. “Well, alright then. Now, getting back to what ah was looking at, ah found a place for us to look into. In this book, it says that Elementanium was first discovered deep in the mountain caves that were by the Munitions Forge. Since we haven’t found anything else that could tell us otherwise, ah say that’s our best shot.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound too hard,” Applejack replied, “So, we just go there, find the crystals and come back-?”

“Woah, slow down there,” Mags insisted, interrupting before Applejack could finish what she was saying, “There’s more to it than just that. For one thing, it says in the book that Elementanium only reacts to specific individuals who have the ability to use the magic stored in it. Secondly, ah’m pretty sure that the mountain they’re referring to is the active volcano that’s by the forge. ”

The expressions of all three equines changed immediately when they heard the words ‘active volcano’. Though, that didn’t quite seem to change the mood of how Calvin and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were treating all of this. “So, if we go there, what’s the plan gonna be?”

That had everyone in the room fall silent for a moment. Splat herself was looking around the room for a moment first, before deciding to say something. “Well, first, let’s figure out how many are going, because I definitely think that we can’t take everyone here with us to the caves.”

“Calvin, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom will have to go, since they are perhaps the only ones that the Elementanium will react to,” Hugo began to brainstorm as he looked around the room. “We need a Skylander to go with them though, just in case something goes wrong.”

“A Water Skylander would be most preferable,” Master Eon then decided to speak, “Something that could help combat the heat from the volcano.”

“Only problem is that when I hear that, my first thought that would come to mind would be King Pen, since he’s the one that’s been training Calvin,” Hugo responded to Eon’s suggestion, “But he might be busy, since he’s a sensei here. Outside of that, I don’t know what other Skylanders of the water element he has met.”

“Not to mention that most of them have come from places where they mostly lived in areas with a lot of water around and even under the sea,” Tessa added on to the Skyshifter’s response as she looked back at everyone in the room, “Take Echo and Zap for example.”

“Let’s also not forget that not a lot of them have met him or know about what he could do,” the comment from Splat did not help any at all with the brainstorming as the room soon grew quiet. Master Eon himself was not sure how to help them, especially considering that it was him who suggested that they should have a Water Skylander come with them in the first place. If they couldn’t make a choice now, then how exactly were they going to move forward?

Fortunately though, by this point, the Skyshifter had realized something. Something that could potentially work. “I… think I might know someone else. Someone that I turned into, but haven’t met yet in person.”

Hearing that alone was enough to get their hopes up, even if it was for a little bit, but it was enough for Hugo to ask one simple question. “Who?”

“Snap Shot,” he simply told them, “I have transformed into him before early on when I first came to Equestria and had to demonstrate my abilities to Princess Luna and Cadance, but unlike that with Spitfire or Stealth Elf, I have not actually met him yet.”

“Even so, that might be a problem. He’s the head of the Trap Masters, and currently the Warden of Cloudcracker Prison,” Eon interjected, which unfortunately flattened the sense of hope that Calvin started having a few seconds ago. Seeing the Skyshifter’s hope fade gave the Portal Master an idea though, as he turned towards the entrance of the room to leave, “But I might have a better idea. Calvin, could you follow me please? And have Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo come as well.”

Calvin himself, sounded rather curious as to what the Portal Master was talking about. The same could be said for the Cutie Mark Crusaders as well, but one pony wasn’t exactly sure about what Master Eon just said. “Hold on there, partner,” everyone in the room now heard Applejack speak up as she looked directly towards the Portal Master that was almost outside of the room. “What exactly is this idea of yours? And why does it involve them following you?”

“Applejack, what are you doing?” Rainbow asked her, “Surely, he’s trying to help them, right?”

“If that’s the case, then ah think he should explain this idea of his,” the earth pony retorted, before trotting out in front of Apple Bloom and looking back at Eon. “Because ah really don’t like it when somepony is not telling us the whole story, especially when it involves mah sister.”

Eon was silent at first as he looked back at the Earth Pony, but after taking some time to look around the room, he let out a sigh. “The academy has a special book in the library, one that is enchanted. The book can grant certain advantages to Skylanders, but it also comes with great risk if anything were to happen to it. So, its location is kept as a carefully guarded secret,” the Portal Master began to explain to everyone in the room, “But the contents of it should not only prove useful to Calvin, but also teach your sister and her friends more about the Skylanders themselves and learn the phrases that they say. It’s something that should be kept in mind if the need to use their power arises after getting the Elementanium Crystals.”

Applejack, for a moment, looked like she understood what Eon was talking about. Though, her words were something else. “Ah still don’t like it-”

“Oh, don’t even think about trying to be stubborn, AJ,” Rainbow Dash interjected as the farm pony turned to face the pegasus, “Plus, friend to friend, you and I both know that you’re terrible when it comes to lying.”

“She has a point, darling,” Rarity agreed with what Rainbow was saying as she trotted over to where Applejack was standing. “Besides, we came here in order to help Apple Bloom and her friends, after all. They should at least know more about what they can do and who they can be before trying it for themselves.”

The farm pony herself felt the need to say something. Anything. But after being stopped by her friends like that, all she could do was drop her head down and let out a defeated sigh, only to feel a hand touch her shoulder as she looked up to see Apple Bloom in front of her. “Hey, sis, everything’s gonna be fine. After all, what harm can one book cause?”

End Part 2

Scroll 21- A Change in Plans Part 3

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Scroll 22- Lava Puppies, Ponies and Pirates, Oh my!

Beyond the Skies-Lava Puppies, Ponies and Pirates, Oh my!

On the night that they came back from Skylander Academy, Applejack had offered for Calvin and the Crusaders to stay over at Sweet Apple Acres for the night, since they were going to have another early start the next morning. The idea was confusing to Rainbow, who thought that they could just as easily have a sleepover at the academy if they really wanted to be prepared, but both Applejack and Rarity had a problem with that for their own reasons. For Applejack, she thought that it wouldn’t make sense to come to Equestria, only to go back there a few minutes later. While for Rarity, she thought that the idea of just saying ‘Hey, don’t mind me, I’m gonna stay at your place for the night’ without actually asking if it was okay or not was just plain rude.

As for their stay at Sweet Apple Acres, things were mostly going well. Again, mostly. Even though both Big Macintosh and Granny Smith were informed about what happened to Apple Bloom and her friends when they decided to go crusading with Calvin that one time, it did not exactly mean that they were entirely comfortable with it. Even more so when they heard about Applejack’s encounter with Tree Rex at the academy, a story that was enough to have Granny Smith almost faint in her rocking chair.

Fortunately, the rest of the evening did not have any hiccups like the academy visit and was actually rather calm. The meal that was served for dinner was actually rather tasty, and afterwards, everybody got the chance to have a slice of apple pie for dessert. For sleeping arrangements, Applejack had a couple of sleeping bags that she had as leftover camping supplies that Calvin, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo used. Even though Apple Bloom wanted to join them and not feel like she was left out, the only sleeping bags that could actually fit Calvin and her friends were the same ones that her sister, Rarity and Rainbow had to use during their last camping trip.

Of course, getting sleep that night was not that hard to do. Yet, waking up in the morning was much harder, because instead of having Applejack wake them up, what woke them up was a rooster that was just above the open window to Apple Bloom’s room, the call of the rooster startling everyone in the room as they took a few moments to try and adjust to getting so rudely awakened, which was the equivalent of being woken up by the sound of cannon fire.

Of course, it didn’t really seem like Applejack had a problem with it at all. In fact, when she went to go check to see if they were awake, the earth pony seemed rather confused as to why everybody looked like they had just been woken up by Pinkie Pie, much to everyone’s dismay. Breakfast this morning was alright, but nothing compared to Pinkie’s pancake extravaganza the day before, especially since most of it was apple flavored.

After finishing with breakfast and getting themselves ready, the first stop that Calvin and the girls had to go to was the Carousel Boutique. Rarity was going to talk to Twilight about the possibility of enchanting their clothes so that it could keep them cool while at the Munitions Forge, so checking to see if she made any progress was a high priority.

Though, it wasn’t a good sign that when they arrived, they found a ‘CLOSED’ sign in the window and the door was locked. At first, they thought that Rarity just simply did not want any visitors. But after Sweetie Belle got out her key and opened the door, she found that the entire boutique was empty. No sign of Rarity, no sign of anything that she was working on, nothing, which was weird for several reasons.

Mainly, it was because if Rarity was working on something and had to put it off. She would not have it put away somewhere neatly and out of sight. Sweetie Belle knew for sure that time and time again, whenever her sister was working on a dress or a pair of clothes, she would always leave it on the mannequin instead of folding it and putting in a closet. So, where could she have placed it?

After a few moments, they did happen to find something. “Hey, Sweetie Belle? I think I found a note that Rarity left over here on the table.”

Sweetie Belle herself turned to where her friend Scootaloo was standing, who was holding a note that was about the size of an index card in her hand as she gave it to the former unicorn for her to read. “‘Dear Sweetie Belle. If you find this, then I am right now having Spike help me collect some crystals to replenish the stock I have at the Boutique. By the way, I had a talk with Twilight about the enchantment spell that you and your friends would need, and she told me that she could do it for you, provided that she is done with her meeting with Celestia and Luna this morning. Good luck on your adventure. I’ll see you when we get back. Your sister, Rarity’.”

“Alright. To the castle it is,” Calvin replied, just before looking around for a moment. “Hey, have you girls seen Apple Bloom-?”

FWOOSH!!

The moment that the question was asked, everypony turned around to find that a pair of closet doors had opened up and all the clothes that were inside had spilled out like an avalanche. At first, they thought that something that one of the other crusaders touched earlier had somehow gave way. That is, until they saw Apple Bloom’s head rise up from underneath everything as she looked back at everyone else.

“C-can ya help me out? A-ah feel like ah’m being squished.”

The first thing that Sweetie Belle did was facepalm herself, letting out a deep sigh. “Well, great… this is a headache I didn’t want this morning.”

“Ah, come on, it can’t be that bad, Sugarcube,” Applejack replied back, “We’ll just put everything back in and-”

That had Sweetie immediately shake her head. “She’s going to know that something’s wrong. When Rarity puts things away, she always puts it away in a specific… way. If one thing isn’t right, then she would immediately tell that something’s wrong.”

“Well, we’ll just try our best. That’s the only thing that we can really do at this point,” Calvin now spoke up as he stretched out a hand to help Apple Bloom get out of the pile of clothes. “Besides, Twilight might be seeing the princesses now, so by the time we’re done here, she might be done with them.”

It wasn’t the most ideal way to spend time, but the Skyshifter did make a point. Twilight was currently busy with the princesses, so if they took some time to fix this, then they could probably catch Twilight at a time where she wasn’t so busy. So the five of them, Applejack included, took the time to try and make it seem less like ‘the WORST POSSIBLE THING’ and make it be something that was a little bit more manageable. Though, it took a little bit more time than they hoped for, considering that they had to fold some of the clothes with their hands. For some of them, they just had to end up stacking everything on top of one another, since they had no idea how to fold it in the first place.

About a half hour or so after originally getting started, they were finished… yet for good measure, they took one of the ribbons that Rarity had lying around to tie the closet door handles together. “Yeah, that should hold it together,” Calvin commented as he finished tying the double knot with the ribbon, shortly before all of them quickly left the boutique and locked the door behind them on their way out, going straight towards Twilight’s castle and not turning back.

Of course, as much as they thought that going to Twilight’s castle would be better than sticking around at the boutique, they ended up arriving a little too late. For when they arrived, the entire map room in the castle was completely empty. Not even the princesses were there either, much to their surprise.

“Okay, this is just weird,” the Skyshifter commented, before looking back to Sweetie Belle, “Your sister did say that they were going to be here, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Scootaloo then spoke up, “It’s not like they’re meeting at some other crystalline castle that we don’t know about.”

“Where could they possibly be though?” Sweetie Belle then asked as she looked around the room, “Unless they had some kind of sudden change in plans, then I would not see a reason for them to be anywhere but here.”

It was shortly after Sweetie Belle said that statement that Calvin began to hear something, the sound of hooves walking across the crystalline floor. Not just that, but the sound of the metallic shoes that a princess would wear was also making contact with the floor, too. It started off small, but soon grew louder as he slowly began to look to the hallway entrance right behind Sweetie Belle and her friends. “Uh, girls?”

“What is it, Calvin?”

“Two Princesses… right behind you,” he pointed towards the entrance, just as they saw Celestia and Luna turn around the corner and face towards them. The two princesses found themselves staring at the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Calvin and Applejack. All three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders found themselves at a loss for words as they just stared at Celestia, who was just as equally surprised.

“Oh my me…” the princess of the sun said to herself.

“Sister, who are these three?” Luna herself asked, which got quite a surprising shock from everyone in the room.

“Wait… Twilight didn’t tell you about what happened?” Applejack now asked, who was personally surprised by what was going on.

“She told me, yes. However, it’s only now that I’ve actually seen it with my own eyes,” Celestia now spoke, before turning to Luna. “Though, I don’t believe my sister has been informed of anything, if her reaction just now is anything to go by.”

“Celestia, are you saying that you happen to know who they are?” Now, normally, Celestia would go into an explanation that would help bring somepony up to speed. Instead though, Celestia began to channel some of her magic as she summoned three scrolls, ones that looked exactly like the letters that Twilight herself would send to Celestia. As she gave them to Luna, the night princess began to examine the contents of each one inside. Though, with each scroll she finished, the more that her expression began to change from calm and relaxed to… well, the downright opposite.

“Princess, are you okay-?”

Without any warning, Luna breathed in, breathed out, and… “DISCORD!!! THOU DEMANDS YOU SHOW THYSELF IMMEDIATELY!!!!!”

Luna’s declaration was enough to cause Calvin and the crusaders to cover their ears and for the whole castle to shake. Her speech was so fierce that it knocked Applejack’s stetson hat off of her head and had the picture frames and chandelier end up crooked.

Celestia herself though… was not amused by how her sister chose to process this newfound information. “Luna, how many times have I told you not to use the Royal Canterlot Voice indoors?”

“Also, Discord’s kind of… recovering,” Calvin replied, “Isn’t that what you just read?”

“Luna has a tendency to heavily focus on certain details rather than others,” her sister admitted before looking back at the night princess, “Sister, this was an incident that Discord himself had no control over. It was an accident… though, admittedly, one of the Skylanders that Calvin has as an ally unintentionally made the whole situation a lot worse.”

“Well, we kinda found out a bit more after the fact,” Applejack added on, “We learned that, somehow, mah sis and her friends are ‘connected’ to Calvin and that they might be able to do the same things that he could do. Yet, we were going to need Twilight’s help with something.”

“Do you know where she might be by any chance?” Calvin then asked them. Though, they got a much different response from Celestia than any of them were expecting to hear.

“She’s in the dragon lands with Rarity and Spike,” the solar princess told them, “The dragon lord called upon all dragons there, so Twilight and Rarity went with Spike to make sure that-”

“Well, that’s just great! How the hay are we gonna go to the forge now!?” Scootaloo abruptly interrupted the princess. “Twilight was supposed to help enchant our clothes so we could go to that volcano place and-”

“You’re all doing what!?” Luna reacted, eyes widening in horror as the image of three fillies trekking alongside a volcano was projected into her mind.

“It’s not like that,” Sweetie Belle soon spoke up with a reassuring tone, “Master Eon said that in order to get the kind of crystal that Calvin uses, we need to go to the caves that are by a certain volcano in Skylands. Applejack and Rainbow are going to be helping us.”

“And Rares was supposed to be helpin’ us out by finding out from Twilight about an enchantment that could keep the girls and Calvin cool and not overheat from the conditions,” Applejack soon added on after Sweetie was finished with her statement. The fact that not only Rarity was gone, but Twilight as well was a huge setback for them, especially since they were both trying to find out more in order to help them in the first place.

“Huh…? What’s this?” they now heard Apple Bloom say as she went under the Cutie Map for a moment, pulling out what looked like a piece of parchment. “‘Dear Calvin, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Unfortunately, due to an unforeseen emergency, we need to… delay the trip to the Munitions Forge?’-”

“OH, COME ON!!!” Sweetie Belle complained, “We’ve already had enough setbacks!! We can’t put something like this off!! It’s too important!”

“Well, what do you suggest we do then, Sweetie? Without that spell, we’re literally toast,” Scootaloo told her, looking back at her as she tried to come up with a reasonable response to what she was saying. When she couldn’t come up with anything, that just had the whole room drift in silence.

That was, until Celestia asked something. “Apple Bloom, was the name of this spell you need written in the note you’re holding?”

At first, the former earth pony blinked, before re-reading the letter and finding the sentence she was looking for. “Y-yeah, something called… C-c-cooli...o…?”

“Can I see that?” Calvin asked, which prompted Apple Bloom to nod her head and hand the note over to him so he could read it out loud, “Cooliosis.”

“The heck does that mean?” Sweetie Belle now asked, before looking over to both of the princesses and repeating the question to them now, “Do you know what it means?”

“Actually, I do,” the princess of the sun replied back to the confused girl, “It’s a spell that’s used to keep ponies cool for up to twenty four hours upon when its originally cast. It’s most notably used when some ponies have to work in sweltering mines that are deep underground.”

“I thought you only use that spell on the servants who tend to Philomena,” Luna then added on.

“You can use a spell for two things, sister,” Celestia responded back to her sister, shortly before looking back to the group, “But yes… because of what my sister just said, I happen to know the spell that you might need.”

“Sister, can I have a word with you for a moment?” the lunar princess asked her as the two of them trotted off to the side to talk among themselves. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were rather puzzled by this as well as Calvin and Applejack, wondering what exactly they were talking about. But before they could find it in themselves to ask them about anything, both Celestia and Luna had turned back around.

“Apologies for that, but Luna wanted to talk to me for a moment,” Celestia replied, before looking back at the group in front of them, “As for the spell, I’m more than willing to cast it on you five-”

“Don’t forget Rainbow Dash. She’s part of this too!”

“-You six then,” Celestia corrected herself after hearing Scootaloo’s additional comment. “However, I have one condition that you must follow,” hearing that had everyone, including Applejack and Calvin, raise an eyebrow as they looked back at the princess, “That condition is that my sister will accompany you until you reach the Skylands and set off for your destination. If you don’t accept the condition, then I will not cast the spell. Do I make myself clear?”

Calvin only had one response for that. “Yes, princess.”

“Thank you for answering my summons, Rubble Rouser,” Master Eon told the Swap Force Skylander as the rock golem approached the Portal Master, “I have a task for you that I need your help with. Should I assume that Hugo has attempted to bring you up to speed in some capacity?”

“I think so, though it was only just that I was working with that boy that was on the list and some of his friends,” Rubble replied back, “He didn’t entirely explain what I would be doing though.”

“Well then, allow for me to fill in the blanks for you,” the Portal Master explained, “You are going to be going with Calvin and five of his friends from Equestria. They are looking for a series of special crystals that can be found in the caves of the Munitions Forge. Knowing your experience when it comes to digging and mining, we thought that you could be able to lend them a hand as well as any extra mining equipment that you might happen to have.”

“Hmm,” the golem said to him as he looked back at Eon, “Seems reasonable. Though, could you tell me more about these crystals? I would like to know more about what exactly we’re searching for before we start digging anywhere.”

“The crystals you’re looking for are similar to the one that Calvin has on the pendant around his neck. It’s called Elementanium, and it allows for him to take on transformations into the forms of other Skylanders,” Eon explained further, “Three of his friends also have the same abilities, but lack the crystals needed to use them, so this is a mission to get those crystals.”

“Ah, I see what you mean,” Rubble nodded his head. “I was going to ask if you had some kind of example, but I’m thinking I’ll see that example once I meet him?”

The Portal Master just nodded his head in response. “Indeed. Make sure to inform Hugo that I fully briefed you on the mission, so he can have Flynn prepare his ship in advance.”

Meanwhile…

“Well, I’ll be,” Princess Luna said to herself as she first stepped hoof out of the basement door in the Castle of Friendship and onto the floating isles inside the Mysterious Ancient Place. By this time, Rainbow had already joined up with them, so that Celestia could cast the Cooliosis spell on all of them as well as be brought up to speed that Luna was going to come with them, at least until they set off for the Munitions Forge that is. She was also carrying a bag with her. Not like a saddle bag, but the kind of bag that you would see someone carry if they were going to the gym. “This is much different than what I was anticipating.”

“Believe it or not, that’s what ah said when ah first came here the other day,” Applejack replied back to the princess, “Seeing a picture of it or being told about it is not the same as seeing the real thing.”

“At least you taking all of this in much differently than when Rarity saw it the other day,” Rainbow Dash said as she used her wings to push herself off the ground and idly fly in the air. “So, what’s the plan? Are we just going to wait around like last time or just go over to the academy?”

“Last time, all waiting did was have Rarity start galloping off in a mad dash after Flashwing,” Calvin reminded the pegasus, “Plus, I don’t think they would know that we are actually ready until we arrive at the academy.”

“Besides, Eon’s probably had to make some preparations as well, Rainbow,” Applejack herself added on to the conversation.

“Then, we should not delay this any further,” Luna herself decreed, while looking at everyone else, “Since you seem to know the lay of the land… er… islands here, I’ll let you take the lead.”

“Alright, perfect! Let’s lead the way girls!!” Sweetie Belle declared as the Cutie Mark Crusaders went on ahead with Applejack and Rainbow following them. Luna and Calvin followed shortly after them, letting the other five guide them towards where the entrance to the academy was in the M.A.P.

Though, as they followed everyone else, Luna decided to ask Calvin a question while they were walking. “So, Calvin, about these Skylanders that we are going to see… who are we likely to be meeting?”

“That… is honestly a bit of a hard question to answer, Princess,” the Skyshifter honestly told her, shrugging his shoulders, “It is likely that some of the ones that the girls and I saw yesterday are probably in class or on a mission today. Though, there are a couple that I can possibly think of.”

“And who would those be?”

“Well, first there’s Spyro, a Magic Skylander that is a purple dragon, yellow horns, walks on four legs. He’s a lot different than that of Spike, but also rather nice… if you overlook his rather impulsive and cocky side,” Calvin first started explaining, “Some of the others we met include Stealth Elf, who… has a habit of appearing at times when you least expect it, Spitfire, who you might remember because of that one time we crashed into Discord, and Splat, a faun who is rather artistic and creative. We might also meet Master Eon, who’s kind of like the Skylanders’ version of your sister.”

Luna was equally surprised by each one of those, however, there was one particular one that she wanted to know more about. She remembered the name that was written in the scrolls that Celestia had shown her, yet outside of that, knew nothing about them. “I see… could you tell me more about one in particular that I read in the reports that Celestia showed me earlier. I believe the name was Hoot Loop?”

When Calvin heard the princess ask that, part of him got nervous. He wasn’t sure why Luna would ask about him, especially after all the mistakes he happened to cause, but all he did was let out a breath as he looked back at the princess. “Hoot Loop’s… a bit of a mischievous one. If I remember correctly, he used to be a circus performer before Eon had him join the Skylanders. He’s also known for… well… proclaiming how skilled he is at his abilities.”

“So, he’s a boaster then?” the question from Luna led to Calvin nodding his head as the Princess of the Night looked back at him. “Could you turn into him for a moment? I believe a visual reference could help me understand more about him.”

Calvin, instead of questioning Luna, just did what she asked. Holding onto his necklace and saying ‘Lets ruffle some feathers!’ as he turned into the Swap Force Skylander for a moment, all before changing himself back. “Yeah, that’s what Hoot Loop’s like… do you want for me to turn into the other Skylanders I was telling you about or-?”

“No, I do not believe that would be necessary,” the princess insisted, “You have already helped me quite enough, so thank you.”

Now, Calvin was getting rather confused. Why would she only ask for him to explain about Hoot Loop specifically and not ask about any of the others? Was there a reason why she was so fixated on him in particular? It was likely that Luna had her reasons, but what exactly were they? More importantly, what would happen if-?

“Hey, Calvin, you coming?”

Rainbow’s question snapped the Skyshifter out of his thought process as he realized that his friends had already made it to the entrance, and he was just standing there. “Oh, y-yeah! Sorry, was just thinking on something. Wait for me!”

Once he caught up with the group, they all stepped through the portal that connected the M.A.P. to the entrance of the academy, where a few familiar faces, and a couple of new ones, were waiting for them. Master Eon was waiting in the courtyard with Hugo and Tessa alongside that of Rubble Rouser, the Earth Swap Force Skylander.

Oh, and Flynn was there, too. Though, he seemed to be more focused on brushing off a few crumbs on his jacket rather than what was directly in front of him, which was why when he looked up, he found himself falling backwards on the ground as if he had seen them for the first time… even though Calvin clearly remembered seeing him yesterday.

“Welcome back, Calvin,” Master Eon greeted the Skyshifter as well as the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Applejack and Rainbow, “Glad to see that you are all here,” Though, it was at this point while he was speaking that the Portal Master happened to notice a new face among the mostly familiar group as he looked towards the alicorn standing next to Calvin. “And it seems you have someone new with you as well. I am Master Eon, and welcome to Skylander Academy.”

“Hun… this one reminds me of Starswirl the Bearded,” Luna muttered to herself, with only Calvin picking up on that as the Princess of the Night began to formulate her response now. “A pleasure to meet you. I am Princess Luna, diarch of the night and the sister of Princess Celestia. I was making sure that Calvin and his comrades reach their destination safely after being informed of their current… situation.”

“I see,” Eon himself commented, scratching his chin with a free hand before thinking of something else to say as well. “Well… just don’t do too much damage when you see him. He’s still one of the protectors of Skylands, despite all that has happened.”

All Calvin and the others did was turn to Luna, who smiled in response as she looked back at the Portal Master. “Not to worry. I am well taught in a variety of ways to get my point across.” Shortly afterwards, they watched as Luna began to walk around the courtyard of the academy, most of them puzzled by what had just happened.

“Do any of you know what the hay she was talking about?” Scootaloo then asked.

“Nope. Not at all.”

“I honestly have no idea what just happened.”

“Can’t say that ah do, Scootaloo.”

“Okay, so it’s not just me then. Good to know,” Scootaloo spoke up again after hearing Apple Bloom, Rainbow and Applejack say that.

“Maybe?” both Sweetie Belle and Calvin said at the same time, before looking back at each other awkwardly.

“In any case,” Tessa now took it upon herself to speak up and interrupt the rather awkward conversation that was taking place, “Master Eon has already had the chance to talk to Rubble Rouser, so he’s going to be coming with you guys. As for transportation, Flynn will help us get to-”

“Hang on a minute,” Applejack spoke up, “Ya want Flynn… the guy who accidentally gave Calvin a caffeine rush the other day… to fly us over there? Is that even safe, sugarcube?”

“Trust me on this one Applejack,” the fox commented, “Despite all his faults… and there are a lot of them, one thing that he is rather extremely skilled at is piloting airships. He also happens to know how to navigate the Skylands, which in itself, is an accomplishment considering how big the Skylands is.”

The earth pony was hesitant when she heard that, but who could blame her? Flynn’s first impressions with them yesterday did not quite go down so well, not to mention that Tessa and Mags agreed with her when she said that Flynn sounded like the kind of person who would constantly give them a headache. Were they just expecting for her to forget his quirks and just trust him like that on the spot? On something that was just as important as this?

“Applejack, Tessa makes a good point,” the earth pony heard Calvin tell her as she turned her head in his direction. “It would be rather difficult to try and navigate through the Skylands ourselves on a ship we don’t even know how to use. Seeing that Flynn knows his way around here and is an airship pilot, I say the sooner we let him take us over there the better.”

Once again, she was hesitant. Even with Calvin vouching for him, it still did not change how she felt about him or his antics. But, he did make a point. It would be easier to navigate through the Skylands with a guide, though why did it have to Flynn of all people? In her mind, letting Flynn fly them over was like the equivalent of letting Derpy Hooves operate the Friendship Express, a bad idea from the start that should not even be considered.

Yet, even though that was what she was thinking, reason soon got the better of her as she looked back at Calvin and let out a sigh. “Ah guess.”

“Alright. Well, I guess that’s all settled… Let me go bring the ship around side and make sure that everything’s all set,” Flynn himself said as he was seen walking away with Hugo, “Have I ever told you how much I miss the dread-yacht?”

“You tell me that every day, Flynn. Please let it go already,” the mabu scholar groaned, leaving Calvin and the others with Eon, Rubble Rouser and Tessa. As they left, things got rather quiet.

Though, the silence was soon broken when everyone heard Scootaloo ask a question. “So… anything else we should know that’s important? Aside from the fact that we got a ship and a Skylander is helping us out?”

“Well, Rubble’s got the equipment you need for going into the caves,” Tessa added.

“Yeah, but it was a bit tricky, since there’s a lot of harnesses for most species, but not many for… well-” the golem admitted.

“Geez, don’t worry about it,” Rainbow cut him off, putting the bag she was carrying down on the ground before grabbing hold of the zipper with a wing and opening it up, “I came prepared. One of our friends has a family that farms rocks, so she had a few spare harnesses that we could borrow.”

“Oh, good,” Rubble let out a sigh of relief, “I was worried that the ones I did have would be too big for you.”

“Alright. Skylander guide, check. Ship, check. Enchantment on clothes so we don’t melt, check. Equipment, check,” Calvin said out loud as he counted off each one of those things using his fingers, “That seems like everything… Is there anything that I might be forgetting at all?”

“Well, originally, Cali was going to come along with you guys, since someone’s needed to keep an eye on Flynn,” Tessa let out a breath as she said that, “Unfortunately, she’s busy filling in the role of substitute teacher for Buzz’s class today, so I’ll be coming with you guys instead.”

“Well, the more the merrier, ah guess,” the farm pony commented.

“Hey!! Wait just a moment!” for a moment, everything stopped. They were all caught off guard by the voice that just spoke up. It was new to Applejack and the girls, but to Rainbow and Calvin, it was a voice that they were rather familiar with, a voice that belonged to a volcanic dog that hopped out from behind the wall Tessa was standing in front of. “Aren’t you forgetting somebody?!”

“What in tarnations-?!”

“Is that… a lava dog?” Apple Bloom asked, shortly after hearing her sister’s reaction. Yet, the reaction from both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were rather different from hers.

“So cute!”

“So cool!!”

“Hey!” the dog reacted to the compliments, not really liking how they were reacting to him, “I’m not cute or cool!! I’m Hot Dog!”

That had Applejack and the Cutie Mark Crusaders stare at the dog in confusion, not really understanding what he was trying to tell the four of them, which had Rainbow facehoof herself and had Calvin let out a sigh as he looked back at them. “Girls, Hot Dog is his actual name. Rainbow and I have met him before when we first came here.”

The pegasus herself just let out a sigh as she looked back at the others, adding on to what the Skyshifter just mentioned. “Yeah… I know, it’s a bad pun.”

“Hot Dog’s coming with us because we think that he could help us with tracking what we’re looking for, while Rubble is planning the safest route for us to travel once we get there,” Tessa now took a moment to explain to the group, “With his nose, we can sniff out those crystals we’re looking for in no time! Ka-blam!!”

That just had Applejack look at the fox with a raised eyebrow, shortly before looking over to Master Eon. “Is this normal for her?”

“Only when she’s excited.”

“Well, that’s a relief-”

Of course, Applejack’s comment was soon interrupted by Rubble Rouser himself also adding something. “She’s always excited.”

“Ah, hay-”

“Come on, guys! Flynn’s going to come around with his ship, and then, we’re off for adventure! He should be here any minute now,” Tessa’s words were met with optimism at first, but then it led to silence and the sound of birds chirping. “Any minute now… Come on… What’s taking the two of them so long?”

“Flynn, what are you doing? We can park anywhere we want!!”

“Now, Hugo, if this is anything like with my last ship, I have to make sure there’s enough room to load on cargo.”

“What cargo do you even carry in here?”

“Have you seen the amount of enchiladas I keep below deck?”

“Wouldn’t they expire before you could eat them? …Where did you get that one?”

“What’s ‘expire’ mean? …Would you like one?”

“…That explains… so much…”

“It can’t be that hard to bring an airship around the side of the academy. Heck, he’s done it several times before-” Tessa impatiently spoke. Before she could say anything else though, everyone soon saw a massive airship trying to align itself with the side of the academy while also not trying to hit the tower where the academy shop was.

“Sorry for the wait! I was having trouble trying to make sure I had the ship lined up perfectly,” Flynn called out from the helm of the airship as a large ramp was let down a few moments later. “All aboard the S.S. BOOM!! Next stop, Munitions Forge!”

“Does he pair ‘boom’ up with everything?” Scootaloo then asked as Hot Dog began to walk up the ramp alongside the crusaders, with Applejack, Rainbow, Rubble, Tessa and Calvin following not far behind, all while Hugo was getting off and meeting back up with Master Eon.

“More than you might think,” the lava pup told them as they got on the deck of the ship. Once everybody was settled in and everything they needed was brought on board, Flynn began to navigate the ship towards their destination while everybody else moved below deck to work out a plan. Rubble Rouser was looking at a series of sketches and maps of the Munitions Forge to try and figure out a route for them to take, Applejack and Rainbow were talking with Tessa and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were watching the different islands that passed by the windows of the ship.

As for Calvin, what he was doing was a bit different. He was sitting with Hot Dog, and he was asked to help the Fire Skylander with recognizing the scent of the Elementanium Crystals that they were looking for. They even went as far as taking a couple of crystals that Rubble gave them to try and see if he could determine which one was the right one as well as hiding his pendant to see that he could find it. At first, it seemed tricky. But after a while, Hot Dog was beginning to get the hang of it to the point that he could be able to find it with little difficulty.

“Hey, Calvin,” he soon heard Sweetie Belle as she approached him, “How’s everything going?”

“Pretty well, why-?”

Before he could finish his sentence, the ship made a sudden stop… and unfortunately for the passengers, they did not have enough time to brace themselves. In a matter of seconds, Rubble was trying to grab the papers he was looking at before they scattered everywhere, Applejack found herself being thrown back into the side of the ship with Tessa and Rainbow. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were thrown out of their seats and onto the floor, yet when Scootaloo looked up, she saw the one thing that she did not want to be reminded of.

It was the same circumstances where she fell on top of Calvin and accidentally kissed him in the process. The only difference was that Sweetie Belle was in her place. That and Rainbow’s reaction. “Hey, is everything alright? Do you two need help?”

“Oh, COME ON!!” Scootaloo spoke up. Why was it that her idol did not act like that when she was in Sweetie’s position?!

“Ah think we’re fine,” Applejack answered Rainbow’s first question as she adjusted her hat. “Does anypony have any idea what just happened?”

“Well, it’s usually either we made it to our destination… or there’s some kind of complication,” Tessa explained to the earth pony, before letting out a small sigh as she got back up on her feet, “With Flynn though, all of that’s just up in the air.”

Unfortunately, as everyone was just getting back up, the ship began to shake again as Calvin looked back at Tessa. The sound of cracking and wind slamming against the side of the ship were beginning to become louder as they looked at each other. “And apparently, so are we!”

“Come on now, it’s nothing to be worried about,” Hot Dog barked as he got up on the table in the center of the room, “We experience turbulence by airship all the time. Besides, if the ship is damaged, it can easily be fixed.” Just as he finished speaking, one of the windows that was nearby the Crusaders was hit by a stone that was being blown around in the wind outside, leaving a massive crack on the glass as the Crusaders began to back away from it. “L-let’s just be careful, alright?”

After what felt like several hours, Flynn was finally able to pull into the ship port that was not far from the Munitions Forge as everyone else was beginning to come back up to the deck. They were glad that they did not have to worry about the ship breaking apart while they were still in the air. Yet, for Flynn, he didn’t entirely seemed phased about the conditions that he had to fly his ship through… or how it would affect his passengers. “Well, that was a little bit bumpy.”

“A little!?” Calvin and Apple Bloom reacted in unison while Tessa just groaned and let out a deep breath, facepalming herself.

“But hey, look on the bright side. We’re still here, and it doesn’t seem like anything weird’s going on either,” the captain replied back, before letting down the ramp so that everyone could get off the ship and back on solid ground. Yet, the only one who actually stayed on board was Tessa.

“What do ya mean by weird?” Applejack asked as her friend was getting the harness bag off the ship.

“Well, usually whenever we visit someplace, some sort of chaos is happening whether it’s Kaos or some other villain,” the captain explained as he readjusted the goggles that he had on his head. “So, it’s nice that we have some peace for once-”

Just as he was turning around, a loud boom could be heard in the distance as a cannonball flew by Flynn’s head, knocking off the goggles that he just placed around his forehead as the cannonball crashed through a tree that was nearby Calvin and the others that were with him, not to mention that it completely changed Flynn’s tune. “…Oh, there we go. That’s more like the usual… Everyone, hit the deck!!”

Immediately, Flynn pulled the ship away from the island as Calvin and his group began to run farther inland. Hearing the sounds of cannon’s firing, they could now see what looked like a fleet of airships, armed with cannons and aiming directly towards Flynn’s ship and the town. Not to mention that each of these ships had a black pirate flag with two swords, a skull… and what looked like a metallic bear attached to the bottom of the skull.

“Didn’t ah say that ah had a feeling that Flynn causes a lot of trouble unknowingly?!” the farm pony yelled as they were moving farther down the pathway, avoiding the cannon fire in the process.

“But sis, doesn’t that usually happen when you’re with Twilight and the girls?” Apple Bloom then asked her sister, something that even made Rainbow stop flying for a moment in order to add on to the conversation.

“You know… she’s got a point.”

“Is this really important right now!?”

Another couple of cannon balls flying over their heads immediately answered that question as they continued to hurry towards a town that was in the distance. Several of the citizens that were in the town began to run in fear and panic as they hid in their homes, but one of them was trying to direct the townsfolk to find shelter, even though it looked as if they were also freaking out, which was kind of ironic since he looked to be the same size and species as that of Ka-Boom. Red skin, muscular build and was anywhere between six to seven feet tall. The only difference behind that his dark brown hair was tied back in a ponytail and looked to be wearing some of the same clothing that the Fire Skylander would have as they tried to stay calm.

Of course, that was until he looked at Calvin’s group and assumed the worst case scenario. “Ah!!! L-look, i-if you’re going to rob me, just please take my gold and-!!”

“Woah there, big guy,” Rainbow soon spoke up, flying over to where she was just idly floating above him. “Why the hay do you think we’re going to rob you? We only just got here.”

“W-wait… are you saying that you aren’t pirates?”

“Do we look like a bunch of pirates to you?” Scootaloo added on, which made the fire titan flinch a bit as he looked back at the group.

“I don’t know! This isn’t one of the town’s emergency preparedness drills! I’m freaking out right now!!” the titan told them, ducking at the sound of another cannon being fired in the distance.

Of course, hearing that had Calvin look back at both Rubble Rouser and Hot Dog before deciding to speak up this time. “Maybe we can help out. I’m Calvin, and this is Rubble Rouser, Hot Dog, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle. We just came from Skylander Academy to see if we can do some digging at the mountain, only to find… well… this.”

At first, the fire titan was still shivering in place. But upon hearing Calvin speak, his tone began to change as he looked back at them. “W-wait… Y-you’re from the academy? O-oh man… You c-can help us!”

Calvin nodded, before looking back at the fire titan and asking two new questions. “We can help… but first, who are those guys? And second, what’s your name?”

“I-i’m Bang-” he told them, just as they heard another cannonball crash into the ground some distance away, “T-these pirates are Captain Ironbeard’s crew. H-he wanted to use the forge we have in town to create an unstoppable pirate army, but he was forced to retreat. We always thought that he would be around, but didn’t actually think he would try again, since Ka-Boom’s not here anymore.”

“Wouldn’t you guys have like… something in place to defend yourselves in case they came back?” Hot Dog asked.

“H-hey! Munitions Forge might be known for making machines, but it’s still a merchant town. We make machines and equipment to help people, not create an army bent on total domination!” the titan rasped, looking side to side all around him before looking back to the group. “Look, you g-guys have to help me out here. M-my boss is the mayor of the town, but their cannons have destroyed the fastest way to get over there. If you can help us stop these guys, I-i’m sure my boss will help you out.”

“Aren’t you going to help us, too?” Apple Bloom then asked.

“I’m… kind of… allergic to getting hit by cannonballs. Plus, someone has to help make sure the townspeople find shelter,” Bang told them, “The best way to get over there is through the market. We were having our monthly traders exchange when these guys attacked, so if you see an alleyway that has a bunch of smashed goods and broken antiques, then you’re headed in the right direction.”

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Calvin thought to himself as he looked at everyone else. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Well, considering that out of all of us, only Hot Dog, you and I can fight right now,” Rubble Rouser began to speak up. “We should split into two groups. One Skylander to each group.”

“Hang on, why two groups-?” Applejack asked, which was followed by a simple question that the golem asked in return.

“Are you forgetting about Flynn?”

“… Aww... horseapples,” the farm pony cursed.

“Hey! Are you saying we can’t fight!? Let me prove you wrong, right now-”

“Rainbow, I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to say,” Calvin interjected as he looked back at the pegasus. He was going to say something… until he got an idea. “Rubble, hang on a moment. I think I might have a different idea.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Well, Rainbow Dash is the only one out of all of us that can fly and knows how to fight,” the Skyshifter pointed out to the golem as he looked back at at Rainbow, “How about you have her go find Flynn and Tessa and have Hot Dog and I distract the pirates?”

“Distract?” Bang asked, “I-i thought I said that the only way to the mayor’s office was to go through them.”

“Not exactly,” when Calvin looked back to Rubble this time, he was looking more towards the drill that he was holding in his hands. “They might have destroyed the bridge, but Rubble can use his drill to dig underneath and create a tunnel over there. The pirates won’t even notice, because he would be underground, and they can’t see him,” at that point, he turned back to look at Applejack and Bang before finishing what he was trying to say, “And since Bang knows how to get into the mayor's office, he can lead you inside to make sure he’s alright.”

“Huh… now that ah hear ya say that, ah’m all for it,” the earth pony stated.

“Definitely better! Kicking flanks and taking names!! I like it!” Rainbow smirked.

“That… honestly sounds a lot better than what I was thinking originally,” Rubble himself admitted, before grabbing his hammer and putting it on his shoulder. “Let’s do this.”

“Now we’re cooking! This is going to be so much fun!!” Hot Dog barked.

Onboard the pirate ship that was feared throughout the Skylands as the Iron Armada, the pirate known as Captain Ironbeard stood on deck by the starboard bow as he watched the pirates of his iron fleet begin their assault on the Munitions Forge. The last time that he had come here, his plans to create an unstoppable pirate armada were foiled by that blasted Ka-Boom! He forced him to retreat and destroyed what was left of his fleet that fateful day.

But he was not going to let this happen again, for now that Ka-Boom was no longer around the Munitions Forge anymore, there was no one to protect them this time, no one that could possibly stop them from obtaining his goals or have the strength to-

“Captain!!” the voice of his deckhand, Bronze Tooth, called out from off the starboard quarter of the vessel as Ironbeard turned towards him, watching as Bronze Tooth put away the telescope that he was holding, “Captain, I think we have ourselves a situation!”

“What is it? Are my crew done with taking over the forge? Are they fighting over treasures again?”

“N-no, sir, it’s none of those things,” the deckhand shook his head, before looking at his captain. “Our forces are being pushed back! I just had a look down there, and they’re getting their tusks handed to them!”

That did not settle well with the captain. If anything, it was the exact opposite of what he wanted. He had spent two years planning for this, and now, his plan was coming apart at the seams. “What!?! How-!? Who’s doing this to my crew!?!”

“Well… from what I can see… it’s some kid and a… dog, captain.”

That just had the captain blink, before yanking the telescope out of the hands of his deckhand so he could take a look for himself. Down below, several of his men were fighting a kid and a dog that was made out of molten lava, and the sight of it alone was enough to make him shove the telescope back into the chest of his deckhand.

“You scallywags are part of the most fearsome pirate fleet in the Skylands, and you’re intimidated by a child and his pet pooch!?! And you call yourselves pirates!?” he snapped, before grabbing his deckhand by the back of his coat and yelling out a new order to his entire crew. “ALL OF YOU, GET OFF YOUR BUTTS AND GET UP ON DECK!!! GET DOWN THERE AND STOP THEM NOW!!”

Before the deckhand could say anything else, the captain attached a clip to the back of his deckhand before attaching him to the anchor chain that his crew had been using to make landfall on the floating peninsula and throwing him down there. He was not going to allow some kid and a magma puppy intimidate him and make him retreat again. The Munitions Forge was going to be his, even if he had to use all of the crew members at his disposal to do it.

In the center of town, Calvin and Hot Dog were quick to encounter members of Ironbeard’s pirate gang as they were focused on pillaging and stealing what they could find while also attempting to move farther inside the town as the residents were hiding in their homes. They were originally going to try and get the two of them by surprise, but when Hot Dog sneezed and sent out a fireball that set one of the pirates clothes on fire, they immediately had to throw caution to the wind at that point and charge head on into battle.

Of course, when it came to the first few pirates, the two of them took it seriously. Though, when the rest of the crew was starting to come after them, both the Skyshifter and the fire dog were beginning to enjoy it a bit too much.

“Man, who knew that fighting against a bunch of pirates would be so much fun!?”

“I know, right?!!”

Currently, Calvin was now in the form of the undead skylander named Cynder, blasting the incoming pirates with bolts of lightning and dashing out of the way of any buccaneers that got too close. Though, it was not just pirates that he had to avoid. There was also the fact that the cannons onboard the pirate ships were now focusing their fire towards them, meaning that they also had to dodge incoming cannonballs. Unlike in the Skylanders games though, there were no targeting circles that would show where they were going to land, and they were going at full speed instead of moving at the speed they went at in the games. So, it was difficult for him to be watching out for incoming cannon fire and fight pirates at the same time.

Fortunately, he had a molten canine companion for backup. “Heads up, on your left!!”

Calvin looked up, seeing the incoming cannon fire as he rolled to the left to avoid the incoming cannon shots. He was going to prepare another breath attack, but before he could do so, his pendant changed him back into his normal form. “Oh, man. Hot Dog-!”

“I’m on it!!” Hot Dog barked as he fired off several fireballs at the nearby pirates before jumping into the air and hitting another one with a Comet Slam, turning his body into a spinning meteor to impact his foe.

While Hot Dog was getting their attention, Calvin took a moment to take cover behind a crate and grab hold of his necklace. “Time to Shine!” Within a matter of moments, he found himself on all fours again. This time as the Skylander of the Light element named Spotlight, a pristine while dragon with golden rings on her wings and tail along with the light element crest on her forehead.

After transforming, he first fired off a pair of eye beams at the two pirates that were closer to him before throwing a halo ring from his wing at a third one that was trying to throw bombs at them. The ring was meant to throw the bomber off balance so he could get a better shot at them with his next eye beam.

“Nice shot!!” the fire dog barked with glee as he looked towards Calvin’s new transformation, “Keep it up, and we’ll send them packing with their tails in between their legs!”

“Less talking, more fighting, Hot Dog!” the Skyshifter responded, “We’re not out of this yet!”

Immediately after saying that, several more members of Ironbeard’s crew landed in front of them, armed with swords, knuckles and bombs as both Calvin and Hot Dog had to redirect their attention back to the raiders in front of them. While Hot Dog was burning any buccaneer that came too close to him with walls of flame and fireballs, Calvin was throwing out a couple of halo rings and having the light from Spotlight’s eye beams reflect off of the rings to hit some of the corsairs that were farther away from him.

However, the longer that they continued to fight, the more that Calvin began to notice something. He wasn’t sure if it was his eyes were playing tricks on him or not, but it looked like something was moving underground, swimming underneath them while they fought against more of the pirate crew. Even though he thought it was just a distraction, he could not stop thinking about it. Was something lurking in wait underneath-?

“Whew… I think we got them all-”

The moment that Hot Dog sat down to catch his breath, Calvin’s eyes widened. From under the ground, a land shark that was around Terra-fin’s size emerged from the ground, its jaws open and eager to take a bite out of the lava puppy while his back was turned. On instinct, Calvin tried to race over. He had to get to Hot Dog before this guy snatched him with his teeth! But he couldn’t get over there in time with this form. He needed to hurry. He needed to move. He needed to get Hot Dog out of there.

He needed to change!

“Fuel the flames!!”

From Hot Dog’s perspective, everything was happening so fast. At first, he thought that they had the chance to get some breathing room after defeating a majority of Ironbeard’s crew. Yet, as he was surveying his surroundings, he turned around to find himself staring at the gaping maw and several bronze colored teeth of the land shark that was about to bite him.

Though, as the jaws began to retract, he felt something grab hold of him and yanked him out of the way. He wasn’t sure who it was at first, and he couldn’t see Calvin anywhere. When he looked up though, he found himself looking at the blue flames of the burning gargoyle that he was all too familiar with: Spitfire, the Fire Skylander from the Superchargers.

As the gargoyle set him down, the first thought that came to Hot Dog’s mind was that he had come to assist him and Calvin. “Man, that was close. Thanks for the save, Spitfire.”

Of course, the comment from the lava puppy got a much different response than what he originally thought he was going to hear. “Spitfire? Hot Dog, it’s me.” For a moment, Hot Dog was a bit confused by what the Skylander was talking about. The only one who was with him the whole time was Calvin, and last he checked, he was Spotlight.

Unless… “C-calvin?” Hot Dog blinked, the Skylander nodding his head in response to the lava puppy. “H-how did you change into Spitfire? Weren’t you Spotlight a moment ago?”

“Y-yeah, but I saw you in trouble and…” it was now Calvin’s turn to blink in realization as he looked back to Hot Dog, asking the only question that came to mind, “Did I just turn into another Skylander… while already in the form of a Skylander?”

“I think so-”

“Hey!” both of them turned at the sound of the angry land shark that was emerging from the ground as he snapped at both of them, “Are you two just gonna stand there and talk, or are you gonna fight?! My boss wants the forge for himself, and you two are the only scoundrels that are getting in his way!!” After saying that, the land shark began to bang his fists together and glare at both of them.

“Guess we’ll have to save it for later,” Calvin sighed, before preparing himself for combat again, “Sorry, but the forge doesn’t belong to you.”

“Yeah! If you want it, you have to get through us!!” Hot Dog barked back at the land shark, “Bring it on, Bronze Tooth!”

“Hey! How do you know my name!?”

That had the lava puppy blink at the land shark, before tilting its head to the side. “Wait, seriously? That’s your name? Why would you pick Bronze anyways? They only give that to those who come in third.”

“Shut UP!!” the land shark snapped again, this time picking up one of the cannonballs that was nearby with his own claws and throwing it at both of them. As the two of them dodged it, the land shark dove back into the ground again as Calvin tried to figure out where he was going… that and if it was really necessary for Hot Dog to make this guy angry.

Not long after he asked that, he heard the ground started to rumble behind them, just before Bronze Tooth rose from the ground and attempted to bite Calvin. The Skyshifter ducked his head, before smacking the land shark down with his left claw. Their opponent was quick to get back on his feet and dive back into the ground, swimming through the ground as the Skyshifter soon heard the rumbling again, this time from underneath Hot Dog.

“Hot Dog! He’s under you!! Move!!”

Hot Dog didn’t even ask why and did what he was told, rolling out of the way as Bronze Tooth rose up again. The lava puppy threw a fireball that hit the land shark in the face, angering Bronze Tooth as he dove back into the ground again.

The puppy, though, wanted to know something. “How did you know he was going to be there?”

“I’ve been seeing the ground shake at the points where he always comes up for attacks,” Calvin told him in response, “If we can hit him the moment that he comes out of the ground…”

“Then, we might beat him,” Hot Dog barked, a smile forming on his face as he looked back at the Skyshifter, “Alright, I’m liking this plan. Let me know where he’s coming up at, and I’ll leave him a special surprise!”

He wasn’t quite sure what Hot Dog meant by that, but that wasn’t entirely what Calvin was mainly focusing on. Instead, he was focusing on the ground to see if there was anything that was moving or out of place, because if it was, then he could call it out to the Fire Skylander. Though, the thought that occurred to him was that this ‘special surprise’ of his could be the Ding Dong Ditch ability that Hot Dog got from his Soul Gem in Skylanders Giants, one that left behind a surprise in the form of a burning doggy bag that exploded on contact after Hot Dog did his Comet Slam ability.

Before he could think more on it though, he heard the ground rumble in between them. “Hot Dog, in the middle!”

“Oh yeah! Here we go!!” the fire dog eagerly called out, jumping onto a couple of crates to get himself some leverage before rolling up into a Comet Slam as he hit the ground. As he got back up, what was left behind wasn’t exactly a burning bag, but what looked like a few molten brown rocks. Before the Skyshifter could even ask about it though, Bronze Tooth rose from the surface, triggering the rocks as they exploded and threw him into the side of a stone wall.

“Eugh!! What the-!? What just got in my mouth-?!” the land shark yelled, before another explosion went off, one that was strong enough to render Bronze Tooth unconscious as he fell face first into the ground.

Moments after the fight, Calvin reverted back to his normal form, before collapsing on the ground… and covering his nose. “Please don’t tell me that’s what I think that was,” he thought to himself mentally before looking back at Hot Dog, who was wagging his tail eagerly.

“Alright… One more bad guy down for the count,” the fire dog cheerfully proclaimed, before looking to Calvin and tilting his head. “What’s the matter? Did that guy smell bad or something?”

At first, he wanted to say something… but then Calvin decided not to as he looked back at Hot Dog. “No, don’t worry about it… Maybe we should go find Rubble-?”

“And just where do you two think you’re going?!!” They heard a deep voice that was followed by a thunderous arrival as a walrus that had a metal plate under his tusks and donned a captains garb and hat stood not far from them. He was holding onto an anchor, with its chain in his other hand. “You beat my crew, defeated my deckhand and you think you can just walk away?! This is why you never send a scallywag to do a captain’s job!!”

The first thing that came to Calvin’s mind was not exactly the appearance or the walrus’ weapon of choice… but oddly enough, it was his voice. “Is it just me or does this guy sounds exactly like Metalbeard?”

Unfortunately, before he could process everything, the walrus began to twirl his anchor and swing it at both him and Hot Dog in a horizontal motion, forcing him to drop to the ground to avoid getting hit before looking back at the fire dog. “Hot Dog, go find Rubble.”

“What-?”

“It would be easier to handle this guy if there were three of us instead of two,” he told him, his tone coming off as a whisper so that the walrus could not hear them. “If he’s strong enough to be swinging that anchor like a jump rope, then we’re going to need all the help we can get. I’ll see if I can keep him busy in the meantime.”

Hot Dog could only nod, before taking off as he ran towards the center of town, which caught Ironbeard's attention as he began to spin his anchor and throw it at him. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going-!?”

“Hail to the Whale!!”

In a matter of seconds, another anchor collided with the one that was heading towards Hot Dog, catching the captain by surprise, for he wasn’t looking at just a mere child anymore, and instead was finding himself staring face to face at the Skylander Giant of the Water Element. The whale-like behemoth had two ocean colored pauldrons on its shoulders and e leather belt with a wheel of a ship as a buckle, the giant known as Thumpback.

“How about you face me instead?! Careful though, because you’re in the splash zone!”

As Hot Dog ran up the steps and away from where Calvin and the captain were fighting, he was on the lookout for Rubble and the others. The thought of Calvin having to fight Captain Ironbeard alone without anyone to help him was not something he wanted to have stuck in the back of his mind, so the sooner he found help, the sooner they could get back to him.

Yet, just as he made his way to another open courtyard, he could hear a newfound voice as he turned his head, eyes widening at what he was looking at. There was a bipedal cat with gray and white fur that was a bit shorter than Tessa and was wearing a cyan collared shirt and black slacks that you would normally see someone like Moneybags wear and pulled off a navy colored tie to wrap around one of his paws. Three to four members of Ironbeard’s crew were right in front of the building that the cat was standing at, but the part that surprised Hot Dog the most was not exactly the crew members, but the cat itself...

...Because it was not pleading in front of the pirates. If anything, it was provoking them. “You buffoons think you can just attack my town, make its citizens run in fear and expect for me to just listen to your captain’s demands!? Well, you’ve angered the wrong mayor, buddy!! Come at me if you think you got the guts!!!”

“Oh, by the elements, what does this guy think he’s doing?!” Hot Dog thought to himself, before racing over towards the pirates. As he ran, the lava puppy began to charge up the attack that he was going to launch, before releasing it the moment that the pirates actually noticed that he was coming at them. The attack Hot Dog launched turned into a super powerful swarm of burning bees as they began to fly around the pirates, who were panicking as they were trying to fend them off.

As the pirates were distracted by the bees, Hot Dog took the opportunity to jump into the air and prepared himself for another Comet Slam. Only this time, as he was charging the attack, a barrage of fireballs began to rain down on the pirates before he hit the ground, knocking them out of commission before the lava puppy smirked. “Next time, I’ll eat your shoes!”

“What the heck?” the cat asked, before looking back to the fire dog and narrowing its eyes, letting out a sigh in the process, “Just brilliant… first, Ironbeard’s pirate gang attacks, and now, a lava dog shows up! I must have done something horrible to chompies in a previous life in order to get this kind of treatment-”

“Woah, woah, easy there! I’m not with those guys! I’m a Skylander,” Hot Dog assured him, “Name’s Hot Dog. My friends and I have been fighting against those pirate guys for the last few minutes and making sure that the townspeople are safe.”

Hearing that had the cat change its tone rather quickly, before raising an eyebrow. “You’re… a Skylander?” his question was soon answered when he noticed that the tag on Hot Dog’s collar showed the crest of the fire element, and let out a big sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness! I was worried that you were someone who had a bone to pick with me.”

“Nah, I keep all my bones buried at the Academy, right underneath Eon’s statue,” the fire dog chuckled, “I don’t think I got your name though.”

“Oh, right. My name’s Dapper, I’m the mayor of Munitions Forge-”

“Hang on, mayor?” Hot Dog interjected, tilting his head “We ran into someone earlier who said that you were their boss when we first got here.”

“You met Bang-?” Before Dapper could finish and before Hot Dog could even answer, both of them turned to see a drill break through the surface of the ground that was nearby. In the Skylander’s mind, that was a good sign. However, the mayor saw it much differently. “Aw, come on!! They’re coming from the ground now?!”

“Mayor, wait!!” Hot Dog barked, leaping in front of the cat before he could jump to conclusions. The drill itself retracted, before a rocky hand came out and grabbed hold of the edge, pulling itself up as both of them now saw the Earth Skylander named Rubble Rouser begin to come up and take a look around, Just before he noticed the Fire Skylander.

“Hot Dog? What are you doing here?” the golem asked, sounding a bit confused, before noticing Dapper behind him, “Who’s that?”

“Oh, him? He’s Mayor Dapper-”

“-The boss is with him?!” the two of them heard a voice from behind Rubble. Before the golem could do anything, he felt himself being lifted out of the hole and fall on the ground as the fire titan named Bang quickly scrambled out of the tunnel, not even noticing Rubble slowly trying to get up as Bang let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, man, I’m so glad to see you’re okay, boss!”

“Bang, what are you doing here? Are the citizens safe?” the cat asked, partially surprised by the titan’s arrival, but also sounding shocked since he put more emphasis on his second question.

“Yeah, they all found a place to take shelter, boss,” the fire titan told him, “I couldn’t have done it without these guys though.” As the titan said that, Hot Dog watched as Applejack soon got up out of the hole next, followed by the Cutie Mark Crusaders as each one of them took a moment to brush the dirt off of their clothes.

Of course, as Sweetie Belle lifted her head, her eyes locked onto the first thing that she saw, that being Dapper. “Oh my gosh, look girls! That cat is so cute!”

“This cat has a name,” Dapper grit his teeth, “I am Mayor Dapper, and I would prefer it if you don’t call me that.”

The next person that decided to speak up was Applejack, who noticed Hot Dog right away. “What the hay are ya doing here, Hot Dog?”

“I came here looking for you guys-” the lava puppy barked in response, before turning his head as he picked up a pair of familiar scents that were coming closer. From around the corner, Tessa raced on over with Rainbow Dash right next to her.

“There you are! We’ve been trying to find you after chasing off the pirates that were tailing us,” Tessa let out a gasp.

“Are you two alright?” Scootaloo then asked, before noticing that there was someone from their group missing. “Where’s Flynn?”

“Uh, guys…?”

“He’s… mourning right now,” Rainbow grumbled. When the pegasus noticed that mostly everyone seemed a bit confused, she let out a groan as Rainbow began to clarify a little, “Two cannonballs smashed through the back side of the ship and through the compartment where he kept his enchiladas.”

“That makes way too much sense,” Rubble added on.

“Guys…?” Hot Dog tried to get their attention, only to get ignored again as everyone else continued to speak. It had gotten to the point that even when the mayor was introducing himself to the group that his words were not heard, which made the lava puppy frustrated as smoke was coming off of him. “GUYS!!!”

Immediately, Rubble looked back at the Fire Skylander along with everybody else. “Woah… Hot Dog, what’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter?! Are you kidding me!?! By the elements, I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last five minutes, and you’re ignoring me like an old chew toy!! I came to find you because Calvin is fighting that Ironbeard guy right now and needs help!! Yet, you guys are-”

“Woah, woah, woah, back up,” Tessa now spoke up, “Calvin’s… fighting Ironbeard alone?! Is he insane?!”

“No, he’s buying me time so I can find Rubble!!” the fire dog explained, before looking towards the golem, “We need to get over there and back him up-”

The sound of an explosion in the distance soon had everybody look towards where the noise came from, before seeing something crash in the courtyard that was close to where they were standing. As the smoke cleared, they first saw what looked like the Air Skylander named Sonic Boom… before the griffon began to shimmer and fade as it changed back to Calvin, who looked to have taken a few bruises and was trying to catch his breath.

“Where’s your friends now, huh?! I betcha that puppy that was with you ran with its tail between its legs like a coward,” the deep voice bellowed as he came closer. The group could now see a huge walrus that donned a captain’s garb and hat while wearing a metal plate under its tusks, anchor in one hand and the chain that was attached to it in the other as he approached him. “You and the mayor of this town are much braver than he is, and the mayor is an adorable house cat for all I care!”

“Why that little-!!”

“Oh no,” Sweetie Belle spoke, scared at seeing what was happening, “W-we gotta help him!”

“But how? That guy can wreck us with one hit of that anchor of his!” Scootaloo asked.

The question was first met with silence, but then Rubble Rouser turned to look at Hot Dog as he told him something. “Hot Dog, I think I got an idea.”

“An idea?” the fire dog asked.

“Remember when Sprocket uses her wrench to play ‘landmine golf’?” the golem asked, which led to Hot Dog nodding his head as the Swap Force Skylander continued to speak, “Okay, now think of that, though I am the wrench and you are the landmine.”

Out of all the things that Calvin preferably did not like when it came to combat, being backed into a corner was one of them. At first, fighting against Ironbeard as Thumpback put him on an even playing field with his opponent, but with a lack of upgrades, there was not much he could do aside from hitting Ironbeard with an anchor and belly flopping on dry land. So, when he thought that he had an advantage, he changed forms, first turning into Whirlwind to pelter him with storm clouds and ‘rainbows of doom’ before changing into Sonic Boom and attacking him with her roaring screech.

He immediately began to realize that this was a mistake, mainly because Ironbeard had a lot more experience when it came to combat than he did and because he had a lot more attacks at his disposal than just swinging around his anchor. For one thing, slamming his anchor into the ground caused shockwaves to ripple across the field and stone spikes to hit him from underneath. Pulling the anchor out of the ground had shards of rock hit Calvin in the face, dirt getting in his eyes and leaving him exposed long enough for Ironbeard to strike him. The impact from the side of his anchor soon after sent him flying backwards into another courtyard.

Feeling his transformation fade, Calvin found himself in his normal form, feeling pain from the injuries that the walrus just inflicted on him as he tried to regain his balance.

“Where’s your friends now, huh?! I betcha that puppy that was with you ran with its tail between its legs like a coward,” Ironbeard taunted, dragging his anchor behind him as the pirate smirked, “You and the mayor of this town are much braver than he is, and the mayor is an adorable house cat for all I care!”

“Come on, Hot Dog! Where are you?! I need some help here!!” the Skyshifter thought to himself, panting as his opponent got closer and panicking internally, worrying about what would happen if Hot Dog did not get back in time. But just as Ironbeard was about to raise his anchor, something unexpected happened.

“FORE!!”

The moment that the walrus turned his head, he was hit by a spinning molten ball that set off an explosive shockwave with enough force to send Ironbeard flying onto his back. The Skyshifter soon realized that the ball was actually Hot Dog as the lava puppy rushed over to him with Rubble Rouser not that far behind.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Some of these guys just can’t stop yapping,” the Fire Skylander told him as Calvin let out a sigh of relief. “You alright there, buddy?”

“Would you count getting slammed by an anchor as ‘alright’?” Calvin asked sarcastically.

“Definitely not,” Rubble himself commented on the matter, “We need to get you patched up, but neither of us have healing skills.”

“I don’t have anything that can help either,” Calvin admitted to his companions, “I don’t have any upgrades on some of my forms that have healing abilities.” He knew that several of the Skylander forms that he took on had upgrades that would heal themselves while in combat or heal their allies. Some examples include Stealth Elf, whose Soul Gem ability allowed for her to restore health over time, Whirlwind, whose Soul Gem ability can have her rainbows heal allies, and the white shaman bear named Zoo Lou, who was a life skylander that had an ability in his ‘The Wild Wolf’ upgrade tree that would have the wolf spirit he called upon dig up food if his health got really low. The problem was that none of those things could help him out in this moment, especially since Ironbeard was right now just starting to get back up.

“Hey, kid, heads up!!”

Immediately, Calvin turned around to see a bipedal cat wearing business casual clothing throw a turquoise colored orb that was the shape of a softball. Upon landing, the top and bottom halves of the orb turned in opposite directions, letting out a cool misty cloud that was the same color as the orb. At first, the Skyshifter was not sure what it was, but began to realize that somehow, his strength was returning to him. His injuries from earlier were also beginning to mend, making it look as if nothing had happened to him at all.

At first, Calvin wanted to ask what exactly just happened and who was the cat he just saw, but that wasn’t important right now. They had a captain to stop, and now, he was ready for round 2. “Alright, that’s just what I needed.”

“Wanting to come at me again? Haven’t you learned your lesson kid? You can’t stop me in those forms that you’ve been using, not even if you got your friends to back you up!!”

All the Skyshifter did was grin, before grabbing his necklace and asking a new question. “Oh, really? You want to test that theory?”

Shortly after asking, dark shadows immediately began to churn around Calvin’s body, startling the walrus as the Skyshifter got on all fours, transforming into the dragon of the dark element as “Darkness Falls!!”

At first when they saw that Calvin was back up and ready to fight, Applejack and the Cutie Mark Crusaders thought that he was going to turn into another Skylander that they had seen him change into before. However, when they saw the transformation that he did take on, Applejack and the Crusaders were caught off guard immediately. “What in tarnations-!?”

“Did Calvin just… turn into a changeling?!”

“What is that-!?”

“Girls, calm down,” Rainbow urged them as all four of them looked back at her, “That’s a form he’s turned into before. It’s not a changeling.”

“It isn’t?” Scootaloo asked, “Then, if it’s not a changeling, then who or what the heck is it?”

“Blackout,” the equestrians now heard Tessa answer their question, “He’s a dragon Skylander of the Dark Element that’s from the Realm of Dreams.”

“Realm of Dreams?” Sweetie Belle then asked, “You mean like the one that Luna ventures through when we sleep?”

“I… don’t know anything about your princess doing that, but if I remember correctly, Master Eon said that he was once part of a dragon clan that was supposed to conjure nightmares for evildoers as a way to make them think twice before committing more evil deeds,” the fox explained to them, “Yet, when they started spreading nightmares far and wide just for fun, Blackout did not tolerate the abuse in power and fought off the creatures in those nightmares himself, one of them being in a dream that Master Eon saw firsthand.”

“Honestly, I’m still having trouble trying to understand something,” Dapper now spoke up before asking the first question that came to his mind, “How the fluff is your friend able to turn into a Skylander in the first place!?”

“Did you see the necklace that he was wearing?” Rainbow now asked, which led to the cat nodding briefly before the pegasus began to fill him in, “The crystal allows for him to change into a Skylander if he repeats one of their catchphrases.”

“That’s… when you put it like that, that’s so fascinating,” the mayor replied back, watching as the two Skylanders and the Skyshifter began to engage in combat with Ironbeard, “Is he the only one that can do that?”

“Technically, they can,” the pegasus said, pointing a hoof towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders, “But they don’t have the crystals.”

“We came here because we found out that the volcano here is the only place where we can find them,” Tessa then added, “However, the moment we got here, we got caught up in Ironbeard attacking the city.”

That had the mayor pause, thinking to himself before scratching his chin as he looked back at the group. “Tell you what… If your friend can stop Ironbeard and make sure he never comes back again, we’ll do whatever we can to help you girls out.”

“Y-you mean it?”

“Absolutely. Your friends out there are putting their lives on the line to keep us and our home safe,” Dapper told him as he straightened the collar of his shirt, “The least that we can do is find a way to help return the favor.”

“Rubble, incoming!”

“I’m on it!!” the golem called out, throwing his hammer to block another anchor throw from Ironbeard as Calvin fired off two shadow orbs from the newfound horn on his head and Hot Dog began to pelt him with a flurry of fireballs. Before the battle began, Calvin had to quickly bring both Skylanders up to speed on what he saw the walrus do when he was facing him alone. From there, the three of them had to come up with a gameplan, one that involved taking something that could be used as a weakness and exploiting it.

In the short amount of time though, they were able to figure out that one of Ironbeard’s two particular weaknesses was in fact his weapon of choice. He was capable of a lot of attacks with the anchor, but did not seem to have any kind of fallback plan for if he could not use it, something that Calvin saw firsthand when he was fighting as Thumpback earlier.

The second weakness was not exactly something that he was holding onto, but instead was something he demonstrated: a lack of patience. The longer that the fight dragged on, the more that the walrus was beginning to get frustrated and let his anger get the better of him, which led to him making mistakes and creating openings that Calvin and his companions were taking advantage of. Each mistake they exploit only made him angrier by the minute.

At one point in the battle, the captain’s frustration had him make a critical mistake, one that the Skyshifter and the Skylanders were waiting for. “Grr!! WHY WON’T YOU JUST GIVE UP ALREADY?!!” the captain shouted, throwing his anchor at the ground by Hot Dog’s feet as the dog leaped backwards.

“Rubble, now!”

“You got it!!” the Swap Force Skylander replied, digging into the ground underneath him. As he dove into the soil, a boulder shot up into the air and landed on top of Ironbeard’s anchor, weighing it down considerably and making it harder for him to pull it back with his chain. When the captain couldn’t pull it, he attempted to head towards the anchor and remove the boulder by himself, only to be cut off by a wall of fire that Hot Dog placed in between him and his weapon.

“It’s all you, buddy! Show him what you got!!” the lava puppy barked, just as Calvin began to run towards the chain, starting off as Blackout, but transforming into his imaginator a few seconds later as he began to run up the chain towards Ironbeard.

“Why you-!!” Ironbeard growled, swinging his free hand in an attempt to knock him off, only for the Skyshifter to jump up and land on the walrus’ arm, just before pushing himself forward as Calvin channeled his power into the fist he clenched with his right hand.

“Chew on THIS!!”

As Calvin’s fist collided with the upper half of Ironbeard’s face, the sheer force of his punch sent the captain colliding into a wall, leaving a crater from where the walrus crashed and knocking him unconscious. As Calvin let out a breath, he felt glad that the battle was over, especially since he was able to get some much needed help from both Rubble and Hot Dog.

“Nicely done!” Hot Dog called out, just as the rest of their group joined up with them to congratulate the three of them on their victory, with Rainbow herself even going as far as to declare how ‘awesome’ they were.

Though, it was as they were congratulating them that Applejack thought of something. “So… ah know ya won and all, but are we gonna at least tie them up?”

After her question, they heard the sound of metal snapping as they turned to see Rubble Rouser breaking the chain link that connected Ironbeard’s anchor with the chain that he was holding. “I think I got an idea. Mind giving me a hand with this? It might not be traptanium, but it will be enough to make sure they’re not going anywhere before we have a couple of Trap Masters arrive to pick these guys up.”

It didn’t take long for them to get a hold of someone at the academy since the communication equipment on Flynn’s ship wasn’t damaged, but after informing Hugo of what happened, the scholar was able to get ahold of two Trap Masters to come out to Munitions Forge and pick up both Ironbeard and his deckhand. While the repairs on Flynn’s ship were underway and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were hanging out with Bang and the mayor, Applejack and Rainbow were waiting with Calvin, Rubble and Hot Dog for when the Trap Masters would arrive, wanting to make sure that Ironbeard and his deckhand did not try anything the moment that they woke up.

Fortunately, the trap masters arrived a lot sooner than he expected. Calvin was able to recognize the two of them immediately, since both of them were the two trap masters of the fire element. The first one was Wildfire, a golden bipedal lion who’s weapon of choice was a traptanium shield. The second one was actually Ka-boom, the fire titan that called the Munitions Forge his home and wielded a red hot traptanium cannon.

Ka-boom himself was actually rather surprised about everything that had happened in his home town for a couple of reasons. First, he did not think that Ironbeard would be so bold… and also foolish, to try and go after the forge again when he blasted away his ships and sent him running last time. The other reason… was the fact that Ironbeard’s attack was not only stopped by Calvin and the two Skylanders that were with him, but the three of them were actually able to take down the pirate captain in combat. If anything, he was actually quite impressed.

Once the Trap Masters started capturing both Ironbeard and Bronze Tooth with their traptanium weapons, Calvin began to turn around and walk back over to where the Crusaders were sitting, overhearing a small portion of their conversation with the mayor.

“So, what was that small sphere you used to help Calvin out?”

“Oh, that? Well, right now, we’re calling it the ‘Medi-nade’,” the mayor answered Sweetie Belle’s question, “Trust me, coming up with a name for it was hard as heck. We tried Medi-bomb, Bio-boom, biotic grenade…”

“That last name sounds cool. Why didn’t you use that?” Scootaloo then asked.

“Apparently, someone already had that name. Some group called ‘Blizzard’ or something like that. The point is, we didn’t run with the name because we didn’t want to get hit with a copyright lawsuit,” Dapper simplified his explanation, before raising his head up and noticing Calvin come on over. “Well, hello. How’s everything going?”

“Good. Ka-boom told me to make sure and tell you he said hi and that he was going to make sure both Ironbeard and Bronze Tooth are going to get their own special cells in Cloudcracker Prison for what they tried to pull today,” the Skyshifter informed the mayor, “Other than that, I think everyone else can agree with me when I say that we need a much needed rest.”

“With the amount of butt-kicking that you were doing today, you deserve it,” Sweetie Belle complimented, patting her hand on the ground next to where she sat and offering him a place to rest.

Of course, as they were taking the chance to rest and catch their breath, Apple Bloom thought of a question that she wanted to ask as she followed suit to sit beside him. “Hey, out of curiosity, what do ya think is going on back home?”

That just made Scootaloo shrug her shoulders for a moment as she looked back at her friends, “Nothing much, I think. I mean, unless if something was raining from the sky back home, then things might seem quiet.”

Canterlot

“Your highness, we have received multiple reports from San Di-neigh-go, San Franciscolt and most of our outposts along the South Luna Ocean that require your attention on the matter.”

“What seems to be the issue, Corporal Sentry?”

“Well, according to what we’ve received, there appears to be… old expired… food raining along the coastline and… polluting the ocean? Apologies your highness, but I… can’t even make sense of what’s being written here. Do you have any ideas on what this could mean?”

“ …I can think of a few possibilities.”

End Scroll 22

Author's Note

So... this chapter was a rather difficult one to write and also one that I've had to take a lot a creative liberties with for a few reasons.

First, the munitions forge is a location that's only mentioned in the backstory of Ka-Boom, but outside of that, there was not much in order to go on. Meaning that everything that's in this chapter regarding Munitions Forge, it's residents and who lives there is based on my interpretation of it. Also, since Ka-Boom's species is listed as 'unknown', I came up with Fire Titans as a placeholder since there has not been any confirmed species for him.

Secondly, there was Captain Ironbeard, the chapter's antagonist. Like with the Munitions forge, very little was said about him outside of the backstory for Ka-Boom, so coming up with his crew, ships, his Deckhand Bronze Tooth and also him was something I had to come up with on my own. Most ideal pirates that have been in the Skylands include two of the villains in Trap Team, Brawlrus and Brawl and Chain, but I went a little further to make sure that Ironbeard himself was no pushover.

Though, I must say, I had a lot of fun coming up with a lot of the ideas and events in this chapter, including several easter eggs. But instead of having you try to do an egg hunt in a MASSIVELY long chapter like this one, I decided to help point them out for you ahead of time.

List of References-

The first little nod I have happens while Calvin, the CMC and Applejack are looking for Rarity at Carousel Boutique. Specifically, the scene with the closet. I got idea for this when looking back at another story I have, The Fox and the Filly, and was thinking that Rarity might demonstrate a few traits from Sheldon Cooper in the Big Bang theory. Not any particular scene is necessary, but it's more of his mindset of 'everything must be in a particular manner or everything will be ruined'. Best demonstrated during the season 2 episode called 'The Cushion Saturation'

The Cooliosis spell is a combination of two different words. The first being Coolio, the rapper known for the song 'Gangsta's Paradise' and the second word being Osmosis, a term used in Physical Chemistry and Cellular Biology

The next one is in the exchange between Luna and Celestia when talking about the use of the spell that was mentioned in the previous bullet point. The format of the conversation and when Celestia says 'You can use a spell for two things' is based off a dialogue exchange in Episode 8 of Sword Art Online Abridged when Corvatz is talking with his men and he tells them 'We can fight for two things'. This is the first of two references to SAO Abridged.

Once in skylands, many of the conversations in here were recapping the events that occurred in Scroll 21. Yet in one moment, when Tessa was getting rather excited, the exchange of dialogue between AJ, Master Eon and Rubble Rouser mirrors the structure of dialogue between Kirito, Asuna and Yolko in SAO abridged when they first meet Schmidt in Episode 5.

Flynn's parking fiasco is an altered and slightly extended version of a scene from Dragon Ball Z Abridged in Episode 32 when Frieza and his father are arguing about where to park their ship.

The next one is not quite exactly a reference to dialogue, but it's based on two of the new characters introduced in this chapter, Bang and Dapper. Bang himself is seen more as a 'Gentle Giant' despite his sheer size, the fact that he's the same species as Ka-boom and his name is actually the dutch word that means 'afraid'. As for Dapper, he's more of the opposite as he is brave, daring and will go as far as to engage in fights to defend his home. His name actually means 'brave' in dutch and his personality is based on Mike Haggar from Final Fight.

When Bang mentions the 'monthly traders exchange', it's a callback/reference to the monthly traders exchange that happens in Rainbow Falls during the season four episode, Trade Ya!

The idea for Hot Dog teasing Bronze Tooth about his name was inspired by the scene in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 where Rocket is making fun of Taserface

Ironbeard's voice, according to Calvin, sounds exactly like Metalbeard from The Lego Movie

Dapper's first comments upon seeing Hot Dog are based on the first thing you would hear Sir Hammerlock say in Borderlands 2 during the story mission 'Cleaning up the Berg'

The scene where Dapper was mentioning the previous names of the 'Medi-nade' and how he couldn't use Biotic Grenade because someone already took it is a reference to Blizzard Entertainment and the game Overwatch, since the character Baptiste uses Biotic grenades. Also, the naming for Medi-nade is inspired by the standard name for the Medi-gun from Team Fortress 2.

The city of San Di-Neigh-go is based on a pin that I bought from SouthParkTaoist at San Diego Comic Con (With Trixie and Starlight on the back of an Orca and in the Downtown Gaslamp District) and is a pun based on San Diego. Which is actually one of the closest cities to my hometown.

That's all for now. If there's anything that I missed, please make sure to let me know and I can add that to the list.

New/Returning Skylanders- (Since this chapter has a couple of callbacks to Calvin's earlier forms)

I hope you guys like this extended chapter and look forward to what's in store.
-Frost

Scroll 23- Pack Problems

Beyond the Skies- Pack Problems

CloudCracker Prison

When it came to his job, there were two things that Snap Shot was not entirely a fan of, but still had to do regardless. The first thing was paperwork. Capturing villains out in the field was easy, but when it came to recording the information on villains that were captured and placed in CloudCracker prison, the paperwork was a bit of a headache. Putting most of the Doom Raiders back in their cells was an exception considering the fact that they already had a lot of their information on file. Though, for some of the newer villains that have been captured after CloudCracker Prison was rebuilt, they had to start their profiles completely from scratch.

The second thing was when Master Eon had him show rookie Skylanders around the facility. Sure, it provided a chance for him to make sure that the prisoners weren’t acting out or trying to pull any stunts, but showing the rookies around made him feel less like the warden of a maximum security prison and more like the tour guide at a museum. Though, he was not only checking on the prisoners, but also keeping an eye out on the rookies, too.

Of course, being the warden also had some things that he liked too. Considering the number of missions that he personally had to do to keep himself active and healthy in the field, he liked reading the reports of other adventures that Skylanders went on. Though, some of the most recent records that he had received contained events of a location that was ‘below the clouds’. There were very few reports to go off of, but some of the ones that he did find went into detail about how some of the residents from this place, most of them having an equine form that wasn’t much different than Trail Blazer, actually visited the academy and talked with Master Eon. The only other one that did not fall into this kind of category was one involving Hoot Loop in what was called the ‘traveling circus’ incident, which he thought as rather big slip up that could’ve been a whole lot worse.

Though, it was as he was halfway through reading a file on the senseis and how their teachings were coming along that two Trap Masters walked in through the front entrance. Both of them were the Trap Masters that represented the fire element, Wildfire and Ka-Boom. The golden lion himself looked to be going back towards his own quarters, while Ka-Boom was heading over to where Snap Shot was sitting at his desk, “Hey, Snap Shot, we’re back.”

At first, the crocogator looked up from the file that he was reading, shortly before saying the first thing that came to his mind. “There you are. Some of the others were asking where you and Wildfire went.”

“We got a call from Hugo about a pair of villains that were causing problems back at my hometown, Munitions Forge,” the Trap Master explained to him, placing a pair of traptanium crystals on the table. One was brown, which was the color that represents the earth element, while the other was gold to represent the tech element, “Got two new inmates to lock up. They’re knocked out right now, but when they wake up, they aren’t going to like their new living situation.”

Snap Shot looked at both of the crystals that were on the table for a second, before picking them up and looking back to Ka-Boom. “So, who exactly are we putting away this time?”

“Remember when I told you about that pirate guy who tried to take over my hometown to create an invincible pirate army?”

The crocogator was familiar with the story, especially since Ka-Boom did mention it a couple of times whenever the subject of pirates happened to come up somehow. “I am familiar with it, yes.”

“Well, turns out Ironbeard tried to go after the forge again. He must've been thinking that there was no one around to protect the place after I joined the Trap Masters,” the fire titan added on, “Those crystals contain him and his deckhand, Bronze Tooth… though, let’s put Bronze Tooth in a cell that he can't swim or chew through.”

That had Snap Shot blink for a moment as he looked back at Ka-Boom. “Chew through?”

“Bronze Tooth’s a Land Shark.”

In Snap Shot’s mind, that made sense. Depending on the kind of villain that they had to put away, specific protocols were put in place for certain prisoners to make sure that they could not be able to easily escape. One example was that when they had to put Rage Mage back in his cell, they had to reinforce the walls so that any spells that he might cast would end up bouncing back like a trampoline. “Well, I’m going to have to figure out what precautions we’ll need to take before we put Bronze Tooth in a cell. Otherwise, good work,” he responded, “Something tells me that you probably need some rest. I mean, going back to your hometown and defeating a villain that attacked it again must’ve tired you out.”

Though, it was in that moment that Ka-Boom provided a much different answer to the warden, one that caught him by surprise. “Well, yes and no.”

Snap Shot’s train of thought immediately slammed on the breaks as the crocogator paused, blinking for a moment as he looked back at the fire titan with a raised eyebrow. “… Come again?”

“Well, yes, I did happen to go back to my hometown. However, it wasn’t Wildfire and I that beat Ironbeard and Bronze Tooth,” the Trap Master explained to Snap Shot, “It was actually a new guy, a rookie that was paired up with two other Skylanders.”

That was something that Snap Shot had trouble believing at first. A rookie being able to defeat not just one villain, but two? That story seemed a bit far fetched. But if it was true, then this newcomer was definitely someone that shouldn’t be overlooked. “Ka-Boom, about this newcomer you mentioned… did you happen to get a name at all? Like who they are?”

“Well, he said that his name was Calvin. He was in the area with Hot Dog and Rubble Rouser on a mission from Master Eon,” Ka-Boom recalled as he scratched the back of his head, “I mean, I even saw Tessa with them, and a few others, too.”

When hearing the name Calvin, a couple of things began to click in Snap Shot’s head. In the file that he was reading before Ka-Boom and Wildfire came back, King Pen had taken on a student by the same name, but did not have a chance to finish the report on him. Though, the fact that he was able to overcome and beat a villain was intriguing, he had to admit. Yet, there was another part that puzzled him. “Who exactly were these ‘others’, Ka-Boom?”

“Well, there were five in total, but I never really got their names,” the fire titan admitted, “Three of them looked to be human girls while the other two… kind of looked like Trail Blazer, but seemed different. One of them had a cowboy had on but didn’t have a horn while the other had wings. Her hair and tail also looked like a rainbow.”

Out of each one of the ones he listed, Snap could only recognize one. The last one, the pegasus that was known as Rainbow Dash. She had been there before on two different occasions before this, the first with two ‘alicorn’ princesses named Twilight Sparkle and Celestia and the second with a mare named Pinkie Pie, who was known for chasing Pain-Yatta with his own lollipop axe. But, the other four were not something he had read about before in a previous report. So, what exactly were they doing here?

“Hey, Snap? You doing alright?”

The question had the crocogator look up for a moment as he looked back at the fire titan. “Y-yeah, sorry. Was just caught up in my own train of thought,” he told him, “How about you hold onto both of them for now. We’ll put them in their cells once we figure out Bronze Tooth’s accomodations and after I finish reading the last of these reports.”

“Sounds good. I’ll go talk with the others and see if they have any ideas,” Ka-Boom responded, picking up both of the traptanium crystals and putting them back in a leather pouch that was on his waist, “See you later, Snap Shot.”

As the fire titan left the room, Snap Shot found himself sitting back down at his desk and looking back towards the file that was in front of him. It might have been a file that was labeled as being one focused on the senseis, but there was only one entry that he wanted to see now: the one that was on the one that King Pen was training named Calvin.

Upon first glance, things didn’t quite seem so appealing with a few of the things at the beginning. This included name, age, species, gender and a few others. But as he continued to read, three things stood out to him.

“Role- Skyshifter, Element- Fire Imaginator only, World- Earth (formerly), Equestria (Currently).”

“The heck?” Snap Shot blinked, looking back at the paper. Normally when reading the profiles on rookies, the role part would automatically say ‘Skylander’. However, this was not the case. At first, the crocogator thought that this was some kind of spelling mistake, something wasn’t corrected before being sent over. Yet, as he continued to read, he began to realize that it was not just some mistake. There was more to it than even he realized.

“Calvin is considered as a Skyshifter, which is a special case. He wears a necklace at all times, and the special crystal on the necklace, called Elementanium, allows for him to transform into any Skylander that he knows the catchphrase of, regardless of the archetype. However, he can only use those forms for a certain duration and at the time this is written, has not obtained any particular upgrades for any of his forms. He has, however, expanded upon the base rules of his abilities. Not only can he call upon a Skylander that he’s turned into before for help, but according to reports from the SuperCharger Spitfire, can summon vehicles if he happens to transform into a Supercharger.

Aside from transformations, he also has another ability. Yet, we have not yet been able to narrow down what exactly triggers it. Calvin himself describes it as a form of mental communication that only he could hear between one Skylander and him, similar to the art of telepathy. However, this seems to only apply to Spitfire, since it only started happening after Calvin had transformed into the fire gargoyle more often than others.

Recent developments involving Calvin learning about Mind Magic and Creation Crystals have led to him being able to create his own Skylander with the help of Stealth Elf. This Imaginator, named Kai Chi, is a Brawler Class Imaginator that takes on the form of a drow elf, but he has a mouth guard over the bottom half of his face, a hood over his head and wears clothes that bear some resemblance to Stealth Elf, but aren’t an exact copy. Currently, he is being trained in the arts of the Brawler Class by King Pen and has been making remarkable progress. Though, there are still a few lessons that King Pen wishes to teach him.

Given his gifts, what he’s capable of and also the pace at which he’s learning, only a handful of Skylanders and academy staff are aware of Calvin as well as what he could do. These include Spitfire, Spyro, Stealth Elf, Hot Dog, Funny Bone, Stormblade, Splat, Rattle Shake, Cobra Cadabra, Aurora, King Pen, Hoot Loop, Buzz, Tessa, Mags, Hugo, Flynn and most importantly, Master Eon. Many Skylanders might recognize him from the rule list that we already sent out regarding interactions with the Equestrians after the ‘traveling circus’ incident, but the names that are listed above are currently the only ones who know about what he’s capable of. But, that is subject to change.

Until his training with King Pen is complete, if he is to go anywhere in Skylands, always assign him with either one or two Skylanders, preferably Skylanders who have more than six months of field experience and also are able to help teach him important fundamentals when out in the field. It is also recommended to encourage Calvin to think outside the box and take on new transformations that help him solve problems that he might come across out in the field, since not all problems can be solved with brute force alone.

Master Eon wants to make sure that not only Calvin’s training is fully complete, but also makes sure that he works with various other Skylanders that have different approaches to solving problems. Future guidelines will be added to this document the longer his training progresses.”

Once Snap Shot had finished reading the document in its entirety, he had to take a few minutes to process what he just looked at. This kid… who looked to be just as young as Spyro… could turn into other Skylanders? That was something that he had not seen or heard about throughout his time as a Skylander, and there were many things that he had seen, including a sky eating machine and a monster made entirely out of guacamole.

“Hmm… perhaps I should keep a closer eye on him,” he said to himself, moving the document off to the right side of his desk, only to find another one that was underneath it. Though, the title on this one seemed a bit puzzling to him. “Equestria and the… Elements of Harmony? Just how important is such a subject?”

Meanwhile…

“Are you sure that you don’t need any help in there?” Calvin asked as he was waiting outside of Mayor Dapper’s office with Applejack, Rainbow, Rubble, Hot Dog and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They were taking some time to rest after their encounter with Captain Ironbeard, and it was while this was going on that Dapper decided to help them out, telling them that they had a map of the mountain that he could let them borrow as they were on their expedition.

Of course, the only thing that it seemed like the mayor was having trouble with was finding where he kept it. Though, he didn’t really say anything that made them think that way. “No, no, I’m fine. I know I have it hidden around here somewhere!” he emphasized as it sounded like objects and items were being moved around inside the building. At one point, it even sounded like a bookshelf was being pushed across the floor. “Dang it. Just who has the bright idea of putting all of this stuff on my desk after I already put it away in the first place?”

“I think the cleaning lady does that, boss.”

“…Okay, well that’s an exception. I thought it was that one intern who always goes through things to find office supplies and never puts anything back afterwards,” the mayor grumbled, “Have we checked the filing cabinets by the windows yet?”

“I don’t believe we have yet, boss,” they heard Bang then speak up, “Do you want me to look through it or-?”

“No, I got it. Sheesh, how hard can it be to open just one filing cabinet anyways?” they heard Dapper ask along with the sound of the cabinet opening up, “See? Not so hard. Now, where is it? Hmm…” The sound of papers and files being tossed out and landing on the floor could be heard in the background now. Some landed softly and light on the ground, while others sounded like you dropped a full barrel of apples in the middle of the barn at Sweet Apple Acres. “I swear, it should be in here- Aha!! There we go!”

“Y-you found it?”

“Yeah, right here under a few templates for whenever someone comes to the office to ask for a restraining order,” the mayor commented, “Now, I just need to… I just need to… Uh oh.”

“Boss? What do you mean by ‘Uh oh’?”

“Isn’t that a bit obvious? Look, the hinges on this thing have probably seen better days, so unless you can pull me out of here, then I’m just stuck in here. But whatever you do, don’t pull my tail, got it?”

“Okay, here it goes,” Bang now told him, “Is it working?”

“Bang, are you even pulling? I can barely feel your fingers grabbing hold of the cabinet. Put your back into it!”

“I am putting my back into it, boss!”

“Well, try harder!!” the mayor snapped at him, “We don’t have all day!”

Oddly enough, the current situation reminded Calvin of some of the ‘Winnie the Pooh’ cartoons his mom back home played on TV when he was little, when Pooh Bear’s friends had to pull him out of the hole he was stuck in. However, this involved a cat and a filing cabinet instead of a bear and a hole under a tree.

“Hey, girls… have ya seen Hot Dog anywhere?”

That comment from Apple Bloom was enough to have a chill be sent down Calvin’s spine as he began to look around, only to find the lava puppy nowhere to be found. Even Rubble Rouser himself did not know where Hot Dog could have wandered off to.

To make matters worse. “Have no fear! I’m here to help!”

“W-what the?! Where did you come from?” Dapper asked, startled by the sudden appearance of the fire dog that was in his office.

“The front door, silly,” they heard the lava puppy respond back to the mayor, “Oh, hey. What’s this? Are you using rope to try to pull it open?”

“No, no no, wait! That’s my tail-!”

Chomp!

“REEEEEAAAAAAAAAAOOOWWWW!!!!” the next thing they knew, everyone could smell singed fur, and the sound of things being knocked over and crashing on the floor erupted from within. Just as they turned to face the door, they now saw Dapper… with the fur on the end of his tail burnt to a crisp and some bits falling off, while Hot Dog walked out a few seconds later.

“There we go. Problem solved,” the fire dog barked, shortly before looking at everyone else and noticing the expressions that were on their faces. “Why is everyone looking at me like that?”

That just had Rainbow immediately facehoof herself, followed by Scootaloo and Rubble Rouser doing the exact same thing as Bang looked to be trying to find a first aid kit inside the office. Dapper himself just looked at Hot Dog with a deadpan expression, before lightly hitting Hot Dog on the top of the head with the rolled up paper that was in his paw.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“That… was for my tail,” Dapper retorted, before redirecting his attention away from Hot Dog and back towards the rest of the group and then diverting his attention to Rubble. “Anyways, I found the map of the volcano that was in my office. Rubble, can I see the map that you have for a moment?”

“Uh, sure. Hang on,” Rubble turned around to lift up his hammer and twist the bottom knob of his hammer, pulling it off for a second as a rolled up piece of parchment slipped out. Once it was out, he grabbed a hold of the paper before twisting the knob of his hammer back in and locking it into place. “Geez, I need to talk to Mags about better ways to store what I’m carrying at some point.”

Calvin himself, seemed a bit surprised by Rubble doing that, mostly because he remembered that the only functions that his weapon had were as a hammer and a drill. But, it would make sense to come up with something for a storage compartment if you did not have pockets. Though, that was not the main thing to be focusing on. When he and Applejack went over to have a closer look at what the two of them were doing, they were surprised to find that the mayor and the golem were comparing and contrasting both of the maps that they were holding as Rubble explained his plan to the mayor.

Yet, as the mayor listened, there was a point that he had to unfortunately break the news to them about something. “Sorry to tell you this, but your plan is not going to work.”

“What? Why?” Rubble asked, sounding a bit surprised by that.

“On the pathway you were pointing out, we had an avalanche occur two months back that not only had rocks roll down the side of it, but also opened up a new lava river that goes right through here,” Dapper demonstrated, pointing at where the opening of the volcano was and tracing it down with its claw, going through the lines that Rubble Rouser put on his map to show the path they planned on taking. “We’ve been having to reduce the number of people going up on expeditions for the volcano because the ground and rocks are growing more unstable. It’s nowhere close to having to erupt anytime soon, but it’s becoming more dangerous to go up there now. Even I would not take the risk of going because a giant boulder could flatten me like a pancake.”

That imagery was enough to have Calvin immediately shake his head to try to get himself to not think about that. “Well, is there any other path that we could do? Any other options?”

That had the cat scratch his chin with his right paw, before an idea began to surface in his head. “Well, now that you pointed that out, because of what’s been happening up on the volcano, we have had a new cave entrance open up over here,” as Dapper explained this time, he was pointing out a spot that was on the opposite side of where Rubble was originally wanting them to go, “I have been meaning to have a crew go look at it, but it’s been on the backburner for a while. But if you guys want to go ahead and take a look at it for yourselves, then be my guest.”

As Calvin looked back to Rubble, he noticed that the golem seemed to be deep in thought as he tried to process what the mayor just told him. He even looked to Applejack, Rainbow and the Cutie Mark Crusaders while he was thinking this over. “Well, it doesn’t really seem like we have any other options. Let’s go for it.”

“Bang and I can help lead you up the side of the mountain, but you’re all on your own once you head inside,” the mayor informed them, before rolling up his map and hopping up on the fire titan’s shoulder. Though, he wasn’t quite a fan of feeling a pulling sensation on his tail as Bang had to apply a couple of bandages to where he lost his fur. “We still need to make sure that everything around town is back to normal… Not to mention start the clean up process. Your friends, Tessa and Flynn, did volunteer to help, but I want to make sure that we happened to do our part, too.”

Bang himself looked a bit nervous when Dapper was speaking about them going up the mountain, but when the cat was back on his shoulder, it looked like he had regained a small bit of confidence in himself. Of course, as they set off and began their trek to the mountain, Bang was trying his best to keep it together… and Dapper was doing his best to make sure that the fire titan did not scurry off and hide behind a tree. Though, it did not help any that any sound that they happened to make on the way over, whether it was Hot Dog stepping on a twig or a rock being kicked into a bush, began to eat away at his self confidence.

Of course, once they arrived at the base of the mountain, every one seemed to notice that not only was he shivering a bit, but that the fire titan was sweating. Yet, his clothes looked less like the kind of clothes that you would find soaked after a day of farm work and more like if you were sitting in the splash zone at an amusement park show.

It wasn’t just Calvin that took notice of this. The Cutie Mark Crusaders also seemed to notice how Bang was acting, too. “Hey, you okay there, big guy?”

“Y-yeah! N-never better…” the fire titan stammered, before wiping his forehead, some of the sweat on his body and hair hitting his boss on accident, which just had the cat roll his eyes.

“So, where’s the entrance that we’re looking for, Mr. Dapper?” Sweetie Belle now asked out of curiosity.

“From this point, it should be up towards the left over there,” the cat pointed out to them as they can barely see the entrance. “You’re going to need to use your climbing gear to get up to that ledge, but we don’t know if you’ll need it when you’re inside. You know… with you guys being the first ones in there.”

“I think we get the picture,” Rainbow retorted, before opening up the bag she was carrying and getting out the climbing harnesses that she had inside, handing one to Applejack with an outstretched hoof while her friend pulled out the rope that was also stored in the bag along with some metal spikes that were inside. Just before looking over to everyone else once Applejack got her harness on. “Who wants to go first?”

“I’ll go ahead,” Rubble offered, setting his hammer aside to pick up the spikes on the ground and also take the rope, “You’re going to need someone to spike these into the walls and bring the rope up. Let me get it set up, and once it's ready, the rest of you can come up afterwards.”

Everyone in the group nodded in agreement with that. After all, Rubble was the mining and digging expert of the group, so it would make sense for him to go on ahead. As the golem began to climb up the side, he set spikes in the rock that was to the left of him as he made his way up, pushing himself upward a few feet in between each spike before setting another one in. It took about ten to fifteen minutes to have enough of the spikes in as Rubble got up to the top of the ledge, before looking back down. “Alright, spikes are set,” he informed them, before having the rope funnel through the rings at the end of each one and setting an additional spike along the entrance to the cave before tightening the rope. “Who’s next?”

“I’ll go,” Calvin volunteered.

“Uh, Calvin… not to sound rude, but where’s ya harness?” Applejack asked him as the Skyshifter looked to see that the Cutie Mark Crusaders had theirs on, but he didn’t.

“I won’t need one,” he said, just before grabbing onto his pendant as he began to glow and change forms again, this time to something new.

“It’s classified!”

In a matter of seconds, Calvin had changed into the Swap Force Skylander of the Tech Element named Spy Rise, a robot with a set of four robotic spider legs. Of course, Calvin knew that another climb Swap Force Skylander like Wash Buckler could do the trick. Though, he thought that with Spy Rise’s legs, he could make holes in the rock that would make it easier for the Cutie Mark Crusaders and everyone else to climb.

Like with all of his transformations the first time he turned into a new Skylander, it took a moment or so in order to get himself adjusted to this newfound form, mainly because he had two additional legs. All of them were mechanical and moved much differently than before. But once he felt ready, he dug the tips of his front metal legs into the rock and began to work his way up, starting slow, but then moving up a bit faster once he was higher up. By the time that he was finally up topside and changed back, a set of footholds in the stone wall were lined up with the spikes as he dropped down the rope for everyone else, much to everyone's surprise… and Rubble’s dismay.

“Show off…”

Of course, it took a couple of moments in order to make sure that everyone was up on the ledge that had the entrance to the cave and that Rubble was able to go back and grab his hammer, all the while Hot Dog hitched a ride on Rainbow’s back as she used her wings to help push both of them upwards while she was climbing. Once the whole group was all there, the golem took a moment to make sure that everyone was ready before they went inside.

“Good luck, everyone,” Dapper called out to them as he waved back to the group on Bang’s shoulders. “Come back safe, alright?”

“I thought you were coming with us,” Scootaloo pointed out as she looked at the two of them from the ledge.

“Well, I would… but I’m not sure if I want to put any more stress on Bang for right now,” the mayor told them, “We’re going to go help out the town for a bit, and then come back to check on you in an hour. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good to us,” Rubble replied as everyone waved to both of them, “We’ll see you later!”

Shortly after saying their goodbyes to Dapper and Bang, Rubble was the first to enter the cave, keeping his head low for the first few feet since the opening was rather small. For Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Hot Dog, walking underneath the low entrance was not that hard. Yet, for Calvin and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, the four of them had to bend forward to the point that they were almost crawling on their hands and knees. Waiting until the stone ceiling rose up as they had to walk in a crouch before slowly getting up.

As they first walked into the cave, Hot Dog walked alongside Rubble Rouser as the golem continued to add more spikes to the walls and bring rope along the wall of the tunnel. Calvin himself, seeing how dark it was, turned into his Imaginator form to conjure some fire to use as a light to help them see. Applejack, Rainbow and the Cutie Mark Crusaders followed behind him as Rainbow had Scootaloo hold onto a flashlight that she packed in the bag that the harnesses were in.

At first, things were going alright, and the group did not have that much trouble with traversing through the tunnel. Yet, at one point though, Rubble Rouser stopped, leading to Calvin accidentally walking into him as he fell backwards. “O-ow…” he groaned, changing back to his regular form, “Rubble, why did you stop?”

“That’s the thing,” the golem told him before everyone joined the Skylander at a single point in the tunnel. The ceiling was higher up, so no one had to worry about hitting their heads. The problem that Rubble was referring to was not where they were, but the obstacle that was in front of them, “The path splits here and goes in two different directions.”

“So? Can’t we just split up and search?” Rainbow asked.

“That would not be a good idea,” Rubble shook his head, “Even if you count the possibility that Apple Bloom and her friends can feel any Elementanium they might come across, only Hot Dog could actually smell it out. He’s our only tracker, and it would be better if we stay together.”

“Yeah, I mean, could you imagine getting lost in a place like this?” Hot Dog asked, before looking at one of the paths and staring into the darkness, “You can probably hear your own echo if you spoke loud enough.” At first, everyone thought of that as just a random scenario that someone would do. That was, until the lava puppy took it one step further. “Hello!? Anyone home?!”

They could hear the echoes of his words bounce off the walls of the tunnel as he let out a sigh and began to walk back. However, the one thing that he did not expect was to get a reply back. “W-who said that? Is someone there?”

Hot Dog himself was caught off guard when he heard that, along with everyone else that was with him. He was originally speaking earlier because he wanted to hear an echo around the caves… however, he did not expect to actually hear someone respond to him. “Y-yes?”

He did not hear a response to that question. But instead, he began to hear a noise, what sounded like a set of paws running along the ground, running forward and through the tunnel as the sound of paws on the ground began to move closer. Hot Dog could now see what looked to be a mix of orange and yellow glowing in the distance coming closer and closer with each step.

At the last possible moment, he didn’t hear anything, but that was before feeling himself get knocked over and tackled to the ground as he tried to make sense of what was going on, until he found himself staring face to face at another fire dog, one that was orange-red in color compared to Hot Dog’s. The fire dog’s paws were lighter in shade and matched the color of its tail. The only thing that looked exactly the same as Hot Dog was that it still had the same colors for eyes.

But their first reaction to Hot Dog was not one of the playful side that Rubble or the others would come to expect if they saw Hot Dog coming to them. “W-wait… Y-you’re… from outside?” The fire dog backed up immediately as she looked back at the Fire Skylander, before looking to see everyone else. “W-who are all of you? W-why have you come here?”

“Whoa! Easy...” Calvin told her, getting on the ground so he did not appear as intimidating to her. “We didn’t mean to scare you. My name is Calvin, and this right here is Hot Dog,” the Skyshifter introduced both himself and the fire dog that was next to him, “What’s your name?”

“S-sheer. Sheer Spot,” the dog answered back, while looking back at everyone and still seeming scared.

“Well, Sheer, we’re just looking for a special kind of crystal that would help some of my friends,” Calvin began to explain without going too technical into details, “Sorry if we startled you-” Of course, what Calvin did not expect was for the fire dog to jump on top of him and bury her head against his shirt. He thought that she was trying to smell his shirt as he felt the pull of the harness against his waist as he tried to get up, but it was only a few seconds afterwards that he realized something.

Sheer Spot wasn’t sniffing at all… She was crying. “P-please… help us.”

“Help… us?” Hot Dog asked, a bit confused by what Sheer was telling them.

“M-my siblings,” she sniffled, trying to wipe a few tears away with her paw, “We aren’t allowed to go outside at all. Tribus prohibits us from leaving and keeps us trapped in here. He tells us that the outside world is dangerous and full of scary creatures that want to harm and eat us, but…” Tears began to resurface in her eyes as she buried her face in Calvin’s shirt again. He felt the need to pet the top of her head to calm her down so she could finish her story. “I-if we try to say anything, he just b-bullies us and c-calls us weak.”

Rainbow and Applejack, along with the girls, were shocked by what they were hearing. To be forced to stay in your own home without ever being able to go outside at all? Everything that Sheer was telling them was just wrong on so many levels. Yet, now, there was a change in the fire dog’s voice. She was still crying, but she didn’t sound sad anymore. “B-but you… all of you came from outside… You’re not scary at all. You can help us be free of this place.”

To Calvin, even though Sheer was a lava puppy, she was acting way too adorable for him to refuse, even if it meant having to go against what they originally came here for. “S-sure… but, can I ask you something first?”

At first, Rubble seemed a bit confused by what he was doing. But to Sheer, all she did was back up and look back at the Skyshifter. “Of c-course. What is it?”

Before he could answer, the first thing that he did was unclip himself from the rope. That way, he felt a bit more comfortable first. Then, he took off his necklace and held it out in his hand to let Sheer have a closer look at the Elementanium Crystal itself. “I’m trying to help my friends by finding a crystal like this one. Have you seen anything that looks like this?”

Sheer first seemed a bit nervous, before taking a closer look, inspecting the crystal and even going as far as sniffing it first, before looking back at Calvin. “I don’t know… but I think one of my siblings might.”

“One of your siblings?” Rubble himself now asked.

“Yeah, Digger,” the fire dog told the golem, “He’s known for digging around and finding things under the rock, but Tribus always bullies him because he thinks that he’s trying to dig his way out of here.”

That had Calvin look back at Rubble, wondering if the Skylander was thinking the same thing that he was thinking in that moment. There was a possibility that this ‘Digger’ might’ve seen or uncovered Elementanium around here, but were they willing to take the risk? “Rubble, what’s the plan?”

The golem first looked at Calvin, Hot Dog and Sheer, before looking to Applejack, Rainbow and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, thinking things over before coming up with a proper answer. “Calvin, Hot Dog, go with Sheer and scout ahead. We’ll take a moment to gather a few things here.”

All Calvin did was nod, before fully taking his harness off and repeating the phrase ‘See Spot Burn!’ to himself into Hot Dog. It was a bit of a shock at first for Sheer to see two Hot Dogs at once, but the reason why the Skyshifter turned into him was so that he could keep up with the two of them when they went on ahead. As they scurried down the tunnel on the right, Applejack noticed that Rubble himself was picking up the equipment he left behind and putting it away.

“Ya sure this is a good idea, sugarcube?” Applejack then asked the golem. It took a moment for the Skylander to compose his thoughts and think through what would be the most ideal thing to say to the earth pony.

“I think so. Unlike us, Sheer seems to know her way around the mountain… I just hope that those two don’t get themselves into trouble.”

As Hot Dog and Calvin raced after Sheer, the two of them found that keeping up with Sheer was not as easy as they originally thought. Not just because of how she knew the tunnels like the back of her paw, but because she also knew what the passageway was like much farther in. Of course, Hot Dog himself was less focused on his surroundings while they were running and instead found himself focused on something else, trying to start a conversation with her. “So Sheer, you said you have siblings, right?”

“Yeah. If you include me, there’s six of us,” she responded back, before ducking out of the way of an uneven piece of rock that was sticking out of the wall. “Three of them are boys while the other two are girls. My brothers are Digger, Hot Block, and Smoky while my sisters are Skippy and Dusty.”

Hot Dog nodded, while also ducking underneath a rock before asking another question, “So, what are your siblings like?”

“Well, Digger… likes to dig since he gets bored really easily, Hot Block is rather defensive since he wants to keep us all safe, Smoky’s rather timid since he’s the runt of the litter, Skippy’s rather active to say the least, and Dusty…” upon saying the of the final sibling, Sheer began to slow down as Calvin and Hot Dog followed suit, noticing that the look on her face changed as well as her tone. “She’s the one that we all worry about the most.”

“Why’s that?” Calvin asked her.

“Remember when I said that Tribus bullies us?” she asked, leading to both Hot Dog and Calvin nodding their heads in response before Sheer continued to speak, “Well, Dusty is so scared and afraid of getting bullied and punished by Tribus that she just had to follow orders he gives in order to remain safe,” taking a second to breathe, the fire dog continued where she left off, “In her mind, since safety is happiness, she’s become obsessed with following orders because she thinks that following orders is happiness.”

“By the elements...” Hot Dog gasped.

“It gets worse. It’s gotten to the point where she can’t feel comfortable without having some sort of order given to her. She can’t fall asleep unless ordered to. She can’t eat unless ordered to,” Sheer stopped for a moment, taking a deep breath and wiping some moisture from her eyes with a paw before continuing, “We’re scared that one day, we’ll all end up the same way.”

“That’s just so wrong-”

“Sheer? Sheer, are you in here? ”

The voice immediately had Sheer’s ears perk up on end as she walked over along the left wall and peeked in the next cavern. “Oh, biscuits, not now! Please not now…” she spoke, realizing who it was.

“What’s the matter?” Calvin then asked, noticing how Sheer was acting and walking over past where she was peeking around the corner, looking down through the newfound tunnel to see if anything or if anyone was there. He could see what looked like another fire dog in the distance, yet they had a much different appearance that would match the color of dark molten rock, the only light areas being the magma glowing from under his skin, “Is that Tribus-?”

“No, that’s not him,” she shook her head, just as Calvin soon began to realize that this fire dog was quickly coming towards them. But it wasn’t until that it was mere feet away that he realized that the dog was coming straight at him. “That’s-”

SLAM!

“-Hot Block.”

“Just who are you and what do you think you’re doing with my sister, huh?!” the new fire dog snapped as it grit its teeth, before looking back at Sheer, “You think you can just take my sister away-?”

“N-no! It’s not like that!” Sheer told him, desperately trying to get him to calm down, “Hot Block, they want to help us!”

“Yeah, man, let Calvin go already!” Hot Dog himself barked. For a moment, Hot Block looked as if he was going to give off a nasty retort. But then he realized something. Something that really threw him off.

“Okay, why am I seeing two of the same pup?” he asked, looking back at both Calvin and Hot Dog, “You’re standing next to my sister, yet I have you pinned to a wall.”

“T-technically,” Calvin coughed, just as the effects of his pendant began to kick in and change him back to his regular form, now looming over the fire dog as he let out a small groan from the feeling of Hot Block’s paw being pushed into his chest, “You have me pinned to a wall.”

At first, Hot Block was caught off guard by the sudden change, but he did not remove his paws from Calvin’s chest. If anything, he kept his hold on the Skyshifter while turning towards the other two fire dogs. “Sheer, why did you bring two outsiders here? What is going on?”

“They aren’t here to harm us, Hot Block,” she told him, “Calvin and Hot Dog said that they can help free us.”

“Oh, really? And how are you so sure about that?” Hot Block questioned.

“Because Sheer asked us for our help,” Calvin told him, “She told us of what Tribus is doing to you and your siblings and how he keeps you in here.”

“We came here looking for something in the mountain that would help out our friends when Sheer found us,” Hot Dog added on, “She told us of how he bullies you and prevents you from ever going outside. We chose to help her, and after hearing from her about Digger, he may make it easier to find what we're looking for after we get the hard stuff out of the way first. After all, Tribus sounds like a complete pawful.”

Hot Block, after hearing the fellow fire dog say that, was speechless, speechless to the point that he removed his paws off of Calvin’s chest as the Skyshifter felt a huge weight being lifted off of his chest. As he looked back at Sheer and Hot Dog, Hot Block still felt as if there was something fishy about the newcomers. But, if they truly meant what they said, then they can finally leave this place behind.

It was then that he turned to Sheer and asked a question to his sister. “Do you have a plan?”

“I was wanting to try and find the others first,” Sheer told her brother, “Has Tribus… noticed anything?”

“He’s asleep right now,” Hot Block told her, which had Sheer let out a sigh of relief, “But he will notice if he wakes up and sees that we’re not there. Come on.”

“Guess we’re moving again,” Calvin sighed, before saying ‘See Spot Burn!’ again and turning himself back into Hot Dog, much to the surprise of Hot Block as he looked back to Calvin.

“Okay, seriously, how are you doing that?”

“I’ll explain later,” Calvin told him, “Right now, let’s go find the rest of your siblings.”

Both Hot Block and Sheer nodding, leading Hot Dog and Calvin down the passageway that Hot Block was originally going through. Following behind, the pair went through tight corridors with jagged pieces of rock and stone sticking through the walls. On top of that, the farther they got inside, the more humid it became.

“We shouldn’t be too far now,” Hot Block told the two newcomers as they were approaching an opening in the sheet of rock in front of them, “Our den’s on the other side of this… though, please don’t cause too much of a ruckus.”

“Why’s that?”

“If any of us get too loud and wake Tribus up from his sleep, he gets furious and punishes us for it,” Sheer explained, letting her brother go through first, “Be careful though. Skippy’s usually… well, Skippy.”

“Why do I have the feeling that Skippy is a puppy Pinkie Pie?” Calvin thought to himself as he watched Sheer and Hot Dog go on through after Hot Block, before entering shortly afterwards. The den that they were in, despite what he originally was thinking, was actually quite spacious. There were six beds of rock that looked like coals at different areas in the room, with one of them next to what looked like a pile of minerals and shiny stones. Yet, it didn’t look like Digger was in the den… or really anyone-

“Hi there!!”

“Ah!” the sudden voice startled Calvin as he turned around and fell backwards. Standing behind him was another fire dog, though this one looked much different. If Sheer was red-orange and Hot Block looked like molten rock, then this one looked like a mix of brown and red, with the lighter shades of her body looking like there was a bit of pink mixed in. Not to mention that unlike Sheer, who was a bit nervous at times, and Hot Block, who was defensive, this one looked to be rather playful and energetic.

It was definitely enough to make him think of a puppy Pinkie Pie. “Skippy! What have I told you about startling us when we come back inside?” Sheer spoke up.

“Aw... but it’s so much fun, Sheery!” the fire dog that was now addressed as Skippy replied, before turning to both Calvin and Hot Dog. “Oooh? Now, who do we have here? New playmates, and a couple of cute ones at that!”

Personally, Calvin nervously looked back at Hot Dog after hearing her say that. “W-what does she mean by that-?” yet, just as he turned back around, he found that Skippy was walking behind him and that her tail grazed the side of his face. His brain was having trouble processing what was going on as the fire dog that was behind him smiled a bit. “Okay, that was weird. But at least everything’s okay now-”

Then, Skippy began to start sniffing behind them, something that made a shiver run down his back when she realized where she was sniffing. “D-did she just sniff my-?!”

“Wow!! You two smell so different! It’s much more different than anything else I’ve sniffed before!” Skippy cheerfully spoke, before walking around Hot Dog, having her tail graze his face before she turned to Sheer and Hot Block. “Where did you find these two cuties, Sheery?”

“That’s… hard to explain,” Sheer responded to her sister, sounding a bit nervous as she began to look around the den, “Where’s everyone else?”

“Dusty’s where she usually is, outside of meany Tri’s den, Little Smoky’s in his corner by the lava pools and Diggy’s doing what he does best!”

“Hold on… You don’t actually know where he is?” Hot Block quickly interjected, “Skippy, do you even remember what happens when Tribus wakes up and he’s not there?”

“Don’t be so overdramatic, Blocky,” she giggled in a way that made Calvin almost mistake her for Pinkie Pie as the fire dog kept on talking to Hot Block, “Diggy always knows when to come back before meany Tri wakes up. Besides, he’s only been late a couple of times, and that was a while ago.”

“A couple of times too many,” Hot Block retorted.

“In any case,” Sheer soon spoke up now, “Skippy, this is Calvin and Hot Dog. They’re wanting to help us leave this place-”

In that moment, Skippy gasped, the pitch in her voice rising up as she looked at her sister with wide eyes and a happy look on her face, “You mean we can-!?”

“Ssshhh...” Sheer was quick to put a paw on her mouth, looking towards where Tribus’ cave was to make sure that they did not disturb the one who was keeping them in here. “Not so loud! You might wake him...” after waiting a couple of moments for Skippy to calm herself, Sheer removed the paw from her mouth before she continued to speak. “I told Calvin and Hot Dog about how he was keeping us here, and they wanted to help us. But we need to have Digger and Smoky come back, so we can tell them, too.”

“W-what about Dusty though?”

“That’s the hard part… I don’t want for us to leave her behind, but I know that if we even mentioned the thought of leaving, she’ll end up telling Tribus,” Sheer told her sister, “We need a plan, but we need everyone here before we can talk about it.”

“How long has Digger been… well, digging anyways?” Hot Dog asked.

“Well, he kind of started a while ago. So, unless he found something interesting, he usually doesn’t stay gone for too long.”

“There we go. The pathway is cleared up. Let’s… what’s wrong girls?”

“Rubble, there’s a dog gnawing on your hammer.”

“Wha-?”

“Ow Ow OW!! H-hey! This isn’t a gold deposit!! W-what gives!?”

“So, yeah, I think we should be fine-” Unfortunately, only a couple of moments after Skippy said that, a series of loud yips could be heard as Skippy looked to where the sounds were coming from, her ears lowering in the process. “Uh oh.”

“What do you mean by ‘uh oh’?” Calvin then asked as he looked towards the opening at the back end of the den, “What’s wrong, Skippy?”

“T-that’s… Digger.”

Moments after she said that, all of them felt the ground rumble underneath their paws as Calvin stepped out of the cave to see what was going on. Immediately, he could see several things. First, the little grey and orange pup that was by a lava pool to his left. Second, another fire dog that was a mixture of black and brown, looking like the color of mud. But the most important thing he saw was the giant one that began to step out from his den. Fur was the color of ash and hot lava as they emerged.

The one thing that Calvin took notice of immediately was not its appearance, but it’s heads. This one, which he assumed was Tribus, had three heads, each one had burn markings on their heads, as he watched the lava hound walk.

Then, the head in the middle spoke. “Who dares disturb us?”

Followed by the second on the left. “I hear the voice, but don’t smell the scent.”

Which was followed by the third on the right. “One of them is missing. It’s time we teach the others a lesson.”

“No way… That’s Tribus?!” Calvin thought to himself, shocked by the appearance of the hound alone to the point that he did not even notice the other dogs coming out of the den behind him, “I know that Sheer made him seem scary, but I didn’t think he would look like this!”

The giant hound soon turned to the dog that stood by her, its paw the size of the fire dog’s body. “Dusty… I order you to bring the little one to me, right now.”

“Prepare the audience and let them watch.”

“It’s the only way they’ll learn.”

“As you wish, master,” the fire dog named Dusty complied, walking over to where Smoky was seen by the pool of lava. When the little pup noticed her, he tried to back away, only to feel his back hit the wall and prevent him from going anywhere. Dusty proceeded to push him down, before grabbing the back of Smoky with her teeth and carry him to Tribus.

“N-no! I-I didn’t do anything wrong!! P-please, let me go! I p-promise to be b-better,” Smoky pleaded, fear dripping from his words. But Dusty did not listen and continued to keep walking, “S-stop!!”

“Good, Dusty,” the first head told her, petting the top of her head with an outstretched paw in an almost dismissive gesture. Dusty herself just smiled in response, rubbing her head against the paw happily, “Now, leave him right there.”

“But don’t go anywhere just yet.”

“We might need you if he tries to run.”

Dusty dropped Smoky on the ground in front of the hound, before stepping out of the way. “Yes, Master,” was her only reply as she let the hound close in on the pup, Tribus holding him down with a paw as all three heads glared at him.

“Where is your brother, runt?”

“Don’t even try to fight it, weakling!”

“Tell us where he is… Now!”

“I-I don’t know…” Smoky pleaded, trying to move as the hounds paw began to glow brighter, something that made the pup begin to panic, “P-please, I-I don’t know where he is!! D-don’t do that!! A-anything b-but that!!”

“I don’t think you’re being truthful with me.”

“Perhaps all that heat from the pools is affecting his focus.”

“Let’s see if taking it away will wake up his memory.”

“O-oh no…” Sheer gasped, horrified by what she was seeing as Calvin and Hot Dog turned around to see the panicked look on her face. “N-not that! A-anything but that!!”

“What’s happening? What’s going on, Sheer?” Hot Dog then asked, immediately becoming concerned when he saw her change in expression.

“H-He’s draining him,” she told them, fear beginning to set in, “Stealing the warmth and heat in order to get him to cooperate and tell him what he wants. The pain you feel from something like that is unbearable!” As she spoke, Calvin could see fear and helplessness begin to set in on the faces of Skippy and Hot Block. They could only stare and watch as Tribus did this to their own brother.

He could not stand it anymore. He had to do something. “Hot Dog, stay with them.”

“Wha-?” Without warning, Calvin took off and began to run over towards where Tribus was holding the fire dog. As he ran, his transformation began to run out as he was forced back to his regular form. But seconds later, he took on another transformation as well as a new plan of attack.

“Let’s Roll!”

Now, Calvin might have turned into Roller Brawl before, but this transformation was different. This was her Supercharger counterpart: Bone Bash Roller Brawl, which had her equipped with a new set of skeletal armor and a fangerang blade for long range attacks. Yet, the only thing that didn’t feel quite comfortable to him was the fact that this Roller Brawl was wearing a skirt, but in all honesty, looks were not the most important thing to be worried about right now. He needed to save that pup.

Gaining momentum and speed on his skates, Calvin began to use his transformation to roll along the walls of the volcano, throwing his fangerang with a swing of his right arm. All three of Tribus’ heads and Dusty were too focused on Smoky to notice what Calvin just threw as the fangerang struck the side of the hound’s paw. Yelping in pain, he pulled it back and let go of Smoky, who fell in the Skyshifter’s arms as he quickly skated back around to get the pup back to his siblings.

“ARGH!! Who dares to strike me!?” the first head demanded as Calvin changed back upon returning to Hot Dog and the others.

“That one changed his appearance and doesn’t smell like the others! That can only mean one thing,” the second head then followed up after the first.

“It’s an outsider!! An outsider has broken into our domain!!” the voice of the third head boomed.

“T-that was amazing!” Skippy cheered, before trying to pull on Calvin’s leg to get him to look at her, “Do it again! Do it again!!”

“Skippy!!”

“What? I was just asking,” the fire dog told Sheer, before all of the dogs and the Skyshifter looked back towards Tribus, who was now incredibly angry. “Uh oh.”

“An outsider trying to take you all away? Are they that foolish?”

“The outside world is dangerous. Full of monsters and thieves. We keep you safe.”

“You know what’s best for you. Come back to me and-”

“No,” the single response from the Skyshifter stopped the three heads as their attention was focused on Calvin now. He stood defiantly in front of the beast, looking straight at the eyes of the first head, “They were never safe with you. All you did was hurt them and make them live with you in fear. The outside world is not what you tell them it is. You’re not their protector at all. You just torment them. They deserve to be free from someone like you.”

“You dare speak out against me, outsider?!”

“Do you think you can do any better, little freak!?!”

“How about we see if his bite matches his bark!!!” the third head’s statement was followed by a lunging swipe came right at him. Calvin wasn’t able to transform in time because of how quick the attack was, so the only thing he could do was to backpedal out of the way to dodge it before somersaulting to his left as Tribus’ claw grind along the wall and had pieces of rock falling down. One rock blocked off the entryway to the den that they came through.

“Hot Dog, get them out of here!!” Calvin told the Fire Skylander.

“B-but what about you-?”

“Get them out of here first-” he tried to tell Hot Dog, before he saw the hound going after him again. He didn’t have enough time to change forms, so he had to jump and roll out of the way of the hound’s next attack first. “Man, I’m going to have thank King Pen for teaching me that if I get out of this.”

“What’s the matter? I thought this was a fight!”

“Did you lose all your bravado just now? How pathetic!”

“Are you going to actually fight or are you just going to flee?!”

That had Calvin immediately grab onto his necklace and say the first phrase that came to his head. “Keeping it cool!” Within seconds, the Skyshifter turned into the Water Skylander named Freeze Blade and used his newfound skates to move out of the way of the next attack. Noticing that one of the other heads looked to be preparing something with its mouth, Calvin threw the Ice Chakram that he had at the head, the weapon striking his face before it returned back to him.

Even with the solid hit though, he still needed to move. One of those attacks was simply not enough in order to bring down a beast of this size, but he had to do his best to try. Yet the thing was, when he turned into Freeze Blade before, that was just for a race. Even if he knew how Freeze Blade was supposed to be in combat, he had not fought before in this form. He would be lucky if he actually was able to get some decent hits in.

As he skated around and did his best to attack and avoid getting attacked, he could see that Hot Dog was leading the other fire dogs through a different hole that was in the wall before following them himself. But... it was something that did not go unnoticed by Tribus. “Who gave you permission to leave!?”

“No, no, NO!!” Calvin panicked, racing over and throwing the chakram at the claw again, bouncing off and hitting him in the head as the Skyshifter dashed over the exit Hot Dog left through to cover it in ice. “Phew… that was too close.”

“Grr… You pest!! Do you think you’re going to get away with this?!” The second head demanded, before slamming both of his paws into the ground. For a moment, Calvin thought that his opponent was doing this out of pure anger. However, he began to realize that the pools of lava that were by his paws were beginning to dissipate and recede, flowing through the cracks as the molten liquid was being absorbed by his paws.

“Oh no… That can’t be good-” he tried to move, but mere seconds after the Skyshifter tried to dash in a different direction, all three heads let out an ear piercing howl before leaping and grabbing hold of him with a paw. “How the-!?!”

“You are nothing compared to us, outsider!!”

“Let us teach you a lesson now.”

“A lesson… in failure!!”

Calvin was helpless as he was thrown across the room like a ragdoll, hitting the ground first before being smacked into the wall with a swipe of the hounds tail. To top it all off, when Calvin fell back to the ground, all three heads let out a combined fire blast that exploded the moment that he tried to get up, the blast forcing him out of his transformation as the flames burned his clothes.

The Skyshifter felt pain shoot all over his body, just from those attacks alone. He didn’t think it was possible to win against an opponent of this caliber. He might’ve had more experience with combat if he turned into his Imaginator or Spitfire, but his attacks would do nothing if Tribus could just as easily absorb them, not to mention that none of his other forms had upgrades that could help him win.

“Absolutely pathetic!! You call that a fight?! You’re nothing against me!!”

“Whoever taught you to fight must be just as worthless as you are!!!”

“Dusty, I order you to take away that trinket on his neck. Whatever power that is, a worm like him does not deserve it!”

When he heard that, something in Calvin snapped. He had come this far already, and he was not going to let that end here. Matter of fact, there was no way he was going to let anyone take this gift of his away from him.

Even with feeling pain in every ounce of him, he forced himself up onto his feet. The move of defiance stunned the hound and the pup. “What is this? You’re broken, and yet, you still fight?”

“This fool has a death wish!”

“Let’s-”

“Shut up,” the bold statement from Calvin silenced all three heads as he glared at them, clenching his right fist as he firmly stood on two feet, “I’ve had enough with you and the talking heads. You may hurt me as many times as you like, and you may hurt my friends… But I will not stand by and let you insult my sensei like that!!”

Immediately, a rigid chill could be felt in the air as the crystal on his neck began to glow like a sapphire, a cold aura forming around him as he moved forward. The act of defiance startled Tribus. “B-but, how?! You were broken and weak! Where did you-?!”

“Stay Frosty!”

Tribus, in a desperate attempt, tried to attack Calvin before the transformation could finish, but instead found his right claw blocked by a metal flipper blade as he looked down to see Calvin’s transformation. He was now in the form of the Water Skylander and Brawler Sensei named King Pen, who at first, looked at the hound with a daring glare… before sniffing the air and coughing for a moment.

“Woah… did anyone tell you that you have a very severe case of bad breath?”

“Grr… How dare you-!!” Tribus’ first head snapped back, attempting to overpower him, but only getting pushed back and smacked in the chin by an uppercut, throwing the hound to the other side of the room.

“Well, looks like it’s time to teach this dog a few tricks,” the Skyshifter replied, just as he saw the hound get back to his feet and leap at him. Jumping at the right time, Calvin soon found himself above where the hounds tail swung and hit it with an aerial strike. “Sit boy!!”

The hound yelped as he felt his body being forced down. “Grr… You dare give me orders!?” As Tribus attempted to get up, he stretched out his paw towards the lava in the room and attempted to absorb the heat, but before he could even get anything, a breath of frost blocked off his attempt to absorb it.

“Who told you that you could have a treat? Only good dogs get treats!!”

“I AM NOT A PET!!!” Tribus’ third head lashed out this time and attempted to swipe at him with his claws. This time, Calvin deflected the attack with his new flipper blades, a move that chipped the hound’s claws and left him open for another attack. “Argh! Why aren’t you taking this seriously?!”

“Oh, I am… I just like to have a little fun sometimes,” the Skyshifter grinned.

“THAT’S IT!!” the hound snapped, before looking to see the fire dog that was still in the room. “Dusty, I order you to come to me, NOW!!”

Dusty, upon immediately hearing that, began to run towards the hound. But before she could get really far, she was blocked off by a wall of ice as she looked to see that Calvin stopped her. “Don’t listen-!”

“You STAY out of this!! Dusty, come here now! That’s-” Before Tribus could finish his sentence, Calvin landed another hit, stopping him from finishing what he was saying as he sent the hound crashing into a wall.

“You are not going to be giving orders anymore!!” Calvin shot back, readying himself for another attempt from the lava hound. As the battle between both of them continued to draw out and Calvin used his ice breath to freeze any source of heat for him to drain, Tribus began to act more wildly. Instead of ordering for Dusty to come to him, he attempted to bring himself to her instead, leaping directly at her, only for the Skyshifter to intercept and deny him the chance at every turn.

However, this could only go on for so long before Tribus had enough as all three of his heads began to prepare a fire blast again, “Grr… If you aren’t going to be useful to me, then GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!!”

In a split second, that had Calvin realize that Tribus wasn’t targeting him; he was targeting Dusty. However, he could not prepare an ice wall in time as his transformation faded. So, the only thing that he was able to do was run to the fire dog and push her out of the way of the incoming blast as it closed in on him. “Aw, heck-”

For a brief second, Calvin closed his eyes. Thinking that he was going to get hit by the oncoming blast. Yet, after a few seconds, he did not feel anything. No burning sensations, no searing pain, nothing. It was only when he opened his eyes that he realized that someone else had intercepted the attack. Someone who came back for him. “Hot Dog! W-what are you doing here?!”

“W-what does it look like I’m doing?” Hot Dog asked, slowly getting up as he looked back at Calvin and Dusty, “I don’t leave friends behind. In fact, I brought help.”

“Hot Dog, slow down!!” Both of them heard Rubble Rouser yell in the distance as he caught up with them, “Stop taking off like that when I’m trying to ask you what’s going on.”

“And I told you that there’s no time!” Hot Dog told him, before motioning his head to where Tribus was standing. Growling as he glared at them.

“You Fool!! Do you think increasing your numbers can stop us?!” the first head snapped.

“We will defeat every last one of you!!” the second one taunted.

“There’s nowhere left for you to run!!” the third one added on to what the first and second heads were saying.

That was enough of a reason for Rubble to look back at the lava hound and grit his teeth. The golem’s rocky skin began to change, turning obsidian as he turned to his fellow Skylander. “Hot Dog, get them out of here. I’ll take it from here.”

“Alright, let’s go!!” Hot Dog said, racing over to the tunnel’s entryway with the Skyshifter not far behind. However, at one point, Calvin stopped, much to the fire dog’s surprise as he had no idea what he was doing. “Calvin, don’t just stand there, come on!”

Yet, in that moment, Calvin was not focused on Hot Dog. Instead, he was focused more on the one that was not moving at all. “Dusty!!” Immediately upon hearing her name, the fire dog’s ears shot up as she looked towards him. Thinking a moment, he thought of the first thing to say as he looked to her. “Dusty, follow me so we can get out of here!!”

Even with that though, the fire dog still showed some hesitation. Even with Tribus busy fighting Rubble, Calvin personally thought that it did not feel right that he would have to use something that the lava hound would use to make her obey his every command. But… it was the only real way that they could get her out of here. “Dusty, follow me so we can get out of here. That’s an order!”

Hesitantly, she followed what Calvin told her, running over as the three of them returned back to the tunnel Hot Dog was at earlier and began to go through it, all while constantly looking back and forth between those she’s following and the master she is leaving behind. As they made their way to the other side of the tunnel, the Skyshifter could see the spikes and the rope that was on the wall, and they immediately began to follow it all the way back towards the front entrance.

By the time the three of them got out, they found the rest of the fire dogs with Applejack, Rainbow and the Cutie Mark Crusaders not far from the entryway to the cave. “Calvin? Oh, thank goodness you’re alright!” Applejack let out a sigh of relief, before looking behind him to see that someone from their group wasn’t there, “Where’s Rubble?”

“He’s fighting Tribus,” Calvin coughed, almost falling over because of how exhausted he was as Applejack had to catch him. Once the Earth Pony leaned him against the side of the mountain, he let out a deep breath. “He’s fighting Tribus right now, gave us the chance to get out of there… Where’s Sheer? Did she and her siblings make it out?”

“Uh… Sugarcube? They’re right over there,” Applejack pointed her hoof to where the other five were at with Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle as Hot Dog went over to go join them. “Ya feeling alright?”

“Y-yeah, just tired… and sore,” he groaned, before looking down and realizing how much of a mess his shirt was, “Rarity’s going to kill me when she sees this.”

“Hey! At least you made it out of there. That’s all that matters,” Rainbow added, “Though, gotta ask, how did you get so beat up anyways?”

All Calvin really did was just let out a painful groan as he looked to the pegasus. “Is that really the first thing you choose to ask?”

“What? Can’t I be worried for you?” Rainbow retorted, crossing her front hooves, “I mean, any other fight you’ve been in, like with that pirate guy, you look like nothing happened. What’s so different?”

“Any other time I’ve fought, I’ve only suffered damage while in my forms,” the Skyshifter coughed, “T-this guy’s the first opponent I’ve had where he’s landed a hit on me in my regular form. Heck, if it wasn’t for King Pen’s training and teaching me how to avoid incoming attacks, I would’ve suffered a whole lot worse.”

“Oh, hay,” Rainbow said, eyes widening when she realized the severity of what he meant, “W-we don’t need to get you a doctor or anything now, do we?”

“N-no, I-I just think I need some rest right now,” he shook his head, “I-if I do feel anything though, I-I’ll let you know.”

Yet, even though he wanted to rest… that did not quite happen the way he wanted it to go. “Wait… waitwaitwaitwait!!! Calvy… is… HURT?!” he heard Skippy gasp in shock, “I WILL NOT LET THIS STAND!! OUT OF MY WAY!!! HEALING HUG, COMING THROUGH!!!”

“H-healing wha-?” Before he knew it, he found himself on the receiving end of an incoming hug from Skippy that felt like a cannonball struck him in the chest, feeling pain surge through his chest on impact. At first, he wasn’t sure if Skippy actually was helping because of the pain that he was feeling from her colliding with him. Yet, it was as he was going to say something that he felt a different sensation run its course, one that felt soothing and eased the pain he suffered from battle.

For a moment, Calvin was confused by what was happening. All Skippy did was just throw herself at him. There was no way that she could actually heal these injuries with just a hug. Though, it was as he was thinking this that he actually looked down towards Skippy, seeing that she was glowing a warm energy that was a light shade of pink as he felt his pain slowly disappear. It left him at a loss for words, even though he really wanted to say something to her.

By the time that Skippy pulled away and that he finally was able to feel a bit of strength return to him, he was able to finally come up with something to say. “T-thank you.”

“Any time,” she smiled back, “Any chance to get a bit closer to such a cutie.” Calvin honestly did not know what to think of that as the fire dog skipped back to her siblings with Hot Dog following her. He took a moment to look around a bit, seeing that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were with Sheer, Skippy and the other fire dogs that made it out while Applejack and Rainbow were nearby.

Though, it was the farm pony that soon had a question for him. “So, Calvin, who’s the little fella right there?” she asked, pointing a hoof towards where Dusty was standing.

“Well, that’s Dusty…” he said, noticing the fire dog’s ears twitch when he said her name for a moment before looking back at both Applejack and Rainbow, “Did Sheer happen to tell you about her siblings at all?”

“Kind of,” Rainbow shrugged her shoulders, “I mean, we were a bit focused on trying to get out, and she only told us their names. Though, she did say that one of them was not with them. Why do you ask?”

Before Calvin could say anything else, he noticed that one of the fire dogs that was with Apple Bloom and the others soon approached them, her gaze redirected to the fire dog that was by Calvin as she spoke. “D-dusty? Y-you… left? H-how?”

“I… had to do something that I did not like,” Calvin told her, “I had to give her an order to come with us. I really don’t like it when I would have to do something that a bad guy like Tribus would do, but it was the only way that I can get her out and get her to safety.”

Sheer was at a loss for words, but sometimes, words were one way to express what someone was feeling. In the case of Sheer, she felt tears go down her face before jumping up and hugging Calvin, the second time that a fire dog had done so in the last few minutes. “T-thank you… T-thank you so much!!”

All the Skyshifter could really do was just smile and return the hug back, thankful that Sheer and her siblings no longer had to live in fear of that bully Tribus. Part of his mind wondered where they could possibly go now that they were not going to live in the mountain anymore, but it was something that he didn’t have to stress over. After all, Master Eon could help them find a place to stay.

Though, while he was thinking of these things and hugging Sheer, he felt something begin to tickle his nose. Sniffing the air, he realized something. “Something’s burning-”

“Hot! HOT! HOT!!!” Everyone now turned towards Rainbow Dash, who was moving away from where the fire dogs were with her tail caught on fire. Racing over to the clouds that were in the distance, she jumped on a few of them to get them to start pouring rain before quickly flying underneath, letting the raindrops soak her and put out the blaze that had burned the tip of her tail. Even with the spell Celestia put on them, it did not protect her from the inevitability of having it be accidentally lit on fire, especially if it’s nearby six lava puppies.

“That flying pony is weird,” Hot Block murmured as they watched Rainbow trying to shake the water out of her fur and dry off.

“That’s only a part of it,” Hot Dog commented as he pointed a paw over to where Applejack was standing, all while Sheer was seen wiping the tears out of her eyes again and slowly getting off of Calvin. “Just wait until you see the rest of them.”

“You mean there’s more?”

“Oh, trust me… with the Skylands as big as they are, there’s always something to see,” Hot Dog chuckled, just as Rainbow was finally coming back to the group. Her mane was still a bit wet and part of her tail looked to be burnt, but other than that, she still seemed somewhat okay.

“Ugh… that was not something I wanted to happen,” the pegasus groaned.

“Ah don’t know, Rainbow. That’s kinda a good look for you,” Applejack chuckled, something that even got Calvin to chuckle as both of them looked back at Rainbow Dash.

“Oh, ha, ha. Laugh it off,” she groaned, rolling her eyes at both of them before deciding to say something else, “Hey, uh… I don’t want to sound like ‘that guy’, but shouldn’t we go check that other guy that was with us? He might need some help-”

“Who needs help now?”

The question, followed by the sight of Rubble walking out of the cave entrance with barely a scratch on him had Calvin let out a sigh of relief. When Rainbow was asking her question, Calvin immediately thought that they needed to go help him out, so seeing him come out of the cave helped put his mind at ease.

“How did it go?”

“Well, he’s alive… but he won’t be moving around anytime soon. Gonna have to call a trap master to make sure to pick him up so he won’t bother you guys again,” Rubble replied, before looking back at Calvin, “How are you holding up?”

“Fine… Skippy gave me a helping paw, and I feel a bit better.”

“Helping paw?” the golem asked him.

“Yeah, she just hugged me, and… well, after doing that, the pain I felt earlier just disappeared. I mean, I’m still tired, but I’m not sore anymore.”

“Huh… Well, I would consider yourself lucky then. Did not think she could do anything like that,” Rubble replied back, smiling a bit, “You should go and get some rest. You definitely deserve it.”

“Thanks for the concern, but…” he then looked to Dusty for a second, before looking back at Rubble, “What happened against Tribus? How did you beat him by yourself?”

“That was actually kind of simple,” Rubble told him, “While fighting Tribus, I was using my hammer to break any piece of rock that I could find. Whenever my hammer hits it, the impact will send pieces of stone flying everywhere, including at him. It also helped that I outnumbered him.”

“Hold on,” Rainbow now spoke up, “You… outnumbered him? But there’s only one of you.”

Rubble only just grinned as he looked at the pegasus, before slamming his hammer on the ground. Doing so caught everyone’s attention, but it was after he slammed his hammer that several stones began to rise up, turning into a series of rocky miners, each one with their own hard hat as the golem looked back at her. “You were saying?”

Even Calvin himself was a bit surprised at first, before facepalming himself a few seconds later, “Oh. Right. Forgot you had that power.”

“Point is, Tribus is not going to be around to bother Sheer and the other pups anytime soon,” Rubble finished his statement, before slamming his hammer again as a few more miners soon surfaced from the ground. As he turned to face all of them, the golem tilted his head towards the entrance as the miners started to head inside with him. Not a few moments later did Rubble and his miner battalion re-emerge from the volcano, carrying the unconscious lava hound out of the cave, stone cuffs holding front and back paws together while a rocky muzzle covered all three of Tribus’ heads.

“Alright, so how are we gonna get him down?” Applejack asked… before looking back at Rainbow Dash, who didn’t take that kindly.

“Oh, no… I’ve already had enough trouble carrying one of them. I’m definitely not going to try and do it with this guy.”

It was as Rainbow was talking though that Calvin noticed something move towards them. At first, he thought it was one of the girls or Hot Dog, but then, he began to realize that it was much smaller in size and different in color. It was Smoky, the little fire dog that he rescued from Tribus’ clutches inside the cave. He wasn’t sure what the little pup was doing, but after a moment, Smoky took in some air and let out black smoke and ash from around his body, which began to form rather quickly.

At first, the smoke didn’t look like it was doing anything. But soon, Rubble’s miners began to back away, even though the golem didn’t tell them to. The smoke began to float towards and enshroud the giant dog, soon positioning itself in the air till all but his head and lower legs were covered in smoke. Inside the smoke, rocks began to take form, growing from within the smoke as the smoke shrunk closer to his body. Soon, the rocks turned and pressed inwards, stopping briefly, and afterwards, the cloud with its rocks gently lifted into the air, while Smoky sweated in concentration. As he focused, the smoke cloud slowly began to float towards the exit of the cave while the others watched in awe.

It was as the pup had reached the exit that Rubble looked to Rainbow. “You think you can move that?”

“Is that a challenge?” she smirked, before flying over and beginning to push the cloud herself. While she was doing that, Rubble took it a step further and picked Smoky up, having the little fire dog sit in his arms before the golem turned to the others.

“We’ll be right back. Sit tight,” he assured them as Rainbow pushed Tribus out through the cave entrance, with Rubble and Smoky following after her, which had Calvin let out a sigh of relief. Knowing that Tribus was contained and that the trap masters will pick him up put his mind at ease.

Though, there was one thing that Calvin did not seem to notice as Tribus was being brought out of the cave, that being how Dusty was reacting to all of this. She had witnessed the one who tormented her all these years being carried away, right in front of her. But Tribus has also been her source of comfort as well. Many conflicted thoughts were bouncing off the walls of her mind as she looked around the room, her eyes wandering over to where the Skyshifter was sitting against the wall.

As she looked at him, the fire dog realized something. Tribus was not the only one who gave her orders. He did so, too… and this savior actually protected her from pain. In her mind, there was only one thing that she could do now.

Beg.

To Calvin, he did not expect this coming. One moment, he was just resting on the ground; the next, he felt Dusty get up and jump on top of him, looking back at him with a pair of desperate eyes as the fire dog said the first thing that came to her mind. “Please be my new master!!”

Calvin blinked at that, caught off guard by the sudden outcry as he just stared at her. “W-wha-?”

“Please!! I need a new master!! I can’t live without orders, and you protected me from harm!!” Dusty, who had mostly been silent this whole time, pleaded with him desperately, which caught the attention of her siblings as well as Applejack and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, “I beg of you, please be my new master!! It can only be you! Please!!”

When Calvin looked at her, all he saw on her face was her puppy dog eyes. But those eyes represented more. They represented sincerity, but they also portrayed her fear, her fear of if he told her no. It was something that, after seeing how desperately she wanted to be with him, was enough for him to make a decision. He did not like having to do what Tribus did… but he could not just leave her.

“Alright...” he told her, his response lighting up the look on the fire dog’s face, “...I’ll be your new master, Dusty.”

Dusty was at a loss for words, so the only real thing that she could do was throw herself onto Calvin. Tears of joy streamed down her face as he placed a hand on her head and held her close, feeling happy that she no longer had to worry about being without a master as she closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Though, that was also when one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders turned their attention from the adorable scene and decided to ask a question, this time to one particular fire dog. “So… Digger right?” Sweetie Belle then said, catching the fire dog’s attention, “Sheer told us earlier that you could help us with something.”

“Yeah. We’re trying to find the same kind of crystal that Calvin has on his pendant right there,” Scootaloo told him, pointing out the gem to him, “And your sister said that you might have come across it before.”

The fire dog, at first, seemed curious before carefully going over to Calvin and taking a quick sniff of the area by his neck before pausing a moment. He was silent for a bit, stuck in thought as he was trying to come up with the right words to say to the girls. “Yeah, I remember smelling this… b-before,” he spoke, before whining a bit as he looked at the trio, “B-but… it’s not a p-place you’d want to go to.”

End Scroll 23

Author's Note

Geez... there are times where I just can't seem to stop coming up with ideas for things.

In this case, picking up from where we left off with the last chapter, we now focus on the next one, where Calvin and his companions travel to go inside the cave, But upon arriving, they begin to realize that not everything is what it seems... and that they aren't the only ones in there.

Next chapter will be from the Cutie Mark Crusaders Point of View. Hope you guys like the new chapter and I'll see you around next time.

New Skylanders

Spy Rise-

Bone Bash Roller Brawl-

Fun fact... There are a few things that were a bit of an influence in coming up with Tribus. For one thing, he's the depiction of if a fire dog like Hot Dog were the size of a Cerberus, but there's also the fact that his name is Latin like with characters from MLP like Sombra, Celestia and Discord. In Tribus' case, his name literally means 3, which is based on the amount of heads he has. Also, all three heads having their own voice is based on the boss named Hewdraw in Kid Icarus Uprising

As for the other fire dogs, my editor and I came up with the idea that each particular dog would have their own set of abilities that differentiate from each other. Three of them have been demonstrated here. The first being that Tribus has the ability to absorb sources of heat and use it to increase his strength and speed, Skippy has the ability to heal anyone she comes into contact with and Smoky's abilities involve smoke manipulation. The abilities of the other pups will be revealed later on as the story progresses.

That's all for now. Hope you like what I have here and look forward to what else is in store.
-Frost

Scroll 24- Molten Chaos

Author's Note

Another long chapter, but I do hope its worth it. With Tribus beaten, the Cutie Mark Crusaders decide to venture into the Munitions Forge Volcano to see if they can find the crystals that they're looking for. Of course, finding them is one thing. What comes afterwards? Well, that's another story.

Hope you like what I have here, even though it's rather hefty in size. Even used the chapter to touch up on the different abilities that the Sheer and her siblings have. So let me know what you guys think. I'm always open to hear feedback from you guys.
-Frost

Scroll 24- Molten Chaos

Beyond the Skies- Molten Chaos

Castle of Friendship, Ponyville

Inside the crystalline walls of the Castle of Friendship, the unicorn named Starlight Glimmer was reading through some of the different spell books that were inside the castle library. Today had already been weird for her for several reasons. First, most of her friends aside from Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy weren’t in Ponyville. Second, she woke up this morning to find none other than Princess Celestia in the middle of the castle, who told her that Twilight, Rarity and Spike were in the Dragon Lands of all places. Third, Celestia had a message that she wanted for Starlight to tell Twilight upon her coming back, a message that was about Calvin and some kind of trip that he was doing with the Cutie Mark Crusaders today along with Rainbow and Applejack.

It was a lot for her to wrap her head around, especially considering that most of it occurred early in the morning. So when she heard an all too familiar voice begin to echo around the castle, the unicorn fell off of the chair she was sitting on before putting the book away and leaving the library.

“So, despite all of this happening so fast, I think that trip was rather successful,” she heard Twilight’s voice first, before seeing her teacher with Rarity. Spike was sitting on her back, before they reached the table as he hopped up onto the closest seat. “Ember’s going to be busy with the responsibilities of being a dragon lord though.”

“I would think,” Rarity soon spoke up, “At least we were able to prevent that brute Garble from winning the Gauntlet. Who knows what he would have done if he actually won.”

“Oh dear Celestia, please don’t tell me that they almost caused an international incident,” Starlight thought to herself. She did not have a lot to go on, but with what they were saying now, it really didn’t make her think so positively of what might have happened.

It was as Starlight was trotting towards the center of the castle that Spike soon happened to notice her. “Oh. Hey, Starlight.”

“H-hi,” she stuttered. Personally, she didn’t expect for somepony to notice her, considering how engrossed they were in their conversation. “Welcome back.”

Around now was when Rarity and Twilight also noticed Starlight’s presence as both of them looked back at the unicorn now, before realizing a mistake on their part. “Oh my goodness! Starlight, I’m so sorry! This just came up so fast, and-!”

“Woah, Twilight! Calm down for just a second,” Starlight quickly responded, trying to get the alicorn to stop for a moment so she could speak, “Princess Celestia already filled me in on everything shortly after I got up this morning. I’m already up to speed on why you had to leave, so there’s no need to apologize to me for anything.” Much to the unicorn’s surprise, her words were a huge relief to the alicorn as Twilight soon let out a deep breath.

“Oh, good. I was really worried about how you would see me as a teacher, since I ended up having to go to someplace without telling you at all,” the princess replied back. But before she could continue any further, that was when her student spoke up again.

“Speaking of going to someplace, before she left to go back to Canterlot, Princess Celestia wanted me to tell you and Rarity something,” Starlight took a moment to look at both the fashionista and the princess of friendship before continuing, “But let me ask, did you two happen to have something else planned today before your unexpected trip?”

“Why, yes, actually,” Rarity now took a turn to speak as Spike decided to get up and leave to go to his room, “We were supposed to help Sweetie Belle and her friends find some special crystals in the Skylands today. We did leave a note behind saying that we had to postpone our trip,” around now, Rarity was beginning to notice the look on Starlight’s face change. It didn’t look too relaxed, and instead, looked like she had some unfortunate news to share with her. “Starlight? Is everything okay?”

“Y-yeah, well...” Starlight said, taking a moment in order to sit down and look back at both of them. “How can I put this to you delicately? Hmm… you know what? Forget it. They still went over there. Celestia cast some kind of spell that they needed, and they went on over… without you. Oh, and Luna went with them, too.”

That answer triggered the exact same response from both of the mares that Starlight was talking to. “THEY WHAT!?!”

“Starlight, why didn’t you do anything to stop them!?”

“I was asleep,” the unicorn deadpanned at her teacher, “I woke up five minutes or so after they departed, according to what she told me.”

That part made sense, but there was another thing that lingered in their minds that the two of them were having trouble processing. “Okay, but why would Luna go with them? I know that this matter was important for Sweetie Belle and her friends, but I really don’t think it’s important to the point that a princess needs to get involved,” Rarity asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe she wanted to say hello to the locals or something?”

“How long have those two been at it?”

“I don’t know, but whoever they are, they got Hoot Loop spooked. Did you notice how frantically he was trying to get away?”

“THOU SHALL PAY FOR THE PART THY PLAYED IN TERRORIZING OUR SUBJECTS!!”

“L-look!! All of this was an accident!! What more do you want from me?!!”

“STOP RUNNING AND FACE THEE, COWARD!!”

“You think we should help him?”

“Ehh, it probably has something to do with that ‘traveling circus’ incident that was in that list Buzz was handing out. Let’s stay out of it… although…”

“What are you thinking now?”

“If you want, we can make a bet to see how long he’ll last before getting caught?”

“And what exactly are we betting?”

“Hmm… how about the loser pays for the next upgrade that the winner gets from Persephone? What do you say, Cynder?”

“…You got yourself a bet, Spyro.”

“The point is, they are over there already. Sorry if I sound a bit rude, but I really just don’t know what all the fuss is about.”

That comment from Starlight did not do anything to help the current situation. If anything, it accidentally made things worse, prompting Twilight to go into full on lecture mode as she let out a breath, “Starlight, are you kidding me!? This is obviously a problem! Calvin is someone from another reality that was displaced into our timeline, while whomever did so somehow made our timeline more dangerous than it should! Yet, he’s not the only one! Many others like him were displaced to other versions of Equestria with each one being different from one another. Now normally, he and these other 'Displaced' are somehow able to call on one another to help against these dangers... but somehow, thanks to Discord, the Cutie Mark Crusaders can now be called instead of him!! Not to mention that right now, they have no way of accessing the new powers that come with it, making them sitting ducks for any horrors they may encounter if they don't do something to help them defend themselves! And now to do that, they're heading into an ACTIVE VOLCANO in the SKY with who knows how many other threats there waiting for them!! Who knows what exactly might be waiting for them up there!?!”

All Starlight could do was stare at Twilight as her brain tried to process the massive information dump that the princess just dropped on her. Once she was finished though, that led to her only saying one thing. “Well… when you put it that way, it DOES sound bad.”

“Bad? BAD!? Starlight, this is even worse than that!! If anything goes wrong, then this could be catastrophic!!” the princess snapped, “The Skylands don't work on the same logic that we're used to in Equestria. There's ghosts, undead and we even met a sapient dog made entirely of lava during one of our trips!! They're dealing with a complete unknown up there!”

However, both Starlight and Rarity were not prepared in any capacity for what she did next. “I can’t stay here in good conscience knowing that they’re in this kind of danger!!!!”

“Twilight, wait-!”

Unfortunately, before either of the two unicorns could do anything, Twilight had already teleported out of the room, followed by a massive slam of the door that led directly into the Mysterious Ancient Place, leaving Starlight and Rarity by themselves in the middle of the castle as both of them looked back at one another.

“Well, that was… unexpected,” the fashionista spoke up now, “Anyways, good to see you again, Starlight. I’m going to head back to my boutique right now. Hopefully, there isn’t too much cleanup I have to do there, since I put all my work away early.”

“Um… aren’t you worried about your sister at all?” Starlight asked, which had Rarity stop for a moment before looking back at the unicorn.

“Well, I am a little worried, but I know that Master Eon said something about getting a specialist to help them out,” the fashionista replied back.

“Who now?”

That had Rarity let out a bit of a sigh, before coming up with an idea off the top of her head. “How about you come to the boutique and I can fill you in over some tea? I could really use some right around now.”

Munitions Forge Volcano

“Yeah, I remember smelling this… b-before, b-but… it’s not a place that you want to go to.”

When the Cutie Mark Crusaders heard the fire dog named Digger tell them that, all three of them had mixed reactions to what the pup said. Scootaloo was thinking that if there was something that made the fire dog rather nervous, then maybe there was some kind of danger there that he was afraid of. Sweetie herself thought that there might have been some kind of monster that guarded the elementanium, one that was scary enough to make Digger act like this. Apple Bloom didn’t quite seem to get any of that at all as she looked back at the fire dog, knowing that there had to be some reason though.

“Why?” she asked, a question that surprised her friends and Digger as Apple Bloom looked back at him, “Why would we not want to go there?”

“T-the area is dangerous! There are monsters down there, and the lava river’s current is too strong to swim across,” Digger told them in response, “T-the rocks and ceiling are a-also unstable, too.”

“Meaning that it could collapse at any given time,” Hot Block now added on to the conversation as he walked over to them. Though, Hot Block also had a question for them now that he brought this up, “So, given all of that, why would the three of you want to take the risk in order to get some shiny stones?”

“They’re not just shiny stones,” Sweetie Belle responded this time, “Those crystals can help us support Calvin. Getting those crystals can help us support him so that he doesn’t end up bruised and battered having to fight someone by himself again. He’s important to us, like how your siblings are important to you.”

“But what would you be able to do with them?” Hot Block countered, “How exactly would you be able to provide support-?”

“Because they’re special,” Hot Dog soon interjected as he walked over to where the girls were, “They can do the same things that Calvin can do! In order for them to do that though, they need those crystals to channel their power through, something that I can smell out.”

That had Hot Block and Digger look back to each other for a moment as they took a bit to understand what Hot Dog was telling them, before looking back to him. “So, what you’re saying is that with the stones you’re looking for, it will be easier for you to defend yourself from threats?”

“Yeah, and help others, too!” Scootaloo now added on.

That had Hot Block take a moment to compose his thoughts, looking to Digger first before looking back at them. “I guess that’s all I need to hear.”

“W-what? H-hot Block, I told you that it’s dangerous down there-”

“I know, but think about everything that Calvin had done and everything that he put himself through for us,” as he said that, Hot Block tilted his head in the direction of the Skyshifter, his torn clothes showing where he once had injuries before Skippy healed them up for him, “He helped us and turned the possibility of no longer living with Tribus into a reality. It would be rude to not help them with something in return after what he did for us, Digger.”

Digger wasn’t exactly too thrilled with what his brother just said. “Aw, man-.”

“However, it doesn’t mean that you’re doing this alone,” Hot Block cut him off, before looking to Hot Dog and the girls, “If we’re going to do this, then everyone is going to help.”

“Do you have a plan in mind, Hot Block?” Apple Bloom then asked him.

“Well, given the fact that Digger knows these tunnels like the back of his paw and how your friend here said that he could pick up the scent of what we’re looking for, I’m letting them take the lead. I need to see how bad it is like over there first before we figure out what to do next,” the fire dog replied back to her, “Now, before we-”

“Wait!!!” all six of them heard as they looked towards the main entrance to see the little lava pup named Smoky racing back over towards them rather quickly. Instinctively, Hot Block swiped his left paw across the ground as a wall of molten rock rose from the ground. However, the little fire dog was not able to stop himself in time, resulting in him colliding head first with the rocky barrier. The impact released an eruption of dust from Smoky throughout the cave as everyone began coughing until the smoke began to settle.

Once the smoke began to settle down though, everyone found themselves staring at Smoky as he looked back at them with a pair of puppy dog eyes. “S-sorry.”

“Man, Rarity is going to freak out when she sees our clothes,” Sweetie Belle thought to herself as she looked back at the little pup.

“Smoky, what are you doing here?” Hot Block then asked, surprised to see the little fire dog in front of him.

“I want to help you out, Blocky!!” Smoky told him, eagerly wagging his tail as he looked at his brother.

However, when his sister Sheer heard this, all that she expressed was concern. “A-are you sure, Smoky? Y-you were always scared in the face of danger, and Digger said there were monsters down there-”

“Nothing that we can’t handle,” Hot Dog interjected, before looking back to Smoky, “In my experience, the more people that you have to help you out, the better the outcome.”

“Yay!!” Smoky cheerfully replied, jumping up and down as he looked back to Hot Dog, who just tapped the eager pup with a paw.

“Though, I suggest you save that energy you have for later,” the Fire Skylander suggested, before lowering himself to the ground for a moment. “Want to hop on?”

The only response he got was Smoky eagerly jumping onto Hot Dog’s back and rubbing his head against the back of Hot Dog’s neck as the Fire Skylander got back up on all four paws. “Alright, I think we’re ready. What about you guys?”

“Unless anyone else has any other objections, then I think we’re all ready to go,” Hot Block told him, before looking to Digger, “You and Digger lead. We’ll follow right behind you.” The Fire Skylander nodded, shortly before turning to the fire dog as Digger let out an anxious breath. The two of them soon began to make their way back inside the mountain, with Hot Block and the Cutie Mark Crusaders following not that far behind. Leaving Calvin and Applejack with Dusty, Sheer and Skippy.

“So… what do you think Twilight and Rarity are doing right around now, Applejack?” the Skyshifter asked the farmpony, just out of curiosity.

“Honestly, after whatever it is that they’re doing in the Dragon Lands back home, ah think the first thing that they’ll probably do is get some much deserved rest.”

“Calvin!! Calvin, where are you!?! Dear Celestia, I hope I’m not too late-”

CRASH!!

“Agh!! W-what the-!? Who are you-?”

“HUZZAH!! WE FINALLY HAVE YOU NOW, YOU FEATHERED FIEND!!”

“AH! PUT ME DOWN!! PLEASE, PUT ME DOWN!!”

“Well, looks like you owe me an upgrade Spyro.”

“Oh, come on! That was interference, and you know it!”

“Ehh, I guess you’re right,” Calvin shrugged.

“Um… Sorry, but who is this Twilight and Rarity you’re talking about?” Sheer then asked them.

“They’re friends of ours, Sugarcube,” Applejack took the initiative to explain to her, “In fact, Rarity was supposed to come with us here today, but she had something come up at the last minute.”

“Not to mention that she’s probably going to chew me out for… well, this,” the Skyshifter added, pulling at his shirt to show the tears that were on there from Tribus’ claws.

“Ah, come on, Calvin. Ya don’t know that.”

All that did was just leave to the boy giving Applejack a deadpan stare as he looked back at her. “We’re still talking about the same pony who said, in her own words, that my clothes ‘look SO ragged for a handsome young colt’, right?”

That comment made the earth pony blink, mainly for Calvin’s attempted impersonation of the unicorn that they were talking about. “Yeah, we still are-”

“As well as the same pony that Sweetie Belle said that she would have a massive freak out if she finds out that something was mismanaged in her closet?”

“Sugarcube, ah don’t mean to sound rude, but may I ask why are ya bringing this up?”

That had the Skyshifter let out a sigh as he looked back at Applejack, “Because some of those things that Rarity does remind me a lot of someone back home who went to the same school I went to,” the earth pony was caught off guard by that, but before she could say anything, Calvin began to speak again, “Her name was Raquel, and she… had a habit of taking something that might have been seen as a small problem and treated it like the world was ending. One time, she said that her life was ruined just because she got a ketchup stain on her shirt.”

“That… just seems excessive,” Applejack replied back to him.

“You tell me,” he told her, before taking in a deep breath and letting it out, “Though, unlike her, Rarity’s actually a lot nicer. Raquel is the kind of person who wants everything to be perfect, and if something doesn’t go right, she blames other people for it even though they had nothing to do with it.”

“Ah see,” the earth pony replied back, before thinking of a question to ask him, “Just out of curiosity, what were some of your classmates like?”

“Well, there were a lot of us and there were a couple of people that I did happen to be friends with,” he explained to her, “We liked to play games, had some similar toys that we liked to play with and such. Though, each friend was different in their own way. One guy that I can think of off the top of my head is someone named Trevor, who was into a bunch of different things, but he really liked a lot of things that involve fantasy, knights and such. Even played some games on that stuff.”

“Oh. So, like Big Mac?”

Hearing that had Calvin stop for a moment. He was going to respond to her question, but instead, all her question did was put another question that he wanted to ask her inside his head. “Wait… your brother… is into fantasy?”

“Ah know, right? Seems kind of strange, but it turns out that every time the girls and ah head out to do something important, they play some game called Ogres & Oubliettes. They try to keep it a secret, but Apple Bloom heard Mac and Spike talking about it the last time he came over to check on them a couple of weeks ago.”

That caught Calvin by surprise. Based on his only interactions with him, he did not think that he was into anything like that at all. “Is it weird to think that if some of the people that I know came here, Trevor and your brother would oddly get along with one another?”

“If that were to happen, then it might be possible,” Applejack told him, shrugging her shoulders as she noticed that Calvin was rubbing his eyes a bit, “You okay, sugarcube? You still seem kind of tired.”

“I-I’m not tired,” he shook his head, rubbing his eyes a bit more, “I-I think some of the dust from the volcano got in my eye. Just give me a second.”

At first, it didn’t seem like Calvin was getting anywhere. But after rubbing it some more, wiping what was on his hands on the side of his shorts and blinking his eyes a couple of times, he felt like he was back to normal as he looked back at Applejack. “There we go. Man, it’s irritating when you got something like that stuck in there,” he groaned, before asking a new question to Applejack, “So… you think Apple Bloom and her friends are going to be okay in there?”

“Trust me, Sugarcube… Ah have seen it first hoof. They can do anything that they put their minds to,” the earth pony smirked, “There’s nothing that they can’t handle.”

“How are we going to handle this!?!”

When the Cutie Mark Crusaders and the fire dogs all arrived at the place that Digger was talking about, they immediately began to realize that everything that Digger described was much worse than they originally thought. When they were told that there were monsters down there, they just thought it would be a decent amount that they could go through in no time. Instead, in the girls’ minds, it looked like the equivalent of a volcanic parasprite infestation.

Hot Dog could tell what was the problem though. Chompy pods and lava chompies all over the place that were slowing down the flow of the lava in some parts of the cavern. Not to mention that there were two giant chompy pods that spawned the giant lava chompies that were over twice the size of the normal ones. It was not just that though. Some of the smaller ones were climbing up the cracks on the wall to chew on the rocks, with some stones falling into the lava.

“Yeah, this was much different than what I was imagining,” Hot Dog spoke up now.

“What exactly were you imagining?” Hot Block rhetorically asked him.

That had the Fire Skylander look back at him for a moment. He was wanting to answer honestly, but decided not to. “Fair point. So, now that we see how bad it is down here with the chompies everywhere, what’s the plan?”

“Chompies?” Hot Block asked, “You’ve seen them before?”

“Hundreds of times, but nothing like this,” Hot Dog responded back to the fellow fire dog, “To make it quick, those pods are the reason why the chompies are spawning in large numbers. If you get rid of the pods, then you get rid of the source of the problem.”

“Okay, but that also means that it restores flow to the lava river, too,” Hot Block then mentioned, “Meaning that it would make it difficult for crossing.”

“Do you have a better idea? Because if we try to cross now, the chompies will be onto us, and only a couple of us can actually fight.”

This kept on going for a while. Any time that Hot Block tried to make a point, Hot Dog would find a way to counter it. If Hot Dog tried to offer an idea, Hot Block immediately found a flaw in it that would make their plans crumble apart. The ongoing banter between both of them made Digger nervous and also had Smoky stutter. The girls were also trying to think of something, too, something that could still be possible for them to pull off without having any problems.

After a moment, Sweetie Belle soon asked something. “What if you beat the chompies, but leave the pods alone for a bit?”

Both fire dogs, upon hearing that, looked directly at Sweetie. “Leave them alone? That just-”

“I mean, leave them alone until after we got the crystals,” Sweetie Belle clarified a bit more, “If the pods are what’s preventing the lava from flowing, then leave them be.”

“Oh, ah see,” Apple Bloom began to realize what Sweetie Belle was saying and add on, “If ya leave them be, then the river would be easier for us to cross, right Sweetie?”

Sweetie Belle nodded, “Exactly, and once we get the crystals…”

“Then we can pitch in and help them clean up what’s left. Alright, I’m liking this plan,” Scootaloo added on, before looking back towards Hot Dog and Hot Block. “Only question now is what do you two think?”

Both fire dogs took a bit of time to think over what the girls just suggested. “It seems… plausible,” Hot Block admitted as he looked back to Hot Dog for a brief second, before looking back at the girls, “But do you think it would be possible to hold off that many with just the two of us-”

“M-Make it three...” they all heard a voice from the tunnel they just came through. Much to their surprise, they found Sheer Spot coming out of the tunnel as she was trying to catch her breath.

“S-sheer? What are you doing here?” Hot Block asked, surprised to see his sister appear right now. “Weren’t you with Skippy and the others?”

“Y-yeah, but I got concerned and came over,” she panted a bit more, “Let me help you out. If two of us can keep… whatever those things are busy, then you can focus on getting them across. Once they’re over, you can help us.”

“Alright, I’m liking this already,” Hot Dog smirked, “Sounds like we got a game plan now. Hot Block gets Digger and the girls across while Sheer and I hold off the chompies. We save the chompie pods for after they come back over with the crystals they need in hand.”

“Hey! What about me? I want to help!” the little pup on Hot Dog’s back now spoke up. When his siblings heard that, both Sheer and Hot Block were not entirely sure if having the little pup join them in this battle was a good idea.

Hot Dog, on the other hand, was rather enthusiastic. “I like your enthusiasm, Smoky. You can help us, but make sure you don’t rush-” Before he could finish, Smoky immediately jumped off his back. The smoke coming off of his body reaching over to one of the areas where the chompies were, before the pup next to the Skylander disappeared and subsequently reappeared where the rest of the smoke was. “-in.”

Of course, how his siblings reacted to Smoky just manifesting over there was rather mixed. All this time, they thought that Smoky could only control smoke and ash, not do anything outside of that. Hot Block did not like his recklessness at all. The plan they were working on was supposed to work while they were all together in a group, yet Smoky jumped into the fray too early. “Smoky, what are you doing?!”

“I’m helping, Blocky! Watch!!” the pup cheerfully proclaimed, some of the ash that was around him forming around a nearby chompy. At first, it was confused by the smoke, but as it looked around, several rocks began to form around the chompy and strike them from within the ash cloud. The pup wasn’t done though as he formed a second ash cloud by him, conjuring another rock before throwing it towards the others, leading to an explosion on impact. “I did it!”

“Smoky, get out of there!!” Digger now shouted, eyes wide in shock and fear.

“W-why? I did something good, didn’t I-?” As the pup slowly turned around, Smoky began to realize what he did. Defeating one chompy soon led to all the other chompies in the room looking towards him, with many of the smaller ones charging at him. “U-uh oh.”

“Hot Block!”

“Way ahead of you,” the fire dog barked, sliding his paw around the edge of the lava bank river. Within moments, a wall of molten rock stretched over like a bridge. “Go! Hurry!!”

Sheer and Hot Dog did not need to be told twice. Immediately after the bridge reached the other side, both fire dogs took off, rRacing over to try to make it to Smoky in time before the lava chompies could take a bite out of him. As they were running over, Hot Dog noticed that Sheer’s body began to glow bright yellow. While he focused on reaching Smoky, she built up energy and used it to send the chompies that were coming at the little pup flying.

“You alright, little guy?” Hot Dog asked.

“Y-yeah…” he replied, looking back at the Skylander nervously, “D-did I do something wrong?”

“No, no... It’s just…” Hot Dog stopped for a second, trying to think of the right words for him to say in order to best explain it to him as Hot Block, Digger and the girls crossed over, “There’s a time and a place to be brave, but being fearless is not the same as facing fear without a plan. I know that you want to help, but let's do it together alright?” He offered a paw, which had Smoky take it before the Skylander threw the little pup back onto his back.

Of course, they didn’t quite have the time in order to talk things out. “Will you two hurry up!?” Hot Block shouted, trying his best to avoid the chompies that were coming for him and hold them off while Sheer looked like she was enjoying herself. “Help give Sheer a paw, and I’ll back you up!”

“Got it!” Hot Dog nodded, looking to the pup that was by his head. “Ready, little guy?” Smoky nodded his head, excited to get into the fray. Hot Block himself nodded, the previous bridge exploding behind them as the fire dog caught up with the girls while Hot Dog and Smoky intercepted the chompies that were chasing him. The little pup let out a cloud of smoke, before Hot Dog released a fireball that caused the smoke to ignite, exploding as it took out several chompies at once.

As for Hot Block, he constructed the next bridge and ushered Digger and the girls to hurry over the other side. Once they were over, Hot Block refocused his attention to the Fire Skylander and his siblings. “Alright, they made it over. Everyone ready?”

“Yeah, we are!” Smoky replied for both himself and Hot Dog.

“I’m ready when you guys are,” Sheer replied, “But how are we going to make sure that they don’t reach the bridge?”

“I already got that under control,” he told them, blowing up the bridge as he looked back at the others, “I’ll rebuild it later. Right now, we got company!”

Immediately after they crossed over to the other side of the cavern, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were racing over with Digger towards the giant pile of rocks ahead of them. Of course, it was only moments after they arrived that they heard the bridge behind them exploding. “W-what was that?!” Scootaloo asked.

“Hot Block must’ve blown the bridge so those monsters can’t chase us,” Digger told her, “He can create magma rock walls for a bit, but can also have them explode after some time.”

“Do each one of you have some kind of special ability or something?” Sweetie Belle asked him, “I mean, Skippy hugged Calvin and healed his injuries, Hot Block created walls, and Smoky has… well, smoke.”

“You can say that,” Digger told them in response, “Each one of us have a special kind of talent or trait. I can form flame blades from my claws when I’m digging and sense the heat signatures of what’s above me when underground, Hot Block can create molten rock walls, Smoky can control the smoke and ash that he can emit, Sheer can release plasma from her body and Skippy can heal anyone she hugs.”

“What about the one that’s with Calvin? ...Dusty, right?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Dusty’s powers are… a bit of a touchy subject. Mostly because when she saw Tribus as her master, he ordered her to use them on us,” Digger looked back at her, “She has an ability that can not only harm those who are hit by it, but also disorients them. When she used it on Hot Block, he was disoriented and couldn’t tell friend from foe. When Skippy was hurt by it, she couldn’t see. When I was harmed, walking felt like I was pulling a bunch of rocks behind me. The effects are temporary, but thinking back on those memories is still painful.”

Apple Bloom was shocked to hear that and just as stunned to see how Digger was acting when recalling all of this. “A-ah’m sorry. Ah didn’t know-”

“You don’t need to apologize. That’s kind of behind us now,” the fire dog told her as he moved a few rocks with his paws, “Now, ready to give me a paw here? The crystals you want aren’t going to find themselves.”

“What do you need for us to do?”

“Well, moving these rocks out of the way first,” Digger told them, “Those crystals were supposed to be here, but I think those monsters that were chewing through the roof buried them under a pile of rubble. Only way to know for sure is to get these stones out of the way.”

Hearing that really did not ring well with Sweetie Belle. Rarity was already going to chew her out for her clothes, so in her head, she did not need another lecture involving staying clean. But she also knew that they were so close to being able to get what they need for their powers now. So, without hesitation, Sweetie Belle began pulling rocks off of the pile and throwing them aside along with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. Digger was also helping
as well, having blades of flame take form from his claws to tear several huge boulders down to size.

“Come on! Just how many rocks does it take to hide these things?!” Scootaloo asked impatiently, throwing a few more rocks behind her, with some landing in the lava.

“Easy there, Scoots. Ya can’t just rush this. Ya might throw a crystal into the lava river by accident.”

“I know, Apple Bloom. But Hot Dog and the others are counting on us to find them! We can’t stand here and-” It was in the moment that Scootaloo was speaking that a colorful glow could be seen from her end as her eyes widened a bit. “Girls, over here! I think I found them!”

Quickly, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Digger quickly hurried over to where Scootaloo was as they began to pull some more rocks off to the side as the glow began to shine brighter. When they finally got all the rocks away, they found three crystals that were the same size and color as Calvin’s while also pulsing with energy. Scootaloo was the first to pick hers up, feeling a pulse from the crystal for a moment before holding it in her hands. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle also felt the same thing as they looked at one another, before looking back to Digger.

“Alright, this is perfect! Exactly what we’re looking for,” Sweetie Belle told him, “Thank you, Digger!”

Digger nodded and was going to say something. But before he could, he was cut off by the voice of Hot Block, “Hey, did you three find what you’re looking for yet?!” When they turned to look at him, they found that he, Hot Dog, Sheer and Smoky were still fighting against the chompies, but they were starting to get overrun by the sheer numbers.

Scootaloo was the first one to respond, as well as the first one to act. “We just did,” she told him, before grabbing onto the Cutie Mark Crusaders cape that she brought with her and tying down the crystal into the palm of her hand. “Get the bridge up! It’s time I help pitch in, too!”

“Wait, Scootaloo, you want to do this now? Shouldn’t we-?!”

“There’s no time!” she told her, just as she saw Hot Block form the bridge. Quickly, she jumped onto it, before running and joining up with Hot Dog, her crystal glowing bright and saying the first Skylander catchphrase that she could think of, “Alright then. Amp it up!”

In Scootaloo’s mind, she thought that she did everything right when it came to changing forms. She said the catchphrase right, held onto the crystal and everything. However, instead of fully changing into the electric eel Skylander named Punk Shock, something different happened. Her normal human appearance remained mostly intact, but there were a few key differences. The first difference was that there were a pair of fins on her wrists that would resemble the fin on Punk Shock’s head but smaller in size. The second one was that she had the Skylander’s crossbow in her right hand. The third difference was with Scootaloo’s skin, which was now the same slippery and slimy texture as that of a frog. The final difference took a moment for her to notice, but after looking behind her, she noticed a jagged tail with the center of it looking like a lightning bolt.

The first to comment on the changes was Hot Dog. However, his tone didn’t really come off as excited and instead came off sounding a bit concerned, “Uh oh…”

At first, Scootaloo looked behind her to see the electric eel tail that was behind her, before returning her attention to the fire dog. “What do you mean ‘uh oh’?”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I think something happened with your transformation,” the Fire Skylander replied back to her, “It only looks like you turned halfway into Punk Shock.”

“I was trying to tell you that we should wait first,” Sweetie Belle said once she finally caught up with Scootaloo and the others, with Apple Bloom and Digger following right behind her, “but you ran in before I could finish!”

“Hey, they looked like they were in trouble! I was acting on instinct!”

“Well, arguing is not going to get us anywhere,” Hot Dog brought up, before looking over to Hot Block and the others, “I was hoping that the transformation would come out differently, but with this, I might need to rethink our original plan. Hot Block, can you form the next bridge?”

“I can. What are you planning, though?”

“We’re going to focus solely on the pods, but not destroy them yet,” Hot Dog explained, “Once it’s close to being destroyed, we’ll hurry over to the entrance we all came in at, and we’ll have Scootaloo take over from there.”

“Wait, what? Why me?”

“Even if the transformation’s not… fully done, you still have Punk Shock’s crossbow,” the fire dog explained to her, “Weirdly enough, lava’s a good conduit for electricity. So, if you shoot the lava that’s flowing around the chompy pods…”

“Then, the electricity would hurt the chompy’s coming out and where they’re spawning from,” Sheer spoke up now, realizing what Hot Dog was thinking about, “I think I have an idea of what you’re getting at.”

“Hey, wait a second,” the group now heard Apple Bloom speak up now, “If Scootaloo’s doing this, then we’re going to help her!”

“We are?” Sweetie Belle asked, caught off guard by Apple Bloom’s sudden answer.

“We are,” Apple Bloom confirmed for her, “She’s our friend, and ah’m helping her.”

“I like your enthusiasm, you two,” Hot Dog addressed both of the girls, “But if you’re going to do the same thing as Scootaloo, then we’ll need you to transform into something specific.”

“What do you have in mind?” Apple Bloom now asked.

“It would be good to pick a Skylander who fights from a distance and that is either a Water or Tech Skylander, with Fire being weak to those now,” Hot Dog told them, just as he noticed Sheer attacking a few chompies that were getting too close to him, “Outside of that, I’ll let you two decide who you want to be. We’ll hold off the chompies in the meantime.”

With that, Hot Dog jumped back into the heat of battle with Smoky on his back, giving Sheer a helping paw. Hot Block himself was racing back and forth, forming new barriers for each area that he spotted Chompies trying to get through to Digger and the girls. Digger, though, stayed beside Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.

As for Scootaloo, she wanted to help Hot Dog and provide him some support. But when she aimed her crossbow and fired a bolt at a chompy that was trying to get the jump on Sheer, the shot that was fired did not move as quick as lightning. If anything, the shot was moving at the same pace as a shot from the toy crossbows you could buy at the toy store. Even if the shot hit the chompy, it didn’t do much aside from squeaking in pain, allowing for Sheer to turn around and to beat it herself.

When the Fire Skylander noticed the crossbow bolt, he immediately turned towards Scootaloo. “Stay with your friends! They need someone to watch their back before they can join the fight!”

Scootaloo nodded as she backed up, getting closer to where her friends were and keeping her crossbow at the ready. Although, given everything that had been happening so far, she was beginning to think that Rainbow Dash was having a much better time than she was right now.

“So… mind explaining to me why you’re smacking the heads of this guy with your hammer?” Rainbow asked, idly flying in the air as she was talking to Rubble Rouser. The golem was right now standing nearby the unconscious lava hound named Tribus while they were waiting for some Trap Masters to come by and pick him up, though she was puzzled as to why the Skylander was hitting one of the heads with his hammer just now.

“Well, you can’t be too careful. Rather not have one of his heads waking up on us while we wait for the Trap Masters to haul him away.”

That was one thing that made sense. Yet, she had another question to ask as Rubble was paying attention to the three heads, “Yeah, but isn’t that kind of going-”

WHACK!!

“-overboard?”

“Hey, at least it’s working,” the golem told her after smacking the head in the center with his hammer, “It’s like playing the ‘Whack-a-rat’ game that’s at the Golden Arcade.”

Noticing the head on the left move, he took a moment to walk over there and smack it next, “Only difference is that you have a bigger hammer.”

Then, he noticed the third head looked like it was going to move, before whacking it shortly afterwards, “As well as a bigger target.”

Rainbow could only watch as every few moments, Rubble would hit another one of the heads. She knew that this was important, but just waiting for when the Trap Masters arrive here was making her bored. If anything, it was more than likely that Scootaloo was having a better time in the volcano than her right now.

“Girls, have you thought of anything yet?” Scootaloo asked Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, watching out for them as she was firing off electric crossbow bolts at any chompy that would try to approach her friends. Despite the limitations that were put on her current form, she was trying her best to work with what she had at her disposal.

Her crossbow was just one of two things that Punk Shock was able to do. The other thing she was capable of was throwing out a Splash Bomb that could leave a puddle on the ground and when she shot it with her crossbow, the water would become electrified. Of course, the only catch was that she could only throw out one of them that was the size of her hand and the puddle it left behind wasn’t rather big. But, it still was enough to at least keep some of the chompies back, since they ran directly towards the puddles on the ground.

“Sweetie? Apple Bloom?” she then asked, not sure if her friends heard her as she fired another shot at the puddle that was on the ground to try and hurt a couple of the chompy’s coming towards them, “Girls, come on. I need a little bit of help here!”

“Hang on, Scoots! Ah think we’re ready!” Apple Bloom spoke up now. Scootaloo, despite hearing that, seemed to be a bit too focused on the chompies that were coming towards her and trying to keep them at bay, throwing out a splash bomb and electrifying the water could only do so much to keep back the ones that didn’t already get defeated.

Luckily, just as she was preparing the next crossbow shot, she heard Apple Bloom speak again. “No gold, no glory!!”

Like with Scootaloo’s transformation, Apple Bloom’s transformation into the Tech Skylander named Trigger Happy was not a fully complete transformation. She still had her body, but orange fur was running along her arms and she held a pair of golden pistols in her hands. Another noticeable change was that she had a new pair of ears that stood up straight and looked almost like that of a rabbit.

The last main change, and probably the most noticeable one out of all of them, happened when Apple Bloom began to speak. “Alright, now-” she stopped for a moment, realizing that the tone and her pitch was different and much squeakier than before. “O-okay, why do ah sound like one of Winowa’s chew toys?!”

It didn’t help any that when Scootaloo looked at her form, the only thing that she could do was laugh at her friend. “Oh dear Celestia, you look like a bunny rabbit with those ears!!”

“Scootaloo!”

“What? It’s true!” Scootaloo told her friend, before asking her a new question, “Isn’t Sweetie Belle also doing this, too-”

“Compute and Shoot!”

It was shortly after the two of them heard those words that Sweetie Belle joined up with both of them. She was trying to turn into the Tech Skylander and Bowslinger Sensei named Ro-Bow, but like with her friends, there were some differences. Mainly, Sweetie Belle’s body looked more like a robot, mechanical limbs and all. She had the Sensei’s bow, but one of her eyes was now red instead of green and her voice sounded like it was from an arcade game, with her eye particularly visible under the shadow of the green leather cape and hood she gained as well.

“Okay… we did it,” Sweetie Belle said, before looking at her friends, “Now what?”

“Ah got an idea,” Apple Bloom told her, “Sweetie, stick with Hot Block just in case some chompies get past his barriers, helping him where ya can. While you do that, help us try to attack some of them from a distance like Hot Dog said earlier when you can spare a shot.”

All Sweetie did was nod her head, before her newfound body curled into a drill spike covered ball and began to roll over towards where Hot Block was standing, having her bow soon at the ready upon arrival. Both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom prepared to take aim at the chompies that were spawning around the pods, with Scootaloo going as far as to shoot the lava behind the pods so that any that do happen to spawn end up getting shocked, doing their part to pitch in and help Hot Dog and the others.

However, their assistance in the battle did not go unnoticed. At this point, one of the larger chompies noticed the girls, before barking at the others. Some of the smaller ones stopped in place and started to run towards the girls instead of Hot Dog and Sheer. “Uh oh. Everyone, they’re going for Scootaloo and her friends! Stop them before they get too close!”

Upon hearing that, both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom looked to each other before doing the first thing that came to mind, which was to run towards where Sweetie and Hot Block were standing. Even though this strategy was supposed to help them regroup with their friend, there was one problem with it, that being that the chompies were still pursuing them and that they were leading them right to Sweetie Belle and Hot Block.

“What are you doing?!” Sweetie Belle shouted at them.

“We thought it would be easier to be with you. Why?”

“Are you crazy?! You’re leading them straight towards us!!” Hot Block snapped, which had both of them turn around to realize their mistake as they saw a swarm of chompies closing in on them.

Yet, before they could act, something unexpected happened. As the chompies were getting closer, they were blindsided by that of Digger, who had flame blades form from the claws on his paws as he swung his paws forward. The blades came off of his paws and headed straight at the chompies, taking out several of them as they redirected their attention to him, chasing after Digger as he led them away from the girls.

“That… I did not expect at all,” Hot Dog admitted honestly, before getting an idea as he looked at Sheer, “Still, we can work with this. If we take down the bigger chompies, then the smaller ones won’t have anyone to get orders from.”

“Works for me!” Sheer replied, charging up another attack as she, Hot Dog and Smoky began to focus on the much bigger enemies in the room. Digger was still running around, taking some moments to attack when he was a good distance away to get rid of a few more of the smaller chompies, while Hot Block continued to use his barriers to prevent any chompies from coming nearby, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were trying to focus their efforts on the pods.

As the fight was going on though, the girls began to realize something. Despite their transformations and everyone in the room doing everything they can to take down all of the chompies, their attacks were barely making a dent in the Chompy Pod that they were coming from. Even when Scootaloo shot the lava with her arrows, the electricity seemed to affect the chompies more, but only just tickle the pod, which was definitely not a good sign. Even if they kept defeating all the chompies, more of them would just keep coming.

For a moment, it looked like they were making some progress, especially when they all saw Hot Dog and Sheer land the final blow on the big chompies. “Yeah!! Take that!!” Scootaloo cheered.

“Nice! At this rate, we’ll be out of here in no time-!!”

Unfortunately, mere seconds after Sweetie Belle said that, Scootaloo found herself changing back to her normal form as she looked back to her friend and let out a groan. “Oh, come on… seriously?”

“W-what? It’s not that bad. Just gotta beat a few more, and we can get out of here-” As Sweetie was trying to convince her friend to keep calm, the chompy pods spat out two more big chompies to replace the ones that Hot Dog and Sheer had just defeated a few seconds ago. “Oh, COME ON!! Seriously?!”

“Hot Dog, do ya got some kind of plan B?” Apple Bloom then spoke up as the fire dogs began to make their way back around to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, “We’re tryin’ our hardest, but we can’t make a dent in that pod!”

Hot Block was the next one to speak shortly afterwards. “At this rate, I won’t have enough energy to keep holding them off,” he told the Fire Skylander, “We need a plan to get out of here, and fast!”

Hot Dog himself was trying his best to come up with a plan as he looked around the room. There was no way that they could take on this many, especially in their current state. They needed to come up with an escape plan and come up with it quickly. It was as he was looking around that he happened to catch a glimpse of a few rocks falling into the lava from the ceiling, which gave him an idea.

“Hey, Digger, quick question,” he asked, looking towards the lava dog that was on his left, “How unstable does the ceiling look to you?”

“Honestly, it looks like it could collapse at any second,” Digger told him, before throwing out another set of flame blade claws at a few chompies.

“Okay, next question,” the Fire Skylander began to speak, before asking something that caught everyone off guard, “What do we have to do to make it happen right now?”

That had everyone just stare at the Skylander, followed by Digger asking the first question that came to mind. “Y-you want to make it collapse!? Are you NUTS!?!”

“Sometimes, nuts works,” the Fire Skylander told him, “If we have the roof collapse, it will allow for us to focus less on fighting on the chompies and more on getting out of here.”

That had Hot Block soon catch onto what Hot Dog was thinking as he smirked, “Not to mention that if any of them try to come through the tunnels, it just makes them sitting targets, since they’re all just condensed in the tunnel and not so spread out.”

“Plus, the big ones can’t even fit in the tunnel we came through!” Smoky added, wagging his tail happily.

“You can’t be serious,” Digger said in disbelief.

“Digger, ah don’t think we really have any other options,” Apple Bloom commented, firing a couple more shots from her revolvers, “We need to get out of here before we’re overrun!”

That had Digger nervously look towards his siblings, before looking back at Hot Dog. At first, he was nervous, unsure if he really wanted to follow through on this, but after a bit of thinking, he then let out a sigh. “Okay, but I still think that this plan is crazy. If anything, how are we going to pull this off?”

“I have an idea actually,” Sheer spoke up now, “Can you do your flame blades on your claws for me? I want to try something.”

Digger had no idea what his sister wanted to do, but still did what she asked as a new set of flame blades began to wrap around and cover his claws. Shortly afterwards, Sheer began to channel plasma all around her body, before touching Digger’s claws. At first, the fire dog thought that his sister was going to hurt herself. However, much to his surprise and the surprise of everyone that was watching, Sheer was actually applying her plasma to Digger’s claws. The claws now glowed bright yellow as Sheer breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Good. I’m glad that worked,” she sighed in relief, “Now comes the hard part.”

“Um… I’m not sure if I can throw the dagger’s far enough...” Digger commented.

“Leave that to me,” he then heard Hot Block say, while also moving one of his paws underneath him, tracing a line in the ground from where his front paws were all the way to where his back paws and tail were.

“Hot Block, what are you-?” before he could finish his sentence, Hot Block stomped his front paw into the ground, having a wall immediately emerge from under Digger’s paws that launched the pup into the air. “ARE YOU INSANE!?!”

“It’s the only thing I can think of! Now, throw it before you start to fall back down!!”

“You can do it, Digger!!” Sweetie Belle then added on to try and encourage the fire dog that was in the air.

Digger himself, despite being a bit terrified, did his best to try and wait until he was at the highest point before throwing the plasma infused blades on his claws as they collided with the rocks in the ceiling. On his way down, he didn’t feel himself hit the pavement, but instead landed safely on a smoke cloud that Smoky prepared for him.

“That was amazing! Well done, Digger!!” Apple Bloom congratulated him, before turning to Smoky, “Nice job with catching him, too.”

Smoky just happily looked back at Apple Bloom, just before Scootaloo asked Sheer a new question. “Alright, what happens now?”

“Now…” the moment that Sheer said that, the blades began to sink into the rock as several boulders began to fall from the roof and land into the lava, shaking the ground a bit as the fire dog finished her sentence. “We run.”

“Do ya think we should go inside and help them? They’ve been in there for a while,” Applejack asked Calvin, looking outside at where Rubble Rouser was at with Rainbow Dash. By now, the Trap Master of the Water Element named Lob Star had arrived and was already in the process of encasing Tribus in traptanium, which was a bit of a relief, but also a bit disappointing since Calvin could no longer watch Rubble hit Tribus’ heads like he was trying to play drums.

“Maybe. Though, we should probably wait for Rubble to come back first before-”

Before he could finish, the ground suddenly began to shake, startling both of them along with Dusty, who began clinging to Calvin’s face and muffling him in fear as they tried to make sense of what was happening.

“What the hay-!?” Applejack asked, “What in the name of Sweet Apple Acres is going on?!”

Calvin tried to say something, but couldn’t get a word out because of Dusty clinging onto his head. So, he had to carefully remove Dusty off of his face, stumbling a bit in the process because of her size as well as the ground shaking. He was lucky enough to get her a few inches away from his face, enough for him to say something to Dusty. “D-dusty, p-please loosen your grip. T-that’s an order.”

Dusty was hesitant at first, given the present situation, but still followed through on the order her new master gave her and loosened her grip just a bit. Even though it wasn’t much, it was still all that Calvin needed as he gently removed Dusty from his face before he wrapped his arms around her and began to hold Dusty close to his chest.

The Fire Dog herself was shocked at this. No one had treated her so sincerely before, not even Tribus. The first response that came to her mind, despite being partially uncertain about it, was returning the favor and hugging him around the chest. Her actions, despite being small, did not go unnoticed as Calvin smiled, squeezing his hug back to her.

Before either of them could say anything though, somepony else beat them to it as the shaking began to slowly subside. “Err… Ah hate to interrupt yer moment, but do ya hear the sound of somepony screaming?”

“Sweet Celestia, RUN!!”

Calvin heard that one, but he had a bit of difficulty trying to determine who it was as he looked back at the earth pony. “I-I can hear them, b-but I can’t tell who it is-.”

“I TOLD YOU THAT THIS WAS AN INSANE IDEA!!!”

“Great. What mess has he caused now?” Dusty groaned a bit, recognizing the voice of Digger before turning towards Calvin as a new question formed in her head, one that she wanted to ask her new master. “... Do I actually need to clean up after him out of the cave as well?”

“Uh… depends on the mess,” he said, before looking up towards where the sound of the voices were coming from, “Let’s hope this isn’t such a mess to deal with-”

Unfortunately for them, they were all caught off guard by a massive cloud of smoke that blew past all of them. Leaving them momentarily blinded as Calvin and Applejack coughed in response, the rumbling from earlier began to stop as they tried to make sense of what was happening. Dusty, though, was not quite too thrilled by this. She was hoping to not have to clean up any messes, yet it was now her master that was a mess.

“Guys, what the hay is going on?!” they all heard Rainbow Dash holler.

“Ah got no idea, Rainbow!” Applejack coughed, looking back towards her friend, “One moment, we were sitting here, the next we were covered in dirt and dust!”

“Something must’ve happened inside! Did you see anyone come out of there?” Rubble shouted, worrying that something had gone wrong.

“I can’t see anything right now!” Calvin told him in response, “Dusty, do you see anything?”

“I-I remember hearing Digger, b-but this is too much dust, even for him,” the fire dog replied, which had Calvin look back to the entrance of the cave as they waited for the smoke to clear. At first, everyone was worried that something had gone wrong inside or that there was someone trapped inside the volcano that they needed to rescue.

Instead, when the smoke cleared, they happened to find a much different scenario playing out. “... Okay, what part of helping me involves yanking my tail!?!”

At the edge of the cliff that was near the entrance to the cave, Hot Block was hanging off of the edge with his face pointed at the ground. The only thing preventing him from actually falling was Smoky’s powers, similar to what he had used on Tribus, holding his brother in place. However, with the rocks cracking and beginning to give way, everyone else that was up there was beginning to grab hold of him. Sheer and Hot Dog were holding onto the pup’s tail, while Digger and what looked like a robot and some kind of two legged rabbit were holding onto his two back legs. Calvin could also see Scootaloo, too, yet she was holding onto Smoky so that the little pup did not get dragged down by his brother.

Of course, the Skyshifter was the first to notice one thing that seemed out of place. “Is that a rabbit up there?”

“What in tarnations-?”

“O-oh. H-hi, sis-!” Just as the bunny spoke, two simultaneous flashes of light went off, the bunny and the robot no longer there as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were seen holding onto him.

Which only made Hot Block groan in embarrassment... “...This cannot get anymore embarrassing,” his comment was followed by an immediate yip of pain as he turned his head to find that a chompy had landed on and was chewing on his rear, “I was wrong!! Get it off!! Get it off!!!”

Calvin was going to transform, but before he could, one of Lob-Star’s traptanium throwing stars flew past them and hit the chompy that was gnawing on Hot Block’s behind before returning back to Lob-Star. Once the chompy was knocked off, everyone else was able to safely pull up the fire pup as Rubble looked back to the Trap Master. “Thanks for the assist, Lob-Star.”

“No problem. Glad I was able to help you out in a pinch,” the lobster replied back, “Now, I got to make sure that I get this back to Cloudcracker Prison. Stay safe out there!”

With that, the lobster began to leave and make his way back to Cloudcracker prison. Though, as everyone else was catching their breath up on the cliff’s edge, a particular question was asked, one that was directed at both Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.

“So… what the heck was with that rabbit form that we saw a moment ago?” Calvin asked, a question that had all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders look back at one another, before letting out a combined sigh.

“It’s a lot to explain.”

Out of all the things that the staff at Skylander Academy expected to see upon their arrival, metal plates covering a massive hole in Flynn’s airship, a pack of lava puppies and Calvin looking like he escaped from a battlefield was not one of them. Even if you include the fact that two princesses from Equestria were also here, seeing the Skyshifter and everyone else that went with him arrive at the academy left them with a lot of questions that they wanted to know the answers for.

Of course, it didn’t help that when Calvin and the others were beginning to recall the story for everyone and got to the point where the Skyshifter recalled beating Ironbeard that he heard Twilight interject and look back at him in disbelief. “So, you’re telling me… that before you even had the chance to go to the volcano, you had to fight a crew of air pirates, by yourself?”

“Well, Hot Dog helped me out, too, and Rubble helped out both of us when we were fighting Ironbeard,” Calvin added on.

“I… find that a bit hard to believe-”

“Actually, he’s right,” Hugo interrupted Twilight before she could finish, “We had received calls from Rubble shortly after the fight was done, so that we could have a Trap Master take them back to Cloudcracker Prison. The names of the two convicts they put in new cells are the same names that Calvin just said.”

Twilight just looked at Hugo, surprised by his intervention before looking back at Calvin. “So, what happened afterwards?”

“Well, if I remember correctly, Mayor Dapper and the big guy that was with him, Bang, led Calvin and the others to the mountains while Flynn and I had to repair the damages that happened to his ship,” Tessa replied, folding her arms as she looked at the pilot, “Though, it was mostly me who was doing the work, since he was mourning over the loss of the enchilada’s that he had in storage.”

“Hey, there’s a time and a place to grieve, and that was the right time!” Flynn replied, leading to Tessa rolling her eyes in response.

That left a bit of a silence in the room, shortly before Hot Dog was the next one to speak. Most of the fire dogs, aside from Dusty, were near him as he started speaking, “Well, once we made it there, Calvin and Rubble helped set up the climbing gear that we had and started going inside to see if we could find any signs of Elementanium. Though, that was also when we first met Sheer,” he paused, before looking at her for a moment and getting ready to speak again, “She told us about how her and her siblings were living under Tribus and asked for us to help her.”

“Apologies for interrupting,” Luna now spoke up, “But who is Tribus?”

“Think something like Hot Dog, but like three times his size and with three heads,” Rainbow responded.

“Plus, each head had its own voice,” Calvin added.

“You mean like a Cerberus?” Twilight then asked, remembering the time when a Cerberus was in Ponyville.

“Sort of… but different. You would get what I mean if you actually saw him,” Rainbow replied, before looking back at Hot Dog, “Sorry about that, keep going on.”

Hot Dog nodded his head in thanks before picking up where he left off, “So, when we got there, we met Hot Block and Skippy while they were trying to find Digger. Since he wandered off, Tribus picked up on that and had Dusty bring their little brother Smoky over to him to try and get him to talk. By that time though, Calvin was already set on fighting him and making sure that Tribus couldn’t hurt them anymore.”

“Would it be safe to assume that it did not entirely go so well?” Luna asked, pointing a hoof towards Calvin’s torn shirt.

“You can say that,” Calvin sighed, “Tribus was a much different opponent than anything else I’ve faced, because he was fast enough in order to harm me before I had the chance to change forms. I was lucky to hold him off long enough in order for Rubble to take over afterwards while also getting Dusty out of there,” for a moment, Calvin looked down at the fire dog, unsure if he should go any further in explaining given why Dusty was in her current state after Tribus as her master for so long. So, he decided to simplify it. “Point is, I’m still alive and Rarity’s going to chew me out for what happened to my clothes.”

“You and me both,” Sweetie Belle added on, dreading the thought of what her sister would say if she saw them right now.

“So, what happened to Tribus?” Cali now decided to ask as she stood next to Hugo. She had been mostly quiet and was taking the time to process everything that they had been saying, but it was now that she actually spoke up.

“Rubble beat him, and with Smoky and Rainbow’s help, they were able to get him outside so that Lob-Star could pick him up to bring to Cloudcracker Prison,” Calvin added.

“Hold on there,” Mags now asked, looking to Smoky for a second before redirecting her attention back to Calvin and the others, “How exactly did this little fella help ya out?”

“If I may,” Sheer now took a moment to speak as they all looked to the fire dog, “My siblings and I each have different special abilities that we possess. Smoky himself has the ability to control smoke and ash, before turning it into rock. We were all there when we saw him use his power to restrain Tribus and carry him out of there, with Rubble and Rainbow helping him.”

At first, some people in the room found that hard to believe. Though, it was then that Hugo mentioned Lob-Star’s report and how he saw the rocky restraints on the lava hound as well as Smoky being with Rubble at the time that he picked them up.

“Yes. It would seem you have found quite the collection of gifted individuals, Calvin,” the sudden voice of Master Eon spoke as he walked in to their gathering.

“Oh… H-hello, Master Eon,” Calvin replied, caught off guard by the Portal Master’s sudden appearance as he nervously scratched the back of his head. “We were just… uh, bringing everyone up to speed.”

The Portal Master smiled in response as he walked around, before standing beside Hugo, “It seems like all of you had quite the adventure, based on what I heard already. Though, were you able to find what you were looking for?”

“Yes, we did,” Scootaloo told him as she began to untie the cloth that was wrapped around her hand, holding out their own Elementanium Crystal to show the Portal Master as both of her friends got out their own crystals too. Of course, it was a couple of moments afterwards that she mentioned something else to him that was important, “Though, we might have come across a problem.”

That caught Master Eon’s attention rather quickly, along with everyone else who was listening. “A problem?”

“Well, at the time we found the crystals, Hot Dog, Sheer, Hot Block and Smoky were fighting some of those chompy monsters that were in the same cave the crystals were in,” she explained to the Portal Master the best she could, “In my mind, I thought that since I had the crystal, I could transform like Calvin could and help Hot Dog out. Though, it didn’t happen how I thought it would.”

Hot Dog was the next one to speak as he looked at Master Eon, “I saw her attempt at transforming. From what I could tell, it was like their transformation stopped halfway through. They had some of the features of a particular Skylander like weapons, abilities and physical appearance, but did not fully become that Skylander. Apple Bloom tried to transform into Trigger Happy, but she did not shrink down to match his size.”

“Oh, so that’s why you had the rabbit like ears,” Calvin now realized, recalling when he saw Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle outside the volcano before they were turned back to normal.

“Did doing that make her as active as one-?” Flynn asked, before he got an elbow to the chest from Tessa. “What? What did I say?”

“You KNOW what you sai-” Tessa paused for a moment, before letting out a sigh, “Actually, knowing you, probably not,” she then turned back towards Apple Bloom and Calvin, ignoring the subsequent blush that was on their faces before speaking, “Please, continue.”

“Was there anything else that you noticed at the time this happened?” Hugo now asked them out of curiosity.

“Yeah. When we tried to help fight off the chompies with Hot Dog, our attacks didn’t really do much to help,” Sweetie Belle was the next one to speak as she looked at Hugo, “We were trying to get rid of a chompy pod that was in the cave. But when we tried attacking it, we couldn’t do much to hurt it.”

“Hang on a second,” Twilight interjected as she looked at all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, “If what you say is true, then how did you guys get out of there?”

That had all three of the girls look towards Hot Dog, who was looking at the other fire dogs and noticed that Digger himself was trying to hide behind Sheer. “Well, with a bit of help from Sheer, Hot Block and Digger, we found a way to have the ceiling collapse on them-”

“YOU DID WHAT!?!”

The outburst from Twilight was ringing around the room, startling almost everyone in the room and having Digger look at Sheer nervously. Though, the one who seemed to be rather calm in this instance was actually Luna as she looked back to Twilight, “Ease yourself, Twilight. There must be a reason for their actions.”

Hot Dog nodded his head, taking a moment to clear his throat before he began to explain why, “Since we could not destroy the chompy pod in the room, we could not effectively lower their numbers. If we took down one, two more would spawn shortly afterwards, and the two giant chompies that were also in the room would be ordering the little ones around and have them go after Apple Bloom and her friends. Since Rubble and Rainbow were busy making sure Tribus was on his way to Cloudcracker Prison outside and with Calvin resting after his battle earlier, we couldn’t exactly call for backup. So, at the time, this seemed like the only option that we had.”

“Even though I told you that it was an insane idea,” Digger grumbled.

“Insane or not,” a somewhat familiar voice was now heard as Twilight turned around to find the academy’s head of security standing directly behind her, startling her because she knew for a fact that there was nopony behind her when she entered the room originally, “You’re all still in one piece, and that’s what matters!”

Of course, his sudden appearance triggered the same reaction from both Digger and Twilight while several people in the room were caught off guard by this. “AHH!! Where did you come from?!”

That had Hot Dog let out a sigh as he looked back at both the princess and the pup, “Don’t mind Buzz… He usually does things like this.”

“Are you crazy?!” Rainbow then spoke up, “This guy is like if Pinkie Pie was a ninja!”

That had the mabu scratch his chin as he looked at the pegasus, “Pinkie Pie, huh? ...Based on the reports, she could be a good candidate. I am always looking for new talent.”

“Rainbow, what have ya done?” was the only thing Applejack could say as she facehooved herself.

“In any case,” Tessa replied, trying to get the conversation back on track, “We might have gotten the crystals we were looking for, but it’s not going to help us out a lot if they can’t fight at full strength,” the fox then stopped for a moment, an idea coming to her head as she looked back towards Buzz, “Hey, Buzz, have you seen Mags anywhere? Maybe she can figure out what the issue we’re having is.”

“Apologies for interrupting, but who is this ‘Mags’ that you are referring to?” Luna now took a moment to ask.

“She’s the academy’s chief architect and inventor,” Calvin clarified for the Princess of the Night, “Mags helped us out with finding the location we needed to go to in order to find the Elementaniun Crystals in the first place. Maybe she happened to uncover some additional information while we were away?”

“If it helps make sure that we don’t have any more hiccups happen, then I’m all for it,” Scootaloo spoke up now.

Of course, just as Scootaloo said that, they all heard footsteps come in as everyone turned to see Mags. Though, from the looks of it, it looks like smoke was coming off of her clothes. “Sorry for running late. Had a problem in the botany department with a rapid fertilizer outbreak. Needed to literally torch the whole project.”

That just had Rainbow stare blankly at the inventor, with one thing coming to her head, “Please tell me you're joking.”

“Nope. Needed to have Torch torch the whole project before it would torch everything else,” she said, coughing a bit as she brushed some dust off her clothes, “Man, that's a tongue twister. Though, now that I’m here, what did I miss?”

That had Calvin look around the room for a moment, trying to think of what to say before looking back to Mags. “Well, to keep things simple, my friends found what we were looking for at Munitions Forge. Yet, when they tried using the crystals, they were coming across some technical difficulties.”

That seemed to get Mags attention as she looked back at him and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “What kind of difficulties?”

“They tried transforming, but it seemed that they weren’t able to fully change into the Skylander they tried turning into and only gained part of that Skylander’s appearance,” Hugo added on as he adjusted his glasses and began to recall everything that was mentioned earlier, “In addition, based on what Sweetie Belle mentioned earlier, it’s entirely possible that this affected their abilities when it comes to combat, too.”

That summary from Hugo made Mags a bit curious, before looking back at the four of them as she began to think. At first, she was scratching her chin while processing all the information that she had just heard from both Calvin and Hugo. Though, not long afterwards, she got an idea as she looked back at the Skyshifter and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Well now, let’s have a looksee and see what the problem is,” she said, before extending her hand out and gesturing for the Cutie Mark Crusaders to hand her the crystals.

It took a moment for the girls to pick up on what Mags gesture meant, but once they did, all three of them gave her the crystals that they were holding onto. Once they were in her hand, she flipped down the eyeglass that was above her right eye on her helmet and began to examine each of the three crystals closely. “Hmm, can’t seem to notice anything off about these. Though, now that I think of it,” after saying that, she then turned to Calvin, “Calvin, mind if I borrow your pendant for a moment?”

“May I ask why?” Calvin asked.

“I wanted to see if there was any noticeable differences between the crystal that you have and the ones that the Crusaders just gave me. If there is, then maybe we can figure out what’s causing the problem they’re having.”

Hearing that was enough to convince the Skyshifter to take off the pendant that was around his neck and to give it to Mags, who held it in her other hand as she inspected all of the crystals at once. At first, things seemed rather quiet. But just as Tessa was going to say something, the architect came across something. “Well, hot buttered toast! I think I found your problem.”

“You did?” Apple Bloom asked, leading to Mags nodding her head, “What is it?”

“The crystals that you three happened to have are right now unrefined. Unlike Calvin’s, the disjointed surface on the ones you found cause sparks of magic that weaken the power of the magic flowing through the crystals,” she explained, having everyone come take a closer look so she could point out the details of what she noticed before handing back Calvin his pendant and giving the Crusaders their crystals back. “Unless you get those crystals reshaped and refined, then you’re going to be having this problem for a while.”

“Aww man...” Scootaloo pouted.

“Come on, Scoots,” Apple Bloom spoke up, “We should be used to this by now.”

“I know that! Doesn’t mean I have to like it!”

Unlike her two friends right now though, Sweetie Belle decided to say something different. “Do you guys happen to know anyone who could refine these?”

“Well, one particular Skylander comes to mind, since we’re on the subject of crystals,” Buzz spoke up, “Hugo, would we happen to know where Prism Break is?”

That had Hugo look at Master Eon for a moment, before letting out a small sigh. “He’s currently busy at the moment. He’s gathering what Skylanders we can to form a search team-”

“Search team?” Calvin now asked, thrown off guard by what Hugo said, “Did something happen?”

There was a bit of a pause for a moment, before Master Eon let out a sigh as he looked back at Calvin and his companions, “Yesterday, when you and your friends were leaving, I had assigned Stealth Elf to assist a Skylander in trying to gather any information we could on Kaos. Unfortunately, we have not heard back from her or the Skylander that she was working with since.”

“Hang on,” Hot Dog now spoke up as he looked back at the Portal Master, “Are you saying that it’s likely that she… got captured by Kaos?”

“We don’t want to assume that just yet,” Master Eon replied back, “But the fact that they have not responded at all by any means worries me. So, we’re preparing a team to look for their whereabouts and determine where they might be.”

As the Portal Master finished speaking, that was when Buzz chimed in, “In the meantime, why don’t you girls hold onto those crystals, and we’ll send you a message when Prism Break’s available? I know that you’re eager to help out, Calvin, but from the looks of it, all of you look like you need some much needed rest.”

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Applejack replied.

“What about Sheer and her siblings?” Sweetie then asked Buzz.

“We can let them stay at the academy and figure out who they’ll be staying with,” Buzz replied back, before looking to notice Dusty, “Now, who’s the little one right next to you, Calvin?”

Calvin looked back at Dusty for a moment, before looking back to Buzz, “Well, this is Dusty, and due to some… complications, she’s not entirely comfortable around anyone except for me. So, I’m letting her stay with me.”

That had everyone, including the princesses, look back at one another. They were a bit surprised by what the Skyshifter was saying, including Buzz and Master Eon as both of them looked at each other for a moment before the Portal Master began to speak, “Alright, I’ll allow Dusty to stay with you, but under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“If there happens to be any problems at all, inform us about them immediately,” Master Eon told him, “Since Dusty would be the first one from the Skylands to be living down below in Equestria, we don’t know what kind of possible complications that may bring. So, if something does come up, report it to us at once.”

“Yes, Master Eon,” Calvin nodded, looking back to the Portal Master as Twilight and everyone else that was from Equestria began to head on back. Before he left though, the Skyshifter had one last thing that he wanted to say to the Portal Master, “If you need my help with anything, just let me know. Stealth Elf’s a friend of mine too. If she’s in trouble, then I want to help.”

With that, the Skyshifter left, with Dusty following not that far behind him as they went to go join back up with their friends and head back over to the other side. As for everyone else that was in the room, they had a different matter that they had to attend to now. “Alright, so who’s gonna stay with who-?”

“I call dibs!” Skippy immediately declared, before tackling Hot Dog to the ground.

“Well… that takes care of one of them I think,” Buzz replied, before looking back at the others and coming up with an idea, “Why don’t we give everyone the grand tour of the academy and see if we can find anyone that’ll be open for letting you stay with them? That way, you can be familiar with everything that the academy has to offer.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Tessa nodded in agreement.

“Alright then, let’s-” Buzz was going to lead the fire dogs out on a tour of the academy, but then happened to notice something that was off, “Wait a second… one of you is missing.”

Hot Dog soon caught on as he began to look around the room and realized what Buzz was talking about, “Wait… where’s Digger?”

The other dogs were looking at each other for a moment, sounding completely quiet as they looked around to see where their brother went off to. Fortunately, after a couple of moments, that question soon answered itself as they saw the fire dog walk back in, dirt all over his body as he looked back at his siblings while dragging something inside. “Hey, guys! Look what I found!”

Immediately, someone recognized what exactly the fire dog was carrying in, that someone being Master Eon. “My staff! Where did you find it?”

“I found it under some statue outside,” Digger replied eagerly as the Portal Master began to walk towards the fire dog.

“Well, it seems ‘dibs’ is common today, so…” the Portal Master replied, bending over to pick it up off the ground as he looked back to Digger, “… Dibs.”

At first, there was a small bit of silence. Though, once Digger joined back up with his siblings, that was when Buzz soon spoke up, “Well, now that everyone’s here, why don’t we get started on the tour?”

“Hey, Dusty, are you alright?”

The sudden question from Calvin caught the Lava Dog by surprise as she looked towards her master, shortly before adding on something in addition to that. “Dusty, please answer my question. That’s an order.”

She shivered happily a bit after hearing the order, before following through on the order her master had given her. “I-I’m just… o-overwhelmed. E-everything’s just so n-new and d-different.”

“I hear you,” he told her in response, “I felt the same way when I first came here. Learning about it is one thing, but seeing it in person is something else entirely.”

“Y-you aren’t from h-here?” She asked, hesitantly.

“It’s… complicated,” the Skyshifter told her, scratching the back of his head, “Let’s just say that like how the Skylands were far from your home, my home’s much further away.”

Right now, Dusty was a bit puzzled. She would think that he would snap at her if she asked any questions, since that was what her previous master did. Instead though, he actually answered them calmly and did not get mad at her for asking. It was something that she had never experienced before, but it strangely made a part of her feel comfortable.

It also had her ask one other question as they were walking through the M.A.P. towards the door that was not that far ahead. “W-where are we g-going?”

“Well,” Calvin took a moment to find the right words to explain it to the fire dog, before looking back at Dusty, “Let’s say that where we’re going is what I call my… home away from home.”

End Scroll 24

Scroll 26- Castle Crashing

Author's Note

Picking right where the last chapter left off, this one mainly focuses on the mission that Blackout, Jet Vac, Ambush, Aurora and Prism Break are on as they try to find the whereabouts of their comrades, Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow.

This chapter also has a look at some other upcoming faces that will make themselves known and one of my personal favorite bosses from Skylanders Swap Force coming back for a grand debut.

I had fun coming up with a lot of the stuff going on here since this is seen as kind of a break from the usual chapters that I write for this, but it still ties into the overall story. I hope you like what I have here and look forward to what else in store.

If you happen to have any questions or like what you see here, feel free to leave a comment as well as Fave and track for future updates.

Until then, I hope you like what's here and look forward to what else is in store
-Frost

Scroll 26- Castle Crashing

Beyond the Skies- Castle Crashing

The light of the moon was the only thing that illuminated the darkened sky, as night had fallen over the Skylands. Many of the inhabitants of the Skylands would be in their own homes, tucked into their warm comfortable beds and dreaming sweet dreams tonight. Yet, for one particular dragon in the Skylands tonight, they did not have the luxury of sleep and rest. They had a mission that needed to be done tonight, and it was up to him to see it through, sticking to the shadows as they came upon the stronghold that belonged to none other than Lord Kaos.

To Blackout though, what he was doing now was the result of a change in plans. Originally, he was with four other Skylanders, sent out on a mission by Master Eon in order to find the whereabouts of two of their comrades that have gone missing. When his team arrived at an old building and began to look for clues, they found something that was much different from what they were originally looking for. They didn’t find the exact whereabouts of Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow, but instead found a map to a place where they could find the information that they sought after as well as a way inside.

With this information in hand, their team’s leader, Master Ambush, made a change in plans. To find what they were looking for, one of them had to infiltrate Kaos’ own fortress in the dead of night. Out of the other members of the team, he believed that Blackout was the most suited for the task at hand. Yet, this also meant that he had to do this alone. No back up. No forms of communication. Nothing. He had to get in, find what he was looking for… wherever that may be, and get out.

“Talk about putting the weight of the Skylands on my shoulders,” he grumbled to himself, hiding in the shadows while looking for a potential entry point for him to infiltrate the castle, being aware of any enemy patrols that were around the area and watching their movements. If the instructions that Trap Shadow left behind were still applied here, then there was supposed to be an opening up above with one of the windows.

Though, that was not what Blackout planned to do, especially since several of the windows that were up at the top of the castle looked to be boarded up. “Guess I’m going in from below,” he thought to himself, rounding around the backside of the castle. At one point, he found an entrance to one of the lower levels of the castle, but had to hide in the shadows as two guards walked out through the door and made their way up the stairs before proceeding to go along the castle grounds.

Once the guards had left and the door was closing, Blackout made his move, slipping through the entryway before the door could fully close all the way and sticking to the shadows. He was inside, yet the only question now was where was he? Sure, he had seen the map that Trap Shadow left for them, but that was only briefly. He had to find out where he was first before getting any ideas on what to do.

Fortunately, along the wall, there looked to be a plate on the wall that served as a floor directory, with a few of them already being listed. Taking a quick moment, he scanned what was on the wall, before looking at the bottom of the list.

B1F- Interrogation/Time Out Rooms

“How… is that supposed to be intimidating?” he asked himself, only to slowly turn around and see a pair of chains dangling along the wall as they reflected the light of the moon outside. “Okay, never mind.”

Looking back to the directory, Blackout began to look at the list, trying to see which rooms were the most likely places to have the information that he was looking for, while also being surprised by just how many rooms that this giant stronghold actually contained. There was a game room, a pool and day spa, a dining hall and kitchen, a docking bay for aerial transports, a library as well as Kaos’ sleeping quarters, just to name a few.

Yet, out of all of those locations, there was one possible place that stood out to Blackout the most. That location was Kaos’ personal study. If there was a possibility that Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow were captured in any way by the Dark Portal Master, then there must have been something about it there.

Of course, getting up to the floor that had his study was another story. It was up on the third floor of the castle, and more than likely, each floor was being patrolled by some of Kaos’ minions or whoever else was up this late at night. He didn’t want to assume that the Dark Portal Master was sound asleep in his room, because it was highly possible that the Dark Skylander could find him hard at work crafting his next scheme. So, he had to be careful.

The first floor of the castle, according to the directory, contained the most amount of rooms. This included the main hall, the dining wing, the game room and also the pool and day spa. The docking bay was outside around the back side of the castle, while most of the facilities on this floor were indoors. The guards in the room were stationed around the stairs, while some of them walked around the entire floor in a sweep for intruders while Blackout himself tried to stay out of sight.

It didn’t help that, just as he was about to try and make his way for the stairwell that went to the second floor, that a door opened directly in front of him, with two of Kaos’ minions holding what looked to be snacks and cups of fruit punch as the door behind them did not close all the way. Once they were gone, as he slowly passed the door, he heard a series of loud noises in the background along with the sounds of cheering that were inside.

“Just what in Skylands are they seeing?” Blackout thought to himself, seeing the ‘Game Room’ plaque on the door as he took a look inside. Several of Kaos minions were all sitting in front of a giant projection screen that was spread out along the wall as the Skylander took a peak. In doing so, he happened to find something that could serve as an opportunity. There looked to have been a second set of doors on the other end of the room. Since all the occupants were too focused on the screen, he could just slip behind where they were sitting, provided that he didn’t make any noise, since the room was littered with trash.

Quietly, he slipped into the room and slowly creeped behind the couch, hearing the grumbles of the room’s occupants as he heard the sound of commercials that you would typically hear on Troll Radio. Yet, that did not last long. Before he knew it, all the minions in the room were cheering and excited to see their program return as a few pieces of popcorn fell on top of him, including one that got stuck on the tip of the horn that was on his head. “Oh, come on! Seriously?!”

As he tried to take a moment to remove the popcorn from his horn, a new voice was heard on screen. From his position, Blackout could not see who was talking, but what he heard alone was enough to catch him off guard. ‘Hello, everybody, and welcome back to our SkyStream here at the MaguDome!! I’m your host, Magus, and for all of those who are just tuning in, you have come just in time for tonight’s main event!’

The Dark Skylander could not see anything from his current position as he sneaked behind them, but when he did get a glimpse, he saw what looked to be an arena fight between a drow elf that was wearing a cloak over most of its body and a group of four bipedal beasts with dark fur and spots that carried numerous weapons. ‘This is it, folks! The fans here are on the edge of their seats!! Can our champion, Blade Gunner, stand a chance against the feared Hyena Pack!?! It’s time we find out… FIGHT!!!’

“Yeah, I better get going,” Blackout thought, making his way to the door at the other end of the room as he could hear the sounds of weapons clashing in the background. Yet, as he was going to the door, that was when he happened to hear the announcer say something else.

‘Make sure you stay tuned after our main event, folks! For we have a special treat for our viewers at home! A battle to the death involving two unfortunate souls who found themselves on the wrong end of Master Kaos!’ Immediately, Blackout turned around towards where the projection was being shown, only to find himself staring at the last two people that he wanted to find. On screen were the two comrades that he was trying to find, locked up in a cage that was hanging over the pit that was the arena. ‘Give it up for the two SkyLosers-’

“Stealth Elf?! Trap Shadow-!?”

Immediately, the faces of ten to twelve different minions stared directly at him the moment that the dark dragon realized his blunder, dropping their snacks to grab their weapons as Blackout immediately bolted for the door, propping a coat stand underneath to jam the door before racing to the nearest stairwell. “Good going, Blackout. Now, you put the whole place on high alert,” he told himself as he tried to stay out of sight before going anywhere else. The guards that were once sweeping the grounds were now regrouping and spreading out farther as Blackout tried to find the stairs to make it up to the next floor.

But just as he was about to climb up, he heard a new voice echo from the first floor. “What is going on?! Who in their right mind has the audacity to cause so much commotion this late at night while my son is sleeping?!”

As Blackout turned his head around a corner, he looked to see a tall woman with a pitch black gown and a headdress that resembled horns look around the room, while also seeing Kaos’ Butler, Glumshanks. “You there!! Tell me what is going on!”

“H-Hang on, M-Ma’am. L-Let me,” Glumshanks said, before looking back at the minions and listening to what they were saying, “They said that one moment, they were watching the SkyStream in the game room… the next thing they knew, they turned to see a black dragon was inside with them. They went to get their weapons, but it ran before they could chase after him.”

“Well, that’s just brilliant! This is the third intruder this week! I’m not going to just stand here and let invaders come and go as they please,” the woman snarled, before clapping her hands twice and looking to the ceiling, “Mesmeralda!!”

Out of nowhere, a giant spider creature that wore a red dress and top hat dropped down from the ceiling, an entrance that startled Blackout as she gracefully landed just above the floor. “Why, hello there once again, Kaossandra. To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you again after so long?”

“It has been a long time, but I’m afraid that we have a problem that we need your assistance with,” the woman, Kaossandra, responded back, “We have an intruder running around the stronghold. This is the third one this week, and unfortunately, we cannot have Sombra capture this one, since he only listens to my son, and he’s sound asleep.”

“So, you want for me to find them and bring them to you?” Mesmeralda chuckled, “This sounds rather exciting... And just what does the fly that you want for me to entangle in my web look like?”

Kaossandra herself turned back to Glumshanks, who looked back to the minion he was speaking to as they began to chatter again, “A b-black dragon with w-white eyes and a horn on their head that… l-looks like a blade.”

“Very well,” Mesmeralda nodded, before turning to Kaossandra, “Out of curiosity, what is it that you want to do with them? Surely, you’re not just going to give them to that brute with the SkyStream now, are you?”

“Oh, hardly,” Kaossandra responded in disgust, “When we find that rat, I have my own questions for them that I would like to ask. In the meantime, I have more important research to attend to.”

“W-What kind of research, Ma’am?” Glumshanks now asked.

The woman then looked towards Glumshanks as she let out a sigh. “I’m looking into this ‘Skyshifter’ as well as something that a… draconequus, I believe it was called? Something he stated in one of my son’s recordings has me intrigued. Therefore, I’m taking it upon myself to investigate further.”

After hearing that, Blackout felt tempted to follow her and find out more about what she was trying to solve, but he had more pressing matters to attend to as he carefully ascended up the stairs, going into the first room that he saw and closing the door behind him upon reaching the third floor. At first, he wasn’t sure where exactly he ended up, but the sight of a portal of power at the opposite end of the room immediately told him where exactly he was.

The only two facilities that were on the third floor of the castle were both the quarters where Kaos slept and also the Dark Portal Master’s personal study. Since he did not see any beds or a Dark Portal Master in pajamas at all, Blackout could only assume that he was in the study, especially given the amount of books and scrolls that were scattered all around the room.

“Geez. I know you’re a villain and everything, but would it kill you to keep this place clean?” he thought to himself, before walking over to the table in the center of the study as he began to think about his current situation, “Okay, think. If I go back down there, I’m going to get spotted, but I’m just a sitting duck if I stay here. How am I supposed to get out?”

At first, when seeing that there was a door on the other side of the room, Blackout thought that it would lead to something outside, like a balcony. Unfortunately for him, when he opened the door, he had the displeasure of coming face to face with the same spider lady that he was trying to avoid. “Why, hello there, dearie-”

SLAM!!

“Nope! Not dealing with you!!” the dark dragon immediately stated after slamming the door in the spider woman’s face, before backing away from the door and throwing a bookcase in front of it for good measure. He didn’t have time to try to think of a plan at this rate, especially with the likely possibility that there will be troops swarming the door he came through any second.

There was only one way out of this situation, yet he was going to feel rather sore afterwards, “Alright, out the window it is then.”

Turning towards the window, he backed up as far as he could, before charging towards the window. Curling up into his Shadow Blade attack as he somersaulted through the window, he shattered the glass as he fell down to the ground.

Once the Dark Skylander landed, Blackout had to immediately take refuge in the shadows as he looked to see that Mesmeralda had finally gotten into the room and found the mess that he left behind. No doubt, she was downright furious for the stunt that he just pulled, as she turned around to look at someone that was behind her, presumably more of the minions that served as castle guards, “Tell the rest of your miserable lot to spread out and start searching the castle grounds! Now!! That punk’s going to pay dearly for this!!”

“That’s my cue to leave,” Blackout thought to himself before taking off, blending in with the shadows around him as he ran, “Gotta get to everyone else before I have an army on my tail.”

Unfortunately for him though, luck was not exactly in his favor tonight.

“Something’s not right.”

The comment from Jet Vac was enough to capture Ambush’s attention as he looked back to the Sky Baron. As they were waiting for Blackout’s return, both him and Aurora found an old Skystones table and playing pieces that was put away inside of a closet and decided that the best way that they could wait for their comrade was to play a game. While both Masters were playing, Prism Break just spectated while Jet Vac remained on lookout by a window perch.

“What’s bothering you, Jet Vac?” Ambush asked.

“It’s Blackout,” Jet Vac replied back to the tree-knight, turning his head to look down at the Life Sensei, “Something doesn’t feel right. If he followed the instructions that Trap Shadow left behind, then he would’ve been done sooner. Now, it’s been a couple hours with no sign of him.”

“Do you need to take a break?” Prism asked, one of his crystals glowing and serving as a light so that the two senseis could see the skystones board as Aurora made a move, “You’ve been perched up there since we got here.”

“Someone has to remain on lookout. We don’t know what would happen if we looked away for even just a moment,” the Air Skylander retorted, shortly before looking back outside again.

“Why don’t you come down here and join us? I’m having fun beating Ambush here at Skystone-” she replied, just as he placed down a stone that took one of hers off the board, “Hey! No fair!!”

“It’s a foolish decision to assume victory too early,” Ambush chuckled, looking back at the Light Sensei as she grumbled to herself and played another stone, only to have one of his stones counter it as the stones on Aurora’s end popped off the board, “I win. How many rounds does that put me at?”

“Both of you have three each,” Prism Break replied to Ambush as Jet Vac tried to silence their conversation. While they were talking, he noticed that something was moving in the shadows that weren’t far from the building. At first, he thought it was just the wind or an animal moving in the bushes. Though, he soon began to notice that what he was seeing was too big to be an ordinary animal as it got closer and closer to their location.

Immediately, he began to realize that the creature that was lurking in the shadows was actually their comrade as he were trying to catch their breath. “Blackout? Blackout, are you there?”

Immediately, the dragon responded, looking directly at him. “J-jet Vac?! Jet Vac, we need to go! Now!!”

“Go? Why would we-?” It only took the sky baron a few moments to notice, but not that far behind the dark dragon, there was a squadron of Kaos’ minions carrying torches and weapons as he looked back at the Dark Skylander, “What did you DO!!?!”

“I’ll explain later, but right now, we gotta get out of here!!” Blackout told him.

“What’s going on out there, Jet Vac?” Aurora then asked, getting up from her seat as the Sky Baron used his jet pack to descend to the ground.

“Well, the good news is that Blackout’s back,” the Air Skylander told his teammates, “Bad news though... is that he brought some company with him.”

“What kind of company?” the crystal golem then asked.

“The kind that chase you with weapons and torches,” Jet Vac summarized, before going to the back door of the building and getting it open, “Blackout, quickly!!”

The dragon wasted no time as he leaped inside before Jet Vac shut the door behind him. For added measure, Ambush slid the Skystones table in front of the door to block it as they heard the loud and angry war chants from outside.

“Woah, dear elements, are you alright?” Aurora asked, seeing the exhausted dragon as he was trying to catch his breath.

“D-Do… I look alright?” the dark dragon panted as he looked to his team.

Ambush waited for a few moments to let Blackout rest briefly, before asking the first question that came to his mind. “Blackout, what happened?”

“Well, I was able to get inside, but since the windows were boarded up, I couldn’t go up the same way that Trap Shadow got inside,” the dragon began to recall as he looked at the sensei, before getting the papers that made up the map of Kaos’ fortress and laying them on the floor, “So, I had to go in from the basement. I made my way up to the first floor and stuck to the shadows… then, I made a mistake.”

“Uh oh,” Aurora said to herself.

“You see, my original plan was to go upstairs towards where Kaos’ personal study was and see if he left anything behind that could tell me where they went. Though, since there were guards at the base of the stairs, I tried taking a shortcut through the game room that they had on the first floor,” Blackout carefully explained, going as far as to trace his claw along the map layout that they had to show his route, “At the time, they were too focused on watching some fight broadcast at that MaguDome place, something that a guy named Magus was hosting. At the time, I was trying to sneak over to the door on the other side, but then I heard the announcer talking about ‘two unfortunate souls who found themselves on the wrong end of Master Kaos’.”

“I don’t like where this is going...” Prism Break grumbled.

“Next thing I see is both Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow locked up in a cage hanging over the arena. I was shocked to the point that every minion in that room soon noticed me, before alerting everyone else to the point that it attracted some woman with a pointed headdress and a spider lady-”

“Hold up,” Jet Vac interjected, “Some… woman? Could you be more specific?”

“How much more specific can I get?” Blackout then asked his comrade, “They found out that I was in the building, and the woman wanted that spider lady or whatever she is to capture me and bring me to her, even though she was wanting to get back to her research.”

“What about names?” Prism Break asked.

“Well, the woman was called Kaossandra and the spider lady that she was talking to was known as… Mesmeralda, I think?”

That had Jet Vac’s eyes widen a bit as he stepped back. “Y-You’re not serious, are you?”

“You know who I’m talking about?” Blackout asked.

“She was a villain that a few Skylanders, myself included, encountered when we were trying to stop Kaos’ plan at Mount Cloudbreak a few years back,” the sky baron explained, “When we fought, she treated the battle like it was a stage performance and referred to herself as the star of the show. Yet, we never really knew where she went after her defeat.”

“Well, it might not have been the best idea to slam a door directly in her face then.”

“You did what!?!”

“I believe we are getting a little off topic here,” Ambush decided to interject, before turning back to Blackout to ask a new question, “You said this woman wanted to get back to her research… Did she happen to say anything about what that would entail?”

“Well, yeah. That Mesmeralda lady did ask her, but the only things she said was something about a Sky… shifter or something like that as well as figuring out something that was on a recording from a dragon...eq-something,” Blackout let out another deep sigh, “T-That’s all I can honestly remember.”

Just hearing that alone was enough for Jet Vac to look towards Ambush and Aurora, before looking back to Blackout, “I swear I heard that title somewhere before, but now is not the time for that. We got what we came here for, so we should send a signal so that Flynn can get us out of here.”

“It would be best for us to leave while we still have the chance,” Ambush added, “We don’t know the numbers pitted against us if we were to fight them off, especially since we are in their territory.”

“Okay, b-but where are we going to wait?” Blackout coughed, “Flynn w-won’t know where we are if we stayed inside here.”

“There is always the roof,” Aurora suggested, “But we should get a hold of him first.”

“How are we going to do that though?” Prism Break asked, which just lead to all four of the other Skylanders in the room staring at him, “Uh... why are you guys looking at me?”

On the deck of the S.S. Boom, Cali was on lookout as she watched the vast expanse of the Skylands pass by. Both her and Flynn were tasked with helping a team of Skylanders with their mission and right now. She was waiting for some form of signal that would notify her that the team needed an extraction. Of course, it did not exactly help any that the pilot of the ship was asleep at the helm of the ship now. Especially when, every so often, Flynn would talk about enchiladas in his sleep.

Of course, she would honestly be a lot more worried were it not for the fact that, somehow, Flynn was actually better flying asleep than whenever he’s flying awake, which, in itself, was scary to even think about.

“T-thank… F-fank you...! I a-am... h-honored… a-awarded… ‘Sky Pilot… Year’ a-award for… n-ninth… row. It is-s just... to w-werk... f-fine people,” he said, looking like he was pulling a list out of his pocket, even though there wasn’t any, “I h-eve a f-few … f-fank … and little time… through... f-fest... cann.”

“Oh, great. I would settle for anything else other than this incoherent acceptance speech right now,” Cali internally groaned, being forced to listen to Flynn name off each person that he wanted to thank individually. Fortunately though, she did not have to sit through it for much longer, because as she turned her head to try and pay attention to anything other than the sleep talking pilot, two golden yellow beams of light shot up in the sky.

Immediately, she realized what that meant as she turned towards the helm of the ship and raced over to where the pilot was standing. “Flynn, we gotta go! Now!!”

“H-hang o-on. I-I have a-a f-few m-more-”

SMACK!!

“Flynn, wake up!!” Cali told him, whacking him over the side of the head as the wheel of the ship began to spin. She tried to take control of the helm, but the Mabu had already turned the ship so quickly that it was on a crash course towards a giant floating island that was now in their path. “FLYNN!!”

“W-what? I was dreaming about-” the pilot barely had any time to fully wake up properly, because the first thing that he saw upon being slapped out of his slumber was his ship barreling straight towards an island, “Holy ENCHILADA SAUCE!! Hang onto something!!”

Cali never had time to grab onto anything as the ship made an immediate hard left turn, barely missing the island by a few inches as Flynn was trying to get them back on course. “C-Cali, what’s-”

“Look, less talking, more piloting, Flynn,” she told him, before pointing to where the two beams were, “The team of Skylanders we dropped off are sending their signal. We need to pick them up, but be careful-”

“Cali, DUCK!!”

Immediately, Cali hit the deck as a giant boulder flew over the deck of the ship, prompting her to glare back at Flynn as he was trying to maneuver the ship, as he kept his head low, “What did I say about being careful!?!”

“I’m sorry! I don’t work well under pressure!!” the pilot replied, narrowly missing another set of clouds as he was going straight towards where the lights were. But as they got closer, the two of them could make out a few other things that were rather noticeable. For one thing, the light was coming from the rooftop of what looked to be an abandoned building that was nearby a giant castle. Another thing was the fact that the Skylanders that they were trying to pick up were stuck on top of the building, while an army of what looked to be Kaos’ Minions carrying torches and weapons were trying to get them down.

“Flynn, how close can you get to them!?” Cali asked, thinking of a plan for how to get them on board as she made her way to the hatch that would allow for her to go below deck.

“I-I don’t know... a f-few more feet? Why-?”

“Just get as close as you can to the building. I got a plan to get them on board,” she told him, before jumping down below deck and darting over to the door that would be used to bring supplies into the cargo bay. Normally, for bringing passengers on board, Flynn would either have to use a ramp or a rope ladder to bring them in, but considering their current predicament, the only thing that she could think of was to open up the cargo bay door as the ship approached the building.

“Everyone on board, now!!”

Wasting no time, all five Skylanders hurried to get on board as Cali went back to the controls and hit the button to close the cargo bay door. At first, it was beginning to rise up, but as Flynn was trying to move his ship, something snagged onto the door and prevented it from closing. “Flynn, talk to me here! The cargo bay door’s not working!!”

“Aww, leaving so soon?” a sinister, yet melancholic voice called out to them, “I was about to prepare for my grand performance…” When Cali looked outside to see what was holding the ship, she could see threads that were being held by a spider lady with a dark red dress and a small top hat, “Why would my audience want to leave so soon? I am the star after all.”

“Sorry, but we’re going to have to pass on that!” Aurora proclaimed, jumping up onto the cargo bay door and slicing at the strings with her blades, cutting through the threads and freeing the ship as the cargo bay door was able to properly close.

“Flynn, we only got this chance! GO!!”

Upon hearing Cali’s statement, Flynn wasted no time turning the ship back around and trying to get away from there as fast as possible before Mesmeralda could try to grab hold of the ship again. But Mesmeralda herself had a different plan. With a flick of her wrist and a turn of her fingers, the sliced pieces of string that were cut by Aurora transformed into her puppets. “My friends, be a dear and drag them back over here. I must have an audience!”

“Agh! Evil Puppets on deck! Evil puppets on deck!! Help!” Flynn yelled, trying to keep them away from the wheel of the ship, barely missing another island as Ambush quickly came on deck. The puppets themselves were made of wood and painted white along with wearing a purple and black striped shirt over their wooden frames and a small matching hat. They had wooden arms on their sides and floated above the ground, since they did not have legs, and their eyes glowed red.

“Allow me,” the sensei replied, just as the puppets noticed his presence and began to charge at the Life Skylander. Gripping his blade, he readied his weapon and waited for the right opportunity to strike. Two of them began to close in, one from his right and the other that was directly in front of him. As they did, Ambush swung his sword, spinning in the air as it struck both of the puppets before turning his attention to his other opponents. They were trying to attack him while his back was turned...

...Something he saw as a mistake for him to exploit. Placing his hands on the ground and raising them up, the sensei channeled his power as he summoned an upheaval of bamboo trees around him, knocking the puppets into the air upon contact, just before Ambush pushed his hands to the side and sent pieces of bamboo shattering and flying as projectiles towards them.

“It is foolish to think that you can so easily overrun a master,” Ambush spoke, before arming himself with his blade as the puppets got back up, “Another round, huh? Try if you like.”

For the next attempt, the puppets split themselves up into two groups, both of them charging at the master from two different positions as Ambush readied himself. Even though their attempt to take him by surprise was impressive, it was still flawed. Holding his sword, the Life Sensei spun around in the air, his blade striking both groups within mere moments of each other as they landed on the ground.

“As fun as this might be, I’m pulling the curtain on this show,” the sensei declared, putting his hands together as he looked at the puppets, “By the power of Sky Chi!”

In a matter of seconds, Ambush had his targets. Forseeing the victory that was to come, he dashed forth, swiftly slicing through and eliminating each one of the puppets, his foes transforming into nothing more than threads as they were blown off deck by the evening winds. “Respect Nature!”

“W-whoa... that was too close,” Flynn said, looking back to the sensei, “Thanks for clearing the deck. I can get us back safely, knowing that we don’t have any freaky puppets trying to hijack my ship.”

Ambush himself nodded, turning around to find Cali coming back up on deck, “How are the others-?”

Before Cali had the chance to say anything, both of them heard the sound of cannon fire in the distance, turning to see several vessels pursuing them and aiming cannons directly at their ship. “Flynn, we’re getting shot at! I hope you have something on board that could help us fight back,” Cali told him, just as another cannon shot almost clipped the side of their vessel.

“Yeah, uh…” Flynn told her, before making a sharp right turn to avoid hitting another floating island that was nearby, “We might have a slight problem with that.”

“What ‘problem’?” she now asked, narrowing her gaze.

“W-well,” the pilot stuttered, just before hearing the sound of another cannon going off, “There really isn’t anything we can use to fight back with on here.”

“You don’t have any weapons on here!?!”

“This is a cargo ship! Not a combat vessel. I don’t want anymore holes in my ship-” he countered, just as another shot was fired, this one breaking the front nose of the ship as the pilot tried to keep the ship steady, “Oh, come on! How can this get any worse?”

“Aww, what’s the matter? Leaving so soon?” they heard the same melancholic voice from before as Ambush turned to see Mesmeralda on one of the vessels that was chasing them, “Guess it seems like we’re taking this show on the road! I hope all of you are prepared for the second act.”

“...great. Now, she’s taunting us. Honestly preferred the cannonballs-” As Flynn said that, another cannonball was fired, this time smashing through the railing that was directly behind him, “I was joking!”

“We can’t just stand here and let them shoot us down,” Ambush commented, looking to Cali for a moment before an idea came to his head, “Prism Break, come up here! We need your help on deck.”

“Hang on! Hang on! I’m coming up,” they heard the crystal golem shout, just before finding his way back up onto the deck of the ship as he now began to see that pieces of the ship were now missing, and the sound of cannons were being fired, “What in the world is going on up here?”

Ambush paused for a moment to try and come up with an explanation for Prism. As he was about to speak though, another cannon ball flew by over the deck, this time hitting one of the islands that Flynn was doing his best to avoid, which in turn prompted the sensei to instead keep things simple because of their current situation. “Being hunted. Ship has no weapons. Need your lasers.”

Prism, looking around for a moment at all the cannon fire barely missing the ship, just slumped his shoulders and sighed before looking back to Ambush. “Fine,” Rolling his shoulders, he began to walk towards the stern of the ship to look to see how many enemy ships he was dealing with, before summoning some crystals where he was standing as he rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

“Flynn, you might want to shield your eyes.”

“My eyes? Why would I-” Before he could finish, Flynn turned around to see what was behind him, just as Prism Break started firing his lasers at the enemy ships being him, a misaimed one flashing in his direction as the ship shook from another blast. “AH! MY EYES!!”

“Dang it, Flynn! What did I just tell you!?” Cali snapped, before she turned around to see that the ship was heading towards another giant floating island, “Flynn!! We’re going to crash unless you do something-!!”

Instead of making a hard turn to the left or right, the blinded pilot instead went with a crazier plan and had the ship take a downward nose dive, forcing Ambush and Cali to grab hold of the railings along the side of the vessel while Flynn went straight down, the pilot’s back being the only thing keeping Prism Break from falling off as the crystal golem continued to fire off more blasts at the ships that pursued them, several of the lasers hitting their targets and causing some of the ships to blow up, while the other vessels that were chasing them performed evasive maneuvers in order to avoid getting hit.

“What in my uncle’s name is going on up there!?!” Ambush and Cali heard Aurora shout from below deck.

“Prism’s fending off ships that are coming after us, and Flynn’s literally flying blii-,” the mabu tried to summarize for the Light Sensei, before realizing just how far they were going down and how fast they were descending, “-Ahhh! Pull up, Flynn! Pull up!!”

Immediately, the pilot did what she said and had their vessel immediately pull up, throwing Prism off guard as the maneuver affected his aim and causing his beams to miss their intended targets. “HEY!!”

“S-sorry!!” Cali shouted back, not letting go of the grip she had on the railing as Flynn was having the ship come back up to proper altitude.

“Hmph, what a pesky little bunch,” they heard Mesmeralda’s voice echo again, before seeing her move her arms, “Chorus, prepare yourselves!! If they aren’t coming to my stage, then we will come to them instead!!”

Mere moments after hearing that, a cannonball from a ship that was flanking their left side crashed through the cargo hold. As Ambush turned and saw the vessel, the minions on board began throwing giant sized orbs at the ship as several landed on deck, and a few more were thrown into the hole that was now in the cargo ship. From a distance, it looked as if they were either cannon balls or bombs that were heading towards them, but as they were about to touch the deck, the spheres began to unravel like a ball of string and released the puppets that were kept inside. They were mostly similar to the ones that Ambush had already faced, but several of the puppets this time were armed with magenta colored scimitars and kamas.

“Cali, stay with Flynn. I’ll handle this,” the tree-knight told her, readying his weapon as the mabu quickly raced over to where the pilot was standing. Taking up a stance, the sensei stared down his opponents and firmly gripped the blade in his hands, “I may not have roses, but let me give you some plants for your performance.”

The puppets made the first move as the ones without weapons tried to throw themselves at the sensei. Yet, Ambush himself had a different approach for this one. Instead of swinging his blade to counter their attacks, the sensei charged forth, bamboo emerging from the ground beneath his feet as he knocked the puppets into the air with his Splintering Punch technique before flying straight at them, using the opportunity to catch his foes by surprise and strike them before they hit the ground.

As Ambush landed back on the ground, he turned his head to the right to see that two of the puppets that were armed with scimitars came at him next. Preparing his blade, the Life Sensei took up a defensive posture as he began to block and parry attacks from both of the puppets. Trying to disarm them would be a challenge, considering that when Ambush blocked the attacks of one puppet, the second one followed up shortly afterwards. So instead, he focused on defending himself from their attacks and waited for the right moment to strike.

One thing that he didn’t notice though was that while he was clashing with these particular puppets, the ones who wielded kamas were nowhere to be seen. He knew that they weren’t part of the group that charged in to start this encounter, and they weren’t with these ones, so where were they?

“Master Ambush, behind you!!”

The callout from Cali led to Ambush turning his head briefly and seeing the kama puppets attempting to get the jump on him. Acting quickly, the Sensei pushed off the scimitar puppets before placing both hands on the ground, creating an Arboreal Upheaval at his spot that knocked both groups into the air. This time, though, several pieces of bamboo floated around the Sensei in a circle, forming what he would call ‘the ring of pain’.

This particular technique was one that Ambush would use whenever he found himself in a situation where he was outnumbered. In this case, as the kama puppets tried to attack him from behind again, their attempts were intercepted by the bamboo that spun around him before getting knocked back down to the ground, allowing for the Sensei to focus on the opponents in front of him and not have to worry about getting blindsided.

“The best offense is a good defense,” he said, looking to his opponents as the unarmed puppets were now regrouping, “A shame that you don’t seem to understand that.”

The puppets tried to prepare for another attack, but as they got up, the ship began to roll upside down. The unexpected maneuver forced Ambush to slam his sword in the ground to support himself as several of the puppets that didn’t have weapons started to either hold onto their companions or fell off their ship. As this was happening, Cali was trying to hold onto something so she didn’t fall off while Flynn maintained his grip on the wheel. As for Prism Break, the golem was caught off guard by the sudden roll of the ship, which caused his lasers to slice around and cut through a lot of the ships that were chasing them, something that the surprised Earth Skylander didn’t notice because he was trying his best to save himself and not fall off the ship.

“Flynn, that’s not what I meant when I said evasive maneuvers!!” Cali snapped the moment that the ship was not rolling around anymore.

When the ship was finally straightened out, Ambush yanked his sword out of the floor of the deck as the puppets he was facing did the same. Despite the small setback just now, Ambush was still focused on the foes that were in front of him. He was beginning to think of a way to finish this fight, because the sooner that he did, the better.

Carefully, he observed the opponents that remained, watching as they made a formation around the tree knight and circled around him like vultures. The unarmed puppets were on his left hand side and the scimitar puppets were on the right, leading to him thinking that the kama puppets were behind him again. They must’ve had a plan for all of them to attack him at once, considering that their previous two attempts to successfully harm the Sensei did not work out in their favor.

“So, this is what you have chosen to do...” he said, before letting out a sigh and readying himself, “Very well. Then, I believe that it’s time for me to teach you a harsh lesson.”

In an instant, all the puppets charged at him as the Sensei prepared himself. Ambush began drawing upon his strength, waiting for the right moment to attack his foes. Placing his right hand on the deck, the Sensei jumped up into the air as the ground beneath him erupted with a giant upheaval of mystical bamboo. The attack caught all his opponents together and defeated them in one fell swoop, their bodies turning into broken threads that blew away with the wind.

“The lesson is… never mess with nature,” the Sensei said. Yet, despite his victory, something did not feel right. Over the course of his battle, none of the other Skylanders that were below deck came up to join the fight. If anything, it was all likely possible that they were having to face the same foes that he encountered just now.

Wasting no time, Ambush made his way back down into the cargo hold of the ship. Luckily, there were no foes left in the room. Yet, all the unexpected twists and turns by Flynn over the course of the flight have left both the room and the Skylanders worse for wear. “Is everyone alright?”

“...W-we’ve been better,” Blackout groaned as he tried to get up off the floor.

“We d-defeated the puppets that broke in, b-but the ship’s still in disrepair,” Jet Vac was the next one to speak, scratching the back of his head as a couple of feathers fell off his arms.

“R-Remind me how h-he’s still allowed to fly-” Aurora added, before noticing that something was missing as she looked back at Ambush, “Uh… Where’s Break?”

Immediately, all four Skylanders rushed back up on deck, only to find Cali and Flynn on deck. They checked all over, even the side of the ship for any signs of their teammate. As they were looking though, Flynn himself was rubbing his eyes, finally able to see once again. “Ah, that’s better,” he said, before looking back at the Skylanders, “So, what did I miss-?”

“Flynn, can you stop standing around and help? We can’t find Prism Break,” Cali interjected him before she went over to help the Skylanders try to find their missing companion.

Of course, hearing that did not exactly register correctly inside his brain as he started walking over, “Well, all things considered, we might’ve lost him-”

“Flynn!!”

“What?” the pilot asked, not sure why Cali was snapping at him, “I’m just saying that it’s likely that we lost Prism Break in the cha-”

Fortunately though, much to the surprise of the pilot, that was not the case, “Oh, for elements’ sake! Can someone please help me up?!”

As soon as they heard that, everyone rushed to the right side near the back of the ship, finding the golem they were looking for as he was trying his best to hang on and not fall, much to the pilot’s surprise, “Oh, look, there he is!”

Cali could only facepalm herself and groan at what Flynn said, while Jet Vac let out a sigh of relief, just before he asked everyone else that was nearby a question, “While it is a relief to see that Prism’s okay… does anyone have any idea how to bring him back on board?”

In the moments after the sky baron asked that, no one had a particular solution in order to solve this dilemma. Not even Ambush had a possible way in order to save their comrade from his current predicament. But Cali did have a question for one of the Skylanders, “Hey, Jet? Can’t you just fly him up using your jetpack or something?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t. Because of some of the maneuvers that Flynn used just now, my pack got damaged. I’m going to have to take it back to the Sky Fortress to get it repaired after this.”

“Well, that scratches one idea I had,” the mabu sighed.

For a few more moments, everything was silent, only for that silence to be broken by Aurora. “Hmm……”

“Something on your mind, Aurora?” Ambush then asked.

“Well, I might have an idea for getting him on board… but I’m not sure if he’ll like it. Just got to find the right angle...” she said, before taking a moment to look down at Prism from the back of the ship. Then, Aurora hopped up onto the backside of the vessel and used her light speed to quickly move between different points along the side of the ship

“Then, I guess I’ll just leave this to you,” Ambush said, “In the meantime, I’ll be down below deck, so I can try and fix the holes in the ship.”

The Light Sensei didn’t respond back to the tree knight, for she was a little too focused on the task that she was trying to accomplish. Fortunately, Aurora found what she was looking for after inspecting several possible angles that could’ve worked. Positioned near the front of the ship on the right side, the Sensei looked at the golem as she called out to him. “Alright, Break… little heads up, but I’m going to try something. We can take it from here, but… you might want to brace yourself.”

“W-Wait, what was that last part-?”

“Blackout,” Aurora called out now, prompting the dragon to look over the side of the ship as the Sensei spoke to him, “Make sure to catch him, even if you have to stretch out all the way.”

“Wait, wha-?”

The Sensei already put her plan in motion by the time that Blackout had asked his question, conjuring a light sword in her free hand as she looked towards the golem, charging it with power as she aimed. “Sorry ahead of time, Break!”

“For wha-” Immediately, Prism stopped speaking the moment that he noticed the sword that was in Aurora’s hand, “What do yo-” Before he could finish, Aurora took the blade that was in her hand and threw it towards the golem. The weapon promptly landed underneath the golem on the side of the ship, before the blade exploded as it launched Prism Break into the air. “-nk you are dooooiiiing?!?!”

“By the elements, is she insane!?!” Blackout, upon realizing what was happening, thought to himself as he put what remaining strength he had into stretching out one of his wings in order to catch the falling Earth Skylander. His own body was shrinking from the amount of shadows he was putting into his wing as Blackout merged his feet into the deck of the ship, sweat rolling down his face as he braced himself for what happened next.

As Prism came falling down, the golem landed directly in the grasp of the outstretched wing, its feathers molded into a mitt like shape. The momentum of Prism’s fall forced the Dark Skylander to stretch ever further. The shadows where he placed his feet were now breaking apart from the deck as he desperately tried to hold on, and then, all of a sudden… the momentum stopped, Blackout having successfully caught Prism Break.

...unfortunately, his sense of victory was short lived, as the elastic like form of his shadowy body coiled back with an audible ‘boing’, right towards his face. “Oh, shoot-”

The next thing he knew, Prism Break collided with the dark dragon and knocked him to the floor. His body was back to his normal size, but Blackout’s right wing was still stretched out and wrapped around the crystal golem to the point that he looked like a cat that was caught in a bundle of string, immobile.

“Blackout… remind me to never ask any favors from Aurora ever again,” Prism Break commented with an audible groan. The fact that the Light Sensei was celebrating while the two of them were in their current state did not exactly help either.

“S-Sure thing, p-pretty lady. I-I’ll get r-right on that…” Blackout could only say, his eyes were spinning as his head slumped to the ground.

Even though Aurora’s plan might have been successful, Cali could only grimace at the end result of that plan as she looked at Blackout, “This doesn’t look good, guys-”

Though, as soon as she tried to inform everyone about Blackout’s current state, Ambush came back up on deck as he began looking at everyone. “What’s going on? Are we being attacked again!?”

“Ahhh! Hide the enchiladas-,” Flynn then shouted, before realizing a flaw with that statement, “...Oh, wait… no more enchiladas…”

“No, Flynn. It’s not an attack,” Cali groaned, before turning back towards Ambush and letting out a sigh, “Sorry about that, Master Ambush. The blast was just Aurora’s ‘bright idea’ to get Prism back on board… but thanks to her, we need to get back to the academy even more,” at that point, the mabu turned to the dragon that was unconscious on the deck of the ship, “I’m no doctor, but I can tell that Blackout is in need of some serious medical attention.”

Ambush nodded as he looked back to the pilot that was nearby first, “Flynn, get us back to the academy as quick as you can… without any surprise maneuvers,” he told him, before turning his attention to the Light Sensei, “Aurora, if you have the time to celebrate your victories, then perhaps you can use some of that time to help those that need it.”

When Aurora heard that, as well as see him motion towards both Blackout and Prison Break, the Light Sensei let out an embarrassed chuckle before going over to help.

Leaving Flynn to fly the ship, Jet Vac stood on deck as a lookout as they set a course back to the academy, watching the stars in the night sky pass them. “Hmm… I wonder what the night sky is like down below,” the sky baron thought to himself, just as a thought came to mind, “Wait… sky below… sky-”

“…something about a Sky… shifter…”

As the words from his comrade echo in Jet Vac’s mind, he looked down below as everything began to click into place, “If that woman Blackout mentioned was referring to is who I think she was… then we might have a much bigger problem to worry about.”

Meanwhile

Warm rays of light flickered along his face as Calvin began to slowly rise up. One of the first things that he noticed upon opening his eyes was that not only was he not in his bed, but that Dusty wasn’t beside him. He was wearing his pajamas, but found himself sitting on a grass lawn as he looked around him. Instead of a dirt pathway and carriages like in Ponyville, there were cracked roads and cars in driveways.

But this place… was somehow familiar to him. He remembered this place. It was the old block where he lived. If that was possible though, it only meant one thing.

Turning around, Calvin found himself staring directly at his house, the house he called home before he arrived in Equestria.

Instinct soon kicked in seconds later, racing to the door as he opened it up, hoping that someone was inside. But instead, he found nothing. No one in the living room, no one outside, no one in the kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms or garage either. It was as if everyone that lived here had disappeared.

“Good evening, Calvin.”

The voice, even though it was friendly, sent a small chill down his spine. Slowly, he turned around to find Princess Luna was standing in the center of the living room.

“P-Princess,” he asked, sounding scared as he looked around him, “W-Where am I?”

“Welcome to your dreams, young Calvin,” the princess told him, “I know this may seem sudden, but we need to talk.”

End Scroll 26

Scroll 27- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These (Part 1)

Beyond the Skies- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These Part 1

To Princess Luna, the ability to walk into the dreams of others was somewhat akin to that of a special trait of hers, one that aligned with her duties of being Princess of the Night. If nightmares were to cloud the minds of anypony she would come across, it was her duty to come into their minds and comfort them so that they could face the fears that haunted them. However, one thing that she learned was that dreamwalking was something she had to be careful with. The incident with the Tantabus in Ponyville several months ago taught her as much.

Tonight though, something was different. Three ponies that she had met before, the trio of fillies that were known by their friends and family as the Cutie Mark Crusaders, were having nightmares, which, in her mind, was strange. Not just because she had resolved nightmares with each one of those fillies before, but the nightmares that they were in were unlike what she had seen before.

In her mind, the only way that Luna thought that she could help them was to have one of their newest friends assist her. That, of course, was Calvin. In Luna’s mind, she thought that he could make sense of some of the things that were going on in each of their nightmares and see if there was a way to overcome them. Of course, in order to enlist his help, the alicorn would need to find him in his own dream.

As the Princess of the Night stepped into his dream, she found herself in a strange place. The ground that she was on was like the walkways that she had seen in pictures of Manehattan, along with paved streets. However, there were cracks in the asphalt, and the houses in the neighborhood reminded her of something like Ponyville, but with less of a friendly atmosphere.

When Luna did happen to find Calvin, she found him staring at one of the homes in the neighborhood, before bolting inside. She could hear the sounds of him racing through the home, looking around and going through every floor. “What exactly is he doing-?”

The answer to her question soon came to her when she heard the boy call out. “Mom?! Mom, where are you!?!”

That made Luna’s eyes widened, realizing what this place was. This must’ve been his home before he came to Equestria, yet Calvin didn’t know that it was only a dream. She felt bad for him, especially with what was going on right now, searching all over for family in a place that he knew, only to find it empty as if it were deserted.

“It appears I have come at a bad time,” the Princess of the Night thought to herself, wanting to step away. Yet, she knew that she couldn’t. Her duty was to comfort those who suffered from nightmares, not turn away when someone needed it most. Such an act would go against her duties and responsibilities. She had to… no, needed to say something right now.

The princess took in a deep breath, slowly releasing the air as she began to speak, “Good evening, Calvin.”

Upon hearing her words, he tensed up, slowly turning around and noticing that she was there. Calvin looked confused, but as he spoke, he sounded scared, looking around the room and having trouble focusing his attention on her, “P-Princess? W-Where am I?”

“Welcome to your dreams, young Calvin,” the princess replied, her words brimming with comfort in order to try and assure him that there was no need to be afraid. It seemed to work, but it wasn’t immediate, “I know this seems sudden, but we need to talk.”

Calvin, despite what Luna had told him, still seemed tense, “M-My dreams?” he asked, blinking a bit as he looked around the room they were in, “H-How? T-This is my home! I know it is-!!”

“I’m not saying that it isn’t, young Calvin,” Luna assured him, trotting closer as she went around the coffee table that was in the living room. She wanted to continue off on that point, but then thought of something, “Tell me… what do you know about me?”

The Skyshifter just stood there, trying to calm himself down and answer the question. However, there was a slight problem to this, for he barely knew anything about Luna aside from two things. “Y-You’re Celestia’s sister and Princess of the Night… H-How does that have anything to do with this?”

“Princess of the Night is more than just a mere title, young Calvin,” the alicorn assured him as she stood right in front of him, “With my title comes the responsibilities and duties. My duties are to come into the minds of anypony that might be facing a nightmare and help them overcome the fears that they need to face. Whether it be self doubt, personal fears or fears regarding the future, I’m there for them.”

In Calvin’s mind, that… sounded convincing. Though, just saying that it’s something doesn’t always mean that it’s the truth. He didn’t see Luna as the kind of pony that was a liar, but the possibility that they were in a dream was a bit hard to believe. “Prove it.”

Upon hearing that, the princess blinked, a bit surprised by what he said, “I’m sorry?”

“Prove to me that this is a dream,” he explained further, calming down a bit as he placed his hands in his pockets, “Show me something that can only happen inside a dream.”

Of course, what Calvin did not seem to realize was that the Princess of the Night took this as a challenge, before looking out past the kitchen and around the home before thinking of something. He watched as she moved her front hooves along the floor, before taking it and scooping up a section of floor underneath them, holding it in her front hooves like a snowball as she looked back to the Skyshifter.

“O… kay, I was honestly not expecting something like that,” he honestly replied, shaking his head to try and refocus before looking back at Luna, “Though, I believe you. There’s no way you can do that back home.”

“I’m glad that I was able to help you realize that,” Luna chuckled, before clearing her throat and looking back at Calvin, “But unfortunately, now is not the time for silly little tricks.” At that point, she took the ball that she had crumpled with her hoof and threw it to the side as it bounced on the floor before sinking into the ground, “I sought you out because I need your assistance this evening.”

That statement had thrown him for a loop as he looked back at Luna, “Wait, you needed my help?” his question was met by a nod of the head as the Skyshifter was trying to make sense of everything, “What exactly do you need me to help with, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“As I had mentioned before, my position as Princess of the Night means that I go into the dreams of ponies who find themselves haunted by nightmares and help them overcome their fears. Tonight though, three of your friends are being tormented by nightmares the likes of which I have not seen before,” she said, using a small amount of magic to conjure what looked to be a photograph as she gave it to the Skyshifter. When Calvin took a closer look, he could see Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo in the picture, “I have assisted them with regards to overcoming their own fears, but this is unlike anything I have come across before. So, I wish to have you assist me in helping your friends overcome what is haunting them.”

In the mind of the Skyshifter, he was still trying to process a couple of things, including what Luna had just told him, “Wait. If you have helped them overcome their fears before, then why do you need me to help you? I’m… still having trouble understanding why.”

Calmly, the princess nodded, taking a second to think of the best way to describe the current situation before explaining, “While it is true that I have been able to help them previously, the circumstances this time around are much different. All other nights, when I have to help somepony, they only have one nightmare to face. However, for your friends, multiple nightmares are appearing within a single dream, nightmares that aren’t like anything that I have seen or experienced before.”

“Okay, but aren’t they just in dreams though?” Calvin asked.

“They are, but that’s the problem,” the princess explained, “Nightmares in the dream realm feed upon negative emotions and use those same emotions as a channel to feed upon magic as well. If one such nightmare gathers enough magic, they can escape from the dream realm. Thankfully, nightmares aren’t as suitable towards magic as…” for a moment, Luna paused. Her eyes drifted away as a small expression of guilt could be seen upon her face, “…as other dream manifestations.”

“Say what-?”

“But, if enough nightmares gather, it is all the more likely that they combine the magic that they gathered to hasten the process,” Princess Luna finished, looking back to Calvin now to see if he understood what she was saying. However, all that the princess got was just a look of confusion on his face as she let out a small breath, realizing that she needed to somehow simplify her explanation, “If they put all of their magic together, then they would break out faster.”

“Okay, that definitely doesn’t sound good,” Calvin finally answered, now knowing what Luna was trying to explain to him.

“Indeed. We must act now before it’s too late,” the alicorn insisted, before going towards the door and opening it with her magic. Both of them walked out of the house and onto the front lawn as Luna looked back towards Calvin, “Out of all three of them, the first nightmares that we need to eliminate immediately are inside the dreams of Sweetie Belle. After we stop those, then we can tend to the rest of her friends.”

The Skyshifter nodded in response, before looking around him as a question surfaced in his mind, “Um… Princess? How exactly are we going to go to Sweetie Belle’s dream?”

For a moment, Luna didn’t say anything. Instead, she began to channel magic around her horn as the princess looked back at him, “You might want to shield your eyes, young Calvin,” she advised, before the magic began to transform into a bright light, forcing Calvin to put a hand in front of his face to protect his eyes from the light. When it finally faded away, he found himself in a place that almost resembled the night sky. Balls of light that looked like stars were below his feet as the Skyshifter took in his newfound surroundings.

The only other thing that stood out to him in that moment was the doors. They were lined up in a row that was in front of him as well as on either side of him and came in various shapes, colors and sizes. There was even a door behind him, one that was colored navy and had a door lock on the right side. For a moment, he wanted to see what would happen if he were to open one. Yet, the voice of Luna soon caught his attention.

“Over here, young Calvin,” the Skyshifter heard the princess of the night call out to him, turning to his left to see her waiting in the middle of the two rows of doors as he backed away from the door behind him and hurried over.

“Princess Luna, what are all of these?” he now asked as the two of them began walking.

Luna herself, seeing Calvin’s confusion and surprise, took a moment to answer while they were going, “Each one of these doors leads to the dream of a particular creature, a gateway that leads to what they are seeing when they are asleep. All the doors that you see here are of all the residents that live within and around Ponyville. This includes the doors that lead to the dreams of your friends.”

“Wow… this is amazing,” he replied, before realizing something as he looked back towards the princess, “Though, wouldn’t it be concerning that the nightmares could just invade anyone else’s dreams if they do happen to break free? That would just make stopping them difficult.”

That was a valid concern, especially after the last time that something happened like this. But all that she could really do was let out a small sigh, “Unfortunately, I don’t have any spell that I can use in order to prevent such a thing from happening, which is why we need to act now. As my sister would say, ‘time is of the essence’,” she explained, walking past a few more doors before coming across a white door with a shield emblem that had a musical note just above the handle, “This is the door to Sweetie Belle’s dream. When you are ready, open it and step forth inside. Just be prepared for anything.”

The Skyshifter at first was a bit hesitant, but then let out a small breath as he gripped the handle and opened it up, stepping forward as both him and the princess walked in and slowly closed the door behind them. “What the heck is this?”

“Ugh… M-My head…” was the only thing that Blackout could say as he slowly began to wake up, shaking his head and trying to come to his senses as he looked at his surroundings. The last thing he remembered was catching his teammate before hitting the deck of Flynn’s ship, which, in his mind, could potentially only mean one thing, “Great… my body must be unconscious. Hopefully, the others can make do without me for a bit…”

It was at that point that the Dark Skylander soon noticed something that was right in front of him. Two entire rows of doors that were right in front of him. Out of all the times that he had been in this place, he had not seen anything like this. A closer look showed that each door was different in appearance, whether it was color or size, but he was not sure as to what exactly these doors were for.

“Well, it’ll be a long while before I come around anyways,” he said to himself, wrapping his claws on the handle of a light orange door that had a shield emblem with a lightning bolt on it, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take a peek inside... right?”

The moment that both Calvin and Luna had stepped into Sweetie Belle’s dream, they were greeted by a bizarre sight. Several different beings, none of them looking like they were native to Equestria, were facing each other in a giant free for all across the entire dream, showing no mercy against each other as they fought tooth and nail. Among them were a bipedal wolf tearing through its opponents with sharp claws and a skeletal warrior that looked to be a pirate, and that was just a few of the nightmares that were fighting each other in this battle torn place.

“W-What the heck are we fighting in here?!” the Skyshifter asked, thrown off guard by the sheer chaos that was unfolding with each passing moment, “W-Where’s Sweetie Belle!?”

“I-I don’t kno-!”

“Oh my WORD!! Just look at them all go!!” the two of them heard the voice of someone speaking, as if they were broadcasting over a radio microphone, “I have not seen mayhem like this since our last ‘take your child to carnage’ extravaganza!! This is entertainment in its purest form!!!”

That just had Luna blink for a moment, shocked and appalled at hearing this, before seeing what looked to be a furless pony that was extremely pale on a nearby hill. They were wearing a violet trench coat and a hat over their head, yet she could see their razor sharp teeth as they were speaking into a contraption that he was holding with their right hoof with a giant smile on their face.

“Hold it right there!!” the princess shouted, catching the attention of the pale pony as they looked down at them.

“Ah, what do we have here? Two latecomers that want to participate in the fun and games?” they asked, coming off as rather creepy because they kept on smiling, even with the sound of explosions and fighting around them, “I’m sure that we can fit you two into the festivities somewhere.”

At first, Calvin was silent, but then decided to speak up and ask a question, “Just who are you supposed to be, then?”

Followed by Luna adding on a question of her own, “And what makes you think that this is somehow okay?!”

“Why does anypony do anything in order to satisfy themselves, eh? Complete and absolute boredom! That’s why!!” the pony answered the alicorn’s question first, before looking to Calvin afterwards to answer his question, “As for who I am, you can call me ‘the announcer’.”

“… How ‘creative’.”

“Hey, take it up with the crowd! They were the ones that decided to name me that. They wanted less introductions and more incineration,” his response was followed by the sound of flames erupting right behind both the Skyshifter and the princess, with the flames being dangerously close to the latter’s tail. “Speaking of which…” with his grin widened a bit more, the pony brought the contraption they had closer and began to speak into it, “Well, what do you know, folks?! We seem to have a pair of uninvited guests that want to participate! What do you think, audience? Should we let them?”

The question was followed by a loud uproar from the ones who were watching the carnage play out, which made the announcer chuckle in amusement, “Well, I guess the audience has spoken! Perhaps these two will put up more of a fight than the pastel swirl girl that was here. All she’s doing is running for her life!”

As the pony said that, Calvin looked back towards Luna. He was beginning to think that this girl the announcer was talking about was Sweetie Belle, “Hey, uh… you mentioned a girl, right? Do you know where she went?”

“Oooh, sorry kiddo, but I can’t pick favorites. All I’m supposed to do is provide the play by slay commentary,” the pony blew him off rather rudely, “If you want to find her so badly, then you’re going to have to find her on your own.”

“Well, there goes any help from the locals,” he thought to himself, briefly looking to Luna and letting out a deep breath as he looked at the battlefield in front of them, “I guess we’re just going to have to do this the hard way.”

“Indeed, though we must be cautious, young Calvin,” Luna reminded him as she stood next to the Skyshifter, “Many of these foes are monsters unlike what any of us have seen before. It would be foolish to-”

“What’s this!? In a shocking turn of events, the pastel swirl girl is on the run once again! Oh, and just when you thought that she was safe!!” they heard the announcer exclaim to his audience, “You see, this is exactly why I enjoy moments like these! Watching many poor souls try to climb their way to the top, only to fail and fall deep into the fiery pit of failure!!”

Luna stopped what she was trying to say after hearing that, before letting out a small breath. “Ignore what I said previously, Calvin. We need to get to Sweetie Belle immediately.”

“No need to tell me twice,” he said, before grabbing hold of his pendant as it began to glow around his neck, “Brace for Glory!!” In mere seconds, Calvin shifted into his Imaginator as the two of them pushed forth. Several of the nightmares that were once fighting each other were now setting their sights on them as they began to charge at the two of them, prompting both the Skyshifter and the Alicorn to defend themselves.

“Out of the way, you fools! Their souls are mine-!!” One of the nightmares declared, before getting blasted by a bolt of magic that Luna channeled.

“Not today, you fiend!!”

“That horsey just blasted Fang Doom!! Get her!!” Another one shouted. The creature then attempted to pounce towards Luna, only to be intercepted by Calvin as he gave them a fiery fist to their jaw as he sent them flying. As they hit the ground, both Calvin and Luna continued to move forward, keeping their eyes peeled for any signs of Sweetie Belle while also keeping their eyes open for any additional nightmares that were attacking or chasing them.

As the battle against the nightmares continued to rage on, they had to face numerous nightmarish creatures from vampires, creatures that used the bones that grew out of their bodies as weapons and even giant foes that had more than one head. Yet, in Calvin’s mind, he did his best to keep himself calm and focused, despite what they were facing.

Staying calm did not help though when he felt a giant hand grabbed him out of nowhere and held him up in the air, “Looka here, boyz! I got da pointy-eared one!!”

“Calvin!!” Luna cried out, realizing that the Skyshifter was in trouble as she cast a spell to shield herself from another incoming attack, “Calvin, Get out of there!”

“I-I don’t think I can,” he weakly told the alicorn, feeling the grip of the nightmare making it harder to breathe, “M-my p-power’s going to run out of t-time soon-!”

That only prompted the princess to fire back at her attackers first, before swiftly turning to him, “That can’t happen here. Limitations that you might have in the real world do not exist inside a dream. In a dream, anything can happen.”

Upon hearing that, Calvin stopped what he was doing as he began to process what Luna told him, “Anything… can happen? Could that mean…?” Thinking of a plan, he began to close his eyes, before focusing as he began to channel fire around him, the flames burning the nightmare as it immediately dropped him. “Holy cow, that actually worked!!”

“AGH! DAT BURNS!!” it screamed as the Skyshifter got back up and sprinted back towards Luna so they could regroup, “It’z gettin’ away!!”

Once he had regrouped with Luna, Calvin thought of an idea in order to keep these foes away. Taking a moment to focus, he began to conjure an orb of flames in his hand before throwing it towards the nightmares that were pursuing them. Once it touched the ground, the orb exploded into a wall of flames as the blaze separated the Skyshifter and the princess from the nightmares, providing them a chance to keep moving while some of them were burning in pain.

“Have you found Sweetie yet?!” he asked, taking a moment to catch his breath before taking a chance to look around.

“Unfortunately, no,” the alicorn shook her head, “Even though we have made progress against these nightmares, I have not seen any signs of her.”

Of course, hearing that led to the Skyshifter thinking of something, before looking back to Luna with another question, “Is there any kind of spell or something that we could use to locate her? If we keep on running through here like this, then we won’t have time to help either Apple Bloom or Scootaloo.”

Luna thought it over for a moment, before nodding her head as she began to close her eyes and channel her magic, focusing her efforts to find who they were looking for. Yet, it was as she was doing this that Calvin turned around and realized that the flames that were burning earlier had faded out. Some of the nightmares were gone, but many remained, with one in particular standing out.

“Dey’re dey ar, boyz!! Dey’ze gonna regret runnin from a bash!!”

“Uh… Luna?” Calvin asked, seeing the nightmares charge towards the two of them, “We might need to hurry on that spell… Luna? Luna?!” he turned around, seeing that the princess was still channeling her magic, unaware of what was coming for them as he took up a stance. “Luna, I’m being serious here!”

“Let’z do dis!!” the nightmare that was leading the charge shouted, now holding what was a giant blade as they were getting closer and closer with each passing second.

“Luna, we’re going to get trampled if we-”

Before he could even finish that sentence, Luna’s eyes opened and focused her magic again. In a bright flash of light, the two of them were gone, leaving all the nightmares that were charging at them stunned and confused as they found nothing but just an empty spot.

For Sweetie Belle, ever since waking up in this fiendish place, she was running like her life depended on it. Horrifying monstrosities had been chasing after her for what felt like hours, and any attempts in order to hide from one nightmarish fiend only led to another one finding her. To make matters worse, she would hear the booming voice of somepony announcing her struggles for everypony to hear, as if they enjoyed watching her fail at every turn.

She was already beginning to feel weak and sore all over by this point. Her eyes looked everywhere in case a monster was trying to surprise her. She had one close call earlier when a figure that had a mask of a ghost over its face tried to grab her from behind, and Sweetie was lucky enough to get away from them. But the encounter was enough to drive her paranoid and have her continuously be aware of her surroundings.

So, when a bright flash of light went off behind her, Sweetie immediately began to back away, not knowing who or what it was as she picked up a rock off the ground, “S-Stay away from me!! I-I don’t know w-who you are, but-”

“Calm yourself, child,” the girl heard an all too familiar voice speak to her as two figures approached her, “We mean no harm.” She could tell who the first figure was immediately when she saw the flowing spectral mane that belonged to Princess Luna, but it took some time for her to figure out who Luna’s companion was. Only when she saw their form change did the girl recognize that it was her friend, Calvin.

“P-Princess!? C-Calvin?! W-What are y-you doing here!?” she asked them, “H-Have you not seen h-how dangerous this place is?!”

“This place isn’t real, young one,” Luna assured her, trying her best to comfort the frightened child, “These monstrosities aren’t real either. They are nightmares in this dream of yours, Sweetie Belle. They don’t exist.”

Even though what the princess told her was meant to comfort her, Sweetie did not seem to take what she said rather well, “T-That’s not…” she stopped, taking a moment to catch her breath before picking up where she left off with her sentence, “T-That’s not what Faith told us at all.”

When Sweetie told them that, both Luna and Calvin had different reactions. To Luna, she did not know who this ‘Faith’ was, and if they were a living being or just an illusion that was in this dream. To Calvin though, what he did was something different. Sweetie and her friends had told him about Faith before and about how she was helping them get home after an accidental summoning, but they never mentioned them talking of anything outside of that.

“What did Faith tell you?” he asked, only to have Luna speak up before Sweetie could answer.

“You know who she is?” the princess asked.

“She’s someone like me. Someone who’s in another Equestria that used to be where I’m from,” he briefly explained, “Faith accidentally summoned the Crusaders when she meant to summon me, but… what exactly did she tell you that would cause all this?”

“She told us about the Displaced… and how not all of them were friendly,” the girl shivered as she was speaking, “S-She told us that anything could be possible. T-That people like you could end up as m-monsters in their own worlds. A-Anything was fair game. E-Even listed off a lot of examples that… I’d rather not remember right now...”

Luna’s eyes narrowed for a moment as she looked towards Sweetie, “This ‘Faith’ told all three of you about this?”

“Y-Yeah, she did,” Sweetie Belle responded back, “W-Why? Is something wrong?”

At first, Luna said nothing, before letting out a small breath as she turned around and spread out her wings, “Pardon me one moment…” without warning, she took off, flying into the sky before diving downward in the distance. At first, Calvin and Sweetie Belle were unsure about what she was doing, that was... until they witnessed a giant pillar of light blue magic erupt, incinerating everything that was nearby before Luna gracefully landed back on the ground in front of them. “…Well, that feels somewhat better.”

Calvin could only tilt his head towards Sweetie as both of them stared at the princess, stunned by what they had just witnessed, “Remind me to never get on her bad side.”

As Luna herself let out a breath, she now began to recompose herself as the princess looked to the young girl, “Sweetie Belle… while such monstrosities that you were told about may be frightening, such fiends that we’ve seen tonight don’t exist in our world.”

Hearing that soon prompted the Skyshifter to add on to that, “Luna’s right, Sweetie,” he said, “Plus, you and the girls will soon have the same powers that I have. So, if any monsters did come, you would be able to fight them off… and even without that, you can always count on your friends to help you when you need it, right?”

It took a couple of moments for their words to sink in, but after some time, the girl began to understand what they were telling her as she slowly nodded her head. “Y-You’re right,” Sweetie said, before catching Calvin off guard as she hugged him once again, “Thank you, Calvin.”

“Y-You’re welcome,” he said, a bit thrown off guard by the sudden hug as he tried to maintain his composure, “S-So… how are you feeling?”

She took a moment to lower her arms first, before looking back at both him and the Princess, “Better now that I realize that what I was worrying about was just plain silly,” she chuckled, brushing some of the dust off of the clothes that she was wearing, “Man, I must have been the only one worrying about these things.”

Luna though, could only let out a heavy sigh and look away for a moment before speaking, “I… wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

End Part 1

Author's Note

Just as a note to everyone, this whole 'chapter' will be broken down into four separate parts. The entire author's note for this chapter will be seen at the end of part 3, since part four is treated more like an 'epilogue'

Scroll 27- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These (Part 2)

Beyond the Skies- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These Part 2

As Apple Bloom was walking, she was being cautious of everything that was around her. When she first woke up, the girl had found herself in what looked to be Ponyville at night, but something was off. Everywhere she went, Apple Bloom felt as if something was watching her, hiding around every corner in the shadows and disappearing when she looked to see what was behind her. The sounds of crows echoing in the night did little to help her feel at ease as she carefully walked these streets.

At one point in her walk, something caught her attention. One of the stores that was nearby had what could only be described as a malfunctioning light. She could see a small glow flicker every few moments sporadically, illuminating the interior of the shop before short circuiting and fading to black. It was strange, since there wasn’t anything else like that going on around town. Yet, to Apple Bloom, seeing that light gave her the hope that maybe there was someone around that could explain where she was.

Approaching the building carefully, she began to look through the window of the shop. At first, everything looked like the inside of a toy store, with all the games, dolls and action figures on the appropriate shelves. Yet, as the light above her flickered, Apple Bloom was startled to see everything was scattered all over the floor. The toys were broken to the point that they couldn’t be repaired. Pieces of board games were scattered everywhere, and torn pages from coloring books were scattered everywhere.

That was not the part that startled her the most. What startled her the most was when she began to notice something. Each one of the broken toys inside… looked like somepony she knew in Ponyville. A doll of Ms. Cheerilee was on the floor, covered in tears as the stuffing of the doll was spread out on the floor. A broken board game piece resembled Diamond Tiara’s crown, as if it was snapped in half. Even an action figure of a dragon was missing its arms had the same colors that belonged to Spike. “W-What’s going on-?” she said, putting both of her hands over her mouth in shock at what she was seeing.

“W-Well, a-ah’ll be… ya came back.”

Immediately, Apple Bloom turned away from the window, panic coursing over her as she looked around. She swore that she just heard Applejack just now, but could not see her anywhere. The girl believed that she was starting to hear things, but as she turned back around and looked inside, Apple Bloom found herself staring at the toys. Each one was staring back at her, as if their heads moved on their own.

That alone had Apple Bloom back away from the window, trying to process what was happening. Yet, she did not get the chance to do so once the girl noticed the set of glowing green eyes that reflected off the glass, “H-Have ya seen what y-ya done, Bloom?”

Slowly, Apple Bloom turned around, her pupils shrinking upon seeing who was behind her. It was Applejack, yet… something was horribly wrong. Her body might have looked like that of a pony, but moved and twitched like she was a machine. Her mouth was bigger in size, and her teeth were razor sharp fangs. Parts of her sister’s fur coat resembled torn cloth and were faded in several areas, while her eyes looked to have been made out of plastic.

“S-Sis?” she asked, horrified by what she was staring at. It sounded like A.J., but everything about the being in front of her made her think that it was a monster. “W-What happened to y-you-?”

“Don’t y-ya dare act like y-ya don’t know already,” it hissed, causing the startled girl to fall backwards onto the ground. As she tried to get up, the pony slammed its hoof into the wooden boards that were behind Apple Bloom, breaking them as it glared at her, its head twitching as it spoke, “Ya know t-this would happen after ya l-left us!”

“L-Left!? W-what are you talking a-about?!”

“Don’t be s-stupid, Bloom,” the being growled at her, “The m-moment ya g-got that special power of y-yours with the girls, the t-three of ya left us! Y-ya weren’t there w-when we n-needed it the most. Ya just t-threw me… a-and everypony else away! W-we were just broken toys t-to ya!!”

“T-that’s not true!! I wouldn’t-!”

“Don’t y-ya DARE LIE TO ME!!” it shouted again, striking the wood that was behind Apple Bloom’s head. Yet, it was as it moved its foreleg back that the girl could see what was under the fur coat as some of it was caught in the lumber plank that it just smashed: a metal limb, one that looked to have rusted in some places while intact in others. “Everypony here b-begged for ya to c-come and save us, but y-ya never came! E-even though y-ya promised us. A-ah told them that y-ya were coming any moment… but no! Y-ya must have been h-having so much f-fun that ya d-didn’t stop to t-think about the c-consequences, did ya?!”

“A-A.J., s-stop! P-please,” the girl pleaded, fearing for her life as the monster’s fangs shimmered from the light of the moon, “A-ah would never do something like that! Ah swear!!”

The being paused, its head twitching a bit more before looking back at Apple Bloom, its eyes looking back at her, “A-Ah once believed ya when y-ya said it the f-first time, Bloom… W-what makes ya t-think ah’ll b-believe ya again?”

“A-Ah don’t even have any p-powers yet-” she weakly spoke, wishing that this being would believe her. Yet, instead, it struck higher. This time cracking the glass on the window behind her.

“So, y-ya wish for me to believe a-another lie?!” its voice elevated, the cracks on the glass beginning to grow in size as Apple Bloom could see the toys from inside come to life and begin pushing against the window. “We b-became monsters because of y-you and the l-lie you told us b-before!! W-Why can’t ya j-just take responsibility l-like a good filly and a-accept that? M-make this easy on y-yourself, Bloom… Last c-chance.”

Many thoughts were bouncing off the walls of Apple Bloom’s mind right now. This… thing expected an answer from her, but if she messed up, it was only going to make things worse. But even if she told her the truth, it wasn’t like it was going to believe her. Trying to explain that she had no powers only resulted in this Applejack punching the window above her head. She had to get away… but how-?

“Well? I-it’s rude to keep s-somepony waiting, B-Bloom,” the irritated voice of the being growled, glaring directly at her, “What’s i-it gonna be?”

This was it. She had to give what she thought was the right answer. Everything depended on it. “Ah can’t.”

The being narrowed its gaze, gritting its teeth, “Come again, s-sugarcube?”

“Ah can’t take responsibility for something ah never did,” the girl shot back as she tried to get up off the ground, “If you were actually the A.J. that ah know, then ya would have believed me earlier… Ah don’t have powers. Ah’m not your Bloom, and you are not mah sis!”

At first, there was silence. The being stared at her as she processed what Apple Bloom had just said. It was only mere moments afterwards though that this Applejack’s savage growl returned, “Ah w-warned ya, but ah g-guess ah have n-no other choice.”

Immediately, as Apple Bloom attempted to move out of her position and back away from the being, they struck the glass one last time, shattering it into pieces as glass began to scatter everywhere, and the toys inside began to spill out of the store and spread out across the ground. She watched in shock as the toys started to pull themselves together and merge, taking on an incomplete form of a pony that was taller than Applejack and covered in shadows. Though, the shadows on the body did not act naturally at all. If anything, it was almost as if they were alive as they shifted and crawled along its body, never staying in one place.

It was only after a few seconds that she realized who the form was supposed to resemble… and it was enough to make her feel sick, “M-Mac?”

“Oh, it’s not M-Mac. N-not by a longshot,” this A.J. growled, “Unlike m-myself, this one is m-made up of all the b-broken souls that were lost because y-you were never around to s-save them… and t-they wanna make ya f-feel the pain that t-they feel.”

If seeing a giant stallion made of toys that resembled her brother wasn’t creepy enough, then what came afterwards surely was. From one of the shadows on its body, something began to emerge. Twisting and turning into a form that resembled none other than Spike. Yet, this one had claws that resembled knives and scissors poking out of its mouth. Another one popped out of another shadow moments later, this one looking more like her classmate Rumble. Yet, instead of a happy young colt, this one had metallic wings and metal plates covering over sections of his body that looked to have been injured, seemingly formed from small toy instruments reshaped into his body.

Given everything she was seeing and the de-formed monstrosities of her friends and family, Apple Bloom wanted to just run. She wanted to try and get as far away from them as possible, but couldn’t find it in herself to move. Applebloom felt as if her legs were frozen in place as she watched both the forms of Spike and Rumble approach her, shadows extending out from their spines that were tethered to Mac.

Just as they were both mere inches away from her face though, Apple Bloom heard a familiar voice, “THAT’S ENOUGH!!”

The young girl turned to her right, shocked by who had just said that and relieved that they were here. Princess Luna was standing nearby, with both Calvin and Sweetie Belle right beside the alicorn as she hurried over to them immediately.

“W-Why YOU-!!” A.J. grit her teeth, staring menacingly at Luna. Her gaze filled with anger and hatred as her green eyes changed to a brimming red, “M-MAC, STOP THEM NOW!!”

Of course, that was not exactly the first thought that came to Calvin’s mind upon seeing this version of Applejack, “Wait… how is she a robot?”

“Seriously!?” Sweetie Belle deadpanned as she looked back at the Skyshifter, “That’s what you’re confused about, Calvin!? Why aren’t you asking about the fact that Big Mac is made up of TOYS!?” That just led to Calvin shrugging his shoulders as he looked back at the unicorn that was talking to him. “He’s a walking toy box for Luna’s sake!!”

“I’m standing right here…” the princess let out a deep sigh as she looked at Sweetie Belle, “Besides, we have more important matters to-”

Luna stopped speaking in that moment, feeling something grabbing hold of one of her front hooves. As she looked down, the princess was thrown off guard by seeing the ground looking up at the alicorn, her hoof caught in its mouth of rock teeth. Two empty pits with glowing orbs sparked above the mouth that served.

Naturally, the princess of the night reacted the only way that she could… by immediately unleashing magic at it, “BEGONE, FOUL FIEND!!!”

“Luna, what are you-?” before Apple Bloom could finish her question, a giant pillar of magic was unleashed, burning away at the monster that was part of the ground, until there was nothing left. Yet, that only seemed to make the fake A.J. even more furious as she glared at Luna.

“You’re going to REGRET THAT!!”

“Sweetie Belle, get Apple Bloom somewhere safe,” Calvin told her, before changing back into his Imaginator, “We’ll handle this!”

“Right,” Sweetie Belle nodded, grabbing her friend’s hand before quickly moving behind the fountain in the middle of town square. One of the monsters tried to go after them, but Calvin intercepted them midway and struck them with a powerful punch.

“S-Sweetie, w-what’s going on? H-How is this h-happening!? M-my sis is a monster here-!” Apple Bloom told her friend, just as they heard the sound of metal plates colliding and a blast of magic being fired from Luna’s horn. “H-How-!?”

“Apple Bloom, please calm down…” Sweetie explained, placing a hand on her friends shoulder to try and help her, despite the sounds of combat behind them, “This isn’t real… All of this is a dream. Trust me… I was trapped in one just like this, until Luna and Calvin found me.”

“B-But... A.J.…” Apple Bloom looked away, finding it hard to come to terms with this, “A-Ah know it can’t be her, but… what she said…”

“Apple Bloom, what are you talking about?” Sweetie now asked, worried for her friend as she tried to get her attention, “What did she tell you? This A.J.? Apple Bloom, she-”

“-told me that they’re like this because of us,” Apple Bloom’s words stopped Sweetie Belle almost instantly. She stared at her friend in disbelief, looking back at what Calvin and Luna were facing before looking back at Sweetie Belle, “T-They became monsters… because we were never there for them… we were never there when they needed us the most. We weren’t there to save them…”

“Apple Bloom,” Sweetie told her, trying to comfort her friend and think of what to say to make her friend feel safe, “I-”

Without warning, Apple Bloom did something that caught Sweetie off guard. Grabbing hold of the hand that Sweetie Belle placed on her shoulder, Apple Bloom looked at her. The girl’s eyes filled with desperation as she began to speak. “Sweetie Belle… Promise me that we will make sure everything that we’ve seen tonight doesn’t happen.”

Now, Sweetie Belle was not exactly the kind of person who liked being put on the spot. Yet, with everything that was going on right now and the battle that was raging nearby, she let out a small breath and said the two words that her friend desperately wanted to hear right now, “I promise.”

It might not have seemed much at the time, but to Calvin and Luna, Sweetie’s promise was definitely helping. In the moments afterwards, the shadows began to slowly get weaker. A.J. herself was finding it much harder to move her body and her reactions to her foes were much slower, something that was apparent when Calvin was able to strike her and knock her backwards.

“Luna, what’s going on?” the Skyshifter asked, noticing what was happening as he was trying to make sense of everything, noticing that the nightmare that looked like Big Mac was having a harder time holding itself together, even though it was still able to move.

“The dream… it’s changing,” the princess told him, before looking back towards Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. In her mind, something must’ve happened between them that had a major impact on the dream. Now, both of them were getting up and racing over to where Luna was standing.

“Princess Luna,” Sweetie Belle then spoke up as Luna conjured a barrier spell to shield herself from any attacks, “We came to help!”

“Glad to see that you two decided to join us,” the princess smiled, before firing a blast of magic back at her attackers, “Calvin and I can use your assistance right around now.”

“What can we do to help?” Apple Bloom then asked her.

“Since this is a dream, anything that you can imagine can be used to help you fight back against these nightmares,” the princess told them, before having to shield herself from another attack, “Whatever you can imagine can be a weapon.”

What Luna told them seemed puzzling at first, but after a bit, both of them got an idea. What the princess told them reminded the two girls of the time where they fought inside the Volcano at the Munitions Forge, but instead of turning into the forms of the Skylanders they tried to use that day, both of them decided to take a different approach.

Instead of having themselves transform into a Skylander, they decided to imagine the weapons that belonged to the Skylanders that they tried to transform into previously. Both of them could feel an array of mist floating over their hands for a brief moment, revealing the weapons that they were picturing in their minds. For Apple Bloom, it was the trusty pair of revolvers that were used by the Tech Skylander named Trigger Happy. For Sweetie Belle, it was the bow that belonged to the Bowslinger Sensei of the Tech Element: Ro-Bow.

As the mist began to clear, the weapons that were in front of them fell into their hands and a quiver of arrows fell on Sweetie Belle’s back. Both girls looked back at each other, before they began to think of a plan, “Sweetie, go help Luna. I’m going to help Calvin.”

All Sweetie Belle could do was nod, testing her bowstring before pulling an arrow out of her quiver and going towards Princess Luna, knocking it on her string and preparing to fire it towards Mac. As for Apple Bloom, she was rushing over to Calvin. Even though his opponent was affected by the changes in the dream, she was still a dangerous foe that they should not take lightly.

As she was getting closer, Apple Bloom saw that A.J. was attempting to pounce towards Calvin. Quickly, she brought out both of her weapons and fired off two shots. The first one got stuck in between the top and bottom jaw while the other shot bounced off the head, knocking A.J. down to the ground as the Skyshifter turned towards his friend.

“Apple Bloom?” he asked, a bit caught off guard by the fact that the girl that they originally came here to help was now helping him instead, “N-not to sound ungrateful or anything, but what are you doing here-?”

“Sweetie and ah asked Luna how we could help you with fighting back,” she said, holding up her newfound weapons, “What? Ya think that we were just gonna let ya fight this by yourself? What kind of friend would ah be if ah didn’t help ya when you were in trouble?”

Calvin blinked for a moment, surprised at what Apple Bloom was telling him. He was having trouble coming up with something to say, but just decided to let it go as he let out a small sigh, “Fair point.”

Before either of them could continue, they watched as A.J. slow got up off the ground. One of her forehooves poked at her teeth as they saw that one of the coins that Apple Bloom fired was stuck in there, much to A.J.’s displeasure, “D-Did you just…!? Ngh! W-Why can’t ah m-move my jaw-?!”

Apple Bloom didn’t say anything. Instead, she responded by taking her revolvers and shooting at A.J. again. This time, her shot was able to break some of A.J.’s fangs. “Rrgh! W-Why you-!”

That just had Calvin look back at Apple Bloom, before asking the first question that came to his mind, “So, you want to team up?”

“If that’s the only way ah’m getting out of this nightmare, then count me in!” Apple Bloom nodded, readying her weapons once more and aiming them at their opponent.

As the two of them were going toe to toe with A.J., Sweetie Belle and Luna were working together to defeat the other nightmares that were there. While Luna was using her magic to defend herself against the nightmares of Spike and Rumble, Sweetie Belle was firing off arrows towards the one of Big Mac they were connected to. In her mind, if she could find a way to defeat Mac, then it could affect the nightmares that Luna was currently up against.

Yet, between the two of them, Sweetie believed that her task was a lot more challenging. Even if the nightmare was weak, it still was able to move out of the way of several of the arrows that she fired at it. Not to mention that if she did happen to injure the nightmare, the nightmare would slowly begin to mend its own wounds.

“Darn it. None of this is working,” she grit her teeth, pulling out another arrow and knocking it on the bowstring, “What can I do to really hurt this thing? He can see everything I fire at him.”

Thinking about that thought had Sweetie Belle realize something. If her foe could see everything that she could fire at them, what would happen if they couldn’t see at all? If they were blinded somehow, then it would give her an opening to attack. Picturing it in her mind, Sweetie took off the arrow that she had knocked on her bowstring and grabbed a new one from her quiver. Unlike the other arrows that she had that had a drill arrowhead, this one had an arrowhead that had what looked like a glowing orb of light attached to the end of it.

“Dear Celestia, I hope this works,” she prayed, pulling back the arrow before releasing and letting it go as the arrow flew towards the nightmare. As it went through the air, cracks around the orb began to form and grow in size. When it was a few steps away from her foe, the orb shattered and set off a massive flash of light in front of the nightmare. The sudden flash caused it to shriek in pain as a shadow appeared within the space between the toys and covering its eyes, while its tendrils were trying to hold the toys surrounding it together.

“Oh, dear Celestia, it worked!” Sweetie thought to herself, letting out a sigh of relief. Her small gamble had paid off and exposed a weak point that she could exploit. Preparing another arrow, she carefully aimed another arrow towards the shadow and let it fire. However, even if the arrow hit its target, it did not seem to really harm the nightmare as it crawled back into its body, trying to pull the toys closer to better protect itself from the light with.

Much to her dismay, “Oh, come on!!”

“Sweetie Belle, remain calm,” Luna instructed her, using another spell to keep both Spike and Rumble away from her before turning towards the girl, “Now that you know its weakness, you must figure out how to truly defeat it so you can put this nightmare to rest. Your friend is counting on you right now!”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Sweetie Belle retorted internally, moving back a bit and trying to reposition herself as she prepared to draw another arrow from her quiver, “Anything I try barely hurts this guy’s hide! Not even attacking the shadow when it’s outside its body seems to be working.”

She recalled that the nightmare itself shrieked and cowered in pain when she used the flash arrow just a little while ago. Yet, Sweetie needed something that was a lot stronger than that simple flash and could cover a rather wide area. After a few seconds, a new thought began to click in her mind, giving her an idea on what exactly she should use.

Quickly, Sweetie prepared another flash arrow onto the bow and began to draw it back. Releasing it while the nightmare’s attention was focused on Luna, the bright light went off as it turned its head back towards her. Same as before, the orb shattered within a few steps of the nightmare, forcing it to roar in pain and agony as the shadows tried to keep it together. This time though, instead of firing a normal arrow at the shadow, Sweetie had something different in mind. She pulled out an arrow that looked similar to the standard ones that she used before, but this one had a blunt end that had a crimson glow emanating from it.

Carefully, she pulled back the arrow and aimed it at the weak point that had been exposed before. Once Sweetie had her target, she let the arrow fly through into the exposed opening. As the shadows tried to reform itself, the explosive charge at the tip of the arrow exploded, destroying the nightmare and sending the toys that made up its body everywhere. The other two nightmares, Spike and Rumble, crumbled within seconds, falling over onto the ground as the shadows at their bases faded like dust.

“Well done, Young Sweetie,” Luna congratulated her.

“T-Thanks,” Sweetie Belle let out a sigh as she looked back at the Princess, “Though, I don’t think we’re quite out of this yet. We should go and see if Apple Bloom and Calvin need any help.”

For a moment, the princess chuckled as she looked back towards Sweetie, “Don’t worry. I think the two of them have everything under control.”

For a moment, Sweetie was confused by what Luna was telling her. After all, they came here because they needed to help Apple Bloom, so why would she say something like that now? Yet, it was when she looked over towards them that she caught a glimpse of both her and Calvin. From what she could see, the two of them were actually winning against their opponent and pushing her into a corner. Calvin then began to conjure a fire blast at the nightmare that was strong enough to not just burn through the outside of its body, but melt the metallic frame on the inside until there was nothing left at all.

Once their battle had finished, Sweetie Belle and Luna began to make their way over to where Calvin and Apple Bloom were standing. “Well done you two, especially you, Apple Bloom. You were rather brave, considering that you were up against a nightmare that resembled your own sister,” the night princess complimented them, before looking back at Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle now, “However, our work is not yet finished. We still have one more of your friends that is trapped within a nightmare, much like the ones that both of you were in. Once we save Scootaloo from her nightmare, then we can say that we succeeded. Are you ready?”

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Calvin all looked at each other for a moment, before they all gave her a collective nod. “Lead the way, Princess.”

End Part 2

Scroll 27- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These (Part 3)

Beyond the Skies- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These Part 3

Out of all the possible situations that Scootaloo would find herself in after falling asleep, this was not one of them. She would’ve been perfectly fine if she was relaxing on a nice warm cloud, on the beach with her friends or soaring across the skies alongside Rainbow Dash. Heck, she would’ve preferred finding herself in the middle of a lecture that Princess Twilight was giving her and her friends.

Instead, Scootaloo found herself in what looked to be a giant forest, one that was not like the Everfree at all and had a gentle, thin mist in the air. The trees were massive in size, covered in moss with vines that extended down towards the forest floor. The forest had a few creeks and running rivers that Scootaloo had to cross while she was looking around, trying to take in her surroundings a bit. Despite her original thoughts, this place seemed rather calm. Heck, it even reminded her of the jungles in Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone.

In Scootaloo’s mind though, something didn’t quite feel right. The whole forest seemed rather quiet and empty compared to something like the Everfree. In addition to this, some areas of the forest seemed bright and lit, despite the fact that no light should be shining in those areas of the forest. Given that it was dark out and the only source of light that she had was the glow of the moon, seeing this was rather unsettling.

It was as this was happening that Scootaloo also happened to notice something that caught her attention. Several flying bugs that looked a lot like fireflies began to drift past her, glowing yellow as they floated farther into the woods. She became curious, wondering if they were the reason behind some of the forest being lit up brighter than a Hearth's Warming tree and started to follow them.

“This can’t be too bad. I mean, they’re bugs for Celestia’s sake. They look rather harmless,” Scootaloo thought to herself, ducking low so that she didn’t hit a branch that was above her head. The farther that she went into the forest, the more of these glowing fireflies she began seeing. Past the trees and into what looked like an open clearing, she saw that they were flying towards what looked to be a hill in the distance, which seemed weird to her. She never heard of a bug that would just come together and disappear into a hill on the ground. If anything, she would’ve thought that they had some other place to call home that was in the trees.

As Scootaloo approached the bottom of the small hill, she tried to take a closer look at the grass that was there, running a hand through it to see if it would have the flies come back out. When nothing happened, she tried a different approach and began to pull out some of the grass that was on the hill, only for her to realize something.

The ‘grass’ that she had pulled from the hill was actually fur… and the hill that she was in front of was something else entirely, “Oh no.”

The ‘hill’ that she was in front of immediately began to stand up, with the fireflies that she saw earlier circulating around it. What stood in front of Scootaloo now was a towering quadruped wolf-beast that had fur that stretched over its front shoulders and back with dragon like skin and razor sharp claws. Its eyes were glowing yellow, and the horns on its head resembled that of a centaur with a massive tail as well. The fireflies began to glow brighter as a similar energy was crackling around the beast, before it let loose a shrieking howl that ringed in Scootaloo’s ears.

She wanted to run back through the way that she came and just leave this beast alone, but before she could even do that, the monster leaped towards her, forcing Scootaloo to jump to the left as she watched it barrel into the forest and knocked over several trees. Some were broken in half, while others had completely been torn out of the ground. She had little time to come up with a plan as the beast turned around and found where she was, charging at her while Scootaloo was trying to get as far away from whatever this creature was as possible.

“Okay, this place is bad!! VERY bad!! Somepony get me out of here!!” She thought to herself, doing everything that she could do in order to get as far away from the monster as possible, racing deeper into the forest as the mist was beginning to rise. At one point, Scootaloo thought that she had lost the beast, only to be proven wrong as it barreled through the woods behind her and sent broken chunks of wood flying everywhere, “Are you kidding me!?”

The beast could only roar before swiping its paws across the ground, sending the bugs that hid in its fur in two collective swarms that charged directly towards her as Scootaloo tried to avoid them at all costs, which was not easy to do since this monster was either trying to strike her with its claws, hit Scootaloo with its oversized tail or use its body like a battering ram. To try to get away from it even further, Scootaloo jumped off of a ledge and tumbled onto the ground, thinking that she would be safe if she jumped into the river that was nearby.

Upon getting up though, things only began to get much worse for her. Stumbling forward, she began to look around and see that the water from the river was gone. The river bed underneath was littered with skeletons of all sorts and recently wet rocks as she stared in horror. The water dripping off the bones fell at an unnatural angle, as if it was being towards the river receding into a hardening wall of mist in front of her eyes.

Realizing that this couldn’t be good, Scootaloo turned around and tried to flee another way, only to find herself surrounded by the mist. She attempted to push through, only to get shocked by the wall of mist as she fell to the ground. As she landed, she watched as the last of the waterbed was being sucked into the mist… before a new creature began to emerge from behind it.

This monster was a giant quadruped beast that resembled a jungle cat and had glowing orbs within the empty eye sockets upon its face, with tendrils of water wrapped around its entire body and a giant blade emerging out of its right foreleg. The moment that it noticed Scootaloo on the ground, it forced the girl to immediately get up and avoid its attacks as well as the giant blade on its forearm, dodging each one as she tried to run away.

At first, she thought that it worked… only to see that it actually made things worse. For every time the monster missed an attack, it shattered the skeletons that were in the dried up riverbed. From the tendrils around its body and its weapon, more tendrils began to grow outward to the ground as they began to pick up the broken bones and pull it in to add to its own body. The cracked remains of the perished that it had struck were now a second skin on the beast as it began to grow in size along with its blade.

“W-What in Equestria are you-?”

All it did was roar in response before attacking again as Scootaloo was forced to move. As this continued to play out, Scootaloo realized that she was inadvertently making her current situation even worse. Every time she avoided an attack from this monster, it would smash more of the skeletons in the dried up riverbed, which led to the bones getting absorbed by the beast’s tendrils, growing stronger by the second. When she found herself backed into a corner, the monster was towering over her, wearing the crushed bones of the dead as it drew closer and closer to her.

As it raised its right foreleg, it was ready to bring its bone enhanced blade down on Scootaloo and finish her off. Yet, just before it could do so, it was distracted by the sudden sound of electrical zaps from the mist wall that was the closest to the shore. At first, she could not tell what it was that was causing the disturbance, but then, a loud and familiar howl was heard throughout the forest as she realized what was coming.

Without warning, the giant scaled wolf-beast that she encountered earlier burst through the mist with brute force with the fireflies from earlier floating around it. Once it was through, it looked around a bit before spotting Scootaloo, and it immediately attempted to go after Scootaloo, only for the bone beast to hit it back with an extended free claw as the mist was returned back to its body and formed a pair of wings along its back that surged with electricity. But, when the bone beast tried to redirect its attention back to Scootaloo to finish what it started, that was when the bug-beast attacked the bone beast’s head, forcing the monster to focus less on Scootaloo as it avoided the bug-beast’s claws and hissed at its attacker. Growling at the invader, it swiped at the bug-beast with its bone blade as it struck at its foe’s muzzle.

Scootaloo herself was shocked at the madness that was unfolding in front of her eyes, watching two giant monsters trade blows with one another. But it was as they were fighting that she began to realize that they were more focused on each other instead of her. This could be the only chance that she had in order to escape without them noticing. Looking around, she noticed that there was a ledge that she could easily pull herself up on. Turning towards it, she stretched out her arms to grab the top of the ledge before using her arms to pull her upper body up along with her legs.

Once she was up, Scootaloo let out a sigh of relief, thinking that she was in the clear. With the monsters focusing so much on each other, there was no way they could-

SNAP!

Immediately, she looked down, seeing that she stepped on a tree branch that was now broken. Her eyes widening in horror, before slowly turning her head back towards where both of the monsters were. Because of her mistake, they were less focused on each other now and more focused on her. “Oh… come on!”

Before either the bone beast or the wolf beast could let out a roar and give chase, Scootaloo was already running. Trying to go deep into the forest to hide from the monsters that pursued her as she pushed vines out of her way and leaped over fallen trees, she sprinted as if her life depended on it. Scootaloo did not want to even think about what would happen if either of those monsters caught up with her, so she just kept on going.

Unfortunately for her, as she was trying to get away, she found herself in a harsh jungle thicket, with vines everywhere. There was no place for her to climb up to and going back the way she came would just lead her directly to what she was trying to run away from in the first place. The only thing that was different this time was that there was what looked to be a giant white flowerbud in the center, as if it had not bloomed yet.

Not long after she stumbled into the thicket did her pursuers storm in. Turning around to find that the wolf-beast crashed on through as its claws tore through the vines in its way while the bone-beast barreled through shortly afterwards. Scootaloo felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise up as she looked back at them, afraid of what they might do now that she had nowhere to run and could only back away from both of the monsters.

At one point while she was backing away, both of the beasts stopped, before looking up. Scootaloo was confused at first, but as she turned around, she realized what exactly they were looking at. Several of the vines that were hanging were retracting from the ceiling and forming together directly behind her, extending from around the base of the flower that was once in the center of the thicket as it rose into the air as the petals began to open up. After it ‘bloomed’, the flower turned to face them, revealing the giant head of a viper with white scales and red eyes as it let out a loud hiss and stared them down.

“…Seriously?! W-Why did it have to be snakes?!” Scootaloo asked, trying to back away from the new monster, only for her to trip over a vine that was on the floor and fall to the ground. Right now, she was not liking what was happening. The girl was caught in the middle of what was essentially an Appleloosan standoff between a buggy wolf-beast, a bone cat monster and a viper made of vines, something that she desperately wanted to escape from, but did not know how.

Though, in the blink of an eye, everything changed. As Scootaloo turned her head to the left, she got a glimpse of what looked to be a spinning saw blade rapidly approaching her. Before she could do anything, she was picked up off the ground and taken into a nearby bush. Scootaloo was going to say something, only for a wing to cover her mouth.

“Sssshh,” she heard a voice whisper into her ear, “Don’t… make… a sound.”

Scootaloo wasn’t sure who they were or what she should do, but didn’t say anything. The temporary confusion between the monsters in the thicket soon led to the sounds of howls, growls and hisses ringing through the air. All three of the monsters were engaged in a furious three way clash, with her being a witness to their carnage.

“We can’t stay here,” the voice whispered again, slowly removing its wing from her mouth, “Follow me, but keep your voice low… whatever they are, they may not be the only things in this place.”

She could only nod, before turning around as she carefully followed the one who saved her. They looked familiar, but it was hard to tell because of the trees above them blocking the light of the moon. She could only make out a dragon like figure with strange wings and a curved horn on the front of its head. It was walking on all fours, with fins on his tail that looked like the feathers of an arrow as it took its time with surveying the surrounding area. They were making sure to watch their every step carefully, even went as far as to stop Scootaloo from stepping on something that could attract a monster’s attention.

At one point, they stopped, before the figure turned to his left and noticed something, “Follow me,” he spoke softly, before using one of his wings to move a curtain of plants and reveal a rather narrow passageway between two boulders, “Hey, can you squeeze through this?”

“I-I can try,” Scootaloo responded, trying to keep her voice low as well before walking over to the passageway and pushing forth with her left side first, slowly moving sideways and hugging the rocky wall in front of her for support as she tried to push through. It took her some time, but she was eventually able to make it through to the other side of the passageway. What was waiting for her was a small dirt clearing that was dried up and had very little grass. She could see everything a little more clearly, since the light of the moon was shining overhead, which she saw as a relief. “W-Well, at least this is better than h-hiding in the dark-”

Moments after Scootaloo said that, the girl turned around and saw a shadow creep under the passageway that she had just crawled through. Once the shadow had made it through, it began to materialize into the same figure that she had been following. Yet, now because of the light of the moon, she could now fully see who they were. “This should help us stay hidden… even if it's for a moment.”

The moment that Scootaloo saw who they were, she immediately put a name to a face as she looked back at them. “Y-You… You’re B-Blackout.”

Upon hearing that, the dark dragon looked back at her with a surprised look on his face, raising an eyebrow as he began to speak, “You know who I am?”

“Y-Yeah,” Scootaloo replied, nodding her head as she sat down on the ground, “My friends and I saw you when M-Master Eon showed us the Book of Skylanders.”

At first, Blackout was unsure about what she was saying. He didn’t recall hearing anything of that sort when he was last at the academy or hear anything about it from Master Eon, but she did not seem to be lying. Not to mention that Master Eon wasn’t the kind of person to just freely show one of the academy’s most important secrets to practically anyone. There must’ve been something important about this girl.

Of course, the dark dragon couldn’t exactly get far without knowing one thing, “What’s your name?”

“It’s Scootaloo,” the girl replied.

The Dark Skylander blinked for a moment, taking a second to compose his thoughts before saying anything, “Huh… and just when I thought Snuggles was a weird name.”

“Wha-”

“Nevermind,” he shook his head, before looking back at Scootaloo and asking her a question in an effort to change the topic, “So, Scootaloo… do you know anything about these crazy nightmares? Normally, they typically involve some kind of fear in the real world, but this isn’t like anything I’ve seen before-”

“I-i’m in a nightmare?” she asked, tilting her head in confusion.

That just had the dark dragon pause for a moment, before smacking himself in the face with his wing, “Right. Few dreamers pull off the whole lucidity thing.”

“Luci… what?”

Blackout just let out a groan as he looked back at her, “What I mean is that few dreamers can tell that they’re in one.”

“Really? Then, why didn’t you say that earlier?”

All that did was cause the Dark Skylander to smack himself again with his wing, before letting out a deep sigh. “In any case, as long as we stay low and figure out a way to overcome these monsters, we should be safe.”

At first, she let out a sigh of relief. Scootaloo thought that once she had the chance to catch her breath and wrap her head around things, she and Blackout could find a way out of this nightmare.

Unfortunately though, their temporary break was interrupted when a new voice can be heard around the forest, one that Scootaloo was all too familiar with. “SCOOTALOO! WHERE ARE YOU!?!”

“Oh no…”

“SCOOTALOO!!” Sweetie Belle called out again, hearing her voice echo and hoping to hear something that can show that her friend was okay. Yet, the dreary silence from around the forest wasn’t really settling right with her and the rest of her companions, “Nope, nothing.”

“Sweetie Belle, are you sure that we should be this loud in the first place?” Apple Bloom asked her friend, looking a bit nervous as she was looking to Princess Luna and Calvin.

“Well, how else are we supposed to let Scootaloo know that we’re looking for her, Apple Bloom?” her friend replied back.

“Your desire to help your friend is admirable,” Princess Luna now interjected as she looked at both of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, “But Apple Bloom brings up a valid point. It’s possible that you will attract the attention of the nightmares that plague this dream as well as your friend.”

“Luna’s right, girls,” Calvin added on to the conversation shortly afterwards as he looked back towards his friends, “We should focus on staying quiet. Chances are, whatever we hear, it could be either her or her nightmares, so we should be careful.”

Sweetie Belle could only just let out a small groan. She wanted to get out there and find her friend, but Calvin and Luna were right. There was no telling what kind of nasty nightmares were out there. They needed to be careful out here, considering that practically anything could possibly happen while they were in a nightmare.

Of course, that didn’t quite stop Apple Bloom. “Hey, guys, look over here!”

All three of them now turned towards where Apple Bloom was standing as she was looking at what appeared to be fireflies flying above their heads. Not just one or two, but several of them were flying by as she reached out and tried to grab them. “Don’t these look so pretty?”

“Umm… didn’t Luna say that we should be careful a little while ago, Apple Bloom?” Calvin now asked her, looking a bit puzzled as Apple Bloom looked back towards the others.

That just made Apple Bloom let out a groan before looking back at her friend. “Come on, Calvin. Do these look threatening to you?” she asked, gesturing her hand at the flies that were above her head.

Of course, after hearing that, Luna was not entirely enthusiastic about what Apple Bloom just said. “Apple Bloom, need I remind you that it would not be wise to say something like that while in a nightmare-”

Just as Luna was saying that, a giant was thrown through the bushes that were nearby Apple Bloom, barely missing her as she turned to see what it was. It was a giant wolf-beast with dragon like skin and fur on parts of its body, with some of the same bugs that were flying above Apple Bloom emerging from the fur on its body before forming a swarm above it. It also had a pair of horns, but one of them looked to have been broken off.

“What in the world is THAT!?!”

“The reason why I suggested for you to not say that,” Luna reiterated, magic beginning to flow through her horn. She was going to cast a spell, only to hear rustling from the same bushes that this beast had been thrown through as the magic began to fizzle and fade in her confusion. As she turned to look, Luna found herself staring at two monsters that emerged from the bush. A carnivorous jungle cat that had a bone blade on its right foreleg and was covered in bone armor that was all over its body, followed by a giant snake made out of jungle vines and plants with the petals of a flower around its head, “By the night…”

“Is it just me, or could this be why Scootaloo decided to stay quiet?” Calvin whispered.

“Well, at least they didn’t spot us yet,” Sweetie Belle responded, trying to stay positive about everything going on. Unfortunately though, her comment was followed by the bone beast to step forward and turn its head towards them, “Oh, come on...”

“Luna, do you have a plan?” Calvin then asked the night princess, turning towards her and waiting for her answer. Yet, before she can think of an answer, the wolf-beast let out a deafening howl. After having two swarms of bugs emerge from its fur, it sent the swarms directly at the other beasts, striking them directly in the face. Small pieces of bone chipped away from the bone-beast’s protections as it snarled back at its foe. As for the Viper, it hissed angrily at the wolf-beast, stretching out the vines around its neck as it prepared to attack.

In that moment, none of the monsters seemed to even notice the presence of Calvin and the others, as they all were too focused on fighting each other. Now, though, was when Luna decided to finally answer the Skyshifter’s question. “Perhaps it would be best for us to leave them be. They haven’t spotted us yet-”

Just as she finished saying that, they heard rustling from a bush behind them. Immediately, all four of them took up arms as Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were holding onto the same weapons that they had earlier while Luna was holding a sword within her magical grip and Calvin was in the form of his imaginator. They were expecting another monster to crawl out and try to catch them by surprise.

All four of them were definitely surprised… but only because what actually came out of the bush was not what they were expecting, “Woah, hold on a minute!”

Immediately, Calvin recognized who was speaking as they stepped out from behind the bush. All four of them were now looking at a dark colored dragon that walked on four legs and had a curved horn on the front of its head, its white eyes looking at each one of them while holding his wings up in the air. “Now, I know that you don’t me, but-”

“You’re Blackout.”

The Skyshifter’s response, followed by him changing back into his regular form, left the dragon rather confused, needing a moment in order to process everything before speaking, “…Okay, so you might know me.”

“Calvin, you know this creature?” Luna then asked, confused by everything that had just transpired as she looked towards him.

“Yeah, he’s a Skylander,” Calvin told her, “If I remember correctly, he and his clan used to craft nightmares for villains to dissuade them from doing evil. That was, until his clan became corrupt, and he had to stop them from misusing their powers for their own amusement.”

That was something Luna did not expect. In all of her time spent in the realm of dreams, she had not thought about the possibility of having nightmares be used that way, for doing good. After hearing his explanation, Luna dismissed her blade as she looked back towards the dragon, “My sincere apologies. We were unsure if you were a friend or foe upon first encountering you,” the princess explained, “My name is Luna, Princess of the Night and protector of dreams in Equestria. These three are my companions, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and Calvin the Skyshifter.”

At first, Blackout was processing everything that the princess just told him, yet it was as he heard the last part of his sentence that something clicked in his head, “Wait, the Skyshifter?!” he asked, before looking towards Calvin.

“You know about me?” he asked, a bit caught off guard by the dragon’s sudden reaction just now.

“To be fair, the only things that I have known about you up until this point were some memories from your perspective. I never knew that you had that title until your princess friend just mentioned it,” the Dark Skylander explained to him, before letting out a small sigh, “Now that I know though, there’s something I should-”

Before he could continue though, they all heard a small rustle from the bushes, followed by the sound of a familiar voice, “Blackout? Is it s-safe for me to come out now?”

“Scootaloo?” Sweetie Belle was the first to speak, “Scootaloo, is that you?”

“S-Sweetie Belle? You’re h-here, too?” her friend asked from behind the bush, sounding a little bit surprised while she was speaking.

“Yeah, we are,” Apple Bloom now added, “Luna and Calvin are here, too!”

Scootaloo herself, upon hearing that, let out a sigh of relief as she came out from behind the bush. Glad to see her friends again, she came out from behind the bush and gave Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle a hug. Calvin himself was glad to see that Scootaloo was okay, but honestly did not expect for him to be given a hug as well as he felt himself being pulled towards Scootaloo.

Of course, it was as Scootaloo let go of Calvin that Luna herself now spoke up, “It is a relief to see that you are unharmed, Scootaloo. Though, I believe we have a much bigger matter to attend too.” As she finished the sentence, she looked back towards where the monsters were as they can still see them fighting one another.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Blackout grumbled, “They’re still going at it?”

“You ran into them already?” Calvin asked.

“Yeah, I was the one that found Scootaloo stuck in the middle of their turf war,” the dark dragon replied back, “We were trying to lay low for a while, but then Scootaloo heard one of you guys shouting earlier and started getting worried.”

“I did mention to you that doing so would attract attention,” Luna said, looking towards Sweetie Belle as the young girl tried looking away.

Blackout just let out a small breath, only looking at Sweetie briefly before turning back to Calvin. “Guess I’ll tell you after these nightmares are dealt with,” he added, “Right now though, we have a job to do.”

“Wait, we’re actually going to fight those things? How?!” Scootaloo then asked. Only for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle to look at each other for a brief moment before looking to Princess Luna.

“Could you give us a second, Princess? We promise it won’t take long.”

When the princess nodded, both of the crusaders took their friend off to the side, so they could tell her what the princess had told them earlier, teaching Scootaloo that whatever she could imagine could be a weapon to fight against nightmares as well as showing them what they were holding onto. It took her a couple of moments, but Scootaloo soon got an idea of what kind of weapon that she wanted to use.

Listening to her friends, Scootaloo took a calm breath and began to picture the weapon she wanted in her mind. She got the idea of what to use after seeing the two weapons that her friends were using as she thought of the crossbow that belonged to Punk Shock. Moments after she began to think about this, she found the crossbow in her hands, something that surprised her for a moment because she didn’t think it was that simple.

Now that they were all ready, the crusaders joined back up with Luna, Calvin and Blackout. Scootaloo herself looked towards Luna and gave her an affirmative nod. “Alright, I’m ready. Let’s let ‘em have i-”

Before she had the chance to finish what she was saying, the ground began to violently quake beneath their feet, almost knocking everyone off balance as the forest began to shake all around them. “…WHAT NOW?!”

As the tremors began to intensify, they all began to notice that many of the smaller creatures that called the forest home were beginning to flee. Yet, these weren’t the small critters that they would normally see in a forest. They were all smaller nightmares of various different shapes and forms. Yet, the expression of fear was over their faces as they did not even seem to pay attention to them. All they were focused on was trying to get as far away as possible.

With everything that was going on, Calvin found himself asking one particular question, “Luna, from your experience… what could possibly scare a nightmare?”

The question itself was enough to make Luna’s eyes widen as she realized what she was talking about before answering him. “A Night Terror… we need to hurry.”

Before anyone could ask about what she was talking about, Luna took off, prompting the others to chase after her and try to keep up. She was heading back towards the clearing where they saw the other three monsters earlier, only to find that each one of them were not only no longer fighting each other, but trying to make sense of everything that was going on.

It was as all of this was happening that a giant crack in the ground began to form by them, which had the bone-beast quickly move out of the way and leave the Vine Viper behind. It tried to catch up, but it started to fall between the cracks as cries of pain could be heard from it. The viper tried using the vines around its neck to push itself back onto solid ground, thinking that it could escape the gaping pit that was tearing open behind beast.

Then, a giant molten claw rose up from behind it, grabbing hold of its head as the viper began to cry out in pain as it was dragged down into the ground. Black smoke began to rise up into the air as the fissure grew in size. It was quiet for a brief moment, but then, the same claw that they saw drag the viper down came up to grab hold of the ground in front of it. Moments later, a second claw came up to grab hold of the earth as they began to pull itself up to the surface. Molten lava burned the ground as it stood up as the newfound terror proved to be much bigger than the other two as a pair of molten wings now took form on its back.

“What the hay is that!?” Sweetie Belle asked, thrown off guard by its sheer size and destructive power.

“A Night Terror,” Luna grit her teeth as she stared at the molten beast that was in front of them, “A monster that is much stronger than a normal nightmare and a lot more dangerous. It’ll attack anything indiscriminately, even other nightmares.”

As the lava dragon stood before them, they also noticed that the wolf-beast stayed where it was. It did not flee like that of the bone-beast earlier, but instead stood its ground as it let out a piercing howl as it sent out another swarm of bugs at the newfound terror. However, unfortunately for the wolf-beast, the attack had no effect on the Night Terror. When the bugs made contact with the dragon’s skin, they began to burn up until they were nothing but little clouds of ash.

“N-No way,” Apple Bloom was the first to speak. She had seen the wolf-beast use the same attack before against other monsters and effectively hurt them. However, this time around, it didn’t do anything. It was something that even the wolf-beast was caught off guard by, but refused to give up. Without warning, more bugs began to emerge from its fur as they began to form around its body and claws, acting as both a protective coat of armor and an extension to its already sharp claws. Mere seconds afterwards did the wolf beast charge at the molten dragon as it leaped towards its target, ready to strike.

Unfortunately though, the Terror was anticipating something like this. As it raised its wings, it released an ear piercing roar as a pillar of fire rose from the ground, directly blocking the wolf-beast as it jumped at it. For a moment, it looked as if it was trying to break through, but a second roar from the dragon was enough to throw the wolf down to the ground like a ragdoll, its remaining horn breaking off upon contact with the ground.

Calvin could not believe everything he was seeing. The wolf-beast that was able to push back against the other nightmares it was facing earlier now laid helplessly on the ground. Not only that, but as the terror grabbed hold of the nightmare in its teeth, the wolf-beast’s size began to decrease, as if its strength was being stolen by this giant dragon while it was whining in sheer agony with its face full of pain.

“W-what is it doing?!” Sweetie Belle asked.

“It’s leeching it of its power,” Luna grimaced as she watched everything play out right in front of her, “Stripping away any resolve it has left and adding it to its own.”

“Okay, out of all the nightmares that I have seen before… that one’s freaky,” Blackout commented before looking to Luna, “So, do we have a plan to stop it, or-?”

Before Blackout could finish speaking, Calvin immediately changed into his Imaginator form and leaped into the fray, a move that caught everyone that was with him off guard as he ran towards the terror. When he was closer, the Skyshifter began to concentrate as he channeled his strength into a compact orb that glowed in his right hand. Looking towards the dragon, he held the burning orb in his hands, before pulling his arm back and throwing it forward as far as he could.

Yet, Calvin’s target was not the wolf-beast. Instead, he was trying to hit the terror, hoping that doing so would cause the terror to drop the beast. When the orb finally made contact with the terror’s left wing, it exploded and forced the molten beast to drop its prey as it fell over onto the ground.

Of course, it was only a few seconds afterwards that everyone else caught up… and the princess gave him an earful, “CALVIN, WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE STARS WERE YOU THINKING!?!”

Calvin just let out a sigh as he looked back at the princess, “I know it’s a nightmare, but even it doesn’t deserved to be drained like that,” he explained, looking back at the wolf-beast that was lying on the ground, “Besides, letting that terror finish would only make it tougher to defeat anyways, after it finished draining the wolf.”

As he looked at the wolf-beast, he heard it whimper in pain before turning back towards the dragon that was in front of him. Looking up, he smirked briefly before throwing a barrage of fireballs that hit the branches of the trees above them. As the branches began to collapse on the dragon, he rushed over to the wolf, dragging it over to a place where it was covered by greenery with his fire dash and set it aside.

“Go on now,” he told the beast, placing a hand on its head to comfort it, “I hope you learned what it’s like to be picked on. So... don’t do it again, alright?”

After he finished with the beast, he looked down on the ground to find that the wolf’s other horn had broken off, briefly pausing to pick it up and take it with him as he raced back over to his allies, “Everyone, get ready! Those branches won’t hold it forever.”

“Luna, do you have any ideas for how we’re supposed to fight this thing?” Scootaloo then asked as she turned towards the princess, hoping that she had some kind of play as to how they were going to face such a massive monster.

“We need to spread out and attack it from different positions,” she informed them, “A frontal assault from all of us would just be foolish and lead to our defeat.”

“So, we attack from multiple angles? We make it confused, so it’s harder for them to concentrate on trying to fight us individually,” Blackout asked, which had Luna nod her head as he smirked, “Okay, I think I’m liking this plan.”

“Same here,” Sweetie Belle added on, before asking another question that came off the top of her head, “Though, should we all just spread out everywhere or pair up with someone else in case we get separated-?”

Luna did not have much time to think on the matter, for they heard the dragon’s roar and began to hear the branches that were holding it down break apart. They did not have much time before it would fully break free from the branches as she looked back at her companions.

“Pair up and get into position, quickly!” she declared, holding her blades at the ready as Sweetie Belle prepared her bow. Calvin and Apple Bloom formed the second pair and took up position on her left side, while Blackout and Scootaloo raced over to her right. Once they got into position, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom readied their weapons, aiming at the dragon as it threw its head upward in an attempt to remove the last of the branches that were holding him down.

“Luna, it’s about to break free! What’s our target?” Calvin then asked as the last of the branches that were holding it down had burned away.

“Go for its legs! We need to hinder its movement so it can’t flee!!”

Free from the restraints that were holding it down, the Night Terror let out a spine chilling roar as it began to retaliate against them and lash out with its claws and teeth. Even though its wings were already broken and it could not attack from the air, the Terror was still rather agile on the ground. If that wasn’t already enough trouble, the fire that was bursting from its body made any attacks that did happen to hit the molten dragon barely had any effect against it.

Sweetie Belle was rather confident when the battle first began, but as the battle raged on, she was beginning to find her task to be rather difficult. She was following through on Luna’s instructions, attacking the Night Terror’s legs to try to stop it from moving. However, it was while she was shooting it that she came across two different problems. The first one was that a lot of her shots worked best against a target that was standing still instead of constantly moving. The second problem was that even if she was able to successfully hit the target, her shots would melt because of the overwhelming heat that was coming from the monster.

It was something that was beginning to annoy her with each passing moment. “How the hay am I going to help them if my attacks won’t even hurt this thing?!” she thought to herself, trying to get a better angle to shoot from while the dragon was swiping its claws at Luna, which had the princess cast a teleportation spell to avoid an attack that almost struck her head.

“Tch... it’s a persistent one,” the princess grit her teeth as she stared down the terror in front of her, lifting her sword as she prepared to face the dragon head on.

In Sweetie’s mind, she thought that Luna was crazy. There was no way that she could possibly face a beast like this head on, especially with the flames that were around its body. Unless they were put them out somehow, the princess would just end up getting burned-

Then, it dawned on Sweetie Belle. The only way that it was possible for them to really hurt this dragon was to extinguish the flames that it was conjuring. Taking a moment to step back from the battle, she began to imagine a new arrow type for her to use as they formed in her quiver. As Sweetie knocked one onto her bow and drew back the string, water began to spiral and swirl around the tip of the arrow as she aimed for the monster’s leg.

Yet, the only thing that she had to deal with now was that one of her team members was directly in her line of sight, “Blackout, get out of the way!!”

The Dark Skylander only had a few seconds to move as Sweetie fired her shot. The water that was surging around the arrow was enough to put out the flames that were around one side of its body as the arrow hit the terror in the leg and it roared in pain. “By the elements, how did you do that?!”

“It appears that the only way we can truly harm this beast is to extinguish its flames first,” Luna quickly added on, smirking all the while as she looked back at Sweetie Belle, “Clever girl.”

After he saw how successful Sweetie Belle’s attack was just now, Calvin thought of a different approach as he looked towards his partner, “Hey, Apple Bloom, I got an idea. Can you shoot the terror with something that can freeze it?”

“Freeze it?” Apple Bloom asked, “How would that work?”

“I remember something back home about what would happen if something faces extreme heat and cold rather quickly,” Calvin told her, before he began to focus and channel his power to form molten gauntlets around his hands, “If you can find a way to freeze it, then I think it’ll be easier for me to hurt it!”

Apple Bloom wasn't entirely sure what Calvin was talking about, but if this idea of his was going to help them possibly defeat this Terror, then the only thing to do was give it a try. She took a moment to imagine it in her head, picturing the front of her weapons being frozen over. When she looked back at her revolvers, the ice that covered her weapons were being held in place by runes that were etched within the ice itself. When she fired them, the coins that were being launched were covered in ice, as if she was firing miniature frozen frisbees.

“This is going to be fun,” she smirked, before looking back at the terror and began shooting. Every shot that hit the terror exploded into ice and metal, leaving shards scattered everywhere while also freezing its skin. This also provided the opportunity for Calvin to strike the terror using his newfound explosive magma gauntlets as he focused his attacks on the sections of the Terror that Apple Bloom froze in place.

After each successful attack by Calvin against the frozen sections of its body, the terror let out a painful roar as more and more molten lava began to flow out of its body like blood. From Scootaloo’s end, seeing the lava reminded her of something that happened while she was getting the Imaginite Crystals with her friends. When she shot the lava river with her crossbow, it was able to channel electricity. So, if Scootaloo could do the same thing here, then it was possible that she could hurt it from the inside.

It was as Scootaloo was thinking this over that she caught a glimpse of Blackout heading over to where Calvin was at, using his wings to strike the same weak point that the Skyshifter was attacking as the open wound from the terror began to widen and more lava began to spill out. This made her grin, for it provided her a much bigger target to hit as she aimed her crossbow and began to open fire, her shots landing in the exposed opening and sending a current of electricity through it.

The pain for the lightning had forced the terror to slow down its attacks, but it did not let up in its ferocity. When it wasn’t able to move its front leg, the dragon fought back by slamming its giant head into Calvin’s chest when he tried to attack even further, throwing the Skyshifter backward as he almost collided with Apple Bloom. When it turned its attention back to Blackout, the terror unleashed a giant fire breath that forced the Skylander to dodge as it ignited the surrounding area.

Yet, when the Skylander tripped over a rock that was by its feet, Luna stepped into intercept the fire breath as she stared down the terror, “I will not let you lay a claw on them while I’m here, you monster!!”

Blackout, who was lucky that he did not end up getting burned to a crisp, used the opportunity that Luna provided to get back to Scootaloo by channeling a black hole below his feet and one that was near her, hopping into the one in front of him to quickly get back over. The princess’ intervention also gave Apple Bloom the chance to help Calvin get back up his feet as the Night Terror was focused on going after Luna.

“O-oww… d-did anyone get the license plate on that truck-?”

“Calvin, come on,” Apple Bloom told him, getting him to refocus his attention back to the task at hand, “We need to hurry and help stop this thing before it hurts anyone else!”

The Skyshifter soon realized what she meant as he looked back towards the battle that was playing out. The terror had moved from its original spot earlier and was focusing its attacks on Princess Luna, while Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Blackout were increasing their efforts to try and weaken the monster even further. The problem was that the terror itself was a lot more aggressive and a lot faster with its attacks, which tested Luna’s resolve to keep up with the beast as she tried to keep its attention away from the others.

It was as the battle was going on that Calvin noticed something. Over on the opposite side of the battlefield, Blackout was using his wings to saw into some nearby trees, having them topple over onto the backside of the terror. This gave him an idea as he conjured more energy into his newfound gauntlets as he placed both hands on the ground and began to dig into the ground. After a few seconds, he pulled a large boulder out of the ground and threw it at the terror, which forced the terror to fall down once the rock made impact with its back leg.

“Calvin, what are ya doing!?” Apple Bloom called out as the Skyshifter looked back towards his partner.

“I saw Blackout trying to slow it down and decided to help,” he told her, “Now that it’s moving too fast for precise attacks, we’re gonna have to use bigger attacks that are harder to dodge if we want to harm it.”

After she heard that, Apple Bloom looked over to where Blackout was and saw him turn into a buzzsaw to cut down another tree, scattering pieces of the tree and the ground in his path at the night terror in an effort to slow it down. Apple Bloom wanted to help, but after seeing Calvin and Blackout attacks against the terror, she realized that she was going to need more than just her revolvers if she wanted to leave an impact on the dragon.

Calvin told her that they had to use bigger attacks that are harder to dodge, but there was only one potential idea that was on her mind that would fit that category. Apple Bloom took a moment to holster her weapons before she started to imagine what she had in mind. It was a cannon, and at first glance, someone could easily mistake it for Pinkie Pie’s party cannon. Yet, there was one major difference.

This one fired something other than confetti, “Calvin, move!!”

“Wha-? OH SHOOT!!”

The Skyshifter had only mere moments to react as Apple Bloom fired the cannon at the dragon as a giant snowball flew through the air towards the Terror’s back leg. When it reached its target, the snowball exploded and began to encase the monsters back leg in ice. The sudden attack caught Calvin off guard, which prompted him to look back at his partner shortly after that surprise attack, “Not that I’m complaining, but did you have to do that?”

“Well, ya told me to use bigger attacks that are harder to dodge,” she explained, before she took a moment to ready the cannon again.

“Alright, though... please give me the chance for me to move first before you fire,” Calvin suggested as he began to channel his power into his gauntlets, “It won’t do us any good if you hit me on accident.”

Apple Bloom nodded her head in response as she returned her focus to the cannon while Calvin got back to work on the same plan of attack from just a couple of moments earlier to channel his power into his gauntlets and toss boulders at the dragon’s legs. For a time, their attacks seemed to work, and they thought that they were actually making progress against the Terror that they were up against.

Unfortunately, that did not last long. With a powerful roar, the terror unleashed a wave of fire that forced Calvin and his companions to back away from the dragon before it lowered its head to the ground and opened its mouth. In an instant, the environment around the terror’s mouth began getting sucked in through its maw, flowing in as if it was being sucked through a giant straw.

When Luna realized what the terror was doing, an expression of downright horror appeared on her face, “N-No. T-This cannot be-”

“Luna, what’s wrong?” Sweetie Belle then asked, noticing that the princess' tone was the complete opposite of how she was acting earlier.

“T-The Terror… It’s feeding on the dream itself!” the princess proclaimed, catching everyone else's attention in the process, “If it continues to do this, then the entire dream will collapse!”

In Calvin’s mind, that was definitely a problem, especially since Luna told him earlier about how dangerous a nightmare could be if it escapes the dream it was from. If something like this was able to get out, then there was no telling what kind of havoc it would cause.

“W-What would happen if it… c-collapsed?” Scootaloo then asked, sounding a bit worried.

“When it comes to you, you would just wake up, dear Scootaloo,” Luna explained, before turning to the rest of their companions, “But… the rest of us would be lost in this realm, unable to return to our own bodies as we just linger here.”

“That… is too scary to think about,” Blackout commented.

“Which is why we can’t let that happen,” the princess grit her teeth, before looking back at the terror, “I know a spell that could counter it. I managed it before in a one-on-one fight, but barely. I was not able to fulfill my duties for the next few days afterwards.”

“What can we do to help?” Calvin immediately asked.

“Buy me as much time as you can,” the alicorn of the night told them, dismissing her blades as magic began to flow around her horn rapidly, “If you can protect me while I am casting the spell, I would greatly appreciate it. It would make casting the spell a lot easier knowing that you are helping me.”

“So, a ‘defend the objective’ mission… terrific,” Blackout shrugged it off, before looking back at the Terror and regrouping with the rest of his companions as they stood in front of Luna, “Well, let’s get started then.”

“Do you have a plan?” Apple Bloom asked the Skylander.

“Simple. Attack it and lure it away from Luna,” the dark dragon responded, “Sounds like a simple plan to me.”

“What about the bone monster we saw?” Sweetie then asked, “If we run into that and the terror finds it-”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Blackout sighed. Instead of explaining any more, the Dark Skylander jumped into the fray, wings at the ready as he began to attack the dragon’s head. Apple Bloom and Calvin were the next ones to jump in as she fired her cannon at the terror to freeze its head, before the Skyshifter jumped in and punched it with his molten gauntlets. Lastly, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo joined the rest of their friends, but stuck to attacking from range instead of getting too close to the dragon’s maw.

It did not take long for the Terror to react from their attacks as it ceased what it was doing to retaliate against them. After releasing another roar, the dragon surprised its opponents by using its already damaged wings to shield itself from their attacks. It was a tactic that caught all of them off guard, because they thought that its wings were rendered useless. If that wasn’t enough, Calvin began to feel the ground heat up underneath him, before realizing what it was.

“Everyone, move-!!”

Without warning, a pillar of fire immediately erupted from each of their feet, forcing everyone to jump for cover as the flames began to spread. Luna herself had to stop her spell in order to move out of the way from the sudden attack. Yet, just as everyone was getting back up on their feet, they looked up to see that the flames that were in the air had now formed into orbs of fire. At first, they thought the orbs were something that the dragon was going to unleash at them. However, none of them anticipated for those orbs to start unleashing their own projectiles all over the battlefield.

“Oh, hay!” Apple Bloom spoke.

“Okay, that is going to be annoying,” Calvin thought to himself. It was one thing to anticipate an attack that he can be able to see coming, but another thing to prepare himself from an attack that can happen at anytime from beneath their feet. If anything, it was going to make their job of protecting Luna and distracting the terror much harder.

Though, it was as he looked at his molten gauntlets and looked back at the orbs that were in the air that he got an idea, something that he could do to not only make sure that Luna was out of harm's way, but also even the odds. “Luna,” he spoke, catching the princess’ attention, “Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” the alicorn responded, “Why-?”

“You might want to hold on,” Without warning, Calvin placed both his hands on the ground and began to channel his energy into the ground as it formed a molten ring around Luna. Before the princess could ask what he was doing, the area around her rose up into the air as Luna found herself standing on a molten platform that was high above the ground.

“Calvin, what the hay are you doing?” Sweetie now asked, caught off guard by the sudden actions of her friend.

The Skyshifter himself just simply let out a breath as he turned back around to face the rest of the group, “I’m improvising.” Once more, he placed his hands on the ground and channeled his power as three spots began to glow in front of him. From the ground, three birds that looked to be made out of pure fire emerged from the ground, before they landed on both of his hands, with each one of the birds having something that set themselves apart.

“Woah,” Scootaloo said, “That… was awesome.”

After looking at the birds, he then let out a small breath to compose his thoughts before he began to speak, “Alright. I’m going to need all three of you to help us,” he said as he motioned his head to where Luna was standing, “We need to keep Luna safe,” now he motioned over towards the terror, “from that, but in order to do so,” his eyes now looked up towards the orbs in the sky as the Skyshifter finished his sentence, “We need your help in distracting them. Are you up for it?”

All three of the birds chirped happily in response, before taking off as they flew into the air towards the orbs that were in the sky. As the first orb was about to launch a salvo of burning missiles, the first of the birds that Calvin summoned flapped it’s large bushy wings and sent out some of the feathers that were on its wings to intercept them mid-flight. When the second orb began to release its flames like a flamethrower, the second bird used its giant sized beak to suck it in as its throat inflated like a frog’s stomach. Lastly, the third orb unleashed a barrage of burning bullets at Luna target, only for the shots to be caught and extinguished by the tar like wings that the third bird has as it intercepted them, dropping whatever was left over onto the ground.

It was as Calvin turned back around that Sweetie Belle now spoke up to ask the only question that was on her mind. “Okay, mind explaining to us why you did that?”

“Well, first, I wanted to make sure that Luna did not get hit by any of those attacks that can erupt from the ground,” he began to explain, “Secondly, for the birds, I was thinking about something that could distract those orbs while we focus on that Terror.”

“Which would not only drain away at the Terror’s energy, but also its attention,” the Dark Skylander now spoke up, “It would be too focused on us and the birds to even pay attention to your Princess! By Eon, you’re a genius!”

Calvin wasn’t quite expecting a compliment of that nature to be heard about him. If anything, that would be something that he would hear about Twilight. “I just thought that we needed to take a different approach,” he replied back, “Now, let’s go. We can’t beat that terror by just standing around here, right?”

By that point, everyone else nodded in agreement as they redirected their focus back to the Terror that was in front of them. Blackout and Calvin led the charge into battle as they attacked the molten dragon head on while the Cutie Mark Crusaders were providing ranged support. This time around, everyone did not stay in one spot and constantly kept moving to avoid being roasted by any more fire pillars that would erupt from the ground.

As they attacked the Night Terror, everyone in the group used everything that they had at their disposal to weaken the beast. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were focused on extinguishing the dragon’s flames by soaking it with a combination of Sweetie’s water arrows and Splash Bombs that Scootaloo threw into the air, followed by a shot with her crossbow while they were in flight. As for Apple Bloom, her focus was to use the snowball cannon she had and her revolvers to freeze sections of the dragon for Calvin to strike with his gauntlets. Any exposed openings would be followed up by a combination of attacks from Blackout shortly afterwards.

Yet, despite their new gameplan, the Terror was persistent. Despite their best efforts to distract it, the dragon still found moments to feed on the dream before fighting back. The injuries that it received would end up being healed as if nothing happened, something that greatly irritated Calvin and the rest of his companions.

“Okay, this is getting to be annoying,” Scootaloo growled, “What are we not doing right here? We’re avoiding everything that its throwing at us, and yet, we’ve barely scratched it!”

“Luna’s counting on us to buy her time for the spell,” Calvin reminded them, “We can’t give up now.”

“You heard him! Let’s get back in there, girls!!” Apple Bloom motivated her friends, before all three of them simultaneously cheered, “Cutie Mark Crusaders, Monster Hunters! YAY!!”

That just made Blackout blink as he turned to Calvin, “Is… that normal for them?”

“Honestly, what really is ‘normal’ in here?” he asked the Skylander, which led to Blackout being silent for a few more moments before only coming up with a simple response.

“You… bring up a valid point.”

Without anything else to say, both Blackout and Calvin jumped back into the fray to engage the Night Terror once again. The five of them followed with the same strategy as before to go toe-to-toe with the beast and keep its attention on them and not focus on Luna. Even if they did take a different approach to try and weaken it, the beast would still find a way to patch itself up and have the entire process of fighting it repeat itself all over again.

Though, it was after Calvin and his friends fought against the terror a third time and it went down to feed that something much different happened, “That’s FAR ENOUGH!!!” they all heard Luna proclaim from the molten platform she was standing on as magic was swirling around her horn, “I WILL NOT ALLOW FOR YOU TO UNRAVEL THIS DREAM ANY MORE!!!”

Immediately, a wave of energy was emitted from the unicorn’s horn that began to spread everywhere. The spell had created a visible layer of energy across the environment of the dream that they were in. It did not look like much at first, but to the Terror, it was as if an iron gate had been placed over the ground that blocked any attempt that it would make to try and feed on the dream, as it learned firsthand when it broke its teeth attempting to drain the ground.

“Ah, heck yeah!! You did it, Luna!” Scootaloo proclaimed.

“Indeed, young Scootaloo,” the princess let out a breath, before looking towards the Night Terror, “However, our work here is not yet done.”

“At least fighting it will be much easier now that we can actually hurt it,” Blackout smirked as he readied himself for another round.

“That I can agree with,” Calvin added as he prepared his gauntlets once more, “It’s time we finish this.”

“Are you going to join us, Luna?” Sweetie Belle then asked. Yet, the princess’ response to her question was rather different from what she thought it would be.

“Unfortunately, I can’t,” she told them, “The spell that I had just used isn’t one that you just simply cast and not worry about. It’s one that has to be maintained after casting it. If I were to join you in battle, I would not have any magic left to keep this dream stable. It is why I had to expend myself so much last time I fought one of these alone.”

“Well, you’re not alone now,” Apple Bloom told her, “Ya got all of us here to help ya. If we’re going to stop this Terror, then we’re doing it together,” before she could continue with what she was saying, everyone heard the terror let out another ear piercing roar as they looked back at the molten dragon. “What’s the plan?”

“Same plan,” the Skyshifter replied back, “Let Blackout and I get up close while you three attack from a distance,” as he finished his sentence, he looked back at all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders as he added another piece to the plan, “This time though, it will be up to you three to make sure that this Terror doesn’t get to Luna. Think you can handle it?”

“Heck yeah we can!” Scootaloo proclaimed as she readied her crossbow.

That had Calvin smile as he looked back towards Blackout, before both of them charged towards the Night Terror one more time. As they raced towards the molten beast, the Cutie Mark Crusaders started to attack the Terror from range, which provided an opportunity for Calvin and Blackout to attack once they got closer. The two of them relied on every possible technique that they knew in order to break away at the Terror’s defenses, while also capitalizing on any chance they had to expose weak points for their companions. Now that it was cut off from the source that it used to mend its wounds, they could hurt it without having to worry about its injuries being restored.

As the battle raged on though, Sweetie Belle began to notice something when Calvin and Blackout were breaking away at its molten skin. At first, she thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her, but it was when a couple of arrows that she fired missed their intended target that she decided to ask, “Hey, girls, is it just me… or does it look like the Terror is… shrinking?”

“Shrinking?” Scootaloo asked, “The hay are you talking about?”

“Now that ah think of it, ah’m seeing it too,” Apple Bloom pointed out as she fired a shot from her revolvers at the beast’s head, only for the coin to fly over it and miss as she turned to the princess that was with them, “Princess Luna, do you know what’s happening?”

It took a moment for the princess to process what was going on, but after a moment or two, she had an answer for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, “It’s… rearranging itself. Taking what’s left of its body and changing into a smaller form.”

“So… is that a good thing?” Sweetie Belle nervously asked.

“While this may be a sign that the beast is weakening, there is another problem,” Luna continued to explain, “With it being a smaller target, it’ll be harder to actually harm it, not to mention that you might end up hitting either Calvin or Blackout on accident.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound good at all,” Scootaloo groaned, “How are we supposed to help them if we’re going to end up hitting them in the process?”

That question had Apple Bloom look back at the weapons that she had, before turning her gaze to Scootaloo. An idea had formed in her mind of a way that they could help, but there was something she needed to confirm first. “Scootaloo, if you throw your splash bombs on the ground, how big does the puddle get?”

“Um… pretty big,” she responded, puzzled by her friends sudden question, “Why-?”

“I think I have an idea on how we can help Calvin.”

While Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were coming up with a plan, Blackout and Calvin were at a standstill in their fight against the Terror. When the battle first started, they had no trouble in fighting against the beast. Yet, with each weak point that they exploited and broke off, the beast began to change. Taking what was left of its body, the Night Terror was able to morph its appearance as its form began to change.

If that wasn’t enough, its first move after its transformation was complete caught the Skyshifter off guard. The Terror swiped its claws around itself, a move that had the three orbs that it summoned earlier come down from above them and combine into one, before swallowing it whole.

“D-did that Terror just eat fire?”

“It did,” the Dark Skylander replied, just as the Night Terror let out another roar. As they looked towards it, they watched the beast take on a different appearance as molten cracks began to form on its face as its eyes glowed a dark red. Shards of molten rock began to grow from its arms as the Terror now had razor sharp scales that covered its entire body, going as far as to suck in its rear legs for extra sustenance as it began flying in the air, “And that’s definitely not good.”

“You think!?”

Before Blackout could think of a way to respond, both of them had to move as the Terror took the molten rocks that were growing from its arms and threw it towards them. Upon contact with the ground, the rocks glowed the same color as the cracks on the Terror’s body and exploded shortly afterwards.

“Okay, what exactly is the plan now?” Calvin asked Blackout as he rolled out of the way of another rock that was thrown at his feet.

“We need to get egghead down to the ground before it ends up wrecking the place,” Blackout retorted.

“Can’t you just use your black holes to pull it out of the sky?” the Skyshifter asked him.

“I could, but it would only be effective if it’s closer to the ground,” the Dark Skylander responded back.

In Calvin’s mind, that wasn’t good. The Terror’s new form made it a lot faster than the one that they were fighting on the ground, possibly fast enough in order to avoid any attempts by the Cutie Mark Crusaders in order to strike it down from afar. They had to find a way to ground it fast, before the battle spiraled out of control.

“Blackout, we need to come up with something before Luna runs out of magic. I’m open to any ideas at this rate-” the Skyshifter told him.

“Calvin!! Blackout!” they both heard, before turning around to see Apple Bloom and Scootaloo try to get their attention as they pointed to the ground on their right hand side, “Try to knock it down on the ground over here! We got an idea on how to hold it down!”

“I’m up for anything at this rate-” Calvin remarked, ducking his head at the sound of another explosion that was not far from where they were, “What do you need us to do?”

“Well, Apple Bloom and I are working on a surprise that can stop it in its tracks,” Scootaloo took the chance to speak up now, “The only thing we need you two to do is lure it over.”

No less than five seconds after hearing her say that did Blackout respond, “Wait… so you… want us to be bait?!”

“Well, if you want to be blunt about it… sure,” Scootaloo retorted, “Besides, we don’t have the time to come up with a plan B.”

“She’s got a point,” Calvin added, “We’ll do what we can to bring it over-”

“One more thing,” Apple Bloom interjected, before motioning to the flaming birds that Calvin had summoned earlier, “In order for this to work, we need ya to have ya birds move over there. We need someone to protect Luna while we get this ready.”

“I can do that,” the Skyshifter nodded, before he clapped his hands and had the birds come back to him. Shortly after they arrived, he briefly explained to them what he needed for them to do. After he finished, all three of them gave him a friendly chirp before they flew over to where Luna was standing at.

As Blackout and Calvin got closer to the Terror now, the Skyshifter asked a question. “So… what’s the plan for making this thing angry?”

“Well, right now, it looks pretty mad because Luna is preventing it from healing itself,” the Dark Skylander pointed out as it continued to do its best to float out of their range and attack her, “Your birds can only do so much to protect her, given how powerful it is. Yet, I’m willing to bet that something like this fire night terror has a very short fuse.”

“Meaning?”

Blackout let out a small breath, before looking back at the Skyshifter, “Meaning that if we keep stopping any attempts it makes to harm Luna, it’ll be irritated it to the point that it would focus its attention on us instead.”

“That’s not fast enough,” Calvin countered as he looked back at the Dark Dragon, “We don’t know how much time Luna has left with her spell.”

“Okay, then what do you think we should do?”

Calvin looked towards the Terror in the distance, before he took out the horn from the wolf beast that he still had on him. He took a moment to focus as he put some of his energy into the base of the horn and made a sturdy grip, turning the broken horn into a makeshift dagger, “We strike it harder to get its attention, then we taunt it to get it to keep its attention on us.”

“You do realize that plan sounds insane, right?” the Skylander then asked him.

The only thing that Calvin did was just grin as he gripped his newfound weapon, “Sometimes, you just need to get straight to the point.”

After he heard that, Blackout blinked as he stared at the Skyshifter, “…Did you just-?”

“Come on! Less talking, more fighting!” Calvin insisted before he jumped into the fray as he left Blackout behind, leaving the dragon to facepalm himself.

“Geez… even in my dreams, I can’t get some rest,” the dragon thought to himself before going after Calvin.

As for the Skyshifter, he was already beginning to think of a plan to reach the Terror that was in the air. With his newfound weapon in one hand, Calvin began to focus his energy into the other hand’s gauntlet. As they got closer, he placed his hand down on the ground as magma cracks began to form around the ground in front of them in the shape of a rectangle, before the front of it was raised up to form a molten ramp.

For a moment, Blackout wanted to ask about why Calvin did this. Yet, when he looked up to see that the ramp was aimed towards the Terror itself, the Dark Dragon could only grin as he ran towards it. As the Skylander got closer, Calvin watched as Blackout curled up his body like when he used the buzzsaw form from earlier when he was cutting down trees. Yet, the only thing that was different was that the blades weren’t extended outward and kept closer to his body, which made him look less like a buzzsaw and more like a somewhat sharp runaway tire.

It wasn’t until Blackout had reached the very end of the ramp that he extended the blades, which pushed him further into the air as he flew towards the beast. Calvin joined him shortly afterwards as he raced towards the ramp and used his fire dash to accelerate into the air and fly towards the beast.

Fortunately, their opponent didn’t even seem remotely interested in them. The beast was more focused on Luna instead as it launched a series of molten rocks at the princess, which were intercepted by the molten birds that defended her. This gave the two of them a window of opportunity to strike while its back was turned.

As they got closer, both the Skylander and Skyshifter prepared themselves. Blackout was the first to strike as he hit the left shoulder blade of the beast with the blades of his buzzsaw as he sped up the rotation of the blades around him, while Calvin followed up with crashing onto the opposite shoulder like a burning comet. The flames exploded everywhere upon impact as Calvin had to grasp onto one the Terror’s sharp scales with his empty hand, the magma gauntlet preventing the scales from harming him.

Once he had a good grip, Calvin took the makeshift dagger that he made and attempted to cut through the scales. Yet, his first attempt to do so was unsuccessful, and he had a hard time trying to break through them. He wasn’t sure what the problem was, but the scales just couldn’t budge at all.

It was as he tried to cut through them that Calvin heard the sound of something cracking above him. As he looked up, the Skyshifter saw the scale that he was holding onto breaking under pressure as he tried to grab hold of it with his gauntlet. Seeing this happen gave him a new idea as he channeled his energy into the dagger to overheat it and slashed again. This time, he was able to cleanly slice through the scales, cutting deeply through the terror’s arm as the beast hollered in pain.

Even though the Skyshifter was able to harm the Terror, there was one thing he forgot to take into account. For a few seconds after he successfully cut through the scales with his knife, the scale that he held onto now broke. Calvin tried to grab hold of another, but he missed his chance and now began to fall straight towards the ground, “Oh, come on-!”

As he fell, Calvin turned himself around in mid-air in an attempt to land on his gauntlet and have it take the hit for him. And take the hit it did… with a heated burst, the gauntlet shattered upon impact as the Skyshifter hit the ground. The remnants of his gauntlet felt like super hot sand on his face as it took him a few moments to get back up on his feet. The landing itself was rather unpleasant, but he was at least thankful that he had no broken bones.

“Calvin!”

As he got up, Calvin turned to his right to see Blackout racing back over to him. “Are you okay?”

“F-For now,” he groaned as he wiped the sand off of his face, “D-Did we-?”

Before he could say anything else, the Skyshifter looked up and was started by the sight of the Terror that floated above the two of them as it menacingly stared down, seething with anger as black smoke began to rise from its body.

“Yeah,” Blackout said, “We did.”

Without warning, flames began to erupt from its injuries as the terror howled an ear-piercing roar. In mere seconds, it used those flames to accelerate straight towards them and pinned them to the ground. As it prepared to strike, Blackout created a pair of black holes and slipped out of there before sending an orb of darkness to the hole that was under the Terror’s hand. Upon contact, the black hole exploded and provided Calvin enough space to slip out before it could attack again.

“Come on, is that all you got, smoky!? I know Mabu that fight better than you!!” the Dark Dragon taunted the Terror, much to Calvin’s surprise. When he first suggested his plan, the Skylander thought that it sounded insane. Now though, he was going along with it.

So, the Skyshifter decided to join in as well. He first conjured a molten orb and threw it at the Terror’s face, watching as it exploded, “Hey, Chimney stack!! I know you can do better than that!! Or are you too much of a coward to face us?!”

The molten beast fixed its gaze on the two of them, gritting its teeth as the flames on its shoulders began to surge again. This time, Calvin and Blackout began to run as they avoided the next attack from the Terror. Afterwards, the Skyshifter threw another molten orb at the terror as it exploded upon contact with its chest, a move that prompted the beast to continue its pursuit.

In quick succession, Calvin and Blackout took turns in attacking the Terror to keep its attention on them, for the goal was not to defeat it, but to keep it fixated on them instead of Luna. That way, they could lure it into the trap that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were preparing and finally finish this fight.

As they were chased, the Terror’s arms began to morph and change shape. The left arm took the form of a hammer that it used to smash the ground around them, while the right arm had turned into a sword. When the Terror attacked them with the hammer, it tried to smash the ground from above them and prompted Calvin and Blackout to dodge. As for the sword, the terror would swing its blade and aim low, which prompted the two of them to jump in order to avoid it.

“Geez, this Terror’s not giving up!” Calvin thought to himself as he narrowly avoided another hammer strike and launched another molten orb in response. He would’ve thought that, by now, the Terror would show some kind of sign that it was somehow weakened, but that did not seem to be the case at all, especially if it had the strength to transform its arms into weapons. “I just hope the girls have a plan for once we arrive.”

Ever since Calvin and Blackout had ‘volunteered’ to get the Terror’s attention, all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders began making preparations in order to stop the terror in its tracks once it was lured over. Originally, the idea was to try and use ice as restraints to hold the terror in place. However, given that the terror was now floating in the air and had no legs now, Apple Bloom had to make a few massive changes to that plan.

The preparations that they had to make for their plan consisted of two things. The first preparation was to create a massive puddle using a lot of the Splash Bombs that Scootaloo had at her disposal, while the second was to have more than one of the frost cannons around the puddle and have each one of her friends control one. As for the plan, once Calvin and Blackout lured the terror over and it was knocked into it, all three of them would fire their cannons at the terror and the ground to freeze it from all sides. After it was frozen, Calvin can use one of his gauntlets to destroy the terror all at once.

At this point, most everything was in place. Sweetie Belle herself was now on lookout as she looked out into the distance to try and see where Calvin and Blackout were going. Both of her friends were busy figuring out the final details for the plan, so it was up to her to inform them when their allies were about to arrive.

“Hey, Sweetie,” she heard Apple Bloom speak up behind her, which had her turn around for a moment to see her friend, “Did Calvin and Blackout get that Terror’s attention?”

“Well,” Sweetie responded. As she turned back around, she looked through her binoculars again, only to witness Calvin and Blackout avoid another narrow attack from the terrors sword arm, “Since they are right now being chased by a giant molten monster that now has weapons for hands… I’m going to say yes.”

“How much time do you think we have before they arrive?” Scootaloo now asked her.

Sweetie took a moment to look through the binoculars one more time, before she realized that they were approaching the trap a lot faster than she anticipated, “Not long… Girls, get ready! They’re almost here!!”

“Wha-?! Already!?” Her friends responded, before they had to hurry and take up their assigned positions at the cannons. Sweetie, though, did not take up her position at the cannon by her just yet, for she had one additional task that she had to perform if their plan was going to work, and one that needed to happen in order for the rest of Apple Bloom’s plan to be successful.

When the Terror was lured in by Calvin and Blackout, it was her duty to knock it onto the ground. It sounded simple, but it was a crucial step. One mistake could put the whole plan in jeopardy. As the target got closer, Sweetie began to picture a different weapon to use for this task, since her bow and arrows were not going to be enough to knock it down. This time, she needed a weapon that would have a bit more impact.

Her final choice was a large metal sphere that was attached to a chain that materialized in Sweetie’s hands, a weapon that resembled the same one that was used by the Supercharger Skylander named Smash Hit, with its metal bands and crystal spikes. Gripping the weapon she saw in the Book of Skylanders, Sweetie gripped the chain firmly with her hands, before she started to spin the ball at the end in a circle as she waited for the right opportunity to release it.

That opportunity came when Sweetie saw Calvin and Blackout racing towards the trap, with the Terror dangerously close behind them. Its attention was only focused on the two of them and didn’t even notice Sweetie as it passed her, which she saw as the only chance that she had to act as she threw the ball and chain at her target’s back once it was above the puddle that was set up.

The Terror itself did not even know what hit it as the weapon struck its upper back and forced it down to the ground, which prompted Calvin and Blackout to get out of the way so they weren’t crushed underneath. As it hit the ground, Sweetie quickly bolted towards the cannon that was stationed by her and aimed it at the downed beast along with her friends. Immediately, all three began to fire their cannons at the same time as giant sized snowballs struck the puddle and the terror from all possible angles with enough firepower to have the target freeze over at it became nothing more than a giant block of ice in mere minutes.

Even Calvin himself seemed shocked by the sudden turn of events, though Sweetie didn’t really think he was informed about what they were doing while he was being monster bait. “W-woah… What just h-happened?”

“That… was our trap working,” Apple Bloom let out a sigh of relief, “Ah remembered what ya said earlier about how freezing it will make it easier for ya to hit and thought that it would be easier on all of us if we froze all of it instead of just a section at a time.”

“Huh… I have to admit, that was pretty good,” Blackout told them.

“Well, it’s not over just yet,” Scootaloo told them, “There’s still one more thing we need to do before we get rid of this terror for good.” She then turned towards Calvin as she continued, “Are you up for it?”

“Up for wha-” Calvin asked, before he began to realize what she was referring to, “Oh, you want for me to-?” After seeing all three of the crusaders nod, he let out a small breath before getting back up on his feet and looking back towards the frozen terror. “Hang on a second.”

Before the girls could ask, the Skyshifter brought up what looked like a makeshift knife as he began to channel his power into it as the blade was lit ablaze. With his weapon in one hand at the ready, Calvin then redirected his power into his other hand to create another magma gauntlet. With his blade, he started to cut the frozen husk down to size until the terror’s body was just a pile of frozen pieces before he incinerated the whole pile with one strike from his gauntlet. No traces were left of the terror as the Skyshifter let out a sigh of relief.

“Man… I’m glad that’s over,” he spoke as the Skyshifter dismissed his makeshift gauntlet. He felt like he wanted to just collapse on the ground and take a breather after that, “Is everyone alright?”

“Thanks to you, we are,” they all heard Luna say to them as she flew down from the platform she was on to join them, “All of you were able to face a Night Terror and defeat it together. I am grateful for your bravery.”

“Thank you, Princess,” Calvin told her, before looking at the rest of his friends, “I’m glad that I could help.”

“Uh… I hate to be ‘that guy’,” Blackout spoke up as he got everyone else's attention, “But don’t we have one other monster running around in the woods?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that is something that you can handle now,” Luna replied back to the Skylander, “Besides, it’s almost time for Calvin, Scootaloo and the others to wake up in the real world, and I need to rest after everything we just endured. Surely, you’re capable of such a task right?”

Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but giggle to herself as Blackout began to process everything he just heard. It took a little bit, but after some thinking, he let out a small sigh. “Well, I don’t really have anything better to do. I guess I can take care of it.”

“Splendid,” Luna smiled, before her horn lit up as she turned to Calvin and his friends, “Now then… It’s time for you to wake up.”

End Part 3

Author's Note

Okay... so, where to start...

Well, the major focus of this chapter was for Calvin to help the Cutie Mark Crusaders overcome nightmares that were based on different fears that surfaced after they met Faith (from my other story, Of Magic and Machines) back in Scroll 20. Each one had a particular fear that it was centered around and was the scope for how I wanted to make it and several of the things that Faith mentioned regarding 'possibilities' for Displaced were showcased in this chapter

To Start, Sweetie's Nightmare was based on the Fear of the Unknown. When she was told that not all Displaced are friendly and that anything was possible, Sweetie saw this as the possibility that many displaced would attempt to try and harm her on sight. Hence, why she was found in a battlefield where numerous other displaced were fighting each other just to get to her. (Fun fact, there are a lot of easter eggs hidden in this one from the fighters to even the freaking announcer. Have fun trying to figure them all out :raritywink: )

Next up is Apple Bloom, for her nightmare was based on the Fear of Failure. We've all heard the phrase 'With Great Power comes Great Responsibility', but this nightmare is based on the premise of 'if Apple Bloom failed to meet the responsibility that came with her newfound powers'. It was interesting to come up with this one because I was trying to take elements from that of horror, but still try to keep it within the ratings of the story. (I bet my Editor thought of that as a challenge too if I have to be honest)

Lastly, we have Scootaloo, where her dream is much bigger than the last two dreams combined and has a LOT of moving parts to it. Her nightmare is based on Monsters, but not the typical monsters that you would find out in the Everfree. No, these ones are specifically monsters that nopony had ever seen before, but could potentially be creatures that someone like Calvin might end up as. A lot of the effort in this was to make the ecosystem of the dream be vibrant and full of life and have the monsters that do appear be unique and have each one of them behave differently. A lot of the ideas behind the creativity of the monsters were based on Monster Hunter, especially the Bug Wolf since that is based on ~~Goodest Boi~~ Zinogre. Also, the fight with the Night Terror is partially based on Monster Hunter as well since some of the characteristics of the fight were in stages like with the Siege Battles.

Night Terror's themselves are based on something similar in the real world that's much more terrifying than a simple nightmare, so in dreams, a Night Terror is a much more horrifying foe to face.

Thank you guys for checking this out. I really would like to hear your thoughts from you guys on how I did. I've been working on this massive chapter for the last three or so weeks and since it's my biggest one yet, I want to hear from you guys and see what you think.

As always, if you happen to like this story, consider giving it a like, a fave and a track. Seeing these help keep me motivated and help me as a writer. Thank you very much and have a great day.

Until next time,
Frost.

Scroll 27- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These (Part 4)

Author's Note

Now, this chapter is treated as more of an epilogue to the previous three... short, but sweet.
-Frost

Fun fact- In total, This chapter was over 25K words across over fifty pages according to Google Docs. Glad I decided to break it into parts :rainbowlaugh:

Scroll 27- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These (Part 4)

Beyond the Skies- Sweet Dreams are Not Made of These Part 4

It may had been hours since she had gone inside the dreams of the Cutie Mark Crusaders to erase their nightmares, but for Luna, it felt much longer. After she and her companions had to face a Night Terror and she had to channel her magic to keep Scootaloo’s dream stable, the princess was beginning to recuperate now that she was in the comforts of her own dream and felt that strength slowly beginning to come back.

Of course, there was one thing that did not seem to go away so easily for her. That was stress. Her dreams were usually a place where she could relax and let her stress from her duties as a princess just melt away. Yet, everything that happened earlier just happened to put on more stress than she needed.

“Ugh… Even with Calvin’s help, I still feel like this,” she groaned as a small alarm clock appeared out of nowhere and began to ring, shortly before Luna punched it with her forehoof and let out a yawn, “Guess it can’t be helped-”

“Leaving so soon, my dear?”

The voice made Luna freeze in place, before she slowly began to turn around. It was the same furless nightmare pony that was the ‘announcer’ in Sweetie Belle’s dream, but now, they were standing directly behind her.

“Oh, brilliant… you again,” the princess groaned as she let out a deeply irritated sigh, “What are you here for? To haunt my dreams and make things even more stressful?”

“Haha!! Of course not!” they proclaimed, before holding the microphone it was using to broadcast its voice and stretching out the bottom to give it a proper mic-stand, “I’m here to help!”

Immediately, Luna blinked, baffled by what she had just heard, “… Come again?”

“Help!” it repeated, before tapping his contraption to check and see if it was working before looking back at her.

“You… want to help… with-?”

“You just mentioned it yourself, my dear. Your stress!” he replied, “For you see, I’m not like any other Nightmare you have probably come across. Many of them would end up attacking you on sight, but I am not like them. I’m one of a kind, one for all things entertainment… and well… after seeing the show that you put on, that was the best entertainment that I have seen in a long time.”

“I’m flattered… but what is your point?” Luna narrowed her eyes.

“Getting right to it, are we?” they asked, “Well, I would like to make a deal with you, my dear princess. I wish to provide you the opportunity for you to partake in the entertainment that I host, for what better way to relieve that stress than to relieve some nightmarish fools of their need to feast on dreams. In return, I wish to not be erased on the spot by one such as yourself and remain here.”

That… was an odd proposal. One that Luna was not entirely sure about herself, “You will not wander into the dreams of our subjects?”

“Nope. After all, the best form of entertainment comes from one who is brave enough to fight back. Something that you already showcased to me,” the announcer replied with a wide smile as Luna can see his pointed teeth. A few seconds later, he extended a hoof out to her, “So… do we have a deal?”

Luna personally felt a bit conflicted. Even though its offer sounded good, would it really be right for her to trust somepony like this? Though, they did promise not to haunt the dreams of their subjects, which was one less nightmare for her to worry about.”

After what felt like several minutes, she finally spoke up, “I have a condition.”

“Oh, really?” the announcer replied, “What would that be?”

“It would not feel right to trust someone who is anonymous,” the princess explained, “Therefore, if we are to have a deal, then I say that you need a name.”

“A name? Hmm,” the announcer scratched his chin with a hoof as they thought it over, before it looked like something appeared in his mind, “I have one possible idea for such a thing that’s been floating around in the back of my head. Feels pretty fitting too,” taking a moment to adjust its suit, it then looked back to Luna, “How about Aeron? Simple, but I believe it gets the point across rather well.”

The princess of the night nodded, letting out a breath of relief as she looked back at the nightmare, “Alright, Aeron. You have a deal.”

“Splendid! Now, don’t mind me, I have some preparations to make. Good day, Princess,” the nightmare smiled, turning around as it began to walk away… but not before it looked directly in front of them as if someone was watching them, “As for you… well… stay tuned.”

End Scroll 27

Scroll 28- Prelude of Advancements

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 1)

Beyond the Skies- Battalia (Part 1)

Over the course of two days, Calvin had been undergoing special lessons from King Pen with his training. The extra lessons were to help tailor some moves together that were unique to him, yet they also served an additional purpose: that being to prepare himself for what he would consider his first mission as a Skylander, one that involved infiltrating a very hostile environment in order to rescue two Skylanders that were being held captive there. It was a very dangerous operation in a hostile environment.

Though, that wasn’t exactly what he told Twilight. She had to visit Canterlot to run an errand and only managed to return on the same day he was preparing for his trip. So, he told her the first thing that he came to mind, hoping that it was enough to get her to understand.

“You’re going on a field trip?”

The alicorn’s question was followed by a nod as Calvin began to put some stuff in a duffle bag that Spike let him borrow. The dragon had set two of them on the Cutie Map for him, but given what he was bringing, the Skyshifter honestly thought that he only needed one, “King Pen thought it would be a good idea for me to do some training outside of the academy. He wanted me to step outside my comfort zone, so I’m going to be doing some training under the guidance of another Skylander.”

That had Twilight scratch her chin for a moment as she tried to process this, “Did your sensei say how long the trip was going to be?”

“A couple of days. Though, if you taught me anything, it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said as he folded up some of the clothes that Rarity made for him and put inside the bag. “I mean, I’m not even sure if I need a second bag, since I have everything I need in this one.”

“Is it going to be just you and that other Skylander?” the princess spoke up, “Or, are you having Dusty come with you?”

That had been something that Calvin did not think of originally. So, he had to come up with an answer on the spot. “I think I’ll just have her stay with Hot Dog and Skippy back at the Academy. You know, leave her with those that she’s comfortable with? I’m not sure if I’m allowed to bring pets on the trip, so better to be safe than sorry.”

Just as he said that, the two of them heard a loud clashing sound come from the kitchen that got their attention. Shortly afterwards, they found Spike scrambling to his claws and ducking for cover by the Cutie Map, which only made Calvin and Twilight even more confused. “Spike, are you alright? What happened?”

“To be honest… I don’t know,” the dragon replied back, “One moment, I was making breakfast for us. Then, the next thing I knew, Pinkie came in with all of her stuff from Sugarcube Corner and told me to move, something about a ‘baking emergency’... whatever that means.”

“It’s probably no big deal. Maybe Sugarcube Corner ran out of flour or something?” Calvin shrugged, trying to sound optimistic as he zipped up the bag that had his clothes. It was honestly the only reason that he could think of that would explain why Pinkie had to take over the kitchen this morning. Though, Spike didn’t really seem to be too convinced by that notion.

It was only when another friend that they knew, Rainbow Dash, decided to come and visit that they got some kind of answer. Although, it wasn’t quite something that any of them were expecting. “Uh, Twilight? Why is there a banner for ‘Sugarcube Corner to-go’ hung up outside the castle?”

That single question immediately had Twilight’s eyes widen as she looked back to Calvin and Spike. Yet, before any of them could go in and find out what’s going on, Pinkie Pie herself popped in from the kitchen. The mare was balancing a sheet of cookies on her tail as she giggled. “Well, why else would I be here, Dashie? There was a baking emergency at Sugarcube Corner today, but I still gotta get these delicious treats out to everypony!”

At first, Calvin had several questions. Though, since most of them seemed to be about things that couldn’t quite be explained, the Skyshifter asked a different kind of question. “What kind of emergency?”

“Well, the Cakes couldn’t get their oven to work this morning and had to call a repair pony to come fix it,” Pinkie answered, “In the meantime, I took everything I could get my hooves on, and-”

It was as she was speaking that she noticed Calvin’s bag on the table, as well as the empty duffle bag that he had yet to put away as the party pony let out a gasp. “Calvy, you’re going somewhere today!?”

“Uh… yes?” he answered, “Why-?”

“Wait right there, silly!! I’ll be back in a jiffy!” Pinkie giggled, before disappearing back into the kitchen again, the tray that she was balancing on her tail landing gracefully on the Cutie Map like a feather from a bird, something that left Calvin rather baffled as he just looked back at Rainbow and Spike.

“Should I be concerned?”

“Given this is Pinkie we’re talking about,” Rainbow shrugged as she looked around the room for a moment before turning her attention back to Calvin, “I’m going to go with a solid maybe.”

“Maybe-?”

Before Rainbow had the chance to respond, the party pony came back from the kitchen again. This time she was with a cart that was filled with what could only be described as a mountain of fresh chocolate chip cookies that were hot and out of the oven. “Here we go, Calvy! Some goodies for you to take with you on your trip!”

Calvin could only stare at the massive amount of baked goods that were in front of him as he tried to process this. Was she really expecting for him to take all of this with her? “P-Pinkie, I don’t think-”

“Come on, Calvy! You need some snacks for the road!” As the party pony said this, she pulled the open duffle bag closer to her and pressed some kind of lever on the cart. Seconds later, the back of the cart began to turn at an angle and off-load the baked goods into the duffle bag. Much to his disbelief, Pinkie was somehow able to fill the entire much smaller bag with cookies and get it to zip closed properly.

Part of him was tempted to ask how she was able to pull it off, but after a moment, he just let out a sigh. “Don’t question it. It’s Pinkie.”

Now, Twilight thought it would be a real good time to change the topic as the princess looked back towards Calvin, “So… you were mentioning that you were bringing Dusty to the academy? If that’s the case, where is she now-?”

Ironically, just as Twilight was asking that, Dusty herself was rushing down the stairs of the castle, “M-master, I just finished cleaning your room for you-” Yet, as she reached the bottom of the stairs, all the lava puppy could see was the leftover cookies that were scattered across the floor as her eyes widened in horror. “... I’ll… retrieve the broom.”

“A-actually, let me get that, Dusty,” Spike interjected, surprising Calvin as the dragon walked over to where the broom and dustpan were kept, “Calvin said that he has plans with you for today, so leave this to me.”

That had the lava dog stop for a moment, happiness beaming from her face as she looked back to the Skyshifter at the thought of spending more time with him. Unfortunately for her, that was not the plan for today.

As Calvin and Dusty left Twilight’s castle and arrived at the academy, the Skyshifter couldn’t help but feel that something was off. Nothing had changed at the academy, but the atmosphere was different this time around. Normally, the students at the academy would be happy and socializing with one another. Yet, this time around, all he saw was expressions of worry and concern.

“Stealth Elf still isn’t back yet? How long has it been since she was last here?” he overheard one of the students in the courtyard talking to their friends.

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t take this long in order to do a mission,” another student said, “Do you think something happened to her?”

“Pfft, no way. If something happens to her, she can handle herself… right?”

“Geez, everyone looks so sad,” Calvin thought to himself, before noticing someone familiar. Tessa was outside, talking with Cali, Mags and Buzz before the fox noticed him and waved him over.

“Hi, Calvin! Welcome back-” Tessa spoke up, just before her nose twitched as she sniffed the air around the Skyshifter, “Um, why do you smell like freshly baked cookies?”

In response, Calvin dropped a duffle bag that was as tall as he was as he slowly opened up the bag and took a few steps back. In a matter of seconds, Tessa, Cali and Mags found themselves under a large pile of freshly baked goods that were spread out across the grounds of the courtyard. As for Buzz, he managed to get out of the way in time and not get dragged in unlike the others.

As this was happening, the Skyshifter let out a deep sigh as he placed the duffle bag that had his clothes over his shoulder as Dusty stood next to him, “Pinkie Pie says hello.”

Tessa herself honestly could not believe what just happened as she looked back at the Skyshifter, “Okay… One, how is this even possible?” she asked, just as the fox grabbed a chocolate chip cookie that was on her head, “And two, why cho-”

Unfortunately for her, things were about to get worse, “Oh, my sweet enchilada sauce, cookies!!”

“Wait! Flynn, stop-”

Unfortunately for the fox, her pleas fell on deaf ears as Flynn ran towards the massive pile of baked goods, something that just had Calvin let out a sigh as he watched the mess that was unfolding in the courtyard. As for Buzz, he turned towards the Skyshifter as he noticed the expression on the elderly mabu’s face. “It was Pinkie Pie. Don’t question it.”

“W-who’s Pinkie Pie?” they now heard Cali ask as she struggled to break free.

“Oh, who could she be?” Calvin heard an all too familiar voice as he and Buzz turned their heads to the left. Much to their surprise, Pinkie Pie herself was standing next to them as she giggled in place and turned to look at them, “Oh, right! She’s me!!”

“Wah!! W-where’d you come from!?” Flynn was the next one to speak.

“Well, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much-”

“NOT THAT SPEECH!!” Mags blurted out.

Calvin and Dusty were baffled by the party pony’s sudden appearance. Not long ago, she had transformed Twilight’s kitchen into a mobile bakery and had him carry a mountain of cookies in a spare bag. Now, she was standing here alongside them and admiring what was happening in front of them. “P-Pinkie? How-?”

“I’m on break, silly!” she giggled, “Besides, Starlight’s helping us out. There’s nothing she can’t handle.”

“Spike, help me get these out to the Flower sisters! Rainbow, get these muffins to Derpy!! Where the hay is Pinkie right now?! We can’t handle this just by ourselves!!”

What Pinkie just told him had numerous questions pop up inside Calvin’s mind, but he decided to not ask them. This was Pinkie Pie after all.

“Ow!” they now heard from the pile of cookies as Tessa flinched in pain, “F-Flynn, what are you doing-?!!” A few seconds later, Tessa let out another gasp of pain as she turned towards Flynn, “OW! My tail!!”

“Hey, what was that fo-” the mabu pilot asked, before getting distracted again, “Oh! More cookies!”

“You just bit me, Flynn!” the fox snapped.

“Well, how else do you expect me to get you out of there?” the pilot asked, “Let these cookies go to waste?”

While all of this was playing out, Calvin just looked towards Buzz with a concerned expression on his face, “Should we… I don’t know… help them?”

In response, Buzz pulled out a pocket watch that was inside his coat and took a look at the time, “We could… Though, it’ll make us late for your meet up with Snap Shot. Surely, you have a couple of things you want to get done before you head out, right?”

Calvin nodded, before he looked back down to the lava puppy that was next to him, “Hey, Dusty, I got an important mission I need to do, but it’s… kind of a secret. Can you please wait with Hot Dog and your siblings until I get back? I think you would be more comfortable with Skippy and the others here than back at the castle.”

“Oooh, a doggy sleepover! Skippy would LOVE that!!” Pinkie added on.

Dusty herself was thrown a bit off guard by everything. Originally, the lava puppy thought that she was going to be alongside her master on his mission. However, after hearing Calvin ask for her to stay with Skippy and the others, she felt rather… disappointed. Mainly, because she was denied the chance to try and prove herself to her master.

After leaving the chaotic chocolate chip mess that was in the courtyard, Calvin and Dusty followed Buzz inside the Academy as the elderly mabu led them to the rest of the Fire Dogs. Pinkie herself had to return back to the castle, since her ‘break’ was done, so it was just the three of them as they made their way through the academy halls.

Fortunately, it did not take long in order to run into them, because they ran into Skippy and Hot Block a few moments later. Though, Hot Block looked to be searching for something throughout the entire hallway and didn’t seem to notice or pay attention to them. Skippy, on the other hand, immediately raced over to them and greeted them.

“Hiya, Calvy! Back so soon? I don’t remember you having any lessons going on today,” Skippy spoke up, noticing Calvin look towards Hot Block for a moment before returning his gaze to her, “Don’t mind Hot Block. He’s just being a grumpy pants right now.”

“At least I’m trying to take this seriously,” the other fire dog snapped, “You’re supposed to be helping me here.”

“Um… is everything okay?” Calvin now asked, a bit confused by what was going on.

Skippy nodded her head briefly, before hearing a groan from Hot Block that prompted her to speak, “Yeah, we’re just looking for Smoky. Little guy is playing hide and seek with us, and we’re trying to find him.”

“We’ve been looking for TWO hours!”

“He’s very good at this game,” Skippy chuckled, which only caused Hot Block to groan loudly, “So… what brings you to the academy?”

“Well...” Calvin paused, before looking down as Dusty as he set his bag on the ground for a moment, “I’m going on an important trip, and unfortunately, I can’t have Dusty come along with me. Can I let her stay with you guys until I get back?”

“We’re kind of-”

“Absolutely!!” Skippy cut off Hot Block, before pulling in Dusty for a hug that she didn’t anticipate, “Oh, this is going to be SO MUCH FUN!! Just wait until I tell everyone else!”

Dusty herself, looked rather uncomfortable with her being smothered by her sister. Yet, Calvin could only just chuckle as he pet the top of Dusty’s head, “Don’t worry. I’ll try to be back as soon as I can,” he assured her, before picking his bag back up and looking back to Buzz.

“So, you ready to get going, kiddo?” the mabu asked him.

“Yes, I am,” Calvin replied back as the two of them began to make their way to the docks. Though, it was as he was walking over that the Skyshifter had a question for Buzz, “So… out of curiosity… since Flynn’s too busy eating cookies, who’s going to fly us over?”

All the mabu did was grin a bit as he looked back at Calvin and zipped up a zipper that came undone on his bag, “I know someone that can help us out. I think it’s time I introduced you to our head mechanic at the academy.”

At the shipyard that was by Skylander Academy, one dirt shark was entrusted by the staff at the academy to maintain the vehicles and vessels that were in the hangar. Sharpfin, who was originally the baron of Motleyville, was now the academy’s head mechanic. He and his pit crew were responsible for making sure that any vessel that came into his hangar was fine tuned and working properly. It wasn’t exactly an easy job by any means, but it was still an important one nonetheless.

It was as Sharpfin was having his crew prepare their equipment that one of the crew members, Fender, knocked at the door to Sharpfin’s office. “Hey, boss… You got a visitor this morning.”

That just had the dirt shark let out a small groan, “If it’s Flynn at the door, tell him I am not making any additional improvements to his airship after how damaged it got last time.” Sharpfin told his crew member. Even though Flynn was a good pilot, the one thing that he couldn’t do right was to properly maintain his ship. It was the reason why they had to fix his airship more than any of the other vehicles that came into his garage. “He’s lucky that we were able to fix it. Any more damage, and the whole vessel would be scrapped-”

“Actually, boss, it’s not Flynn that’s here,” Fender corrected him as the engineer opened the door. Much to Sharpfin’s surprise, he had a different visitor waiting for him as the dirt shark picked up his cane. That visitor was Snap Shot, the leader of the Trap Team and the warden of Cloudcracker Prison.

“Good morning, Sharpfin,” the crocogator greeted him, “Everything alright this morning?”

The dirt shark sighed, before looking back at the Skylander that arrived at his workshop. “For the most part, yes,” he greeted them, before stepping out of his office and closing the door behind him, “So, what brings you to the shipyard? Do you need something fixed or are you looking for something else?”

“More of the latter actually.”

As he said that, Fender excused himself and returned back to the garage as Sharpfin looked back at the Trap Master, “Well, what exactly are you looking for?” he asked as the dirt shark led him towards the hangar where all the vessels were being kept, “Because the only thing you’ll find here are ships and any leftover spare parts that we haven’t used for repairs yet.”

“Well, a ship is one thing,” Snap Shot responded, “Though, I’m also going to need a pilot.”

“Don’t you already know one?” Sharpfin retorted, already thinking that this is something that had to relate to Flynn.

Then, the Trap Master corrected himself, “One who doesn’t attract attention to himself like a walking magnet.”

That had the head mechanic pause for a moment, before turning back around to face Snap Shot directly as he held onto the top of his cane with both of his claws, “…I’m listening.”

The crocogator could only smirk after hearing that. Now, he was getting somewhere. “Incognito mission, mostly as back-up due to restrictions upon Skylanders for the area.”

After hearing that, Sharpfin turned back around and walked over to a particular airship that was in the center of the hangar bay. It was a light blue and white ship that looked to be around the same size as Flynn’s own vessel, but a lot more versatile, equipped with a few jet engines, a harpoon cannon and the decal of a flaming set of shark teeth, “It’s been a while since I had the Hammerhead be out in the open skies. I think it’s time to get her back in the air again.”

Shortly after saying that, Sharpfin put his left claw to his mouth and let out a whistle, with two of his pit crew showing up moments later. “Alright, listen up-” he paused, looking at the crew as he realized something, “Wait a second, where’s Clyde?”

“Someone was at the door, so Clyde went to go answer it,” one of the other dirt sharks named Socket responded, “What do you need, boss?”

“Well, once Clyde gets in here, I need the three of you to get the Hammerhead ready for takeoff,” Sharpfin informed them, “I’m taking her out for a flight, and I need you three to keep an eye on things while I’m gone.”

Both of the dirt sharks nodded, before they made their way towards the Hammerhead and began to make preparations. As they were doing that, Clyde came back in the room a few moments later, “Hey, boss, Buzz is at the front door. Looks like he’s got some rookie with him, too.”

“Let them in,” Snap Shot interjected as he looked back at Sharpfin, “That ‘rookie’ has been trained by King Pen himself, and is the key member of this mission.”

At first, the dirt shark was a bit confused. Though, after a moment, he looked back to Clyde and nodded his head, “You heard him. Let them come in.”

Right after saying that, Clyde nodded as he opened the door and let both of them inside as they walked down into the hangar. When Sharpfin looked at the ‘rookie’ that was next to Buzz, he wasn’t sure what to think of him. Aside from his appearance, the head mechanic couldn’t quite figure out what exactly made him a ‘key member’ to the mission that Snap Shot mentioned.

“Calvin, this is our head mechanic, Sharpfin,” Buzz told the newcomer, “He and his crew are responsible for making sure every vehicle in the academy is properly taken care of. He’s also one heck of a pilot as well.”

“Funny you mentioned that, Buzz,” Snap Shot spoke up now as the crocogator folded his arms, “I was just talking to Sharpfin about that, and he’s on board with taking us where we need to go.”

“Well, that’s just perfect!” the mabu replied back. Though, Sharpfin’s attention was more focused on the one named Calvin. He looked calm, but the expression on the rookie’s face was a familiar one. It was a look of recognition, as if they had seen him somewhere before, something he’s seen plenty of back when he was a baron, whether he wanted it or not.

“Something on your mind, kid?” Sharpfin asked, which caught the rookie’s attention, “You’re looking at me as if you’ve seen me before somewhere.”

The rookie paused, almost as if he was caught for doing something wrong. Yet, before he could answer, Buzz decided to chime in, “Well, this isn’t the first time Calvin has recognized people before they were introduced. I personally have held off on asking, but I can’t deny that I am a bit curious.”

“Really now?” Sharpfin asked as he turned back towards the newcomer, “Is there something that we should know about?”

He looked nervous at first, but afterwards, the rookie let out a small breath and looked back at them calmly, “Yeah, but perhaps it would be better for me to share that after our mission. It’s kind of important, and I really don’t want to mess up our focus when trying to save our friends.”

“Say what-?”

“Boss, all the preparations are done!” Sharpfin now heard Fender call out to him as he and Socket extended the walkway of the ship down to the ground so he and the others could board the vessel. “She’s all yours, whenever you’re ready.”

Sharpfin looked back to his crew, before looking back at Calvin and Snap Shot as he let out a sigh. “Well, what are you waiting for? The sooner you get on board, the sooner we can head out,” he told them as he boarded the ship, “And maybe tell me what’s going on while we’re at it.”

Shortly after Calvin and Snap Shot boarded the airship that was known as the Hammerhead, Sharpfin piloted the ship out of the hangar as they began to fly away from the academy. Right away, Calvin could tell that the dirt shark’s ship was much different from that of Flynn’s own vessel. The main thing that stood out was that the Hammerhead was much faster than that of the S.S. Boom, though it didn’t have the space to carry a lot of cargo. Another difference was that unlike Flynn’s ship, Sharpfin’s airship was equipped with weapons on deck in case they were attacked.

Though, it was as they were out on the open skies that he felt the ship slow down, before hearing Sharpfin speak up from behind the wheel, “So, now that we’re a safe distance away from the academy… where exactly am I taking you two?”

For a moment, Snap Shot and Calvin looked back at each other, before the crocogator asked a question, “Are you familiar with an arena called the MaguDome?”

“Ugh… don’t remind me,” Sharpfin let out a disgusted groan, “Any time that my crew tries to listen to the radio while in the workshop, we hear too many stupid radio commercials for that place. Though, why exactly would the two of you be asked to go there?”

“Well, a while back, two different Skylanders went missing after they were sent on two different recon missions to gather information on Kaos,” Snap Shot continued, “It wasn’t until a couple days ago that we learned that they were being held captive at the MaguDone by the drow who runs it.”

“I see. So, this is a rescue mission then?”

“Well, kind of,” Calvin now spoke up, “If I remember correctly, Buzz said that where they are being held at has security measures in place to keep out any Skylanders that tried to go in.”

“Not to mention that Magus, the drow in charge, has a machine that is capable of disrupting a Skylander’s connection with Master Eon,” Snap Shot added, “Fortunately though, we have a plan to work around this.”

“Oh, really? Do tell,” the dirt shark now responded, which had the Trap Master smirk and fold his arms as he looked back towards Sharpfin.

“Are you familiar with the concept of a trojan sheep?”

At first, Sharpfin looked to be confused. Though, as he looked back towards Calvin, his earlier expression began to change. “Wait a minute… you’re using the rookie as a spy? Isn’t that a bit risky?”

“Actually, it was my idea,” Calvin clarified, “Besides, we’re short on time and don’t have any alternatives that wouldn’t cause an uproar and make saving them nearly impossible.”

Sharpfin looked back at the rookie with a puzzled look on his face as he now spoke up, “Well, if that’s the case, then what exactly is this idea of yours?”

Now, the Skyshifter looked back at the dirt shark with a small grin as he began to explain his plan, “Right now, the MaguDome is hosting a giant ‘charity’ fighting tournament. The plan is that I take part in the tournament and relay anything I find that could help in getting our friends out to Snap Shot. Once he has enough information, we figure out a plan to break them out.”

Sharpfin let out a small chuckle as he looked back at Calvin, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You don’t look like that much of a fighter yourself. So, how do you plan on surviving through a whole tournament?”

After hearing what Sharpfin told him, Calvin just looked back at Snap Shot and asked the first question that came to mind. “Should I show him now? Or when we get closer to where we’re going?”

“Would this cost you at all?” Snap Shot asked him. Though, after noticing that Calvin was confused by what he said, the crocogator rephrased his question, “Would you need time to recover afterwards?”

“No,” the Skyshifter simply shook his head.

“Then, go ahead and show him,” the Trap Master said to Calvin. His only response was a simple nod as the crystal on his pendant began to glow. In a matter of moments, he took on the form of his Imaginator on the front deck of the ship, something that definitely caught Sharpfin by surprise.

“Huh… Well, that’s a first,” the dirt shark admitted, “And just when I thought that working with the Skylanders has gotten me used to seeing things like that.”

Calvin could only chuckle a bit as he looked back at Sharpfin, “So, yeah, I’ll be going into the tournament looking like this, so they’ll think I’m just another drow elf participating in the tournament,” once he finished speaking, Calvin changed back to his normal appearance, “Even Buzz was on board with this.”

“Hmm... now I know why,” Sharpfin replied as he got back to the wheel, “Well, hopefully, it'll be enough to get the job done. Sit tight, and I’ll get us there as soon as possible.”

With that in mind, both Calvin and Snap Shot took a seat below deck as Sharpfin focused on getting them to their destination. As the ship was en route, the Skyshifter and the Trap Master were going over final preparations before they reached the MaguDome. In that process, Snap Shot gave Calvin what looked to be a wristband to wear. Afterwards, the crocogator explained to him that this wristband was actually a communication device that was given to him by Buzz. With it, they were able to relay any information they happened to find without the need for radios.

After some time though, Calvin heard Sharpfin call out from above deck, “Hey, rookie, we reached our destination. Better come up here quick though. There’s quite a crowd out here.”

That had Calvin look back towards Snap Shot as he picked up his bag and changed forms. “Wish me luck. I’ll try to reach out to you the first chance I get.” With that, he climbed up onto the front deck of the Hammerhead to join Sharpfin as he looked out towards their destination.

Upon first glance, Calvin was thrown off guard by two things. The first thing was the sheer size of the arena itself. It looked less like a small arena and more like a football stadium that he would see back home, with the only difference being that instead of throwing footballs towards one another, the competitors were throwing punches. The second thing was the amount of people that were not only inside the arena, but also wandering around outside. There were snack booths, carnival games and even vendors that sold souvenirs, like drow elf action figures and chompy plushies.

Once Sharpfin was close enough to the stadium, Calvin jumped onto the landing platform and adjusted his wristband. “Alright, I made it. Everything good on your end?”

“I can hear you loud and clear,” Snap Shot’s voice came through the communicator, “Good thing, too. We just got word from Buzz. He informed the agent that he has stationed outside about your arrival. They can help you find out where you need to go to register for the tournament.”

“Alright. Any idea where I can find them?”

“Well, last time he brought this up, Buzz said that they were undercover as a t-shirt vendor,” the crocogator replied back, “Looking at the outline he provided, I think there’s one close to the main entrance. Try looking over there.”

After he heard that, the communicator went silent as Calvin adjusted his shoulders and straightened up his bag. As he walked around, he came across numerous attendants that looked to have been visiting the arena and were there to watch the tournament unfold. Each one had a red lanyard around their neck with a pass that said ‘Attendee’ in black letters along the top and the logo of the tournament in the center. There were others that had blue lanyards, too, but those ones looked to have been ‘V.I.P.’ attendants.

Trying to navigate through the area outside of the MaguDome was a challenge, especially when it felt like seven to ten people were going in the opposite direction that he was trying to go. Though, it was as he was finally getting somewhere that he heard a particularly familiar voice speak up. “T-shirts! Come get your t-shirts here!! We got new shirts here, just in time for the big tournament!!”

“You have got to be kidding me. Is that who I think it is?” he thought to himself, before turning his head towards where the voice was coming from. Behind the counter of the t-shirt booth was none other than the mabu that he had seen before in previous Skylanders games. Agent Snuckles, a mabu who would do his best to help the Skylanders, even though he was in no way a fighter. There were two to three other Mabu that were with him and working at the booth, accepting payments and answering any questions that their customers had. Though, it seemed as if Snuckles was the one trying to get the attention of anyone who passed by.

At least, until the mabu happened to notice him, “Ah, hello. Welcome to Snuckle’s Shirt Stand. Is there anything I can help you with today? Maybe something you’re looking for?”

For a moment, Calvin looked around the booth and took a moment to look at the selection of items that were on display. Each one was interesting, though there was something that he realized after a couple of moments, “Yeah, uh… I’m not sure if I can afford any of these,” he replied, raising his left arm up so he could scratch his head, “I don’t have any money on me-”

As he said that, Calvin noticed that Snuckle’s eyes broke away for a moment and looked towards his wristband, before looking back at him, “Y-you’re the-?!” he said, before covering his mouth and looking at the other Mabu that were at the stand. Afterwards, he looked back at the others and spoke again, “I… need to take a break. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

When Snuckles was stepping away though, Calvin noticed the mabu motion his head back to behind the t-shirt booth, which prompted him to follow. As he walked behind the booth, that was when Snuckles let out a sigh of relief, “Thank goodness you’re here,” he said in a low tone of voice, “You must be the new guy, right?”

At first, Calvin just blinked… just before letting out a sigh and going along with it, “That would be me. Would it be right for me to assume that you are Buzz’s agent?”

“That’s right,” the mabu spoke again, still keeping his voice low, “Agent Snuckles at your service. Though, before I go on, I must ask… what’s your name?”

Calvin was tempted to answer right away, but a thought came across to him as he looked back at Snuckles, “I rather not say my real name since we are in enemy territory. Though, if you want, you can call me Kai Chi. It’s…”

“A code name?” Snuckles asked.

That had the Skyshifter pause for a moment. Yet, after some thinking, he nodded his head, “Sure, let’s go with that.”

“Sounds good to me,” the mabu nodded, “Now, you want to compete in Batallia right? Well, to take part in the tournament, you need to go through the registration process inside. Though, that’s not easy.”

Calvin just raised an eyebrow as he turned back to the mabu and folded his arms, “Really? How so? Don’t you just sign a few papers, and they let you in?”

“Not… entirely,” Snuckles explained, “Since there are so many last minute applicants, Magus established a ‘qualifier’ round that takes place today in order to fill up the remaining open positions. First come, first serve. I… don’t know how the qualifier is supposed to work though.”

“It’s alright. You’ve helped me out a lot already,” the Skyshifter replied back to the mabu as he unfolded his arms, “How about you show me where I can go register, and you leave the rest to me?”

In response, the mabu had Calvin follow him inside the arena and towards the registration desk. Once he got there, he found himself looking at what looked to be a bipedal grizzly bear with a body shape that was eerily similar to the life Skylander named Zoo Lou, the only noticeable difference being that it was a bit bigger in size and the fur color was that of darkened soil instead of white as snow. That, and there was a name plaque on the desk that just said ‘Junior’.

As the bear noticed him, all they did was just let out a low growl, “Urgh… What do you want?”

“I’m here to register for Batallia,” the Skyshifter told him.

“Pfft, really? You? Against everyone else that’s already signed up?” the bear rolled his eyes, “I don’t know about you, but I really don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into. I mean, aren’t you too young to be participating in a fight like this, kid?”

All Calvin did was let out a sigh, before snapping his fingers as he formed a fireball in his right hand, holding it rather close to the bear’s face as he asked him one question, “Aren’t you too old to be asking stupid questions, Junior?”

The bear just fell silent, before slowly pushing across a clipboard with papers for Calvin to sign as he looked back towards the bear and dismissed the fireball. Once he signed the papers and gave them back to Junior, he had a pair of greebles escort him towards the ‘competitors only’ section of the arena. He could hear the roars from the crowd just above his head as he followed the greebles and wondered how tough the qualifier round was going to be.

At one point, the Greebles stopped as he was standing in front of a barred gate. One of them pointed to the bag that was on Calvin’s back, before pointing to a pile of bags nearby. Even though the Skyshifter couldn’t understand a word they said, he got the impression that they wanted him to leave his bag behind and not take it with him into the arena. Of course, he didn't want to assume that. After all, Greebles were mischievous creatures.

“You’re not going to be looking through my stuff while I’m out there, are you?”

The question was followed by one of the greebles shaking his head… while their companion was just shrugging their shoulders, something that made the first greeble angry and smack the other in the head before they shook their head, too, which had Calvin let out a sigh of relief as he set his bag down with the others.

Fortunately, he did not have to wait long until he heard the voice of the announcer echo throughout the entire arena. ‘Alright now, Folks! We got one last qualifying match today, and then, the real fun and games begin!!’

“Here we go,” Calvin thought, cracking his knuckles and getting himself ready. The gate slowly began to drop down as he walked into the arena.

“Our first fighter into the ring is a complete and utter newcomer into the arena. Literally, this is his first ever fight folks! Please welcome Kai Chi!!”

As the Skyshifter stepped out into the arena, he didn’t exactly receive the warmest of welcomes. Many in the stadium thought that this was somehow a complete joke, while others even taunted him from the stands and told him to just give up. Yet, he ignored the noise and focused on who else was coming.

“Now, our second fighter is one that many of you that have been here before would be familiar with. He’s an Evilikin who has come face to face against those pesky Skylanders and lived to tell the tale! Give it up for the saw slicer, the buckler basher, the treeline tanker! Shield… SHREDDER!!”

“Wait a minute, did he just say-”

Calvin did not even have the chance to fully hear Snap Shot’s remarks as his opponent came bursting through the gate on the opposite side of the arena. The Evilikin, a species of wooden golem with metal accents, was immediately on the offensive as its bladed shield took form on its right arm, charging at Calvin and forcing him to dash out of the way. As Calvin regained his footing, he was beginning to remember what his teacher told him.

The first thing he needed to do was observe and see what his opponent could do. Even though he was a bit familiar with his opponent, Calvin did not want to underestimate what they were capable of. If he watched his opponents and how they would fight, then the Skyshifter can find himself an opening to attack.

Right away, the Skyshifter can tell a couple of things. First, as his name implied, Shield Shredder still used his drill shield to charge at whoever they were facing. In addition, he was still able to summon two oversized saw blades from the ground that served as a protective barrier to block ranged attacks.

Though, alongside the moves that Calvin remembered from this villain, Shield Shredder had two new abilities that he had never seen before. To start, the Evilikin could now utilize his shield like a wheel and dash towards the Skyshifter from farther away. In addition to this, Shield Shredder was able to use leaf-like energy to phase through the barriers that he could create. It was something that Calvin learned the hard way when he tried to hide behind one to protect himself from an attack, only to get knocked to the ground by his opponent.

“Oof! That’s got to leave a mark! Our newcomer is quickly learning that there’s no place where he can hide out here!”

“O-ow, that hurt,” Calvin grit his teeth as he got back up. With hiding behind cover no longer an option, the Skyshifter had to find a way to fight back. Yet, doing so was starting to become really difficult. “Okay, at the rate this is going, I can’t stay here. I need to make a move.”

Throwing caution to the wind, the Skyshifter chose to run straight towards his opponent in a head long attack, a decision that proved to be a fatal mistake. As he dashed straight towards the Evilikin, the ground in between them began to crack open. When Calvin’s foot touched the ground, several smaller saw blades that were the size of dinner plates rose up from the cracks in the ground and shattered, with pieces of them tearing through his clothes and scraping his legs and torso.

“Looks like our new guy is learning how dangerous he is the hard way! It’s not looking great for him, folks!”

As Calvin got back up, he felt pain shoot all across his body. The unexpected surprise by Shield Shredder had thrown him off guard and left him injured. Though, he couldn’t give up just yet. As he brushed the dirt off of his clothes and wiped it off his face, he looked back at his opponent and took up a stance.

“Really now? You still haven’t given up yet?” the Evilikin told him, grinning as he prepared to attack again, having his left arm behind him as his shield began to rapidly spin up, “Let’s see how you like THIS!”

As Shield Shredder charged at Calvin with another attack, the Skyshifter stood firmly and let the Evilikin come closer. At the point where he was about to strike, he sidestepped to the right to avoid it. Before the Evilikin could turn around, the Skyshifter grabbed hold of his left arm and put his strength into throwing his foe off balance and striking him as they tumbled across the ground.

“Oh my GOODNESS!! Did you just see that, folks?! Looks like this newcomer’s got some fight in him after all!!”

“Now, we’re getting somewhere,” Calvin smirked, cracking his knuckles as he raced towards his opponent. In his mind, he thought that going on the attack before his opponent had a chance to get back on their feet would result in them making critical mistakes. If he can do that, then victory would be his.

“Look out, everyone! We got ourselves a firestarter here!!”

When Shield Shredder got back on their feet, the Evilikin didn’t have a lot of time to react. The Evilikin could only raise up his shield, anticipating an attack directly in front of him. Yet, in a split second, the Skyshifter stepped to the Evilikin’s left and struck him again with a burning right hook, something that not only caught his opponent off guard, but left a painful mark on his face.

“Grr, that hurt!” he snapped, before noticing that Calvin was charging at him again, “Oh, no you don’t!” Quickly, Shield Shredder dropped down two more barriers on the ground in an attempt to block him from going forward. With his pursuer blocked, the Evilikin could now phase through and take his opponent by surprise.

However, the first thing that greeted Shield Shredder the moment that he phased through was a fiery haymaker from his opponent straight to his face. Calvin knew that if he tried to hide behind the shields, it would lead to his opponent phasing through the barrier to attack him. So, with that in mind, he prepared his megaton punch for the moment after his opponent stepped through. With the Evilikin not being able to escape, they took the full force of the punch that sent him skidding across the battlefield.

It was a move that got the crowd into a frenzy, “Would you look at that. This kid is a fighter after all! But does he have what it takes to finish the fight?”

To the Skyshifter, the answer was an immediate yes. He had friends that were counting on him, and he wasn’t going to let someone like Shield Shredder stop him. In one last pursuit, Calvin dashed in front of the Evilikin before slamming his fists together and igniting them, causing the blaze to strike his opponent three times and dazing him in the process. While he was stunned, Calvin knocked him into the air with an uppercut, before leaping up and throwing a powerful punch that sent his opponent crashing to the floor.

“What a finish!! In an unexpected turn of events, the rookie was able to pull off a victory and secure the final spot in Battalia!! Give it up for Kai Chi!!!”

Shortly after the fight was over, Calvin watched a team of four greebles come out from the gate on the other side of the arena to get Shield Shredder onto a stretcher and off of the field. A poke from behind had the Skyshifter turn around to see the two greebles from before standing behind him. Both of them were gesturing for him to follow, so the first thought that came to his mind was that they were escorting him off of the field. “Alright, lead the way.”

As he followed the two of them, another team of greebles walked past them into the arena. From the short glimpse that he got of them, this team was one that would come in to clean up the arena between matches. Though, when he tried to watch, all that did was cause the greebles that were escorting him to become impatient and snap at him.

Once he was back inside, he walked over to grab his bag. Though, as he picked it up, he realized that the greebles were… wanting him to follow them some more. Calvin honestly did not expect for the two greebles to lead him anywhere else after his victory, but as he followed them, he began to see a series of doors, each one with a number that was engraved on the front as he was led to one particular door with the number thirteen on the front.

As one of them opened the door, what Calvin found behind there was… surprising to say the least. The room was the size of his own bedroom back at Twilight’s castle, though it did not have the same kind of luxuries. The bed that was inside was on a metal frame, the clock on the wall looked rather old and the room had a desk by a window that looked out to the open skies. As he looked at them, he only had one question on his mind. “Is this… for me?”

This time, both of the Greebles nodded as one of them handed a slip of paper to him as Calvin stepped inside. Yet, before he could turn around and ask what it was, the door slammed behind him as he found himself in the empty room.

“Should I assume that the door slamming was a good thing?”

For the Skyshifter, he now let out a sigh of relief as he reverted back to his normal form and held up his left arm to look at the wristband, “Yeah, it was. I won the qualifier and secured my spot in the tournament. Got my own room, too, so thankfully, I have some privacy.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” he heard Snap Shot reply back now, “I was a little worried that you wouldn’t be able to hold your own out there against Shield Shredder.”

That comment had a new question emerge in Calvin’s mind now, “Yeah, about that… Why exactly is Shield Shredder out in the first place? Isn’t he supposed to be locked up now?”

“Well, it depends,” the crocogator replied, “Some of them, like Chill Bill for example, were released from Cloudcracker Prison for good behavior. However, after the Sky Eater incident a long while back, some of the villains we did have in custody escaped and have been on the run ever since.”

“So, since this place is a ‘Anti-Skylander’ space, it would be possible that some of them found this arena as a good place to hide?”

“It’s definitely possible,” Snap Shot replied, “Still, good work out there today. Make sure to get some rest.”

Calvin just chuckled as he tossed his bag towards the bed, “Will do-”

As the bag made contact though, that was when Calvin heard an unexpected noise, what sounded like a mid-pitch squeal from inside his bag. As he walked over and pulled on the zipper, some smoke came out of his bag, before he found himself looking at the last thing that he expected...

...Smoky, the same lava dog that Skippy and Hot Block were looking for earlier in the day, was sitting inside his bag, “Oh, boy.”

“Calvin? Calvin, are you all right?” he heard Snap Shot ask.

“I-I’m fine, but… something unexpected came up.”

Author's Note

After everything Calvin overheard from the conversation in the last chapter, he and Snap Shot begin their mission to rescue his friends from the MaguDome. In order for their plan to work, Calvin must take part in the Battalia tournament. Yet, as he steps forth onto the battlefield, he quickly learns one thing

The only rule in the MaguDome is that there are no rules.

This is the first of four parts for this arc that focuses on Calvin's mission to rescue Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow. The arc itself is going to be a bit of a fun one because it allows for a bit of creativity with each match that goes on in the tournament that he's taking part in.

Part of the inspiration behind the arc includes the 'Carnivora' festival in Borderlands 3 as well as the Corneo Cup in the recently released Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and look forward to the other parts of the arc, which I will try to have up for you sooner or later.

Until next time,
Frost

Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 2)

Beyond the Skies- Battalia (Part 2)

As he watched the attendees who came to watch the qualifiers for the Battalia tournament leave the stands, Magus was delightfully surprised by how the first day went. Not only was the final roster for the tournament set, but there were also a few things that surprised him. Skystream Viewership for the first day alone was more than any of the other streams that would be broadcasted on a daily basis, but the amount of donations that were pouring in was beyond what he originally imagined. In his mind, Lord Kaos would definitely be pleased by how this turned out.

As he was going over the information with one of his assistants, the Drow began to hear a ringing sound from the other end of the room, causing him to press a button on the table where most of his equipment was set up. One of the screens overlooking the setup flashed for a minute, before showing an image of a bald head with familiar markings. Another button press, and Magus was able to answer the call as he looked back at the Dark Portal Master on the other end, “Good evening, Lord Kaos.”

“Magus, just the drow that I wanted to speak to,” he heard Kaos speak on the other end, “How is everything coming along?”

“Everything is going great, Lord Kaos,” Magus told him, “The amount of donations that we’ve received so far would be enough to amass two small armies. At the rate this is going, you would have more than enough funds for you to use for your nefarious deeds.”

“Excellent! That’s wonderful news!!” the Dark Portal Master replied, followed by one of his signature laughs. Though, the next thing that Kaos asked was one that surprised the drow, “What about your prisoners? Are they ready to ‘face the spotlight’ as you put it yourself?”

That had Magus grit his teeth as he looked back at the screen, “Close, but not yet. I want to make sure that any resolve or will that they have left is gone first beforehand. Hopefully, when they witness many others like them fall in defeat during Battalia, they, too, will realize how pointless it is for them to resist.”

“Really? And how exactly are you going to make sure of that?” Kaos now asked.

At that, Magus smirked as he folded his arms, “We had a newcomer fill in the last spot of the tournament, someone with no previous fighting experience that was able to somehow get the last spot,” the drow explained, “I plan to have them witness the matches that they’re in, in hopes that seeing a young newcomer like him being crushed by more experienced veterans would be the final push they need. Heck, I gave them number thirteen because I highly doubt he’s going to last long. It is an unlucky number.”

“Unlucky for who though?”

Immediately, Magus turned around to stare down the intern that said that as he glared at them. “…You got five seconds to clarify, or I swear to Lord Kaos, I will fire you-”

“ENOUGH!” the shout from Kaos was enough in order to get Magus to stop as the drow turned back to face the screen, “As long as they’re ready for the finals, then do whatever you have to do to get them ready. Until then, do not disappoint me.”

With that, the call ended as the screen went to black. As Magus let out a sigh, he still looked back at the mabu intern that was in the room, “Clarify. Now.”

“L-luck goes both ways, s-sir,” they stuttered, “T-there is a possibility that a-anyone that drow faces c-could be unlucky instead.”

“Pfft. As if,” Magus retorted as he walked over to his recliner chair in the back of the room, “Besides, it’s not like this kid will bring something that’ll turn the tables in my tournament. Such a notion from such a young drow is just too ridiculous to even think about.”

“Smoky… what were you doing in my bag?” the skyshifter asked as he helped the small fire dog out of the duffle bag where he kept his clothes. He had only just realized now that the little pup had been hiding inside of his bag the whole trip and was trying his best not to be mad. Yet, the possibility of him having to babysit the little stowaway just made things extra complicated.

“I-I’m sorry,” he replied nervously, “I-I thought it was the least likely place for Skippy to find me. Next thing I knew, I was being carried. I-I was too scared to make a move,” after saying that, Smoky looked around for a second as one question came to mind, “W-where are we? What’s going on?”

Calvin felt a bit uncertain at that point. He wanted to tell him the full story, but he was unsure as to how much he could really say, since Snap Shot could hear them. “Snap Shot, should I tell him?” he asked, holding the wristband up to his face as he spoke.

At first, it was a bit quiet. Though, after a few minutes, he heard the crocogator let out a sigh, “Well, since he’s already involved, you might as well explain to him what he’s caught up in.”

Now that he was given the go-ahead, Calvin took the time to answer each one of the numerous questions that Smoky had for him, from where exactly were they to why they were here. The Skyshifter took his time to explain everything to Smoky at a slow pace, so the fire dog could understand him. He also made sure not to miss out on the most important details as well.

Of course, once Calvin was finished speaking though, the response that he got from Smoky afterwards was one that caught him by surprise. “I-Is there any way I can help?”

That question threw the Skyshifter off guard, “You… want to help?”

“Yeah,” the lava dog replied back, “My siblings and I were saved because of you guys, and I’ve gotten some practice with my powers since then. I’d like to help, though, I’m not really sure how well I’ll do in a dangerous place like this.”

In Calvin’s mind, some extra help would make this mission a bit easier, especially since there were still a few things that they did not know at this point in time, like where Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow were being kept. Though, part of him was concerned about if he should really consider putting someone as young as Smoky in danger.

Then, he looked back to his wristband and let out a sigh, “Snap Shot, can I run something by you?”

“What is it?”

“Smoky says that he wants to help,” the Skyshifter told him, “I was thinking that maybe he could help with us trying to find where Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow are. He says that he’s gotten some practice with his powers, but he’s unsure how well he’ll do. What do you think we should do?”

“Hmm… what exactly can he do?” Snap Shot asked.

“Well, I can control any smoke I create and use it to get to places that my other siblings can’t normally reach,” Smoky himself now spoke up, “Eon said that it was kind of like… Tele… Tele… po… something? I can’t remember the word.”

“Teleportation?”

“I think that was what he said,” Smoky replied, “Why? Is that… a bad thing?”

“Actually, no,” the trap master said, much to the surprise of both Calvin and the lava puppy, “In fact, I think that’s exactly what we need for this.”

Hearing that caught the Skyshifter off guard. He was honestly expecting for Snap Shot to say the exact opposite of what he just heard. Yet, after a couple of minutes, he asked a new question, “Why’s that?”

“I think you said it yourself earlier,” Snap Shot reminded him, “We need to find Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow, and Smoky has exactly what we’re looking for, especially since it can be useful for sneaking around in places where you might not be allowed.”

As he heard that, Calvin began to process some of the information in his head as he looked back at Smoky. “That is actually a good idea,” he replied back, “Maybe he can sneak around and try to find them while I get some rest? I have a feeling that I am going to need as much rest as possible given that the real fights start tomorrow.”

“That works for me. The more information we know, the easier it’ll be to rescue them,” Snap Shot added, “So, what do you say, Smoky? Are you ready to get started?”

Smoky only had one response for that. “Y-yes, I am.”

“Alright, then here are your orders…”

In a secluded section of the MaguDome that was off limits to many who came to the arena, two figures sat inside a darkened room that had guards stationed out front. They did not know how much time had passed since they were captured and placed in this room, but for the figures that were trapped inside, it was getting harder for them to hold onto hope the longer they were trapped inside.

When they first found themselves here, they thought they could break out and find a way out of this place. Yet, for every day that passed, they felt their power weaken significantly. Not just because of the confinements of their cell, but also because of the lack of food provided. The less energy they had, the harder it was for them to concentrate and the weaker their bodies became.

The drow that ran this arena, Magus, wanted them that way, not just because he was cruel, but because he wanted to make an example out of them. He wanted to show the Skylands what would happen to them if they defied Lord Kaos. He made them fight daily, even in their malnourished states, to break their resolve piece by piece.

Stealth Elf did not want to think about what would happen to them once they had broken fully. Yet, as time passed, she was beginning to think that something like this was inevitable. The elf feared that no one was coming to save her and Trap Shadow from this mad drow, that she would meet her end here.

It was as she was thinking this that she could see the guards of her cell talking to one another. Yet, due to her fatigue, she could only hear pieces of what they were saying, “-there’s a new-...mer? …-e tournament-?”

“Ye-... a dro-... -on the-...first ever -ight… today.”

That had her confused. There was a tournament going on right now? A new fighter? She had to try and focus if she wanted to know what was going on. What they were saying might be dangerous for her and Trap Shadow, especially if they were forced to partake in it like with the other battles they had to fight.

“Is-... hat bad luc-? I-... ean, think of- … -he other fighters that wou- … -be fighting, too.”

The second guard just shrugged as he looked back at the first, “Personally, I- … on’t care. They won’t- … ast one round out ther- … gainst some-... ne like Spe-”

Stealth Elf tried to stay focused, but her fatigue was fighting back. Did the guard just say a name? The elf couldn’t tell who they were talking about just now, but she thought that she heard part of a name just now. Who was it?

As the guards continued to speak, one of them looked at their wrist before letting out a sigh, “Tim- … go back. Shif-... nded two min-... ago.”

“Really-... -bout time. Hate just-... -aiting around an-… -just doing nothing.” Their companion let out what Stealth Elf saw as a sigh of relief. The two of them began to walk away from the cell, their conversation drifting away with them as the elf could only hear distant broken murmurs.

Yet, even with there being no guards, Stealth Elf still felt uneasy. There was a time where she and Trap Shadow first tried to use their powers to break out of the cell. However, as they soon came to learn, their cell was enchanted to contain any use of their powers to inside the cell. Now, neither of them had the strength or the energy to even use the simplest of their abilities.

The room around her felt cold as the elf shivered in place. The more that she thought about their situation, the more that she began to think that no one was coming to save them, that she and Trap Shadow couldn’t leave this place. How was she supposed to be hopeful when the odds were stacked against them?

However, it was in her moment of self doubt that she heard something, a small sound like that of a creature running on all fours down the hallway. There was a hint of smoke in the air as Stealth Elf looked to the front of the cell, wondering what could be outside.

Though, when the creature came around the corner and in front of the cell, Stealth Elf couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was a fire dog, almost like that of Hot Dog. Yet, this one was smaller and had smoke coming off of its body. At first, it appeared that he seemed lost. Though, it was as the little pup turned around that the pup noticed her.

“Hello?” they asked, looking towards the cell, “W-who’s there?”

For a moment, Stealth Elf didn’t say anything. She didn’t know if this dog was simply lost or actually trying to talk to her. Many other questions popped up in her mind too, such as ‘who was this dog?’ and ‘what were they doing here?’. Yet, she did not have the focus to try and come up with such answers.

One particular question immediately caught her attention though, “Are you a Skylander?”

Immediately, Stealth Elf turned to the dog as she tried to get herself to be as close to the front of the cell as possible. “W-who a-are y-you?” she asked, trying to sound firm, but her voice was weak and dry.

“I-I’m Smoky,” the dog answered, “A-Are you oka-... -ere?”

Stealth Elf was trying to focus on Smoky, but the fatigue from before was starting to come back. She tried her best to focus, but the lack of energy in her system made it difficult to concentrate, which was something that Smoky noticed immediately as he looked back at the elf with a concerned expression.

“Miss, w-what’s wrong?” the lava pup asked.

“S-sorry,” Stealth Elf croaked, “H-hard to speak. H-haven’t had f-food in days-”

“You’re hungry?” Smoky asked, before looking back behind him, “Wait right there. I’ll get you something.”

For a moment, Stealth Elf wanted to stop the pup. Yet, before she could say anything, he was already racing down the hall. The elf was afraid that the fire dog’s eagerness to help would get him caught by anyone that was still there. Yet, she did not expect for Smoky to come back and be carrying a loaf of bread with the smoke that was around his body.

When Smoky approached the cell, he looked as if he was going to step through. However, there was a point that when he got closer, he instantly jumped back, as if something startled him. After a moment, he thought of a new approach, having the smoke around him go under the door and drop the bread inside without having to step foot inside the cell. As Stealth Elf picked up the loaf, she looked back to where Trap Shadow was sleeping before looking back to Smoky. “C-can you… break i-in h-half?”

At first, the pup was confused. Though, he soon got an idea as to what the elf meant as he had his smoke tear the loaf of bread in half for her. As she took both ends, Stealth Elf placed one of the halves near her fellow Skylander, before she started to eat the other. The elf had almost forgotten what having food was like as she ate through the bread, finishing it in a couple of minutes before looking at Smoky.

“T-thank you,” she said, feeling as if a small bit of herself had been restored. It wasn’t too much, but enough for her to focus for the time being, “N-now… why a-are you h-here?”

“Well, my friend is here and trying to save someone that’s being held captive here,” the fire dog answered, “He told me that they were a Skylander, so-”

“H-hold on a second,” Stealth Elf interjected, looking back at Smoky as she let out a breath, “W-who’s your friend?”

“Well, his name is Calvin, and…”

It took her a moment or two for her brain to process what she just heard. Yet, when she recognized that name, Stealth Elf couldn’t focus on what the fire dog was saying as tears began to form under her eyes. The thought of him being here to rescue her and Trap Shadow made her feel a tinge of pride and hope. The elf remembered when she would watch from afar as the sensei King Pen trained him.

Yet, why would they send him? Why not send a more experienced Skylander to lead a rescue attempt? Stealth Elf knew that Calvin had potential, but was he really strong enough in order to beat the fighters in Magus’ arena? The cage that she and Trap Shadow were trapped in sealed their powers and weakened them severely, so how was he supposed to go toe to toe with the strongest fighters that Magus could find?

“Uh… miss? Are you okay?”

For a moment, Stealth Elf blinked. It took a moment for her to realize that she had drifted off for a moment. Yet, as she looked back at the fire dog, a new thought came across her mind. “S-Sorry… I was just… thinking,” the elf looked back, trying to get her thoughts back in order. Though, it was during this that an idea came to mind, “Smoky, c-can you… do s-something for me?”

The fire dog tilted his head, puzzled by the elf’s question, “S-sure, what is it?”

“If your friend is h-here to rescue me,” the elf replied, “T-Then, there’s something I need for you to tell him.”

When it came time for him to fall asleep, rest was something that was very hard for Calvin to try and get while in his newfound room. The bed that he was given in this small compact room was much different from that of the bed that he was used to in Twilight’s castle. The first half hour he spent tossing and turning because laying on the bed was rather uncomfortable for him. The Skyshifter tried different approaches, but since the mattress was still, it felt less like sleeping on a soft cloud and more like sleeping on a stiff wooden board.

Any attempt to try and sleep was so uncomfortable that Calvin had to use the pillow that was provided as a cushion for his body while using the duffle bag that had his clothes as something to rest his head. It wasn’t exactly ideal, but it was enough to at least get him to fall asleep.

Yet, even though he was able to rest for a long while, how he woke up from that rest was much different, mainly because of a fire dog that had just returned back into the room and had something important to share with him.

“Calvin? C-calvin, wake up.”

Even though Smoky tried his best to get Calvin to wake up, the Skyshifter didn’t budge. The fire dog tried tapping his shoulder and saying his name, yet nothing seemed to work. Next, Smoky tried nudging his head against Calvin to try and wake him. Unfortunately, that did not seem to work either, as the only thing that the Skyshifter did was just turn his head away from the lava puppy.

Though, Smoky was not giving up just yet. This time, he decided to take a different approach and climb up on top of Calvin’s chest. Carefully, he walked across his chest and moved closer to his face. Once he was close enough, Smoky placed a paw on his cheek and began to lick the side of his face. Afterwards, the fire dog tried to speak once again, “Calvin, wake up!”

This time, Smoky was getting somewhere, as Calvin’s eyes slowly began to flicker open. Yet, how exactly he woke up was much different than what the fire dog thought was going to happen. The moment that his eyes opened and that he saw Smoky in his face, he immediately jolted upward. The Skyshifter’s reaction had Smoky fall off of his chest and onto his lap while Calvin used his elbows to prop himself up on the bed.

“S-smoky!? Y-you scared me!”

“S-Sorry,” the puppy replied back, looking a bit nervous when he looked back at Calvin.

“It’s… alright. I just… didn’t expect for you to wake me up,” the Skyshifter told him, trying to sound nicer, “So… how did it go?”

At first, Smoky was eager to tell him. Though, a thought soon crossed his mind. “Should we… wake up your friend?”

“No need,” both of them heard Snap Shot’s voice echo from Calvin’s wristband, “I’ve been awake for a while already. Now, did you find who we’re looking for, Smoky?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Calvin told him, before noticing a somber change in the expression on Smoky’s face, “Smoky… are they okay?”

The fire dog paused, taking a moment to gather his thoughts first before looking back to the Skyshifter, “I… didn’t see the feline, but I met the elf you two were talking about. When I tried to talk to her, she looked tired and dizzy. After asking her what’s wrong, she told me that she hadn’t had food in days.”

“Dear elements,” Snap Shot swore on the other end of the comline, realizing what Smoky was talking about, “That’s not good. Being forced to fight consistently is one thing, but starvation? That’s just outright cruel!”

“How… bad is it, Snap Shot?” Calvin nervously asked.

“Calvin… do you even know what starvation is?”

“I’ve only heard people talk about it back home, but no one really told me what happens,” the Skyshifter admitted, “All I know is that if someone doesn’t eat or drink for a long amount of time, it gets bad.”

“Well, you’re right there,” the crocogator replied, “However, there’s more to it then that. If what Smoky said is right, Trap and Stealth are facing the effects of prolonged starvation. Their bodies are severely weakened, and they don’t have the energy to do anything, let alone defend themselves. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if they’re forced to partake in another fight.”

Hearing that had Calvin feeling worried for Stealth Elf as he looked back at his wristband, “If it’s that bad, then can’t we-?”

“A-actually… there’s something Stealth Elf wanted me to tell you,” Smoky interjected before Calvin could finish speaking, “She said that you shouldn’t come after them yet.”

When he heard that, the Skyshifter looked back at the fire dog in disbelief, “What? Why?”

“It’s the cell they’re in,” the lava puppy said, “Stealth told me that it’s enchanted, and it prevents their powers from working properly. She also told me that there’s no clear way of being able to open it either and that they’re teleported into the arena every time they have to fight.”

“That’s just even worse,” Snap Shot said, not liking the sounds of what Smoky just said. Though, Calvin was thinking about something else.

“Wait a minute,” the Skyshifter said before he looked back at the puppy, “How exactly did Stealth tell you all of this? Wasn’t she starving?”

“Well, she was feeling a bit better after I gave her some food.”

Almost immediately, Snap Shot spoke up, “You… gave her food? How?”

Even though Smoky was caught off guard by the sudden follow up from the crocogator, the fire dog answered his question.“I used my powers to sneak it under the cell door. After she ate, that was when she started talking, and then, Stealth told me that message I needed to tell you guys.”

At first, there was a bit of silence. Yet, after about a minute, both Calvin and Smoky heard Snap Shot once again, “Smoky, I think you just gave me an idea.”

“Really? What is it?” Calvin then asked.

“If Smoky is able to sneak things under the door of their cell, then we should use that to our advantage,” the trap master explained, “While you’re fighting in the tournament, Smoky should take whatever food that he can find around the arena and sneak it into their cell. That way, we can make sure that they don’t starve and get them closer to their fighting strength.”

“Sounds simple enough,” the Skyshifter replied back as he shifted his body and sat on the edge of his bed, “Anything else?”

“Well, while you two are busy with your tasks, Sharpfin and I are going to be scoping the arena for any signs of weakness.”

“Any luck so far?”

“I’ll… get back to you on that.”

Shortly afterwards, the comline went silent as Calvin stood up and began to stretch his arms and legs. It might’ve been a bit early, but he saw it as having more time to focus and get ready for his next match.

After all, the more time that he had to prepare himself, the more focused he would be on the battlefield.

“Okay, I know that this place was made to prevent Skylanders from escaping, but all these security measures out here are just plain ridiculous.”

The comment from Sharpfin was no small exaggeration. As he circled the Hammerhead around the Magudome, Snap Shot and the dirt shark were surprised by just how much security there was. Normally, a venue like this would have a couple of different measures in place to ensure the safety of its guests. Yet, what they were seeing now was close to borderline paranoia. There were different types of aerial cannons stationed outside of the arena from blitz cannons that would be used to strike fast moving ships to heavy weapons that could penetrate vessels that had armor. On top of that, security ships would be circling around the Magudome on the lookout for suspicious activity and security personnel on the grounds outside of the arena itself.

“The drow running this place has been defeated by Skylanders before,” the crocogator replied back to him.

“Well, I get that. Yet, there’s a difference between having some protection and then being overly excessive,” Sharpfin retorted, “I mean, you would expect some of these defenses used by armies on a battlefield, not by an ego-maniac who runs a no rules fight ring. I mean… he’s even got door sensors.”

Snap Shot raised an eyebrow at that, “Door sensors?”

“You know those multi-doors that can shut down for either intruders or invasions?” the dirt shark asked as he handed the crocogator his telescope and pointed it out to him, “Well, the sensors to trigger those doors are installed not just in the main entryway from the courtyard, but also on the windows, too. If they sense anything that’s a registered Skylander, they lock up immediately and block all potential escape routes.”

“Well, that’s just problematic,” the trap master replied back, “If we get too close, then we get shot down, and if I even step foot inside, I can’t even move an inch before the whole place locks up.”

“If you try to go through the front door, yes,” Sharpfin retorted as he walked to the wheel of the ship, “Give me a second, and we’ll circle around, check and see if the rest of the arena is the same story.”

Originally, the two of them thought that the rear of the facility would not have the same kind of overwhelming security that the entrance had, perhaps even some kind of flaw that they would be able to exploit. However, as they made their way around, what Sharpfin saw was not amusing. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

“What’s the matter?” Snap Shot asked.

“There’s being paranoid… and then, there’s this,” the dirt shark explained as he handed his telescope and pointed towards the arena, “Seriously, who installs security measures on sewage drains?”

That was definitely something that seemed like a stretch. The same security measures that were at the front of the Magudome were present in not just the sewer drains, but all around the backside of the venue itself. Whether it was the security measures that were installed on the perimeter of the Magudome or the security personnel that wandered the arena, the more that they looked at it, the more that the arena seemed like an impenetrable fortress.

It was as they were inspecting the security that Snap Shot had a question, “Hey, Sharpfin… Do you have any ideas about what kind of backup power this place might have? With this much security, there’s bound to be one somewhere.”

“I can agree with you on that,” the dirt shark replied back, “There should be one. Though, with how much power that this place has to use, especially for the doors, I honestly don’t know where it could be.”

That had the crocogator scratch his chin for a moment, before he thought of an idea, “How about we do another flyover real quick? Maybe there’s some signs about a power source that we haven’t seen yet.”

Sharpfin nodded as he took the wheel again and had the Hammerhead do another flyover of the entire arena. They were careful to make sure and not draw attention to themselves, despite the amount of incoming ships that were dropping off guests that were watching the tournament take place today.

Even though they were power lines that went around the stadium, that wasn’t exactly what they were looking for. Those were obvious and out in the open for any passing ship to see. What they were looking for were any other signs aside from those. Something that wasn’t so easy to spot. If Magus went through the trouble of putting all of this together, then finding something that would undo everything he put together would be difficult to find.

Yet, unfortunately, after a second flyover, he didn’t see anything that indicated an alternate power source of any source. No fans for wind currents, glass panels for solar, water pipes for a hydro based source or even exhaust pipes for coal or other potential fuels. They were sure to look around every square inch, but nothing out of the ordinary stood out at all.

“Hey, Snap Shot,” the crocogator then spoke up, “I think I noticed something.”

That had Snap Shot look back at the dirt shark with a puzzled expression on his face, “Really? What is it?”

“Haven’t you noticed that the rocks on the surface here look hardened lava?” the dirt shark told him before giving him his telescope and pointing it out to him, “If there’s signs of volcanic activity here, then the power source…”

“…is thermal,” the Trap Master finished his sentence, before looking back at Sharpfin, “Wait a minute… if they have thermal, why not just use that instead of an outer power source? Wouldn’t that be more efficient?”

“...I think I might know a reason why,” Sharpfin countered after a pause to think, “If you think about it from his perspective, what would be first thing that would go through the mind of a paranoid drow if the power of the entire stadium were to go out?”

At first, Snap Shot was confused by what the dirt shark was telling him. Yet, after a couple of moments, he began to put the pieces together, “...If it went out, it would let him know that someone was attempting to infiltrate the arena. It’s the perfect signal.”

“That’s right,” Sharpfin grinned, “They don’t exactly need the outer power lines. They’re just a decoy, a trap to signal an alert should someone attempt to cut the power to their security doors. An ingenious idea… for an egomaniac.”

At first, Snap Shot took a moment to process everything that he just learned. The power secondary source that they were looking for was thermal, and with it, the possibility of a way in. With that in mind, the trap master looked back down to his left wrist and let out a small breath, “Calvin, do you have a moment?”

It was almost ten minutes until Calvin had to step in the ring when Snap Shot contacted him, and by then, he was already trying to make sure that he was ready to go. The Skyshifter took a moment to look around, before sneaking into a secluded area as he looked to his wristband. “Snap Shot? What’s the matter?”

“Well, I have some good news and some bad news,” Snap Shot replied back, “Good news is that we might have an idea as to how Magus keeps the Magudome operation.”

“And the bad news?”

“The bad news is that we need some extra assistance to verify a few things,” he heard the trap master reply back, “Is Smoky with you right now?”

“Not at the moment. He’s busy right now,” Calvin replied back, “Why? Do you need his help?”

“Next time you see him, I need you to relay a message for me,” the crocogator told him, “I need him to verify and find the general location of the facility’s back-up thermal generator. This is urgent, so the sooner that you tell him, the better.”

“I’ll make sure to do that,” the Skyshifter acknowledged as the conversation ended. Right now, the main thing that he needed to prepare for was his upcoming battle. He had to clear his mind of distractions and make sure that he was ready for when he had to go back into the arena.

Just like yesterday, the two greeble guards from before came to escort him towards the gate that would lead into the arena. The gate was still up and prevented him from stepping forth onto the battlefield just yet. Though, one thing he was able to do was listen to the announcer’s opening remarks.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Viewers from all around the Skylands! Welcome to Battalia, where the strongest fighters from around the Skylands compete for glory beyond their wildest dreams!! We got ourselves quite the opening round for you today, so without further ado, let’s kick things off!!”

The gate in front of him now began to drop down, allowing for the Skyshifter to slowly make his way onto the battlefield. “Now, our first competitor of the day is one that happened to catch everyone off guard during the qualifier yesterday. Despite being the textbook definition of a rookie, he was able to claim a spot in Battalia and is eager to prove himself! Give it up for Kai Chi!!”

As the Skyshifter stepped out into the arena, the audience’s response to him was… mixed to say the least. Some of the audience gave him a warm welcome and cheered, while the rest just continued to taunt him. Some went as far as to say that he should quit while he still had a chance, yet Calvin did his best to ignore it and instead focused his attention to the gate on the other side of the arena.

“And now, for his opponent,” he heard the announcer declare as the gate on the other end of the stadium was lowered, “We have a special treat for you folks, because one of our competitors is the angriest Mabu that you can find in the Skylands! He’s mean, he’s mad and he’s itching for a fight!! Get ready to make some noise for MAB LOBS!!!”

The name was one that Calvin was familiar with as he watched his opponent storm out the gate and onto the battlefield. Mab Lobs was a mabu villain of the Tech element that had armor covering his torso, shoulders, head and feet. Yet, what looked to be different this time around was a new set of gauntlets that were on the Mabu’s hands and what was strapped to his feet.

“You think you can beat me, kid!?” the mabu snapped as he banged his gauntlets together and glared at the Skyshifter, “Time to blow you up sky high!!”

“Bring it on, then!” Calvin declared.

In his mind, the Skyshifter was already thinking about what he needed to do. The first step was to observe and see what his foe was capable of this time around. Yet, as the fight got started, he began to realize that the mabu had a few new tricks up his sleeves. To start, there was the gauntlets on his hands, which would create an explosion once they made contact with an object or surface. The start of the fight had Calvin use his fire dash to avoid not just Mab Lobs’ punches, but the debris that was kicked up when his gauntlets made contact with the ground.

The other trick that Mab Lobs had was what strapped onto his feet. A pair of explosive jump boots that allowed for the mabu to quickly move at high speeds. The boots allowed for him to close in on Calvin and barely gave the Skyshifter time to react properly, which forced him to either defend himself from an incoming attack or avoid the attack altogether.

“Well, looks like Mab is already gaining an advantage and not giving his opponent any ground whatsoever! If he keeps this up, then things won’t look so good for Kai Chi!”

“Come on, think!” the Skyshifter grit his teeth as he tried to ignore the distraction. He was trying to think of a game plan as to how to fight back against his opponent, but the main thing he was unsure about was Mab’s gauntlets. For something that was very strong in terms of power, there had to be some kind of drawback. Otherwise, he was not going to last much longer in this fight.

“Stop running from me!!” Mab Lobs snapped. He was about to charge towards Calvin again and slam his gauntlet into the ground. However, after the initial swing, the mabu did something unexpected. Instead of chasing after him, Mab used his jump boots to back himself up away from the Skyshifter as his gauntlets gave off an unfamiliar red like glow.

In Calvin’s mind, there was no way that such a sudden change in his opponent’s tactics was just a mere coincidence. However, he did not have the chance to think on this, as Mab began throwing bombs towards where he was standing. At first, it was three bombs that he tossed into the air that exploded upon touching the ground. Though, after he avoided those, the mabu had another trick up his sleeve and threw out a cluster of mini-bombs that rolled towards him.

This time though, Calvin didn’t run. Instead, an idea formed in his head that he began to follow through on. He planted his feet and moved his arms behind him, waiting for the bombs to come closer. Once they were close enough, the Skyshifter swung his arms forward and had both of his hands collide with each other. The move in question was a technique that King Pen taught him called the knockout clap, where he would clap his hands together and release a powerful shockwave that would stun his foes.

Though, instead of stunning his opponent, he was utilizing the technique in a different manner. As his hands collided, the shockwave that was released had enough power behind it to send several of the bombs back towards Mab Lobs, a move that caught the mabu off guard. “What the-!?”

“Oh my! Mab Lobs definitely did not see that coming! Does Kai Chi have more tricks up his non-existent sleeves than just fire and flames!?”

This provided the perfect opportunity for Calvin to act. While the mabu was caught off guard, the Skyshifter charged forth and began to attack his opponent. He did not go for a direct frontal assault, but instead charged at him in a zig-zag pattern, to keep his opponent guessing. While Mab Lobs was trying to figure out where Calvin was, the Skyshifter would strike him from behind and the sides to keep him guessing and move before his opponent had any idea of where he was.

He was able to keep this up for almost a minute. Yet, it was only when Calvin noticed that Mab Lobs’ gauntlets weren’t glowing anymore did his opponent catch him by surprise. “Back OFF!!”

As the mabu slammed both of his fists into the ground, energy was released from his gauntlets that scattered rock and debris everywhere. Some of it barely missed Calvin’s head as he backpedaled away from his opponent. “Huh… is that how it works?”

“You’re beginning to annoy me, you little punk!” Mab Lobs snapped. Immediately, the mabu went on the offensive again, charging forward with his jet boots. This time though, Mab was faster, and Calvin didn’t have the time to just simply dodge. The Skyshifter was forced to hold his arms up in a defensive posture and endure a few powerful strikes from the mabu as he was knocked backwards.

“Oh, man! Kai Chi got knocked off his feet with that comeback from Mab Lobs just now!! How much more can this drow take!?”

Once he got back up, the Skyshifter tried to regain his focus and put more power into his dash, so he could try to counter Mab’s speed. It took a bit at first, but after a few seconds, Calvin was able to avoid the next set of strikes from Mab Lobs, something that the mabu wasn’t exactly happy with after thinking that he had driven his foe into a corner.

“You think this is a game?!” he snapped as Calvin avoided another one of his strikes. This time, his gauntlet made contact with the arena, and the resulting explosion had broken off chunks of the wall, “Stop being a coward and fight-!!”

Ironically, it was as the mabu said that and when he tried to strike again that his gauntlets began to glow once again, something that he did not take too kindly, “Oh, come on!! Again-!?”

Calvin couldn’t help but smirk as he looked back at his opponent, “What was that you were saying about being a coward now?”

“Grr… Shut UP!!” Mab snapped, backing away before he began to throw more bombs towards Calvin. Now, the Skyshifter had a good idea as to how exactly the gauntlets worked. They were able to release explosive blasts upon touching something, but he could not do it forever. Whenever they were glowing red, it meant that Mab Lobs had used them too much, and they needed to cool down before he could use them again.

This was something that he could definitely use to turn the tide. He was quick on his feet to avoid the bombs that were tossed towards him and exploded on the ground. Yet, this time around, Mab was throwing more of the standard bombs that he would detonate on contact, which forced the Skyshifter to stay on his feet and dash at the right time to avoid any explosions that went off.

“Getting tired yet, rookie?!” Mab taunted at him, before he began to prepare his next attack. The mabu thought that the Skyshifter had tired himself out from dodging his earlier attacks, which was enough of a reason for him to roll out the mini bombs across the floor of the arena to hit his opponent from far away.

Yet, the mabu made one fatal mistake. He underestimated what Calvin was capable of. Even though he had been on his feet to avoid the bombs that Mab Lobs was throwing at him, the Skyshifter still had enough strength and perseverance to push forward. Just like the first time, he moved his arms back and waited for the bombs to roll close enough. Once in range, the Skyshifter slammed his hands together for a knockout clap and released a shockwave that sent Mab’s bombs back in the direction they came from.

When the bombs detonated and left Mab in temporary daze, Calvin took advantage of the opportunity. He charged at Mab and flanked him from the side, though instead of striking the mabu with his fists, he conjured his strongest flames and applied it to the mabu’s left gauntlet. As he backed away and Mab was beginning to come out of his temporary daze, smoke was beginning to rise from the gauntlet.

“H-huh? W-what’s that… smell-?” the mabu stuttered, before realizing that the smoke was coming from the gauntlet on his left hand. His eyes widened as he frantically rushed to pull it off his arm, “Oh no-!!”

In a matter of seconds, the gauntlet exploded. Pieces of it scattered around the arena as Calvin covered his eyes. When the dust settled, Mab's left arm was partially burned with some of the fur missing, something that he wasn’t too happy about.

“What a surprise! In an unexpected move, the rookie was able to destroy one of Mab’s boom gauntlets and gained the upper hand!! Will he go all the way!?”

“Oh… I’m going to make you PAY for that!!” the mabu roared, his remaining gauntlet no longer glowing anymore as he glared back at the Skyshifter. Mab Lobs quickly began to retaliate as he charged towards Calvin and began his assault. This time though, his approach to combat was different. Not only did he utilize his jet boots to get up close and personal, but also used them alongside his remaining gauntlet to try and drive Calvin into a corner, his kicks leaving behind burning trails on the ground and sending flame lashes outwards, as if using his boots to send out flame slashes as weaker projectiles.

“Oh, come on! Seriously?!” the Skyshifter thought to himself. He was having trouble trying to keep up with not just Mab’s speed, but also avoiding the additional attacks that the mabu was doing. Though, it was around this time that he got an idea, one that was risky, but if he was able to pull it off, it would give him the perfect opportunity to turn this fight around. All he needed to do was just not fight back and keep his arms up to pretend he was in a defensive posture.

“That’s right! Stop fighting back and just give up already!!” the mabu grinned as his newfound attacks pushed Calvin into a corner. “If you think you can do anything to turn this around, think again!!”

Even with Mab’s consistent combination of attacks, the Skyshifter did not fight back. If he showed any sign of resisting, his opponent would think that something was off, and then, his window of opportunity would be lost. What he was planning could only work if he fooled his opponent into thinking that they had the upper hand.

As he was knocked back, the Skyshifter was forced to his knees as Mab stood over him, acting triumphant.

“Would you look at that folks?! Mab Lobs has got the rookie on his last legs!! Can he seal the deal and move on to the Semi-finals!?”

“With pleasure,” though, it was as the mabu approached the Skyshifter that he noticed something off. Even with his opponent being weakened significantly, he still had not fallen. To make things even more puzzling was that the drow was smiling, “What’s the matter? You think losing is fun?”

It was at that moment that Calvin knew he had Mab Lobs right where he wanted him to be as he let out a small breath, “…You tell me, is it fun?”

In an instant, the Skyshifter put his plan in motion. Before the mabu even realized what was happening, Calvin began to channel his power through his arms and used another secret technique that King Pen taught him; The Wave Fist. As he threw his arms forward, a powerful energy blast was released from his hands as it struck Mab’s remaining gauntlet. The amount of power that surged through the Skyshifter technique was enough to have the gauntlet crack at the seams, breaking into pieces as Mab was forced to toss it away before it exploded.

“What’s this!? The Rookie somehow still has some fight in him and was able to destroy Mab’s other gauntlet!! Just how strong is he?!”

Now that Mab’s gauntlets have been destroyed, Calvin was able to seize the chance to turn the fight around. His opponent no longer had as much destructive power as he did earlier in the fight, but Mab Lobs wasn’t out for the count just yet. After losing his other gauntlet, the mabu immediately backed away and began to attack from range. His go-to attack was now tossing bombs towards Calvin, while also utilizing the capabilities of his jet boots to create flame trails all around the Skyshifter to entrap him in a confined space. He also had to avoid the flaming slash projectiles that were sent in his direction whenever Mab Lobs kicked with his feet, something that became rather annoying when he realized that the mabu can control the angle of the flames with his boots.

Yet, that was not going to stop him. He had friends that were counting on him to make it through this, no matter what. After avoiding some of the bombs that Mab threw at him, Calvin began to charge forward and dash through the flames that the mabu used to try and corner him. It was a move that his opponent never anticipated and was unprepared for when the Skyshifter broke through the trails of flame. “What-!?”

Calvin did not allow for the mabu to finish his sentence, for moments after he emerged from the flames, he swung forward and struck his opponent with a powerful megaton punch that sent Mab Lobs crashing to the ground and knocked the wind out of him. It was something that shocked everyone in the stadium, including Magus himself. “And it’s over, folks!! From out of nowhere, the rookie, Kai Chi, has defeated Mab Lobs and secured his spot in the semi-finals! What an upset!!”

Calvin only had a little bit of time to catch his breath as the same medical team of greebles that he saw the day before rushed out onto the field to tend to the defeated mabu. As for him, he was escorted out of the arena by the two greeble guards from before. However, the only difference was that he was not taken back to his room and had to find his way back on his own.

It was as Calvin was walking over that he bumped into someone. It was another drow, but he… seemed different. His entire left arm was covered in a brown cloak, and the drow carried a sword on his back. The hair on his head was the same color as his imaginator, but it wasn’t tied in the back. Instead, it was short and spiky. His clothes weren’t the same either, and this drow was only a few inches taller than him.

“I-I’m sorry,” Calvin tried to apologize as the other drow was walking away, “I didn’t see you there.”

Much to his surprise, the drow paused, partially turning around to see the Skyshifter as he let out a sigh, “Just be careful. Unlike me, not everyone in the world would forgive you for simple mistakes.”

Before Calvin could say anything, the drow turned around and walked towards the arena entrance. The greeble guards at the gate seemed to recognize him and stood aside as the drow walked in.

“Huh… another competitor?” Calvin thought to himself. He wanted to stay behind a bit and learn more about them, though it was around this time that he remembered the message that Snap Shot wanted for him to deliver to Smoky and proceeded to go to his quarters to see if he returned yet.

When Calvin opened up the door, the Skyshifter was relieved to see that Smoky had come back and was waiting inside for him, “Hi, Calvin! How did it go? Did you kick some serious butt?”

At first, the Skyshifter nodded his head, just before changing back to his regular form, “Sure did. I’m moving onto the semi-finals,” Calvin told him as he looked back at the fire dog, “How about you? Were you able to help out our friends?”

In response, Smoky proudly nodded, “Yep! No one even noticed me!!” From that response alone, it sounded as if the pup still had a lot of leftover energy and was eager to get back at it.

“That’s great to hear,” Calvin told him, “Say… just before my fight, Snap Shot wanted me to tell you something. He’s got a task for you that’s really important. Think you’re up for it?”

“Of course!” the fire dog quickly responded.

Calvin couldn’t help but smile at Smoky’s enthusiasm as he looked back towards him, “Alright, here’s what you need to do,” the Skyshifter began to explain, “Snap Shot wants for you to verify the location of the facility’s back up thermal generator. He says that it’s urgent that you find it, so the sooner you locate it, the better.”

“Uh… I… don’t know what that is,” the pup admitted, scratching the back of his head with a paw.

“Well…” Calvin said, trying to think of something to help out the fire dog in that moment, “Um… just look for a room with a lot of hot pipes. There should be some kind of device with a lot of pipes going in and out of it somewhere. Likely… heh… lots of smoke as well.”

“Sounds like my kind of place,” Smoky smirked, “I’ll find it and come back as soon as I can!”

“How is this possible?” Magus said to himself, contemplating what he had just witnessed in his arena earlier today. A drow, who was seen as an underdog and unlikely to last in the tournament, pulled off an upset victory against a seasoned veteran he thought would defeat him. Even at an elemental disadvantage, Kai Chi was still able to overcome and claim victory.

Yet, Magus was not exactly pleased. He was hoping to crush the morale of his ‘very important prisoners’ by having them see someone like them get crushed in his arena, even going as far as setting up the matches himself to make that happen. An outcome like this was a major setback, and if Lord Kaos found out, it would be much worse.

“Sir?” he heard the voice of the mabu intern trying to speak to him, “Is something wrong?”

The drow let out a deep breath as he regained his composure. It would be unlike him to act out of character in front of those who worked for him, especially during an important event such as this one. “No, I’m fine… what is it?”

“Well, y-you asked for me to bring you the information we had on the remaining contestants,” the mabu told him as he placed a few manila folders on the table for him to look at, “Do you want for me to leave you alone while you look them over, sir?”

“Actually, I would like for you to stay,” the drow told him, “I want to hear your opinion about the remaining fighters. It’ll help me with preparing the matchups for the semifinals.”

At first, the mabu was a bit caught off guard. He didn’t think that Magus wanted for them to stick around, let alone help him, “W-what would you like to know?”

“This newcomer… Kai Chi,” the drow told the mabu, “Who would be the best opponent for him to face in the semi-finals? I want to give him more of a challenge than that of the opponent he faced today, if you understand what I mean.”

“Well…” the mabu scratched his head as he looked back at him, “We do have one particular fighter that might be of interest to you. In fact, according to what we have on him, he was once the former champion of BattleBrawl Island.”

BattleBrawl Island. That was a name that he had not heard in a while. He remembered that it used to belong to the crab named Baron Von Shellshock during Lord Kaos’ reign with the Sky Eater, a diversion for criminals whose actions were interrupted by them. Yet, ever since that plan was foiled, it became nothing more than an arena where everyone fought Skylanders, and it was being taken care of by an ice troll and a sentient broccoli. One of the reasons why he created the Magudome was to break the same old routine and go back to the roots of arena battles, before the Skylanders showed up.

“…Go on.”

“Well, he’s referred to as the ‘ultimate spell punk’ and is willing to use any means necessary to win in battle,” the mabu continued, “He’s just as strong as he is ruthless.”

Magus took a moment to think as he looked at everything that was in the folder. Not only was this spell punk a seasoned veteran, but it appeared that he wasn’t one for going easy on anyone that he faced. That was just the person that Magus was hoping for.

“Did you… want to look at the others, sir-?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Magus shook his head, “Have our newcomer be scheduled to face this… spell punk in the semi-finals. If there’s anyone that can stop this rookie in his tracks, it’ll definitely be him.”

Author's Note

The more that Calvin and Snap Shot try to figure out how to rescue their friends from Battalia, the more obstacles they come across. With the dangers being both on and off the battlefield, they must be careful if they want to rescue their friends from Magus' clutches.

Part two of four. The longer Calvin takes part in the tournament, the more dangerous it gets. Fortunately, he doesn't have to tackle the dangers of the Magudome alone.

The rest of the chapters will come at a much later date. I want to complete some chapters I've been working on for my other stories first and get them off the backburner before proceeding further.

Thank you for your time and have a great day.

Until next time,
Frost

Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 3)

Beyond the Skies- Battalia (Part 3)

Inside the map room of the Castle of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle was having trouble trying to maintain focus. While there were tasks that she wanted to do, there was something in the back of her mind that prevented her from really committing herself to getting it done. She had tried to put it aside while she and Starlight were working together to get the Cutie Map working again. Unfortunately for her, after both Rarity and Pinkie Pie left to go to Canterlot and solve their friendship problem, the thought in the back of her mind resurfaced and was beginning to distract her from doing anything productive.

The thought on her mind involved someone that wasn’t in the castle right now, that being Calvin. It had been a few days since he left to go on a ‘field trip’ with one of the sensei’s that was teaching him at Skylander Academy, and Twilight had not heard anything since he left. The Skyshifter did tell her that it was going to be for a couple of days, but to her, something did not feel right. If their training was going to take longer than expected, then why wasn’t she informed about that?

“Is everything okay, Twilight?”

The simple question from her assistant Spike was enough to have Twilight’s train of thought come to a halt as she turned towards the dragon, “Huh? Spike, what’s going on?”

“Well, you’ve been staring off into space for almost half an hour now,” he said as the dragon folded his arms, “So, to me, that means that something is on your mind.”

“Am I that predictable?” the alicorn now asked.

“When you’re the assistant to not just Princess Celestia’s student, but also the Princess of Friendship, you begin to pick up on a few things,” the dragon told her, “Now, tell me, what exactly is bothering you? Are you having trouble trying to come up with friendship lessons for Starlight again?”

“No, no, it’s nothing related to that,” Twilight reassured her number one assistant, before taking a deep breath, “Remember when Calvin said earlier in the week that he was going on a field trip?”

“You mean when Pinkie Pie turned the castle into a mobile baking hotspot?” Spike replied, recalling the events that unfolded when the earth pony set up a ‘Sugarcube Corner To-Go’ on their front doorstep, “I remember. Though, why exactly are you stressed out on that? Isn’t that trip supposed to help him?”

“Well, yes, it is supposed to help him with his training. Though, it’s not the trip that’s bothering me,” the alicorn explained to him, “What’s bothering me is how long it's taking. Calvin said that it was going to be a couple of days. Though, as of this morning, it’s now officially longer than that. You would think that he would at least try to somehow inform me if it was somehow going to be longer than expected, wouldn’t you think?”

Spike could only sigh at Twilight’s predicament. She was fixating on the smallest of details again and letting herself get distracted by something not exactly going as planned. Though, that was something that didn’t require too much effort in order for him to fix. “You know, if you wanted to check in on Calvin, you could just visit the academy. I mean, he might not be there, but surely, there’s somepony else that might know about how his training’s going, right?”

Of course, it took Twilight a moment to think over what he had just said. Yet, it did not take long for her to realize that the dragon might have been on to something. “You know what, Spike, you’re right.”

“Wait, I am?”

“If I wanted to check and see how Calvin’s doing, I should just take a trip to the academy,” she proclaimed, before she got up out of her seat, “I’ll be back in a bit, Spike. Watch the castle while I’m away!”

“Twilight, wait-” before he knew it, the dragon was by himself as Twilight immediately teleported away to the basement. All the while, Starlight Glimmer had just trotted into the map room from the back hallway. “Oh... hi, Starlight.”

“Hey, Spike… have you seen Twilight by chance?” the unicorn asked, “I wanted to ask her if she had some time to go over the research that we’ve done regarding the spell on the Cutie Map.”

“Um... you know what-” a loud slamming of a door was heard throughout the castle as Spike let out a deep sigh, “She just left.”

Starlight could only stare at Spike, unsure of what exactly just transpired as she raised an eyebrow, “Really?”

“Yeah,” the dragon replied, just as Twilight briefly teleported back inside to grab her saddlebags before disappearing once again, “Sorry.”

Once Twilight was certain that she had everything that she needed and arrived at the M.A.P., the alicorn went straight for the teleporter that led to Skylander Academy. As the alicorn arrived on the academy’s main plaza, she had a rather clear idea as to where she needed to go and who she needed to speak to. If everything went the way that she thought it was going to go, then it wouldn’t take her long to find who she was looking for. Not only that, but it didn’t look like the academy was super busy, compared to all the other times that she visited.

Though, if living in Ponyville had taught Twilight anything, it was that anything could change at a moment's notice. Such was the case when, shortly after she arrived, someone happened to notice the alicorn. “Oh, hey, what a surprise! I didn’t think the academy would be having any visitors today.”

As Twilight turned her head to the right, she happened to find Tessa not that far away from where she was. Alongside the faun were some of the lava dogs as well, with the most notable ones being Sheer and Skippy. Though, much like a lot of the creatures that would usually wander about outside the academy, Hot Dog was nowhere to be seen, “Hello there, Tessa. How are you?”

“I’m doing pretty well,” the fox replied back, “Right now though, I was asked to help keep an eye on Sheer and her siblings for Hot Dog.”

“Funny you mentioned that,” the alicorn retorted, “When I arrived, I noticed that it wasn’t as… busy as the other times I came here. Would you happen to know why that is? Are they away doing missions or something?”

Tessa smirked, before folding her arms as Sheer and Skippy walked up right beside her, “Nah, they’re more than likely in class.”

That response had Twilight blink, caught off guard by the simple yet unexpected answer that the fox just gave her, “In… class?”

“Even though this is technically the home of the Skylanders, many of them are still just students here at the academy,” she explained, “Which means that whenever they’re not out on missions, out here running about or in their dorms, they’re attending class. Being good in battle is one thing, being smart in ba”

To Twilight, that logic made sense. After all, some of Equestria’s most defining moments happened not by overpowering their foes in battle, but by outsmarting them, such was the case with some of the stories surrounding some ponies that were part of the Pillars of Equestria alongside Starswirl the Bearded. The two main examples were that of Somnambula and Mage Meadowbrook.

“Although, I’m pretty sure you didn’t come all this way to hear me ramble on about students in class,” Tessa spoke up, interrupting Twilight’s train of thought as the fox unfolded her arms, “So, with that in mind, what brings you all the way to the academy?”

Right away, the alicorn was quick to answer, “Well, I actually was coming by to check on Calvin and see how he’s doing.”

Twilight’s answer surprised not only Tessa, but the lava dogs that were right next to the fox at the time. “Check on Calvin?” Sheer now spoke up, “I’m sorry, but we haven’t seen Calvin since he dropped off Dusty at the academy.”

“Well, he told me that he was going to be on a field trip with King Pen to help him with his training,” Twilight explained to the three of them, “I just thought I would stop by and ask Buzz how everything was going. You know, to check in on him?”

The question might have sounded simple… however, it was met with a much different response from Skippy as she tilted her head. “That’s weird, because I’m pretty sure that I saw King Pen inside that dojo thingy this morning.”

Immediately, Twilight and Tessa looked towards another, before the two of them looked back at the lava pup. “Hold on,” the fox asked, “You saw King Pen… this morning?”

“Yup, definitely!” Skippy nodded, smiling all the while. “Didn’t see anyone else with him though. In fact, that dojo was pretty empty.”

That left Twilight with one last question, “But, if Calvin isn’t on a field trip or with him… then… where is he?!”

Elsewhere

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Scoundrels and Crooks! Welcome back to the carnage filled chaos that you all know and love, Battalia!!”

As he listened to the uproar of the fans that were in the crowd at the MaguDome, Calvin was taking the opportunity to observe the next battle from the stands of the arena. Even though the Skyshifter was in the semi-finals, his battle would not come until later, so Calvin thought that the best way for him to use the extra time that he had was to watch the fight before his. Not only would it be a better way to pass the time than just sitting around in his room, but it provided Calvin the opportunity to observe the competition. After all, whoever won this fight could likely be his opponent if he made it to the finals.

“Today, we got ourselves two matches that will determine which competitors will have the honor of fighting each other in the grand finals for all the glory,” the voice of Magus echoed throughout the arena, which brought forth another round of applause from the audience, “I can see that all our viewers both here and at home are eager to get this show on the road! So, without further ado, let’s get right to it then shall we?!”

Shortly after Magus’ proclamation, the gates on the left side of the arena began to open up as the first competitor entered the ring. Much to his surprise, it was the same drow elf that he accidentally bumped into yesterday, the one who had his whole left arm covered in a cloak and carried a sword on his back. As they stepped forth, the elf drew his blade in preparation for the fight that was to commence.

“Now, here’s our first contestant. He’s been a crowd favorite so far in Battalia, and was able to best his opponents so far without even breaking a sweat. Please welcome back to the arena, Blade Gunner!!”

“Huh. So, that’s what his name is,” Calvin thought to himself as he looked at the drow from the stands, “Okay, I see why he would be called Blade, but why gunner though? There’s nothing remotely about him that would give the impression that he uses any ranged weaponry.”

Though Calvin didn’t have much time to ponder on this, because now the gate on the opposite end of the arena had opened up. “And now, for his opponent. They may not look like the sharpest tool in the shed, but this old geezer is a lot stronger than he looks! Give it up for the Chompy Mage!”

“You have got to be kidding me. He’s here, too?” Calvin thought to himself as he watched the elderly mage step out from the other side of the gate. For the most part, the Chompy Mage looked almost exactly like he remembered. A short elderly man dressed in clothes that made him look like a chompy, carried a staff that had a chompy attached to the end of it and had a chompy hand puppet on their left hand. Heck, if there was ever a Chompy Convention, Chompy Mage would probably be its founder.

Though, the mage wasn’t entirely focused on his opponent when he stepped in. Instead, they had a bone to pick with Magus, “Hey! Who are you calling an old geezer?! I don’t like you… and since you’re not a Chompy, I really don’t like you.”

“Me neither,” the mage had their puppet say.

“Now, come on. It was just one small remark. No need to get angry over-” before the announcer of the tournament could finish what they were saying, it sounded like the microphone fell on the table as a loud noise was heard throughout the stands, which was later followed by a different tone from Magus, “W-what the-!? How did they get in here?! We had the doors locked and everything!!”

As funny as it was to picture a full grown drow getting chased by a runaway chompy, it also had Calvin think of an idea, something that he would have to save for when he was back in the safety of his room with Smoky. Right now though, as the Skyshifter looked back at the two fighters, the Chompy Mage’s gaze was focused back towards the drow on the other side of the arena. “As for you, you may be green… but you’re not chompy green. And that means-!”

At that point, Blade Gunner just groaned, “Look, are you here to stand around and ramble, or are you here to fight? Because you can’t do both, and my patience is rather thin.”

That single statement made both the Chompy Mage and his puppet gasp, “H-how dare you interrupt me when I’m speaking?! You will regret interrupting my speech!”

“Prepare yourself!” the puppet then proclaimed.

Before either side could make a move, there was the sound of someone tapping a microphone, “Okay, testing… 1, 2- Alright, we’re back,” Magus proclaimed, even though the sound of his voice was a bit different than before, “Sorry about that, folks. Had a bit of technical difficulties for a moment, but now, we’re ready to get this show on the road! Both of our combatants are eager to claim their spot in the finals, so let’s not delay them any longer!!”

As soon as the drow finished speaking, the Chompy Mage was the first fighter to make a move as he raised his staff in the air. His magic began to form around him, and several chompies were summoned into the arena. “Come forth, my chompy friends! There is someone here that isn’t a chompy, and you know what that means!”

“It’s play time!” the hand puppet said with glee.

Once there were about eight or so chompies in the arena, all of them began to charge towards Blade Gunner. Though, much to the surprise of Calvin, the elf in the arena didn’t make any attempts to act. Instead, he raised the hand that held his blade to his face and waited for the creatures to come closer as the chompies leaped towards him, eager to grab something with their sharp teeth.

Then, in an instant, they were gone. In a single forward sweep, the chompies were struck down, and they popped like balloons. The swift defeat of the Chompy Mage’s lackeys was enough to prompt the elf to point his blade towards the mage, “Is that everything you have, or are you just toying with me? Because sending minions to fight for you instead of meeting me head on isn’t fighting, it’s cowardice.”

“Oh my! Blade’s got some fighting words for his opponent,” Magus was quick to respond, “Let’s see if his skills are just as sharp!”

“Hmph! We’ll see about that,” the wizard proclaimed, before waving his staff to summon more chompies to the battlefield. Though, the chompies that were summoned weren’t always the same. Some of them wore metal hats over their heads as a form of protection, while others were red and on fire.

Another thing that was different this time was not just what types were summoned, but where they were summoned, for Calvin noticed that several of the chompies that the Chompy Mage brought to the battlefield landed directly behind the elf. In fact, he couldn’t tell if Blade Gunner was even aware that they were there. Yet, that all changed with the elf’s next move, for he stepped back and flipped his blade around to hit two of the burning chompies with the back side of his weapon with his next swing, a move that sent his opponents crashing into one another and giving him some room to maneuver on the battlefield.

“Even in numbers, Chompy Mage’s… well, chompies, aren’t doing much to slow Blade Gunner down! Can they think of a way to turn the tide?!”

“For someone that isn’t a chompy, you’re rather strong,” the mage admitted, “However, I’ve only used a minimal fraction of what I am capable of! Behold!!”

Calvin had a feeling of where exactly this would be going, and was right when magic began to flow around the Chompy Mage’s staff and body to transform him into a giant oversized chompy, a transformation similar to what he remembered back home in one of the Skylanders games where he was a boss battle in the game’s story. Once he had taken on his newfound form, the oversized chompy jumped up, before slamming down as the impact they made caused shockwaves to ripple and spread throughout the entire arena. Even though Blade Gunner avoided the first one, the elf’s opponent continued to crash into the ground several times, making the areas where he would be safe from any attacks rather small.

Though, while it looked like the elf was running, he was instead biding his time. He had a feeling that the particular spell that the mage had used on himself would not last long, and when it did fade, that would provide him the opportunity to strike. Such was the case when, after slamming into the ground several times and unsuccessfully missing in his attempts to injure Blade Gunner, the spell wore off, and the Chompy Mage returned to normal. “O-oh, my-”

Immediately, Blade Gunner seized on the opportunity and charged. Before Chompy Mage was even able to cast a spell, the elf quickly disarmed the wizard of his staff and used his blade to send it flying out of the arena. Calvin had to back away from the rafters as the staff was planted into the back wall of the arena above his shoulder, now resembling more of a pole someone would hang a banner from than the staff of an ‘all powerful’ wizard.

“Now, you have nowhere to hide,” Blade Gunner grinned, before pointing his weapon at his opponent, “Do you still think you’re going to win, or are you going to reconsider?”

“What a way to capitalize on his opponent’s mistakes! But will it be enough?”

“Hehehe… Silly non-chompy! Do you really think that it’s the end?”

At this moment, the Chompy Mage did something that Calvin did not know that he could do. With a motion of their other hand, the Chompy Mage’s puppet began to spew forth magic from their mouth, a move that forced Blade Gunner to back away from the mage as they stood back up on their feet.

“I’ll have you know that I’m only just getting started!!” the mage proclaimed, before conjuring more magic in his now empty hand. At first, Calvin thought that the Chompy Mage was using a spell to have his staff return back to him. Instead though, his magic called forth a completely different weapon than the one that the Skyshifter was expecting.

“Time to go boom!!” the Chompy Mage’s puppet proclaimed with glee as the Chompy Mage was now somehow armed with a green rocket launcher that looked like a chompy, before aiming it directly at the elf he was fighting.

“Wait, he has a bazooka now!?!” Calvin mentally shouted in disbelief, “Since when?!!”

Of course, when the Chompy Mage started to fire the weapon, the Skyshifter realized that he wasn’t firing actual rockets at Blade Gunner. Instead, he was somehow firing live chompies at the elf as Blade Gunner was forced to keep moving in order to try and not get hit. When he did try to somehow get close within striking range, the Chompy Mage would transform into a rolling chompy pile and either avoid his attacks altogether or charge directly at him. Even when Blade Gunner thought that he had dodged the attack, the mage would jump out of the pile and have it break up, which littered the ground with even more chompies.

“After an early start, it looks like Blade Gunner’s starting to fall behind! Does he have anything to start making a comeback?!”

“This is getting ridiculous,” the elf grit his teeth as he stared at the mess that was in front of him. No matter what efforts he tried to successfully reduce the amount of combatants the elf had to face, more showed up afterwards. For every one that he took down, two more would then appear, and if things continued to go at this rate, he was going to be overwhelmed.

That is, unless he found a way to turn things around. It wasn’t going to be easy, though as long as he maintained his focus and paid attention to his surroundings, the elf would find some kind of flaw in his opponent’s plan of attack and exploit it. The only question now was if there was somehow a limit to the newfound tricks that the Chompy Mage was utilizing. From what the elf could tell, he had abilities to defend himself at any distance as well as swarm the battlefield with minions to try and keep him as far away from his opponent as possible. Though, like with how the fight started earlier, his opponent preferred to keep their distance and attack from range while his minions tried to slow him down.

So, if it wasn’t possible for him to narrow the gap between him and his opponent, then the only other option left to the elf was to somehow extend the range of his own attacks. Of course, there was a way that Blade Gunner could accomplish this, yet the drawbacks were painful, and it was not the preferred solution that the elf would’ve chosen. Though, if it meant that he would come out of this fight as the victor, then he would need to take that risk.

From the stands, the spectators watched as Blade Gunner gripped his blade tightly. When the elf extended his arm forward, they held their blade parallel to their shoulders as the crackling sound of electricity echoed throughout the arena. Though, when Calvin was watching this unfold, it looked as if the elf was saying something. The noise of the crowd drowned out most of what he said, but the Skyshifter could only make out one word.

“Arthur-”

Within seconds, lightning began to crackle around his weapon as he attacked the chompies that ran towards him. Though, as his blade struck the mage’s minions, the lightning from his weapon began to chain to any other enemies within close proximity and cut his opponents miniature army down to size. With how fast the Chompy Mage’s minions were falling apart and how swiftly he was moving, the elf was more like a rapidly approaching storm on the field of battle than a just a simple swordsman.

“Oh my word, are you seeing this, folks? Just when you think that Blade’s down for the count, he pulls out a surprise like that! This fight’s getting better with each passing moment!!”

“Bah! I’m not going to let some trick by a non-chompy beat me!” the Chompy Mage declared, before he prepared to fire another chompy towards Blade Gunner while the elf’s back was turned. Though, instead of trying to defend himself or avoid the incoming attack, Blade Gunner just simply changed the grip on his weapon to hold it in reverse and spun around to counter it altogether, a move that not only electrified the chompy that tried to bite him, but also sent the little monster back towards the Chompy Mage to chew on him instead.

Once the chompy’s fangs gripped his arm, the Chompy Mage let out a loud scream of pain as he was hit by the electric current stored inside the creature, and mere moments after, he collapsed onto the floor of the arena. For a moment, the elf was unsure if he was going to get up. Though, after a while, it was pretty clear that his opponent was out cold.

“Well, that was a rather… shocking outcome,” Magus commented over the intercom, only to have members in the crowd groan at the failed pun he tried to make, “Oh, come on! You guys know what I mean!” The drow then paused briefly to clear his throat, shortly before he started to get back in character, “And looks like we have our first finalist, folks! Blade Gunner, with a comeback victory over the Chompy Mage, has secured the first spot in the finals!! Now, we're going to take a momentary break, but when we’re back, we’ll have our second semifinal match and see who claims the final spot for Battalia’s grand finale!!”

Once he heard that message, Calvin took that as a cue to leave the stands and head back down to the lower levels. There was no telling how much time the Skyshifter had for a break, so he had to utilize his time to the fullest, maybe even get a chance to eat if the lines for food weren’t long, or check and see if he could return to his quarters to see how Smoky was doing.

When he returned, Calvin looked to find that the little lava dog was now sleeping inside of his bag again. The poor pup must’ve tired himself out after his recent back-and-forth trip to Stealth Elf’s and the others’ cells to bring them food and help his friends stay alive. So, the Skyshifter was forced to leave a note behind for Smoky to read, something that he wanted to ask in person but did not have the time to sit around and wait for the pup to rise from his slumber.

“Hey, Smoky, there’s something I want you to look into while I’m fighting my next match. Can you go to Magus’ announcer booth and see if there’s a way for you to sneak inside? I promise I’ll explain more when I get back.” -Calvin

“And just like that, we are back in action!! Welcome back to Battalia everybody!!”

“Ugh, so much for getting a break,” Calvin groaned internally as he waited at the gates to enter back into the arena. Only fifteen minutes or so had passed since the original announcement of a temporary break from the fighting in the arena, and yet, the Skyshifter had thought that the break was supposed to be much longer. He didn’t get the chance to eat anything because not only were two greebles getting on his case to get him into the arena, but it was more than likely that those same greebles had already eaten his food by now, all things considered.

“Before our break, we witnessed Blade Gunner pull off a come from behind victory to secure his spot in the finals! Now, our last semi-final match is going to be a real treat for everyone watching. We’ll get to see if a newfound rookie that’s quickly making a name for himself can go toe-to-toe with one of the strongest veterans of the arena,” Magus’ voice echoed around the arena as cheers erupted from the stands, “But, you don’t want to hear me explaining everything, so let’s get straight to the point and introduce our competitors!!”

“Here we go,” Calvin thought to himself as the gate to the arena slowly opened up.

“Now, for our first fighter! His passion and strength in combat has set the field ablaze, and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep that flame of his burning hot! The newfound rookie who has surprised everyone in the tournament so far! Please welcome Kai Chi!!”

Once his name was called, Calvin stepped out into the arena and cracked his knuckles in preparation for the next battle. He had no idea who it was that he was up against, but just from Magus mentioning how they were a veteran of the arena told the Skyshifter that he should prepare for anything.

“And now, his opponent! He’s one of the most ruthless fighters in the arena and had formerly been the crown champion of Battlebrawl Island for several years straight!!! The ultimate Spell Punk himself!! Give it up for Spellslamzer!!!”

“Who-?”

Before Calvin could even finish with his question, a dark colored fog slipped out from the other side of the arena before taking shape. A pair of white ovals could be seen in the fog, before it was draped with a grey faded hood and tunic that appeared to roughly sewn together like the clothes on a scarecrow. At first glance, there were two things that stood out to Calvin the most. The first was his opponent’s size, for even though they were a spell punk, they were twice as big as he was, while the second was that unlike other spell punks, this one had giant hands, unlike the small ‘flippers’ that the minor spell punks would have.

“So, you are the newcomer who's been making a name for himself?” he spoke, folding his arms as he stared at the Skyshifter. His eyes narrowed, as if he was judging him, “Let me hazard a guess… You want the grand prize for winning this tournament, yes? Well, that prize is mine, and I’m not going to let some lucky punk prevent me from getting what I want!!”

Calvin said nothing, but instead just took in a deep breath, before walking directly towards his opponent.

“Oh, you’re approaching me? Even after warning you, you think you have a chance of defeating me?!”

At that, the Skyshifter smirked as he curled up his fingers in his hands to form a pair of fists, “Well, I can’t find out for sure unless I get closer now, can I?”

“Hehe, I like your spirit,” the spell punk complimented Calvin, before unfolding his arms and taking on a fighting stance, “Very well then, come as close as you like! Let me bear witness to the strength that got you this far!!”

Immediately, Calvin charged towards his opponent as fire formed around his feet. Though, as the Skyshifter got closer, he noticed the violet magic that the spell punk was conjuring in his hands. Before he could even throw the first punch, Spellslamzer clapped his hands together and sent forth a volley of magical orbs towards him, a move that threw the Skyshifter off guard as he was forced to abort his attack at the last possible moment to dodge the spell punk's spell.

“Impressive,” Spellslamzer replied, “You’re rather swift on your feet. Though, let’s see you try to keep up!”

Just as the Skyshifter had stopped and readjusted his footing, he looked up to realize that his opponent had disappeared. At first, he thought that his opponent just teleported behind him, but a quick glance over the shoulder showed that no one was there. Something about this did not make sense to Calvin. What exactly was his opponent doing, and why would they just straight up disappear and hide from him?

Unless… the spell punk wasn’t doing this as a means to hide themselves at all.

“Peek a boo!!”

Calvin had little time to act as he turned to see Spellslamzer emerge from the floor before firing off another attack at point blank range. The Skyshifter was forced to hold up his arms in a defensive posture as the blast knocked him to the ground. Now though, Calvin had a clear understanding of what the spell punk did just now. His opponent used the moment that he was busy dodging the orbs earlier to disappear into the floor unnoticed, only to re-emerge and attack from his blind spot.

“Well, looks like Spellslamzer’s disappearing act has left the rookie dazed and confused! What is he going to do next!?”

As he got back up on his feet, Calvin began to think of something. If his opponent was going to just disappear at any point in time, perhaps chasing after him was not exactly the most ideal way to confront him. If the spell punk planned to continue with surprise attacks, then he should find a way to turn it against him. Luckily, one of the moves that King Pen happened to teach him during his training would work perfectly.

Only thing is, he had to time it perfectly. If he used the technique too early, he could alert his foe of what he was trying to do, and if the Skyshifter did it too late, then his opponent would be out of range and he would’ve given away his strategy. It was a bit of a risk, though it was one that Calvin was willing to take if it meant that he could get the upper hand on his opponent.

For the moment though, he just had to play along and fight his opponent the best he could, which consisted mostly of dodging incoming attacks and trying different secret techniques to see if they had any effect against the energy orbs that Spellslamzer was sending towards him. Out of all the secret techniques that he was taught though, only one of them was the most effective so far. Two of them were more suited for close range combat, and another was only effective with taking down the orbs that the spell punk created one at a time. The final technique, Knockout Clap, was the most effective, because the shockwave from the attack could be able to take out several orbs at once, enough to help clear open a path to his opponent and land a couple of hits in.

“Persistent now, aren’t you?” Spellslamzer taunted, “We’ll just have to see how long you can keep this up for then!”

Once again, Spellslamzer began to cast forth more of the same orbs, shortly before he disappeared into the ground. To Calvin, this was the ideal opportunity to put the theory that was in his head to the test. His first move was to focus on the orbs coming towards him and remove them from the battlefield using the shockwave from his knockout clap. Once the arena was cleared up, the Skyshifter waited for the moment that his opponent decided to make a move.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait for too long, “You know, it’s bad luck to turn your back on your enemy, rookie-”

Just as Spellslamzer emerged from the ground behind him and tried to grab him, Calvin put his theory in motion as he moved his crossed his arms in front of him and immediately pushed them outward. In a matter of seconds, a ring of spinning flames sprung to life as the fire struck the spell punk’s outstretched hand and forced him to flinch and cry out in pain. When he did, the Skyshifter quickly turned around before striking him directly in the face, knocking them to the ground.

“Did you see that, folks?! Spellslamzer thought that his trick would work again, but he just got DENIED!!”

“It’s also bad luck to give away where you are if you’re trying to hide,” Calvin smirked as he looked at his opponent that was slowly getting back up off the ground. Though, something did not feel right. Despite Spellslamzer’s attack not working, he wasn’t angry or upset. If anything, he was giving the impression that he actually enjoyed it, “What’s so funny?”

“Hehehe… You remind me a lot of my glory days,” the spell punk replied, “Everything was just great, until a Skylander had to break my record and ruin it all. This was my chance at a fresh start, and I’m not going to let a novice stop me here.”

Immediately, Calvin felt as if something had grabbed his back and pulled him off of the ground. As he looked up, the Skyshifter saw a magical hand grabbing onto his clothes, “The only rule in Battalia is that there are no rules… and you know what they say?” Spellslamzer told him, before they conjured a rift under him, “If you can’t win, cheat!!”

Before Calvin knew what was going on, he felt his opponent throw him into the rift under his feet. The spell punk dived in afterwards, leaving the audience caught off guard… while also rather confused.

“Now, now, everyone. Do not be alarmed. According to our sources, what Spellslamzer just did was an ability that dates back to his days in Battlebrawl Island! With that in mind, I prepared something special. After all, just because they aren’t in the arena right now does not mean the entertainment has to stop!!”

Shortly afterwards, the sound of two claps could be heard over the loudspeaker as eight large holographic screens appeared around the edge of the arena in an octagonal shape.

“At Battalia, we had put in some preparations to make sure everyone here gets to see every jaw breaking moment of the tournament unfold! Thanks to these Holo-Spell screens, this will allow everyone here and at home to watch this fight play out inside Spellslamzer’s own domain!! Now, who’s ready for ROUND 2!?!”

When Calvin opened his eyes again, the Skyshifter found himself in what could only be described as a howling abyss. He was on a floating isle covered in snow, with what looked to be a huge storm circulating underneath. The edge of the platform was covered in what looked like frozen spikes as the Skyshifter felt the cold wind blow against his skin. With no way out in sight, he had the feeling that Spellslamzer had a good reason for bringing him here.

“Welcome to my nightmare realm,” Spellslamzer’s voice echoed all around him, “It’s pointless to struggle, for I’m keeping you here as long as I need to in order to ensure my victory.”

“So, what? You’re just going to leave me here to freeze?” the Skyshifter asked, “For a fighter like you, you’re coming off as more of a coward than a champion.”

“Watch your tongue, newcomer,” the spell punk snapped at him as Spellslamzer’s body manifested high above where he was standing, “This place is under my control and bends to my will. If you think you’re going to just simply walk out of here, then you have no idea what you’re up against!” Once he was finished, several smaller spell punks appeared all around the edge of the arena of different elements as they turned towards him.

“So much for a one-on-one fight,” he thought, before he noticed an undead spell punk among the group that was beginning to channel its magic. Quickly, he switched techniques to attack them with his Wave Fist, hoping to interrupt the spell they were trying to conjure. Unfortunately though, even though his attack connected, the undead spell punk was able to successfully pull off its spell as a pair of skeleton like greebles rose from the ground.

Of course, that was not the only thing he had to pay attention to. The other spell punks in the ring were also channeling their own magic, with their focus specifically on him, something that did not settle well with him at all since, up until this point, the tournament had just been one-on-one fights. Even though there were times where he did have to face multiple opponents, he either was fighting with the help of allies or had a plan in place. This time around, he had no one to help him and no particular plan of attack. The only real thing that he could do was stand his ground and fight.

His first focus was on the two skeleton greebles that were coming towards him. As they swung their clubs, he stepped to the side to avoid them before striking the first one with a quick few jabs to quickly defeat it. As the second greeble charged in, Calvin fired off another Wave Fist towards them to send them crashing into the barrier around the arena, before turning to the undead spell punk as it was casting its spell once again to have new minions replace the ones that he just defeated. “Oh, come on-”

At least, that was what he thought. Before he had the chance to attack, he heard somewhat of a deep laugh behind him. When Calvin turned to look, the Skyshifter realized that a fire spell punk had prepared its spell while his back was turned and was about to launch it towards him, which only gave him mere seconds to react as he had to somersault out of the way to avoid getting hit as the spell struck the undead spell punk’s minions instead before they could even go after him, something that the undead spell punk definitely did not like.

It was at this moment that the Skyshifter realized something. Unlike in the Skylander games, the magic from spell punks can actually harm any of its comrades and interrupt whatever magic other spell punks were trying to conjure. It might not have seemed like anything big at first glance, yet to Calvin, he saw it much differently. He saw the chance for himself to last longer on this battlefield by having the spell punks unintentionally attacking each other and using the resulting chaos to his advantage. Not only would it decrease the number of opponents he would have to fight, but it would also give him some much needed breathing room.

With that in mind, the Skyshifter prepared a new plan of attack to capitalize on this unexpected development. His new game plan was to fight against the enemies he knew that he could handle, while staying aware of the spell punks and purposely interfering with the spells they tried to conjure. If he could do that, then there was the possibility that Spellslamzer would be forced to fight him in person when none of his ‘friends’ were there to back him up. It might’ve been risky, but if it worked, then he had a better chance at victory.

“What are you fools doing just standing around?! Stop him!!!”

Calvin only had mere moments to have a quick look around the arena before his foes began their assault. Aside from the undead and fire spell punks, there were other spell punks of three different elements; Air, Water and Life. Air magic could make the spell punks allies move faster, Water Magic can be used to freeze him in place if he wasn’t careful and Life magic was used to heal injuries. If he was going to win this battle, then he needed to decide which opponents to defeat first and work his way from there.

Immediately, the Skyshifter focused his attention towards the undead spell punk. In his mind, if he could take it down first, then it wouldn’t be able to call forth any additional backup. That way, he could focus his attention on the other spell punks and not have to worry about being outnumbered by too many foes at once. His first move was to dash towards his intended target and strike with a powerful haymaker to knock it to the floor, followed by a series of quick attacks to interrupt any attempts it would make to conjure any spells.

Yet, before the Skyshifter could land the final blow, Calvin felt a rush of cold air and immediately backed off as a giant snowball flew past his head and hit the undead spell punk instead, freezing them in place. As he looked over his left shoulder, the water spell punk that tried to slow him down wasn’t thrilled that its attack did not hit its mark and prepared to cast the same spell again. Though, before it had the chance to send the snowball towards Calvin, the Skyshifter fired off a Wave Fist towards the spell punk to interrupt it and sent it crashing through the spike barricade around the island.

With the water spell punk taken care of, he refocused his attention back to the undead spell punk as it was breaking free of its temporary frozen prison. Yet, Calvin did not give it the chance to try and cast another spell, for he rushed in and struck the spell punk with a dashing uppercut, the impact having caused the spell punk to deflate like a balloon as it was defeated and disappeared from sight. This left only three more spell punks for him to defeat before he could focus on Spellslamzer. Yet, the so-called ‘ultimate spell punk’ was not impressed by how his underlings were doing.

“Do you fools have any idea what will happen if you don’t stop this rookie?! Get rid of him! NOW!!!”

Even though the spell punk probably did not intend it, his outburst made the Skyshifter wonder something. With the way Spellslamzer phrased his words, it gave Calvin the impression that the spell punk was trying to rush things. So, why exactly would he try to get his allies to hurry things up in a realm of his own creation? Was there something else going on that he hadn’t noticed yet?

Unfortunately, he did not have the luxury to think on such things, as more opponents took up the field to replace the ones that he defeated. This time though… there were two new spell punks that he could not recognize at all. One had a robe that looked like the light from the sun with its eyes and mouth being a shade of bright yellow, while the other spell punk had pitch black robes and a red shade for its eyes and mouth. At first glance, the color scheme of the two newcomers made him think of the Light and Dark elements related to Skylanders, like Spotlight and Blackout. Though, aside from appearance, he had little information to go off of. The only way to know for sure was to see them in action.

Which, in itself, did not take long, for when Calvin tried to go for the magic spell punk next, his attack was intercepted by a protective barrier of light, see-through shields appearing to spin horizontally around its spherical form. As this was happening, the blacked robed spell punk had cast a spell on the fire spell punk as its shadow emerged from the ground and copied its appearance. As the Skyshifter backed off from the barrier, the fire spell punk and the shadow duplicate sent two fireballs towards his direction. The first one narrowly missed him, but the second fireball hit the armguard that was on his left arm.

“Well, that’s just great,” Calvin thought to himself as he got back up on his feet. Not only could his new opponents block his attacks, but also make copies of other opponents on the field. “There’s got to be a catch to their abilities somehow. But what could it be?”

At this point, it was clear as day that the two new spell punks were of the Light and Dark element. However, what wasn’t as clear was the extent of their spells. Though, the Skyshifter had the feeling that unless he wanted them to keep on interfering with the fight, he needed to find a way around their abilities, and quickly. If he could do that, then he can overcome these new arrivals without any problems.

Though, before even attempting anything, he noticed that the life spell punk was channeling its magic to heal one of its allies. Immediately, instinct kicked in as he rushed over to try and prevent them from casting the spell. However, before he could even strike it, the light spell punk channeled its magic and cast the same spell from before onto its ally, which forced Calvin to back off. Yet, his attempt to stop the spell in the first place caught the life spell punk off guard and caused it to release its spell in the wrong direction.

Instead of reaching one of its allies, the spell from the life spell punk hit the Skyshifter instead. At first, Calvin thought that something bad was going to happen. Yet, he was surprised when he felt the pain in his left arm begin to diminish and disappear. It was something that he did not expect, but if it allowed him to keep on fighting, then who was he to complain?

“Are you idiots even trying!? Don’t just stand there!! Stop him!!”

Spellslamzer’s outburst was followed by the air spell punk channeling their magic and casting it on the fire spell punk. Much to Calvin’s dismay, he was quick to realize that the spell not only applied to it, but also the shadow that was conjured by the dark spell punk earlier. Not only did the two of them move much faster than before, but their attacks were also faster too, as they sent more fireballs in his direction. “You have got to be kidding me-”

Of course, that was only the start of what was going to be a massive headache, for the dark spell punk took the opportunity to channel their magic and cast it on its light counterpart to create a shadow copy of it. This was bad news for Calvin, since when it came to spell punks, the ones with supportive type abilities can only cast spells on their allies, but not themselves. As of this moment, the dark spell punk covered that weakness and made it possible for its allies' magic to reach every one of spell punks that were still on the battlefield, while also providing protection for themselves.

“Hehe, now THAT’S what I’m talking about!! Show that rookie who he’s dealing with!!”

With the situation going from bad to worse faster than Rainbow Dash doing aerial stunts, the Skyshifter had to find a way out of this mess before it got to the point where victory would seem impossible. Yet, there weren’t any enemies that he could attack that weren’t shielded by the light spell punk’s protection spell. Not only that, but he did not know the extent of how powerful the shield was. The only real way for him to find out was if he tried to attack it himself, but there was a high possibility that such a move could backfire.

Then, an idea came to him. If he could conjure an attack that was small enough and time it carefully, then he can possibly have it fly in between the shields and hit his target. With that in mind, the Skyshifter began to channel his power and focused on preparing a smaller version of the Wave Fist technique that he was taught. Once it was the proper size, Calvin launched it forward at the closest spell punk, hoping for his plan to yield some results and help even the odds.

Unfortunately, Calvin ended up making a costly error. Even though he was able to get his technique to the right size, he unfortunately misjudged how quickly the shields were moving and the timing it would take to get his attack between them. So, when the Skyshifter launched his attack and thought that it would slip through the shields, it instead ended up making contact alongside the edge of a shield and bounced off. With no control over where it was going, the projectile was now bouncing all around the entire arena like it was a game of pinball. That is, if you replace the ball with a burning orb of fire.

The orb continued to ricochet and bounce around the room for some time, and even Calvin himself had to dive out of the way a couple of times in order to avoid getting hit. Though, after his attack was reflected around the ring a few more times, it finally ended up hitting something, that being the copycat of the light spell punk that the dark spell punk created just a few moments earlier. After bouncing off of the shields of the other enemies in the arena, the Skyshifter’s projectile was not only able to somehow get between the shields of the shadow copy, but also had enough force to break through the barrier that protected them, an outcome that Calvin did not expect, but was grateful for nonetheless.

Immediately after the shadow copy was destroyed, the protective spells that were placed around their fellow comrades began to fade, something that the light spell punk was not entirely thrilled by at all. Yet, instead of trying to find a way to prevent the current dilemma it faced from getting any worse, the light spell punk began to argue with the dark spell punk instead and blame it for what just happened. Such chaos and commotion provided the Skyshifter the perfect opportunity, for it gave him the chance to take advantage of the situation and turn the tide of the fight. His first move was to dash directly in front of the light spell punk and strike it in the face with a megaton punch to send it flying out of the arena and into the churning storm under them. Before the other spell punks could realize what was going on, Calvin fired off another Wave Fist towards the air spell punk, which sent it crashing through another section of the spiky ice wall that was around the arena.

“You idiots! This is what happens when you let your petty arguments distract you!” Spellslamzer’s voice roared around the makeshift realm as the storm underneath began to grow more violent with each passing second, “Don’t make me come out there to finish the job that you are supposed to be doing!!”

Of course, for the spell punks that remained, that was easier said than done. The fiasco that had played out moments ago resulted in the loss of the comrades that not only provided defensive protections, but also improved their swiftness on the battlefield. Not only that, but the trio of spell punks that were left on the battlefield did not have a backup plan in case something went wrong. So, whatever it was that the group tried to do on the battlefield was spontaneous and lacked any form of coordination, something that the Skyshifter immediately picked up on and used to his advantage.

While it was true that his opponents still had a lot of offensive power and the dark spell punk could still make copies of its remaining allies on the battlefield, there was one advantage that Calvin had against them. With the removal of the air spell punk just now, the Skyshifter had the upper hand in swiftness. Whether it was the speed of their attacks or the speed of their reactions, the remaining opponents that were on the battlefield were much slower than they were just moments ago, something that Calvin was definitely going to take advantage of as he cracked his knuckles and looked back at the remaining foes. “Okay, so who’s first?”

The only response he got to that question was when the dark spell punk cast his magic and created copies of both the fire and magic spell punks. While the fire spell punks just immediately went to shooting fireballs in the Skyshifter’s general direction, the magic spell punk had a different approach. After turning to its copy and shouting some kind of command, the shadow quickly channeled a spell onto the magic spell punk that turned it invisible as they disappeared from the battlefield. Originally, the thought that came to Calvin’s mind was that the magic spell punk was doing this to avoid fighting altogether. Yet, as he was avoiding the fireballs that were sent towards him, the Skyshifter noticed what appeared to be violet orbs of mana appearing around the edge of the arena that were aimed directly at him.

“Well, that’s definitely something I haven’t seen in a while-”

Before he could even finish, the orbs began to glow and fire off blasts of concentrated magic, prompting him to backpedal away and try to avoid as much as he could. At this point, it became apparent that unless Calvin took down the dark spell punk first, this battle was only going to get more complicated with each passing minute. Yet, if he were to try and do a technique that he had already used earlier, it was more than likely that they would try to avoid it at all costs. So, the Skyshifter needed to try something different that could catch his enemies by surprise.

Luckily, he had such a technique in mind that might do the trick. Quickly, he pulled his arms in a defensive posture, before he pushed them outward as fire was briefly seen from his hands. However, nothing really seemed to happen. If anything, the only thing that it did was have the spell punks just stare at him, before laughing at him. In their minds, they thought that whatever it was that the Skyshifter was trying to do had failed miserably and that it provided an opening for them to attack.

Though, they all made a simple yet crucial mistake. The spell punks anticipated an attack coming straight at them, when in reality, it was coming from above their heads. Without warning, two meteors crashed into the shadow copies of the fire and magic spell punks before they even realized what was going on. When the dark spell punk realized its copies were defeated and tried to execute the same spell to bring them back, a third meteor came crashing down and sent it flying off the platform and into the vortex underneath.

“Are you fools even paying attention to what he’s doing!? If I knew that you were this incompetent, I wouldn’t have hesitated to upgrade to Minions Monthly’s premium service!!”

Once he saw that the remaining opponents that were on the field were caught off guard by the sudden defeat of their comrades, Calvin took advantage of this opportunity to strike. Before either of the spell punks had the chance to focus back on the battle, the Skyshifter charged the magic spell punk and struck it with a powerful uppercut to knock it into the air. As it fell back down to the ground, he struck the spell punk with a megaton punch to launch them out of one of the gaps in the barrier that was around the platform. As the storm grew more restless underneath, the Skyshifter now only had one opponent remaining as he turned towards the last spell punk in the arena.

“So, what exactly was so funny earlier?” Calvin asked as he folded his arms. “Care to share-?”

The only response he got was a frantically conjured fireball that the last remaining spell punk fired towards him. However, instead of making an effort to dodge it, the Skyshifter did something else as fire began to form around his hands. As the fireball got closer, he extended both arms forward and planted his feet as the projectile made contact with his hands. At first, the spell punk thought that he was countering its spell with the same technique that was demonstrated throughout the fight. However, that was when it realized something a little too late, for he wasn’t trying to stop the fireball at all.

He was trying to catch it. “I guess that’s a no then!”

Even though this was something that he just came up with on the spot and was a bit unsure if it would actually work, the Skyshifter stuck with it and pushed forward. As he focused, the flames from his hands began to merge with the fireball that he was holding onto, which made it grow stronger and expand. Once all the flames had been combined together, Calvin looked back towards the spell punk that threw it as it stared at him, “Here, I think this belongs to you!”

After seeing Calvin take its attack and turn it into something far more dangerous, the fire spell punk used the last of its strength to try and make a break for it. However, its attempt at escape was short-lived when Calvin threw the fireball in his hands straight at it, as it struck the spell punk before he could even get out. Now that all of Spellslamzer’s minions were gone, the ultimate spell punk had no choice but to come out and face him. Though, there didn’t really seem to be any signs of him anywhere.

At least, early on, “Grr... you are really starting to annoy me. You know that, right?”

As soon as he heard Spellslamzer’s voice, the spell punk re-emerged right in front of him, “If you really think you can best me in my own domain, then I would like to see you try!! For this ends now!!”

“I think we can both agree on that,” Calvin grinned, “Let’s finish this!!”

As the two fighters charged towards one another, both of them called forth whatever strength they had left to face each other one last time. The storm around them began to get even worse with each passing moment as Calvin tried to think of something that could finish this battle. When he caught a glimpse of the craters left behind by the meteors he summoned earlier, an idea then came to him. If he could create some more meteors and send them flying towards Spellslamzer as a distraction, then he can prepare one last attack to bring this fight to an end.

“By Eon, I hope this works,” the Skyshifter thought to himself, before going forward with his plan and began to channel fire in his hands. Just like earlier, he called down more meteors towards the arena in the hope of getting his opponent’s attention. When the spell punk looked up and saw what was coming, he didn’t try to send an attack towards it, but instead drifted to the side to avoid it altogether as the meteors fell past him and into the storm. Around this point, Calvin tried to charge in and strike his opponent with one last attack that he had prepared.

Only for it to miss as Spellslamzer weaved around the Skyshifter’s right arm, avoiding the haymaker that he tried to strike him with before knocking him backwards onto the ground with a magic enhanced strike, “Did you really think something like that was going to work on me?” the spell punk taunted as his opponent was struggling to stand back up on his feet, “Rookie, I’ve been fighting long enough to know when someone is trying to distract me from something else they’re planning!”

“Oh no,” Calvin thought as he realized his mistake. Not only did his plan of attack get foiled, the Skyshifter left himself wide open for a counter attack from his opponent that could lead to Spellslamzer defeating him. If that wasn’t bad enough, he couldn’t muster any strength left to defend himself, let alone get back up on his feet, his fight with Spellslamzer’s minions having drained most of his stamina, “Not good! NOT good!!”

As the Skyshifter struggled to try and move, the spell punk readied one final attack to win the match as magic began to surge around his hands, “And now, victory is within my-!!”

WHAM!!

Without warning, the meteors that missed Spellslamzer earlier happened to whip back around thanks to the might of the surging storm around them and blindsided the spell punk. The force of the collision was enough to not only hurt the spell punk, but also sent it hurtling into the surging storm below. Everything happened so fast that even Calvin himself was caught off guard by the sudden turn of events, “W-well, that wasn’t what I was expecting, but I’ll take it.”

Shortly afterwards, everything began to rapidly change, and before he knew it, the Skyshifter found himself back in the arena of the MaguDome again. Though... his opponent was absent, and Magus himself did not seem to be amused by the unexpected outcome, “Well, that was… something. Not entirely what I thought was going to happen, but HEY! This rookie is making a name for himself folks!! Give a round of applause for the newcomer Kai Chi, for he is our second finalist and will be taking part in Battalia’s grand finale!!”

“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” the Skyshifter thought to himself as he slowly got up and proceeded to leave. He still hadn’t had the chance to eat anything because of how unexpectedly quick he was called up for his match, so the first thing that was on his mind was getting some food, followed by a long rest. Yet, as he came out through the tunnel to the inner lobby of the MaguDome, Calvin realized that someone had been waiting for him.

“So, you’re the rookie that’s been getting everyone’s attention lately.”

When he turned around, the Skyshifter found himself staring at none other than the drow elf that was going to be his opponent in the grand finals, Blade Gunner. He had been leaning against the wall that was closest to the entrance of the arena as the drow walked over to him. Though at that moment, Calvin wondered why would Blade Gunner go out of his way just to meet with him. If anything, he did not really appear to be the type of person that would want to sit around and talk.

“Um… hi?”

Blade Gunner just let out a deep groan as he looked back at him, “Look, if you think that I’m one of those cowardly scumbags who would try to blackmail you into forfeiting, I’m not like that. I just wanted to talk, if you don’t have any other matters to attend to.”

Before Calvin had the chance to answer, he heard a low grumble come from his stomach and let out a small breath, “W-well, I hadn’t had the chance to eat, and I was going to-”

“I happen to know a place where you can get something to eat and avoid the crowds,” the drow insisted, before looking towards the overabundance of attendees at the food booths outside, “If you would like, I can take you there.”

While Calvin was thinking about just having a simple meal and then going back, Blade Gunner’s offer did provide an opportunity. He would still get some food to eat, that was certain, but this also provided a bit of an opportunity to possibly learn more about Blade Gunner and potentially ask him a few questions that were on his mind after watching his battle against the chompy mage earlier in the day. It was the equivalent of taking down two chompies with one attack.

With that in mind, the Skyshifter looked back towards the fellow drow elf and nodded, “Alright then, lead the way.”

Author's Note

Calvin was able to make his way to the finals, but unlike his previous opponents, he doesn't really know anything outside of what he had seen them do in battle. But perhaps a chance encounter with him could help him learn more about his would-be opponent as he gets closer to rescuing his friends.

First thing I want to say is that I am sorry for making everyone wait nearly a year to pick up where we left off last time. With how crazy 2020 was and also how a lot of change has been happening for me in that time, it took much longer than expected to get this done. Though, now that I managed to complete this, I can be able to focus on bringing this arc to a close.

Hopefully, the process of writing it will not take as long.

Hope you guys enjoy it and let me know what you think. See you around and stay safe.

Until next time
-Frost

P.S. I slipped in a little easter egg when writing with Twilight. Try to take a guess at what I put in and where it's from :pinkiehappy:

Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 4.1)

When he had first accepted Blade Gunner’s offer for a meal, Calvin didn’t really expect much. If anything, the Skyshifter expected that the elf would just lead him to some other food place inside the arena, some place that was probably less crowded than the venues at the front of the MaguDome, with not that many people to really pay attention. Though, as they walked down the hall and took the stairs to the second floor of the arena, they ended up going to a place that Calvin did not expect at all.

Much to his surprise, in one section on the second floor of the MaguDome was a lounge that overlooked the arena. It was called the ‘Conqueror's Canteen’, and from what he could tell, it was a restaurant that served quality meals to a limited number of special guests from a select list. Some of these guests included VIP’s that were personally invited by Magus to watch Battalia, fighters that were or had taken part in various tournaments that the MaguDome had hosted previously along with any additional guests that accompanied them. In fact, the only reason why the Skyshifter wasn’t turned away was because Blade Gunner told the greeble at the door that he was his personal guest.

After both of them had entered the canteen, Calvin was quick to notice that this lounge functioned more like a buffet than a restaurant. Cooks would be preparing food such as burgers, salads, pasta bowls and even in a personal kitchen while the guests would pick what they want to have before sitting down at a table to eat. Some of the tables even had attendants and allowed for those who were sitting nearby to play different variations of Skystones. Though, the table that both of them chose to sit at didn’t really have or need such accommodations.

As they sat down, the Skyshifter thanked the elf for his hospitality, before he took some time to eat a piece of the cheese pizza he had in front of him to fill his empty stomach. Yet, after a minute or two, he looked back at Blade Gunner and began to speak. “So, you said that there was something you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Indeed, I do,” the elf replied, “Your performance in the tournament so far has caught the attention of quite a lot of people, including me. Yet, you seem different compared to everyone else.”

That had a couple of red flags pop up in Calvin’s head. If there was a possibility that Blade Gunner somehow knew that he was not who he said he was, then his cover would be blown, and he would lose his chance to rescue his friends. “How exactly am I different?”

“Well, aside from how you fight, there is one other thing,” Blade told him, “That being what it is that you fight for exactly. Many come here and take part in tournaments here all the time for some of the most obvious reasons. Money, fame, personal glory, and the most important motivator of them all for many: Recognition. The feeling of no longer being seen as a nobody and actually being somebody.”

As he spoke, Calvin felt as if the hairs on the back of his neck were beginning to stand up. “Though, what I am curious about is what exactly are you fighting for? For someone so young and yet so skilled, the last place you would expect to find them is in a place like this.”

At that, the Skyshifter knew he had to say something. However, it was difficult for him to come up with the right words at first, especially since he didn’t want to say anything that would give away too much detail. Still, he had to try nonetheless.

“I’m doing this for a friend.”

“Oh,” the elf asked, a bit surprised by the simple sentence. Though, he decided to press a little further, “A friend, you say?”

Calvin simply nodded, before he continued, “Yeah, she’s always been there to help me when I needed it most. Someone to help guide me during a time when I felt lost and confused. Though, recently, she had gotten into some trouble and found herself in a mess that seemed impossible for her to get out of. So, I felt that since she had done so much for me when I needed it the most, I should do the same for her.”

At first, the Skyshifter felt that what he said was enough to try and get Blade Gunner to not suspect him of anything. Yet, the elf still had a couple of follow up questions for him. “What kind of mess, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Calvin really didn’t want to say anything else, but given his current situation, it looked like he didn’t really have a choice on the matter. So, he tried to answer Blade’s question the best he could to try and make his story convincing, “She ended up doing something stupid and caused a big mess in the process. However, the amount of money she has is not enough to fix the damages. I just thought that if I won the tournament, I could let her have the prize and help get her life back on track.”

For a moment, Blade was silent as his eyes were closed. The Skyshifter thought that the elf had fallen asleep on him. Yet, that notion was dismissed when he saw the elf’s eyes open and he began to speak, “To fight not for yourself, but for others who can’t help themselves. A noble goal, but not exactly an easy one to achieve.”

“That hasn’t stopped me so far,” Calvin pointed out, “If anything, it’s how I have been able to get to this point.”

“Fair enough,” the elf said, before adjusting his shoulder, “Though, the right thing to do in the eyes of one might either be seen as not doing enough or going too far. Not everyone might see your intentions the same way that you do.”

Even if that was possibly true, it was not going to stop the Skyshifter from following through with his goals. After all, there were people that were counting on him to be rescued. Though, instead of trying to defend himself, Calvin decided to ask Blade Gunner a question this time. “What do you fight for, then? One of the reasons that you mentioned earlier, or something different?”

For a moment, it felt like everything around them had stopped. The music in the canteen was not playing, the sounds from the kitchen came off as if they were suppressed and the noise from the other guests talking to each other were reduced to the point it sounded like everyone was talking in whispers. Not only that, but when Calvin looked at Blade Gunner, he noticed that the expression on his face had changed. He even would go as far as to think that he might’ve said something wrong.

That was, until Blade actually gave him an answer. “To not be forgotten again.”

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” the Skyshifter wondered. The answer felt weird and confusing to him, since not that long ago, he mentioned that one of the reasons why people would take part in tournaments like these was for recognition. Wasn’t that technically the same thing?

Though, before he could say anything, the elf that sat across from him continued to speak, “I’ve been around for a very long time. Back when I was your age, I was recognized for my deeds as a warrior and seen as a hero among my people. Now though, almost everything that I once knew was gone and my deeds from before are no longer remembered. Now, the people don’t see me as a hero anymore, but instead see me as a monster because of circumstances that were out of my control.”

When the elf shifted his shoulders, Calvin thought he heard something, a sound that was similar to the ones he would hear from certain Tech skylanders when they moved their arms or legs. Though, before he could think more on it, the elf that was across from him continued to speak. “Because of this, I couldn’t go back to the life I once lived, so instead, I had to choose a different path. Now, I fight because when I am gone, I do not want to have myself be forgotten, like all the deeds I had done before. I want to be remembered for something, something that I was able to accomplish, because I had to start over.”

While that answer seemed valid at first, there also seemed to be something that made Calvin think that there was more to the elf’s answer than he was letting on. Besides, if he was so intent on wanting to accomplish something like that by himself, then why did Calvin hear him say someone else’s name when he was fighting earlier? Was this ‘Arthur’ some kind of ghost, or something only he could see?

There was only one way to know for sure. “Really? That sounds like a rather difficult goal to try and accomplish just by yourself. Wouldn’t it be easier to-”

Immediately, the elf’s eyes narrowed. “Do you doubt my capabilities?”

“No, no, that’s n-not what I mean,” Calvin insisted, “I-I’m just saying that sometimes, a goal is easier if you have companions to help you.”

Yet, despite what he was saying, Blade was having none of it, “Only those who lack the experience of battle find strength in numbers. But even with allies, the strongest of shields cannot defend the weakest of wills. Take my last opponent for example. That elderly mage thought that by hiding behind an army of minions, he would obtain victory. Yet, his overconfidence led to his own undoing.”

“That’s your opponent though,” the Skyshifter pointed out, “How does that relate to you?”

“I don’t need help from those who only think that they know who I am,” the elf snarled, “I want to be remembered for something I do, not something that somebody else tells me to do. I don’t want to be bound by the shackles of somebody else and let them define the kind of person I want to be remembered as.”

Before Calvin could even say anything to the elf, Blade Gunner rose from his seat and began to make his way to the exit, but not without saying one more thing, “Rest while you can. For tomorrow, we face each other as enemies… and I won’t let you stand in my way.”

By the time Calvin had finally returned to his room, it was much later than when he thought he was going to come back. Smoky was already back by the time he returned, and he was sore to the point that when he finally changed back, he felt the need to just collapse on the bed in his room. “By Eon, that took forever.”

“Welcome back,” Skippy spoke up, before hopping on the bed to join him, “We’ve been wondering why you’ve been gone so long.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I meant to come back sooner though, after my match. I was kind of forced to make a detour,” the Skyshifter admitted as he looked at the lava puppy before looking back around the room and clicking the wristband that was on his wrist to turn on his communicator. He wanted to make sure that before he discussed anything else that his allies outside of the MaguDome were listening, “Snap Shot, are you there?”

“I’ve been here,” the crocogator replied, “You better have a good reason for reporting back late. I was expecting you to contact me after your match.”

“That was the plan, yes,” Calvin admitted, “Though, I barely had a lot of time from when the first match ended to when I was up for my match. Heck, the only thing I was able to do was leave a message for Smoky. Then, after the match was over, somebody wanted to talk with me and offered me lunch since I had to fight my match on an empty stomach.”

That left the trap master he was talking to with a couple of questions. Though, the first one that came to mind was a bit more immediate. “Somebody wanted to talk to you? Was it Magus?”

“No, actually, it was someone else,” he replied, “It was my opponent in the finals tomorrow, that elf named Blade Gunner.”

There was a brief pause on the other end. For a moment, Calvin thought that he had somehow lost contact with the crocogator. Though, his concerns faded when he heard Snap Shot speak again, “Your opponent? What did you talk about with him?”

From there, Calvin went on to explain everything he could recall, from his encounter with the elf after his match to the conversation that followed afterwards. He tried his best to recall everything, including when he heard Blade Gunner say in the arena and also the noises he heard in the Conqueror's Canteen. After all, the more pieces of information that Snap Shot had, the more likely that he could come up with some kind of answer. Though, unfortunately, that wasn’t enough.

“Hmm, I see. Unfortunately, outside of what you just described, I’m afraid there’s little that I can do to help you right now.”

“Really? Why’s that?” Calvin asked, a bit puzzled by what the crocogator told him.

“Well, outside of this, today’s been rather hectic. We got a transmission earlier from Jet Vac at the academy. From the sounds of it, one of the puppies the students have been taking care of almost let the cat out of the bag as to what we're doing and some of the staff members have been trying desperately to calm down whoever it was that they told,” Sharpfin now replied, “Oddly enough, they seem to know you specifically.”

“Uh oh,” Calvin now had a very bad feeling as to who it was that Sharpfin happened to be talking about. If his suspicions were true, then there was no way that the academy staff could be able to convince her to calm down unless he had to somehow intervene. “Sharpfin, could you describe who it is that you’re talking about? The one that can’t calm down, I mean.”

“Well, they looked almost like that one unicorn back at the academy, Trail Blazer or whatever his name was. Only difference was that they looked more like grape taffy, had a pair of wings on their sides and seemed to know their way around the academy quite well.”

“Did she say who she was?” Smoky now asked.

“Not really. I think someone called her Twilight or something, but I couldn’t really pick up on anything else. We were getting some interference on the ship’s radio at the time.”

Around that point, the Skyshifter definitely knew for a fact that he couldn’t keep this up if Twilight knew something was up. Not only that, but he had a feeling that if he didn’t talk to her sooner that she would end up doing something drastic that might jeopardize any chance at a rescue attempt for Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow.

“Snap Shot, I think I might know who Sharpfin is talking about,” he replied, “Is there any way that I could try to talk to her or send a message-?”

“Absolutely not,” the crocogator sternly told him, “Considering your position right now and how you’re deep undercover, there would be too much risk.”

“Hold on, Snap,” the land shark spoke up, something that caught Calvin off guard because he thought that Sharpfin would be in agreement with him, “While talking to her might be out of the question, I think the kid might be onto something about sending her a message. Besides, it might be a greater risk if we don’t do anything at all.”

There was a bit of silence on the other end, before the Trap Master replied back to him, “How so?”

“Well, last we heard, it seemed like there was little that Hugo and the others could do to calm them. Perhaps if we have Calvin relay to them a message, it would help ease tensions and not have her do anything that might be reckless,” Sharpfin suggested, “I mean, if we don’t do anything, there’s the likely possibility that this… pony might do something reckless and cause a much bigger mess. It doesn’t have to be too complex, just enough to assure her that he’s alright.”

Once again, there was silence as Calvin looked back towards Smoky. Uncertainty was beginning to slowly set in, for they weren’t sure if what Sharpfin said was enough to convince Snap Shot to actually go along with what he suggested. If anything, the Trap Master seemed rather strict and serious when it came to missions and anything that could potentially cause things to go sideways. He was the one that was in charge of everything, so if something were to go wrong, it would be his responsibility.

After what felt like ten minutes or so, Snap Shot let out a sigh, “Fine, I’ll allow it… but only once. Before we do so though, there’s one other thing I wanted to ask about first.”

“What’s that?” Smoky asked.

“Calvin, you said that you left Smoky a message before your fight. What was that about?”

That had the Skyshifter let out a small breath, before he began to speak. “Well, I wanted to have Smoky look into something that I noticed in the fight before mine. Magus offended the Chompy Mage, only to end up having chompies swarm his commentary booth and damage his equipment, something that he, from the sounds of it, did not expect at all. So, I was wanting to see if it was possible for Smoky to get inside there.”

“Okay, I think we’re with you so far, kid,” Sharpfin spoke up, “Though, my only question is... why?”

“Well, technically, that booth would basically have everything he needs in order to run this show of his, right?” Calvin asked, which led to the two that were listening on the other end to let out murmurs of approval, “So, I thought that if we were able to break a few things in there and have them malfunction, it would make our rescue attempt easier. Like… what do we already know about the cage they’re in?”

“That it prevents them from using their powers and slowly drains their strength,” at that point, it sounded like the land shark was catching on to what the Skyshifter was thinking about, “Wait a minute… are you suggesting that-?”

“Think about it. If Magus runs everything inside this place from his booth, then there has to be some kind of controls to their cage inside there,” he continued, before looking at the lava pup next to him, “If Smoky can find something like that and disable it along with the security system, it could make getting the two of them out of there a lot easier, especially since nothing would be messing with their powers and they specialize in not being seen, meaning they could just as easily sneak out without anyone noticing that anything’s wrong.”

“Huh. That would actually play out rather nicely,” Snap Shot spoke aloud as he began to think over what Calvin was suggesting, “It would even make extracting them out of there a lot easier than we originally thought. Only question is, does Smoky think that he can accomplish such a task-?”

Smoky didn’t even let Snap Shot finish speaking before he decided to speak up, “Yup!”

“Well, that was quick. Thought you would want to think it over first,” the Trap Master told him. Yet, before Smoky could dart for the door, Snap Shot said one more thing, “Before you take off anywhere though, there’s one thing I’m going to have you do first.”

“What’s that?” the pup asked, tilting his head in confusion.

“I’m going to need you to go to the cage where Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow are being kept first. This can only work if they are somewhat aware of what we’re trying to do,” Snap Shot instructed, “We’ll also need to find a way to stay in contact, just on the off chance that something goes wrong.”

“Why don’t I just give Smoky the communicator you guys gave me?” Calvin suggested, “If I put it around Smoky, it would look as if it’s just a dog collar and wouldn’t raise any suspicion, right?”

“Yeah, but that would mean we would lose contact with you, kid,” Sharpfin retorted, “Are you really sure that you want to do that?”

“Well, unlike Stealth and Trap, you would know exactly where I’m going to be tomorrow. So, since Magus is one for putting on a show, why don’t we do the same to catch him off guard? Throw in something that he can’t expect or prepare for that we can use to shut this whole place down.”

One last time, the sound of murmurs could be heard from both the land shark and the crocogator as Calvin and Smoky waited, all before a drawn out sigh could be heard from Snap Shot. “You seem to have your mind made up at this point. So, how do you want to do this?”

“Remember when I asked if I could give Twilight a message? Well, I might have an idea as to what I want to say.”

Elsewhere

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m going to need you to calm down-”

“I am calm,” the purple alicorn named Twilight Sparkle said as she stood firmly in front of the door to Master Eon’s chambers. Her gaze was fixed on the bipedal eagle-like creature that was standing guard outside and preventing her from entering, “I just wanted to talk with Eon about Calvin. Why are you being so secretive on just a simple request?”

“Like I said already-” Before they could finish, the door creaked open behind him as he heard a whisper in his ear. Yet, what he was told had him face away from the pony in front of him and towards who was behind the door, “What? You actually want to-? Did Master Eon approve of this?”

“Approve of what?”

The question from the alicorn immediately had Jet Vac turn back around to face Twilight, “It appears that Master Eon has granted you permission to enter on the condition that nothing that is being discussed leaves this room,” the Sky Baron told her, before he proceeded to open the door.

“Why now though?” Twilight asked. After all, she had spent most of her time waiting outside to no avail. Why was it that she was only being let in now?

“I don’t know, but from what it sounds like, it seems to be something urgent-” Jet Vac replied as he stepped aside to let her pass. Twilight didn’t even listen to the rest of what the Sky Baron was about to tell her as she went straight inside. Immediately after going in, she recognized a few familiar faces from the other times that she had been at Skylander Academy around a round circular table with a couple of people that the alicorn hadn’t seen before. Apart from Eon and Buzz, the school’s head of security, there was King Pen and what appeared to be another Skylander that looked like a living tree. Shortly after arriving, the figure that stood guard at the door joined the others.

“My apologies, Master Eon. Once I opened the door, there wasn’t anything I could do to-”

“It is fine, Jet Vac,” the Portal Master assured him, before looking over towards where Twilight was standing, “Let me begin by first expressing my dearest apologies. You might think that we were trying to hide something from you, but given the nature of our current predicament, we have to be the utmost careful.”

“Master Eon, I just want to know what’s going on,” the alicorn said, “I was under the assumption that he was supposed to be at some training grounds, only to learn from Skippy that she saw his teacher just this morning,” she paused, before glancing around the room and looking at each of the figures that were around her, “Just what exactly is going on?”

Each of the figures looked around the room for a moment, and spoke among themselves. Though, all of them went silent when Buzz began to speak. “What’s going on here is a rescue operation, one that our mutual friend was hoping that you would help with.”

“Wait, rescue?” Twilight asked, her mind immediately racing to the worst possible scenario, “Are you saying Calvin’s in trouble-!?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Buzz reassured her, “If anything, it’s quite the opposite. Calvin volunteered to help rescue some Skylanders that are held captive behind enemy lines. We’re in the final stages of our plan to rescue them, but given circumstances that are out of their control, he’s asking for your help in making sure they get out safely.”

From there, the mabu continued on and gave the alicorn an explanation as to what exactly was going on. However, considering their situation, there were a lot of details that they had to go over and very little time for Twilight to ask any questions or even write anything down. It felt as if a teacher at Celestia’s School for gifted unicorns had to cram a two hour lesson into the span of less than five minutes.

The only real time that the alicorn actually got to say anything was when Buzz asked her a question, “So, with that simple explanation out of the way, are you ready?”

Twilight let out a deep breath. She wasn’t exactly thrilled with what was going on and how Calvin didn’t tell her the truth, but there was a time to discuss that later. Right now, time was of the essence, and the sooner they got to work, the better. “I am.”

Meanwhile

“So, that’s what everyone is planning to do?” Stealth Elf asked, doing her best to maintain her posture as she stood by the door to the cage. While the amount of food that Smoky had brought to her and Trap Shadow had helped improve their physical state, it was still difficult for them to do anything with them being stuck inside the chamber they were in. Though, as the lava dog stood outside their cell and they heard what Sharpfin and the others were planning, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of hope flow through her, “You’re going to try and find a way to get us out of this place?”

“Y-yeah,” Smoky replied, “If I mess with the controls for the cage and the security systems, you two can just get out without anyone noticing.”

While that was the case, there was one thing that could potentially be a problem. “That may sound good… but we can’t leave right away.”

“What? Why?” the lava puppy asked, the collar around his neck humming a little bit.

“When we were locked up in here, Magus took away all the weapons and tools we use,” the elf replied back, “If we’re going to escape this place, then we need to get our stuff back, just in case something does go sideways and we need to defend ourselves.”

“She does have a point,” Sharpfin replied as his voice came from the collar around Smoky’s neck, “If I had to take a guess, then maybe they’re keeping all those things locked up in an armory?”

“And if that booth controls everything in the MaguDome, then perhaps there’s a directory as well as the controls to the armory as well,” Snap Shot was heard soon afterwards, “Okay, Smoky, stick to the plan. We’re just going to add on a little detour. Once you get them out of their cell, help them grab their things and head to the extraction point, like we talked about.”

With that, the voices from the collar faded and Smoky immediately began to make his way to his intended destination. When the lava dog was snooping around earlier, he found a perfect spot in order for him to sneak into the booth. There was a hole as big as he was in the far back corner of the room that was hidden from sight by a trash can that was in front of it. Despite the alluring scents from the trash can though, Smoky did his best to focus. He wasn’t here to sniff out anything that could be a snack, after all.

At one point though, Smoky thought that he heard something. The room appeared to be empty, but the sound of voices could still be heard. Luckily for him though, the voices were coming from outside of the booth on the opposite side of the only door in the room, and they seemed to be more focused on other things that were happening.

“Where is Itt?”

“It? Did you lose something?”

“No, no. Itt,” the first voice repeated, “You know? The one who gave you the tour earlier?”

“He gave Yu a tour? Why? He already knows where everything is.”

The guard grumbles, “No, I mean the tour that you got from him earlier.”

“I didn’t get the tour from Hym. I got the tour from the new guy.”

“No, Sheeriuslee, that new guy’s name is Itt.”

“Oh… well, why didn’t you say so, Sirius?”

“That’s what I was-, Urgh! Why did I agree to do this extra shift?”

“What do you mean? Ai has the night off tonight.”

“Agh! I was talking about myself, not her!”

“Why are you mentioning Herr? I was talking about Ai.”

“Ahhh!!! Just shut up! No more talking.”

“Bu-”

“No. More. Talking.”

Smoky paused and thought to himself, “Whoever hired these guys has quite the sense of humor.”

However, considering his present situation, the lava dog redirected his attention back to the task at hand and began to search the interior of the booth. The first thing he could make out was five tables, alongside a wide assortment of chairs. The first one was built into the wall by the window, looking out to the arena itself, while the other four were rectangular shaped and spread out an even distance from one another. Each one of them looked to have some kind of equipment set up on top, though considering that the desk in front had more equipment stationed there, Smoky had a guess that it probably had what he was looking for.

As he got closer to the desk at the front, the lava puppy focused his smoke powers to the bottom of his paws to form a small cloud, before carefully pushing him upwards and onto the desk itself. Given how crowded the surface of the table was, Smoky had to be very careful not to knock anything over or break anything. If he did, there was a high possibility that the guards outside would be alerted and immediately storm in, making any chance of rescuing Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow even harder.

Though, as he was walking along the edge of the table, Smoky misplaced his right foreleg and slipped a bit. However, as his leg went down, he felt it touch something and heard a small click. Curious, the lava dog looked down at his leg to see that there was an additional compartment attached under the desk, with the section that his leg made contact with being one of four circular dials, each one with a different number. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?” the lava puppy heard Snap Shot’s voice from the makeshift collar around his neck, “Is there a problem?”

“N-no, it’s just… I found this weird thing that I haven’t seen before,” the pup explained, “It looks like some kind of… shelf that’s stuck to the table, but it has these wheels that are covered in numbers.”

“A hidden compartment with a combination lock?” Sharpfin was next to speak, “Magus must’ve put something of importance if it’s under lock and key. Try and see if you can find a way to open it. They’re usually opened up with a four number code.”

“Like one-two-three-four?”

“Pfft, only a greeble would put that as a code,” the land shark replied, before realizing something shortly after his comment, “Then again, most of Magus’ workforce consists of greebles, so… maybe?”

To Smoky, that was at least better than just randomly selecting numbers to see what would work. With a twist of his paw, the puppy conjured some more smoke and had it slip past the wheels and into the mechanism itself, the wheels only moving when the toes of his paw moved, as this allowed him easier control of the whole device. After shifting a few numbers around and straightening everything up, he tried to pull it out to see if it worked.

No response.

“Shoot,” Smoky grit his teeth, “Guess I have to keep trying.”

For the next couple of minutes, he then began to randomly test different numbers to see if one potential combination could unlock the compartment. Unfortunately, many of his attempts to get the right combination were not entirely successful. Smoky had even tried to look for anything on the desk he was on that could be a clue, from a list of seating sections in the arena to what looked to have been numbers on a receipt. Yet, those did not seem to work either, and his failed attempts were beginning to irritate him.

Then, a different thought emerged in his mind when he remembered what Sharpfin said. “Wait. Surely. it can’t be that easy now, can it?”

With that thought in his mind, Smoky proceeded to test one final combination.

1111.

The moment the fourth number was put into place, the front of the compartment springed out forward and loosened itself from its constraints, which allowed for Smoky to fully pull out and see its hidden contents. There looked to have been an array of various buttons and switches, with each button representing different functions. Yet, when the lava puppy was looking at them, it was hard for him to try and make sense of everything that he was seeing. However, there was one particular control with a glass cover over it and a laminated notecard that seemed to be rather important.

‘DANGER RELEASE PROTOCOLS! DO NOT TOUCH UNLESS AUTHORIZED TO DO SO IN EXTREME CASES OF EMERGENCY!! ANY UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL WHO DOES SO WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY FOR ANY SECURITY VIOLATIONS THAT WOULD ENSUE FROM AN INTENTIONAL BREACH!!’

“Well, this looks important,” Smoky thought. Though, he didn’t press it just yet. There was still something else that he needed to find beforehand, “Hey, I got it open and found a bunch of stuff here, including the thing for the cage… though, I’m still looking for the other part.”

“With the security?” the land shark on the other end asked, “Hmm. Optimally, you would be looking for anything that could either shut it all off or maybe get it to malfunction. What do you see?”

“Well, a few things,” he replied, before reading off each of the labels, “There’s special effects, strobe lights, helmet shuffle… There is one called restart, but there’s some tape over it and a note.”

“What does it say?”

“Just something about not touching it… hang on,” Smoky said, before inquiring further, “Oh! Listen… ‘Pressing the Restart button will commence required maintenance and shut down all active security modules-’.”

“That’s the one we need. Hit it and let’s go. We don’t have all night.”

With that, Smoky was quick to rip the tape off and press both the restart button and the danger release switch, before closing the drawer and scurrying out of there. It was more than likely that once the security system had shut down, someone was going to investigate, so he had to get as far away from the booth and join back up with Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow as quickly as possible.

It did not take Stealth Elf long to realize that the little fire dog named Smoky actually followed through on what he set out to accomplish. For as long as she and Trap Shadow could remember, the effects of the cage they were trapped in squeezed the two Skylanders of any strength they had and prevented them from recovering any strength they used when they were forced to fight. Now though, that sensation was gone, and the two of them felt reinvigorated and determined to finally rid themselves of this place. So, this was an opportunity they had to act on immediately.

Of course, despite their strength returning to the two of them, the effects of their stay in the cage made it difficult for them to channel their powers properly. So, for the time being, they had to rely on their reflexes and wits to keep themselves hidden. Fortunately, they weren’t entirely alone, for as soon as they left the cage behind, they could hear the sound of paws running along the floor as Smoky soon joined up with them.

“Thanks for getting us out of there,” the elf let out a sigh of relief, “Not sure how much longer we would’ve lasted if we were still stuck in there.”

“No problem,” the puppy replied, “So, what’s the plan? We grab your stuff and get out?”

“Mostly,” Trap Shadow now spoke up, “However, even though we should reclaim our gear, one of us should make sure that there aren’t any surprises on our way out.”

That had Smoky look back at the Trap with a bit of confusion on his face. Though, Stealth Elf was able to pick up on what he was implying, “Are you serious? You’re suggesting for us to split up now, of all times?”

“It’ll make it easier for us to cover more ground and make sure that we don’t get any unexpected surprises when we get out of here,” the Swap Force Skylander told them, “The last thing either of us would want is for some guard to put the place on high alert if they spot one of us.”

That had Stealth Elf fold her arms for a moment, for Trap Shadow did bring up a valid point. Even though they were out of the cell, they were not out of the arena just yet… so someone had to ensure that their escape went unnoticed. “What, are you volunteering?”

“Actually, yes,” he replied, before some of his magic began to form around his paws. “I don’t entirely need weapons to be an effective fighter, so leave this to me.” As he finished speaking, the magic fully enveloped the feline as the feline disappeared from sight, leaving the elf and the lava dog by themselves.

“W-where did he go?” Smoky asked, shocked by Trap’s sudden disappearance.

“Don’t worry about him. He just has some rather useful tricks when it comes to staying out of sight,” the elf assured the puppy, before looking farther down the hallway, “Now then, I say it’s time we get my tools back before we leave this place for good. Did you find anything on where the armory might be?”

Unfortunately for Smoky, out of all the things he did manage to do, there was one thing that he forgot. “Oh… uh… I k-kinda forgot. I can just go back and-!”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Stealth Elf insisted, before pulling out what looked to have been some faded bandages from her pocket, “In fact, I might have a back up plan. Though, I must ask, how good are you at tracking scents?”

“Oh, really good!” he nodded, before tilting his head in confusion, “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I have something that could help us narrow down our search, but it depends on whether or not you can smell anything from this,” she said, before motioning to the bandage she was holding. Smoky looked at what she was holding, before moving his head closer and sniffing the bandage from end to end, “Well, did you pick up anything?”

“It’s… faint, but I think I can follow this,” he said, before looking back at her, “What even is it though?”

“I had these wrapped around my daggers for a time to help with the grip, but replaced it before I got captured,” the elf explained, “Since they were originally part of my weapons, I thought that there might’ve been some kind of scent for you to follow.” Even though the plan sounded like a bit of a longshot, it was honestly the only one that she could think of and the most likely one to possibly succeed.

“I-I can give it a try,” he said, looking around and sniffing the air to see if he could pick up on the scent. It took a little bit at first, but Smoky was quick to pick up on the trail and immediately follow after it. At first, Stealth Elf was caught off guard by how quickly the lava dog was on his paws. Yet, she was quick to pick up after Smoky and did her best to follow him, while also staying out of sight of anyone that happened to pass by.

After a minute or so, the lava dog stopped in front of a giant door as Stealth Elf approached it. “It’s through here.”

While that did seem like a sigh of relief, the Life Skylander felt that this seemed a bit too easy. Usually, there would be some more obstacles that prevented her from trying to accomplish a task. Though when she tried to use the door handle, that was when things didn't go well. “Drat, the door’s locked. We’ll need a key of some kind to get inside. Any ideas where we can find one, Smoky?”

Originally, the lava puppy had no idea where to start looking. Though, that was when he began to hear sounds from a floor vent that was on the opposite side of the hallway they were in. At first, he couldn’t make out anything. As he got closer, he could hear the faint sounds of voices and laughter. “I… might have one idea. Could you wait for a moment?”

A small nod from the elf was all Smoky needed to see before he channeled his powers to undo the screws on the floor vent and hopped inside. As the lava puppy crawled through the vent, the voices were slowly beginning to become a bit clearer. He could make out words and the sounds of several different creatures talking to one another. Though, he could only really see what was going on once he reached the other side.

At the end of the vent was a break room that had various greebles inside. There were tables that had kinds of foods and drinks lined up against the wall. As for its occupants, they were all gathered around a round table, talking among themselves. Though, some of the greebles weren’t really enjoying the topic of conversation that they were discussing.

“Haha, are you guys serious? You didn’t really think that new guy would actually win?”

“He was fighting against Spellslamzer, the same spell punk who was undefeated at Battlebrawl Island before those Skylanders ruined everything.”

“Yeah, what Mi said. If I knew that the fight was going to turn out the way it did, I would’ve saved my coins.”

“Wait, Ai knew it was going to turn out like that? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Both Yu and I didn’t know, actually. We were betting on the first fight and then saving our coins for the finals. Unlike everyone else, we actually made some money.”

Some more bickering went back and forth between the voices as Smoky watched. Though as he looked around the room, one thing soon caught his attention. On the edge of the table, there was something that looked to be a key. If he had to take a guess, that might’ve been the key they needed in order to get into the armory. However, there was no way that he could go in and take it now without alerting the rest of the greebles in the room.

If this plan were to work, he needed a distraction. Fortunately, there was someone that could help him with that as he returned back to the front of the vent. “Hey, um, I might’ve found the key… but there’s too many bad guys in there that might see me if I go get it. Could you… well-”

“Distract them?” The elf’s question was followed by a small nod from the puppy as she looked down the corridor to where the supposed door of the break room might be. Even though Smoky couldn’t see it, a small grin formed under her mask, “I think there might be something I can do. Give me a second, and I’ll get a distraction ready for you. Just make sure you’re in position.”

Smoky nodded, before quickly returning back to the other end of the vent. The lava dog was eager to get out and grab the key the moment that the opportunity presented itself. Though, there was one slight issue that came up in his head. He wasn’t sure what exactly Stealth Elf’s distraction was supposed to be or when she was going to pull it off. So, it was now a matter of waiting, and that made him nervous.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait too long for something to happen that got the attention of everyone in the room. Though when Smoky looked at the doorway, he was shocked at the sight of Stealth Elf just slowly making her way past the open entryway into the room, not even remotely being quiet as her footsteps were heard by several of the guards. “Hey, guys. Is it just me, or was that the boss's prisoner just now?”

“I saw it, too!” Another one spoke.

“Well, come on! If we let her escape, then the boss will definitely not be happy!!”

Immediately, all the guards got up from the table and went out the door in pursuit, leaving the room completely empty. In their mad dash, they also left behind the key that was still on the table, which provided Smoky the perfect opportunity to come out from inside the vent and take it. Once he conjured his smoke and grasped the key with it firmly, the lava pup quickly retreated back inside and closed the way he came out. At first, he thought that he had to hurry, on the off chance that Stealth Elf was in trouble.

Though, as Smoky heard the greebles come back, what they were talking about kind of caught him by surprise. “Really, Mi? How do you mistake a scarecrow for an actual person?”

“I swear, I saw that prisoner! Besides, why the heck would there be a scarecrow in the middle of the hallway? Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“I think that Mi is just so scared to lose in Skystones again that they made that story up so they can look at our stones and cheat.”

“Why would I do that-?” the first voice then paused for a moment or so, before asking a completely different question, “Hey, who was the one in charge of watching the armory tonight?”

“That would be me,” another voice replied back, “Why do you ask?”

“Well, we’re all here, but the key is missing.”

“Come on, Mi, this isn’t the time for-” At that point, Smoky was beginning to go farther down the vent and back to the other end where he came in. However, the voices from the room did not die down. Instead, it got much louder. “Okay, who did it!?”

“Did what, Thae?”

“Who took the key?! I had it on the table when we left-”

“Uh, I was with you the whole time-”

“Can it, Wi! I wasn’t talking about you,” Thae snapped, “When all of us left the room, it was here. When we all came back, it’s gone! Now, who took it?”

“Wait, Itt’s been taken?”

“No, the key! Not the new guy. He’s right next to you, Hym.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know!? We all look the same! Context matters!!”

Even though it might’ve sounded rather amusing to listen in on the ongoing argument, Smoky knew that he couldn’t. Stealth Elf was counting on him, and he was hoping that the elf was okay. Yet, as he got out of the vent and brought the key with him, the fire dog was startled by the sight of the Life Skylander leaning against the nearby wall. “There you are. I was wondering when you would come out.”

“W-what-?” Smoky stuttered, “B-but… I-I saw you running-”

Upon hearing that, the elf let out a small sigh. “Oh, right, about that… I can send out decoys to trick people. So, while it was being chased, I just waited here for when you would come back.”

“W-why didn’t you say anything-?”

“Well, I would have, but you jumped back in there before I could tell you,” she replied, before using her hand to gently grab the key from Smoky. Once she had it in her possession, the elf used the key to release the lock on the door to the armory and open it for them, “We can talk more about this later. Right now though, let's go grab my stuff and head back outside. Trap Shadow wouldn’t like it if we kept him waiting.”

The lava dog could only nod as he and Stealth Elf stepped through the door, his nose twitching as he picked up on the scent again. The Armory itself wasn’t as big compared to where he was just a few moments ago. Racks of weapons were lined up in the middle of the room, as well as along the walls, and were sorted by the various different types. Whether it was swords, shields, bows, spears, axes, hammers or anything in between, the armory had every kind of weapon type inside.

Though, unlike what the two of them had thought when they first entered the room, Stealth Elf’s gear wasn’t just placed alongside every other weapon in the room. In fact, it was placed inside the drawer of a storage compartment that was separate from the rest. Whether it be that the guards were planning to go through it another time or had just left it there and forgot about it was unknown. Yet, it didn’t really matter at this point, as Stealth Elf began to go through it all.

“Is that everything?” Smoky asked, hoping that no one noticed them as he looked back towards the door they came in through.

“Yes, it is,” the elf replied, a smile forming under her mask again as she gripped the handles of her blades for a moment to familiarize herself with the weapons she had been separated from for so long, “And I am glad to finally have these back. I was worried that everything I had was just crudely tossed into a pile, alongside every other weapon in here and ended up damaged. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.”

After a brief inspection, she put the blades away with the rest of her equipment and looked back to the lava dog that was with her. “Now that I have everything, I’m ready to leave this place for good. Sharpfin, are you there?”

The room was silent for a moment or so, but afterwards, Sparky’s collar began to glow as the two of them heard the land shark speak. “Heard you loud and clear, but where the heck are you? We can only see Trap Shadow from where we’re at.”

“I’m with Smoky, and we just got my belongings back,” the elf explained, “Trap Shadow went on ahead to make sure the grounds were clear so we didn’t get any unwanted surprises. We’re heading over to him right now.”

“That’s good to hear,” the two of them heard Snap Shot reply back this time, “We’ll try to let Trap Shadow know in the meantime. Once you two are grouped back together, we’ll get you out of there.”

At that, Stealth Elf couldn’t help but ask a different question, “Um, just so that we’re on the same page… what exactly is your plan once we reach the extraction point? The one that Sharpfin was talking about.”

“Well, given the circumstances, we had to… improvise a little bit,” Sharpfin replied back, “Trust me, it’ll make more sense once you get here. Now, hurry before any of the guards realize what you’re up to.”

Shortly after that, Smoky’s collar went silent as the two of them proceeded to leave the armory behind and head outside. With them being so close to freedom, Stealth Elf really felt the need to just get out as quickly as possible. However, such actions would be seen as reckless, and one false move could end up having her make a mistake that could undo all of their progress. So, they needed to tread carefully and be aware of their surroundings.

Though as they were heading towards the exit, there was a thought that soon crossed Stealth Elf’s mind. “Hey, Smoky? You told Trap Shadow and I that Calvin was here, right?”

“Well, yeah. Of course he’s here. Why do you ask?”

“Do you think you can show me where he is?”

When Calvin laid down on the bed inside his room, he was under the impression that he would be able to get some much needed sleep, that he was not needed for the plan that Smoky was a part of and that he should be well rested and prepared for tomorrow’s match. The final fight against Blade Gunner was going to require him to be fully focused if he was going to win. So, he wanted to make sure that he was ready for whatever surprises that Blade Gunner might have when the two of them would clash in the arena.

However, what the Skyshifter did not expect was for someone to knock on his door late at night. At first, he ignored it on the assumption that someone or something had hit his door by mistake. Though when Calvin heard the knocking continue, he couldn’t really ignore it anymore. So, the Skyshifter forced himself to get up off the bed and change into the form of his Imaginator before he opened the door and answered.

“Hello? Is there something I can-”

On the other side of the door was a sight that Calvin didn’t think he would see. It was Stealth Elf herself, with Smoky standing right next to her. The Skyshifter honestly thought that the two of them had already gotten on Sharpfin’s airship and left by now. Yet instead, they were right in front of the door to his room.

“Stealth Elf? Smoky? W-what are you two doing here?” he was quick to ask before the elf or the lava dog could say anything.

“Well, we were going to meet with the others,” Stealth Elf now replied as she took off the communicator that was around Smoky’s neck and handed it to him, “Though, I thought that you were still going to need this and decided to bring it to you.”

“O-oh, uh… t-thanks,” he replied back, unsure of what to make of everything that was happening as he placed the communicator back on his band, “I-I’m guessing it’s t-time for you to go?”

“That it is,” she replied, “Though before we go, I wanted to say thank you. Without you, I don’t know how long we would’ve lasted being forced to fight for Magus’ entertainment over and over again.”

She then turned around and prepared to leave, but before she left, the Skylander told him one last thing. “Just make sure to be careful, alright? Because once Magus realizes that his prized fighters are gone, he’s going to be rather angry and looking for someone to blame.”

Before he could even reply back, Stealth Elf had turned the corner and disappeared, leaving a rather bewildered Calvin behind as he tried to make sense of everything that he had seen before trying to get some sleep again.

“Come on, where could she be?” the Swap Force Skylander named Trap Shadow asked himself as he stood by the landing platform near the entrance to the MaguDome. While the area was clear and there weren't any guards in sight, he was hoping that Stealth Elf and the lava dog that was with her would be swift with retrieving the things that were taken from her and not delay. However, with each minute that passed, the magical tiger was getting rather anxious that something went wrong.

Eventually though, his fears slowly began to subside when, after what felt like an hour had passed, he could see both Stealth Elf and Smoky as they quietly walked out from under the entryway of the colosseum and over to where he was standing. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” the elf apologized, “Trying to get my belongings back was a bit more difficult than we anticipated.”

“Well, at least you’re here now, and we can finally leave this place behind,” Trap Shadow said, relieved that they didn’t have to deal with any more surprises. Though, there was one thing that soon caught his attention as he looked down at the lava dog next to her, “Stealth Elf? Where is Smoky’s collar?”

“Oh, right,” the elf said, looking back at Smoky briefly before answering the panther’s question, “We decided to give that back to Calvin. He’s probably going to need it tomorrow to get out of there, so… yeah.”

That was a response that Trap Shadow didn’t want to hear. “Stealth Elf, that was our only means of communication with Sharpfin and Snap Shot. How are we going to get out of here if we can’t let them know where we are?”

That was something that Stealth Elf honestly forgot to take into consideration, especially since they didn’t really know a lot of details as to how the two of them were going to get out, let alone how exactly Sharpfin was going to find them. Yet, despite that, Stealth Elf wasn’t going to let something like that bother her, not when they were so close to being free of this place.

“I got an idea for how we can fix that.”

“Oh, really now?” Trap Shadow asked, folding his arms, “And what exactly is your idea?”

“Well, first thing’s first, we need to get as far out from here as we can,” the elf explained, “From there, we’ll look around and fashion up ourselves a signal using whatever we can find. However, it has to not be too big to draw any attention from the guards, but enough for Sharpfin to see.”

“That’s your idea? We just improvise?”

“If you have any better ideas, then I’m willing to spend all night hearing them,” the Life Skylander replied sarcastically, “Besides, improvising on the spot has worked before, and we don’t really have a lot of other options, let alone time.” With that, Stealth Elf took the initiative and used her powers to disappear from sight as she began to make her way to the far edge of the outskirts as Smoky followed her.

As for Trap Shadow, all he did was let out a drawn out sigh before following after the fellow Skylander. Despite any objections he might’ve had, Stealth Elf did have a point. They didn’t have that many options, so whatever they were going to do, it had to be done now. Though the outskirts had only had a few items that were just scattered around the grounds, most of it being trash, leaving very little room for Trap Shadow to find anything.

As the Swap Force Skylander met back up with Stealth Elf on the far outskirts, he inquired of Stealth Elf her progress, “Did you actually find anything out here? The grounds seem rather barren.”

“Actually, Smoky and I did find some things,” the elf replied, before setting down a handful of items that were in her hands, “Some wood planks, a worn cloth and a box of matches. I’m surprised that we even found the last one, since you wouldn’t exactly find these things lying around everywhere.”

“Okay, those seem… good to have,” Trap Shadow admitted, “Though, how exactly are we going to use them?”

“Well, for that, I have a question for Smoky,” the elf’s words were enough to catch the puppy off guard as she looked towards him, “Smoky, when it comes to your abilities, can you control smoke that’s coming from a source… like a campfire? Or does it have to come from you specifically?”

“Um,” the lava dog nervously said, a bit caught off guard by what the Life Skylander had just asked him, “I-I never really… tried that.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything, I guess,” Stealth Elf shrugged her shoulders as she broke down some of the pieces of wood and set up a campfire. Though, she didn’t light it just yet and held the matchbox above the wood as the elf looked back to the lava puppy, “If you can use your powers to control the smoke from the campfire here, then there’s a chance that Sharpfin will see the smoke and come towards it, which will make it easier for him to get us out of here. Do you think you can do it, Smoky?”

“I-I can try,” he replied. While Smoky might’ve still been nervous, that was not going to hold him back. Calvin and the others were counting on him to help them escape, which meant that he had to give his all to see it through. As Stealth Elf struck the match and lit the campfire wood that had been prepared, the lava dog closed his eyes and tried to focus. Smoke was beginning to form all around the puppy’s body and float towards the burning fire as both of the Skylanders that were with him watched.

Even though Smoky had his doubts, the lava puppy began to see that his efforts were not in vain. While he wasn’t able to control the smoke from the fire directly, his power was able to affect its direction and push the smoke outward into the sky. Yet, Smoky was quick to realize that the farther the smoke went out, the harder it was for him to effectively control it. He just hoped that what he could do was enough for Sharpfin to notice.

After a few moments, Smoky felt much of his strength deplete from his body as he felt himself collapse. Luckily though, all of his effort was not in vain. In the distance, Stealth Elf could see the shadowy outline of a vessel approaching their location. While it might not have been much to go on, the vessel closely resembled the Hammerhead, the ship that Sharpfin had personally used before to assist them whenever Flynn’s own ship was in need of repairs. Though, the only way that they could verify for certain was to see who exactly was piloting it.

“Trap, do you think that might be Sharpfin’s ship?” the elf asked her companion as she pointed at the shadow. When the Magic Skylander looked outward, his eyes narrowed as he folded his arms and tried to analyze it.

“The shape does look like it, yes. However, I cannot tell whether or not it actually is,” Trap Shadow replied, “It’s too far away, and I can’t see anybody on the deck of the ship or at the helm. Doesn’t help that some of the clouds are blocking any light from the moon.”

“So, we need to find a way to have them come closer?”

“You can try. Though, I think it would do little to help-”

Though, it was just as Trap Shadow was about to finish his sentence that the clouds above them began to part, and the light of the moon began to shine through. The shadow that surrounded the vessel now disappeared, revealing the same airship that they had both seen Sharpfin pilot before, with the Land Shark at the helm as he noticed them, a welcome sight for the two Skylanders after everything that they had experienced when trapped inside. “Okay, I take that back, that did help improve our situation.”

Seconds later, the Hammerhead began to move closer to their location. Though as it approached them, Stealth Elf and the others noticed that somebody else was right next to Sharpfin by the helm. Not long afterwards, the three of them saw a shimmer of lavender light from around where the person’s head would be, and the same light enveloped the three of them. Before they had any idea as to what was going on, there was a bright flash, and all three of them found themselves face down on the deck of the Hammerhead.

“Snap, we got them on board!”

“Get us as far back from the MaguDome as you can,” they heard the familiar voice of the Trap Master named Snap Shot as the crocogator began to make his way above deck. As he turned to notice them, he extended a hand to both of the Skylanders to help them to their feet, “Is everyone alright?”

“W-we’re okay,” Stealth Elf assured him, “And thankful that we’re no longer trapped in there. By Eon, I’d rather not think about what would’ve happened if you didn’t come to rescue us.”

“Me neither. Though, Snap and I can’t take all the credit for making this possible… and we aren’t quite done yet,” Sharpfin replied now, before looking to his left as the land shark smirked for a moment, “We still need to get Calvin out. On that note, there’s someone I’d like for the two of you to meet.”

It was then that Stealth Elf and the others got to see who stood next to him, and much to the elf’s surprise, she actually recognized them. It was the equestrian named Twilight Sparkle, who Stealth Elf had seen with Calvin before and was referred to in the list that Buzz gave to every Skylander at the academy. However, the friendly demeanor that the life skylander had seen before was not present now. Instead, the alicorn’s expression was rather stern as she looked towards them and asked only one question.

“Where… is… Calvin?”

Author's Note

I know that I promised that Part 4 was going to be the final part of this arc and on that, I do intend to keep my word. However, with how big the chapter is so far, part 4 is going to be split into two parts. The first one, 4.1, is a setup for the final fight in the tournament and also getting their plan in motion. While 4.2 will be considered as the arc's finale and we can move on to what's next.

Also... note to self- Never aggravate an angry alicorn.

Scroll 29- Battalia (Part 4.2)

When morning finally came back around and Calvin had risen from his slumber, many thoughts echoed in his mind. After Stealth Elf unexpectedly showed up at his door the other night, he could not stop thinking about her and Trap Shadow. Even though Smoky was with the two of them, there was no telling whether or not they actually were able to escape. He tried his best to think positively, but with the uncertainty of his friends’ escape and the pending fight against Blade Gunner, the Skyshifter was in a state of disarray.

Fortunately, he still happened to have the communication band that Stealth Elf returned to him. So, in order to try and stay calm, the Skyshifter decided to take some time to see if he can get ahold of Sharpfin. If there was anyone who could help him refocus and put his mind at ease, it would be him. “Hey, Sharpfin, are you there?”

“I hear you loud and clear. Perfect timing, too,” the land shark replied, which had Calvin be a little hopeful that he had some good news to share, “We just got out of range of that gizmo Magus had put in place at the Coliseum. Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow just got recalled back to the academy a few moments ago.”

That had Calvin let out a sigh of relief. Now that he knew that the Skylanders that he came to rescue were back at the academy and far away from Magus’ clutches, he wouldn’t have to worry about them. Now, he could properly focus on his upcoming match, “That’s great to hear-”

“Is that Calvin? Is he talking to you!? Please tell me that’s him-!!”

“Uh oh,” the Skyshifter thought to himself, for he immediately knew who that voice belonged to.

“Woah, easy there!! I know you’re eager to talk to him, but please mind the helm! You hit that, and we get sent spiraling off course,” Sharpfin retorted, before letting out a sigh, “Calvin, I apologize. Snap Shot and I did what you requested and asked for Twilight to help us. Though, ever since she came on board, she’s… well, I think you probably get what I mean.”

From what it sounded like so far, Calvin definitely had some kind of idea as to what was happening right now. “So, where are you guys?”

“Well, we’re on our way back and getting ready to get you out of there as we speak,” he replied back, “Now that Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow are safe, you don’t have to stay there any longer. That is, unless you want to take part in one last match.”

“I did say that I wanted to see this through to the end,” he replied, “Though, before I go, can I talk to Twilight for a moment?”

That caught Sharpfin by surprise, “Wait, you want to-? Seriously? …Alright, I’ll tell her,” There was a brief pause as silence began to linger in the air. Though, Calvin eventually heard the sound of Sharpfin trying to get Twilight’s attention, “Hey, Calvin says he wants to talk to you-”

Immediately, he could hear what sounded like the communicator being snatched away from the land shark, before a different voice was heard. This time, he heard a voice that the Skyshifter was all too familiar with, with no real restraint on how loud she was, “Calvin, what were you THINKING!?! You said-!!”

“Twilight, calm down please. You’re going to-”

Before he could finish telling the alicorn that her outburst could break his cover, there was a loud knocking on the door. “Oi, new guy!! What’s going on in there?! Everything alright?”

“Uh, y-yeah,” Calvin quickly replied, changing forms as he tried his best to stay in character, placing his hand over the communicator to muffle any sound that came from it, “I’m just… talking with my trainer. She’s kind of mad that I forgot to tell her that I was taking part in this tournament and was chewing me out for it.”

Even though his excuse was something that he came up with on the spot, it… was enough to convince the guard that was outside. “Well, don’t take too long. You’re expected to be in the arena in twenty minutes. If you don’t show up, you’ll end up being disqualified. Got it?”

“Understood,” the Skyshifter replied, waiting to hear the sound of footsteps drowning out first before removing his hand from his wrist.

“What the heck just happened?” Sharpfin was heard over the other end of the com-line.

“Well, Twilight almost had one of the guards knocking down my door to see what was going on,” he told them, “I was able to get them to believe that I was talking to my trainer. Though, I don’t have much time before my last match.”

“How much?”

“Twenty minutes or I’m disqualified.”

There was a bit of silence at first, before he could hear Sharpfin’s voice as they were talking to Twilight again. This time, with a bit of a serious tone in his voice, “Okay, I’ll give this back to you, but please demonstrate some self control. Your outburst just now almost blew his cover, and he doesn’t have a lot of time to talk right now. Can you do that?”

For a moment, Calvin waited for some kind of response, whether it was from either Sharpfin or Twilight. With how quiet everything was, the Skyshifter thought that he might’ve accidentally hit some kind of mute button on the communication band that he wasn’t aware of. Fortunately though, he did not have to wait too long to hear a response. This time, it was from Twilight. “Calvin.”

“Twilight,” he said back, before he began to work on forming an apology, “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you the truth. You must be pretty mad at me.”

“I’m not mad, Calvin. I’m very disappointed,” the alicorn corrected him, “There are some things that I would want to say, but before I do, I just have one question.”

“What is it?”

“Simply put, why?” she asked, “Why would you go out of your way and risk your own safety to do this? I’m still having trouble trying to understand.”

In his mind, the Skyshifter had only one response for her. “Because Stealth Elf is my friend. When I first came here to the academy, she was one of the first people I met. She helped me understand what I was capable of, helped me with my training and even helped me learn a bit more about everyone else that was on campus. She went out of her way to make sure that I felt at home. So, what good of a friend am I if I don’t help her when she needs it most after everything she did to help me?”

Much to his surprise, Twilight didn’t quickly retort or try to argue with him. Instead, she was silent. This seemed odd to Calvin, since he thought that the alicorn was going to scold him for not only lying to her, but asking for her help in pulling off a rescue mission after she found out. So, what exactly prompted this change in behavior?

“Hey, Calvin?” she finally spoke after a few moments of silence, “I know what it’s like to be in that kind of position, where you have a friend that’s in trouble and you really want to help them. Hay, I’ve personally been in that situation before with my friends. Though unlike me with my friends, you tried to do all of this by yourself.”

“Mostly by himself,” Sharpfin corrected her.

“Um, Twilight?” Calvin now took a turn to speak, “I-I’m a bit confused. I thought you said you were disappointed with me.”

“Oh, I still am, that’s for sure,” the alicorn retorted, “Though, that conversation will be for later. You still have a match to take part in, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Y-yeah, that’s right,” he replied, “Though, what about afterwards?”

“Leave that to us, kiddo. We’ll make sure to get you out of there, no matter what the outcome is,” the land shark reassured him, shortly before the communication band went silent, which left Calvin with an empty room and little time to prepare himself for one last confrontation in the arena.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Criminals of all ages!! Welcome one and all to the grand finals of Battalia,” Magus’ triumphant voice declared as the roar of the crowd echoed around the arena, “Where our remaining competitors fight one final battle to see who will become the champion of the arena!!”

Unlike the first couple of days in the tournament, the size of the crowd that was here in the stands was much bigger. Whether they were competitors that had already been knocked out of the tournament or just fans that were eager to see some action, every seat in the stands was practically filled. The cheering and noise echoed throughout the stadium to the point that anyone that was outside the MaguDome could hear them as well as any airships that just so happened to be passing by. Even Magus himself was surprised by the huge turnout of fans.

“Now, I know that all of you are eager to have our two finalists battle it out to determine who goes home with all the glory,” the drow continued to speak to his audience, “Though, I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that the charity portion of the tournament is still accepting contributions of any size. You still have time to donate your contribution to help further Lord Kaos’ ambitions! So, don’t wait!! Act now before those pathetic Skylanders try to undo another one of his glorious schemes!!”

Once the drow elf was done speaking the promotional bit for the tournament, it was time for him to get straight to introducing the finalists. “Now, for our first contestant! He’s a seasoned fighter who has bested against several fan favorites throughout the course of the tournament! Now, he’s just one more battle away from becoming the champion of Battalia! Give it up for Blade Gunner!!”

From where Calvin was waiting, he watched as the gate on the opposite end of the arena opened up as Blade Gunner entered the arena. The elf looked the same as he did yesterday, yet the friendly appearance from before was gone. It was now time for the final fight, and if he was going to win, then he needed to give it his all in order to come out on top. “And now, for our second contestant!”

“Here we go,” Calvin thought to himself as he stretched his legs and cracked his knuckles. “Let’s do this.”

“He’s a rookie in the arena who has been quickly making a name for himself in Battalia!! The fiery fighter with enough determination in his heart to overcome all challengers!! Does he have what it takes to go all the way and claim victory!? We’ll just have to see for ourselves!! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome KAI CHI!!”

With that, the gates opened, and Calvin immediately stepped out onto the battlefield to join his opponent. The roar of the crowd echoed throughout the battlefield as he saw dozens of fans crammed in their seats. Everyone in attendance was eager to finally watch the two final competitors face off to see who would come out on top. And Magnus was not the kind of host that would keep his fans waiting.

“Alright, now that everyone’s here, it’s time we get this show on the road!!”

That signal prompted Calvin to take up a fight stance, his gaze fixed on his opponent as Blade Gunner unsheathed his weapon. The other elf was quick to straighten his shoulders, before he gripped his blade and looked back to the Skyshifter. The time for talk had now passed, for it was now time for battle, and only one may stand victorious.

“It all comes down to this!! FIGHT!!!”

Immediately, Calvin’s opponent went on the offensive, as Blade Gunner charged at him and swung their blade. The Skyshifter himself was caught off guard by his opponent's speed, forced to either dodge or block the incoming attacks as he tried to find an opening to push him back. Unlike yesterday against the Chompy Mage, where the elf just waited for who he was fighting to make the first move, they were taking the initiative this time. In doing so, the fighter had placed Calvin in an uncomfortable position, where he was forced into a corner rather early in the match.

“Well, would you look at that folks?! Seems our champion wants to knock out the rookie sensation before he can fight back!”

As the Skyshifter was still moving to avoid the attacks, he took notice of something. Just like when Blade was fighting Chompy Mage, he only used his right arm for his attacks. For someone of his skill, Calvin thought that Blade would go out of his way to use both arms to be effective in combat. Yet, even as he dashed away to his left to get out of being cornered, his opponent didn’t even use his left arm to try and intercept him, which seemed a bit off. After all, why would a fighter at his level of skill not use every possible trick that he had in order to stop him?

With that in mind, the Skyshifter had to change his strategy. Originally, Calvin was going to observe his opponent's attacks and find any weaknesses to exploit. However, since Blade Gunner was moving too fast for him to keep track of his movements, he had to improvise. Instead of fully going on offense or defense, the Skyshifter chose to combine the two of them: act defensively to protect himself from incoming attacks and go on the offensive when there was an opportunity to act on.

“Would you look at that?! The rookie’s not planning on giving up so easily!! Can he find a way to turn the tide of this fight?!”

“Wishful thinking,” Blade Gunner retorted, before he charged at the Skyshifter. As the elf swung at Calvin’s chest, he stepped back to avoid the blade, lucky that it only cut the cloth of his tunic. Though as he was about to counterattack, the Skyshifter saw his opponent change the grip he had on his weapon before swinging again, this time holding the blade in reverse as it barely passed by Calvin’s face.

“Okay, that was too close...” Calvin thought to himself as he backed up far enough to give himself some distance from his opponent. The Skyshifter then planted his feet, before he began to channel his power into his hands. As flames began to flicker around his fingers, he placed his hands together and shifted his arms. “Let’s see how he’ll respond to this!”

Quickly, he had the flames he was channeling combine together, before launching it as an Energy Blast towards Blade Gunner. In Calvin’s mind, if his opponent excelled at close quarters combat, then there was a possibility that they might have difficulty against attacks fired from range. So, he hoped that this attack could hit its mark and possibly provide him an opportunity to act on, something that could allow him a chance to turn the fight around.

However, Blade Gunner had something else in mind. Instead of stepping aside or dodging the attack, he held his blade in a defensive manner as the flat side of his weapon faced towards the oncoming projectile. Calvin was quick to recognize the stance his opponent was in, for it was the same one that he took at the beginning of yesterday’s battle when the Chompy Mage sent his minions towards him. Though, something about it didn’t make sense. What exactly was he trying to do?

It was only when his attack got closer to the elf’s blade that Blade Gunner chose to act, for when the energy blast made contact with his weapon, he pushed his right arm in a swinging motion as if to cut through it. From Calvin’s perspective, he thought that his opponent was either trying to block the attack entirely or possibly redirect it somewhere else. He would go as far as to even think that maybe Blade Gunner’s weapon had other properties that he wasn’t aware of, but it didn’t look like the blade had any particular properties to back up that theory.

Then, Calvin heard a sharp crackle as he saw electricity run through the elf’s sword. Without warning, Blade Gunner put his strength into pushing his blade through the Skyshifter’s attack, slicing the blast in half as both sides hit the wall behind him and exploded. The act was enough to catch Calvin by surprise. Out of all the times that he had used that technique, nothing like that had ever happened before.

“Did you see that, folks!? Blade Gunner was unphased by Kai Chi’s attack, cutting it in half! Can you believe it!?”

“Okay, that’s going to get annoying real quickly,” the Skyshifter grit his teeth, “If he’s too fast for me to get a hit up close and can easily stop any ranged attacks I have, then what can I-”

It was as he was thinking this over that Calvin noticed something. For a brief moment, the lightning at the end of Blade Gunner’s sword went towards where the elf’s left arm would be as the elf looked at his left shoulder and started to say something. At first, he thought that his eyes were simply playing tricks on him. But then, a different thought came to mind as he recalled something from the day before when he had his conversation with the elf.

Yesterday, when Blade Gunner moved his shoulders, he heard the sound of something that he had heard before on most Tech Skylanders. At the time of the conversation, he wasn’t so focused on it. Yet right now, he was beginning to realize what it might be, for the sound he heard was the sound of when mechanical limbs would move and shift around, similar to that of Dr. Krankcase.

However, theory alone wasn’t going to prove anything. Calvin had to find a way to test it, and to do that, he had to find a way to remove the cloak off of him, a task that was not going to be easy, given that it looked like his opponent happened to have something to counter his abilities. That... and Blade Gunner probably had a good idea of the moves he frequently utilized, if he had watched his previous battles.

Unless… he found a way to catch him off guard by using an attack the elf hadn’t seen before. Something that his opponent could not anticipate and prepare for. Though, trying to figure out what exactly would be the best course of action to do was going to be a bit challenging. However, he wasn’t going to let that stop him from trying.

With that in mind, Calvin began to have flames form at the bottom of his feet as he took off in a blazing dash. Yet, he didn’t go directly towards his opponent. Instead, he dashed towards the walls of the arena and jumped up right before he made contact. Once his feet had touched the wall, he used his powers again to dash off the wall and towards his opponent in a blinding strike towards his side.

“What’s this? It looks like Kai Chi is trying to use a different plan of attack! Just what tricks does this rookie have up his non-existent sleeves?!”

Calvin’s attack didn’t exactly catch Blade Gunner off guard at first glance. Yet, the longer he continued this string of surprise attacks, the more that the elf grew irritated. To him, he thought that the Skyshifter was more likely showing off than actually fighting. “What exactly makes you think that such attacks like that would work?”

To Calvin, that was actually a question that he wanted to hear, and that he answered gladly. “Because I now know more than I did before,” he said with a smirk on his face as he went forward with another attack, this time from the elf’s left side. Instead of moving his left arm to block or intercept, Blade Gunner just simply moved the left side of his body to avoid the attack altogether.

“Really now?” the elf humored the Skyshifter, “And just what is it that you learned just now, despite failing to land a single blow on me?” In his mind, he honestly thought that Calvin was just running his mouth. However, what he heard next sent a chill down Blade Gunner’s spine.

“I know that you’re trying to hide something.”

Immediately, Blade Gunner’s eyes narrowed as he glared at the Skyshifter and grit his teeth. “What are you-”

“For someone who’s one of the strongest fighters in this tournament, you only seem to use half of what you’re capable of,” Calvin interjected, now back in the center of the arena, “Don’t pretend like I haven’t noticed-”

“Pick your next words carefully,” the elf snarled as he brought his blade back up. To the Skyshifter though, this was a step in the right direction. Not only did it confirm some suspicions that he had about his opponent, but perhaps aggravating him and having his foe break his composure would provide an opportunity to turn the tide of this fight in his favor.

“Okay, okay, just one question though,” Calvin replied, thinking that this particular question would prove his suspicions right, “When are you going to start fighting for real and not like you have one arm tied behind your back-?”

Blade Gunner didn’t speak, but instead responded by charging directly at him and swinging his weapon. However, the Skyshifter was able to sidestep out of the way just before the attack could hit anything as he looked back at his opponent with a grin. Watching his opponent break his composure was seen as a good sign to him, because it meant that he was more than likely to make a mistake. Instead of being precise with his attacks, Blade Gunner was swinging wildly to try and hit him. Now, he just needed to find a way to take advantage of the opportunity that was provided to him and catch his opponent by surprise.

That opportunity came when his opponent left an opening for him after he dodged some attacks from Blade Gunner’s sword. As he charged in, Blade Gunner thought that the Skyshifter was trying to hit him with an uppercut. Yet, just as Calvin stopped in front of him, he changed his attack midway through. Instead of attacking his opponent with a rising uppercut, he had a condensed orb of fire in his right hand that he fired off at close range to blind him and burn a piece of his cloak. While the elf was trying to recover, the Skyshifter quickly grabbed hold of his cloak and tore it away with all of his might!

In the moments that came after, the cheering crowd went dead silent. When Calvin backed away, he wasn’t sure what exactly had the whole arena go quiet. As he looked back at Blade Gunner, he realized his answer. What was hiding under his cloak was a metallic silver arm that went up to his shoulder, with an orange circle on the outside of his left hand, a sight that left him with a multitude of questions.

Yet, before he could say anything, a different voice was now heard. “I warned you about this.”

Blade Gunner grit his teeth, before looking back at the Skyshifter. Yet, when he began to speak, he wasn’t talking to Calvin. Instead, he was talking to the newfound voice as his eyes shifted to his left. “Now is not a good time, Arthur-”

“Wait, Arthur?” Calvin realized as he looked towards his arm. He remembered his opponent mentioning it during Blade’s fight the other day, but couldn’t exactly make heads or tails on who or what they were. If anything, he thought that it was just someone talking to Blade the same way that Sharpfin communicated with him.

“Well, to take a term of phrase that you and your kind would say, the cat’s out of the bag now,” the voice, Arthur, spoke again, “Optimally, it would be ideal for me to-.”

Before they could finish, Blade Gunner grit his teeth. “Don’t even think about it. I told you that I do not need your help in order to win, and I will see it through.”

If he were entirely honest with himself, Calvin had no idea what exactly was going on. Though, he did not have the time to ask any questions. Before the Skyshifter had the chance to do anything, Blade started to channel more electricity as the crackling sound of lightning echoed around the battlefield. This time though, the lightning was not only circulating through his weapon, but also his arm.

“What’s t-this!? F-following this s-surprise r-revel-lation-” Magus tried to commentate further, but the speakers were beginning to cut out and distort his voice, “W-what’s going on-!?! W-why is i-it right n-now that we’re g-getting i-interference-?! F-Find a way to f-f-fix-!!”

The speakers of the arena were quick to short circuit, cutting off whatever it was that Magus was trying to say as Calvin turned his attention back to Blade Gunner. Small chunks of stone that fell from the walls of the arena were now suspended above the ground as the elf looked back at him. Blade’s eyes burned with rage as he gripped his blade and grit his teeth, “I will do whatever it takes to prove you wrong, Arthur! And if I need to tear this place apart in order to do so, then so be it!!”

Before Calvin had any idea as to what Blade was going to do, the elf dragged his weapon on the ground and swung in an upward arc. As he did, chunks of the stone floor began to break off and were sent flying towards him alongside a wave of lightning. Instinct quickly kicked in for the Skyshifter immediately afterwards as he somersaulted to the right in an attempt to get out of the way. Though as he did, he couldn’t help but get the feeling that something seemed… off.

Originally, the Skyshifter thought that his opponent’s attacks were going to move much faster than what he had already seen now that Blade Gunner didn’t seem to be holding back anymore. However, despite its destructive capability, it did not move at the same speed. If anything, the shockwave and the pieces of stone that the elf sent flying moved slower than he expected, which at first glance didn’t make any sense.

Though after watching Blade Gunner attack a couple more times, Calvin began to realize something. When the fight first started, the elf’s attacks lacked strength, but his speed was greater than his. Right now, his attacks were slower, but had far greater power and range. Not only that, Calvin also noticed that Blade Gunner would grimace in pain from time to time, even though he was trying his best to shrug it off and ignore it.

Based on everything he was seeing, Calvin could only think of one possibility for what was going on in that moment. With the power of his arm came a change in how Blade Gunner attacked. In exchange for giving up his speed and bladework, Blade gained raw strength and power to use in attacks that the Skyshifter had not seen before. If he was going to have any hope of winning this fight, he needed to fight back and not have the elf push him into a corner. Though right now, he was having trouble thinking of how exactly he was going to do that, considering that he didn’t have many options at his disposal.

It was as he was trying to think of a plan that something crossed his mind. More specifically, it was something King Pen told him a couple days before this mission began.

“Well, we’re going to be using the next two days to come up with something brand new, something specifically tailored to how you fight and something for you to use as your ace in the hole.”

“Well, sensei, I guess it’s time to see if all that training paid off,” the Skyshifter thought to himself as he cleared his mind and began to focus. As he did, the fire that he had conjured many times before began to take form not just around his hands, but also his body. Blade immediately noticed, for his opponent had not demonstrated anything like this before.

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” the elf grit his teeth as the crackling of electricity grew louder and more rocks from the ground began to rise, “But if you think I’m just going to stand and watch, then think again!!”

With another outward swing, Blade launched two more projectiles towards the Skyshifter. However, how Calvin reacted this time was much different. Instead of trying to avoid it, he faced it head on as the flames he was conjuring began to burn brighter. As he moved forward, the skyshifter sidestepped past the first projectile and then directly charged at the second one. To the elf and everyone that was watching this unfold, they thought that he was going to avoid it again or defend himself.

Though, that was when Calvin did something that caught everyone that was watching off guard. Instead of striking it, the Skyshifter used his hands to somersault over the flying projectile. Before Blade realized what happened, Calvin’s flames surged around his feet as he struck him on his left side with a blazing kick. The force of the blow being enough to send the elf tumbling across the ground as the Skyshifter landed back on his feet.

“You’re not the only one who has been holding back,” Calvin smirked, before taking on a new stance. Instead of having his feet firmly planted on the ground and being locked in place, the skyshifter’s legs were moving a little more freely as embers burned around his feet. “After all, how can I call myself a martial artist if I only used just my hands?”

When Blade Gunner got back up on his feet, he couldn’t help but grit his teeth in disgust. The elf thought that he had this rookie in a corner and that if he were to keep pressuring him, then he could overpower them and easily win. However, not only did his opponent avoid his attacks, but they blindside him with a strike that he wasn’t able to anticipate. Something that greatly annoyed Blade to no end.

“Do you really think that you’re going to win just because you caught me off guard once? How foolish,” the elf snapped back, before he pointed his left arm at Calvin. The electricity that was around him began to circulate even more as smaller sized stones began to float all around Blade Gunner’s left hand in a circular formation. Then, with an upward flick of his wrist, they were launched towards the Skyshifter’s general direction at a speed that was slightly faster than that of the elf’s previous attacks.

However, it was then that Blade made a crucial mistake. The elf was so focused on trying to fight back and regain his earlier advantage that he underestimated his opponent’s newfound capabilities, for not only was Calvin able to avoid the incoming rocks, but he could also send one flying back towards the elf with a blazing kick. He only had mere seconds to move as it blazed past his head and collided into the back wall.

It wasn’t just Blade that was having difficulties though, for the longer the battle went on, the harder things became for Arthur as well. They knew that if the elf continued to draw on so much power with his arm, then it was entirely possible that he could end up seriously hurting himself. However, right now, Blade was so fixated on trying to defeat the Skyshifter that he would defiantly ignore anything Arthur would try to tell him, so any kind of warning to the elf would fall on deaf ears. Not only that, but the fact that the Skyshifter was using techniques that had not been observed previously made it harder for Arthur to think of an effective way to counter them.

Unfortunately for the elf, he realized the ramifications of his haste far too late. When he tried to prepare more rocks to send towards the Skyshifter, the electricity in the air began to wither, and the projectiles he had prepared fell to the ground before he had the chance to fire them. In his confusion, the Skyshifter saw this as an opening and quickly charged straight for Blade Gunner. Whatever was going on, Calvin saw this as an opportunity to attack, and he knew he should take it before he lost his opening.

“W-wha-!?”

Swiftly, Calvin struck the elf with two straight jabs, followed by a kick from his right leg. While the attacks weren’t exactly powerful in terms of strength, each consecutive strike in quick succession was enough to throw Blade off balance and have him stagger in place. With the arm out of commission for the moment, the Skyshifter saw this as his chance to finish the battle here and now. If this opportunity were to slip away, then he might not have another chance.

“Alright, remember what King Pen taught you,” Calvin thought to himself as he concentrated his flames into the soles of his feet. “Hit them fast, hit them hard!!”

In the blink of an eye, the Skyshifter dashed forward and struck Blade Gunner with an overhead kick as the elf fell to one knee. Before Blade could get back up or counterattack, Calvin struck again, this time with enough force to knock his opponent upwards into the air and in the ideal spot that the Skyshifter needed him to be in. Swiftly afterwards, he channeled the flames in his feet to launch himself into the air and continue his assault as he struck Blade Gunner with a few more blazing kicks. As his attacks landed, the flames around his feet burned brighter as Calvin focused what was left of his energy into one final blow.

“Time to finish this!”

In one last motion, the Skyshifter flipped his body forward and brought his leg down on top of Blade Gunner in a fiery axe kick, as the impact of the strike sent the elf crashing into the ground. The shockwave from the impact of the crash was felt all throughout the surrounding area, as some of the people in the stands were knocked out of their seats. When Calvin finally landed back on solid ground, the electricity throughout the arena slowly began to flicker and fade out as he looked where his opponent had landed. Part of him expected for the elf to try and get back on his feet, but instead, he just laid there motionless.

Out for the count.

Seconds after the decisive blow had been delivered, that was when he finally heard the speakers go off, “-W-wait, i-it’s back on? W-we’re live again?” the voice of Magus echoed, before he cleared his throat, “Ahem!! W-what I mean is… WHAT AN INCREDIBLE UPSET!! In an unexpected series of twists and turns, the rookie was able to come from behind and pull off an amazing victory!! Everyone, give it up for your new champion!!”

Immediately, a round of applause rocked the entire stadium as Calvin looked towards the announcer’s booth where Magus resided. Much to the surprise of the Skyshifter, the drow elf actually chose to emerge from the confines of his booth and come onto the battlefield to meet him face to face. He wasn’t entirely sure as to why Magus wanted to do this, though it was a little bit too late to be asking questions. Right now, he had to just go with the flow, because the sooner he got through this, the sooner he could leave this place behind.

“Now that we have that out of the way, let’s tell our champion what exactly he won, shall we?!”

“Wait, what?” Calvin thought, caught off guard by the drow’s words. While the Skyshifter knew that this was a tournament, he didn’t know that there was some kind of prize that was to be given out to the victor. If anything, the promotional posters around the arena made it seem like Kaos was getting more of a benefit because of the ‘charity fundraiser’ that the event was planning than they were. So, what exactly was Magus trying to do here?

“Why are you so surprised? Did you really think I would go as far to host a tournament without a grand prize? What kind of lunatic does something like that!?” the drow asked, before raising his arms to hear more praise from the crowd around them, “As for what you won… well, why don’t we show you?”

It was as he was speaking that the Skyshifter watched a hatch open up from an opening above the booth, and with it, a cage emerged shortly afterwards. However, there was something about the cage that the drow did not realize until Calvin inadvertently pointed it out to him. “Hang on… you’re giving me a cage? How is that a prize?”

“No no. I’m giving you what’s inside the cage-”

“But it’s empty though.”

Immediately, Magus blinked and turned back around towards the cage, his expression immediately changing when he realized that the prize he was going to give… was gone. There was no trace of anything out of the ordinary both inside or outside of the cage, but the two prisoners that he had been graciously given by Lord Kaos were nowhere in sight. What made things worse was that he only learned of this now, in front of his massive audience. Of all the times to have everything start to fall apart at the seams, this was the worst possible time.

To Calvin though, he could tell that the drow was not prepared for this at all. The sight of seeing Magus struggle to try and stay calm made him chuckle for a brief moment. For someone that bragged about the amount of security around the arena and about how it would be impossible for his prisoners to escape, Magus didn’t appear to have a backup plan in case everything went wrong. Not only that, but he could see that several of the staff members that he ‘hired’ were downright panicking at what was going on.

“Is… everything alright-?”

Suddenly, Magus turned back around almost instantly, his eyes twitching at the mere question that the Skyshifter posed. Any signs of the drow being composed were long gone by this point, for he was downright furious. The only thing that was on his mind was wanting to make someone pay for embarrassing himself in front of his audience. “Does everything look alright to you?!”

That single statement was enough to startle Calvin right where he stood. Even though some of his own ‘employees’ were trying to talk some sense into him, the drow wasn’t having it. Yet, the Skyshifter soon became uncomfortable when a smile emerged on Magus’ face, and he smacked his minions off to the side with a motion of his arm. “You know what? We’re going to make sure my show gets a proper grand finale… right now!”

“Oh no-”

“Oh YES,” Magus boldly declared, “ONE. MORE. MATCH!! NO LIMITS!! NO RULES!! The last fighter standing wins this very arena, and we aren’t the only ones taking part!! Anyone who thinks they have a shot at beating us, come on down!!”

While some might’ve seen this as just the drow boasting, many of the spectators in the stands saw this as a call to arms. Immediately, several different attendees emerged from their seats and jumped down into the arena. Some of them armed themselves with makeshift weapons while others went as far as to steal the weapons from the Greebles that were supposed to act as security. Calvin did not like where this was going, because he was already exhausted from his fight just now with Blade Gunner and didn’t have the energy or stamina for one more fight, especially if that fight put him up against an army of Magus’ die hard fans.

Yet, that did not mean that his back was against the wall. He still had friends that could help him. Though, the Skyshifter preferred for them to help out sooner rather than later. “So, you decided that you want to finish things off by getting everyone involved now?” Calvin asked, backing up to where Blade Gunner was lying on the ground to get some space between him and everyone else.

“Look, kid, do you really think that you have a chance at winning?” Magus mocked, before he grabbed one of the attendee’s that charged at him and threw them towards a group of greebles like they were a football, “You’re on the ropes right now, and no matter how you look at it, there’s no way that you’re going to make it out of here.”

“Oh, really now?” the Skyshifter asked, moving his right hand over to where he kept the communicator that he wore on his left wrist. He had an idea in mind for how to get out of this mess, but it was going to be a gamble. If Twilight and the others were waiting on standby to get him out, then this would be the appropriate time to put whatever plan they had prepared in motion. “I think there’s one way.”

“Kid, what did I just-?”

“Twilight, NOW!!”

At first, it didn’t appear as if anything was happening. Yet, as Magus looked up, he was soon hit by a bolt of violet magic directly in the face as the alicorn swooped down from above and landed by him. As she landed, Twilight was only able to speak a few words to him. “Okay, we need to go now. Once the spell kicks in, everything is going to get a bit crazy.”

“How crazy-?”

“Hey!! What’s the big idea?!” Magus shouted, “You aren’t one of the attendees! What makes you think you can just fly on in and-” Before he could even finish, the drow noticed that, aside from the pony that just flew and the rookie he wanted to crush, everyone else had their gaze fixed on him. “What…? Why are all of you staring at me like that? It’s creepy!!”

Yet, despite what he said, the crowd did not listen. If anything, his words were soon drowned out by a united chorus from the creatures around him.

“Want it…”

“Need it…”

“Need what? I don’t have anything to give-” Magus tried to tell them, before he felt some of the attendee’s and even his own staff try to grab hold of him, “W-what!? Hey!! Get off of me!!”

“WANT IT!!”

“NEED IT!!”

As both the alicorn and the Skyshifter watched the madness unfold in front of their eyes, that was when Twilight let out a small breath, “That kind of crazy.”

“What… did you even do-?”

“It’s a long story,” she replied back, “And now is not the ideal time to talk about it. Sharpfin’s waiting on us, so we can get out of here. Unless there’s anything else you need to do, we should leave this place now.”

In response, Calvin took a moment to look around the arena one last time to see if anything really came to mind. Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow had already been rescued, Smoky was probably with them, he had already fought his final match... and with Magus being preoccupied at the moment, now seemed like the perfect time to get out of there while they still had the chance.

Then, that was when the Skyshifter noticed the unconscious body of Blade Gunner that was still on the ground. Even though he felt the need to leave as quickly as possible, Calvin didn’t want to just leave the elf behind. While they might’ve been enemies on the battlefield, it did not have to be that way now. There were people back at the academy that could help both him and Arthur, but not if they remained here.

“There is one thing I could use your help with.”

By the time that Calvin and his companions left the MaguDome behind, the Skyshifter was rather fortunate to not have anything disturb their trip back to the academy. Not only did it allow for him to get some well deserved rest and not have to keep up his disguise anymore, but it also allowed for him to provide Twilight with a proper explanation and answer any questions she might’ve had. Of course, recalling everything that had happened over the course of the last couple of days wasn’t exactly easy for him. Yet, he still tried his best regardless.

When Sharpfin’s ship finally pulled in at the docks of the academy, there were still two things Calvin had to do before he could go back to Equestria with Twilight. The first thing on the agenda was to be debriefed by both Master Eon and Buzz. The two of them had several questions for him regarding both the mission and afterwards, including why he decided to bring Blade Gunner back with him. Calvin’s answer to them was that he chose to bring them back because he thought that the academy could possibly help Blade and Arthur. That, and he wasn’t sure if there was anyone else out in the Skylands that was as much of an expert on the arkeyans as Mags was.

After the debriefing was over, he was free to do the second thing, that being to pick up Dusty from the other Lava Dogs, something that Dusty herself was extremely thankful for. It might have only been a couple of days since Calvin last saw her, but to Dusty, it felt like an eternity had passed, so to see that her master was alive and well came as a huge relief to the young pup, especially when the last couple of days had been stressful because of her siblings panicking because Smoky was nowhere to be found.

Once that was out of the way, Calvin and Twilight were free to go back to Equestria. Though, it was as the two of them left the academy and they began to walk to the doorway that Twilight said something to him. “So, Calvin? Remember when I said that I was disappointed in you earlier and that we were going to revisit that discussion later?”

“Um… y-yes?” he replied, a bit nervous now that Twilight had chosen now of all times to revisit this subject.

“Well, I took some time to think everything over,” she replied, “And I’ve come to a decision. Calvin, you’re grounded and not allowed to leave the castle for the next three days.”

That was a bit of a curveball to him. He had a feeling that Twilight was going to chew him out for all of this, but getting grounded? That was something he did not expect.

Before he even had the chance to say anything in response, the alicorn was quick to cut him off, “While it is true that you lied to me about everything that you were doing while you were away,” Twilight explained, “The fact that you went out of your way to do what you did to help save a friend in need is something I commend you for. In fact, it’s the reason why your punishment is only three days instead of a week.”

“Uh… i-is that it?” he nervously asked.

“Oh, most definitely not. In fact,” with a flash of magic, Twilight had a long roll of parchment, a bottle of ink and a quill appear in front of her, “I’m preparing a list of chores for you to complete during these three days. Your punishment will only be served once you complete everything on the list… without your powers.”

Calvin blinked at that, still trying to process everything as he scratched the back of his head. “That sounds… reasonable-”

“Also, the chores themselves are the same ones that Spike would do on a regular basis. So, you’re going to be taking over his duties at the castle as well.”

“…Oh crumbs.”

End Scroll 29

Author's Note

And with that, this massive chapter has come to an end. Thank you everyone for being patient, for I hope this was worth the wait. I'll try to make sure that the next one doesn't take as long to get to everyone.

Also, Calvin's new moveset is based on a few different sources, including Ken from Street Fighter V. Compared to his other fight styles, Martial Artist focuses less on power, but more on speed and hitting opponents in quick succession

In the meantime, I hope you liked this chapter and I'll see you next time.
-Frost.

Fun fact, I had the ending reference Moxxie from Helluva Boss, since both he and Kaos have the same voice actor. ^^

Scroll 29.5- What Lurks in the Shadows

Author's Note

Meanwhile, with the villains...

(Props to you if you can find some of the references I hid in here)

Scroll 29.5- What Lurks in the Shadows

Beyond the Skies- What Lurks in the Shadows

“Absolutely NOT!!”

The abrupt echo of Lord Kaos’ voice was loud enough to echo throughout his castle and startled anyone that just so happened to be too close to the doors of his study. The dark portal master was not exactly thrilled at the present moment, for various reasons. Not only did he learn that his henchman Magus made an embarrassment of himself during the finale of his fundraising tournament, but he lost the two Skylander prisoners that he entrusted the drow. The only upside to this news was that the amount of funds from the fundraising efforts were much higher than he originally anticipated.

Yet, this news wasn’t entirely pleasing. Case in point, when his mother caught word of what happened and the news regarding the newly acquired funds, “Why are you so opposed to hearing my advice on the matter?”

“Because I don’t need your advice, mother,” the Dark Portal Master shot back, “I’m perfectly capable of figuring out how to use these funds on my own.”

At that, his mother rolled her eyes, “Kaos, Glumshanks told me that the last time you had received this ill gotten coin that you not only used it to renew your subscription to Minions Monthly, but to also pay for an obnoxious billboard ad in an area of Skylands that nobody goes through.”

“I was trying to increase recruitment, and I was told that there were no Skylander activities where I placed that board, mother!” Kaos folded his arms in disgust, “It’s not my fault that I didn’t know until much later that no one ever goes through there.”

“Really, is that the only reason why?” his mother then asked as she walked over to him, “Why is it that you’re so against taking my advice? I’m only just providing suggestions for your schemes.”

“Because everytime you happen to get yourself involved, you interfere with plans that I already have in motion. Don’t even get me started on your associates.”

“Oh, come now,” Kaossandra retorted, “When was there ever a time where my associates interfered with anything you were doing?”

That simple question was enough to really put Kaos on edge as he narrowed his eyes and stared down his mother, “Every moment the LAST time you were here! Including when you had that giant greeble over-”

“His name is Bubba, dear.”

Rolling his eyes, Kaos continued, “Bubba was not only making a mess of himself throughout my lair, he was sitting inside my fridge for no reason!! And don’t even get me started on those self help books you kept sending me-”

That remark in particular just so happened to get Kaossandra’s attention as she looked back at him, “Oh, really? You didn’t read them after all the trouble it took for me to make sure you had received them? How did that go for you?”

Her son had a retort planned out in advance. However, his mother’s words caused memories that Kaos thought he had suppressed to resurface in his mind, memories of his unfortunate encounters with ‘The Darkness’ during one of his previous attempts to conquer the Skylands left him at a loss for words. Yet, his silence served as the exact answer that his mother wanted.

“Getting back on topic,” Kaossandra said as the sorceress circled back around the portal that was in the room, “What I am saying is that we shouldn’t use our resources carelessly. If we are to succeed, then our resources should be invested in something more meaningful.”

“Grr... fine!” the dark portal master rolled his eyes, “What would you suggest then?”

“Before I go any further,” she said, before moving behind her son, “Where is Sombra? I was informed that you made an alliance with him so you can learn more about those that are aiding the Skylanders. Yet, since the time that you had him catch those trespassers, you haven’t really mentioned anything about him.”

Before Kaos could answer that though, there was a knock at the door as both of the Dark Portal Masters saw Glumshanks on the other side with a tray of snacks and a tea, “U-uh... am I i-interrupting anything? I b-brought the r-refreshments that were requested.”

Immediately, Kaos’ eyes twitched. He did not request anything of that sort or would request anything of that sort. Yet, before he could really say anything, his mother beat him to it. “Why, thank you, Glumshanks. If you would be so kind, just set them over there.”

“Dear elements, it’s like the Cloudbreak Isles all over again!!” Kaos thought to himself. The last time that this happened, his mother had to put her plans over his own and take credit for his achievements. This was his plan, so however it was to go should be his decision to make, not hers! Besides, it wasn’t like she had anything meaningful to contribute to turn things around. His mother just wanted to get involved to take control of his plan again like before!

There was no way he was going to let that happen this time, not when he had gotten so far ahead in his plan without her help to begin with.

“So… um,” Glumshanks nervously spoke, “I-is everything going okay? I o-overheard some of the others say that the s-show didn’t go as expected.”

“Everything was going perfectly fine,” Kaos grumbled as he sat down in a chair across from where his mother was, “Until that imbecile Magus had everything go to his head!! I gave him one simple job, Glumshanks! ONE!! And even then, he wasn't able to do it properly!! We might have funds to continue on with the plan, but that idiot not only lost the prisoners I gave him, he ended up ruining his arena in the process!! All because he wanted a proper finale for that tournament he was hosting.”

“S-surely, it’s not that bad,” the butler tried his best to be positive, “I mean, you did g-get something out of it, right?”

“That we did,” Kaossandra replied, before taking a sip of tea from a tea cup as she held it in her hands, “And that is where our current problem lies. While that brute’s efforts did help us secure the funding we need, the problem we have now is that my son and I disagree on how we should properly use it. If we are to stay one step ahead of who we’re up against, then we should use our resources carefully.”

“You didn’t even tell me what your suggestion was!” Kaos snapped, “You were asking about Sombra! How does that even relate to what we are talking about?!”

“If I remember correctly, Sombra is an all powerful mage of darkness with magical power that is on par with both of us, perhaps even greater,” his mother was quick to retort, “Yet, the last few times I saw you with him, you were using him as decor in your study and had him recite stories like a caretaker would say to children. Honestly, I wonder how much resources you waste in other aspects since you seem rather determined to misuse such a powerful pawn.”

“U-um, if I may,” Glumshanks now spoke up as the troll butler looked to both of the Dark Portal Masters, “In one of our p-previous lairs, L-Lord Kaos insisted that we should invest in t-trap doors to make it harder for i-intruders to go through the place.”

“Oh, really? This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Kaossandra replied, a bit intrigued by what she heard, “How did it go?”

“… N-not that well.”

“Alright, everything should be in place. The pit of chompies underneath, the proper controls here! Now, for the moment of truth!” Kaos replied as he tossed a blueprint of his lair over his shoulder and looked towards his butler, “Pull the lever, Glumshanks!”

As requested, Glumshanks pulled the lever. However, instead of the intended result, the floor underneath Kaos’ feet gave way as the Dark Portal Master fell into the pit. “WRONG LEVER!!!”

“U-uh, master… are you okay-?”

The sound of an explosion under his feet and the sight of the Dark Portal Master reappearing a few feet in front of him was the only answer he got. That, and he was pulling off some chompies that were biting into his robes. “Why do we even HAVE that lever in the first place?!!”

“I still can’t believe that Lair Depot wouldn’t allow me to refund my purchase after the fact,” Kaos grumbled, “Partially used, yeah, right-!”

“Ahem,” before her son could continue, Kaossandra cleared her throat as both the Dark Portal Master and his butler looked back towards her, “Before you go off on another tangent and jump to conclusions, would you at least allow me to explain what exactly I had in mind?”

The simple question was met with a defiant scowl at first from her son. Yet, as time passed, she just sat calmly and drank her tea while waiting for Kaos to let her speak. At some points, it looked as if the Dark Portal Master was going to say something, only to backtrack and not even say anything. This kept on going for about five minutes, before Glumshanks whispered something into his ear and spoke to him off to the side.

Whatever it was that the troll said, it got the Dark Portal Master to begrudgingly cooperate. “Alright, fine! But only this time.”

“See, was that so hard?” Kaossandra smiled, before setting her saucer and teacup down on the nearby tray, “Anyways, what I had in mind is based on some observations I’ve noticed. To start, there’s Sombra and your inquiries about the legends of Equestria’s past.”

“So? I don’t see where you’re going with this, mother.”

The sorceress let out a small breath, before she calmly answered him, “Your efforts to get information from him are admirable. However, those legends of the past are the only thing you ask him about. Nothing about the present, nothing about the world they’re from… nothing. While there have been cases where stories of the past have turned out to be true, like when you were so insistent on uncovering the mysteries of the Arkeyan Empire, most of the time, stories are just that. If you end up fixating on them, you end up forgetting the bigger picture.”

“Wait a minute, how do you know about that?” Kaos immediately interjected. He knew for a fact that his time looking into the Arkeyans was before his mother decided to come back. So, the first thing he did was look directly at his butler with a glare of accusation, “Did you tell her?”

“N-no, not at all!”

“Before you start pointing fingers,” she interrupted him, “The reason I know is because I have eyes and ears everywhere. While you might pride yourself on fighting your foes by throwing as many greebles at the problem as you can, that’s not how I approach things. To me, information wins battles more than armies. That’s why I have the Web.”

“The web?” Glumshanks asked, “B-but, there are no spiders in here.”

“The Web is the name of my trusted network of spies,” Kaossandra clarified for the troll, chuckling all the while, “Operatives in every corner of the Skylands that keep me informed of ongoing developments. In fact, it was their reports on your defeat while in possession of the Fist of Argus that led to my decision to join you when you began your campaign to conquer the Cloudbreak Isles.”

That made Kaos’ eyes twitch for a brief moment, trying to process everything he just heard his mother say. Yet, before he had a chance to respond back, the sorceress picked up right where he left off. “Back to my main point though, pure power alone doesn’t solve everything. In fact, there have been rare moments where you actually succeeded when you put that mindset aside.”

“Oh, really, mother?” the Dark Portal Master rolled his eyes, “When would that happen to be?”

“Well, there are a lot of examples, but let’s focus on a few,” Kaossandra told him, taking a sip of tea for a brief moment before explaining further, “First, there was Cloudbreak. After I was laid low at the hands of those meddlesome Skylanders, instead of lending any form of assistance, you used the opportunity to betray me and move forward with your own plans. Even if it was brief, you still found some form of success in doing so.”

“What else would you’ve expected me to do?” Kaos said as he rolled his eyes. “If anything, my decision was rather obvious-”

“Then, there’s the Doom Raiders,” his mother said afterwards, “You broke them out originally so that you can have them join you in your next attempt to conquer Skylands, only to learn that they had a plan of their own. You went as far as to set up a temporary alliance with your enemies so that you could sabotage their plans, and in the Golden Queen’s defeat, you betrayed them to seize control of her ultimate weapon to use for your own plans. However, you were so fixated on destroying the Skylanders that you didn’t take into account that the effects of traptanium affect Dark Portal Masters just as easily as the other trapped villains the Trap Master captured.”

“A-actually,” Glumshanks said, “I-I tried to tell him, b-but… well…”

“Even then, the results were the same,” the sorceress continued, “Now, let’s look back at some more recent events. For example, after you had your powers taken away by the Darkness, you took it upon yourself to try to find a way to regain the abilities you lost, all while under the guise of shutting down all the portals that were opened by the Sky Eater. Eventually, you did find something inside that of the Hall of Chaos, which not only restored some of your abilities, but led to an even bigger discovery for you: Mind Magic.”

“Oh, I know where this is going,” Kaos grumbled.

“Not everything I have to say is negative, dear. In fact, your plan of creating adversaries that can rival the strength of Skylanders is rather ingenious,” she told him, “However, when it comes to Mind Magic, you can create anything as long as you have the imagination to do so. Even the ancient that voluntarily lent his power to you said the same thing.”

“Don’t remind me-”

“Oh, but I should. Because not only did you ignore their wisdom, you ended up so focused on crushing your opposition that you ended up insulting an ancient that was letting you use their power! How you even got them to go along with your plan originally is still beyond my comprehension...” Kaossandra cut in before Kaos could even finish what he was saying, “That, and let’s not forget that there’s a clone of you in Skylander Academy that wants to take you down and replace you.”

That part even surprised Glumshanks, “Y-you have a clone of yourself, L-lord Kaos?”

“It was one of my first experiments with Mind Magic, to see how it worked! If anything, his betrayal was just a minor setback,” the Dark Portal Master defiantly replied, “I used what I learned from that to make sure my Doomlanders don’t betray me the same way my copy did!” Then, he stared down the sorceress that was across from him. “How exactly does bringing up my previous failures help us now, of all times, mother?!”

“My point is that by focusing on the bigger picture and not fixating on something specific, your plans end up being more successful,” She spoke calmly, “Case in point, with Sombra, you can ask more about where he is from and learn more about what the world below the clouds is like right now, rather than just fixating on the legends of the world. It would be easier to conquer it if you know what your opposition is.”

Kaos did not want to admit it, but his mother actually made a valid point. Trying to conquer unfamiliar territory you don’t have any knowledge of would end up backfiring considerably, hence why he would use Glumshanks as a ‘voluntary’ scout to investigate any potential areas he set his sights on. Though, a different world in particular might require a different approach, and Sombra was exactly what he needed.

“Fine then. Was there anything else you wanted to mention, mother?”

Kaossandra just smirked at the question, “Why, actually, there is another thing we shouldn’t forget,” with a motion of her hands, a spectral image began to appear in between them, an image of a familiar human boy that the Dark Portal Master had seen and encountered a few times before. “The Skylanders would not be the only foe we’re facing this time. More than likely, we’ll be running into the boy again as well. Last I heard, he’s undergone training from the teachers at Skylander Academy.”

“So what?! We’ll just find a way to destroy him, like everyone else that stands in our way!”

“That would be too dangerous. For unlike the Skylanders, we don’t know how strong he is or how much control he has over his powers,” she told him.

“Then, why not just sabotage? I’ve tried it before with those Doom Raiders, and it worked out well.” Despite Kaos’ words, his mother looked over to Glumshanks and found that the troll was shaking his head, a confirmation that it didn’t work out as well as Kaos tried to frame it.

“While that always is a valid option, there’s no telling how fast the child’s progressing with his training. Despite my connections, any attempts to try and place informants in Skylander Academy have been unsuccessful because of the Mabu that runs the security operations-”

“Ha!” Kaos laughed, “Looks like I’m not the only one that got outsmarted by that old Mabu!”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have a plan though… in fact, there’s one detail I remember from your scrying spell when we saw him,” Kaossandra’s reply came with a snap of a finger as the image changed to one where the boy was with three fillies, “It appears that he’s made quite a few friends back where he resides. So, I suggest that we find a way to use them to get to him, much like how I used that chieftain of Woodburrow to get the Skylanders to come to face me in a place where I had what some children would call ‘home field advantage’.”

“D-didn’t that end leading to your i-imprisonment though?” Glumshanks now asked.

Despite the question, the sorceress wasn’t exactly angry like Kaos would be if the troll would’ve asked a question like that to him. If anything, she actually was calm and collective, “Not entirely, it wasn’t the Skylanders themselves that imprisoned me. What happened was that I underestimated the capabilities of my hostage at the time,” then, she narrowed her eyes as she gave both her son and her butler a serious glance, “A mistake that I will not repeat again.”

Immediately afterwards, her expression changed back to her more collected self as she rose up from her chair and straightened her robes. As she went for the door though, that was when her son spoke up, “Hey, where do you think you’re going!?”

“I have other matters that require my attention,” she told him, “Besides, you would more likely want to spend your time doing something productive than listening to me all day.”

With that, the sorceress left the room and left both the Dark Portal Master and his butler to themselves. Moments afterwards though, Glumshanks had a question for Kaos, “S-so, what do we do now, Lord Kaos?”

It did not take long for Kaos to come up with an answer to such a simple question. Though, if Glumshanks was honest with himself, it was not the kind of answer he was expecting, “So, mother thinks that I lack the information necessary to succeed with my plan, does she!? Well, I, Kaos, will prove her wrong,” the Dark Portal Master then turned back towards his butler, “Glumshanks, I have a new task for you.”

“A n-new task, sir?”

“If mother is so insistent on wanting me to get more information, then we’ll do just that,” Kaos proudly told him, “Find some way to spy on her spy network! If she’s keeping secrets from me, then I want to know what they are. Better yet, why stop there? If you can get any information from her agents, then we’ll stay one step ahead of her.”

“W-what will you be doing though?” the troll nervously asked.

“As much as I’d hate to admit it, mother was right on one thing,” the Dark Portal Master said in disgust, “Sombra would be more useful if we actually use him for something. So, while you are away, I will be asking him some questions.”

Now that he had given Glumshanks his answer, Kaos was ready to get on with his plans. However, there was just one problem. Despite giving him his task, Glumshanks was still in the room with him. That, and the fact that the troll didn’t pick up on what he was saying greatly irritated him.

“Why are you STILL HERE!? GET GOING ALREADY!!”

Elsewhere

As she walked throughout the halls of the castle, Kaossandra felt like most of her patience had dissipated after the conversation she had with her son. She knew that Kaos was rather defiant when it came to listening to advice, but the sorceress did not think that her son would ignore advice that was just common sense. She would’ve thought that after several defeats and betrayals that he would actually learn from his experiences. Though, if the conversation she had with him told her anything, it was that Kaos had been stubbornly defiant to change all these years.

Though, there was something in their conversation that did not fully add up, that being when her son talked about the ‘tournament’ hosted by one of his own minions. For being a rather rambunctious brute who bragged about his prisoners not being able to escape, the two trespassers that her son ended up giving him somehow disappeared from his complex. Yet, the sorceress believed that there was more to this than what she had been told.

“Good evening, my lady.”

The voice from behind her was unexpected, yet familiar as someone slowly began to descend from the ceiling. In the minimal amount of light from the hallway, she could see a light grey spider-like figure with red eyes that was similar to that of Mesmeralda, but their appearance was vastly different. Instead of the attire of a circus performer, they wore an outfit that was akin to that of a butler; a white collared shirt, dark grey vest and a black tie with a red hourglass in the center of it and a dark long coat that stretched over the bottom half of their body. White gloves were on all six of his hands, as two of them were straightening up his hair with a comb in one and a mirror in the other.

“Ah, there you are, Lìn,” she said with a smile, “Punctual as ever, I see.”

“Why, of course,” the spider replied back, before noticing the sorceress’ current state as he asked a different question, “Is everything alright?”

“Somewhat,” Kaossandra told him, “I just finished a conversation with my son earlier, and some of what he said seemed… concerning.”

That had Lìn raise an eyebrow as he looked back at the sorceress, “Could you elaborate, my lady?”

“A few days ago, some trespassers were captured, trying to break into the castle. After they were caught, Kaos gave them to one of his ‘associates’ who claimed that there was no possible way they could escape,” as she spoke, Kaossandra let out a small breath as she looked back to him, “You can probably take a guess as to what happened next.”

“Ah, I see,” the spider scratched his chin, “And I’m going to assume that he’s pointing the blame at that associate?”

“My son thinks that it’s a matter of incompetence,” she told the butler, before taking a seat in a large throne-like chair along a window that overlooked the courtyard of the castle, “I, however, don’t think so. While I agree that Magus, his associate, and his conduct was his own undoing, I disagree with the motion that he just let them escape, especially since he had forced those same trespassers to take part in battles without even giving them a chance to catch their breath and recover.”

Now, Lìn was getting a better idea as to what she was referring to. “So, you suspect that there was foul play involved? That someone helped them escape?”

“Unlike Kaos, I’d rather not leave that out of the realm of possibility,” Kaossandra replied, “I want the Web to conduct a thorough investigation into this. Tell them to leave no stone unturned and that I expect to have a full report once they have finished.”

Lìn nodded his head as he placed a hand on his chest and took a small bow in front of her, “I will inform them at once. If you wish, I can oversee the investigation, to make sure that it fits within the exact specifications that you requested.”

“Only if you are certain that you feel up to the task,” she told him, “I know that you’d prefer to do fieldwork over paperwork any day in the week, so with that in mind, I’d rather not bore you with assignments that you would find tedious.”

“My lady, let me assure you that no task or assignment that you ask for me to do is ‘tedious’,” the spider insisted, “I only wish to see this fulfilled with the utmost haste. While the Web and its agents are effective at accomplishing tasks, some need proper motivation to make sure a task you assigned is completed. I believe my presence would be enough to make sure that, as you said yourself, no stone is left unturned.”

That was news to her… and also a bit concerning. If there were agents in the field that weren’t fulfilling their duties, then it meant that there could’ve been gaps in the information that they were collecting, something that Kaossandra would not tolerate under any circumstances. “Very well then. If that is the case, choose who you believe is the best qualified for this investigation and see it through. As for the other thing you mentioned, I will contact Cheilt and make sure she sees to those who aren’t fully obligating themselves to their duties. The Web is supposed to be able to accomplish any task that they are assigned, so anything less than that is unacceptable.”

“It shall be done,” Lìn nodded in acknowledgement, before he turned around and disappeared into the shadows. He had a lot of work to do, and it couldn’t be done if he remained here.

Scroll 30- Grounded

Beyond the Skies- Grounded

By the time that the morning sun came in through the window of his room, Calvin had a feeling that the next couple of days were going to be a headache, not because he didn’t feel well or anything like that, but more because today was the first day of being under lockdown at the castle. After making the poor decision to not tell Twilight the truth of what he was doing last time he was in the Skylands, the Skyshifter now had to face the consequences of his decisions. Not only was he grounded for the next couple of days, but Twilight had prepared a long list of chores for him to do around the castle that would normally be done by Spike.

It was something that he was reminded of when he came downstairs to find a long scroll of parchment on the table where he usually ate breakfast. Though, much to his surprise, Twilight wasn’t downstairs this morning. Aside from Dusty, it looked as if no one else was there to see him.

“Okay, that’s… weird. Why is nobody else here?” he thought, before going over to the table. His attention was a little more focused on the smaller piece of parchment that was on the table compared to the gigantic scroll. In his mind, the Skyshifter thought that perhaps Twilight left something behind to explain her absence.

Dear Calvin,

I’m sorry to inform you about this at the last minute, but something has come up. Early this morning, Celestia sent me a letter and asked for me to come to Canterlot for something important. I’ll try to be back as soon as I can, but if I’m not going to be back in time, then I’ll have Spike return to the castle to check on you.

Just because I’m not around does not mean you can use this as an excuse to slack off though. I enchanted all the doors that lead out of the castle, including the basement, to make sure you stay in the castle. Even though I’m not there, the fact of the matter is that you’re still grounded. Unless you want your time stuck in the castle to be extended, then you should tend to the list of chores that I left for you.

Have a good day.

Twilight

“Huh. That explains a few things,” Calvin said as he set the paper down. Part of him was curious as to what exactly was so important that Twilight had to be summoned for. Though, that was something he could ask about when she came back. Right now, he had to get himself something to eat first. After all, it was probably not a good idea to tackle the list of chores that were left for him on an empty stomach.

Of course, trying to find everything that he wanted to eat for breakfast was not exactly an easy task, mainly because the kitchen in the Castle of Friendship was rather huge. Aside from the bowl of fruit that was left out on the counter, there was no telling which cabinets had food inside and which ones just had something else, like dishes or cleaning supplies. After he found a bowl and spoon to use, it took him nearly fifteen minutes to go through all the pantries and cabinets to find what he was looking for. Not only that, but he couldn’t believe just how many pastries were stuffed inside there… and were probably left over from Pinkie Pie’s impromptu bake sale.

When Calvin finally finished getting everything that he needed, that was when he decided to open up the scroll and see what sort of tasks were listed for him. At first, he thought that the amount of tasks that were on there were pretty much endless. Though, when he had a look at it, that didn’t appear to be the case. If anything, what was actually on the scroll was actually a lot more beneficial than he was expecting.

“Well, that’s helpful at least.”

“What’s helpful, master?” He heard Dusty ask as the fire pup hopped up onto the chair that was next to where he was sitting.

“Oh, uh,” the Skyshifter scratched the back of his head, before rolling the scroll back up and setting it on the table, “Twilight wants me to help around the castle today. So, this scroll has a list of tasks I need to complete and instructions on how to complete certain ones.”

However, despite his response, the answer he got back from the lava dog was not what he was expecting, “H-how… does that help? W-what’s an instruction?”

At that, Calvin couldn’t help but blink in confusion at that as he looked back at her. In all honesty, he had no idea how to respond to that kind of question. Though, given how Dusty was more than likely not going to take no for an answer, he had to try somehow. “Oh, uh… W-well, instructions are… hmm...” Then, a thought came to mind. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it to her was to try and compare it to something she’s already familiar with. “You know how I would give you orders sometimes?”

Dusty was quick to nod back in response, which had Calvin let out a small sigh of relief. “Y-yes. W-why do you ask, master?”

At that, the Skyshifter decided to grab the scroll from the table and open it up for the lava dog to see, “Well, think of instructions as something that comes with an order that you haven’t done before,” As he spoke, he pointed out one of the lists of instructions Twilight had written for him to show as an example, “They’re a list of steps that you follow to make sure that someone can fulfil what they were told to do without making any mistakes, like ‘mini-orders’, if you want to call it that.”

However, despite Calvin trying his best to keep his explanation simple, Dusty looked as if she was having a hard time trying to understand everything. Though, that was when he realized that telling her about this was probably going to not be that effective. If the lava dog was going to understand what he was talking about, then showing her was probably going to be a lot more effective.

At least, in theory. “Um… master? W-what are t-these things?”

“Well, everything that’s written on here are tasks that I have to do today,” Calvin told Dusty as he rolled the scroll back up and set off to the side, “Some of the words might be a bit complex, but-”

“Master, what’s a word?”

Immediately, Calvin’s train of thought screeched to a grinding halt as he looked at the lava dog. “Oh… dear.”

Later…

By the time that Spike had finally returned to the castle, the dragon already had a rather rough morning so far. To start, he was disturbed from his sleep by a panicking Twilight at four in the morning, who thought that there was a legitimate reason behind her outburst when she said that she received a letter from Celestia herself, only to discover upon arriving at the doors to Canterlot Castle that he ended up getting dragged into something that he wasn’t even needed for. Originally, Spike thought that he could use Twilight’s blunder to go over to the House of Enchanted Comics to get the newest issue of the Power Ponies comic he enjoyed reading. However, it was only when he arrived that the dragon learned that the newest issue was already sold out, and it wouldn’t be in stock for another couple of days.

Disappointed by his lack of success, Spike was fortunate enough to get on the train back to Ponyville without any potential hiccups or delays. However, the ride back to Ponyville wasn’t exactly peaceful. Not only were some passengers talking a little too loud, but the sounds of crying children disrupted anything he was trying to do. Even when he tried to have a small nap, it was interrupted by the chatter of passengers gossiping or staff members trotting between the different cars on the train.

When the train finally pulled into Ponyville station, Spike was relieved to be back home as he quickly made a beeline back towards the Castle of Friendship. Though as he stepped through the doors, the greeting that the dragon got was not one that he expected. “Oh, hello, Spike.”

Spike couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as he turned to see Calvin walking out of a nearby room as they closed the door behind them. “Oh, uh… g-good morning, Calvin,” Spike replied, just as he noticed the scroll that was coming out of the front pocket of his shorts, “How are you?”

“Alright, for the most part,” he sighed, “I’ve been trying to make some progress on this list of tasks that Twilight left for me. However, it’s not exactly easy by any means.”

“Well, Twilight’s the one that made the list.”

At that, Calvin paused for a moment. It looked like he was going to say something, but in the end, he just shrugged his shoulders and looked back at the dragon, “Fair point. Though, while we’re on the subject, can I ask for your help with something?”

Spike’s eyes narrowed at that as he folded his arms, “If you’re going to ask me for help with those chores-”

“No, no! Nothing like that,” the Skyshifter quickly assured him, “I don’t need help with the chores. If I tried to ask for help, Twilight would surely get upset at me about that. She strictly told me that I need to do them by myself. Though, that… also relates to what I need help with.”

The dragon couldn’t help but blink his eyes in confusion, “How exactly does that-?” Before he could finish, Spike noticed as the lava dog named Dusty was sitting in the middle of the hallway. She seemed to be sitting there, patiently waiting as if they were expecting for Calvin to tell her something. Though, it was at that moment that things started to click into place. “Oh. Oh, I think I get it now. Dusty?”

Calvin nodded at that, “I’ve tried to tell her that she doesn’t have to help me and that Twilight expects for me to do this on my own. However, she doesn’t really take ‘no’ for an answer. There have been a couple of times where I was trying to clean some of the rooms down here, only to stop because Dusty wanted to help, and I had to prevent her from making a bigger mess than the one I was trying to clean.”

“So, let me see if I get this right,” he then asked, “You want me to try and distract her? A lava dog that’s very attached to you and doesn’t listen to anyone else?”

“Yes.”

Spike now let out a low sigh as he looked back at Calvin, “And just what exactly do you have in mind for this to work? You must have some kind of good idea for a distraction in order to keep her occupied for… well, as long as it’ll take for you to get everything you need done.”

At that, the Skyshifter couldn’t help but let out a small grin as he looked back at Spike, “I have one, though let me ask you something. How good are you when it comes to being a teacher? Because, as I found out this morning, Dusty needs some lessons that are long overdue.”

“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific,” the dragon said.

“Well,” Calvin replied, taking a quick glance over to Dusty before he looked back at Spike, “As I found out earlier this morning when trying to show her the list Twilight left for me, Dusty can’t read. She doesn’t even know what letters are, let alone words.”

Now, the dragon couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at him, “And you think that I am the best one to teach her.”

“More like getting started,” he corrected, “Originally, I was thinking of trying to teach her after I’m done with the chores Twilight wants for me to do. Yet, if Dusty tries to ‘step in’, I’m worried that it would take much longer. So, I was thinking that you can at least start teaching her with some letters, and then, I can lend a hand once I finish all of these tasks.”

Now things were slowly beginning to sound a little more reasonable, emphasis on ‘slowly’. Spike still had a few questions regarding what exactly was Calvin asked to do and why, but it was more than likely that he wouldn't get the right answers until Twilight came back… whenever that was supposed to be. “Okay, I’ll help,” Spike sighed, before he unfolded his arms, “But you better not leave me to do this on my own. Once you’re done-”

“I come back to help,” the Skyshifter finished for him, “I’ll make sure to do so. Though, as I mentioned earlier, I’m not sure how long this will take. Twilight did say that these chores are usually ones that she has you do, so I’m assuming it’s not going to be easy.”

At first, Spike just nodded his head and didn’t think that much about it. Though, when he saw Dusty heading towards him and Calvin walking down the hallway to the next room he was about to clean, something clicked. “Wait a minute, you’re doing my chores-?! Calvin, wait-”

Before he could even finish what he was saying, the sound of a closing door echoed throughout the castle as Spike looked down to see that Dusty was by his feet. “M-mister Spike? M-Master said that you could h-help me learn what l-letters are.”

Throughout the majority of her early start today, Twilight felt as if her mind was all over the place. After receiving a summons from Celestia early in the morning, the Princess of Friendship hastily raced over to Canterlot on the assumption that there was some form of emergency. Though, upon arriving inside the Hall of the Elements and finding both Celestia and Luna, she began to learn that not everything was as bad as she originally assumed it to be. Why yes, it was true that the summons was sent much earlier than expected, it wasn’t because of an emergency at the castle.

Instead, the discussion at hoof was about something Celestia had recently received word of from the Crystal Empire. After the changeling runaway named Thorax was accepted by the crown and allowed to stay in the Empire, he had been working his hardest to help Princess Cadance and the rest of the royal family. Though, after a recent conversation with him, there was something that Thorax told her that the Princess of Love was concerned about, and in turn, told Celestia. Based on his words, it sounded as if Queen Chrysalis was preparing to enact another plan to take over Equestria as revenge against those who foiled her at the Canterlot Wedding.

Despite how serious this sounded at first, there were a few problems with the information they received. The main issue was that, despite this coming from Thorax, there wasn’t any solid proof. Much of what Thorax said was based on what he remembered of Chrysalis, and he also mentioned to Cadance beforehand that it had been months since he parted ways with the Hive. So, any potential ‘theories’ of what Chrysalis might try and do sounded more like speculation without any actual evidence. The only thing that Thorax could confirm for a fact was that Chrysalis, despite how spiteful she was, was not one to enact the same plan twice.

This, in turn, led to the three princesses coming across another issue that hindered any attempt of formulating a possible plan. In order to combat a plan by changelings, you need to know a way to detect changelings. The only way that Twilight was able to tell that Chrysalis was impersonating Cadance during the wedding was subtle changes in behavior in the days prior to the ceremony. There wasn’t a known spell that could detect changelings or dismiss a changeling’s disguise, and coming up with such a spell would not only require Thorax’s cooperation, but also time… time that they more than likely did not have since they did not know if Chrysalis already put this plan in motion… or if she was waiting for the opportune moment.

After several hours of discussion, the three princesses agreed to hold off on any further discussions until either new information came to light or the information that they already have was clarified in some way. In addition to this, Twilight was asked by Princess Celestia to not tell her friends just yet, not because they wanted to hide this information from the other elements of harmony, but because rumors around Ponyville have the tendency to spread uncontrollably like wildfire. If word were to get out about a possible changeling attack, it could cause the civilians to go into a panic and inadvertently provide an opportunity for Chrysalis’ drones to slip in and hide among the townsfolk.

Despite Twilight’s best efforts though, trying to simply ignore everything they talked about was easier said than done. Thoughts and possibilities of what could and couldn’t happen continued to pop inside her head on her way back to the castle. Even when saying hello to ponies that happened to notice her in town, the alicorn was slow to respond because she was too deep in thought, so much so that she tried to hurry back to the Castle of Friendship as fast as possible.

Though, when Twilight finally stepped through the castle doors and into her home, she was greeted by a rather strange sight taking place in the Map Room. Spike was standing next to where her seat would be at the Cutie Map with a chalkboard rested against it, while all the different letters of the alphabet were written on the board. Meanwhile, the lava dog named Dusty was sitting on the opposite end of the table and watching the young dragon as he was speaking.

“Alright. Now Dusty, what’s the first letter of the alphabet?”

“D.”

“That’s… the first letter of your name,” he corrected her.

“O-oh, it is?”

At that, the alicorn couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as she spoke up. “Uh, Spike? What are you doing?”

Immediately, both the dragon and the lava dog turned around and looked back towards Twilight shortly after she said that. “Oh, h-hi Twilight… when did you-?”

“Just now,” she replied, before looking at Dusty, “So, what are you-?”

“M-Master said that Spike could t-tell me what letters and words are!” the lava dog replied with nervous glee, which had Twilight raise an eyebrow as she glanced back at the dragon with a puzzled look on her face.

Which, in turn, had the dragon sigh as he got down from his seat and walked over to her. “Yeah, what she said. Calvin asked for me to try and teach her how to read,” at that, Spike also had Twilight lower her head so he could whisper into her ear, “He also said it would also keep Dusty occupied, so that way he could work on the ‘chores’ you assigned him without her trying to help him.”

Upon hearing that, Twilight let out a small sigh of relief. Part of her was worried that Calvin would put off the tasks on the lists that she had left for him in her mad dash out the door. Though, hearing Spike say that put her mind at ease. It was comforting to know that the Skyshifter was taking this seriously.

At least, for the moment, “While we’re on the subject though, I need to ask you an honest question.”

“Huh?” the alicorn tilted her head, “What do you need to ask?”

As soon as he heard that, Spike then walked towards her seat at the Cutie Map, before getting back up and crossing his arms, “Twilight, what exactly made you think that giving him my chores was a good idea?”

“W-what?” she blinked, a bit surprised by the sudden question, “Spike, d-don’t you remember all those times you told me that y-you wanted a break from your chores?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you would actually follow through on it,” he responded, “Plus, did you take a moment to consider that some of the chores that you would have him do would be too dangerous for him to do? I mean, you did tell him to do these chores without his powers.”

“Don’t be silly, Spike. I’m sure that Calvin can handle it just fine-”

Just as those words left Twilight’s lips, a loud explosion and the sound of breaking glass went off from farther down the nearby hallway as everyone quickly turned to see where it came from. Moments later, Calvin stepped out from behind one of the doors farther down the hallway. However, half of his shirt looked to have been burned off, and there were signs of smoke and dust all over his body. Yet, he was focused less on his own appearance and more on his task. “S-spike, where do you keep the broom and dust pan?”

“Calvin, what the hay just happened!? Are you okay?” the alicorn panicked, shocked at how the Skyshifter looked hurt, but he was trying to shrug things off.

“Funny story about that. Remember how you asked me to clean up around the place? As well as the Alchemy lab?”

“Alchemy lab? Why would-” Immediately, Twilight’s eyes widened once she realized what he was saying, “Oh, no.”

“Yeah, I was trying to carefully clean out the vials you left behind and pour out the liquids, but… one thing led to another,” he shrugged, “Now, I got a mess to clean up, so where do you keep the broom-”

“Actually, let me do that,” Spike interjected.

That response confused Calvin to no end as he tilted his head and looked back at the dragon, “Uh, Spike? Twilight was the one that wanted me to do the chores-”

“And I think it’s clear that, after what just happened, Twilight overlooked some things. So, let me do cleanup while you clean yourself up,” as he got off of the chair, Spike looked back towards the alicorn with a serious glare in his eyes, “After I’m done though, we need to have a serious talk about what you might see as ‘safe’ chores, Twilight. Because clearly, you can’t just hand off somepony’s responsibilities to somepony else.”

As soon as he said that, the annoyed dragon walked away from the table to grab the broom and dustpan from a nearby closet. As he walked away towards the Alchemy Lab, both Calvin and Twilight just stared in shock. Out of all the times that something crazy would happen, Spike had never taken matters into his own claws. Normally, it would be Twilight asking him to help clean up.

The silence was broken when the two of them heard Dusty speak up, “D-did I do something wrong? W-why is Spike upset, master?”

That had the Skyshifter slowly turn back towards the lava dog and give a small smile, “No, Dusty. You didn’t do anything wrong. I think Spike just needs a break.”

“A b-break?” Dusty asked, “B-but we only just s-started.”

“Well, if you want,” Calvin said, looking towards the unattended chalkboard by the table, “I can fill in and pick up where you left off for right now, until he comes back. Aside from that… hiccup just now, I finished what was on the list. If Twilight is okay with it, of course.”

At the time, Twilight was still trying to process what just happened as she just stared down the hall. Only when the Skyshifter waved a hand in her field of vision did she snap back to reality and look back towards him and Dusty. “Oh, uh, sorry. I kind of zoned out there for a minute. What were you saying, Calvin?”

“I was suggesting that we could help teach Dusty, since I was done with everything on the list, including everything that was on the back of it. Though, some of the stuff that was on there was a bit weird.”

That just had the alicorn blink for a moment, before looking back at Calvin, “On the back? What are you talking about? I didn’t write anything on the back of the list.”

“You didn’t?” Calvin asked, before pulling out the list and handing it for her to look at, “Then, what’s this then?”

At this, Twilight turned the paper around and began to read the items that were somehow on the back of the list, despite the fact that she never wrote them. Though, as she began to look them over, that was when the alicorn began to notice a particular pattern, as one last addition was being added to the back side of the page in real time.

Chores to Complete- Part 2

-Paint my research room with ‘Make sure to sleep’ reminders
-Prepare all the necessary material needed for Book Fort 2.0. (Make sure to only use books that detail past conflicts since those ones are sturdier)
-Clean Spike’s Food Tray (The one where he keeps his ‘precious shinies’)
-Check the entries in my diary are consistent (Just the dates, don’t ask)
-Make sure I’m not off my medication
-Make sure I don’t have any medication to be on
-Prepare Quesadillas for lunch (Spike knows where he keeps the recipe)
-Finally, the last thing to do here is just sit back, take a deep breath… and realize that you just got PRANKED, BRO!! Oh man, it feels so good to be back.

-Your friendly neighborhood chaos maker, Discord

“… Excuse me for a moment.”

In a flash of light, Twilight immediately teleported out of the room without a second thought as she left Calvin and Dusty in the map room. The two of them were a bit puzzled by the alicorn’s sudden departure. Though, for some reason, the Skyshifter could hear some noise from a nearby open window that sounded like something he would hear from the cartoons that he used to watch back home.

“Master?” the lava dog asked, “D-do we have to w-wait for her?”

At that, Calvin just shook his head, “Actually, let’s get started right now. Something tells me it might be a while before Twilight comes back.”

End Scroll 30

Author's Note

Something short, but gets to the point. Thought of this being a bit of a comical chapter before things get serious.

Fun Fact- Calvin and Spike trying to teach Dusty is based on a moment from Campaign One of Critical Role where Grog tries to learn how to Read from Pike.

Until next time
-Frost

Scroll 31- The Search

Author's Note

Happy New Year, everyone! With 2021 behind us, I look forward to what this new year has in store and hope for the best.
-Frost

Scroll 31- The Search

Beyond the Skies- The Search

???

The night sky was absent of stars this evening, as the sound of moving vehicles echoed in the far distance of the empty lot. What was once a prosperous establishment that sold toys and games to children of any age was nothing more than a shell of its former self. To make things worse, the stories of an unsolved disappearance from two years ago had given the place a bad reputation and scared off any potential buyers that would’ve been interested in taking over the building. There had even been calls to have the place leveled to the ground, but survey teams found that a demolition job would only end up damaging local businesses that were not too far away from the site. It was essentially an empty husk that couldn’t be removed and couldn’t have someone else take over for them.

Though, on this night, the supposedly abandoned building was about to receive a pair of unexpected visitors. “Raquel, are you sure about this?”

The two visitors in question were a pair of twins, who looked to be in their early teens. One was a young man with short brown hair, light skin and brown eyes that wore a black hooded jacket over a blue t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. The other was a young girl of the same age, whose hair and eye color were the same, but she had her hair drift off to the right side of her head. As for her appearance, she wore a gray collared jacket with a blue long sleeved shirt and jeans along with a woven bracelet on her left wrist.

“Trevor, we’ve gone over this a few times already. We go in, have a look around, and if we don’t find anything, we get out,” she told him, placing a hand on her hip and giving him a look of reassurance, “What more is there to be worried about?”

“Oh, I don’t know, sis,” the teen that was next to her replied sarcastically as he folded his arms, “The fact that no matter how many times we’ve talked about this, we’ve never discussed what we would do if we got caught. I don’t know about you, but anyone else would call this breaking and entering-”

“Who would there be to even catch us?” Raquel asked, “The place is basically empty, and no one comes around here, not even the police. Now, are we going to just stand around here asking questions, or are we going to go inside-?”

At this, her brother let out a deep sigh as he looked back to her, “Raquel, you still never told me why you wanted to do this. I would be a little bit more open minded about everything if you could at least tell me that. Unlike you, I’m not a mind reader.”

It was then that the teenaged girl removed the hand from her hip and looked to the front entrance of the old building. “Ever since Calvin vanished, things haven’t been the same here. You saw how devastated his mom was when the news was broken to her. Not only that, but I couldn’t help but feel as if part of me is somehow responsible. I know I’ve changed since elementary, yet I’m still reminded of those times every time we pass by here. There are a few unanswered questions I have, and I thought that by coming here, I could at least get some answers. Either that, or put everything to rest for good.”

Then, she looked back at her brother. “Does that help dispel any doubts you might have?”

Trevor’s only response to that was a small breath as he looked back to her briefly, “A bit, yes. Though, let’s just try to be careful. We have no idea what could be inside, so let’s err on the side of caution. Mom and dad would chew both of us out if something happened while on this little adventure of yours.”

With that out of the way, both of them proceeded to walk through the empty parking lot and towards the entrance of the abandoned building. From a distance, nothing really seemed to stand out about it. The building itself had some wear and tear across the structure. The windows were boarded up, and there was faded graffiti on the walls. Yet, there wasn’t anything that really stood out to either of them, at first glance.

As they approached the front of the deserted building though, that was when the two siblings came across a problem that they couldn’t easily work around, for both the entrance and exit doors were sealed tight with thick metallic chains wrapped around the handles of the doors, joined by a giant lock in the middle. Not only did they not have a key, but despite the two of them watching a few crime dramas together, both teens had no idea what to do when it came to trying to pick a lock.

After closely inspecting the lock and chains, Trevor let out a small sigh before he looked back at Raquel and shrugged, “Well, I guess that rules out going through the front door. Do you have a Plan B or something for how to get in?”

“Hang on a second. I’m-”

Before she had the chance to finish her sentence, Raquel heard the sound of a small bell jingling behind her. When the girl turned around, that was when she saw a rather unusual sight. About thirty feet behind the two siblings stood a cat with gray fur and cyan colored eyes that stared at the two of them. A black collar was around its neck, too, with a small bell around the neck. Yet, there didn’t seem to be any tags on them at all and looked like a stray from a distance.

“Raquel, is something wrong? Why are you staring off into space?”

“I heard something and-” at that moment, Raquel paused briefly before she looked back at her brother with a confused glance, “Wait, staring off? What are you talking about?”

“When you didn’t answer my question, I turned my head and saw you just looking behind me, like you had seen a ghost or something.”

At that, Raquel felt a small shiver down her spine as she looked back the other direction. The cat was still there, licking its own paws, and it didn’t go off anywhere. Yet, what her brother just said didn’t sound right at all, as she looked back towards him, “Are you saying that you can’t see it?”

“See what, sis? Because I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Trevor, there’s a cat standing right behind us.”

When Raquel said that, her brother now turned away from the door and looked behind her sister. However, instead of shock and surprise, Trevor was instead confused as he shook his head. “Come on, sis, I don’t see any cats. There’s nothing else out here aside from the two of us. Now, can we try to refocus and figure out another way for us to get inside?”

As her brother was speaking, Raquel looked over her shoulder to see that the cat had turned around and started to walk away. The feline walked alongside the building, and when it reached the corner, it darted around and disappeared without a trace. She thought that this cat was trying to tell her something. Despite her brother somehow not being able to see it, the creature looked as if it somehow understood the problem they were facing. If that was the case, then perhaps there was more to it than she originally thought.

“Hey, Trevor? I might have an idea, but I’m going to need you to really trust me on this one.”

Before Trevor even realized what exactly she was talking about, Raquel began to walk away from him and started following after the cat. When she turned around the corner, the cat was already halfway alongside the building and getting farther ahead of her. In her mind, this cat that only she could somehow see was possibly the key to finding another way inside. Even though it sounded crazy, it was either this or staring at a door for the next few hours with no idea how to get in.

By the time that Trevor had finally caught up with her, Raquel was already around the back side of the lot. “Sis, when you say that you have an idea, it would be helpful if you actually tell me what that idea is!”

“Calm down now, Trevor. We’re fine,” she reassured him, before she looked farther ahead of her just in time to see that the cat she was following had slipped in through the opening of a door that was partially open, “Besides, I think we just found our way in.”

When he heard that, Trevor looked away from her briefly towards the open door that was not that far away from them, before looking back at his sister, “Okay, I got to ask. What exactly made you think that we would have better luck around the back side of the building?”

“Would it be weird to tell you that all I did was just follow a cat, and I found the door like that?”

Her brother just blinked, looking back towards the door briefly before looking over to her. “If it were me, I would think that either you’re hallucinating or you’re somehow seeing something that I’m not. Right now though, it’s the latter.” Shortly afterwards, Trevor walked over to the door and carefully opened it up a bit further, before motioning his right arm, as if he was bowing to his sister, “Ladies first.”

Raquel couldn’t help but chuckle at that, before she walked over and went on inside, with her brother right behind her. As they gently closed the door behind them, the two siblings found themselves in what looked to be a small, dimly lit break room. Despite it being empty, they could see outlines of where appliances used to be, as well as patched up holes in the drywall and dust all over the floor and countertops.

“Well, this place has seen better days. Hey, did you bring some kind of light? That way, we’re not looking around in the dark?” The only response that she got from her brother was him taking out his phone and pressing a couple of buttons before a light began to shimmer next to his phone’s camera lens. “Okay, I honestly forgot that our phones had that feature.”

“That’s because we never really used it until now,” Trevor said, before moving the light around the room to take a good look around, “Man, this place has definitely not aged well since we’ve last been here. I wonder if the rest of the building is just as bad.”

“Considering how much time has passed, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Raquel shrugged, before she noticed what appeared to be the handle of a door on the other side of the room. Carefully, she approached it with caution and gently pushed against the door as it squeaked open. “Only one way to find out for sure though. Let’s keep moving, though be on the lookout for anything that seems strange.”

“Like cats?”

Raquel could only roll her eyes at that, before letting out a deep sigh. “Yes, because I have a feeling that this place isn’t as empty as we think it is.”

As the twins stepped out of the former break room, both of them were surprised by the state in which they found the rest of the building. Instead of it being a giant empty space, like the break room was, this area in particular had a variety of what looked to be wooden shipping crates in different shapes and sizes. Some of them were even open, with their contents set on the crate adjacent from it, on the floor or on top of a table that stretched across most of the far wall on the other side.

Yet, what was most surprising to them was not just the state of the room, but what was inside the crates. At first glance, the two of them thought that the warehouse was being used by criminals that were trying to hide stolen goods from the police. However, when they took a closer look, what the two of them found was completely different from what either of them were expecting. “What the heck?”

Inside the boxes, the twins found what looked to be various kinds of toys, along with numerous books, figurines and games… not just the kind for young children like building blocks and stuffed animals, but for all ages from the looks of it and many of which both of them could recognize. There were figurines, building sets, different versions of board games like Monopoly and Clue, as well as many other items, too. Not only that, but in a few boxes, there were different costumes and props, such as toy weapons and superhero masks, with a lot of them being in rather good condition.

“What’s up with all this?” Trevor asked as he began to pull out different items, to have a closer look at each one. After a couple of moments, he looked back to his sister and asked the first thing that came to mind, “Do you think all of these are… well, stuff they left behind? Like, products that they weren’t able to sell?”

“I doubt that,” Raquel shook her head, briefly looking inside the box and pulling out one of the items inside before looking back at her brother, “When this place had their going out of business sale, almost everything was cleaned off the shelves when we came here. Besides, if there was anything left over, you would think that it would go to charity, instead of just sitting around gathering dust.”

“Fair point,” Trevor replied as he put some of the items back in the crate, “Though, I doubt we’re going to find anything if we look through every one of these boxes. So, with that in mind, do you have a plan?”

“The only other thing I can really think of is to keep looking around,” she replied, before an idea came to mind, “Given that we still have a lot of ground to cover though, how about you and I split up and meet back here in like… ten minutes?”

Yet, that suggestion didn’t quite go so well with her brother, “Yeah, I… don’t think that last part is a good idea.”

“What, ten minutes? We can’t be here too long-”

“No, the part before that,” he corrected himself, “The part where we split up. Shouldn’t we stay by each other? Safety in numbers?”

Raquel can now only let out a soft groan as she looked at her brother with a deadpan expression, “Trevor, please don’t tell me that you have a phobia or something I’m unaware of.”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Trevor insisted as he let out a sigh, “Do you remember when I played that one game with dad when he had some of his friends over? You know, the one with all the little figurines, the different kinds of dice and that screen he used to hide whatever he was looking at?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Well, in that game, our group was investigating a warehouse, almost similar to this one. I was going to ask if splitting up was a good idea, though they were quick to shut me down. When I asked why, they told me that splitting the party is never a good idea. Because if something bad happens and you are by yourself, no one else can help you.”

“…And how exactly does this apply to what we’re doing right now?”

At that, Trevor folded his arms, “What I’m suggesting is that we should stick together. That way, if one of us needs help, the other could do so.”

“Then, why didn’t you-” Raquel paused, before letting out a deep breath. The more time that she got hung up on the details of her brother's confusing explanation, the more time they were wasting, “Nevermind, forget that I asked. Let’s try it your way, then. If splitting up is a bad idea, then what do you suggest we do?”

“Well, the only other thing that stands out besides the boxes is that over there,” her brother replied as he pointed towards the back wall.

“The table?” she asked, “How come?”

“Because the more I look at it, the more I think it’s some kind of desk or workbench. If someone was here recently, maybe they left something behind there? Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to look.”

Raquel hated to admit it, but her brother had a valid point. Not only that, but despite their findings in the crates, they did not have any other leads to go off of. That, and despite that strange cat helping the two of them get inside the building, she had no idea where it ran off to afterwards. “Okay then. Lead the way.”

As the twins walked on over, nothing really seemed to stand out, at first. From a distance, it looked like any other ordinary table. Though, as they got closer, they realized that the condition of the table wasn’t entirely in the best of shape. Not only that, but some dents and scrapes on the surface made it appear as if it had been used recently. Though, the lack of anything that could possibly be used as tools didn’t really tell either of them what exactly was being made here.

There was one other thing that the two of them noticed: a drawer compartment that was underneath the main desk and had a small combination lock, preventing them from forcefully opening it. “Well, this may be a bit of a challenge. Any four digit numbers you can think of off the top of your head, sis?”

“Um, all zeroes?” Raquel said as she shrugged her shoulders.

As she said that, her brother put the numbers in the lock and attempted to pull on it. As he partially expected, the drawer didn’t budge. “Nah, that one seems too simple. If someone were trying to hide something in here, it would probably be more complex than that.”

“Hold on. Let me check something,” she said as Trevor heard the sound of her unlocking her phone and the clicking sounds of her typing into the keyboard, “Hmm… I got two possibilities. Can you try zero three one eight and then zero six one eight?”

“Um, sure,” he replied as he began to change the numbers on the drawer, “Why those specifically, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Well, according to what I found here, Toys-R-Us filed for bankruptcy in march of 2018 and then closed all their stores three months later, including this one. I just thought that it could possibly be a connection or something.”

While it might’ve seemed practical to guess that the history of the location somehow played a role in this, it didn’t help them in the long run, for both of Raquel’s suggestions didn’t work and ended up just irritating her. “Well, that did not work. Unless this guy made his passcode completely obvious, I doubt we’re going to-”

Click!

“Huh. Well, that was much easier than I expected,” Trevor said to himself, before looking over to his sister, “From the looks of it, whoever decided to set this up chose the simplest combination you can think of.”

“What, like one two three four?”

“Even simpler than that,” he smiled, “All ones.”

For a moment, Raquel thought that her brother was messing with her. Anyone in their right minds would know that having all of the same number as the combination on a lock is too obvious. Though, the sight of each number being one on the lock and her brother actually being able to open the drawer without any resistance soon proved her wrong. “Huh. Well, color me surprised, then. Is there anything in there?”

“Yes, there is. However, what’s in here is honestly not what I expected,” Trevor admitted, before placing what looked to be two objects and a journal. The objects themselves were a pair of what looked to be wristbands, but both of them looked vastly different from one another. The first one was a rugged iron band with the symbol of a hammer and forge in the middle, while the second appeared to be a woven lavender bracelet with a symbol that looked to be a single vertical line with two outstretched lines in the form of a V overlapped onto it. “What are these, some kind of arts and crafts project?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Raquel shrugged, before picking up the second of the two bracelets to take a closer look. “Though, both of these seem very well made, so I doubt that someone does this for a hobby.”

Shortly afterwards, she turned her head to see that Trevor was beginning to go through the journal that was on the table. “Found anything interesting in there?”

“Maybe? At first, I thought this was like a diary. Though after skimming a few pages, it doesn’t look like that’s the case. There’s pictures of different items in here, but they’re described like something else,” he said, before turning back to a particular page, “Listen to this. Item name: Scarf of the Phoenix. Owner: Emma ‘Ember’ Valkyr. Source: Commission. Since acquisition, the owner of the scarf has inherited the power of a phoenix as her own to control. This includes various levels of pyrokinesis as well as… immortality!? What exactly am I even reading? None of this makes sense.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Raquel told him, before a thought came to mind as she looked back at him, “What other things are in there?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, this thing has the names of people who ended up getting these weird things, right?” she pointed out, “If Calvin came here on the day of his disappearance, perhaps there’s something in there with his name on it? It’s a bit of a long shot, but we have to try, right?”

“I guess. Though, it seems that it only has the name of a person on here if something was actually sold to them,” Trevor added, before pointing at both of the trinkets on the table, “For example, those two are labeled as ‘Band of the Living Forge’ and ‘Bracelet of the Aberrant Mind’, but they don’t belong to any owners. Not only that, but there’s not even a description on them at all. Aside from the name of these… things, almost the whole page is blank-”

Of course, as he turned the next page, what her brother found was enough to startle him and almost drop the journal onto the floor. “Oh my god.”

“What? What is it, brother?” she now asked, a bit concerned for him by the way he was acting in that moment.

“I-I… I think I found him,” was the only thing that he said, before he handed the journal to her, so she could see it for herself. Yet, what was on the page was not exactly what she was expecting at all.

“Item name: Elementanium… Necklace?” Raquel spoke, uncertain if that was how the first word of the item’s name was how it was supposed to be pronounced before she tried to continue, “Owner: Calvin Valkyr (See Valkyr family in addendum). Source: Promotional Giveaway. After acquisition, the owner was quick to discover that the necklace allows him to transform into the various heroes referred to as ‘Skylanders’ for a short duration.”

“Wasn’t that the name of that one video game series he liked?” Trevor asked, “I think I remember seeing him wear t-shirts of those characters to school once.”

“I remember that, too,” she nodded, “There’s more in here though. Since acquisition, the abilities of the necklace have evolved to not only improve the capabilities of the forms he turns into, but also take on the properties of imaginite, a specific mineral found in the world that he had arrived in that harnesses creation based magic to materialize anything the caster thinks of?” Then, she looked back to her brother with a puzzled expression, “Are we sure this is the same Calvin that we know? Because this is talking about him having powers, other worlds and magic-”

Just as she was about to finish her sentence, a familiar bell chime was heard throughout the room as Raquel quickly turned around. Perched on a crate was the same cat that she saw outside. Yet, it didn’t appear as friendly as before, and it looked like its fur and eyes were somehow glowing in the dimly lit room. Not only that, but there was one key difference that she soon realized a few moments after their arrival.

“R-Raquel, is t-that the cat you saw earlier?”

“Yeah, it-” she blinked, before turning back around to her brother, “Wait, you can see it, too?”

Before her brother could answer her question, both twins heard a strange distorted sound from the other end of the room. It was followed by the sound of footsteps that echoed throughout the room as they saw the shadow of a stranger from the other side. Much to the surprise of the twins though, the cat soon vanished from sight before reappearing on a box that was next to the stranger that had just arrived. “Well now, what do we have here, Hermes? It seems we have a pair of guests.”

Despite the glow that was emitting from the cat, neither of the twins could tell what exactly he looked like. Not only that, but when they tried to shine the flashlights on their phones on them, their phones began to glitch out and immediately shut down. “Unexpected and rather rude guests, it seems.”

“W-who are you?” Raquel demanded, trying her best to act tough despite the current situation that she and her brother were in. “What did you do to Calvin?!”

“Calvin, you say? Now, where have I heard that name before?” In an instant, the journal was immediately yanked out of her hands by an unknown force, as it flew over to where the stranger stood. Shortly afterwards, it opened up, and the pages immediately began to flip before stopping at a particular point. “Well, what do you know? The bearer of the necklace. By the ancients, it’s been a long time since then.”

Then, the book slammed shut, before fading and disappearing as the figure looked towards both of them. “I’m truly sorry, but my business is not for the likes of mere mortals to be snooping around in.”

At that point, Trevor stepped forward and tried to put himself in between Raquel and the unknown stranger that just walked in. “Okay, listen. I don’t know who you are, but if you even think of laying a finger on my sister, I’m going to make you regret it, so back off!”

“Oh, sister, you say?” it asked curiously, before acting as if a realization hit it, “I see now. You’re not just siblings, but twins.”

“How do you-?”

Before either of them could react, they felt themselves being forced down onto the ground by overwhelming force as the trinkets from the table began to move towards them. Both objects were glowing as the iron band was wrapped around Trevor’s right wrist, while the lavender bracelet tore away the one that Raquel was wearing and fastened itself in its place. Pain began to surge through the twins as it became harder to see what was happening. Though, as this was happening, the stranger happened to say one last thing.

“Nothing personal, you two. But, you know what they say… Good things come in pairs.”

The last thing that they heard was a loud snap of a finger as everything began to fade to black all around them.

“O-ow… my head.”

After feeling like he was adrift for hours, Trevor began to slowly open his eyes, as light began to shine down on his face. It was difficult for him to piece together what exactly happened at first. In fact, he originally thought that everything that had happened was some kind of dream, something that seemed impossible with no possible way of happening in real life. It was like he was just waking up from a nap in his backyard.

Yet, as he lifted his right hand to try and block the light that was shining down on him, he immediately jolted upright. “Oh, no. T-that wasn’t a dream at all.”

Shortly after the young man realized his predicament, Trevor noticed the environment around him. He was no longer inside the cold abandoned building from before. Instead, he was in a deep forest that looked rather cartoonish at first glance. However, the scenery wasn’t what was on his mind right now, as he began to look around.

What he was focused on was who happened to be laid down right beside him. “Raquel!!”

Immediately, he scrambled over to his sister and propped her head up on his left knee. The first concern that immediately came to Trevor’s mind was whether she happened to be hurt in some way. However, there were not any injuries anywhere on her body. In fact, the only noticeable change was that the bracelet that she would always wear on her left wrist had been replaced by the Lavender one that they found at the lot. Yet, that wasn’t his immediate concern.

“Raquel, come on! Please wake up…” he pleaded, trying his best to get his sister to rise from her slumber as he took a quick glance at their surroundings. There was no telling what kind of animals could be out here in this forest, so the sooner that Raquel woke up, the sooner they could get out of here before something found them. “Come on! Come on! Come on!! Please, sis! Wake up!”

Fortunately, his pleas did not fall on deaf ears. For shortly after, his sister's eyes began to slowly open. “B-brother?”

The moment that he saw his sister wake up, Trevor felt relief wash over him, “O-oh, thank goodness. I was worried about you. H-how do you feel?”

“I… don’t know,” she replied, looking back at him, “My head hurts a little. Yet, I feel as if something about me has changed. But… I can’t tell what it is.” Her eyes then shifted, noticing the environment around her before looking back at her brother as she tried to get on her feet, “Trevor? W-where are we?”

Before he even had the chance to answer, the twins heard a rustle from a nearby bush. At first, they thought it was an animal that was hiding inside. Though, that was when the two of them began to hear voices from the other side.

“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this is happening! Out of all the things that have happened in Ponyville, why this!?”

“Wha-?” Before Raquel could say anything else, her brother moved his right hand to her face to cover it, before extending a finger to his lips.

“Sssh. Let’s stay quiet and listen,” he whispered to her, before the two of them carefully got closer, so they could see who was talking. Much to the surprise of both of them though, the conversation that was playing out before them was between a pair of talking unicorns that were by some kind of caravan. The first one had a faded pink coat with blue eyes and a purple mane and tail that had a stripe of aquamarine down the middle, while the second unicorn had an azure coat, dark violet eyes and a cerulean mane and tail. Both of them also had strange markings on their rears as well.

“Trixie, let’s just take a moment and stay calm-”

“Stay calm?! Starlight, we both heard what they said in the castle. I-I can’t deal with this,” the azure unicorn, who the twins assumed was called Trixie, replied as she was panting and trying to catch her breath, “I-I’m just a performer, not some hero! This… this is princess-level stuff! But the changelings ponynapped all the princesses! We’re doomed!!”

“What’s a changeling?” Trevor whispered.

“Don’t look at me, I’m just as confused as you are,” Raquel quietly retorted, before trying to move a bit closer, so that she could hear the two ponies a little bit better.

“Maybe not,” the other mare, Starlight, pondered, “Chrysalis only said that they took Celestia and Luna along with Twilight and the others. But maybe-”

Unfortunately though, as she tried to inch closer, her foot stepped on a fallen tree branch that snapped seconds later. Before either of the twins had the chance to react, both unicorns were looking straight at their hiding place, as both of the horns were lit up with magic. “W-who’s there?!”

“Well, so much for trying to stay quiet,” he grumbled, before looking back at his sister, “Come on. Follow me.”

“Wait-? You want to-? Trevor, you can’t be serious,” she replied, taken aback by what was happening and by what she thought her brother was going to do, “Why would you want to go out there and-?”

“Because they already know that we’re here,” he reminded her, “Whatever’s going on, they already seem to be on edge. I just thought that maybe if we talked to them and explained our situation, perhaps they could calm down and maybe help us out somehow? I mean, all we can really do is try.”

With no better options to consider, Raquel just followed along with her brother’s plan. While it might’ve sounded crazy at first, the more she thought about it, the more that it slowly began to make some sense. Though, it was still difficult to wrap her head around the fact that they were somehow about to talk to actual unicorns. This wasn’t something that you could just make up.

As the twins moved out of the bush and onto the road, both unicorns looked rather shocked as well as confused. “What the hay?”

“I’m sorry, but we didn’t mean to startle you,” Trevor quickly replied, hoping that it would help make the situation a little less tense, “We have no idea where we are, and-”

“You two are… humans?” the one called Starlight asked, “Like, actual humans? N-not… changelings?”

The twins looked back to one another, puzzled by the question before they turned their attention back to the unicorn as Raquel spoke before her brother even had the chance to say anything, “W-wait a minute! You know what we are?”

“Well, yeah. I-” Almost instantly, the expression on the mare’s face changed. Her eyes shrank as the magic around her horn vanished instantly, “Oh, no. Oh, dear Celestia, no!!”

Now, the other mare that was right next to her was just as confused as the twins, “Starlight? Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?!” the unicorn retorted as an expression of fear and panic began to form on her face, “Trixie, don’t you realize how bad this is?! We spent so much time sneaking around the castle, trying to find answers, and yet, we forgot to check and see if-”

“Oh, hey, there you are.”

The unexpected voice had Starlight jump in fright as Trixie was forced to stand up and catch her with her forelegs. However, when the twins heard that, they recognized it as a familiar voice that they haven’t heard in years. Part of them doubted that the person who spoke was who they thought it was. Yet, any suspicions they had soon dissipated when they looked past the two mares and saw where the voice came from.

“N-no way. Is that-?”

Farther down the road was a young teenage boy that looked familiar to both of the twins. The clothes he wore were almost exactly as the ones that Calvin wore on the day that he went missing, and his appearance was almost identical. Yet, the only difference that stood out to them was a pendant that he wore around his neck, and he looked a little bit taller than what they remembered. At first glance, it was unclear as to whether or not this was who Raquel and Trevor were looking for.

Yet, it was when Starlight spoke again that the twins got their answer. “Calvin, do not scare me like that!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to,” he apologized and scratched the back of his head, “I think I’m just relieved to find you, with what’s been going on lately-”

Around then though, his eyes shifted as he noticed the twins. “What the heck!? Starlight, what’s-?”

“Honestly, that’s what I think Trixie and I want to know,” the unicorn added, “Before you arrived, the only thing that they told us was that they were humans like you.”

“Like… me?” the young teen asked, before looking at both of the twins, “That’s the first time I’ve heard of there being other humans here… Have we met before?”

“Wait, you know these two?” Trixie asked as she set Starlight back down on her hooves, before looking back over towards the twins.

“I think so,” he replied with a puzzled expression, “They seem familiar… Who-?”

“Calvin, don’t you remember us? We went to school together,” Raquel replied, trying her best to help jog his memory, “We were all in the same class? Surely, you remember my brother, right?”

“Uh, if I have to be honest, I’m better when it comes to remembering names. Besides, the only people I remember from then were-” At that, realization began to hit him as his eyes widened. She noticed Calvin’s feet slowly move backwards as his gaze returned to them, “W-wait a minute… are you-”

Trevor himself had a smile on his face and was going to say something. However, before either of the twins could speak, a different voice was heard farther down the road. “Uh, Calvin? Can I come out now? I’ve been waiting back here for the last few minutes, and you haven’t told me if it was safe or not.”

Immediately, Calvin’s attention went elsewhere as he turned back around and went back around in the opposite direction, “Oh, shoot! Sorry!!” he replied, before looking back towards Starlight and Trixie, “There was someone I ran into on the way here that wanted to talk to Twilight and such. Though, after we found out that something bad was going on in the castle, we began searching for you instead.”

That had Starlight tilt her head to the side, puzzled by what he was talking about. “Really? Who?”

At that, Calvin just turned away from the mare briefly before looking back over his shoulder towards her, “Promise me that you won’t freak out, alright?” he said, before looking back towards where the other voice came from as he spoke, “Okay, Thorax. It’s safe to come out.”

Moments afterwards, the twins saw a different creature trot up alongside Calvin. However, despite its appearance resembling that of a pony, its actual body was more like that of an insect in form, from its eyes to its wings. “We meet again, Starlight.”

“AH!! CHANGELING-!”

“Trixie, don’t!!” Starlight quickly retorted, “He’s one of the good ones.” Though, it was shortly after the words left her lips that she began to remember their current predicament. “Wait a minute. How do we know that you are who you say you are?”

The twins watched as the changeling named Thorax began to recall what occurred the last time that the mare had seen him. Not only was his memory on point, but he even went as far as transforming into the pony that he was talking about and mimicking their voice perfectly to prove his innocence. It caused Starlight to feel relieved, but only briefly, for she had a bad feeling of what he wanted to talk about.

“Well, at least we know you’re telling the truth,” the unicorn replied, “But wait, weren’t you in the Crystal Empire? What brings you all the way down here?”

“That is something that I hoped to speak to your mentor about,” Thorax told her, “The changelings had captured and replaced Princess Cadence and her family, including your friend Sunburst. I was the only one who was able to avoid them. On my way here, I met Calvin and hoped that I could warn both Princess Twilight and Spike in time. Unfortunately, we realized that we were too late-”

“Well, that’s just perfect,” Trixie threw her hooves up into the air, “I told you that this was some princess-level stuff, Starlight! Now, all the princesses have been pony-napped! What does that make us…? Doomed!”

“T-Trixie, calm down. Panicking is not going to help. I-I’m sure there’s somepony who could help.”

“Is it just me, or does it seem like whenever something goes horribly wrong, freakouts like this are normal?” Raquel asked her brother as he shrugged his shoulders.

“Honestly, it’s a bit too early to judge.”

“Starlight, there is nopony else! Everypony we know that has powerful magic is already gone!”

It was at this exact moment that another voice was now heard. This time, it came from directly behind the twins. “You know, whenever somepony decides to start a conversation involving powerful magic, they always seem to forget to ask if I wanted to take part in it. Why, I would have been insulted by that, if I hadn’t changed my ways for the better.”

Sitting up in a nearby tree like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland was what could only be described as a living being that was the combination of multiple different body parts from other animals. No two limbs were the same, and his behavior was unlike anything they’ve met before, as he reappeared alongside the caravan with a snap from the eagle talon that served as one of its hands. “So, can anypony explain why we have Twilight’s own friendship student, a magical showmare, a rogue changeling, Calvin and a pair of twins that he happens to know for plot convenience’s sake standing around in the middle of the woods?”

Immediately after that was said, Raquel fainted on the spot.

End Scroll 31

Scroll 32- An Unexpected Series of Events (Part 2)

Beyond the Skies- An Unexpected Series of Events (Part 2)

When Trevor and Raquel first saw the town of Ponyville in the distance after leaving the forest behind, the twins honestly had no idea what to expect. Despite being in what Calvin called ‘Equestria’ for almost ten minutes, the two of them had already encountered talking unicorns, a bug-like creature called a ‘Changeling’ that could shapeshift into other creatures and some kind of ‘chaos spirit’ named Discord, so their first impression was that the small town was rather ordinary by comparison.

However, what they soon realized upon stepping foot into the town for the first time was that Ponyville itself was far from ordinary. No matter where they looked, there was something that immediately caught their attention, whether that be a boutique that resembled a carousel or a crystalline tree that was actually a castle. Much to their own disbelief, this ‘small town’ had a lot of places that they thought would stand out to anyone that came passing through. Heck, there was even a bakery that took the form of a gingerbread house!

Although, it wasn’t just the sights that caught their attention, but also the townsfolk. Even though the name was kind of a dead giveaway that there would be ponies in town, Trevor and Raquel did not anticipate how many there would be. Despite looking like a small town on the outside, Ponyville was home to a rather large community of not just unicorns, but also pegasi as well as earth ponies. Not only that, but several of them that they happened to bump into were quite friendly and polite.

Once they had finally gone through town and reached the other side of the Ponyville marketplace, that was when Trevor decided to ask something, “Hey, Calvin? How much further until we reach this place we’re going to?”

“Not far actually,” he said, before pointing off farther down the road, “You can probably see it from here.”

“See what?” Raquel asked, “I only see a lot of trees.”

At that, Calvin just moved off to the side of the road as he looked back at both of them, “Try looking from where I was standing just now. The trees sometimes get in the way when you try to look from a distance.”

At first, the girl was a little bit puzzled by what he told her. Nevertheless, she followed his instructions and moved over to where he once stood. This time around, as Raquel looked into the distance, she actually noticed something past the trees. “Huh? Is that a barn?”

Calvin nodded his head in response to the question, before he looked back towards both of them. “Yeah, that’s Sweet Apple Acres. A couple of my friends call this place home, so I thought it would be easier to come out here, with everything going on in town right now.”

Both of the twins looked towards each other for a brief second, before they asked the same question. “What do you mean by that?”

At first, Calvin had thought about giving a long and extensive explanation. However, with them being so close to the orchard, he probably was going to end up having this same conversation occur with Apple Bloom and the others, so instead, he told them something else, “Do you remember earlier, when Trixie was freaking out? Well, there’s a bit of a valid reason behind that, but some of my friends here should probably hear this, too.”

“Hear what exactly?”

At that, the twins looked at the nearby fence to find a red earth pony standing nearby some of the trees. However, compared to the ponies that they saw in town, this one was actually bigger in size. In fact, he came off as kind of intimidating. Though, Calvin was quick to respond.

“Oh, hi, Mac. Didn’t see you there.”

“Mhm,” the earth pony nodded, before he glanced over towards Trevor and Raquel, “Friends of yours?”

“Yeah, actually,” he answered, “Hey, are Apple Bloom and the girls still here?”

“Eeyup.”

“Are they helping out Granny?”

“Eeyup.”

“Pretty easy to find them?”

“Should be,” the stallion replied.

“Has Applejack come back yet?”

“Nope.”

When Mac said that, Raquel couldn’t help but notice a slight change in Calvin’s expression for a brief moment, before he was back to his calm and positive self. Though, she had no idea what exactly that meant. “Thanks, Mac. I appreciate it.”

“No worries.”

As they finished talking, Calvin led the twins farther down the fence line towards the entrance to the orchard. Though, as they got close to the gate, that was when Trevor decided to speak up. “Well, your friend was rather… talkative. Who was he exactly?”

“His name’s Big Macintosh, but he’s fine with us calling him Mac, for short,” Calvin replied, “Also, please don’t say anything like that around him. He’s got rather good hearing and doesn’t like it when anybody talks behind his back.”

That had Trevor’s eyes shrink before he looked back towards the stallion, out of concern that he happened to hear his most recent remarks. “Oh. Uh, I’ll… keep that in mind.”

“Uh, Calvin? When you were talking with him, who was this ‘granny’ you mentioned?”

“Oh, you mean Granny Smith?”

“…Like the apple?” Raquel asked as she looked towards him with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, actually,” he said, just as they had walked past the gate and were now on approach to the barn, “Sweet Apple Acres is the home of the Apple Family. Granny Smith’s the one who runs the orchard, with the help of her three grandchildren. The stallion you just met, Big Mac, is one of them.”

“Really?” Trevor asked, no longer worried that said stallion was too far away to hear any remarks that he might make, “Who are the other two?”

“The one I asked Mac about, Applejack, is in the middle. She’s not the oldest, but also not the youngest either,” Calvin told them, “The youngest just so happens to be my friend, Apple Bloom. You can pretty much tell which one she is, because she’s the only pony I’ve seen that wears a bow on the back of her head.”

Funny enough, just as they approached the front of the barn, both twins happened to see a yellow filly with orange eyes that wore a rather big red bow behind her head. From a distance, it looked like she was bored out of her mind, as she was sitting on the front porch with two other fillies that were with her. Yet, as the three of them got closer, the filly’s ears quickly perked up as she looked towards them and smiled.

“Hey, girls! Calvin’s back!”

Immediately, the other two fillies got off the ground and turned towards the trio. The first one they noticed was an orange pegasus with a cerise mane and tail, purple eyes and had rather small wings compared to the other pegasi they saw in town, while the second was a light gray unicorn with green eyes a mane and tail that was a lighter shade of purple and pink. Despite their size though, all three of them were rather quick on their hooves as they rushed over towards them.

“There you are!! Where have you been!?” the pegasus filly was the first to speak, “We’ve been stuck with having to help Granny all morning!!”

“Scootaloo, she only asked us to help peel some of the apples Mac brought in and sweep up around the barn,” the unicorn told her, “And that only took us a couple of hours.”

“Easy for you to say, Sweetie Belle. You had your magic to help you out,” Scootaloo grumbled, before she turned her head and noticed the twins, “Who the hay-?”

At this point, Sweetie Belle noticed what Scootaloo was looking at and replied in a similar fashion, “Calvin, who are these two? Are they friends of yours?”

Calvin himself looked at all three of the fillies, before giving them a confident smile. “Yeah, they are, actually. In fact, I knew them from before I came here.” His response surprised them at first. Yet, before they could ask any questions, Calvin continued what he was saying, “I happened to find them while I was out in town today.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Apple Bloom replied, “Did ya get to talk to Twilight?”

Once again, Raquel noticed another change in Calvin’s expression similar to when he was talking with Mac earlier. This time though, it didn’t go away so quickly. “Yeah… that’s a conversation that we should probably have inside. I did find out a few things, but you’re probably not going to like it.”

“Come on, Calvin. It can’t be that bad,” the earth pony said, “If it at least explains why Sis has been acting strange, then I’m all for it.”

“AJ’s been acting strange?” Sweetie Belle asked as she walked up the steps of the porch and towards the door, “Now that I think of it, Rarity’s been acting rather odd as well.”

“Your sister… acting odd?” Scootaloo asked, “How?”

“You know when I have to help her get fabric from the market and she’s rather specific on colors?” the unicorn asked, which resulted in a nod from both the earth pony and pegasus. “Well, Rarity hasn’t really been like that recently. Just the other day, she asked for me to get some blue fabric, and I accidentally got navy instead. However, instead of pointing out my mistake, she just thanked me and had me run along.”

As the girls continued to talk, Sweetie Belle opened the front door as they all went inside. Immediately, the first thing that caught the attention of the twins was that the barn wasn’t exactly just a barn. It was also a home with a rather spacious interior. As they walked into the living room, the two of them saw pictures of what could only be assumed as other members of the Apple Family on the wall, as well as in picture frames on nearby shelves. They even noticed a rug that had an apple tree in the center of the living room, as they followed Calvin and the fillies into the kitchen.

After the three fillies took a seat at the table and Calvin sat down across from them, that was when Apple Bloom decided to speak, “So, Calvin, what did you find out? Was Twilight able to help you?”

That single question had Calvin grit his teeth as he looked towards the earth pony, “It would probably be best if I started from the beginning,” the young teen then looked over towards the twins as they stood nearby, before he let out a small breath, “It started this morning, after I left to go to Ponyville.”

It took almost half an hour or so for Calvin to share the full story, but to him, it felt like he had been going on for hours. A lot of things had happened since he originally left Sweet Apple Acres, and to him, he felt that it was vitally important to cover as much information as he could, in order for Apple Bloom and her friends to understand what was going on. The problem was, the only other creatures who knew the truth about what was going on were nowhere to be found right now. That, and he had little evidence in order to really prove what he was telling them.

“So, let me get this straight,” Scootaloo said, “You’re telling us that on the way into Ponyville, you met a changeling that wasn’t a bad guy.”

“Thorax, yes.”

“And he told you that changelings had ‘replaced’ Princess Cadance and everyone in the Crystal Empire. You two went to the castle in order to talk to Twilight, so he could warn her, but after you got there, the two of you learned that not only was she replaced, but also Spike and her friends?”

“That’s right, all seven of them,” Calvin confirmed for her, “Thorax could tell that they were acting very different from who they were supposed to be disguised as. So, we went to look for Starlight and found out that she and Trixie saw them talking to their queen. Trixie even mentioned that they had Celestia and her sister captured, too.”

“That part we can confirm,” Trevor added, “We had ended up in the forest nearby, where that one unicorn had her wagon, shortly after we got a grip on our surroundings. We overheard those two talking. Of course, we ended up accidentally startling them, too, but that was unintentional.”

After his remarks, that was when Calvin chose to continue. “Shortly afterwards, Thorax told Starlight and Trixie what was going on, Discord decided to just randomly show up, as he always does-”

“W-wait, that’s normal for you?” Raquel commented.

“-And then he whisked them away and left us behind,” he finished, “I’m not sure if Discord is trying to have them pull off some kind of daring rescue or something, but the problem still remains that we have a group of changelings playing pretend inside Ponyville. I have a bad feeling that just ignoring them is only going to cause more problems.”

For a moment, the whole room went quiet. Each one of the fillies were trying to process everything that he told them, while Calvin waited nervously. While he did tell them everything, he was worried that Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom wouldn’t believe him, for he was telling them that not only were their sisters and friends kidnapped, but the ones who took them were also impersonating them. They had taken someone that was family to them, and family was something that was rather important to them.

However, the response Calvin got afterwards was one he honestly did not expect. “Well, that explains what ah saw then.”

“W-wait,” Calvin blinked, a bit surprised by that, “You… believe me? Ah thought you would-”

“Calvin, the girls and ah had encountered changelings before. Not only that, but after everything we’ve been through together, ah think we know that you’re not someone who would make something like this up,” Apple Bloom replied.

“Yeah, but it’s… still a little bit hard to believe,” Sweetie Belle added, “I mean, we know that changelings are dangerous, especially after they tried to invade Canterlot, but that was a long time ago. Like, more than a year or so before we met you.”

“Okay, but what are we going to do now, though?” Scootaloo then asked, “Rainbow and the girls were the ones that usually kept everypony safe from danger, but now, they’re the ones in danger. Who knows what these fakers will do while pretending to be them?”

“Scootaloo, slow down,” Apple Bloom interjected, “Ah’m just as worried, too, but what are we gonna do? Unlike Calvin, we aren’t exactly fighters, so just charging in won’t get us anywhere.”

The room went quiet again as all three fillies were trying their best to come up with something that they could do. However, try as they might, it appeared as if any ideas that they tried to come up with fell short. It was mainly due to the lack of evidence and also the fact that none of the townsfolk knew what was going on. Any attempts to try and warn them about what was happening would probably fall on deaf ears. Yet, despite all of this, they still had to at least try something.

Yet, that was when someone else decided to speak up this time, “Sorry if I’m interrupting your brainstorming session,” they heard Trevor speak up, “But can’t you just… I don’t know… retake the castle you girls keep talking about?”

That not only caught all three of them by surprise, but also Calvin as well. “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that we… capture the Castle of Friendship? Calvin’s the only one that’s a fighter, and there’s only one of him against-”

“I didn’t mean by force,” he clarified, “From what you guys said, it seems like these changelings rely a lot on tricking others to get what they want. Perhaps we could find a way to use that against them.”

“So, wait,” Raquel interjected, “Your idea to solve this is to… trick the tricksters?”

“In a sense, yes,” her brother replied, before taking a seat at the table, “I admit, I haven’t fully thought on the details. Though, perhaps the best thing we could do is find a way to use their greatest strength against them? Not only that, but if they spend so much time inside that castle, they might have something inside there that they probably don’t want anyone else to see. Like, how are they getting their orders from their queen?”

That had Calvin and the fillies look back at one another, before they began to converse a bit among themselves. While Trevor’s idea wasn’t quite fully thought out, he did raise a rather valid point. If Starlight and Trixie did see the replacements communicating with Chrysalis herself, then it was possible that there was something they had inside the castle that allowed them to talk with the queen. Yet, that by itself wouldn’t be enough, especially if they didn’t know what it was they would be looking for.

“Man, this whole problem is just frying my brain,” Scootaloo exaggerated as she let out a groan and looked at everyone in the room, “I mean, the idea’s good, but how are we going to do this just by ourselves? Geez, it’s not like we can just talk to one of them-”

“And what makes ya think that?”

Immediately, everyone turned to the back of the kitchen to find that Granny Smith was outside one of the open windows.

“G-Granny-!? How long have ya-?”

“Long enough, Bloom,” the elderly mare replied as the others could see that Big Mac was with her. “Now, ah don’t know everything that’s going on, but ah know for a fact that AJ hasn’t been acting right. If what ya friend says is true, then ah say we show ‘em what happens when you mess with the Apple Family. And ah got just the thing for this.”

By the time the sun was starting to come down, everything that Granny Smith had in mind for sniffing out this imposter that Apple Bloom’s friend told them about was ready. Now, all they needed to do was wait for her arrival and act normal. If something seemed out of place, it was more than likely that it could tip off this replacement of what they were up to.

Now though, it was time to see if their gamble would pay off. “Granny, ah’m home.”

The sound of hoofsteps could be heard as Granny Smith turned to see Applejack… No, the one who was impersonating her grand-daughter, as she trotted into the kitchen where she was. “Oh, hello, sugarcube. Sorry ah didn’t hear ya. Ah was busy making some treats.”

“Really?” she asked, rather surprised to hear that, “What did ya make this time?”

At that, Granny Smith brought out a plate that had two triangle shaped pastries and set them down on the table as ‘Applejack’ took a seat. “Been trying mah hoof with our family turnover recipe. Was gonna let Bloom know that ah made some for her and her friends, but ah wanted to hear what you thought about it first.”

“Sure, ah guess,” she replied, before picking up one of the turnovers with both of her hooves as she began to chew on it. After a couple moments, she finished the first one. “Hm… this is pretty good, Granny.”

“Ya think so?” she asked, “Ah did try something different this time to see if it affected the taste.”

“Really?” the mare raised an eyebrow, “What is it?”

That was the moment that Granny Smith had been waiting for, because now, she can drop the facade as she narrowed her eyes, as if the elderly mare was glaring daggers at her. “Pear.”

Immediately, the mare at the table heard the kitchen door lock up as she dropped the pastry back on the plate and tried to get up from the table. “Uh… Granny-?” As she tried to back away and find a place to flee towards, the mare felt something behind her as she turned to see that Big Mac had her as the windows began to close. She tried to look towards the stairs, but Apple Bloom and one of her friends blocked that route off. One glance towards the front of the place, and she found that the rest of the filly’s friends had blocked the front door from outside.

“Ah don’t know about you,” Granny sternly spoke as she maintained her gaze on the mare that was trying desperately to flee, “But in this family, we do not… like… pears. So, why is it that my grand-daughter just so happens to like the one thing that this family detests?”

Now though, ‘Applejack’ was now beginning to panic. However, something did not feel right. They had her cornered, but the mare didn’t do anything. She did not try to fight, or even make a break for it to try and escape. Instead, she dropped the disguise, revealing a far younger changeling than expected, as it raised its forelegs up in the air. “P-please don’t hurt me,” a new voice desperately pleaded as they looked to Granny Smith in fear, “I-I’ll do anything.”

At first, Granny Smith thought that this changeling was trying to lie its way out of the situation it was in. However, there didn’t seem to be any deception with its words. Whoever it was, this changeling was afraid, and now that its cover was blown, it was willing to do anything. As she looked towards the stairs, Granny looked towards the stairs and motioned her hoof as Apple Bloom and her friend Calvin began to come downstairs.

“Now, listen here,” the elderly mare replied, “Ah ain’t going to do anything to harm ya. But the fact of the matter is, ya tried to impersonate mah grand-daughter and deceive mah family, and ah don’t take such actions very kindly. So, for starters, what ah would like to know is who you really are and why you decided to impersonate Applejack.”

At first, the changeling was silent. Though, after a couple of moments, she hesitantly spoke. Instead of answering Granny’s question, the changeling weakly asked one of her own, as her eyes shifted towards the half eaten turnover that fell onto the plate. “C-Can I… finish that?”

“What? Why would you-?” Despite Granny’s original confusion, she just sighed. There was no way that they were going to get any answers if this changeling was too starved to cooperate. “Fine, but make it quick-”

Immediately, the changeling scarfed whatever remained in a single bite. A faint shimmer of green was seen around its body before the changeling looked back to her. “T-Thank you,” she said as her voice sounded a bit more relaxed than before.

“Don’t mention it,” the elderly mare replied, her voice coming off a little stern.

“I’m sorry for interrupting,” Calvin now chose to speak up as he looked at the changeling, “But I don’t believe we got your name.”

The changeling was a bit startled at first, but shortly afterwards, she complied, “O-Ocellus. My name is Ocellus,” she replied, giving a quick glance around the room before looking back to them, “A-As for the other question you asked, I d-did it because I… was afraid.”

“Afraid?” Apple Bloom asked as she gave the changeling a puzzled glance, “What would ya be afraid of?”

“N-Not what,” Ocellus clarified, “Who.”

When that was said, many of the other ponies in the room looked rather confused. Granny Smith told her that she didn’t have to be afraid of them, so why would she say something like that? Though, it was Calvin who realized that the changeling might have meant someone else entirely. “You mean Chrysalis? You’re afraid of… your queen?”

Immediately, Ocellus nodded, “Y-yes. S-she thinks that I’m a f-failure, because I’m n-not like the other d-drones. I-I can’t bring myself to f-fight anyone, l-let alone take love from them. I-I’m seen a-as a coward and a failure to the h-hive.”

“Then, why come along and impersonate mah sister and her friends-?”

“I didn’t have a choice!!” she said, before letting out a gasp when she realized her outburst. Though, as she continued, that was when Calvin and the other noticed that tears were coming down her face, “S-she forced me to be here, e-expecting me to fail. Y-yet… I wanted to live! I t-thought that if I could hide here, then I could feed on s-something here, b-because of how your f-family cares for each other, because my own kin don’t care for me at all. I didn’t want to deceive any of you, b-but…”

That was something that no one was expecting at all. Originally, Granny thought that this was some drone that was doing her queen’s bidding. However, instead, this was a changeling who was shunned by her own kind and doing whatever she could just to live. Not only that… but the elderly pony had the feeling that Ocellus did all of this because she wanted to know what it was like to be loved by a family that cared for her.

Yet, before she or anypony else had the chance to speak, a different question was asked, “How long?”

Ocellus blinked at that, puzzled by the sudden and short question as she looked towards Calvin. “H-Huh?”

“How long has it been since you last had the chance to feed?” he clarified.

“P-Properly? M-Months ago. There are days where I barely get anything at all. N-Not even scraps.”

At this, he folded his arms and began to ponder for a moment. The question that he asked alone was enough to attract some attention from Apple Bloom. “Calvin, what are ya thinking?”

However, Calvin didn’t quite answer her question right away. Instead, he looked back to the changeling. “Ocellus, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve been fully honest with you, despite everything you told us,” he told her as he sat down at the table, “Part of the reason why we went through with all of this was because we know that you and the other changelings that are here had replaced Princess Twilight and her friends, as part of Chrysalis’ takeover plans.”

He paused for a brief moment to catch his breath, but then chose to continue, “Originally, I thought that you were part of this because you were called upon by Chrysalis. However, after hearing your story and what your hive put you through, I’m beginning to realize that you chose to undertake these risks because you thought it was necessary. Is that right?”

All the changeling did was weakly nod her head, which to him was the only answer he needed to see. “If that’s the case, then perhaps we could come up with a compromise. We can help you, and then, you can help us.”

“H-How can you help me though?” Ocellus asked, puzzled.

“Well, you said that you haven’t had the chance to properly feed in months,” he suggested, “So, how can we fix that? Is there a particular way that you would feed that we could help you with?”

At first, the changeling didn’t say anything and nervously looked away. Yet, after a moment or two, she gave them an answer. “I-I usually g-get my fill… through food.”

“Wait, food?” Apple Bloom blinked, puzzled by what was said, “Ah thought changelings fed on love.”

“T-They do,” Ocellus told her, “However, l-love comes in many forms for us. For m-me, there are times where meals have love in them. Y-you know how some creatures would describe their cooking as m-made with love? W-well, for us, t-that’s literal. Food t-that’s made for someone they care for, like for a loved one or a family m-member, would have love mixed in.”

“What about that turnover ya finished? Shouldn’t that have helped?” Granny asked.

“N-no, it didn’t. It doesn’t work if the food is made out of spite. T-that’s why I felt nothing when I finished it.”

Now, the pieces were starting to fall into place. At first, Granny Smith wasn’t sure if Ocellus’ claims just now were true. However, she was now beginning to realize that not only was she being honest, but this poor creature was probably starving. At that moment, it didn’t matter if she was a changeling or not. No creature should ever be forced to starve because of circumstances beyond their control. It would go against everything the Apple Family stood for if they were to turn her away now.

“So, what you’re saying is that if ya have a full meal, then ya can help?”

At this, the changeling nervously nodded her head as she looked back to the elderly mare that asked her that question. “Y-yes. Why do you-?”

“Let me tell you something, sugarcube,” Granny interjected, “If there is anything that this family is known for, it’s our hospitality. And ah, for one, ain’t gonna sit here and watch ya go hungry, because that is too cruel for any creature to watch or go through.”

The elderly mare then looked over at Calvin for a brief moment, “As long as ya make sure to help Calvin and mah grand-daughter afterwards, then we will help you first. Ah promise you that.”

The changeling was shocked to hear that and found it rather difficult to control herself as some more tears began to go down her face. Yet, she wasn’t sad this time. If anything, Ocellus was beyond overjoyed. “Oh, thank you!! Thank you so much!! You have no idea how much this means to me-”

“Oh, settle down now. We haven’t even started yet,” Granny said, before turning towards her two grandchildren, “Bloom, fetch the recipe book. Mac, get the oven and pans ready. It’s time for us to get to work.”

“Is there anything I can do to help-?”

“No, no, you’ve helped more than enough,” Granny insisted as she looked over at Calvin, “If you want though, why don’t ya bring your friends up to speed on what’s going on. Ah’m pretty sure they’ll be curious as to what happened after waiting by the front door for so long.”

Author's Note

Part 2 of 3

Scroll 32- An Unexpected Series of Events (Part 3)

Beyond the Skies- An Unexpected Series of Events (Part 3)

By the time that Calvin had rejoined his friends, Scootaloo and the others were not quite sure what had transpired shortly after Ocellus had stepped into the house. The only time that any of them were able to hear something was when either Granny Smith or somebody else raised their voice, and that didn’t happen most of the time, so they assumed that either something bad had happened or nothing happened at all. Yet, when he told them what had transpired as well as what Ocellus told them, all of them were collectively shocked… and some were a bit confused.

“So, wait a minute,” Scootaloo now asked, “You’re telling me that this… Ocellus is not a bad guy? But she impersonated Applejack!”

“Scootaloo, she didn’t choose to be assigned with the other changelings here. Chrysalis forced her and also expected her to fail,” he clarified for her, “Not only that, but unlike the other changelings, she can’t bring herself to fight or harm others, which is why she barely gets by and can’t feed herself properly.”

“So, she thought that in taking the form of Apple Bloom’s sister, it was the path of least resistance?” Raquel asked, “That’s just beyond cruel. But, I think some of us are wondering how exactly this relates to… well, Trevor’s idea.”

“Well, after giving it some thought, I realized that Ocellus probably knows more about what’s inside the castle than any of us do,” the Skyshifter answered, “So, we reached a compromise that Granny Smith actually agreed to help with and is in the process of doing so right now. In exchange for helping regain some of her strength and giving her the chance to feed, she’ll be helping us get in and perhaps even help us figure out how to get the other replacements out.”

“That’s actually a valid point,” Trevor himself acknowledged, “I mean, we can’t just go kicking in the front door and hope for the best, so someone on the inside that knows how everything works could help us in taking it all apart. I like where this is going.”

That had both of the fillies look back towards him briefly, before they looked at Calvin and Raquel, “So, what exactly are we supposed to be doing now? Just wait?”

“More or less,” Calvin replied to Sweetie Belle’s question, “I mean, we can’t really do anything until Ocellus is ready. Unless there’s something else you want to talk about, we’re just playing the waiting game.”

At that, both Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked at one another for a moment, before they turned their attention over to the twins as Scootaloo asked them a question. “So, you said that you’re from where Calvin’s from, right?”

“Yeah, both of us are. Heck, we lived in the same neighborhood.” Trevor replied

“And you… possibly came here the same way he did?” Sweetie Belle now asked, something that puzzled Raquel as she looked at her brother for a brief moment.

“Uh… Maybe? Why do you ask?”

“Does that mean you can do some pretty cool stuff like he can?”

Now, both of the Twins were puzzled by what the fillies were saying. Ever since they arrived, Calvin hadn’t really done anything that would be described as ‘cool’ outside of talking to other ponies they met and showing them around town, so they had no idea as to what else the two of them could possibly be referring to. “Um… You’re going to have to be a little bit more specific.”

“Well, Calvin can do this thing where he can transform and such,” the unicorn filly explained to them, “So, we thought that you had something special, too.”

Now, Raquel’s attention was shifted back towards Calvin, as she was looking for some kind of explanation. “Hold on. You can do what now?”

“Oh, right,” Calvin now scratched the back of his head as he realized this, “I never told you guys about that, did I?”

“I’m pretty sure the subject never came up, given everything that’s happened today,” Trevor now replied, his attention now on him instead of Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle as he folded his arms, “So, what exactly is this thing they’re talking about? Some kind of party trick?”

“Not quite,” he shook his head as his pendant began to glow a warm violet as an idea surfaced in his head. The young teen was going to need some space for this as he stepped out in front of the barn. Otherwise, he was going to cause a mess on the front patio, and he didn’t want to make Granny Smith angry, “In fact, it probably might be better if I showed you rather than told you.”

“Wait, show us-?”

All Fired up!

In an instant, flames began to form around Calvin as his necklace began to glow brightly. Within a matter of seconds, his body began to change as he took on the form of one of the more recognizable Skylanders from back home, the dragon named Spyro. It was something that shocked the twins, but had the fillies just stare in awe as Calvin looked back to Trevor and Raquel, “Well, what do you think? Pretty cool, right?”

“You can… turn into a dragon?” Trevor asked, who looked rather puzzled as he was trying to understand what exactly Calvin was doing.

“Not quite,” he smirked, “Do you remember those Skylanders I collected back home? Well, picture that,” followed by reciting the catchphrase of another skylander as he turned into the Water Skylander Zap a few seconds later, “-But I can transform into any one of them and fight as them.”

Both of the twins were having trouble trying to come up with a proper response to what he was saying. Though, it was at this time that the Skyshifter chose to revert back to his regular self. “Only catch is that I can’t stay in them for very long. I’ve been practicing and such, but it’s still a work in progress at this point.”

Raquel could only stare at him as she began to process what she had witnessed. Though, when she looked at the pendant around Calvin’s neck, that was when a different thought came to mind. Before their arrival, when she and Trevor were in that warehouse, one of the entries in a journal they found talked about a necklace that could do the same thing that he just described. Reading about it was one thing, but seeing his body transform firsthand was something she honestly did not expect and left her at a loss for words.

Though, her brother was a bit of a different story. “Well, that was… eye opening. Though, what does that have to do with us having ‘something special’ though?”

“Uh, w-well,” Sweetie Belle nervously shrugged, “I-I just thought that since you two came here like he did, y-you could do something cool as well.”

“I’m not entirely sure what you mean by-” Before Trevor could finish what he was saying, he looked over to his sister and noticed something, “Sis, what’s that on your wrist?”

“What do you mean, it’s my-” When she looked down, Raquel felt her heart skip a beat. Instead of the bracelet she would always wear, it had been replaced by a woven lavender bracelet that was wrapped around her wrist. “What the-?” She then tried to pull it off of her. However, no matter how hard she tried to pull it or what methods she employed, Raquel couldn’t seem to get it off of her. It was like it didn’t want to come off.

“Is something wrong?” Calvin asked.

Before Raquel had the chance to say anything, the front door opened up, as everyone turned to watch Apple Bloom and Ocellus step out from inside, “S-sorry about that,” the changeling apologized, “Y-you weren’t waiting for too long now, w-were you?”

Both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were quick to shake their heads, which was followed by Raquel’s own response a few seconds later, “N-not at all, I think. We were just… passing time.”

“The heck was that about?” A rather confused Calvin thought to himself as he watched Raquel walk back over to where her brother was standing. Before Ocellus came in, she looked rather startled by something. Yet just now, she was trying to brush it off, like it was no big deal. Something clearly seemed off, but now was not the ideal time to ask about that.

Now that everyone was here, they could discuss how to get into the Castle of Friendship and get the replacements out. “A-Alright, so what did you want to ask?”

“Well, first, let me bring you up to speed on what we know already,” the Skyshifter replied, “To start, we know that each one of the changelings that we refer to as ‘replacements’ took the forms of Princess Twilight, her assistant Spike and her friends. We know this because two friends of ours, Starlight and Trixie, happened to see you and the others change back to your original forms when Queen Chrysalis wanted you to report to them.”

“S-so, there was somebuggy there?” Ocellus asked, “Ganglia thought that there was an intruder, but after not seeing anyone, she figured that something fell over in one of the other rooms of the castle.”

“Gang who?” Scootaloo now spoke up, a bit confused by what she heard.

“Ganglia,” Ocellus repeated, “S-She’s the changeling that replaced t-the princess and the one in charge. N-Not the strongest, but the q-queen recognized her for her resourcefulness and knowledge.”

“So, a tactician, then,” Trevor said as both of the twins were trying to think for a moment, shortly before he asked a different question, “Do all of the replacements stay in the castle at night? Or do you only just come together to give your report to the queen?”

“T-the latter,” the changeling answered, “Only her and Mandi, the replacement that took the form of the p-princess’ assistant, stay in the castle. T-the others return to the homes of the p-ponies they’re disguised as, so that they d-don’t a-arouse suspicion.”

“Alright, that gives us an idea of what to expect, at least,” Calvin said as he pondered the new information that he received, “But how exactly are we going to get in? We’ve already ruled out the possibility of going through the front door, since all that will do is just cause more problems for us. There’s also the castle’s balcony, but we don’t exactly have any flying capabilities… No offense, Scootaloo.”

“None taken.”

“Well, w-when all of us infiltrated the c-castle and ‘replaced’ them, i-it happened during a time where they were all together f-for the night. S-since the door was locked, I was t-tasked with going through a w-window that was left open on the side of the t-tree that led to the library. Once I was i-in, I went to the door and o-opened it for the others,” Ocellus explained, before she looked down at the ground, “H-However, I d-don’t think that plan w-would work a second time, especially since M-Mandi would occasionally get up at night and roam around, if he thinks something’s up.”

At this, Raquel folded her arms as she looked towards Ocellus, “Quick question. Say that we have you go to the front door to try and distract this guy. Would it give us enough time to go in through the back-?”

“D-definitely not,” the changeling quickly retorted, “Mandi d-doesn’t really have a lot of patience. He wouldn’t go o-out and leave Ganglia, u-unless it’s an emergency of some sort.”

That part caught Calvin’s attention as he looked back towards the changeling, “What kind of emergency are we talking about exactly? Anything specific?”

“Normally, it would mean anything that c-could potentially lead to o-our cover being blown, l-like if some creature suspects that we aren’t the real creature we’re trying to pose as,” Ocellus explained, “C-Coxa almost had one when we first started.”

“Who?”

“T-The replacement of the y-yellow one. F-Fluttershy, I think her name was. T-The animals there were i-immediately suspicious of her, and she barely was able to keep it together to convince them that she was who she was disguised as.”

Immediately, an idea was beginning to form in Calvin’s head. Though, for it to work, it was going to require some incentive and a LOT of persuasion. “Apple Bloom, got a quick question for you. Do you have any carrots in the kitchen? Not the small kind of carrots, but the big ones?”

By the time that they came up with a plan and got everything that they needed, it was a few hours before midnight. With there being about seven of them in their group, including Ocellus, they had to split up into two teams. The Cutie Mark Crusaders and Trevor were with the changeling, around the back side of the castle as they prepared the point of entry that they were going to use to sneak in. This left both Calvin and Raquel with another task that needed to be completed that was vitally important and necessary for this whole plan to work.

Though, Raquel was still trying to wrap her head around what they needed to do… and how exactly was this supposed to be important. “So, wait just a minute. You’re telling me that for this whole plan to work, we are going to have to convince a bunny to rebel against the replacement that’s impersonating their caretaker? A bunny?!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Calvin replied, “And I know it sounds crazy, but this is probably the only chance we have if we’re going to make this work.”

“What’s a bunny rabbit even going to do? Just throw carrots?” Raquel asked as the two of them started to go around the back side of the cottage, “I mean, what kind of animals does this Fluttershy even take care of? Housepets-?”

Yet, as soon as she asked that, Raquel got her answer almost immediately. When she turned around the corner, she found herself coming face to face with a giant brown bear that still happened to be awake, even at this hour. At first, she thought that the bear was going to harm her. Yet, all it did was smell her and then looked over to Calvin, before sniffing him just like with her.

However, all Calvin did was look back at the bear and waved. “Hello, Harry. Is… now not a good time?”

Much to Raquel’s surprise, the bear actually gave somewhat of a response, not verbally, but through body language as he tilted his head and pointed at her, almost like he was asking ‘who’s she?’

“Oh, she’s a friend of mine,” he explained, “Don’t worry, we’re not going to bother you too much. Do you know where Angel is?”

This time, a response wasn’t needed. Instead, the white rabbit that Calvin was asking about soon hopped up onto Harry’s left shoulder before the rabbit stared both of them down. “T-that’s… Angel?”

“Yes, and right on time,” Calvin told Raquel, before he shifted his gaze from the bear to the rabbit, “Now, I know that you and I aren’t exactly ‘friends’ by any means. Though, I’m not here to talk about that.” All he got in response was the rabbit tapping his foot, making it clear that Angel did not want for him to waste his time. “I wanted to talk about Fluttershy. Surely, both of you have noticed that she hasn’t been herself recently, right?”

Both the bear and the rabbit looked at each other for a moment, before Angel made a gesture that would be his way of saying ‘get to the point’. “Well, I have something that I wish to share with the two of you, if you don’t mind.”

Raquel could only watch as Calvin started to talk with them. However, she couldn’t quite tell what it was that he was sharing to them, or even if the animals were understanding what he was saying. She watched as the bear pointed towards the cottage and back to his nose before shaking their head, while the rabbit looked as if he didn’t want to listen to anything that Calvin had to say. However, it was only when Calvin brought out the full grown carrots that he brought with him that it seemed that Angel was willing to actually listen to him, even though all that did was have Harry think that he was going to get something, too.

After a few more minutes, she watched as Calvin gestured politely to the cottage, “Thank you for your time, you two. Have a good evening.”

As they walked away and left the cottage behind, Raquel couldn’t help but feel as if she was missing something. Surely, it would’ve taken a LOT more work to try and convince the two of them what was going on. Was there something going on in that conversation that she somehow missed?

Not long afterwards though, the two of them heard a bit of commotion going on from an open window of the cottage, “Angel?! Harry?! Elizabeak!? What are all of you doing up so late? It’s past your- W-Wait… W-what are you-? S-Stop! Angel, p-put those carrots down!! What is the m-meaning of this!?!” This was soon followed by a loud thud of a door being slammed open, followed by a changeling that was halfway out of its transformation being chased by a stampede of animals. All the while, Angel was riding on Harry’s back and holding the carrots Calvin gave him as if they were swords as the rabbit led the charge.

“W-what did you even tell them?” Raquel asked.

“Just a few things I wasn’t sure if they knew or not,” Calvin smirked as he looked back towards the castle, “I thought that telling them about changelings in general would give them enough of a ‘push’ in the right direction. Now, come on. Let’s go catch up with everyone else.”

Around the back side of the castle, Trevor waited in anticipation with the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Ocellus had already sneaked inside to pry open the window they were going to use to come in, but all of them were waiting not just for the signal to slip inside, but also for Calvin and his sister to come back. That way, they could lock out the replacements that would run out, and they could secure the place. However, even though that sounded simple, none of them had any idea as to what exactly that signal could be.

It didn’t take too long to notice Calvin and Raquel come back to them, which was much sooner than any of them anticipated. “Well, you’re back rather early. How did it go?”

“Better than I thought, if I have to be honest,” he replied back, “Where’s Ocellus?”

“On the inside and has our way in. We’re just waiting for-”

Within a matter of seconds, all of them watched as a changeling that barely was able to maintain part of its disguise scurried over to the castle door and started banging on it. Voices could be heard as the sounds echoed throughout the halls of the castle. “Coxa, what are you doing!? Why aren’t you in your disguise? What’s going on?”

“Mandi, we have an emergency! T-The animals at the cottage are up in a frenzy! I c-can’t get them to calm down or listen! N-Now, they’re chasing after me!”

“Wait, you let them follow you!?! Here!?”

“What in the name of the hive is going on?” A third voice now echoed, “Coxa, what happened to your-?”

“Coxa says that the animals at that one pony’s cottage are out of control. Now, they’re onto her, and from what it sounds like, they followed her here. Should I go get the others-?”

“No, no. Let’s leave them be,” Ganglia insisted, “If any of the ponies in town caught Coxa out of her disguise, it would raise alarms, and we would have a riot on our hooves. Besides, it’s just a few animals, not anything we can’t handle.”

The moment that they heard the voices leave, that was the cue for them to move in. The window was now fully open as Calvin and the twins were helping the fillies inside first, before they came in afterwards and closed the window. Once they were all in and made it to the center of the castle where the Cutie Map was, both of the twins were a bit caught off guard by their surroundings. “Okay, when I saw this place at first, I didn’t think it would be this big on the inside.”

“We can save that conversation for another time,” Calvin replied, “Right now though, we should lock down this place to make sure that the replacements aren’t able to come in when they get back.”

“We’ll start looking for things to close off any open doors we find!” Apple Bloom replied as she and Sweetie Belle began to hurry upstairs.

“Make sure to close off the balcony, too, while you’re at it,” the Skyshifter added, recalling how Thorax got in before, so that no one else could get in the same way again, before he noticed Scootaloo at the table. “Scootaloo, are you-?”

“Sorry, I was just trying to see if there was anything to block the front door. But the girls’ thrones and the map are stuck to the floor,” she added, before noticing something that was left on the table, “Huh? What’s a pebble doing on the table?”

“T-That’s not a pebble,” Ocellus said, “I-It’s a Hive Stone. That’s what Ganglia used to talk to the queen earlier.”

“So, if we destroy this, then the replacements lose contact with the queen?” Calvin asked.

“W-Well, yes, but I-I don’t know if you could break it-”

“Well, let’s find out,” Calvin asked, before he made a motion for Scootaloo to toss it over to him as the filly picked it up and threw it. After he caught it, the Skyshifter’s necklace began to glow a fiery red as he changed into his Imaginator, Kai Chi. He then dropped the stone onto the ground as fire began to burn around his right foot, “Alright, moment of truth. Let’s see if this works.”

With one downward slam of his foot, the impact caused the stone to break and scatter into pieces.

“My queen, we have a problem.”

“What is it? Can’t you see that I am busy declaring to this failed student of Princess Sparkle here about my victory?!”

“We lost contact with the replacements in Ponyville. Something severed the communication with their hive stone.”

“ … I’m sorry, WHAT!? HOW?!”

“Well then, problem solved.” He let out a sigh of relief, shortly before he changed back to his regular form again.

“Y-you can transform, too?” Ocellus then asked, a bit shocked by the sight of him changing forms in front of her eyes.

“Kind of. It’s a little bit more specific,” Calvin replied, before he began to look around the room, “Though, how about we save that conversation for later? Right now, we still have an entire castle to lock down, and I’d doubt we’re going to get a lot of sleep tonight.”

“Is there anything that’s in your room that we can use?” Scootaloo asked.

“Wait, you have a room here? Seriously?” Trevor asked, caught off guard by the filly’s casual question.

“Yeah, I’ve been here for quite some time, so Princess Twilight let me stay here,” he told the twins, before looking back to the pegasus, “Also, to answer your question, Scootaloo, I don’t have anything, unfortunately. Though, perhaps you can find something in Twilight’s room? It’s down the hall from where I’m at.”

In response, Scootaloo gave him a mock salute, before she hurried up the stairs to join her friends in the search. As she did, the twins now looked to him as Raquel was the first to speak, “Is there anything on the bottom floor that we should make sure to get patched up?”

“Any of the windows for starters,” Ocellus suggested, “I already moved some of the bookcases in the library to block the windows, but I have yet to check the other rooms.”

“Just avoid the alchemy lab and the basement for the time being. Especially the basement,” Calvin emphasized, “I’ll explain why once we’re out of this mess, but just trust me for now. If we open up the basement, we’ll just end up causing a lot more trouble.”

“How do we know which one’s the lab?” Raquel asked, “Are there any signs or-?”

“No, Twilight hadn’t put those in place yet, unfortunately,” he groaned, “If you see a door that looks like it got blown off its hinges once, that’s the alchemy lab.”

The twins had no idea how exactly to respond to that. Though, before either of them could say anything, they all heard a call from upstairs that was followed by a loud crash. “Hey, can we get some help up here? We got something for the door… but we need help getting it all down.”

“Getting it… all down-? What did you even find up there?!” Trevor called out.

“Princess Twilight has a bunch of bookcases up in her room,” they heard Sweetie Belle speak up next, “We used one to block off the balcony doors, so we thought that the others could help with the front door!”

At this, Calvin could only just stare off towards the staircase, before letting off a deep sigh. “Not ideally what I was thinking of, but I’ll take it,” he muttered and let out a small yawn,” Let’s give them a hand, before they end up accidentally hurting themselves-”

“Why don’t you let us help them instead?” Raquel interjected, “You’ve been doing a lot already, so how about you let us give them a hand, and you can get some rest?”

Even though he didn’t want to admit it, she made a rather valid point. Calvin had been on his feet throughout the whole day, and despite little short rests here and there, he hadn’t had the chance to rest properly, something that he was beginning to realize as his vision started to blur.

“Y-yeah, I think that’s a g-good… idea.”

Before he could even find a place to sit down, everything went black as Calvin passed out on the floor, something that Raquel was not exactly fond of. “Oh, come on. I didn’t mean that!”

When consciousness began to return to him, Calvin felt as if everything around him was a blur. He had a feeling that he wasn’t where he had collapsed in the middle of the castle, for everything around him felt warm instead of the cold surface he passed out on. What felt like a blanket was over him as the whole room that he was in was rather bright. Slowly, his vision began to straighten itself, as the Skyshifter started to make out what was around him. He was inside his own room, on his bed, and his pendant was on the nightstand, not far from him.

Yet, as he went to reach for it, that was when he heard a voice, “Well, it seems that you’re finally awake.”

Immediately, Calvin turned his head to the far left of his room, to find an unexpected guest waiting for him, one that startled him at first as he stared towards her. “P-Princess… Celestia?” he asked, his voice starting to sound a bit hesitant. “I-Is that really you?”

The princess couldn’t help but give off a low chuckle as she smiled, “Yes, it is me. You and your friends have been through quite an ordeal, I must say.”

Yet, despite hearing that, it did little to ease Calvin’s confusion at that moment. However, there was one other thing he wanted to ask about first, “I-Is everyone else okay?”

“They are tired, but otherwise are doing just fine,” she told him, “Apple Bloom and her friends told us what happened. I must say though, I didn’t expect for the Castle to be so… fortified upon our return, or the surprise that we found outside.”

“S-surprise?”

The alicorn nodded her head, “Somehow, the animals at Fluttershy’s cottage were able to band together and apprehend most of the changelings that replaced Twilight and her friends. I’m pretty sure a couple of them have now developed a fear of rabbits because of it.”

Calvin couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief at that, before a different question emerged in his head, “Well, t-that’s good and all, but how did you guys escape? Did Starlight and the others r-rescue you?”

“In a sense,” at that, the Princess of the Sun couldn’t help but trot over to the other side of the room as she turned away for a quick moment. “Yet, I believe that’s a question best suited for someone other than me to answer. After all, he wanted to see you the moment that you woke up.”

“Huh? Who?” he asked, rather puzzled by what the princess was telling him, as Celestia’s magic began to glow around her horn. Once she opened the door and stepped out, a completely different figure stepped in, a lime green pony-like creature with the eyes, ears, horn and wings that resembled that of a stag beetle’s. The orange pincers on their head looked like the antlers of a deer, and there were three dots around the creature's neck. At a glance, it was rather difficult to make out who this figure happened to be.

However, it was when this creature spoke that he immediately recognized who they were. “Hello there, Calvin. How are you feeling?”

“T-Thorax?” he asked, blinking a couple of times before he tried to straighten himself up, “Why do you look-?”

“Like this?” he gestured a hoof towards himself, “Well, let’s just say that because of our efforts, not only did we rescue everypony, but my people have ‘turned over a new leaf’, so to speak. Not only that, but now, my kind see me as their king.”

That caught Calvin by surprise rather quickly, “K-King?! But what about-?”

“Chrysalis?” Thorax’s question was followed by a nod from the young teen, as the changeling shrugged and took a seat by his bedside, “After her defeat, Starlight tried to reason with her. She told her that she didn’t have to be evil and that she could change her ways for the better. However, Chrysalis burned that bridge the first chance she got and ran off, swearing revenge. We have no idea where she went off to after that.”

“I-I see,” he said as he tried to process everything in his head, “W-Wow… that’s a lot to take in. H-how is everyone else? Celestia told me about Apple Bloom and the girls, but what about-?”

“You mean the other two that almost look similar to you?” Thorax asked, “From my understanding, they’re in one of the guest rooms here, getting a much needed rest. Twilight wanted to speak with them, but Celestia convinced her to wait until they had the chance to recuperate.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Calvin let out a major sigh of relief, before a different idea came to mind, as he looked back at the newfound king, “Hey, uh… I know this sounds strange, but when you guys came here, did you meet another changeling named Ocellus?”

“Actually, we did,” the newfound king said as he looked towards the door to the room, “In fact, I think she wanted to say something to you once you were awake.”

Shortly after, another changeling that was smaller than Thorax nervously peaked around the edge of the door’s frame and looked into the room. Her body was light blue with red wings and a pink like ‘fin’ along the head and the back of the neck. “U-um… H-hello Calvin.”

“H-hi, Ocellus,” he replied back as he tried to move the blankets that were on him and get himself out of his bed. “What brings you here?”

“D-Didn’t Thorax tell you already?” she asked, before glancing over to the changeling king as he shook his head.

“I thought I would let you do the honors.”

At first, Ocellus didn’t quite know how to take that. Though, after she took a deep breath, the changeling began to speak, “Both of us wanted to take a moment to thank you for everything you’ve done to help us yesterday.”

“M-Me?” Calvin asked, surprised by what she was telling him, “I should be thanking both of you. If it wasn’t-”

“Come on now, Calvin, you’re giving us too much credit,” Thorax interjected, “You could’ve easily turned me away and ignored what I told you the other day, but instead, you chose to lend me your ear and help. If it weren’t for the kindness of you and the Apple Family, Ocellus wouldn’t have been so brave enough to help you and your friends with your plan. Not only that, but because of your actions in Ponyville, it gave Starlight and I a chance to turn things around when everything seemed grim. Such a chance is the reason why we stand before you like this instead of who we were before.”

At that, Calvin didn’t know what to say. Yet, before he could really reflect on his words, the newfound king of the changelings had one more thing to say, “So, on behalf of our people, thank you. You will always be a friend to us.”

As Thorax finished speaking, both he and Ocellus took their leave and said goodbye to him as they made their way downstairs. While there was a lot that was said that Calvin was trying to make sense of, one thing was clear as day… and even he couldn’t believe it.

“By the elements, I’m friends with a king now… That’s a first.”

End Scroll 32

Author's Note

Part 3 of 3

So, for this chapter, I wanted to take the introductions and where we left off last time in the last one and try things from a different angle. Since the Season 6 Finale took place in the Changeling Kingdom for when Starlight and the others went on their rescue mission, I decided to have this happen while they were away from Ponyville and have Calvin and Company come up with a plan to tackle a threat that was a bit closer to home. In the end, I think the payoff went rather well.

I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Instead of putting it as a massive chapter, I decided to break it down into parts for everyone to make it easier to read. Thank you and have a great day

Until next time
-Frost

P.S. When writing the scene with Angel, I couldn't help but think of this

Scroll 33- Ancient Teachings (Part 1)

Author's Note

As the dust from the events of the last chapter begin to settle, the two newcomers (Trevor and Raquel) have a few particular questions on their mind that they don't know the answers for. Calvin offers to help and knows of a place where they can hopefully find some, but in the process, ends up learning something that's... difficult for him to come to terms with.

Truth is a funny thing. Does it live in the world? Or in the Mind? Is it constant, or can it bend?
-Savathûn, The Witch Queen (Destiny 2)

Scroll 33- Ancient Teachings (Part 1)

Beyond the Skies- Ancient Teachings (Part 1)

By the time that the Skyshifter had finally gotten what he felt was enough rest and left the comforts of his own room, Calvin realized that the castle was not as busy as he thought it would be. Earlier, he heard the voices of several different creatures from downstairs echo throughout the halls. Now though, it seemed kind of quiet, as he began to slowly make his way downstairs. After everything that happened the other day with a group of changelings that tried to impersonate Twilight and her friends, Calvin thought that today would be a day to try and take it easy.

Though, as he realized once he was at the bottom of the stairs, it seemed like fate had other plans in store for him. “Oh, hello, Calvin.”

Much to his surprise, Calvin was greeted by the sight of not only Twilight, but also that of the twins, Trevor and Raquel. Not only that, but there were plates of food in front of them, too, and another plate that was empty and unoccupied. “H-Hello,” he said, glazing over at the twins before looking back at Twilight, “Am I interrupting something?”

“Not really,” the alicorn shook her head, “Your friends only came down a little while ago, and since they haven’t had anything to eat, Spike offered to make pancakes.”

That had him blink for a moment, before raising an eyebrow, “Is that all?”

“Well, your friend was trying to help answer some questions that we had,” he heard Trevor speak up, “Since we don’t know that many things about where we are, Sweetie Belle thought that Twilight could help bring us up to speed. That, and both of us were kind of hungry.”

That had Calvin look back at each of them with a look of confusion and curiosity as he walked over towards the Cutie Map, “Up to speed on what though?”

“A little bit of everything, you might say,” Raquel soon spoke up, “Though, to be honest, I still haven’t wrapped my head around the fact that we’re in another world entirely. It’s just so… well-”

“Different?”

“I was going to say strange, but that works, too,” she shrugged her shoulders, “Twilight helped clarify some things that you told us the other day, such as where exactly we are, and informed us more about the town’s residents, so to speak.”

Around that point, that was when Trevor took it upon himself to continue, after he drank some water, “However, there are still a few things that we haven’t had the chance to ask yet. If you like, you can join us-”

“Um… I hate to interrupt,” Twilight spoke up before the young teen had the chance to answer, “But unlike you two, Calvin hasn’t had the chance to eat yet.”

“What about afterwards?” the Skyshifter asked, “I mean, it shouldn’t take too long for me to get some breakfast, if Spike is still in the kitchen-”

“Way ahead of you on that one,” they heard the sound of Spike’s voice from the kitchen as he came out with a tray of hot pancakes. When he was close to the Cutie Map, Twilight took it upon herself to pick some of the pancakes up with a levitation spell, to set them on the empty plate. “That should be everything for now, Twilight, unless anyone needs anything else?”

“Would you like to join us, Spike?”

“Thanks for the offer, Twilight, but I’ll pass,” he replied, “I already got something to eat earlier, and I still need to clean up the kitchen.”

That answer actually confused the alicorn a bit, as she looked back towards her assistant “That really shouldn’t take too long-”

“Twilight, the changelings that occupied the castle while we were captured by Chrysalis weren’t exactly neat and tidy, by any means,” the dragon deadpanned, “They left quite the mess in here, so handling the dishes from breakfast is not the only thing that I’m cleaning up.”

“Do you need any help?” Calvin was the next one to speak as he looked back at him.

Spike just smiled for a moment, before shaking his head, “While it is going to take me some time to get this all cleaned up, it’s nothing I can’t handle. Besides, I’ve helped clean up bigger messes whenever Pinkie Pie prepares an unexpected surprise party for somepony out of the blue.”

“Pinkie Pie?” Trevor asked, “You mean that one pony we met who’s rather energetic and has a mane and tail that looked like it was made of cotton candy?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Spike nodded, “Ponyville’s residential party planner extraordinaire. She personally takes it upon herself to make sure that anypony who’s new to Ponyville feels welcomed, even going as far as to throw a surprise party for every newcomer that arrives in town. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s preparing one for the two of you right now.”

Shortly after he said that, the young dragon went back towards the kitchen to start cleaning up. Yet, his words left quite an impact on the twins. Raquel herself seemed to be lost in thought and was trying to make sense of everything as she looked back at Twilight. “Is… everything he said about your friend true?”

“Yeah, it’s true,” Twilight nodded, “And before you ask, it’s better if you don’t think about it too much. I learned the hard way of what happens if you try to make sense of anything Pinkie does.”

At first, it looked like the princess’ response left the twins with more questions than answers. Yet, they decided to just go along with it and ask some other questions, while Calvin ate his food. Most of the things that the twins asked about were on subjects that were either very commonplace in Equestria or stuff that he knew about already. They even asked more about Twilight herself, along with her friends, since the twins had the impression that they must be rather important if someone wanted to try and kidnap them in the first place.

Though, there was one particular question that caught Calvin’s attention, as he was close to finishing his meal. However, it wasn’t something that either of the twins asked, but instead was a question asked by Twilight, “So, out of curiosity, what exactly can you two… well, do?”

For a moment, Trevor blinked as he looked back at his sister briefly, before turning back to the alicorn, “I’m sorry. W-what are you talking about?”

“Well, the two of you arrived here like Calvin did when he first arrived, so I thought that you were Displaced, like he was-”

“And what exactly does that mean?” Raquel now asked, who was just as confused as her brother was.

At that point, Calvin felt the need to stop eating and speak up as he looked towards the twins. “That part is kind of difficult to explain, but I’m going to try anyway. We aren’t exactly the only ones who had this happen to us.”

Both of the twins blinked for a moment and looked back at him, rather confused by what he meant. “What, you mean like there are other humans here, too-?”

“No, no. That’s not what I mean at all,” the Skyshifter shook his head, before an idea came to mind, “Have you seen that one Spider Man cartoon where he’s fighting alongside other different versions of Spider Man? Think that… but each one of them come from their own Equestria, no two people or worlds are the same, and they either have some kind of power they can control or end up becoming a particular character they were dressed up as. The term ‘Displaced’ basically means anyone that falls into that category-”

“So, what? Like an Isekai?” Trevor asked, folding his arms as he looked towards Calvin.

“…What the heck is that?”

“I’ll… tell you when you’re older,” he immediately backpedaled on that statement, just as Raquel came up with her own response to what the two of them had been told. “So, wait just a minute. You’re telling me that this has happened to other people like us? How exactly would you know about that?”

“Well, I ended up meeting a couple of them,” Calvin nervously replied, “Sometimes, they either end up coming here, or I get summoned to them. It’s… complicated.”

At that point, a different question was asked by Trevor as he looked back towards Twilight, “Okay, but what does this have to do with us though? I mean, sure, we might have arrived in Equestria the same way Calvin did, but that doesn’t mean we have powers now… right?”

For a moment, Twilight straightened up from her position on her chair as she tapped her hoof to her chin. From where Calvin was sitting, he could see that the alicorn was deep in thought and trying to think of a response. After about a minute, that was when she looked back to the twins and lowered her hoof. “Have the two of you noticed anything different, per se? Like, you have something that you didn’t have before?”

“Uh… with all due respect princess, you’re going to have to be a bit more specific.”

At that, the princess let out a small breath, “Well, this is more or less a theory, but hear me out. I think that when someone ends up getting Displaced, they undergo a change that varies between each individual. In the case of Calvin, his change is that he happened to find himself in possession of an artifact that’s linked to his powers, that being the pendant he wears.”

Immediately, the Skyshifter realized what the alicorn was trying to say, but was a little puzzled by it, “So, wait… Are you saying that they… might have something similar?”

“To be perfectly honest, there are a couple of different possibilities for what that change may be that I had to rule out, because of what little information we have,” she replied back, before looking back to the twins, “So, back to my earlier question, I was asking if either of you noticed anything different that could possibly signify some kind of change. It doesn’t matter if it's something similar to Calvin or completely different, but-”

Before she had the chance to finish, that was when Raquel chose to interject, “Actually, there may be one thing that’s different.”

As she spoke, Raquel placed her arms on the table and pointed towards her left wrist, “Before my brother and I came here, I used to have a bracelet that was a gift from my grandmother. However, it wasn’t until after Calvin found us and we were at the orchard yesterday that I noticed that it had been replaced with this one. I tried to take it off last night, but it felt as if some kind of grip was tightening around my wrist and fighting back.”

That not only surprised both Twilight and Calvin, but also her brother. “Sis, are you saying that it’s… alive somehow?”

“H-Honestly, I have no idea what it is or what’s going on,” she retorted, before looking towards Trevor’s right arm, “The only thing I do know is that it’s not just me. Y-you have one, too, yet it looks nothing like mine at all.”

For a moment, Calvin watched as Trevor’s body twitched briefly. Yet, he soon let out a small breath as he brought up his right arm. Like that of Raquel, he also wore a bracelet. However, not only was it on the opposite wrist, but it appeared to be forged from metal instead of woven from cloth. “You’re right on that. Yet, this feels less like a bracelet and more like a shackle, if you asked me.”

“Have you tried to take it off?” Calvin asked. His question was answered by Trevor trying to remove the band on his wrist, only for him to be rather unsuccessful. He was able to move it around, but getting it off his arm was something that couldn’t be accomplished. “Okay, never mind then.”

“If I have to be honest, I’m not entirely sure how helpful this is,” Trevor shrugged his shoulders, “I mean, if these things are supposed to be some kind of artifact, like with your necklace, then we weren’t exactly given any instructions on how to use it. At this rate, these look more like fashion accessories.”

However, much to the surprise of everyone that was present in the room, Twilight actually had something to say. “Actually, that might be more helpful than you might think,” the alicorn commented, before shifting her gaze over to the young teen next to her, “Calvin, out of curiosity, how exactly did you find out about your abilities and what your pendant can do?”

“Well, when I first ended up here, it was something that happened by accident, and honestly, I had no idea what was going on,” he admitted, “However, when Master Eon told me more about the pendant and what I could do, things started to make a bit more sense and not sound as scary as I thought it was.”

That had Raquel blink for a moment, as she looked at him in confusion, “Master Eon? Who is that?”

When Calvin heard that, that’s when he realized something. Neither of the twins knew anything about the Skylands at all. Yet, Master Eon was more than likely the only person who could practically help them out. Yet, trying to tell the twins about the Portal Master would do little compared to actually meeting him in person.

“Hey, Twilight?” Calvin spoke as he turned towards the alicorn, “Do we have anything going on later today?”

“Nothing in particular comes to mind,” she replied, before looking back to him, “Why do you ask?”

“Well, given the subject of the conversation right now, I think it would be a good idea to pay Master Eon a visit. Perhaps he could help Trevor and Raquel the same way he helped me, when I first arrived here.”

When Trevor and Raquel were told that they were going to visit someone that could help them, the first immediate thought that came to their minds was that this ‘master’ that Calvin talked about was just some other pony that lived in town. They would just go to visit, see if they could help with their situation and then come back to the castle afterwards. However, not everything was as simple as the two of them thought it would be. Instead of heading outside, Calvin and Twilight led the two of them in a rather different direction.

“Wait a second,” Trevor spoke up, “You’re telling us that in order to meet this Eon guy, we need to go through the door in the castle’s basement?”

“Well, it’s the only way for us in order to actually visit him,” Calvin explained to his friend as Twilight opened up the doors for them as a bright light began to emit from the door.

“Does he live in the basement or something?”

“Wha-? No, no! By the Elements, no,” the Skyshifter immediately retorted, “It’s… You’ll see what I mean once you come on through.” Shortly after he said that, Calvin took it upon himself to step through the door first and have the others follow him. There was a bit of hesitation from the twins at first, but after Twilight trotted through the doorway, they chose to follow in afterwards.

Yet, whatever it was that they were expecting to be on the other side of the door was immediately blown out of the water once they had stepped foot inside the M.A.P. for the first time. What they expected to possibly be just another room inside Twilight’s castle was something completely different as they stared at the endless sea of sky and clouds, as floating islands were seen all around them. Some were held together by vines and nature, while others had more mechanical contraptions, with technology that was unlike anything on earth.

“Calvin, w-where are we?” Raquel asked, just as he turned back towards her and her brother.

“Welcome to the Skylands,” Calvin replied, “It’s quite a lot to take in, but to answer your question, we are inside what’s called the Mysterious Ancient Place… or M.A.P. for short.”

“Wait a minute, isn’t that the setting of-?” Trevor asked, only for his question to be interrupted/answered by a nod from Calvin, “Okay, how-?”

“Well, some time after Calvin first arrived here, we ended up learning that the Skylands are practically right above Equestria, after Rainbow ended up breaking the magical barrier between them by accident… long story,” Twilight answered, “It’s only been recently that some creatures in the Skylands have become aware of Equestria’s existence, and vice versa. However, as of right now, the only real way in order to enter the Skylands properly is through the door in the castle basement. Probably for the best, so that nopony ends up stumbling upon a way in by accident.”

That led to Raquel asking a much different question, “How does this relate to this Eon guy though?”

“Master Eon is a Portal Master and seen as both a teacher and mentor to the Skylanders,” Calvin replied, before he started to walk towards the center of the M.A.P. and have everyone else follow him, “He lives over at Skylander Academy and the entrance is not that far from here.”

To Raquel, that started to make a little bit of sense. Yet, there were still quite a few questions that she wanted to ask first before they arrived, “Is… there anything we should know about this place ahead of time?”

“Well, the academy is home to a variety of people from all around the skylands,” the skyshifter told them, “Though, just having me tell you about it is nothing compared to actually being inside. You’ll see what I mean.”

Shortly after that was said, Calvin continued to lead them over towards their destination. When they arrived, the twins found themselves staring at what looked to be a clock tower with sealed doors, along with strange symbols that were carved along an archway that was above the entrance. Compared to some of the other buildings that they had seen around the area, this tower looked like something that would be found in a medieval storybook. Yet, for being an academy, the tower looked much smaller than either of them expected.

“Uh, Calvin? Are you sure this is the right place?”

“Yeah, this is the entrance to the academy,” Calvin assured the twins, before looking at them with a raised eyebrow, “Why do you ask?”

“Well, it looks… a bit smaller than what either of us expected,” Raquel admitted, “I mean, how are we going to go through the doors?”

“Oh, this isn’t the actual academy,” Twilight now spoke up, “Believe me, I got confused by it as well. This is more or less what you might call the ‘front entrance’, and to head on in, we don’t exactly go through the doors.”

That left Trevor with a different question altogether as he looked back at the alicorn, “Then, how exactly do you get in?”

“That is actually much simpler than you might think,” Calvin added, before walking up to a platform that was in front of the castle and had a blue glowing circle in the center, “You just step on this, and then, after a few seconds, you end up at the academy’s doorstep. Here, let me go on ahead and show you how it works.”

As soon as he said that, Calvin took the initiative and stepped onto the center of the platform, just before he disappeared in a flash of blue light. Not long afterwards did Twilight do the same thing, as the twins watched the alicorn disappear as well. While it may have seemed simple to many who would come in and out of the academy, when it came to Trevor and Raquel, there was a bit of hesitation at first, since this was something completely new to them. It wasn’t until a couple of moments after Calvin and Twilight had stepped through that they decided to go forth and step into the center of the platform.

In a matter of seconds, Trevor and Raquel found themselves arriving in what looked to be an open courtyard, with several different stone buildings that were farther in the back. However, what caught the attention of the twins right away was not exactly the academy itself, but the creatures that called it home. Some of these creatures appeared to be molten lava dogs, lifeforms that looked to be either made from plants or trees, a rock golem that had crystals coming forth from its lower arms, and dragons of different shapes and sizes.

It was enough to leave them speechless.

“Welcome to Skylander Academy,” they soon heard their friend say as Calvin walked up to them, “It’s… well, nothing like what school was back home, but it’s still a very nice place to come and visit. What do you think?”

“It’s a lot to take in, that’s for sure,” Trevor remarked, before he looked to the Skyshifter and noticed something, “Hey, where’s Twilight? I thought she came in with you.”

“She went on ahead to try and find some of the staff members on campus that might know where Master Eon is. That way, we don’t have to wander around all over the place in order to try and find him,” the Skyshifter replied as he took a look around the courtyard, “If it were me, I would want to show you around. But, with everything going on, that will have to wait-”

Before he had the chance to finish, Calvin was blindsided, as he was sent tumbling onto the ground. At first, both Trevor and Raquel were startled by the sudden turn of events. Yet, when they went over to try and help him up, they found that another creature was responsible for knocking him off of his feet: a particularly young lava dog who seemed to know Calvin rather well.

“M-Master, you’re back!! W-Where have you been!?”

“D-Dusty, was that necessary?” Calvin asked, letting out a breath as he propped himself off the ground with his elbows, “It’s only been a couple of days-”

“But it felt like forever since I last saw you!!” the pup cried, before burying her face into his shirt. Yet, with her attention fully focused on Calvin, Dusty wasn’t aware of her surroundings and didn’t notice who was with him when she charged in and knocked him onto the ground. The young lava dog was only made aware of their presence when Raquel chose to speak.

“Uh… Calvin, are you alright? Who’s your friend?”

The lava dog’s ears twitched briefly, before it slowly turned its head and looked back towards Raquel. Once she made eye contact, the pup’s body slowly began to shiver, before she nervously tried to speak. “M-master, who-?”

“There you are!!” another voice spoke up as Calvin saw the Fire Skylander named Hot Dog race over towards where Calvin was sitting at. “I’m so sorry, Calvin! I tried to have her stay calm, but when we saw Twilight pass by earlier, Dusty immediately ran off and started looking for you-” It was while he was speaking that Hot Dog himself now noticed the twins as well, “Oh, uh… hello there.”

Around now, the Skyshifter felt that some necessary introductions were in order, so that nothing would spiral out of control. “There’s no need to apologize, Hot Dog,” Calvin assured him, before he had Dusty get off of him, so he could stand back up. Once he was up on his feet, he looked down to find that she was hiding behind his legs, before looking towards the twins, “Dusty, these two are my friends, Trevor and Raquel. They’re rather nice, and I trust them, so you can, too.”

Despite his attempts to try and comfort Dusty, she still seemed a bit hesitant to say anything at the moment. Yet, it didn’t stop one of the twins from trying to get on her level and say hello, “Hello there, Dusty.”

Instead of saying anything in response, Dusty just backed away a bit further as the Skyshifter that she saw as her master let out a chuckle, “Don’t mind her. She’s… rather shy around new people that she hasn’t met before,” he said, before looking down towards the lava dog, “Hey, Dusty, I’m going to need you to be patient and wait with Hot Dog just a little bit longer, okay? After we’re done meeting Master Eon today, then you can find me, and we’ll head back home.”

The lava pup couldn’t help but let out an adorable pout in response, before looking up at Calvin, “O-okay, master. I-I can wait.”

The young teen smiled, before he patted Dusty gently on her head and watched as both of the lava pups scurried away. Yet, it was when they were farther away that Trevor had a question for Calvin, “Uh, Calvin? Why is it that burning puppy called you ‘master’?”

“That is a bit hard to explain, and personally, I’m still not used to Dusty calling me that,” the teen shrugged the back of his head. He wasn’t sure if they had enough time to explain the whole story, since Twilight could come back at any moment. So, he had to briefly summarize everything from the twins, “A while back, I had to rescue her and her siblings from a very bad situation. However, in doing so, Dusty became rather attached to me in the process, so I promised Master Eon that I would look after her and try to help her the best I can.”

While it seemed that Raquel was fine with the explanation, Trevor wasn’t entirely buying it. However, before he could press any further, the three of them heard the sound of magic and a distinct pop behind them, as Twilight teleported nearby them. “Alright, everyone, I got some good news. Master Eon is free at the moment, so we can see him right now, if everyone’s ready.”

“By all means, lead the way.”

Twilight only nodded her head as she began to lead the three of them towards the towering spire at the far end of the campus. While the academy had various rooms that were used by both students and teachers, the spire they were heading towards served not only as the personal chambers of Master Eon, but also partially served as an operations room, when it came to the faculty members assigning missions to the Skylanders. Calvin himself had been there twice: the first being when he was with Princess Celestia, back when Rainbow Dash accidentally tore a massive hole in the sky with a Sonic Rainboom, and the second being when he overheard about the captured Skylanders at the MaguDome, and how he volunteered to rescue them. Yet, unlike the last two times, he wasn’t there to take part in any missions this time around.

Instead, he and his friends were there to see if Master Eon could shed some light on a mystery they came across, in a field which the Portal Master might have some expertise with.

Once the four of them had arrived at the front of the spire, the doors parted open for them, as the group stepped inside. In the center of the chamber was a table that was roughly around the same size of the Cutie Map, back at the castle of friendship. In the center of the chamber was the veteran Portal Master that they came all this way to visit, who happened to turn towards them once he heard the sound of the doors.

“Hello there, Master Eon.”

“Greetings, young Calvin, and to you as well, Princess Twilight,” the Portal Master said, before he turned his attention to who else was with them as he looked towards the twins, “I see that you have a couple new companions with you as well. If I may ask, who are you two?”

At first, the twins were a bit nervous to respond. Yet, after a couple of moments, they had a response to Eon’s question. “I-I’m Trevor Arlott, and this is my sister, Raquel.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Eon kindly replied as he shifted towards Calvin, “Now, out of curiosity, what is the reason you wanted to see me? Is it something with regards to your training, or did you need my help with something else?”

“Actually, it’s the latter,” Calvin commented, “My friends here recently arrived the same way that I did some time ago. To keep things simple, Twilight & I think that both Trevor and Raquel have some kind of special trinket on them, similar to how I came here with my necklace. Given how you had helped me previously when we first met, I was wondering if you could try and help them.”

“I see,” the Portal Master said, scratching his chin for a moment as he looked towards the twins, “If it is okay with the two of you, may I see these trinkets?”

“That’s not exactly easy,” Raquel told him, before both of the twins lifted up their arms to show the bracelet that was wrapped around their wrists, “We’ve tried to take these off already, but we can’t. It’s like it’s… resisting, if that makes any sense.”

“Hmm…” Eon replied, sounding a bit surprised as he looked towards their wrists for a brief moment, before he redirected his gaze back to the twins, “Have either of you noticed any other effects, aside from that?”

Both of them shook their heads, before Trevor began to speak, “Not really. Yet, we’ve only been here for almost two days, and yesterday was rather busy.”

Calvin watched as Master Eon nodded his head and walked back along the edge of the table in the room, “Well, what you have described so far is something that I’m not entirely familiar with. However, the academy does have a number of resources that could help us narrow things down.”

Then, the Portal Master looked across the table and towards the other side of the room, “Hugo!!”

Immediately, one of the doors on the other side of the room swung open, and a familiar Mabu rushed over from the other side. Yet, he seemed to be solely focused on Master Eon, for he didn’t even take the time to acknowledge anyone else that was in the room. “I-I’m here, Master Eon! Did you n-need me for something?”

“Indeed, I do,” Eon told him, “I want you to bring back any books you find in the library that involve ancient and magical artifacts. If you can, look for anything that specifically references magical adornments of any kind. Take your time and don’t rush yourself.”

“Will do, Master Eon! I’ll start looking right now!” Hugo proudly stated, before he turned around and quickly raced out of the room.

“Who… was that just now?” Raquel asked.

“Hugo is my assistant and also one of the staff members in charge of the library at the academy. I’m confident that he’ll find what I asked for,” Eon replied, before turning back towards the twins, “In the meantime though, there is another question that I wanted to ask you while we wait for his return.”

Both Trevor and Raquel looked back at one another with a puzzled expression, before they turned their attention back towards Eon, “What’s that?”

“How did the two of you end up acquiring the bracelets you now possess? Do you recall anything in particular that happened before your arrival?”

That was a question that Calvin hadn’t even taken into consideration. However, he and Twilight were quick to notice that the mere mention of it didn’t quite settle right with the twins. “It’s a bit of a long story.”

“I believe we have some time before my assistant returns,” the Portal Master insisted, before motioning for everyone to take a seat at the table, “Besides, any information that either of you provide can help us get closer to finding an answer.”

As everyone began to take a seat, Raquel let out a deep breath. She looked to her brother for a moment, before glancing over at everyone else and then redirected her attention back to Master Eon, “Well, before we found ourselves here, we were… doing something that was a bit reckless.”

Over the course of twenty minutes, Trevor and Raquel tried their best to recall as much as they could about the events leading up to them waking up in Equestria. While it wasn’t exactly easy for them to recall every particular detail, what they did share to Calvin and the others helped them piece together more of their story. From what they shared, what started as the two of them wanting to find answers about how he had disappeared led to them stumbling across something far more complicated, and shortly after they ended up getting caught, they blacked out and found themselves in the Everfree.

“Well, that was… not what I was expecting,” Twilight was the first to speak, shortly after the twins were finished with their tale, “So, you went to try and see if there was anything inside that place with regards to his disappearance… and you were caught? By who?”

“That’s the thing. We don’t really know,” Trevor replied back, “We heard them, but we couldn’t see them at all. Everything was a blur afterwards, and before I knew it, I woke up next to my sister on the forest floor. The only name that was mentioned was that of their pet cat, and I doubt that would help us in any particular way.”

Before the alicorn and the Portal Master had the chance to comment, Calvin decided to speak up and ask something else, “Well, if that’s the case, then may I ask a different question? There was something that I wanted to know that I think only you guys can provide the answer for, if that’s okay with you, of course.”

“What’s that?” Raquel asked.

It took a bit for Calvin to try and ask what was on his mind. There were so many things that he wanted to ask, yet he found it difficult to say it at that moment. So, given the subject, he chose to ask the first thing that came to his mind that was the most important thing. “Is my mom okay?”

At first, the twins didn’t say anything. While the question might’ve been simple, it was difficult for either of them to form an ideal answer for their friend. Yet, it did not stop them from trying anyways. “She’s… doing alright. When I last saw her, your mom was still hopeful that she would be able to see you again, after being gone for so long-”

“Wait,” the Skyshifter interjected, his attention focused on the twins, “So long? What do you mean? How long have I been gone?!”

Raquel was caught off guard by that, since she was under the impression that he knew about how long it had been since he came here. Yet, based on his response just now, something didn’t quite feel right. “Calvin, how long has it been since you first arrived here?”

“More than a year… I think,” he said, before he glanced over to Twilight, “Does that sound right?”

“Over a year and a half,” Twilight helped clarify as she looked over towards Raquel, “In a couple of months, it would be two years. Why do you ask?”

At that, Raquel looked over to her brother, as he chose to take a turn to speak, “Calvin, I’m sorry, but there’s no easy way to tell you this. You’ve been gone much longer than you think.”

As Calvin said that, a feeling of unease and worry began to sink in. Nervously, he shifted his gaze over to Twilight, before he looked back at both Trevor and Raquel. With hesitation lingering in his voice, he asked one more question. “H-How… long?”

In response, Trevor closed his eyes and let out a deep breath as he tried to keep himself composed, before he opened his eyes and began to respond to his friend, “Calvin, back home, you’ve been gone for four years.”

In an instant, the whole room went silent. Calvin could only stare in shock and disbelief, as the realization of how long it had been since he disappeared began to sink in. The thought that his mom had been waiting so long for him to come home again was too much for him to bear, as tears started to roll down the sides of his face. “F-Four… y-years? No… no, no, no. T-that can’t be-”

While it was the right thing to do, Raquel couldn’t help but feel very sorry for him. Back home, some time after Calvin’s disappearance, she had gotten to meet his mother and learn more about his family. One particular thing that she learned was that because Calvin’s father was never really around, he had a very close relationship with his mother, so hearing that he had been separated from someone he really cared for much longer than he originally thought must have been hard for him.

So, considering everything that Calvin had done to help her and Trevor in their time of need, Raquel took it upon herself to help him this time. Moving from her chair, she walked over towards where her friend was seated. Before the young teen had the chance to say anything, that was when she tried to say something.

“I’m really sorry, Calvin. I can’t imagine how you feel right now,” she said, before gently placing a hand on his shoulder, “But if there is a way to let you see her again, I promise I will help you find it.”

That was something that he honestly did not expect to hear her say. “Y-you would? W-why?”

At that, all Raquel could do was give him a small smile, “Because no matter who you are, family is important. With how long it has been since you last saw her, you deserve to see her again. And I want to make that happen.”

Now, Calvin was trying to dry the tears that came down his face as he looked back towards her and tried to clean himself up, “T-Thank you. I-”

If Calvin had the chance, he would go a step further and hug her, right on the spot. However, just as he was about to do that, the doors to the chamber opened, “Master Eon, I’m back with the books you asked me to-” the mabu scholar proclaimed as he set down a few different tome’s, before he noticed what was going on, as a nervous expression emerged on his face. “U-um… A-am I interrupting something?”

All Master Eon could do was chuckle in response, before the Portal Master looked towards each one of his guests. “Actually, I believe your timing couldn’t be better. Now, let’s take a look at what we have here.”

Scroll 33- Ancient Teachings (Part 2)

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Scroll 33- Ancient Teachings (Part 3)

Beyond the Skies- Ancient Teachings (Part 3)

Shortly after Brain had Calvin and the twins follow him out of the chamber, Twilight found herself in a rather awkward position. Since she was under the impression that what the Ancient was doing was going to take a while, the alicorn was left with two options: either wait patiently in silence for when they would eventually return, or try to make light conversation with Master Eon. Personally, if she had a choice, she would’ve cracked open one of the books that was brought in to try and read it again. Unfortunately, Hugo had already taken them with him, to be placed back inside the library.

Yet, before she could finalize a choice on what to do, Master Eon beat her to it. Since it had been some time since Calvin was last at the academy, the Portal Master wanted to make sure that he was doing alright. While it was a bit difficult at first, Twilight eventually was able to provide an answer for him. Yet, when she began to start talking about what had been happening recently, there was something that caught Eon’s attention.

“You and your friends were kidnapped?”

“Yeah. There’s a bit of a story behind that,” Twilight admitted, “Back in Equestria, we have a villain named Queen Chrysalis. She’s a changeling, a species that has transformation magic, but not the same as what Calvin can do. Previously, she tried to take over Equestria by impersonating my sister-in-law, Princess Cadance, on the day she was to marry my brother. When her original plan was thwarted, she tried to have her army invade Canterlot… only for that to backfire.”

“I see,” the Portal Master replied, “Forgive me, but I’m a little curious now. What makes these changeling transformations different from what we’ve seen from Calvin?”

“From what I can recall, it’s a particular ability that only Changelings know. It doesn’t require the use of an external source, like with Calvin’s necklace, and they can also change into inanimate objects,” she replied, “After her plan in Canterlot was thwarted, we hadn’t really seen much of her or the other changelings in her hive and assumed that she went into hiding. Only now do I know that this wasn’t done out of fear, but instead out of strategy, for her recent plan involved kidnapping my friends and I, as well as each of the members in the Royal Family who could possibly ruin her plans.”

“Yet, this plan was somehow foiled?”

“That I have Starlight to thank, though Calvin did play a small part,” Twilight smiled, “For context, while we were taken by her, Chrysalis had a few changelings act as ‘replacements’ of us, to make sure nothing seemed wrong. However, with some help, Calvin realized that they weren’t truly us, and with some help from Trevor, Raquel as well as the Cutie Mark Crusaders and some of the Apple Family, they were able to not only kick them out of the castle that I call home, but also provided Starlight and the others a chance to turn things around when thing seemed grim. Might’ve been what they needed to thwart her plans.”

“That’s… quite a story,” the Portal Master commented, “Though, if I may, where exactly is Chrysalis now?”

At that, Twilight now only looked at Eon with an expression of uncertainty, “That, we don’t know. Starlight tried to offer her a chance to make things right, but she swatted it out of her hooves and swore revenge before running off.”

“…Would it be possible that she might’ve found her way here?”

“If I have to be honest, I don’t think so,” Twilight shook her head, “When I had Calvin stay grounded at the castle, I locked the door to the basement as a precaution, so he didn’t try to sneak out. When I was rescued and came back, Sweetie Belle told me that they found it still locked, but they put a bookcase in front of it, just to be sure.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” the Portal Master let out a sigh, “With Kaos still at large here, I was concerned that this queen would inadvertently find a way to run into him, like with that Sombra figure you mentioned before.”

“If that did happen, I doubt they would get along,” the alicorn said, “Chrysalis doesn’t seem like the kind of creature who would be open minded to working with others.”

“You’d be surprised to the extent in which some would go to form alliances, if their interests happen to align, especially if they were enemies. Case in point, Kaos did that once with us, when one of his plans went awry a long time ago.”

That statement had the princess blink for a short moment, before he looked back at Master Eon with a shocked expression on her face, “Y-You’re telling me… that the Skylanders and Kaos once worked together? How exactly did that happen?”

“Well, a long while back, Kaos broke out a bunch of criminals known as the Doom Raiders, under the impression that because he let them free, they were going to listen to him and go along with whatever scheme he planned on doing,” the Portal Master replied, “However, instead, they went along with their own plans and ended up ignoring him. Since the Skylanders were wanting to put the Doom Raiders back in prison and Kaos had knowledge on their plans, we had an uneasy truce for a time. Of course, that truce was broken after the Doom Raiders were locked up. He tried to use the weapon they were making as his own. Since then, most of the Doom Raiders have just stayed in their cells and promised to do good while also helping the Academy on occasion.”

“Most? What do you mean?”

“By the time that Cloudcracker Prison was rebuilt, we pretty much gave them a choice. They could either head back into their cell or trade in their life of crime and use their powers to help train the next generation of Skylanders. Of course, there was a rather lengthy rehabilitation process involved that took about two years. Yet, by the time that passed, they were recognized as Senseis at the Academy and stayed true to their word.”

That caught Twilight by surprise. While it wasn’t exactly the same, what Master Eon described reminded her a lot of the reformation process she went through with Starlight. Of course, Starlight’s reformation didn’t take her two years to complete, and there were a few hiccups along the way. Yet, in the end, the same results were still achieved.

“I see,” the alicorn commented as a new thought entered her mind, “You know, the more that you mention this ‘Cloudcracker Prison’, the more that it reminds me of something that we have in Equestria called Tartarus. It’s a place where ancient and evil creatures are imprisoned, because they either were a danger to Equestria itself or because they committed heinous crimes of the highest degree.”

“Really now?” the Portal Master asked, intrigued by what she said, “What kind of crimes, if I might ask?”

“Well, the main creature I can think of is a centaur known as Lord Tirek,” the alicorn began to explain, “From what Princess Celestia told me, he and his brother Scorpan came to Equestria with the intent to steal all of Equestria’s magic a long time ago. However, unlike Tirek, his brother grew to appreciate how Equestrians lived and even went as far as to befriend Starswirl the Bearded. Scorpan tried to urge his brother to reconsider his plans, but when Tirek refused, he warned the princesses of his brother's intentions. This led to them acting quickly and having Tirek be imprisoned in Tartarus for the attempted theft of all of Equestria’s magic, while his brother was able to return home.”

“Hmm,” Master Eon replied, “Yet, no prison could keep hold of anyone or anything forever. Would it be safe to assume that was the case with Tirek?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Twilight let out a small sigh, “When Lord Tirek escaped, he set out to finish what he tried to start all those years ago. His goal was to steal all the magic of Equestria, so that he could rule over it with nopony to oppose him, and at one point, he was almost successful. Luckily, we not only prevented that from happening and had him cough up all the magic he stole, but also put him back in his cell in Tartarus under tightened security, to make sure that he wouldn’t escape again.”

“That’s quite an interesting story.”

Before either of them had the chance to continue their conversation, one of the doors to the chamber had opened. They turned around to see that Brain had returned, with Calvin and the twins following not that far behind him. “Oh! Welcome back, everyone. How did it go?”

“Well, the theory that I had established here before we left has been proven right,” the Ancient replied, “Not only did the artifacts enter a more active state with the introduction of magic, but I can say without a doubt that the artifacts they have are the same ones I remember. The abilities that both of the twins demonstrated confirms this.”

“I see,” Master Eon said as he turned to face them, “And what of Calvin? Were you able to discover anything with him?”

At this, Twilight was a bit surprised when he saw Brain shake his head, “That was something I wanted to do separately since, as you had said yourself, he is a student here. Therefore, before we begin, I wanted to know the extent of what he had already been taught, so I don’t end up teaching him things that he already knows. That, and I think that right now, his friends are a higher priority, since they aren’t familiar with their gifts.”

That had the Portal Master look over to both of the Arlott Twins, before he turned his attention back to Brain, “I believe that can be arranged. Though, I would need to talk to Buzz, to see who would be ideal for this. King Pen was a perfect fit for Calvin, since his Imaginator was of the same class that he teaches, so I would like to find a suitable mentor for both of them.”

At that point, Raquel chose to speak up as she looked at both Master Eon and Twilight, “Uh, I don’t mean to interrupt, but maybe we could have someone to… well, teach us the basics first? We’re still rather new to this, and I think it would be better if we knew the simple things first, before we try anything else.”

In Twilight’s mind, that was a rather valid point. No creature can be a master of magic overnight, and for some, it took months of practice to be familiar with some of the most basic spells. They needed time to get their footing and become familiar with what they now had first, before trying to do anything that was massively complex, so starting off something simple would’ve been the best way to start.

Yet, there was one small problem that came to Twilight’s mind. Despite this sounding like an ideal possibility, it was unclear as to who would be the proper teacher to help show them the basics. Under any other circumstances, she would volunteer herself to help teach them. However, there was no telling how different the magic of the artifacts was compared to Equestrian Magic.

“I believe that can be arranged,” the Portal Master replied, before he looked over to the Ancient, “Would you be open to helping the two of them on this matter? Not right at this very moment, but at a later date?”

“That I would,” Brain nodded, “After all, we’ve only just begun. There is still a lot they can learn, if they put their minds to it. Plus, given how I was the one who awakened their abilities, I should bear some form of responsibility for their growth.”

As Master Eon nodded his head and saw that Hugo had returned, that was when Twilight noticed Calvin and started up a conversation with him, “Hey, Calvin, how’s everything going?”

“Alright, I guess,” the Skyshifter shrugged, “Mostly, it’s been watching Brain while he’s helping out Trevor and Raquel. What about you? You’re not… bored, are you?”

“What? No,” the alicorn shook her head, “In fact, Master Eon and I were having an interesting conversation to pass the time while we were waiting.”

That had Calvin raise an eyebrow as he folded his arms. He was going to ask more about what kind of conversation she was talking about, but before he could say anything, the Skyshifter felt a familiar tendril tap his shoulder as he turned around to see Brain waiting behind him. “Calvin, do you have a moment?”

“Uh, sure?” he said, glancing over at Twilight briefly before he focused his attention on the Ancient, “What is it?”

“Well, I believe now is the proper time for us to look into your artifact.”

“Oh, uh… okay. Are we going back to your room, or-?”

“That wouldn’t be necessary,” Brain shook his head, “I wanted to do the procedure with your friends in there earlier, so that I had some peace and quiet to focus as well as access to anything that would be needed on the off chance something went wrong. Luckily, that wasn’t needed.”

At that point, Calvin looked over to Twilight, who just so happened to not be far away from him, before looking back. “Okay, but for right now, what would you need? I mean, you saw me transform earlier, but was there anything specific you needed to know?”

“Well, Master Eon mentioned that you had been a student here under the tutelage of one of the Senseis,” the Ancient commented, “Could you describe for me some of the things that you had been learning from him? It would give me a better idea as to what you know already and where there can be room for improvement.”

At that, the Skyshifter began to feel a little bit more relaxed. He first assumed that Brain was going to ask about something that would’ve been rather complicated to answer. Luckily, that turned out not to be the case. “Oh, that’s actually simple. Some time ago, with some help, I found out that I could create an Imaginator and transform into it.”

If Brain was able to raise an eyebrow, he was giving a look that was equivalent to that right now. “I remember that being mentioned, and personally, I’m a little curious. Could you show me this form of yours?”

“Any particular reason aside from just pure curiosity?” Calvin asked.

“I think I have an idea as to why,” Twilight spoke up, before she looked over at Brain, “Would it be safe to say that by observing Calvin’s transformations yourself, you can see what kind of power his necklace has?”

“That, and how much its power has possibly changed,” the Ancient added as he looked towards the Skyshifter, “Since it has been in your possession for quite some time, it’s possible that it had undergone some changes. If you would be so kind, I would like to see some of those changes, to understand more of your capabilities.”

“I guess that makes sense,” the Skyshifter scratched the back of his head and stretched his arms as the crystal began to give off a red glow. “Alright, let’s get started then. One imaginator, coming right up.”

Shortly after he said that, fire began to take form around him for a brief moment as he shifted into his Imaginator, Kai Chi. The first thing that Brain noticed was that his Imaginator didn’t exactly look too dramatic when it came to appearance. The previous times that an Imaginator had been made by some of the students on campus, their appearance made them stand out. However, Calvin’s Imaginator seemed rather simple by comparison and looked like any other elf that was on campus.

The second thing that he noticed was a distinct lack of any weapons. If this were any other Imaginator, they would have a weapon that compliments their particular Battle Class, such as a sword for knights and scepters for wizards. Instead, the only thing that Brain noticed was what looked to be a pair of fingerless gloves on his hands to go along with the martial arts gi and pants that he was wearing. Yet, the mention of King Pen being his teacher had the Ancient draw one possible conclusion.

“Well, this was… different from what I was expecting,” Brain commented, “Would it be right to assume that you are a Brawler?”

Calvin couldn’t help but smirk in this form as he folded his arms, “What gave it away?”

“To be honest, it was a bit difficult to tell, since you don’t seem to possess any weapons on your person. Then, I remembered who your teacher was and took a guess,” the Ancient admitted, “Would it be safe to say that you mostly let your fists do the talking, if you find yourself in the heat of combat?”

“Mostly, yes.”

That answer was enough that the Ancient looked back with a puzzled expression, “Mostly? Could you explain what you mean by that?”

“The last couple of times I was here, King Pen was helping me come up with a fighting style that was specific to me,” Calvin said, before he raised up his right leg as fire began to channel around his foot, “So, he taught me how to fight with my feet, on the off chance that I find myself in a battle where I can’t use my arms, even helped me develop some techniques to go along with it.”

That was something that Brain honestly did not expect. He thought that King Pen was just going to instruct him the same way as everyone else. Yet, to take the time to come up with something specific to him? That was no small undertaking. Of course, there was one thing about this that made the Ancient rather curious.

“That’s rather interesting, and does this apply to all of your forms? Or just this one?”

That had the Skyshifter blink as he tilted his head and gave the Ancient a puzzled look, “I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean. Could you please clarify?”

“The specific moves you mentioned. Is it just for your Imaginator, or do you have something similar for your other transformations?”

Now that he had a better idea of what Brain was talking about, the Skyshifter was quick to shake his head, “No, only this one. Why do you ask?”

“Well, the premise itself is a rather intriguing one. I’m just surprised that you haven’t decided to expand on the idea and apply it elsewhere.”

That left Calvin rather confused with what Brain was trying to say. Luckily, Twilight was able to piece together what exactly that meant and was quick to speak up, “You mean to try and come up with moves for the other Skylanders that he changes into?”

The Ancient couldn’t help but smile at that as he looked at both of them, “That’s exactly what I mean. When it comes to combat, if you don’t find ways to improve on or add to what you know, it makes you… well, predictable. You can only use the abilities you have so many times until you end up having to fight an opponent who knows what you can do and has developed ways to counter them.”

When he heard Brain say that, Calvin couldn’t help but think back to his fight against Blade Gunner in the MaguDome. However, it was a bit difficult to try and think on what Brain had suggested. While it might have been simple to do something like that with his Imaginator, most of the Skylanders that he could change into were characters that he was already familiar with, along with their abilities. So, how exactly was he supposed to simply add on to something like that?

“It… seems possible,” he admitted, “But where would I even start?”

“Try to think about it for a moment. When you think of the Skylanders, who or what is the first thing that comes to mind?”

“Spyro.”

“Ah, yes, the young purple dragon,” Brain smirked, “And tell me, when you think of Spyro, what else comes to mind?”

“Well, he can breathe fire, fly around and is known for going into fights head first,” the Skyshifter replied, “He can even send out exploding dragon heads and go into his ‘dark’ form. But how does that apply here? This is just saying what I already know-”

“Yes, but here’s a different question. You seem to be familiar with all the things that he can do, but what is something that you don’t see him do?”

That had Calvin’s train of thought come to a rather sudden halt. In his head, he could think of many of the attacks and abilities that Spyro could do right away. However, to think of something that he didn’t or couldn’t do seemed… rather difficult. It didn’t help that it had been some time since King Pen had him fight the dragon for training purposes, and the only reason why he won both times was because of a misplaced technicality that belonged to Buzz.

After a few minutes of thinking though, he heard Brain speak again, “It seems like you need some more time to come up with an answer,” the Ancient spoke, “How about, for now, you try to brainstorm a bit on what we’ve discussed, and we can put those ideas into practice the next time we meet? Consider it a homework assignment, if you want to call it that.”

Calvin couldn’t help but blink for a moment, before he looked back at Brain and nodded his head, “O-Oh… uh… sure.”

At that, the Ancient smiled, before he excused himself and left the chamber. Yet, it was as he was leaving that Trevor and Raquel were walking back over to join Calvin as he returned back to his original form. However, Brain’s departure left them a little bit confused. “Hey, is everything going alright? I thought Brain said that he was going to help you with your necklace?”

“He was,” Twilight spoke up before the young teen had the chance to speak, “Yet, Brain thought that it would be better for Calvin to take some time to think on what we were talking about.”

“Huh. That sounds a bit underwhelming.”

“Not exactly,” Calvin clarified, “We have an idea of something that could work for me. However, it’s not something that we can do right now. Brain wants me to think about it a bit more, so we can talk about it next time we meet.”

“Okay, but when is that next time though?” Trevor asked, “Because Brain did say that he was going to help teach us the basics for magic at a later date, too. We were going to ask him about when that might be, but he just left.”

“Maybe we can ask Master Eon on our way out?” the alicorn asked as they looked towards the Portal Master. Luckily, he seemed to be finishing a conversation with Hugo, as his assistant rolled up some scrolls of parchments and went out the door. “I mean, we’re pretty much done for the moment, right? Nothing else we need to do before we go back to the castle-?”

“I still have to go pick up Dusty,” the Skyshifter reminded her, “More than likely, she’s probably with the rest of her siblings.”

That small statement was enough to get the attention of both the twins, as Raquel couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, “S-she has siblings?”

At that, Calvin couldn’t help but give them a smile, “Oh, both of you are in for a surprise.”

End Scroll 33

Author's Note

With Brain successfully being able to awaken the powers of the twins, he turns his attention to Calvin to see if there was a way that he could help him expand his capabilities. One particular idea shows promise and there is a possibility to expand on it. However, Calvin will need some more time to think about it thoroughly. Luckily, he's in no particular rush.

After all, good things come to those who wait, but better things will comes to those who are patient

Quick Authors Note here. Sorry for the lack of updates on a lot of my current projects. Been studying and preparing for certification exams for the last few weeks and that has left me with very little time to write. Hopefully that'll change soon, but for now, I hope you enjoy this update.
-Frost

Scroll 33.5- The Web

Author's Note

Another chapter from the Villain's PoV. This time, it takes place with a few new characters and a couple of familiar ones too.

Happy Easter, Everyone!

Scroll 33.5- The Web

Beyond the Skies- The Web

If there was one thing that the Skylands was known for, it was that no matter who you were or where you lived, there were secrets everywhere. Whether it was something that was hidden in the ruins of an ancient civilization, passed down among family members over the course of generations or just something embarrassing that you didn’t want your boss to find out about, a secret could come in many forms. Such secrets could be rather dangerous, and you would feel tempted to tell someone about it. However, as the saying goes, the moment you share that secret with someone, it’s already lost.

Now, when most people overhear someone talking about a secret, they wouldn’t really care too much about it. However, there was one group in the Skylands where their business model revolved all around secrets and the knowledge tied to them. In their hands, information was a tool that could be utilized for multiple purposes, whether it be to settle old scores, get to the bottom of something that didn’t quite make sense or tie up loose ends. Originally, the group known as ‘The Web’ was an independent organization. However, after they caught the attention of a Dark Portal Master named Kaossandra long ago, the group had served as her personal network of spies with their chief executive, Lìn, serving as Kaossandra’s right hand.

While most assignments from the Dark Portal Master involved keeping her informed of developments throughout the Skylands and also investigating rumors that would circulate, the most recent assignment that Kaossandra asked them to take on was a bit different, something that a few of Lìn’s fellow comrades were quick to comment on. “So, let me get this straight. We’re not being asked to look into somebody, but something that happened instead?”

“That’s correct,” Lìn replied as he stood in front of a screen that dropped down from the ceiling. A projector in the back was displaying the images that he was showing to several other members of The Web that were present in the briefing room of their hideout. “All of you are probably aware of our Lady’s son, Lord Kaos. Is that right?”

“You mean the bald one that’s a constant nuisance?” s voice from the back room spoke up. The spider servant recognized them as Hase, a male bipedal rabbit that was as quick with his words as he was with on his feet. Despite his attitude, Hase’s quick thinking and problem solving had helped Lìn and other members of The Web out of numerous situations.

“That would be him, yes,” the spider continued, before clicking on the remote in his hands to change the slides of the projector. “According to what Lady Kaossandra has told us, around a week ago, their family had caught a pair of Skylanders that broke into their home. Upon capturing them, Lord Kaos was quick to hand them off to one of his ‘trusted’ associates, a drow named Magus who ran a fighting arena named after himself.”

“He sounds quite egotistical,” another member of The Web spoke up. This time, it was a young gray fox named Mia, who wore simple clothes like the rest of her colleagues. Her problem solving and intellect had helped Lìn and the rest of The Web decrypt complex messages and ciphers that were too tough for any ordinary person to solve. “I mean, you have to have some kind of superiority complex if you name an entire place after yourself, right?”

“No wonder it sounded like this drow got along nicely with him,” Hase snickered, “Anyways, as you were saying, Lìn.”

“Right. However, let’s save the interruptions for after the briefing, okay?” the spider commented as both the fox and hare nodded, shortly before the spider changed slides again, “As I mentioned, this Magus was tasked with keeping the prisoners stuck in there and denying any attempts of escape from either of them. There were even defenses in place that prevented the two Skylanders from using any of their powers. However, on the morning of the ‘grand finale’ for a tournament he was holding, it came as a shock to him and everyone in attendance that they somehow escaped. Afterwards, an incident at the ‘MaguDome’ had led to the colosseum being abandoned by its owner.”

At this point, Lìn turned his attention back to everyone in the room, “While many who look at this might see this as just simply an issue of oversight, Lady Kaossandra believes that there’s more to this. She suspects that some manner of foul play was involved that led to their escape and has tasked us with getting to the bottom of this, post haste.”

Shortly after this was said, there was a bit of chatter between the different members of The Web that were in the room while writing down notes on the presentation. After about five minutes, the spider turned off the projector and had the screen roll back up into the ceiling as the lights came back on. “Now, before we get started on this operation, do any of you have any questions? Given the nature of this assignment, it would be best for you to ask them now, while you still have the chance.”

“Yeah, I have one,” Mia spoke up, “You said the colosseum was abandoned, but what happened to this Magus guy? Surely, he couldn’t have gone off too far now.”

“Actually, no one knows where he went,” the spider remarked, “Which is rather off, considering that a few days prior to this incident, our informants in the field said that he didn’t shy away from being the center of attention.”

“So, we have a missing drow showboat and an abandoned arena that used to belong to him. That’s not really a lot to go on,” Hase added, “Is there any other way for us to start putting the pieces of this weird puzzle together?”

“Actually, there is,” Lìn replied as a small smile could be seen on his face, “One of our operatives in the field, Riki, was actually able to get us a cover story for this operation.”

That surprised quite a few people that were in the room, especially Hase and Mia. Riki was a raccoon that was part of The Web’s reconnaissance division and excelled when it came to acquiring information. However, he wasn’t exactly known to be a ‘people person’ and preferred to stay out of sight. So, hearing that he of all people was able to get a cover story seemed a bit out of character for him.

“Not really sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, if I have to be honest,” the hare retorted, “Still, if Riki was somehow able to pull this off, it should count for something. What’s the cover?”

“Well, since the original owner of the property is nowhere to be found and the arena itself has been abandoned, the colosseum itself is essentially up for grabs for anyone to take. One such party has expressed an interest in renovating the building. However, before they could get started on tearing things down, Riki heard that they needed to hire some property inspectors to check if the foundation of the building is stable.”

At that, Mia’s ears perked up a bit as she looked towards Lìn. “Oh, I think I get it!”

“You… do?” Hase raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. As inspectors, it would be seen as our job to see if it's safe to rebuild or not, which means that we can go around the entire facility, and no one would think twice about it.”

“Mia’s right,” Lìn added, “While I still wonder how Riki was able to get this, we shouldn’t pass up this opportunity. He was able to get us a way in, and we should be thankful for that. Now, we need to prepare a team and get ready to head there on site.”

“Okay, um… was there anyone specific that you wanted to lead this team?” another member of The Web spoke up in the back, “We still have members from the Orb Weavers and the Tangled Webs on standby-”

“That would not be necessary,” the spider insisted as he placed his arms behind his back, “Given the severity of this assignment and how Lady Kaossandra wants this matter to be resolved as swiftly and thoroughly as possible, we need our very best members in the field. So, for this, I’ll be leading this assignment personally.”

Immediately, the whole room went dead silent. Throughout The Web, it was unheard of for Lìn to actually volunteer himself for an assignment out in the field. Many creatures that worked for the organization have come under the impression that he had ‘retired’ from fieldwork, given the partnership that The Web had with Lady Kaossandra. So, when Lìn made his intentions known for leading this assignment himself, everyone in the room began to realize how important this operation was.

“W-Well, that’s rather unexpected,” Mia remarked, before a new question popped up in her head, “I-If you’re leading this assignment, then how many people would you need to assist?”

“Considering that one of them just so happens to be on site already, I believe another two would suffice,” the spider remarked, “And since you and Hase seem to be only ones who are actively inquiring about this operation compared to everyone else in the room, it seems to me that you two are prepared for such an undertaking, unless either of you have any objections on the matter?”

Both the fox and the hare were rather quick to shake their heads in response, with Mia being the only one to speak at that moment. “N-no! None at all.”

“Very well,” Lìn replied with a comfortable and warm smile on his face, “It seems we have a team. I’ll make sure to prepare the necessary arrangements here to guide us while we are in the field. In the meantime, make sure to prepare yourselves with any equipment you might need while we’re on site. We’ll depart in an hour.”

By the time that Lìn and the others were on approach to their destination, they could tell that the arena that was once known as the MaguDome had seen better days. The once lively stadium that was the epicenter of a lot of illicit gladiatorial entertainment had been left to wither away, no longer fit to see any more glory days on the field of battle. Everything from the stands to the grounds outside of the arena was barren and empty, and the entire island itself looked worse for wear. From overhead, it even looked as if a storm had come barreling through, given the mess that they were seeing.

Once they had landed on the island, it did not take long for the three of them to find their companion, Riki. “Oi, there you are. I was wondering when-” they heard him speak, before his attention shifted over to the rare sight of Lìn among their group, “B-boss!? I-I don’t mean to sound rude, but what are you-?”

“Oh? Were you expecting someone else?” Lìn asked.

“Hey, all I was told was that a ‘capable team’ was being sent to assist! They didn’t tell me who was on it.”

“Did you ask?” the spider’s question was met with silence, before Lin let out a small breath, “Nevermind that. We have an important job to do, so we should start right away.”

“Before we start, there’s one thing we need to get out of the way first,” Riki said, “The reason why I was able to get the whole ‘inspector’ cover is because there’s some bear here wanting for some experts to investigate the property and what not. Not any normal bear, but some dignified rich looking fellow might I add. He’s… well, kind of expecting us.”

“Oh, great,” Hase grumbled, “I hate aristocratic types. Let’s get this over with.”

“How about you let me do the talking instead?” Lìn proposed as he looked at the hare, “If what Riki says about this bear is to be believed, then he wouldn’t take kindly to those kinds of remarks.”

“Do they ever?”

The spider did not have a retort for that response, so he just shrugged his shoulders. “A fair point. However, this bear may be the only way that we are going to be able to step foot inside.”

“So, what should we do?” Mia then asked. “As Riki said, this guy seems to be expecting us.”

That had Lìn look towards the rest of his team, before giving them a smile of confidence, “Stay here and leave him to me. In the meantime, do not do anything drastic. The less attention that we try to bring to ourselves, the better. Now, where would I find him?”

“Over by the docks,” the raccoon replied, pointing in the direction of where they were, “You’ll know it’s him because of what he’s wearing. Has a fancy suit, some gems and a monocle over one eye. One look at him just screams ‘Hey, look at me, everyone! I’m rich!!’.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, when he asked for my name, I told him it was Cooper. Didn’t really trust him at the time, so I’d rather not slip up and have carelessness come back to chew out my tail, if you know what I mean.”

With that information in hand, Lìn nodded his head and began to make his way over to where the docks were, while he had the other members of his team hang back and look around the area outside of the complex. When he saw the bear for himself, the spider began to realize what Riki was saying earlier. Appearance was formal to an extensive degree, with a full on suit, monocle and a bolo tie with an emerald in the center. Someone like them in the middle of an island like this stood out like a sore thumb.

It was as the spider approached that he chose to get the bear’s attention and greeted him, “Hello there, sir.”

The bear was quick to turn around and see him, yet his response was a bit different from what Lìn had anticipated, “And who would you happen to be?”

“My name is Derrick,” Lìn said with the first alias that came to his mind, “I’m a property inspector. I believe that you met one of the associates that works for me, Cooper, sometime earlier.”

“Cooper, you say?” the bear asked, shifting his hands a little as he was straightening out the edges of his coat, “I had my doubts that he was actually employed at first glance. Yet, it appears you’ve cleared up my misconceptions of him. Though, I expected there to be more of you, if I have to be honest.”

“In my line of work, we do not judge a book by its cover. Anyone can be capable of anything, as long as they put in the effort. As for your other comment, my other associates are with Cooper as we speak,” the spider commented, “However, I don’t believe that you’re here to idly discuss about those who work for me. Cooper told me that you had some interest in this property, but before we discuss any further details, I would like to get to know more about yourself, if that’s okay? I’d already introduced myself, yet I don’t even know your name.”

“Then, let’s fix that. My name is Auric. Auric Ursa, at your service.”

Immediately, the name rang a bell in Lìn’s mind. This individual, Auric, was known as the Skyland’s finest banker… and perhaps the only banker. Of course, with that said, there had been a lot of rumors circulating around him and his business methods, despite him claiming to be a neutral party. He was even referred to by the nickname ‘Moneybags’, given his love for gold. However, he was rumored to have disappeared shortly after the Sky Eater attack two years ago, so seeing him now came as a surprise to him.

“Well, Mr. Ursa, before we proceed with anything, I would like to ask some questions, if that’s okay with you?”

At this, Auric raised an eyebrow, “What sort of questions?”

“Well, when our clients are interested in a property, we usually ask them a few questions, to get to know more about them and what they’re looking for. No two clients are the same, and I didn’t want to make any assumptions,” Lìn insisted, “So, with that in mind, what made you interested in this location?”

“Well, there isn’t exactly a simple answer to that, I’m afraid,” the bear admitted as he took out a lens cloth and cleaned his monocle, “Most of Skylands knows me for my services as a banker, and on some occasions as a proprietor. However, my reasons for wanting to procure this property are for more of a personal reason.”

To the spider, that wasn’t helpful. He had the impression that this Auric was trying to hide his intentions, so he needed to find a way to pry it open and find out what they were. “Well, this place was originally a colosseum. Were you wanting for my associates and I to see if it could be preserved in some way-?”

“Preserved? Oh, heavens no!” the bear was quick to respond back, “I take no such interest in barbaric displays of sport. No, I was hoping to repurpose it for something a little more imaginative, but I wish to see if it could be done first.”

That left a few different ideas in Lìn’s mind on what that could mean, so he needed to pry further in order to hopefully narrow those choices down. “Well, places like this aren’t just used for sport. Some happen to be used as stages for theatrical productions or even concerts. Was that closer to what you had in mind, Mr. Ursa?”

“While that thought has crossed my mind, it wasn’t what I thought of originally,” Auric told him, “You see, I’m a bit of an art collector in my spare time. Not just paintings, but many forms of art. I lost most of my collection when that ruffian Kaos tried to eat the sky with some infernal contraption, but now that I got what I could back, I thought that it would be worth my time to do something with them.”

Now, that was closer to what the spider wanted to know about. Yet, it wasn’t quite enough just yet. “So, you want to renovate the place into a museum for your collection?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a public gallery. The last time I’ve heard of a museum in Skylands, it was because a Doom Raider was trying to steal something from there, and I’d prefer not to have the same occurrence here,” the bear continued, “Besides, I think that letting people from across the Skylands see this collection would be more preferable compared to having them sit around and gather dust in storage. Not only that, but the revenue gained from such a venture would be a nice bonus.”

Lìn was familiar with the attempted robbery that Auric spoke of. It was when a Doom Raider named Nightshade tried to acquire an artifact that was locked away in the Midnight Museum. However, his attempt was thwarted by a team of Skylanders that defeated him. To this day, he still remains in Cloudcracker Prison. “I see. Now, before we get started with our inspection, was there anything specific that you had in mind? You did say that you had considered renovations.”

“Personally, I just want to make sure that when I have the place cleaned up, I don’t want anyone to accidentally break something that could cause the whole thing to collapse. So, if you find anything that can help me know and understand what’s in there, what can be safely removed and so on, then that would be highly appreciated. Plus, if you come across any legal documents concerning the property, that is a preferred bonus as well. While the previous owner was rather charismatic, I doubt that he would’ve taken anything with him when he was chased out so suddenly.”

Lìn nodded his head and he was going to head back towards Riki and the others. Yet, it was as he turned around that he noticed that Auric was walking back onto his ship. “You’re not going to join us, Mr. Ursa?”

“Mr. Derrick, I think having me join you would only lead to me potentially interfering with your team’s inspection,” the bear reasoned with him, “Besides, I trust that you and your team will handle this as professionally as possible.”

With that in mind, Lìn couldn’t help but smile as he turned around and made his way back to his team. The conversation with Auric turned out to be more fruitful than he imagined. Now, it was time to share what he acquired with the other members of The Web that were with him. Fortunately, the other three were close to the front entrance of the building and anticipating his return.

“Welcome back, boss,” Riki was the first to speak, “How did it go?”

“Rather smoothly, if I do say so myself,” the spider replied, “I found out just exactly what he was looking for and what he expects from us.”

“Really?” Mia asked, “I would’ve thought that it would’ve been a lot more difficult with how Riki described him. What did you find out?”

“Well, from what he told me, our ‘friend’ over there wants to renovate this place into a gallery for his art collection. However, he has no idea what’s inside the complex, and he’s concerned about the stability of the building,” the spider said as he walked to the front door, “Which means our first priority is to figure out where everything is and how the building is structured.”

“Um… can you put that in simple terms, please?” Hase asked.

“He means we need to map out the building,” the fox clarified for the hare, “Like how many floors it has, how many rooms are on each floor, and also where some of the most important rooms are, like the security office and such.”

“Okay, but that sounds… a bit too simple,” the hare remarked as he folded his arms, “Is there some kind of catch involved?”

“All he wants is for the inspection to be done and to be given any legal documents, if we happen to find any. However, the inspection is the higher priority, since that allows us to complete our mission while we’re here,” Lìn summarized, “Now, once we step in, we’ll spread out and go floor by floor. If you find anything that you think might relate to our investigation, make note of it and inform me as soon as you can. Leave no stone unturned.”

Shortly after they went inside and started to look around, it took a bit for Lìn and his team to fully map out the complex. Some of the problems they encountered were minor, but there were others that were a bit more difficult. One such example was debris, for several pathways that led to the upper floors were obstructed by debris. With no other ways to get up, they had to take time out of their investigation to remove the debris before they could go upstairs.

Eventually, when the group found the central office that served as Magus’ control room, they had an easier time with trying to map out the facility.

The building itself had two main floors, along with a basement that was off limits to anyone but experienced technicians. Further investigation soon revealed the reason as to why that was, for the ‘basement’ was actually the thermal core that was used to provide power and heating throughout the complex. The first floor was meant to be a way to introduce the guests as they came in, as well as where the living quarters were for the combatants that were staying in the arena. The second floor was split into two areas, with the first half being for entertainment and dining accommodations, while the second half contained the staff break room, the central office, the armory for the guards, as well as the ‘VIP’ room that contained the prisoners that he once had.

“Geez, this place is something else,” Mia commented as she began to look at the front of the room. The machines up front soon caught her attention, as the fox went over to take a closer look.

“Mia, what are you doing?” Hase asked as Lìn began to take note of the fox’s actions as well.

“I recognize some of this tech,” she replied, “It’s crudely modified, but it bears some resemblance to some tech that’s of Arkeyan design.”

“Do you think you can get it to work?”

That just had Mia smirk, before she tilted her neck from side to side and stretched out her paws. “Can I? Let me take a crack at it and see.”

Now, when it came to the members of The Web, each one was brought into the organization because of special traits that Lìn believed would be a great benefit to their endeavors. In the case of Mia, her expertise revolved around different kinds of gadgets and machinery, more specifically ancient machinery that originated from the time of Arkeyans. Despite their kinds of contraptions being around for over ten thousand years, a lot of modern day tech in the Skylands were either based on Arkeyan designs or drew inspiration from them in some manner.

Shortly after she started, a grin of satisfaction was seen on her face. “Well, what do you know? I'm in.”

“That was… simpler than I thought it would be,” Riki added as he hopped up onto a nearby desk, “How did you do it?”

“To be perfectly honest, whoever set up this system was rather easygoing with the encryption,” the fox replied as she pressed a few more keys and began to scroll through a few options on the open screen, “I mean, the passcode for the whole thing was just simply 1111. It’s so easy that a Greeble could crack it. Not only that, but this seems to have access to everything here. There’s maintenance logs, shipping manifests, revenue charts. You name it, it’s there.”

“Everything, you say?” Hase spoke up as he was looking around the room and gave off a grunt of sorts as he gave a sarcastic reply, “Could it tell us what the heck happened to this place?”

Unfortunately for the hare, the fox took that as a challenge, “Well, let me just take a quick peek at the security system that’s installed here and see.”

Hase groaned as he turned away for a brief moment to examine the rest of the room. Yet, it was as he was walking that he felt himself step into something. When the hare looked down, he found that for some reason, portions of the floor were covered in a black colored powder. As the hare backed away, he watched as some of it vanished like smoke and faintly glowed for a brief moment.

Multiple possibilities emerged in his mind for what it could be. However, his attention was drawn away from it shortly afterwards when he heard Mia speak up in glee. “Haha! There we go. We got security logs and access to camera footage from all around the facility. How’s that, Hase?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the hare rolled his eyes and let out a groan, before he looked back at the ground, “Hey, can one of you guys that’s not helping Mia come take a look at something real quick?”

Shortly after he asked that question, Riki jumped down from the desk and made his way over to Hase, “You said that you need something looked at? What is it?”

“Well, I was looking all around the room to see if there was anything else around here we could use,” the hare replied, before motioning to what was at his feet, “However, the only thing I’ve found so far is most of the floor being covered in this. It looked like the black powder that’s used for loading cannons, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions-”

Unfortunately, before he had the chance to finish, the hare was horrified to see the raccoon take out a matchbox and immediately proceed to light a match, “Riki, what are you-!?”

“Calm down, will ya? I’m just testing something,” the raccoon assured his colleague as he lowered the flame down closer to the powder below. Personally, Hase had expected the worst when Riki did this. However, much to his surprise, the powder glowed a dim orange, instead of igniting right there. When the raccoon moved the match away and blew it out, the glow faded away, like nothing happened. “Well, that’s unexpected.”

“What’s unexpected? Matter of fact, what even is this?”

“Well, it’s not black powder, that’s for sure,” Riki told him, “If anything, what you found here is a big mess of Ember Dust.”

“And what’s that supposed to be?”

“It’s a kind of residue that comes off of creatures that are fire elementals, similar to that of smoke and ash. As for why this is all here, I honestly have no idea.”

At this, Hase thought of a different idea, one that required the help of another member of their team as he looked back towards the front of the room, “Mia, does that system have some employee records on there or something?”

“I can take a look and see,” the fox replied, “Any particular reason as to why?”

“We found a lot of Ember Dust scattered throughout the room,” Riki spoke up as he jumped back onto the desk again, “Honestly, if it were me, I would think that either the Drow that was in charge hired a very bad janitor… or something that wasn’t supposed to be in here got in and did a very bad job at covering their tracks.”

When Lìn heard this, he seemed intrigued by the possibilities. As he took a moment to think on these new findings, a couple different theories for what could’ve happened began to slowly form in his head. However, he wanted to hold off on anything definitive right now until Mia completed her search first. It was still entirely possible that she could end up finding something that could disprove his theories, if he were to say them prematurely.

“Well, that’s a good guess and all, but the records here tell another story,” Mia said as she pointed at a particular window that she pulled up, “Says here that, aside from a couple of Mabu and other species that ran the booths outside the arena, most of the employees that are registered here are just greebles that were brought on board after Magus got a sponsorship deal from Minion’s Monthly.”

“What about a guest list?” Hase asked, “I would think that if they had high profile individuals come and visit this place, they would have some kind of list for that, right?”

“Well, yes and no,” the fox shrugged as she closed one window, only to open up another, “Magus had something for that, but the only people that are on here are either members of the Kaos family or seasoned arena veterans, which means that the only people that would be on the list would be Lady Kaossandra, her son and a bunch of combatants who probably spend too much inside the arena than outside of it. Not only that, but none of them are Fire Elementals.”

Then, an idea emerged in Lìn’s mind, “What if it’s someone that’s not on any list? Mia, can you check to see if there had been any complaints from the start of that tournament to his ‘Grand Finale’?”

“Uh, boss?” Riki asked as he tilted his head, “Care to share what you’re thinking?”

“Right now, I think that whatever left the mess behind that you and Hase found is perhaps an unwanted guest of sorts. However, considering the trail they left, I’m going on the assumption that they’re not exactly the best at keeping themselves hidden,” the spider verified, “Surely, they must have been seen by someone else, but let’s see if Mia finds anything first, before-”

“Huh, well, I’ll be,” the fox interrupted, turning away from the terminal to look towards Lìn and Hase, “There’s one complaint here, and it’s from one of the greebles that worked at the shipping bay. After looking it over, I think you might be onto something, Mister Lìn.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Well, the complaint here says that they spotted what they said was a young lava pup without a collar or leash stealing food from one of the vendors, after they brought the recent shipment to the cooks that ran the outdoor stalls. It was a rather small one, from what’s described here, with smoke coming off their body. However, despite this, there’s only one complaint of this, and it’s not a lot to go off of. The only other thing regarding pets was-”

At this point, Lìn didn’t care to hear the rest. That one complaint was enough to have different thoughts emerge in the spider’s mind as he looked towards the raccoon on the table, “Riki, are there any ventilation shafts in this room?”

“I believe there’s one in the far back corner, if I recall correctly, boss-”

“Is there any sign of Ember Dust coming from there?”

That had the raccoon jump off of the desk and take out his matchbox, eager to investigate as he scurried to the back of the room. Within a matter of seconds, he lit a match, as the burning light of the flames had the Ember Dust glow. Much to his surprise, even though the light seemed dim, there was a glow coming from inside the vents. “Hey, boss, I think you might be onto something. There is a trail leading in here.”

At this, Hase turned to see that his boss had a grin of satisfaction on his face, as the hare looked towards him, “You got some kind of plan?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” the spider replied, “Mia, try to extract everything that you can from that machine. Hase, Riki, you’re with me. This ‘little pup’ left a trail for us to follow, and I intend to see where it leads.”

No matter who you are in The Web or what role you played, there was one simple truth that everyone followed. If Lìn had a hunch about something, then he would get to the bottom of it, no matter how far it would go. In this particular case, since the pup was the only known fire elemental to be on the property during the course of the tournament, the spider was under the impression that he might’ve been the one that found their way in here. However, in order to be sure, he and the others that were with him had to follow the trail that was left behind.

Of course, that was easier said than done, for the moment that they reached the other side of the vent where the Ember Dust came from, the trail split into two different paths. One led back down to the first floor, while the other went farther off down the hall, in the other direction. Luckily, Riki volunteered himself to go back downstairs to find where that trail would lead, which left Lìn and Hase to track down the second trail and see where that one led.

However, that wasn’t exactly easy. They soon noticed that the trail would split off and diverge in the direction of other rooms that were nearby, such as the break room for the staff and also the armory. Yet, the main trail that the spider was focused on led to what looked like a giant cage. One that looked like something that a giant monster would be held in.

“Well, that’s great… I think this is a dead end-”

“To some, yes,” Lìn told the hare, “However, I believe it's the opposite. Do you remember the layout of the floor that Mia found earlier, and how there was one specific area that was used to contain the prisoners that were on site?”

At that, Hase looked back inside the cage for a brief moment, before a realization hit him as the rabbit looked back at his boss, “Wait a second, are you saying that this is the so-called ‘VIP’ room? That’s… sickening.”

“Given what information we have at the moment, I would believe that’s the case,” as he was speaking, Lìn went into the pockets of his coat to take out what looked like a small stick. After twisting the top, a bright light was emitted outwards as he shined a light into the inside of the cage itself. “Not only that, but the conditions here aren’t like that of a holding pen for creatures. There’s no suitable source of water or food around, or anything that could be seen as a bed. The only thing in here is just crumbs of food, and that doesn’t really account for much.”

That was when a realization hit Hase, “Hey, didn’t Mia say in that one complaint that the lava pup mentioned in it was stealing food?”

“That’s right. What about it-?”

“Well, what if it wasn’t stealing because it was hungry, but because someone else was?” the hare said, “Think about it. Why else would the Ember Dust trail lead here specifically? Or that we would find crumbs in a cell that has no source of food or water?”

“You think that this pup was somehow helping them?”

“Well, that’s the only possibility that comes to mind that makes sense,” Hase told him, “Whether it was intentional or not is unknown, but this also explains one other thing.”

“And that would be?”

“How these prisoners had the strength to escape,” the hare replied, “If I were in that position and forced to undergo the same treatment that Magus put those two Skylanders through, I wouldn’t have the strength to fight, let alone talk or move. Yet, despite what we found here, the fact of the matter is that they were able to escape, despite the conditions they were put through.”

“Not to mention avoiding the security system,” Lìn added, before a new question formed in her mind, “So, the pup that left this trail behind…? Do you think they’re the one that’s responsible for this, or do you think they’re just an accomplice to someone else?”

“That, I honestly can’t say,” the hare shrugged his shoulders, “There’s little information to go on, and we don’t know if they were intentional with this or just didn’t know any better. Plus, there’s also still the mystery of how they got here in the first place.”

All of these were some very good points. Though, Lìn had a feeling that once the two of them had reconvened with the others, the truth of the matter would come to light.

Fortunately, it didn’t take too long for them to reconvene with the rest of the team. Mia had what looked like a device in one of her paws and was looking through something that was on it, while Riki seemed to have found something on his end and was pulling it behind him lazily.

“Hey, Mister Lìn, I was able to get all the data off of the system,” she said with a hint of glee, “How about you? Was your search successful?”

“We did find something that could help piece everything together. Yet, we’re still missing some things before we have the whole picture,” Lìn replied, before looking over to the raccoon, “What about you? Were you able to find anything that could help us, Riki?”

“Well, I followed the trail that led me downstairs, only to find that it led to one of the rooms where they had the fighters reside. When I took a peek inside, I found this,” Shortly after he said that, he tossed what looked like a medium sized bag with a tag on the inside that read ‘Made in Manehattan’, “At first, it didn’t look like much… However, when I inspected the bag, the whole interior was filled with Ember Dust.”

“So, our little pup snuck into the bag of one of the competitors and was brought here then? By accident, maybe… or perhaps intentional,” Lìn folded his arms, before another thought came to mind, “Which room did you find this one in?”

“Uh… I think room 16?”

“Mia, who was the competitor that was given room 16?”

“Let me take a look,” she replied, swiping on the image a couple of times before something new came up, “Huh, that’s interesting. The room was given to a drow named Kai Chi, a rookie fighter who was the last one to arrive at the MaguDome during the qualifying round. After an impressive victory over Shield Shredder, he took part in the tournament that was being hosted and made it all the way to the grand finals. He even won against the champion, Blade Gunner, in an upset victory that shocked everyone in the audience.”

“Hmm, so we have a name now,” the spider pondered, “We can’t say for sure if this fighter was an accomplice or not, but the fact that this pup and him are connected somehow makes him a person of interest. However, there are still a few unanswered questions that we need to solve before our business has concluded here.”

“What’s that, boss?” the raccoon asked.

“First off, the two prisoners that were here were somehow able to escape, without alerting the security system at all. We need to know how that was the case. Secondly, this ‘incident’ that followed after the grand finale sounds too ominous to be ignored. Lady Kaossandra tasked us to find answers, and that’s what we came here to do. Anything that’s inconclusive would be seen by her as more of an excuse than an actual answer.”

“Well, that’s going to be a problem, sir,” Mia told him, “When I went through the security logs, the events that led up to the ‘incident’ were very choppy and not crystal clear. I’m not sure if this is because of the maintenance the system had the night before or because someone was tampering with it, but I think I can make out what could’ve happened?”

“And what would that be?” Hase asked her.

“Well, I found some other logs that have Magus saying to his workers that there was no possible way for the rookie to win in his arena, and that for some of the matches leading up to the grand finale, he altered them in order to have him face tough opponents on purpose,” the fox said, before holding the device in her paws towards her companions as some audio began to play.

“Have our newcomer be scheduled to face this… spell punk in the semi-finals. If there’s anyone that can stop this rookie in his tracks, it’ll definitely be him.”

“Yet, despite this, he was able to go through the tournament and even beat the champion of the arena,” Mia continued, “Given this and how he doesn’t seem to have a lot of patience for this newcomer, I’d say it's safe to say that when he realized that the ‘grand prize’ of his tournament was gone, he had enough. Take a listen here.”

“You know what? We’re going to make sure my show gets a proper grand finale… right now!”

“Oh no-”

“Oh YES! ONE. MORE. MATCH!! NO LIMITS!! NO RULES!! The last fighter standing wins this very arena, and we aren’t the only ones taking part!! Anyone who thinks they have a shot at beating us, come on down!!”

“Dear me,” Riki replied, “Is he that crazy? He’s pretty much whipping up a mob just for the sake of his own pride.”

“Did anything happen afterwards?” Lìn asked.

“I would assume so, but it’s at this point that the feed gets messed up. Best guess is that too many people coming in at once wanting a piece of the action messed up the cameras,” the fox concluded, before looking over at her companions. “The only other thing that was caught was Kai Chi leaving the stadium with Blade Gunner next to him on an airship. Best guess is that they were trying to get evacuated from the arena, once the whole place had become a full blown riot.”

The final image that was shown was both Drow on board what looked to be a standard airship that was leaving the docks. However, Lìn noticed a couple of particular details that stood out to him. The first was that there was some purple colored blur that was hard to make out, even if you zoomed in properly. The second thing was the pilot of the ship in the picture was a Dirt Shark, and unlike the first one, it could be seen clearly.

“Riki, Hase? Do either of you recognize the one piloting this ship?”

Hase was quick to shake his head in response. However, for Riki, his eyes only widened, “Oh, crikey! Is that who I think it is?”

“You recognize them?”

“Yup. I’ve seen him all the time in my hometown when growing up. He was the guy running the place. I think his name was Sharpfin, if I remember correctly,” Riki nervously replied as he looked at his colleagues, “Tried pickpocketing him once. It didn’t go quite well for me.”

“Sharpfin?” Mia’s ears perked up at the name, “As in the baron of Motleyville?”

“Partially,” Lìn corrected, “Our current intelligence on him suggests that his title of Baron now only serves as cover while he works with the Skylanders. He operates a repair shop and has a team of mechanics work on various vehicles that they happen to have, but is also a rather skilled pilot. However, seeing him here is no coincidence.”

“Does this just crack the case wide open then?” Mia replied. “If an associate of the Skylanders was there at the time-”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet,” Hase advised the fox, before placing an outstretched finger over her nose, “You are so focused on the ending here that you forgot about the first thing we need to solve, that being how the prisoners that were once here just so happened to escape.”

“I actually might have an answer on that,” Lìn surprised the others, “Mia, you mentioned that the last time the system received maintenance was the night before the grand finale, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s right. But how-” At this, Mia blinked for a moment as a realization began to set in, “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting-”

“I am,” the spider replied, “I believe the little pup is responsible for this whole mess, and the actions that were taken were done because the prisoners asked the pup to help them. They were the only creature they probably had contact with that didn’t want to harm them. Instead, they wanted to do the opposite and help, something they took full advantage of.”

“Have you tied something together?”

“Potentially, yes,” Lìn folded his arms as he began to theorize, “The two prisoners first asked the pup to provide them food, a commodity that they sorely lacked, in order to help regain their lost strength. Once enough strength had been recovered, what they needed in order to make their getaway was an opportunity, a distraction of sorts, something that could easily be arranged by a creature who had a habit of getting into places where they weren’t supposed to. There’s also more to this possibility that would make it seem absolutely certain. However, part of it goes into theoreticals, and it seems too early for that-”

“Boss, honestly, I wouldn’t care less if it’s theoretical or not,” Riki interjected, “If it could at least help us make sense of this, then by all means, tell us.”

Lìn was a bit caught off guard by the sudden notion and was going to bring up a counterpoint, but Mia and Hase were also in agreement with Riki’s statement. This left him rather little choice on the matter, so he instead went along with what was on his mind. “For what I am saying to completely make sense, we need to consider the possibility that the drow that won the tournament may not be what we assume he is. Even though it seems like a long shot, it is entirely possible that this ‘Kai Chi’ and the pup that caused a lot of trouble here are accomplices of some sort and knowingly came here with the intention of freeing the Skylanders that were held captive here.”

“So, while the drow fought on the battlefield and drew the attention of everyone watching, the pup worked out of sight and got into places that the drow couldn’t?”

“Exactly,” the spider continued, “It’s also possible that this drow had contacts outside of the arena to make certain… arrangements, if you will. It would explain why both him and the other drow were seen departing on Mr. Sharpfin’s vessel.”

“So, wait… are you saying that this drow somehow pulled off a rescue by going into the arena undercover? That sounds like something straight out of our playbook, boss.”

“While it does, I doubt that this drow even knows about us. Still, it doesn’t hurt to be cautious, if what I am saying is actually the truth, especially if this drow had accomplices helping him throughout his stay here.”

That had Hase fold his arms and look at his colleagues, before the hare looked back at the spider, “So, what’s the plan now? Do you think we have everything that we need?”

While the question was simple, it took Lìn a bit to process everything that they had uncovered first. After a few minutes, the spider finally had an answer for the other creatures that were with him. “For the most part, I think that the information that we collected would be sufficient to report back to our lady. However, given the nature of what we uncovered, I believe a few additional steps will need to be taken when we return back to HQ. Yet, before we leave, we still have a client outside that is awaiting the results of our inspection. So, let us play along one more time before we depart.”

By the time that Lìn and his colleagues had finished the task that the bear had asked them to do, Auric was quite pleased with their efforts. Even though the operatives of The Web weren’t actually certified inspectors, they played their parts to perfection, and the banker couldn’t really tell the difference. If anything, it seemed as if he honestly did not care whether they were actually qualified or not, as long as they got the job done, and he didn’t have to handle too much paperwork. In fact, Lìn had found the deed to the arena that would prove Magus had owned it, only to find that it had never been signed.

Of course, such trivial matters were things that Lady Kaossandra had no interest in. If anything, all she cared about was the results of their endeavors, no matter how they were achieved. “Good evening, my lady. I have good news I wish to share with you.”

At the sound of his voice, the Dark Portal Master turned away from the window in her room to face him as he came in. “Do you, now? Would it be right to assume that my suspicions were correct? That this is more than just a case of incompetence that my son wants nothing to do with?”

“I’m afraid that is not an easy answer,” Lìn told her as he placed a file on the table in the center of the room, “My team was able to salvage whatever we could from what was left of the site. Based on the evidence we uncovered, we believe that there is validity in your thoughts that there was some form of sabotage at the MaguDome. Our impression was that there was some form of rescue operation going on during the timeframe of the tournament, and that those responsible had some inside and outside help. However, their attempts at being covert were… well, in simple terms, lacking.”

At first, Lady Kaossandra seemed frustrated with what she was hearing. Though, the recent statement from the spider soon piqued her interest. “Oh? How so?”

“Their strategy was that while one person was taking part in the tournament and drawing the attention of everyone in the arena, another creature would sneak around and get into places where normal attendees wouldn’t be allowed. In this case, the one in the arena was a Drow that goes by the name Kai Chi,” as the spider spoke, he pulled out a picture with the drow’s face on it and handed it to Kaossandra for her to see, as well as placed the bag they found at the arena, “As for his accomplice, it’s believed that he had a small lava pup that was sneaking around the arena whenever he was in a match or resting in his quarters. My team found trails of Ember Dust from all around the facility that prove this, as well as Ember Dust coming from the bag where Kai Chi kept his belongings.”

“Hmm, I see,” the Dark Portal Master replied, giving the bag a quick glance before she looked back to the spider, “But if what you say is true, then what exactly would this ‘pup’ be doing?”

“The evidence that we found suggests that, once they uncovered the location of where the two Skylanders were held, the pup would steal food and water from various vendors and bring it to them to help them regain some of their strength, since Magus refused to provide either for them. Then, on the eve of the grand finale, the Skylanders asked for the pup to cause a distraction so they could escape, which led the pup to the security room, and it found a way to disable it, which allowed for them to sneak out without raising any suspicion.”

“And what about after they left? Did they commandeer a vessel?”

“Actually, at this point, it’s believed that they had a contact outside of the arena to pick them up, since no ships were reported missing on the morning of the final day of the tournament. Also, the contact in question is someone that you and your son might be familiar with,” Lìn replied, before he gave a second card that had Sharpfin on it, “The Baron of Motleyville and also the Skylander’s chief mechanic, Sharpfin.”

“This is a lot more complex than I originally thought,” Lady Kaossandra commented, “But something tells me that you aren’t quite finished with your report just yet. Were there any additional things that I should know?”

“Those are details that I contained within my full report on the matter,” Lìn insisted, “Though, one thing I should point out is that your son was not wrong to assume that Magus’ incompetence was to blame for this.”

That was something that caught the Dark Portal Master by surprise. There had never been a time where one of her servants actually agreed with her son. However, instead of being angry, she was rather curious as to why. “Oh? And why is that?”

“Well, to start, Magus was over-reliant on the security measures of the arena. He was overconfident on how advanced his system was, to the point where he didn’t have a back up plan in place for if the system happened to fail on him. Based on what we found, he wasn’t even aware that something was wrong. In addition, when the final match of his tournament was over and he realized that his captives had vanished, his eagerness for a ‘proper finale’ to his tournament was the reason behind the current state that the arena is in now.”

Yet, the spider was not finished, “However, unlike your son, you were able to see past this and suspect that there was something else going on, my lady, which led to our investigation, our findings and also the next steps that we will be taking.”

“Curious… and what are those next steps, if you don’t mind sharing?”

“We were able to uncover the names of two to three people that are related to this case. Since they are considered people of interest, we plan on having surveillance teams watch them from afar. Since the whereabouts of the two drow are unknown, we are focusing our efforts on Sharpfin specifically. However, we are also keeping our distance, so we don’t alert him, nor do we plan on trying to infiltrate Skylander Academy itself since our previous attempts to place an operative on academy grounds has been… to put it plainly, unsuccessful. If we happen to uncover or hear anything new, we can bring him in to ask him a few questions. You only need to give us your approval.”

“Watching him will be fine, but nothing more,” Kaossandra told him as she turned to look outside of the window and down at the courtyard of the castle. “Even though he is a thorn in our side, the Baron is still an ally of the Skylanders. They will surely notice if he is missing, and if we do anything drastic, we will have those heroes knocking on your doorstep. So, only survey them for now.”

“Very well,” Lìn replied, “Was there anything else that you need, before I take my leave, my lady?”

At this, the Dark Portal Master turned her head around towards him, “There may be one more thing. I’m under the impression that there have been some new developments at Skylander Academy as of late. So, while your team is surveying Sharpfin, have them keep an eye out and an ear open for anything significantly new. Otherwise, you are free to leave.”

Elsewhere

“Huh… that’s strange. I could’ve sworn that it was here.”

“What is it, master? Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing is wrong, Dusty. It’s just… I thought I brought my bag back with me the last time I was in Skylands. Eh, maybe Twilight might know where I put it. It’s probably not that big of a deal anyways.”

Scroll 34- Mind Games Part 1

Author's Note

Another chapter that's split into multiple parts, but also serves as another crossover with one of my own stories, The Flames of the Phoenix. However, this one happens to tie a few narrative threads together that I've had in the works for several years. I just hope that it pays off and that you guys like it.

Furthermore, this also allows me to explore other characters since this is now more than just Calvin's story now. You'll see what I mean once you dive in.
-Frost

Scroll 34- Mind Games Part 1

Beyond the Skies- Mind Games Part 1

In the weeks after their recent trip to the Skylands, a lot of changes were starting to take place for not just Calvin, but for both Trevor and Raquel. For the Skyshifter, it was learning how to expand the powers of his transformations to the point that he wasn’t just copying the same attacks that he had seen time and time again. For his friends, they were coming to terms with the fact that they now had gifts of their own that they still were learning to control. On top of that, they were still trying to get used to daily life in Equestria, which was much different compared to life back home.

The one that was having the most difficult time adjusting though was Raquel. It wasn’t just because her newfound magic was difficult for her to get accustomed to, but because one of its side effects reminded her of a time in her life that she wanted to move past from. Being able to freely hear the thoughts of any creature that was near her or passed by her reminded her of a time when she would spy on others and overhear former classmates say things that they would want to keep private, only for her to spill their secrets. It was a time where she was more naive and didn’t think that her actions would have consequences…

…something that changed on the day that Calvin vanished.

Ever since then, Raquel took it upon herself to change her ways and be a better person. For the longest of times, she thought that she left her old self behind for the better. However, with what’s been going on recently and these new ‘gifts’, she started to wonder if she really had changed at all. Hearing the thoughts of others felt almost the same as listening in on other people back then, the only difference being that, unlike back then, this wasn’t something that she chose to do. It just happened automatically.

While it was clear that she needed someone that could help her, Raquel soon realized that any of the teachers or staff from the Academy was probably not the best bet. She tried asking Hugo, but the Mabu could not find anything specific within the big book he carried with him or in the halls of the library. Then, she tried to ask Brain, thinking that since his kind originally created the band on her arm, they could provide more insight as to why she was hearing others’ thoughts. Yet, their advice came off as more cryptic than helpful.

It was after a while that a thought came to mind. Unlike Calvin, who had some knowledge of what he could do before he started his lessons, she knew nothing about what she could do. Based on the impressions from Calvin’s teacher and a couple other Skylanders that she overheard, they thought that her abilities were magical in nature.

Fortunately, the owner of the castle both she and her brother resided at just so happened to be an expert in that field. “You want to know the basics of magic?”

Raquel nodded as she looked at Twilight, who was still in her morning robe and halfway through her breakfast when Raquel asked her, “Y-yeah. Despite what Calvin and my brother think, I am falling behind in comparison. I mean, I understand what they’re trying to teach… but when I try to put what they’re teaching me into practice, that’s where I’m struggling. That and the… side effects of my powers are a daily reminder.”

For a moment, the Element of Magic looked at her with a look of uncertainty. “Side effects?”

That had Raquel blink, readjusting her position in the seat she was in at the Cutie Map as she looked back at the alicorn. “You already know what my powers are, right?” The question was followed by a nod from Twilight, which prompted Raquel to continue, “Well, unlike Calvin or Trevor, I can’t exactly… turn mine off.”

“I’m not sure if I follow,” Twilight said.

“Okay, maybe it would be better if I did a demonstration,” she told her, “Just think of something in your head. Anything’s fine, but don’t tell me what it is. Just tell me when you’re done thinking.”

The Element of Magic was a bit confused by what she was being asked to do, but just decided to go with it anyways. After a moment or so, Twilight let out a breath and looked back at her. “Okay. I’m done. But, what does this have to-?”

“You were thinking about what you want to do when your niece comes over to visit.”

The reaction from Twilight was almost immediate. “Well, that’s definitely troublesome. Though, how does this relate to you wanting to know about magic?”

“I overheard Calvin’s teacher talking with a staff member and one of those Skylander people the other day, and one of them said that what I could do was somewhat magical,” she explained further to the alicorn as they finished their oats and teleported the dirty dishes into the kitchen sink, “So, I thought that by having a better understanding of magic in general, then perhaps things could improve? It’s a theory, but if it can help me, then I think it’s worth a try.”

To Twilight, she believed that Raquel’s theory had some merit and seemed somewhat plausible. However, there were a few things that the alicorn wanted to know first, before trying to put that theory to the test. “If that is the case, I think I can lend a hoof. However, in order to help you the best I can, there’s a couple of things that I would like for you to tell me first, if that’s okay?”

“Um, sure,” Raquel scratched the back of her head and turned back towards Twilight, “Anything specific?”

“To start, what exactly have you been learning so far? I know that you told me that you’re struggling to keep up, but I find the notion of not learning anything after the last few days a bit hard to believe.”

“That’s kind of difficult to say,” she admitted, “The first couple of days weren’t great, because Calvin’s instructor assumed wrongly that I already had some kind of idea as to what I can do, even though that was not the case. It took another staff member, that one with the cane and the eyepatch… I forget his name-”

“You mean Buzz?”

“Yeah, him. After he noticed that I was having trouble keeping up, he pulled me aside, and since then, he’s been helping me try to take things a bit more slowly, rather than just learn by being thrown into danger. As for what I do know, it’s more along the lines of small scale things, like lift objects and such.”

When Raquel looked up, that was when she noticed that Twilight was levitating a quill and using her magic to write notes. After she was done, the alicorn looked back to her, but didn’t quite set her quill down just yet. “You mean something like this?”

“K-kind of,” she said, “Though, if I may, what was that other question you wanted to ask me? Does it relate to this?”

It was as she asked that question that Twilight set her quill down and looked back at Raquel, “Well, that depends. You see, while magic is capable of many things, there are also a lot of misconceptions about it. Many unicorns who start learning about spellcraft assume that magic is one of the easiest things they’ll learn, only to realize that it’s not as simple of a subject as they originally thought. So, what I would like to know is that when it comes to magic, what’s the first thought that comes to your mind?”

That was a bit of a difficult question to answer, especially considering everything that she had seen in a short amount of time. Though, when Raquel thought on the question some more, she began to think about how magic was seen elsewhere. Not in Equestria, but back home. It was something that you couldn’t see in the real world. However, after about five minutes, she realized that there was one place where magic would always reside.

“Stories.”

Twilight blinked as she raised an eyebrow. “Could you repeat that?”

“Back where we’re from, magic always seemed to be in stories, but can’t be seen outside of them,” she told her, “It didn’t matter what form the story was in, because magic was something that only existed there, and no two stories were the same.”

It didn’t seem like much, but that single response seemed to catch the Alicorn’s attention, “I see. Could you share a couple of examples?”

“Well, in some stories, anyone that used magic would always have a wand, staff or magical stick and cast spells by saying special phrases. In other stories, the main character would find some kind of magical object that allows them to either see something that’s hidden away with magic or use magic, like a book or something. Originally, when I first arrived and heard that magic existed here, I thought it was the same thing. Though, I can safely assume that’s probably not the case?”

“Well, yes and no,” Twilight shrugged, before going more in depth with her explanation, “Some things do sound similar, but are probably not the same.”

“How so?” Raquel asked, glancing down at the band that was still wrapped around her wrist before she looked back at the Alicorn.

“Well, there’s a common misconception about magical artifacts in Equestria. Like ‘if you find some ancient relic, it would grant the wielder great power’ or something along those lines,” Twilight replied, using her wings to quote what she was saying as she continued, “However, considering that I’ve had encounters with ponies who used magical artifacts, that’s just not true. The nature of magical artifacts takes on the form of whoever is wielding it and is a reflection of themselves. However, whether or not they use such a thing for good or evil depends on their intent.”

Raquel didn’t exactly know why, but she felt a shiver down her spine and what felt like a pulse from the bracelet that was wrapped around her wrist. “Do you… think that might apply to what I have?”

The Element of Magic tilted her head, before noticing the bracelet and realizing what she was she was trying to say, “It might, but personally, I think it’s more along the lines of being familiar with your abilities first. Have you tried practicing with it?”

Twilight watched as her guest let out a deep sigh, before looking back to her, “Yes, but…”

“Hmm? Raquel, is everything okay?”

At this, Raquel bit her lip as she tried to think things through. Just simply telling Twilight was not going to be enough to show her how problematic this was. There needed to be something else. She had to do more than talk about it, she needed to demonstrate it, too. “Is it… okay if I show you?”

Twilight could only give a compassionate nod as the girl extended her arm forward. From her bracelet, it looked like a series of strands were glowing and wrapping around her fingers as she tried to focus and aim her hand at the bottle of ink that Twilight had on the table. At first, things seemed okay, as she was able to gently lift it up and move it away to the center of the map.

However, shortly afterwards, the side effects started to kick in.

What do you think you’re trying to prove?

Raquel flinched at the voice as she tried her best to not lose focus. Unlike the other voices she heard, this one sounded just like her. The longer she tried to maintain concentration, the more that the voice grew louder and eventually split. Her voice, but at different pitches and tones.

It doesn’t matter how much you think you’ve changed. Everyone knows you’re still the same person as you were before.

People listen to you and put their trust in you, and what do you give them in return? Nothing! You discarded your friends like they were broken toys.

Do you really think Calvin forgives you? After all those years of believing that what happened to him was your fault.

Raquel flinched, causing the bottle to shake as she gripped the side of her head. The hand she was trying to channel her power through was now shaking as she found it harder to concentrate, “Shut… up.”

“Raquel? Raquel, what’s wrong?”

Then, all the voices came together and loudly spoke as one.

You will never change. You will always be who you are, and no matter how much you try to push me away, I will always be here. Watching… waiting… until you finally admit I was right, and then, you will submit.

In a split second, Raquel cried out as she forced herself to stop channeling the spell she tried to cast. In doing so, the force of the spell caused the ink bottle to shatter and its contents to spill everywhere as the girl dropped to the floor. Immediately, Twilight panicked and raced over to her, “Raquel!? Raquel, are you okay?”

Raquel groaned, clenching her head as she tried to look over to Twilight. “That’s… what I wanted to show you. When I try to focus, I hear these voices in my head that try to distract me. Not that of other people, but… a twisted version of my own voice. The longer I maintain the focus, the louder it gets, to the point that I can’t hear anything, and when it gets to the point that I can’t take it anymore…” the girl then glanced over to where the remains of the glass bottle were on the ground, “...that happens.”

The Alicorn couldn’t imagine what was going through the girl’s head right now. She knew that some spells that required channeling were difficult to control, but whatever Raquel was being forced to deal with was something she had never come across in all her years of studying the arcane. Nevertheless, Twilight still wanted to help her however she could. Yet, to do that, she had to understand the source of Raquel’s power.

Even though it was something that didn’t come from Equestria, there must have been something that could help them get a better understanding of what they were dealing with. “Raquel, can you come with me?”

“Huh?” Raquel blinked, a bit surprised by the Alicorn’s words, “Where are we going?”

“To my study,” Twilight replied back, before casting a spell on the mess of ink and the broken bottle as it vanished a few seconds later, “I thought that maybe there might be something in my collection of books that could help with this.”

“That kind of seems like a bit of a longshot though,” she pointed out.

“It is, but we won’t learn anything if we don’t try.”

Despite the reservations Raquel had, the Princess made a rather valid point. Nothing was going to change if they just waited around for something to happen. If there was anything that could be done to silence the voices or make them less of an annoyance, then she would take that chance. “Fair enough. Lead the way then.”

Once the girl was back on her feet, Twilight began to lead her down the hall and passed other numerous rooms that were throughout the castle. Even though Raquel had only been here for nearly two weeks, she was still surprised at just how large the castle really was. From the outside, the Castle of Friendship just looked like a shiny, sparkly tree with a balcony. But if you took the time to look around, you could easily find yourself getting lost in any of the chambers throughout the castle.

After a few moments though, Twilight stopped at one particular door. While it looked almost like any other door in the castle, the wood looked a bit like a dried red in color, and there was what looked to be a symbol of a burning candle etched at the top. At first, Raquel just assumed that this was where the Alicorn was taking her. But when the girl reached for the handle to open it, she was stopped before she could even touch it.

“Wait,” she said, her eyes narrowing at the door, “Something’s not right.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” the girl asked, “It just looks like any other door in the castle.”

“It does,” the Alicorn then motioned to the symbol at the top of the door, “But I don’t remember having something like that on the door last time I was here.”

That didn’t help Raquel understand anything she said. If anything, it just confused her more. “It’s just a door though. There doesn’t seem to be anything strange about that.”

The Alicorn shook her head and turned to face her, “The last time I had a door appear out of nowhere was when Calvin and I found out that there was a portal to the Skylands in the basement of my home. If this is similar to before, then-”

“Is there a way for you to know that this is the same as before?”

The simple question had Twilight ponder it for a bit as she tried to look at the door they stood in front of. For a moment, it looked like the Alicorn was intently staring off into space. But after a couple of moments, she shook her head. “Well, it doesn’t have any sort of similarities in appearance to the one in the basement. But there’s no real way to tell for sure-”

“Unless we open it?” the only response that Raquel got was a nervous nod from Twilight as the girl folded her arms, “Well, let’s give it a shot. We go in, see how everything looks and we go from there. Who knows? Maybe you’ll just find your study on the other side.”

Before the Alicorn even had the chance to object or say anything, Raquel grabbed the handle of the door and opened it wide as she stepped inside. As Twilight followed her, both of them soon realized that what they walked into definitely didn’t seem like it was part of the castle. However, there were some elements that looked a bit familiar to the Princess.

As the door closed behind them and the sound of a small bell began to jingle, the interior of this room looked like that of an ancient library. There were some columns in the room that held some different oddities together, as well as numerous shelves that were stuffed with books on various subjects. Along the far wall, there looked to be a gallery of different trinkets and other strange items that looked to be on display, as well as red colored banners that had the same symbol as it was on the door. Lastly, near the back of the room, there looked to be something like a store counter, where someone would go to purchase something if they found an item they wanted.

For the Alicorn, this was definitely not her study. Yet, with all the books and knowledge that were here, it couldn’t help but remind her a bit of the library she once stayed at in Canterlot before moving to Ponyville. However, whatever they were thinking was soon interrupted by the sound of a different voice. “Well, just when I thought things were starting to get quiet, a couple of kittens just stepped through the door.”

Both Raquel and Twilight looked towards the counter in the back as they found themselves looking at what looked to be a young teenage girl with pink hair, cat-like eyes and a gleaming pair of curved knives that she had holstered around her waist. Her forearms were wrapped in bandages, and her clothes looked a little worse for wear. “Welcome to the-” before she could even say where exactly they were, the figure found herself looking at Twilight, “Aw, cripes. Another one to add to the board?”

Twilight blinked for a moment, puzzled by what she said as she tilted her head, “Another one? I’m not sure if I follow.”

“What, you think you’re the only Twilight that has ever visited this place, kitten?” the stranger asked, before pulling out a clipboard and a piece of chalk as they started to write on it, “This place is known for attracting those seeking knowledge, but every once in a while, we run into another variation of you, princess. Heck, see for yourself.”

As the chalkboard was flipped around, they could see that it was labeled as ‘The Twily Counter’, and the absurd amount of tally marks that were on the board that looked to be in the hundreds gave both of them a clear idea of what they were talking about. However, both of them still had some questions, with Raquel being the first one to say anything, “I’m sorry, but… who are you?”

“Ah, right. Knew I was forgetting something,” she chuckled, “Name’s Maeve. And who would you happen to be, little kitten? Because I already know quite well who your friend is.”

“Little?” Raquel asked, “But, you look younger than me.”

“Oh, trust me. Most of the time when meeting others like yourself, seeing can be deceiving,” Maeve said, almost sounding like a cat that was purring with how delighted she was, “Now, your name?”

Part of her was quite a bit irritated and confused by what was going on. However, Raquel had a feeling that if she tried to dodge this girl’s question, then she would try to dodge any questions that either of them happened to have for her. “Raquel.”

“Huh, that’s… a bit familiar,” the figure paused, scratching her chin for a bit before she looked back at her, “Anyways, now that introductions and names are out of the way, what can I get for you-?”

Before she had the chance to continue, some of the candles lit up around the room as the sound of footsteps echoed down a stairwell in the far back corner. “Mom, how many times do I have to remind you not to overwhelm any guests that come here?”

As Raquel and Twilight turned to look and see where the voice came from, they saw what looked like a human woman descend down the stairs. Despite referring to Maeve as ‘mother’, it appeared that this figure was actually older. She had long brown hair that was tied into a high up ponytail, wore jeans with a gray shirt and what looked like a sleeveless navy vest and a pair of sandals. However, the most notable detail was that they wore a long red scarf that looked like it was on fire.

“O-oh, hello, Emmy!” Maeve nervously chuckled, as if she was caught in the act. “I-I was just… holding down the fort?”

The new figure glanced over at both Twilight and Raquel for a brief second, before she looked back towards Maeve, “While I do appreciate you wanting to help, you have a tendency to come off as intimidating to newcomers. You probably haven’t even told them where they are now, have you?”

“She was going to,” Twilight added, “But then, she saw me.”

The figure now glanced over at Maeve again, before noticing the chalkboard on the counter as she let out a sigh. “Seriously? You’re still doing that?”

“What? I have to do something to keep myself entertained if the alternative is going mad from sheer boredom,” she shrugged, “That, and I think anytime we play cards, Luna cheats.”

“THOU ART NOT A CHEATER!!”

The single exclamation rocked the entire chamber as Maeve let out a small breath, “Yeah, I’m going to go take care of that real quick. Call me if you need anything.” As she waved her hands, it looked like her entire form disappeared from sight. Yet, they could still hear the squeaks of shoes moving across the floor as the person that was called ‘Emmy’ just let out a sigh.

“I hate it when she does that,” she grumbled, before looking towards Raquel and Twilight, “But where are my manners? Welcome to the Candlelight Archive, my little corner of the multiverse. My name’s Ember Valkyr, and I’m pretty sure both of you have questions for me.”

“Only one,” Raquel was quick to respond, “How is this even possible? I thought that only-”

The girl was interrupted at the sight of Ember holding up a finger, “Stop me if this sounds familiar. On Earth, you’re just minding your own business and doing something like going to a comic convention, touring a museum or just going to the store. While you’re there, something catches your attention. Perhaps you’re dressed up in costume, and you find something that would go along perfectly with it. Other times, a vendor is trying to persuade you to buy something in particular that they have. Are you with me so far?”

Both Twilight and Raquel looked at each other for a moment, before the Alicorn slowly nodded. “No matter how exactly the story is told, that particular person gets something from someone selling it to them. But once they get ahold of the item, something happens that causes them to black out or pass out. When you wake up again, you find that not only are you in someplace very different from where you were, but you find yourself changed somehow.”

Raquel’s pupils shrank at that once she pieced everything together. To some extent, this almost described what happened to her and Trevor on that fateful night, when they went to investigate the abandoned store. While it did not entirely go the way that Ember described it, there were some similarities. Someone ‘gave’ something to her and her brother, both of them passed out, arrived in Equestria, and learned that they weren’t the same as they were before. “H-how-?”

“Because you’re not the only one that this has happened to. It happened to me. It happened to my mother, who you just met earlier. It’s also happened to almost everyone else that has come through the doors of the Archive. Collectively, we are known as ‘the Displaced’,” as Ember explained this, she tried her best to reassure her guests about everything she was saying, “I know it sounds like a lot to process, but just don’t try to think about it too much.”

“If I may,” Twilight said, “What happened to you? I mean, if you don’t mind sharing-”

At this, the caretaker couldn’t help but chuckle at that, “Well, that’s different. Out of all the Twilight’s that come here, none of them ask about my particular story. I hate to disappoint a client, but my story isn’t quite so ‘adventurous’.”

“Well, we don’t need to hear the full story, if you’re not comfortable with sharing it,” the alicorn pointed out.

“So, a simplified version?” the only answer that Ember got was a nod of the head from Twilight as Raquel just watched them converse with one another, “Very well. For my story, I was displaced when I acquired the scarf that’s around my neck. However, my powers came from that of a friend, who I only met briefly, but they granted me a gift as they passed on.”

As she was speaking, both Twilight and Raquel watched as another creature made an appearance. This time, it was a majestic bird that looked to be made of fire that was perched on her shoulder. Although it was new to Raquel, the bird was actually a familiar sight to Twilight, “Wait, Philomena? What-?”

“Before you assume anything, this is the Philomena from my world. The friend that granted me my powers was her late father, and in my world, I was her caretaker before she was found by Princess Celestia,” the caretaker explained, as the bird took off from her shoulder and flew onto a perch on the other side of the front desk, “Because of that, I am pretty much a living phoenix in human form. For the longest of times, I used the gifts I had to protect those I cared about from harm. However, long after the defeat of the only threat that was an immediate danger to all I cared for, I chose to shift my attention to something else. My story was over, sure, but there were many others like me who didn't get a proper ending. So, with the help of both family and friends, we created the archive as both a place of knowledge and stories. For I believe that by reading and seeing the experiences of others, we can learn and grow from them.”

“So, wait,” the Princess blinked, “You left the girls and I to… fend for ourselves-?”

“No. That’s not why I did that,” Ember immediately said, “Picture this. Imagine if all the friendship problems in the world were solved by Princess Celestia, and you and your friends didn’t have to do anything. Sure, the issues would be resolved, but would you learn anything from watching others do it?”

Raquel watched as Twilight looked like she was immediately going to say something, only for her to fall back and try to think it over. Any time it looked like she had a proper response, the Alicorn would immediately backtrack and appear as if she was having to mentally go back to the drawing board. However, after a few moments, Ember answered for her.

“Of course you wouldn’t. Since Displaced have a tendency to not always be around when others need them most, I didn’t want to have my Twilight and her friends get too comfortable and think that I was going to solve all of their problems for them, because some lessons can only be learned through personal experience,” the caretaker summarized, before she clapped her hands together, “But enough about my story. It would be completely rude of me to be talking about myself for so long and not help either of you. So, what exactly brings you to the Archive? Are you looking for knowledge? Perhaps some advice?”

Around now was the time that Raquel chose to speak as she looked at Ember, “Well, before we came here, Twilight was wanting to see if there was something in her study that could help me with my magic. Compared to my brother and our… friend, I’ve been falling behind, and I just wanted to see if there was anything that could help me catch up.”

At this, Ember couldn’t help but ponder on those words, “I see. Though, magic in itself is a rather broad subject,” With a twist of the wrist and a snap of a finger, some sections of the room began to move and change as the caretaker stepped out from behind the desk and had the two of them follow her, “I think I can help, but is there anything specific about your magic that makes it different from others? No two casters are ever the same, and I wanted to be sure that I found the right one for you.”

“Well, there’s not much I can really do, to be honest,” she nervously told her, before having her hand grasp the wrist that had her bracelet, “The only real thing I know is that because of this, there are times that I can hear… people’s thoughts-?”

Immediately, more shelves began to move, including ones directly behind her, as the caretaker of the archive motioned her fingers. “I think I know exactly what you have then. Have either of you ever heard of something called Psionic Sorcery?”

Raquel was quick to shake her head in response. While for Twilight, she tried to think about it some more and see if she happened to recall anything, only for her to have the same response. “I don’t think so.”

As the Alicorn said that, the girl watched Ember as she looked to be moving her hands across the wall, before pulling books off the shelf to see if the contents matched what the caretaker was talking about. On pulling out the third book in a particular row and taking some time to look over its pages, she finally responded to Twilight’s comment, “Well, before I start, there is a common misconception between this kind of magic and the spells that most unicorns and alicorns alike use commonly.”

“What do you mean?” Raquel asked.

“When some think of Psionic Sorcery, they commonly just think of three of the most common spells that mages in Equestria use. For simplicity’s sake, I call them ‘The Three T’s’,” Ember explained as she counted off three fingers, “Telepathy, Telekinesis and Teleportation. However, while some of those things are present, Psionic Sorcery is much more potent than that.”

Despite her best attempts to keep things simple, it did not look like either of them were understanding her. So, Ember thought of a different way to explain to try and keep things simple. “Think of your mind like a blank canvas. The magic you have is like paint, and you are the brush. If you can picture something in your head, you can create it on that canvas and have it take the form of anything you wish. However, I must warn you, there is a catch to this.”

Both Raquel and Twilight looked a bit confused at that, but the Alicorn also looked a bit concerned as she looked to Ember, “What kind of catch?”

“Much like how being a strong fighter requires a lot of physical training, Psionic Sorcery requires a lot of both mental and emotional training. The mind, despite being rather strong, can also be rather fragile without a proper defense, and some people always find a way to try and take advantage of that. In addition, from my own experience, emotions can make some powers a lot more lethal at the cost of not being able to properly control them. So, even if you are able to stop some villain from hurting somebody, you might end up causing more harm if you can’t properly control your magic.”

At this, Ember closed the book she had out and firmly looked back at Raquel, “Now, I must ask. With everything I just said and the risks, do you still wish for me to help-?”

“Yes,” Raquel interrupted her and answered without hesitation, something that even surprised Twilight. A little while ago, the girl that was in her castle was nervous and worried about not being able to properly control what she could do. Now, the tone from before was reversed, and she didn’t hesitate to accept help, even if it was from someone that they only just met a few moments ago.

“Very well,” Ember couldn’t help but smirk, before she motioned for the two of them to follow her back towards where they were previously. As they walked, the caretaker moved her hands again, as parts of the room began to shift and move back into place. When Ember got behind the desk, she brought out what looked like a thermos and a ceramic mug as she looked back at the others, “Before we start with anything though, there’s something I would like from you in exchange.”

A small shiver ran down Raquel’s spine for a brief moment as she looked back at Twilight briefly. The Alicorn didn’t exactly know what Ember was talking about either and just gave the girl a nervous glance as Raquel looked back at her. “Um, do you mean money? Because I don’t-”

“No, no, I don’t mean that kind of exchange,” Ember corrected herself as she shook her head, “I don’t make my customers pay with money unless they absolutely insist. Instead, I ask for something else from them. For you, you already told me your reasons for coming to seek help from me. However, outside of what you shared, I know very little about your situation or your world for that matter.”

“To be fair, Raquel and her brother have not been here that long,” Twilight now spoke up as Ember started to drink some of her coffee, “If you wanted to know more about our Equestria, then we would need Calvin to help you make sense of-”

Before the Alicorn could even finish, the ceramic cup that Ember was holding slipped out of her hands and shattered on the floor. Yet, despite the mess, the caretaker was more focused on Twilight’s words, “Could you repeat that?”

“I-I’m sorry?”

“The name you mentioned,” Ember said, not even breaking eye contact as she moved her right hand and had the broken mug that she dropped reassemble itself and placed on the other end of the counter. “Could you say it again?”

“C-Calvin,” Twilight said again, only to watch as the once calm and collected caretaker now had a look of shock on her face, “I-is something wrong?”

At first, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she bent down behind her desk as the sound of a drawer being opened and its contents being moved around had Raquel and Twilight wonder what exactly was going on. After about a minute, Ember came back up with something in her hand as she set it down for them to look at.

“Does he look like this?”

When both Raquel and Trevor looked down at what they were seeing, both of them were shocked beyond belief. What Ember was showing them looked to be an old photograph that had aged significantly. However, the one thing that both of them immediately recognized was who was in the picture, for the person they saw in that picture was none other than Calvin, who looked almost exactly like him, aside from wearing different clothes.

“Y-yeah, that’s him,” Raquel said, noticing that Ember had turned away from them as she looked up from the picture, “But why-”

“Mom, get down here!! You’re going to want to hear this!”

Almost like a cat being told that their food was ready, Maeve was quick to come out of the recreation room in the back and rejoin everyone at the front desk. “Well, that did not take long. It was only like a short while ago that you wanted me to-”

“We found him.”

Those three words, along with the sight of the photograph that was on the counter was enough for Maeve to stop what she was saying. “Y-You’re serious?”

A nod of the head was all that Ember could give as Raquel noticed that now Maeve was… trying to hold back the urge to cry. She didn’t want to interrupt, but clearly, there was something going on that she did not fully understand. However, Twilight was the one that spoke up to get their attention, “Um, Miss Ember? How do you know about Calvin?”

That question was met by a rather unexpected response, “I’m not sure if he knows about it or not, but he’s family to us in more ways than one. We’ve been trying to find him for a long time, and this is the closest we’ve ever gotten, kitten,” Maeve explained, “To make things simple though, both my daughter and Calvin have the same father.”

Immediately, Twilight pupils shrank to the size of a small coin as she tried to process these revelations. “B-But, if that’s true, w-wouldn’t t-that mean-?”

“Like my mom implied, the full story is complicated,” Ember said, “But yes. That would mean that Calvin’s my little brother, one that I never knew that I had and tried to find for the longest of times.”

As Raquel watched this unfold, she couldn’t even fully process everything that was happening. However, if they did happen to be family, the chance to reunite with them was very important to them. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more that something else Ember said earlier resurfaced in her head, something that could probably allow both of them to get what they want.

“Ember, you said that you wanted something in exchange in order to help those who come here, right?”

The caretaker took a moment to turn around and face her first, before she gave an answer, “That’s my policy, yes. Why-?”

“I don’t have that much of a story to tell, if I have to be honest,” Raquel admitted, “But Calvin does. And since both of you have been looking for him for so long, how about this? You help me, and we’ll make sure that both of you can see him, so he can tell you his story.”

At first, the room went a bit silent, as both of them did not know what to say. Even Philomena, who was calm on her perch, noticed that Ember was oddly quiet. After a moment, Ember and Maeve turned away from Raquel as they appeared to be discussing something among themselves. Though, after a minute or so, they had a response for their guests.

“That will work with us, but on one condition,” Maeve replied, before folding her arms, “You don’t seem to be someone who would try to deceive us, but I believe we can’t be too careful. So, our condition is that we meet Calvin first, before I lend any aid to you.”

“That seems… reasonable enough,” Twilight now said, “But, if I may, how exactly are you going to find your way back here?”

The caretaker just gave a small grin as she walked out from behind the desk and manifested what appeared to be the feather of a phoenix in her hands, “A reasonable question. Would it be safe to assume that you know about tokens already?” As Twilight nodded, Ember walked over to the same door they walked in, before pointing to the top of the frame at something they did not notice while coming in.

It was a symbol. Not just one, but many… and each one of the symbols matched each of the trinkets in the gallery on the other side of the archives. “In this place, Tokens serve more than just a means to summon Displaced. It also is a way to open doors to new places as well,” As Ember said this, she inserted the feather into the lock on the door and turned it like an actual key as the door opened, “Now, lead the way.”

Scroll 34- Mind Games Part 2

Beyond the Skies- Mind Games Part 2

Elsewhere

“Thanks for coming to help me with all of this, Calvin,” Spike said as he crossed off another item on a list he was holding in his claw, before looking to the Skyshifter as he was holding onto a rather large grocery bag, “That should be everything we need.”

“Remind me again why exactly do we need all of this?” Calvin now asked, “I know I agreed to help out, but I didn’t expect for us to come out of the toy store with some bags that are this heavy. Is somepony’s birthday coming up or something?”

“No, that’s not it,” the dragon shook his head as his friend took a moment to set the bags down on the ground, so he could rest his arms, “You know how Twilight tends to take on a bit too many things at once sometimes?”

“I think you and I both know that’s an understatement.”

“Well, on top of everything else on her schedule, Twilight also agreed to help Cadance by looking after Flurry Heart for her, while Shining Armor and her are attending an exhibition or something. I didn’t get the full details,” Spike folded her arms, “So, I thought that by getting some of these done ahead of time, it would put less stress on her.”

Personally, Calvin had heard of Flurry before. Yet, outside of her name and that she was Twilight’s niece, he honestly did not know why exactly she would stress people out. Though, his focus was less on that and more on what exactly he was carrying, “Okay, but why toys? Surely, one pony does not need this many, right?”

“Technically, those ones aren’t for her,” the dragon pointed out, “One of the things that Twilight had planned was a visit to the Ponyville Hospital. If I remember correctly, Cheerilee’s class came down with a bad case of Horsey Hives, so Twilight wanted to bring them toys, treats and also read them a story to cheer them up. She planned to try to make a full day of it, but with Flurry added to the mix, that probably isn’t a good thing.”

When he heard Spike talk about this, he couldn’t help but think of all the times he and his mom would donate old toys he didn’t want anymore to charity. Even though he probably wasn’t going to have fun playing with them, another kid might, and that was a good thing. “I see what you mean,” Calvin said as he bent over to pick up the shopping bag, “So, do we have any other places to visit?”

“How about we head back to the castle first and drop this off before we make any additional stops?” Spike suggested, “Rather not have your arms grow tired, if you were carrying that around all day.”

“Fair point. Though, since I did agree to help, I should at least know some more about what else needs to be done. You did say that you wanted to get on top of things.”

The dragon was going to counter what Calvin said, but after thinking about it a bit, he decided just to go along with it, as the two of them got closer to the doors of Twilight’s castle. “The only other things I can think of would be kind of smaller compared to-”

As they opened the door, both of them were greeted by an odd sight. Twilight and Raquel were standing by the Cutie Map, but there were two strangers that Calvin didn’t recognize. To make things weirder, both of them looked human and had regular clothes like his. The first one had long brown hair and a red scarf around her neck, while looking only a couple years older than him. As for the other, she appeared to be around his size and had pink hair.

“Oh, there you are!” the familiar voice of Twilight soon followed, “Where were you, Calvin?”

“Just helping Spike make things less of a headache for you,” the Skyshifter replied, before his eyes shifted over to the unfamiliar figures in the room, “Uh, did we interrupt something? I can just-”

The Alicorn shook her head, “No, not at all. In fact-”

At the mention of his name, the pink haired one now looked a little bit intrigued as she gave off a confident smirk. “So, you’re Calvin, huh? Gotta say, you look a bit different than I thought you would look like, if I’m going to be honest.”

Despite trying his best not to assume anything, Calvin did not really feel pleased with how this new person was approaching him. So, instead of looking towards her, he just looked towards the dragon for a brief moment, before shifting his gaze to where he looked directly at the Princess. “Uh, Twilight, what’s going on? Did something happen while I was outside the castle?”

“Well, yes and no,” Raquel now replied, “Even though something did happen, it wasn’t exactly anything bad, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Okay, but who are these two?”

That’s when the taller of the two ladies readjusted herself, and turned towards him, “Let’s just say that we know about you, but it has been very difficult to try and find you,” she said, “My name is Ember Valkyr, and the one that’s probably making you feel uncomfortable is my mother, Maeve.”

Immediately, any things that Calvin might’ve had began to slow down to a halt. While he hadn’t met these two before, the name and voice of this ‘Ember’ sounded oddly familiar to him, like he had heard it somewhere once before.

Then, a realization clicked in his head, “H-hold on just a moment-!”

Without any warning, Calvin ran up the stairs and bolted towards his room, as he began to look through everything inside. The Skyshifter knew for a fact that he had something in his room that was related to what was happening now. The only thing was, he needed to find it. He first checked the drawers of his nightstand, only to find dust and paperclips. His desk had nothing but notes and papers from his lessons at the academy. Even searching his closet was unsuccessful, for he could only find some of his pajamas, clothes and the costume he wore on Nightmare Night.

However, when Calvin checked under his bed, that was when he found exactly what he was looking for, a glowing red feather that was warm to the touch, the same one that ended up being given to him while he was celebrating Nightmare Night with the Cutie Mark Crusaders and their friends.

Once it was firmly in his grasp, he raced back out the door, before looking to Ember and holding out the feather. “T-this is yours, right?”

That surprised some of the people in the room, but none more so than Ember herself, “Huh, so it did find its way to you.”

As this was happening, Twilight looked a bit more confused as Spike went to put the bag of toys away, “Calvin, how-?”

“Remember when I was celebrating Nightmare Night with the girls last year?” The question was followed by a nod from the alicorn, shortly before he continued, “Well, when we were going around Ponyville, the pony that owned Quills and Sofas ran out of candy when I was there. So, instead, he gave me this. I just thought it was a fancy looking quill, but when I got back to my room and pulled it out-”

“You heard my voice from it?” Ember asked.

“Y-yeah, but there are s-some things that don’t make sense,” he stammered a little, trying to focus his attention. But before he could say anything else, the stranger gave him a comforting smile and pulled out one of the chairs from around the Cutie Map.

“How about you take a seat and get yourself comfortable,” she suggested, “We can help answer some of the questions you have, but it may take some time.”

At first, Calvin was hesitant. He had only just met these people, and they were promising to answer questions he did not fully understand. Yet, this might be the only chance he had to get those answers. So, the Skyshifter nodded his head, before carefully sitting himself down on the chair as he looked across the map to where Twilight and Raquel were.

Then, as he looked back towards Ember and Maeve, he asked the first question that came to mind, “How do you know who I am?”

It wasn’t quite a question that either of the two expected, but Maeve still took it upon herself to answer. It even looked like she was trying to come off as normal as she looked to Calvin. “It’s a long story, but,” she paused, her eyes drifting like she was coming up with the right way to phrase it, before looking back at him, “I know about you because your mother told me about you.”

Immediately, any feelings he had of trying to be careful dropped at the mention of that, “Y-you know m-mom? I-is she okay?! P-please tell me she’s-!”

“Slow down there, kitten,” Maeve cautioned, “I haven’t seen her in some time, but the last time I did, she told me all about you. About the young boy she raised that was filled with excitement and joy, how one day you vanished, and how she was worried about you. I even promised that one day, we would find you together. I just… didn’t think this was how we would finally meet.”

Calvin felt a small bit of relief when he heard that. Yet, it was soon replaced with more questions that he wanted to ask. Though, before he had the chance to do so, that was when Ember spoke up, “As for your first question, tell me. What’s your full name?”

“C-Calvin Valkyr?”

“And who’s your father?”

Calvin paused as he tried to collect his thoughts. He remembered seeing his dad so many times, but rarely did he remember hearing his actual name. “I-I don’t remember his name, but it s-started with ‘Ors’. Like, t-those things on boats?”

Ember chuckled a little as she gave a warm smile, “Clever. Though, I think you mean Orson.”

“Yeah, t-that!” he nodded, before a new question surfaced, “W-wait, how do you know about dad?”

It looked like Ember was trying her best to stay composed as she looked back at him. What she said next was something that Calvin was never prepared for. “Because my father is also Orson Valkyr. Maeve and I know about you and your mom because we’re all part of the same family. Your displacement and mine might’ve separated us from those we care for, but it also brought our families together. As for you, well,” she took a moment to rise up from her seat and move a little closer to him, before finishing her sentence, “You’re my little brother.”

Those words were enough to stop any thought he had in his head. For the longest of times, he didn’t think that he had any siblings at all and didn’t know much about his family. Yet, all of that changed with everything that Ember had just shared right now. It was a lot to think about, and with his mind still trying to process most of it, only one thing was said, “I-I’m… what?”

“She’s right about that, kitten,” Maeve tried to help. Yet, all that did was make Calvin even more confused.

“B-but, if that’s true, t-then why didn’t he say anything? W-why didn’t he tell me?”

Raquel and Twilight watched as Ember bit her bottom lip, before moving up from her seat to get closer to Calvin, “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for that one. Only dad would know, and we’ve been trying to find him, as well as you and your mom, for years without any success,” she then gently placed a hand on the Skyshifter’s shoulder, “Because of your friend though, we were able to find you, and mom and I are not going to stop looking until our whole family is back together again-”

Calvin didn’t say anything at first, but instead surprised Ember and the others when he wrapped his arms around the caretaker and pulled her in for a hug. She could feel her clothes start to get a bit wet as she noticed tears in his eyes. Not of sadness, but perhaps joy? It was hard to tell at first.

Then, Ember heard him mention something in a very low tone, “I-I… don’t know w-what it’s like t-to have a sister. A-am I… doing this right?”

She couldn’t help but smile, before pulling him in for a hug as well. “There’s a first time for everything, I suppose,” Ember replied, before she looked over to the others, “Could you-?”

“Give you a moment?” Twilight’s question was followed by a nod of confirmation from the caretaker as the alicorn looked back at the other guests. With a tilt of her head, she led Raquel and Maeve down the hall to another room, giving both Calvin and Ember enough space and privacy to talk among themselves.

“Well, all things considered, I think that went rather well.”

Maeve’s comment made Raquel smile a little. Though, another thought occurred inside her head. While it was good to see that Ember and Calvin were able to reunite, it also meant that she was going to have to wait a bit before Ember could help her. Personally, Raquel would’ve wanted to get this done sooner rather than later, but what kind of a friend would she be if she just barged in to interrupt them?

Yes, What kind of a friend are you?

Raquel flinched, but did her best to ignore the voice as she looked back to Twilight and Maeve. “So, what should we do while we wait?”

“Well, normally, I wouldn’t suggest anything,” the rougeish figure replied, “But since my daughter is planning to help you after their chit chat, then maybe we can take care of some… uh, what’s the phrase? P-prep…”

“Prep work?”

“Yeah, that,” Maeve quickly accepted Twilight’s answer as she pulled out a little notebook from her pocket, along with a pencil of sorts, “I’m sure you told Ember quite a bit about what’s going on with you. Though, has there been anything that you haven’t told her yet? Like, something you wanted to mention, but didn’t get around to it?”

At first, Raquel was a little bit hesitant. But the more that she thought about it, the more that a decision came to mind. The only way that Ember could help her with her powers and the voice in her head was if she told them about the voice. Otherwise, she would just be avoiding the main issue. “There’s one thing I can think of. I kind of told Twilight about it earlier, but haven’t had the chance to share it with Ember yet.”

That had Twilight lift up her head rather quickly, for the Alicorn was quick to recognize what she was talking about, “You mean the voice that you hear when you try channeling magic?”

Maeve just raised an eyebrow at that. But instead of saying anything, she just let Raquel speak, “Y-yeah. This is more something that’s been happening… recently. When I channel magic, I hear this voice that’s similar to my own, but more… twisted, like it’s trying to force me to remember all the bad things I used to do when I was younger, things I felt guilty for even doing and have tried to move on from since. It even tries to bother me in my sleep, and I’ve had nightmares the last couple of nights.”

That had the rogue pause for a minute in what she was writing, before she looked back at Raquel, “You know, that sort of sounds awfully familiar.”

“It does?” Twilight asked, “How?”

“Well, there was a story that I heard about from Luna a long time back, about how she created some creature to haunt her in her dreams one time,” she scratched the back of her head, “Honestly, can’t remember the name of it.”

Immediately, Twilight felt that she needed to stop Maeve before she could go any further, “Hold on a minute. Are you saying that Raquel somehow created a personal Tantabus?”

“A what-?”

“Tantabus! That’s the name!” Maeve snapped her finger, finally remembering what it was called. “If I have to be entirely honest, that’s the only one I can think of, because of the similarities. However, it’s not completely the same.”

At that, Raquel just put her hands up as she looked at both of them with a distressed look on her face. “Okay, you’re going to need to be a little more specific. I mean, what even is this Tantabus thing?”

“Some time back, Luna told my friends and I that she created a creature to haunt her dreams called a Tantabus,” Twilight now explained, “She did this because she felt that she needed to punish herself for her actions when she was Nightmare Moon thousands of years ago, and its power came from her guilt. When we encountered it, it came really close to trying to break out into the real world. However, when we helped Luna let go of her past, the Tantabus was weakened, and it became part of Luna again.”

That just left her a bit baffled, for there was a lot of information that Raquel was missing. Yet, she tried her best to make sense of it as she slowly looked back at Maeve, “I’m sorry, but I doubt that is what this is. I mean, I don’t even know anything about Luna outside of her being Celestia’s sister.”

“Well, if you have any other possible ideas, I’m open to hearing them.”

When Maeve asked that, something that Raquel remembered from earlier in the day began to resurface, specifically the conversation involving magical artifacts that she had with Twilight just this morning. It might not have lasted too long, but something that the Princess said during that conversation began to come back to her.

The nature of magical artifacts takes on the form of whoever is wielding it and is a reflection of themselves.

“A reflection.”

When Raquel said that, she noticed Twilight’s ears twitch as she looked back at her, “What was that, Raquel?”

“Remember what you told me this morning about magical artifacts,” she asked, looking down at the band on her wrist, “If that’s true, then what would happen if something went wrong with it? Like it reflects something that’s a part of me, but isn’t actually who I am?”

That was a valid question, and one that Twilight didn’t quite have an answer for. Though, it didn’t quite seem like Maeve had one either. “Then, I’m afraid that what we might be dealing with is something Aberrant,” the rogue sighed, before a question came to mind as she looked back at Raquel, “Remind me, what are your powers again?”

“Well, Ember said that what I could do was along the lines of what she called Psionic Sorcery. Like, mind powers and what not,” she added, before she glanced over at Twilight and gave her a small shrug before looking back to Maeve, “Does that help?”

At first, the pink haired rogue didn’t answer. Instead, she just folded her arms and looked to be pondering what Raquel just told her as she closed her eyes. This continued on for a few minutes, and to those who were watching her, they couldn’t tell if she was just lost in thought or if she just dozed off. Yet, after some time, Maeve finally said something.

“It does. Though, given that we’re dealing with something that’s mind related, it’s a bit up in the air. Best case scenario, we can find a way to deal with this ‘voice’ in a peaceful manner. Worst case, well…”

“Well, what?” Raquel asked impatiently.

Maeve just folded her arms before asking both of them a different question, “Do either of you know what a Mindscape is?”

While Raquel shook her head, Twilight had a different response, “I-I think I saw it once in a paper or something, when I used to live in Canterlot, but it mostly seemed theoretical.”

“Okay, guess it's time for a quick lesson then, since I’ve had to deal with this kind of problem myself once upon a time,” the rogue replied, stretching out her hands and cracking a couple of her knuckles in doing so, “A mindscape is essentially ‘the world of the mind’, with certain ones being different based on that particular person and so on.”

“Wait, hold up,” the girl interrupted, “Are you saying that the worst case scenario is that we need to go inside my brain?”

“Well, based on what you told me, this ‘voice’, Aberrant or whatever we’re calling it, decided to take up residence in your head and is essentially being the equivalent of an overbearing houseguest,” Maeve explained to the two of them, before twirling one of her knives around her finger. Then, by surprise, she grabbed its hilt and tried to replicate a stabbing motion, “The only way you can really deal with the issue is if you confront them directly. Or as you phrase it yourself, go inside your brain.”

Both Raquel and Twilight looked back at one another for a brief moment, as they tried their best to understand everything that they just learned. Even though the two of them had a general sense of what they had to do, both of them still had a few questions as to how they were going to do this. Jumping into someone’s mind was not something that was common knowledge. That, and Maeve wasn’t exactly clear on what exactly would happen once they were inside.

Before the conversation could continue any further though, that was when they heard a familiar voice as they turned around to see Ember rejoin them. “Sorry to keep you all waiting.”

“No, no. Everything’s fine,” Twilight insisted, before noticing that one particular person was not next to her, “Where’s Calvin though?”

“He wanted to take some time to help out Spike, so we decided that we’ll revisit our conversation later,” the caretaker answered, before looking to Raquel, “I did mention to him about how I was going to help you, and he was eager to volunteer, if you would allow it, of course.”

Immediately, Raquel wanted to object to the thought of that. Unfortunately for her, Maeve beat her to it. “Good! Let me bring you up to speed, and we can get the preparations ready.”

Just from that alone, Raquel couldn’t help but feel as if this was the beginning of a giant rabbit hole they were going to find themselves in.

“So, let me see if I understand this correctly. Your current theory is that there is an ‘Aberration’ in Raquel’s mind that’s preventing her from channeling her magic properly… and your best solution is to go into her mind to fix it?”

“It’s either that or just simply ignore it and hope that things would just get better on their own,” Maeve told Ember as they stood by the Cutie Map. Raquel and Twilight were also with her while the rogue was informing Ember on everything they’ve discussed already. However, the caretaker of the Candlelight Archive had some reservations to what Maeve was suggesting, “And you and I both know from experience that problems are never resolved by just pretending it doesn’t exist.”

As Raquel watched, everything that she was saying sort of made sense. However, Ember did not seem entirely enthusiastic with what the rogue was telling her. “Is something wrong, Ms. Ember? Are you… against this?”

At this, the caretaker looked over to both her and the Alicorn as she tried to be reassuring, “No, I’m not. However, I fear that Maeve might’ve glossed over some important details with her proposed plan.”

With how that was phrased, Twilight grew a bit more concerned, “What kind of details?”

“Well-” Maeve tried to speak, but Ember was quick to cut her off,

“No matter how good your intentions may be, just the act of changing one small thing could cause major changes to a person’s behavior,” the caretaker explained, “Messing around with how the brain processes certain emotions can end up unintentionally causing damage to someone’s psyche, to the point that it might be irreversible.”

When Raquel first heard that, it definitely didn’t sound that good on the surface. However, what was still unclear was how something like this would happen. Luckily, Twilight was thinking the same thing and proceeded to ask more on that, “Do you mean something similar to hypnosis or mind control?”

Ember shook her head at that, “No, this is more along the line of removing inhibitions, the one thing that holds someone back and prevents them from acting on impulse. Say for example, you accidentally remove the inhibitions from somepony that’s an artist. Sure, it might open up their artistic freedom in a way. Yet, it will also not stop them from seeing anything as a canvas for their work, like the side of a building or the walls of your castle.”

That’s right.The voice inside Raquel’s head mocked her, As the saying goes, actions have consequences. Are you willing to take that risk?

Now Raquel felt as if she had to say something. “So, you’re saying that there’s no way to tell if this can actually help me and we would end up doing more harm than good if we were to go forward with this?”

“There is some risk, I will admit,” the nervous rogue admitted, “But the thing is, kitten, the previous times I had to do this, it was in someone else’s head, and they didn’t know I was there. This time, since it would be you going inside your own mind instead of a stranger like me, you would be more familiar with what might be inside. That doesn’t mean you would have to go alone though.”

“What… exactly were you thinking?” Twilight asked.

At that, everyone that was present in the room was looking towards Maeve and waited for her to provide an answer. “Well, the idea I had is kind of like this. Ember would be with me in order to do the spell to place you in your mindscape in the first place and maintain it while you’re inside. As for who would be with you, I think we could send two others with you. Since Calvin already said he wanted to help, that still leaves one spot open. Perhaps a certain princess would like to come along?”

That had Twilight’s cheeks blush a bit, before she hesitantly looked over at Raquel, “I-if you’re okay with it. I-I mean-”

“Oh, come on now,” Maeve groaned, “If you’re anything like our bookworm, you’d jump at the first chance of wanting to learn something you have no knowledge of. You don’t have to be nervous about it.”

“W-well-”

“Mom, you do realize that she also has duties of her own, right?”

It was at that point that they all heard a familiar voice speak up as it walked towards the Cutie Map, “Not right now, but tomorrow’s a different story.”

When Twilight turned around, she now realized that Calvin had come back with not just a book in hand, but also a receipt. “Oh, Calvin, I didn’t-. W-wait, what’s… all this?”

“Stuff for your little hospital visit tomorrow. Spike thought that if we got some preparations out of the way, it would be less of a headache for you,” the Skyshifter said as he placed them on the Map for her. “Receipt for a Sugarcube Corner order that can be picked up tomorrow while this storybook is one that Ms. Cheerilee recommended.”

“O-oh, thank you-,” she said, before noticing that someone else was missing, “W-wait, where’s Spike?”

“When we passed by the schoolhouse, Sweetie Belle was asking if Spike could come over to Carousel Boutique to help Rarity,” he said with a slight shrug, “Something about making new clothes for your ‘new guests’ or something. It wasn’t exactly clear, and you’re not expecting company until tomorrow.”

Even though Calvin wasn’t quite so sure, Twilight had some kind of idea as to what he was talking about. Still, with the most immediate things that she had to do already being taken care of, nothing was practically stopping her from going with Raquel. Though, the alicorn was still uncertain about all this and didn’t exactly have the luxury of time on her side to think of a proper answer.

“Well, Princess. What do you say?”

It was only then that Twilight looked up towards Raquel as the alicorn gave her an answer, “I-if Raquel is okay with me being there, t-then I’ll come with you.”

“Splendid! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear, Kitten,” Maeve chuckled, “Of course, could you guide us to another room in the castle? Preferably one where you wouldn’t have visitors coming through your door at any minute. What Ember and I need to do requires a lot of concentration, so the less distractions, the better.”

“So, what are we going to do then?” Calvin asked, a little bit confused, “I know I said that I was going to help, but-”

“Don’t worry! We’ll fill you in on everything once we’re all set up and ready to go!”

Ironically, as Maeve said that, Raquel noticed that the look on Calvin’s face matched the same nervous glance she had only a few minutes ago, as both of them watched Twilight guide their guests away from the Cutie Map and up the stairs. When he looked back towards her, all he could really do was give off a confused look. “Do you know anything about what we’re going to do, Raquel?”

All she really could do was shrug and try to answer as best as she could, “Sort of. Maeve said that she might have a solution to the problem I’m having with my magic. However, it involves going inside my mind, and there’s no telling what will be waiting for us there.”

“Huh, that’ll be a new experience then.”

That was not the kind of answer that Raquel expected to hear from Calvin. If anything, she expected for him to act either a little bit concerned or confused. “New experience? D-don’t you think this will be… well, rather strange?”

“Well, yeah, of course,” he nodded, “But then again, I’ve already been to a lot of strange places and met strange people. So, this doesn’t seem anything too different. Even had to help the Cutie Mark Crusaders a couple of times in the process.”

That just had her blink for a moment, before asking an entirely different question, “You mean Apple Bloom and her friends? They don’t seem like the kind of people that intentionally try to get themselves in trouble.”

At that, the Skyshifter couldn’t help but chuckle, “Oh, trust me. There are times where even though they might have the best of intentions, not everything goes as planned. Hopefully, that’s not the case with us today.”

While that was meant to sound encouraging, Raquel couldn’t help but feel a bit of uncertainty linger in the air as both of them followed in the same direction that Twilight went. Sure, Calvin might have seemed confident, but the thought of not really knowing what exactly they were getting into clung to her and couldn’t easily be shaken off.

And why would you? Without me, what are you really?

That time, Raquel found it a lot more difficult to just ignore the words spoken in her head. Not because of what was said, but because no matter how much she tried to ignore it, there was a sensation that made her think that the voice was somehow speaking the truth, something that she thought was a trick of the mind to make her have second thoughts. Though, all it really did was make her even more annoyed.

“So, when Luna originally asked for help with her nightmares, we would set things up in here,” Twilight said as she led both Ember and Maeve into a particular chamber of the castle. The room itself was rather wide and had numerous beds placed not that far apart from one another. “After the whole thing with the Tantabus, I kept things organized on the off chance the girls wanted to hold a sleepover. Though, as of now, it’s more likely to be used as an extra guest room.”

“I see,” Ember replied as she watched Maeve look around and analyze everything that was around her, “So, what do you think Mom? Will this work?”

As she asked that question, the rogue took out a particular knife from her belt and began to hold it straight down. For a moment, what Maeve was doing came off as more confusing than anything else. However, after a few seconds, the edge of the knife started to glow a vibrant neon pink. “Heh, the magic in this room is so dense that I can cut through it,” she replied with a smirk, before looking over at Ember and Twilight, “This place would suit our needs perfectly. Though, we may need to make some rearrangements.”

“Rearrangements? How so?”

“Well, the methods for how we are going to do this have a tendency to pull in anything that might get too close. Like how a tornado can pull in anything that’s not properly held down,” Maeve said as she turned to Twilight, “So, I think it would be safe to say that you rather not want to lose anything valuable, right?”

Twilight could only blink as she stared at the rogue, puzzled by what she said, “Okay, but how exactly does this work? You already told us of where it will take us, but not how we get there or… well, anything else.”

“Now now, why spoil the surprise, kitten?” Maeve asked playfully, twirling the knife around her fingers before holstering it at her waist, “Besides, it would save me the hassle of repeating myself over and over if I explained everything when everyone is here, wouldn’t you agree?”

Much to the princess’ dismay, the rogue made a valid point. Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait too long, because around the same time that Maeve appeared to be done with making her preparations, Raquel and Calvin happened to find the room that they were in.

“There you are,” the Skyshifter let out a sigh of relief, “I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner. I swear this castle acts like a maze sometimes.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there before,” Ember chuckled. “And actually, both of you arrived just in time. Right, mom?”

Maeve couldn’t help but give a slight smirk as she nodded her head and turned to face Calvin, “Indeed. Now that we’re all here, we can get started. First thing’s first, I would like for you and Twilight to stand over here next to me and have Raquel stand right where I am.”

The request seemed a bit odd, but none of them questioned it, for if Maeve told them to do something specific, then it was entirely possible that there was a reason behind it. As they got into place though, Maeve approached Raquel and held up her left hand as two fingers touched the forehead. When the rogue closed her eyes, her hands began to emit the same vibrant glow from earlier, as the magical energy around her flowed.

At first, it was just to Raquel, but then the same glow was felt by Calvin and Twilight as well. Despite feeling very foreign to the touch, it also felt rather warm as the magical power left from her fingertips. The form that the magic took looked less freeform, like what Twilight would do, and instead looked a lot like that of strands from a ball of yarn.

“Okay, the first part is done,” Maeve said as she opened her eyes, “Now, I want all of you to look behind you.”

When they turned around, all three of them were immediately caught off guard. The empty wall that was there before now had what looked to be a giant wooden door, decorated with what could only be described as ornaments you would find at a carnival. “W-what’s this?”

“That is the door to your mind,” the rogue answered, “That door is what you’re going to be going through when you enter your mindscape. However, you can’t just simply walk in, which is why I had to make some adjustments. You should be seeing it now.”

As she said that, the three of them did notice something else along with the door. What looked like a transparent string of yarn was attached to each of them, with each string going towards the door. “What are these?”

“Soul tethers,” she answered, “This is my way of making sure that all three of you are okay. If for some reason the tether breaks, you’ll immediately come back here. However, this also leads me to another important point. If any of you get hurt while inside there, any abilities that you might have will end up getting weakened, and you won’t be able to recover your strength as fast as you normally would.”

“A-anything else we should know?” Calvin asked nervously.

“Well, have you ever heard of an ‘out of body experience’?” she asked. When no one answered, that was when the rogue sighed, “Well, you’re about to have one. Best of luck.”

“Wait, what-?”

As Maeve swung her arms outward, the door swung open as the tethers that were attached to them pulled with overwhelming might as they were yanked out of their bodies and through the door. When the door sealed shut, the only thing that remained was their forms on the floor and Maeve trying to catch her breath.

“Mom, seriously!?” Ember snapped, “You could've told them about that first before doing that!”

“If I did, any one of them would have hesitated and complicated the nature of the spell,” she coughed, “Now, help me put them on the beds and keep the door closed. We need to keep an eye on them to make sure nothing goes wrong and that means no one is disturbing them.”

Scroll 34- Mind Games Part 3

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Scroll 35- Stories of Old

Beyond the Skies- Stories of Old

In the Skylands, it is often said that knowledge was like a seed. If you took the time to care for it, then what you might learn would be worth it once it started to bloom. However, it was ill advised to rush a delicate process and instead be patient, for good things would always come to those who waited.

Unfortunately, for the Dark Portal Master named Kaos, patience was something he saw as less of a recommendation and more of an ignored suggestion, one that came with predictable results. “Gah, this is so infuriating!!”

For the last couple of days, Kaos had tried to piece together a plan for his next scheme. However, there were a few obstacles that prevented him from doing so. The first was that while Sombra did provide some useful information on the different legends of Equestria, nothing was ‘concrete’. Many of them were seen as myths, and it was unknown if there was any truth to such stories. He would look stupid if he launched an invasion to try and go after something powerful, only to learn that said thing he was going for didn’t even exist.

The other obstacle was the lack of a certain butler that would help him in times such as these. No less than a couple days ago, Kaos sent Glumshanks to try and see if he could get any information by spying on his mother’s spy network, The Web. He thought that, since his mom and Glumshanks seemed rather friendly with one another, that she wouldn’t suspect anything. Now, because of his absence, many of the duties that Glumshanks would do around the castle were stocking up, like the amount of dirty dishes that were currently sitting in the kitchen sink.

It didn’t help that the greebles, despite being rather expendable and cheap, were a poor substitute.

“The longer I have to wait for him, the more that I have to put all of my devious schemes ON HOLD!! Just how much longer is that imbecile going to make me-”

“Uh, h-hello master-”

The sudden remark had Kaos almost jump out of his robe as he rapidly turned around to see what was behind him, only to be looking directly at the troll butler he had been waiting desperately for, “Glumshanks!! How many times have I told you to-!?”

Before he could even finish, a different thought crossed his mind as he cleared his throat. “More importantly, where have you been?! I gave you one simple assignment. Why would it take you this long to return back to me-?”

“A-about that, L-Lord Kaos,” Glumshanks tried to say, “I did find something. But… well-”

“Well, what?” the Dark Portal Master asked, “Spill it out. You kept me waiting in suspense for this long. Shouldn’t be that hard to-”

Before the troll could even say anything, a much different voice answered Kaos’ question. “What he found was me.”

When the Portal Master turned around, he found himself staring at a set of red eyes and a figure that reminded him of that dreaded puppeteer that was in his lair once before. Only this time, the figure was dressed in a long dark coat with a fancy suit and tie underneath it. Most of its arms were behind its back, but its gaze was fixed on him.

“What the-!? How did-?! Glumshanks, did you-!?”

“I let myself in,” the figure replied back, “As for why I’m here, I believe that is rather self explanatory. You asked your consort to look into something he, and by extension you, wasn’t prepared for. What he found was me.”

“And what in the name of the Skylands is that supposed to mean?”

The spider let out a small sigh, his gaze still fixed on Kaos. “If you wanted to find out more about The Web, you could’ve just gone yourself.”

“Oh, I see. You’re just some messenger. An errand boy working for whoever is in charge-?”

In a flash, the Portal Master felt his body spin around and be constrained by webbing. Two sets of the arms the spider had kept them restrained as he was brought closer to him. “A little more than that, I’m afraid. I am the one in charge, and you are being rather disrespectful.”

With a flick of the wrist, the figure flipped Kaos around a few more times as some webs covered the Portal Master’s mouth, “If you were any other curious rat trying to peek around where they don’t belong, I would dispose of you here and now. However, you are different. You are the son of Lady Kaossandra, and she would be rather displeased if she learned of either your attempts to look into our affairs or this conversation.”

Then, the spider gave off a small grin, “But, perhaps we can come to an understanding. After all, I’ve yet to introduce myself.”

With a snap of a finger, the webs immediately loosened up as Kaos fell to the floor. He had to take a moment to spit out what was inside his mouth, as Glumshanks rushed over to help him. All the while, the spider continued to speak, “My name is Lìn. I am responsible for many duties with Lady Kaossandra, but the most prominent one that you seem to be interested in the most is with The Web, so much so that you sent someone else to try and find out about us instead of going yourself.”

“So, what? You came all this way just to belittle me?”

“Oh, quite the opposite actually,” he smirked, “If anything, I’m under the impression that you have a misunderstanding of our intentions.”

That just had Kaos look at Glumshanks, who could only give him an unsure shrug. Despite the orders he was given, the troll couldn’t really find any answers for him. Not only that, but when he did think that he found something that he could bring back, Lìn just so happened to find him first.

“And what sort of misunderstanding might that be, hmm…?”

“You assume specifically that your mother utilizes our organization to find a way to hinder any plans you try to put in motion,” that single response was enough to throw him off guard. Yet, before Kaos could speak, Lìn continued, “Despite your tense history with her, Lady Kaossandra does not utilize our services in the field of sabotaging your ongoing efforts. She sees conflict among family members as counterproductive.”

“Oh, like I haven’t heard that before,” the Dark Portal Master rolled his eyes, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Much to the surprise of both of them, Lìn obliged. “Have you ever considered the reason why your devious plans haven’t gone your way is because you’re coming off as predictable?”

That single question had the Dark Portal Master’s eyes twitch. This spider, who just showed up in his lair unannounced, had the audacity to ask him that!? Who in the world did this guy think he was?!

“Now, before you go on some unhinged tirade about what I said, why don’t you listen to what I have to say first?” the spider said, before putting his first set of hands together across his chest, “You might not be aware of it, but the Web has been paying attention to every attempt you made to make the Skylands be under your rule. While there were times that you were initially successful, the reason why everything doesn’t work the way you intend it is because, in the end, what you seek to achieve is always the same thing. You don’t change your goals.”

“So, why should I? It’s worked for me before-”

“Yes, but those who will try to stop you know what that goal is,” he pointed out, “In my experience, the less likely that your future enemies will try to understand what your goals are, the more likely you will succeed. Not to mention that in the instances that you do achieve what you set out to do, you’re not satisfied with taking just the Skylands. You want more.”

He did not know why, but when the spider said those words in particular, it felt like a particular chord was struck. Something about what he was saying resonated with Kaos. He did not know how, but Lìn now had hold of his curiosity. “Go on.”

“It is no coincidence that ever since the discovery of the realm below the clouds that you want to add that to your dominion. What I am merely saying is that my lady and I aren’t planning on stopping you. Let us handle any issues that happen to arise in the Skylands, so that you can dedicate everything in your power to the task at hand. That way, you don’t have to have yourself be distracted by petty diversions.”

Despite the words sounding so tempting, Kaos still had a tiny amount of doubt as he folded his arms, “Hmm. Though, how exactly can you prove to me that you’re trustworthy? I’ve had others speak to me the same way before, only to stab me in the back once they had what they wanted.”

The spider could only grin at that, for he was expecting a question like this to come up. “Have you forgotten who I work for? If Lady Kaossandra were to learn that I or someone from The Web were to even lay a scratch on you or your butler, she would not hesitate to find the one responsible and make an example out of them. Not only that, but if we were to distract ourselves with every single minor inconvenience, then we would not only be wasting our time, but also the time and patience of our employer, both of which are counterproductive.”

Kaos didn’t say anything at first. Yet, Lìn made a valid point. Despite the differences between him and the other members of his family, his mother did have a tendency to be rather protective of him when he was younger. In fact, despite being much older now, there were times where it felt like his mother was still treating him like a child and that she knew what was best for him. So, what Lìn described to him sounded a lot like something she would do.

“Okay, you make a valid point,” the Dark Portal Master said, “So, what happens now?”

“Now?” the spider asked, before providing the answer to his own question, “Now, I will take my leave and entrust that you will listen to the words I said. If you’re looking for a place to start, why not inquire with your friendly shadow on the wall? Perhaps he might know something to point you in the right direction.”

Within moments, Lìn disappeared as quickly as he entered, which left Kaos and Glumshanks by themselves inside the castle. Everything was silent at first, until the butler asked a simple question. “So, uh… what do we do now, Master Kaos?”

“Well, isn’t it blatantly obvious?!” Kaos asked, “I have a few questions to ask Sombra. As for you, many of your tasks that you couldn’t do while you were away have been piling up! I suggest you fix that NOW!!”

“Y-yes, Master! Right away!!” the troll stammered, before scurrying off to the kitchen to quickly get to work.

For the last few days, all Sombra had done was remain idle in the master’s room. Despite everything that he had done to help Lord Kaos in his efforts, there was something that didn’t settle right with him. Like an uncomfortable itch that he couldn’t scratch, no matter what he did. To make matters even more annoying, the umbrum couldn’t figure out a reason as to why this was the case.

Before he even had the chance to get that far, the door to the room was slammed open. “SOMBRA! I require your insight on an important matter this instant!!”

Immediately, the umbrum drifted down from his position on the wall and landed in the center of the chamber. “You called for me, Lord Kaos?”

“Why, yes indeed!” the Dark Portal Master, “It has come to my attention that there is something I am missing that’s critical to our plans.”

Sombra couldn’t help but feel confused by Kaos’ choice of words, “Missing? But every time we’ve spoken, I’ve shared everything with you about-”

“Yes, yes! I remember that,” Kaos brushed it off, before immediately grabbing his attention, “HOWEVER, it’s come to my attention that despite all the stories and legends you told me of Equestria’s past, we lack any information on what’s going on now! How am I, Kaos, supposed to conquer Equestria if I know nothing about it other than legends that might not even be true!?”

The question was a valid one. However, it did not exactly provide anything specific for Sombra to go off of. “Then, what do you wish to know? How can I help you better prepare for your future endeavors?”

“I wish to know if Equestria has any secret repositories of knowledge! I have learned quite well that if there’s any information that someone would try to hide, they would always keep it someplace secret, to keep it away from prying eyes. Such is the case here with the Secret Society in Scholarville and the Secret Vault of Secrets from the Arkeyans! Surely, Equestria must have something similar now, wouldn’t you agree?”

Surprisingly, despite any doubts Sombra might’ve had, Kaos might have been onto something. Whether it was planning evil schemes or just trying to win a game of Annex, information was vital. Without it, you would essentially be flying into an oncoming storm while blindfolded. While there might be some in Equestria that would accept such a challenge, Sombra was not one of them.

“Well, there are numerous libraries across Equestria that could contain that knowledge. Though, in terms of ‘Secret’, I can only think of a couple of places,” the shadow pony replied, “The first is the Royal Library in Canterlot. While it poses itself as a public library, I do remember overhearing that there was a restricted section in there that only members of royalty are allowed to visit-”

“Nope, not going there again.”

Sombra blinked, puzzled by what he just heard. “Again? I’m… not sure I follow.”

“The last time I sent forces into that city to see if it was even remotely possible for me to invade it, that was when I first met that pain in the neck that could change into Skylanders and got hit in the head by the spawn of TREES!! Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to have your plans foiled and be humiliated by the one thing that’s the bane of my existence!?”

The shadow pony could not even begin to think of a possible question to ask in response, for a lot of what Kaos had just rambled about was information that he wasn’t even aware of. However, it would be better for him not to dwell on such things. “Noted. Now, aside from that, there are two other possibilities that come to mind. The Crystal Empire is one, but given the circumstances, I wouldn’t recommend that.”

“And why’s that?” the Dark Portal Master asked, “Are you doubting my capabilities?”

“Hardly,” Sombra retorted, “It’s more of the fact that the Empire would be impossible for you to try and take by force.”

“Didn’t you do that though?”

“Because I had lived in the Empire for most of my life before I crowned myself king. However, in your position, it would be impossible to conquer for two reasons. First, the empire is too big in size compared to the numerous settlements that I’ve seen in my short time here. And two, the Crystal Empire and the mountains they reside in are notorious for being very cold when you least expect it. So, unless you want your troops to freeze like ice cubes, I would suggest not focusing on that one.”

“Well, it is either being in the presence of trees again or this third option you have yet to tell me,” Kaos folded his arms, rather disappointed by what he was told so far.

Sombra let out a small breath to regain his composure, before he nodded his head. “Right. The last choice I can think of isn’t exactly normal. The Library of Discord-”

In a single second, the itch ceased.

To Sombra, it felt like a set of invisible chains were now broken. Numerous memories began to flood back in all at once, along with a sudden realization. Ever since they tried to scry on Discord, he had inadvertently been hypnotized by the draconequus’ curiosity. Yet, instead of trying to find a way to fix it, Kaos just used him like a dangling puppet.

He was beyond furious. However, he chose not to act. It didn’t seem like the Dark Portal Master realized that the trance had been broken. Perhaps it was better to let him keep thinking like that for now and gladly repay him for his treachery later.

“Well? Go on.”

With a grin on his face, the umbrum obliged. “The Library of Discord is the personal library of the Spirit of Chaos. With that in mind, there are a few things that I must inform you that make this one a bit of an oddity compared to the other choices I told you.”

“Pfft,” Kaos rolled his eyes, not taking Sombra’s advice seriously, “What oddities, exactly? Surely, a library can’t be that troublesome.”

Sombra could only narrow his eyes as he looked back at the Dark Portal Master that disrespected him. He was extremely tempted to just let him find out about the library for himself. However, he had to restrain himself. Otherwise, he would give himself away. “With ordinary libraries, yes. However, this one has a tendency to never really be in one place.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Now that the Shadow Pony had gotten his attention, it was time to continue. “One of the things that makes the Library of Discord different from the others is that it nevers stays in one place. Every one hundred years, it disappears from where it was last seen and then it rematerializes in a different location anywhere in Equestria. There is no telling where it could be at any given point in time, or where it might be right now.”

Kaos had a rebuttal at the ready, but Sombra was too quick with his words and cut him off before he had the chance to speak, “To complicate things further, because of this, nopony knows what’s actually in the library once you step through its doors. The only ones who would happen to know of anything inside would either be the librarian's caretaker, who nopony has ever seen before, or Discord himself.”

After he was finished, Sombra watched as the Dark Portal Master was contemplating on everything he was just told. There were times where it looked like he had something to say, only to immediately backtrack a few seconds later. This happened a couple of times over and over, as Kaos’ frustration was clear on his face.

“Well, if the only choices that we have are between trees and a disappearing library, then I’d choose the latter over trees any day!”

The decision was one that the Shadow Pony sort of expected, but still surprised him nonetheless. “Are you certain, Lord Kaos? While I’m not someone to question your decisions, I did mention that attempting to find the Library of Discord would be a lot more challenging compared to the other options.”

“I will not let such difficulties force me to go back to a place where I was shamefully humiliated! Besides, I’ve heard the same speech of ‘it will be impossible to find this place’ numerous times before and ended up finding what I was looking for anyways. This is no different!”

Irritation was beginning to set in now. Still, Sombra couldn’t help but admire his insistence. “Then, should I just excuse myself and leave you to your schemes?”

“Yes, now GET OUT! I will need some time to think!! Go check on Glumshanks or something-”

Before he could even finish rambling, the umbrum was already out of the room. If the Dark Portal Master was going to do what he thought he was going to do, Sombra wanted to be as far away from his chambers as possible. Otherwise, he would end up falling under another accidental trance. Being humiliated once was enough, and he wouldn’t dare suffer the same fate again-

“H-hello there, Sombra.”

The umbrum immediately turned around to face the voice, only to be a little relieved when he saw the troll butler that found his horn. “Ah, hello, Glumshanks. If you’re looking for your master, then he’s presently occupied. It might not be a good idea to disturb him right now.”

“Oh, uh… t-thanks for telling me,” the troll nervously replied. For a moment, it looked like he was going to turn away and go on with his business. Though, as the shadow pony was about to leave, Glumshanks turned back around and asked another question, “I-I don’t mean to sound rude, but… are you doing okay?”

The question had him chuckle, facing him to give the troll a confident smile as violet shadows formed around his eyes. “Oh, I’m doing just fine. Why do you ask?”

“I-I was just wondering. S-something seemed different, b-but maybe I’m just overthinking things,” Glumshanks quickly retorted, before taking off farther down the hall. Sombra couldn’t help but smile at seeing the troll flee, as his body turned into shadows, and he slipped into the darkness.

“Now, let’s see what’s been happening since I was entranced by that chaotic miscreant.”

Elsewhere

As Calvin woke up and slowly rose from his bed this morning, he had a feeling that something was different. Not in the bad sort of way that meant that there was trouble afoot, but more in the sense that something was just different. The last few weeks have had a lot of surprises, from helping out Raquel with her magic to learning that there was another side of his family that he didn’t know about. By comparison, it felt strange that today felt somewhat normal compared to Ponyville in general.

So, when he found Spike in Twilight’s study, signing off on paperwork that she’d normally would do, the Skyshifter had to ask what was going on. Though, the answer was something he didn’t expect. “Twilight’s on vacation?”

“More like a family trip, from the sounds of it,” Spike insisted, turning away from the signed stack of papers to face him, “Her parents won some vacation getaway thing to Neighagra Falls, and they invited her to come along. I think Shining and Cadence are there as well, with Flurry Heart, if I remember correctly.”

“Aren’t you technically part of her family as well?” Calvin asked.

“Sort of, but I volunteered to take care of things here while she was away. That way, Twilight won’t stress out over stuff like paperwork when she’s supposed to be having fun.”

To him, that sort of made sense. For all he knew, it was rare to ever see Twilight not working or doing something to occupy her attention. She was the busiest pony that he had met in his time here, and most of that was because of the amount of expectations Twilight puts on herself. Even when things would get really stressful, she would still have a smile on her face and press on.

“So, what do you plan to do today, Calvin?”

“I’m… not sure,” he admitted as he scratched the back of his head, “I mean, I don’t have class today, so today’s kind of a free day.”

“Well, maybe you can go see if Apple Bloom and the Crusaders are doing anything?”

“Yeah, about that,” Calvin said, “I went by Sweet Apple Acres to see if Apple Bloom and her friends were free, but I was told by Granny Smith that they were going camping this weekend with Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow.”

“Huh. This seems like the weekend where almost everypony’s out of town or away for something,” the dragon commented, “I mean, before she left, Twilight told me that Starlight and Trixie were going to surprise Thorax and see how the Changelings are doing.”

Calvin’s curiosity peaked a little at the mention of that. It had been a while since he had last heard of anything from either Thorax or Ocellus after Chrysalis tried to hatch another scheme for taking over Equestria. All he knew was that after everything that happened, the friend he had helped on that day was now a King. Maybe he could use some time today to write a letter and see how they’ve been?

“So, who exactly is still in town?” he asked, “Aside from most of the residents in Ponyville.”

The question was simple, but it was enough to have Spike stop signing off the papers on the desk and set down the quill he was holding. “Well, aside from everypony in the castle, I can only think of a couple names. There’s Pinkie Pie, but I don’t know if she’s working at Sugarcube Corner or if the Cakes need her to babysit the twins. Fluttershy might be at her cottage as well, but aside from taking care of her animals, I’m not sure what else she could be doing-”

Before the dragon could finish, Calvin interjected to ask a particular question to him, “What about Discord?”

“Yes, what about little old me?” an all too familiar voice spoke up as a paperweight on the desk now had the horns of the friendly neighborhood draconequus, “It feels quite rude to be the center of a conversation when I’m not around.”

If Spike were truly honest, he would’ve anticipated something like this. Still, even if he was expecting it, Discord’s arrival caught him and Calvin by surprise. As he moved the signed papers aside, the paperweight rolled off the table as a puff of pink smoke went off. Seconds later, the Spirit of Chaos dropped his disguise and stood among his friends. “Good morning, Discord. I see that you’re as lively as ever.”

“Same to you,” the draconequus acknowledged, “Though, everything seems a bit quieter around here. Would you happen to know why that might be?”

“Actually, we were talking about that a moment ago,” Calvin said, before a small grumble in his stomach reminded him of something he was missing, “Maybe we can explain more over breakfast? I haven’t had the chance to eat yet.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? Let’s go fix that right away!”

Just as quickly as he made his presence known, the draconequus snapped his talons and vanished from the room. Rather than leave him to his own devices, Spike got out of the chair and went after him. The Skyshifter himself followed suit, but wasn’t as fast as the dragon, as he was closing the door to Twilight’s study by the time that Spike was already halfway down the stairs.

Not only that, but the commotion was enough to attract the attention of some of the other residents in the castle. “Calvin, why did I just see Spike running down the stairs in a panic?”

When he turned around, Calvin found Trevor and Raquel at the door to their room. It looked like they had only just woken up, for the twins looked rather tired and had not had the chance to change clothes yet. “Good morning. Discord is trying to make breakfast, and I think Spike is worried that he’ll make a mess in the kitchen.”

“W-wait, you mean,” Raquel yawned, before rubbing her eyes, “You mean that noodle dragon that just appears out of nowhere sometimes?”

“Noodle dragon?”

Raquel just pinched the bridge of her nose, before letting out a sigh, “Y-you know what I mean. I just can’t remember the actual name right now.”

“More importantly, what’s he doing here anyways?” Trevor wondered, “I don’t think any of us wanted early morning craziness as soon as we woke up.”

Now, Calvin nervously scratched the back of his head as he looked back at the twins, “Yeah, that might’ve accidentally been my fault,” he admitted, “I was talking with Spike this morning, and we realized that many of our friends were out of town this weekend, whether it be on travel or just visiting friends. When trying to see who wasn’t out of town, I asked about Discord, and then, he just… appeared.”

Both Trevor and Raquel seem a bit uncertain by that. While Calvin might have been used to the antics of the Spirit of Chaos, the twins were a different case, and their first impressions on Discord were not quite positive. For someone that was supposed to be ‘reformed’ and have good intentions, his methods of doing the right thing were a bit questionable at best, especially when they learned about what happened last time he tried to be helpful.

“Are you sure that he’s not here to cause any problems?”

Calvin could only really give a small shrug, “Honestly, that’s something I don’t know. But I would think that since Discord’s previous mess, he’s been a little bit more careful with what he does, so that it doesn’t happen again. Besides, he’s just volunteering to cook breakfast. How harmful can that be?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Raquel was quick to walk past him and down the stairs, expecting the worst. However, when she reached the bottom of the stairs, she was surprised to find that things were a bit more tame than what she was expecting. Discord was in the kitchen, wearing an apron that said ‘I am the one who cooks’ on the front and standing by a few different ingredients while a bowl and wick were floating near his head. In front of him, Spike was next to a cookbook that was almost as big as his body.

It seemed like the dragon was trying to give the draconequus instructions, but there was some confusion. “Okay, I have the pancake mix and the milk. But with this next step, it says ‘fold the eggs in gently’. I know I’ve been around as long as the princesses, but I still have no idea what that means.”

“Ehh, Twilight just sees it as mixing the eggs in with the rest of the batter. Nopony says it like that anymore,” the dragon replied, which led to the draconequus moving his talons as a pair of eggs were released from their shells and mixed into the batter, “Though, you’re going to need something to pour it on once it's properly mixed. How much were you intending to make?”

“Well, there’s you, me, Calvin, and the twins who don’t entirely trust me,” Discord counted off, before setting the bowl on the counter, “I was also going to see if Pinkie and Flutters were available this morning and invite them over. I thought it would be nice to catch up with them and see how everypony’s been.”

Almost as if it was right on cue, the front door of the castle opened up, as two familiar faces trotted inside. It took only seconds for Raquel to realize who it was, and ironically, it was the same ponies that Discord was talking about a moment ago. “Oh, hi there, Raqy!!”

“H-hello, Pinkie,” she nervously replied, “What brings you here?”

“No reason. We just wanted to say hi and-” Before she could go further, the party pony’s nose twitched alongside her ears as she looked over towards the kitchen, “Ooh… are those fresh pancakes I smell?”

“Yeah, uh… Discord wanted to make breakfast for everyone-”

“O-oh, really? T-that sounds nice-”

Immediately, without any sort of explanation, Pinkie moved past her and made a beeline straight for the kitchen. It caught both Raquel and Fluttershy by surprise, but it didn’t look like she was moving out of urgency. If anything, it looked like she wanted to be with them and was hurrying over, so she didn’t miss out on anything.

It didn’t help that at the same moment that Pinkie took off, Trevor and Calvin had just caught up with her. “What the heck just happened?”

Raquel didn’t say anything, but instead, Fluttershy decided to say something, “O-oh, g-good morning Calvin. P-Pinkie was here, but-”

The sound of something hitting the floor along with giggles and a bit of panic was enough to startle the four of them as they all looked in the direction that Pinkie ran off towards. “Uh, do you think we should help them?”

“M-maybe it would be better if we just wait at the map table,” the pegasus insisted, “S-she’s probably just trying to lend a helping hoof.”

“Pinkie, I-I’m happy to hear that you want to assist, but we have everything that we… Wait, where did you get that? S-stop, t-that’s too much! Pinkie, WAIT-!!”

While Fluttershy tried to keep everyone calm, a loud ‘BANG!’ from the kitchen was enough to have everyone in the main corridor rush over to see what occurred. In their minds, they thought that something very bad happened. However, what they found was not quite what any of them expected. Instead of a giant mess, they found that the whole kitchen was covered in streamers and confetti. Baking trays with what appeared to be dough that was already prepared were on the counter, and Pinkie’s party cannon was positioned right next to the oven.

Pinkie herself was waiting on the oven, for when it was at the proper temperature, while also flipping pancakes with the spatula that her… tail was holding onto. Somehow.

All the while, Spike and Discord were both equally confused by what just happened. “…I understand the streamers and stuff. It’s Pinkie. But where did the dough come from?”

“Honestly, it’s better if you do not ask. I’ve learned that from experience,” the dragon told his friend, “It’ll save you from future headaches.”

“There we go, all done! Breakfast is ready, everypony!”

By the time that food was on the table and everyone was seated, the amount of food that was made would be enough for leftovers for the next few days. While Discord thought that pancakes on their own would’ve been enough, Pinkie thought that his meal needed a bit more variety and provided everypony different options to eat.

While that might have sounded good at the time, it led to Pinkie coming up with several different options for breakfast, to the point that the Cutie Map looked like the centerpiece for a breakfast buffet. Luckily, the sheer amount of food didn’t really affect the appetite of everyone that was at the table. In fact, everyone seemed to be rather focused on talking with one another.

Though, the main subject of the conversation wasn’t about anything going on today. Instead, it was about the friends that were absent. “So, let me see if I got this right. Twilight’s on a family vacation, and your friends are camping with AJ, Rarity and Rainbow?”

A nod from Calvin was followed by a surprised look from Trevor as he folded his arms, “Huh, I was wondering why everything felt a bit quiet earlier. Though, wouldn’t Twilight probably tell us if something like this was coming up?”

“From the sounds of everything, it sounded like it was all last minute,” Spike added. “Which is kind of weird, but seeing how excited Twilight was about the whole thing, I decided not to question it. She rarely gets to spend time with family, since her duties take up most of her time.”

“Fair point,” he replied, “I think it might be safe to assume that Apple Bloom and her friends going camping might also fall under that category?”

“That’s more sisterly bonding if you ask me, silly,” Pinkie Pie interjected, “Ooh, I can’t help but wonder what fun things they might be doing right now!”

That had a few looks exchanged among everyone at the table. Though, it was Discord who ended up breaking the silence, “I don’t mean to sound like that guy, but that’s sort of like extending an open invitation for trouble. And yes, I know how that sounds coming from me.”

“W-well, w-what do you think they might be doing then, Discord?” Fluttershy asked.

“I can take a guess at one thing that they probably will do at one point, but not exactly when,” the Spirit of Chaos replied, “I mean, you can’t exactly have a camping trip without campfire stories.”

“H-huh? What do you-?”

“No, no, he has a valid point,” Pinkie interjected, “I mean, you can’t have one without the other.”

Calvin couldn’t help but wonder a bit about that. Even though he hadn’t really gone camping himself, one thing he knew from his time so far was that Equestria had a lot of different stories. “Okay, I’m now curious. What kind of stories are shared? Anything specific?”

“Honestly, there’s too many to count. You got the stories of Gusty the Great, Clover the Clever, and the tale of the first hearth’s warming, just to name a few,” Discord remarked as he started to count a few off of his talons, before glancing at Spike, Pinkie and Fluttershy, “Though, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think some of the stories that practically everypony knows to an extent are about the Pillars.”

At the same time, Calvin and the twins unknowingly happened to ask the exact same question, “Pillars?”

Discord blinked, before looking back at everyone at the table. Much to his surprise, it seemed that even Pinkie and Fluttershy were a little bit puzzled. “Well, I guess not a lot of ponies are familiar with that phrase… No wonder, it’s been so long. Okay, let’s take this straight from the top!”

With a snap of a talon, the draconequus disappeared from his spot at the table and manifested in the center of the room. Next to him was a portable projector screen, and he was dressed in the cap and gown of a college professor. On the screen were the silhouettes of six ponies; two earth ponies, two pegasi, and two unicorns. As he started to speak, color began to take form in the silhouettes to reveal pictures of the ponies he spoke of.

“Long ago in the past, Equestria had a different set of heroes, almost like the Elements of Harmony nowadays. These six were known as the Pillars of Old Equestria, because it was believed that ‘the pillars of their deeds laid the groundwork for the Equestria we know today’. Their words, not mine,” Discord stated, while reading off of what looked like flashcards that materialized in his paw.

That had a question raised by the Skyshifter, as he was trying to make sense of everything, “So, you’re saying it’s like the Elements of the Past?”

“Well, yes. But not exactly. The names of the elements were very different back then compared to what we know today,” he paused, before looking at Trevor and Raquel, “Before I go on, do you need any context? I’m sure that this is probably going to get complicated unless-”

“Calvin kind of gave a summarized version during our first week here,” The Aberrant Mind said, “Just who Twilight and her friends are, them being heroes. That kind of thing.”

“Okay, that’s going to make this a whole lot easier,” Discord let out a sigh of relief, before he cleared his throat and continued from where he left off. With another snap of the finger, the slide changed to a collection of symbols. The first group was a bit familiar, for it was the symbols of the Elements of Harmony. However, the second group was different, and the pictures on that side consisted of a mask, a shield, a curved horn, a shovel, a headdress and a wizard's hat.

“The elements that we know today consist of the Elements of Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, Laughter, Loyalty and Magic. Simple enough. However, back then, the Pillars were referred to as the Elements of Healing, Bravery, Beauty, Strength, Hope and Sorcery. The main difference is that their elements were based on their past deeds, which cemented their stories into legends that many ponies would share as campfire tales.”

The mentioning of that was enough to pique some intrigue among those at the table, so much so that Discord didn’t have to wait too long for someone to ask a question. “Could you tell us about some of these stories? Or who the elements were?”

“Well, the main one that probably everypony knows, and I know for sure our resident book princess would probably fangirl over if you bring up his name, is the Element of Sorcery,” the Spirit of Chaos folded his arms, “otherwise known as Starswirl the Bearded.”

That name struck a chord with Calvin almost immediately. “Huh, I believe I heard of him before.”

“I wouldn’t blame you. Everypony has at some point. Though, out of curiosity, what do you know about him?”

“Well, when I first heard the name, it was because someone from the Skylands mentioned it,” Calvin’s answer was one that initially surprised Discord. In the draconequus’ mind, he thought that everything revolving around the Skylands were more recent events, so that was something new to him, “Master Eon, who lives at Skylander Academy, said that his predecessor met him once. But outside of that, I don’t really know too much.”

“Huh… that’s interesting to note,” the Spirit of Chaos scribbled in a notepad and pushed off to the side, “Back to the matter at hoof, Starswirl’s story and deeds revolved a lot around magic and his accomplishments with it. He was a master of many fields of spellcraft and the author of numerous spells that are commonly used today. Hay, if I remember correctly, there’s an entire wing of the Canterlot library dedicated to him.”

Calvin and Raquel looked rather surprised by that. While the two of them did know that Twilight looked up to Starswirl, they knew nothing about his actual accomplishments. Though, out of everyone at the table, there was one person who did not feel that way. “Is that all?”

“Is something wrong, Trevor?” Raquel asked.

“I don’t know about you, but hearing all that about one guy seems… off,” he replied back, “Like, you know those stories where a character is written in a way that makes them come off as if they’re perfect and nothing’s wrong with them? It doesn’t settle quite right with me, given that no one is ever perfect and making mistakes is how we learn. So, when I hear about this guy, I can’t help but feel that.”

Strangely enough, when Trevor looked back at Discord, he couldn’t help but notice that the draconequus was smiling, “You would be right to assume that. I’ve actually met him before, and… well, to put it lightly, his way of thinking sometimes is a bit rigid.”

“Really?” Spike tilted his head, “I don’t remember Twilight ever mentioning anything like that.”

“Well, let me give you an example,” the Spirit of Chaos said as he changed the slide again, “Long time ago, Starswirl and the Pillars were tasked to deal with a crisis that involved a trio of sirens. Back then, he and the rest of the Pillars had a close friend that was rather keen when it came to strategy. Yet, despite the advice he gave Starswirl on how to approach the situation, Starswirl ignored it in favor of a more direct approach and just banished them outright.”

As he continued, Discord had the scene change to show the scene he was describing, as well as what looked like a magical mirror, “At the time, he thought that sending them to someplace without magic was the ideal solution. However, all that did was pretty much make it someone else’s problem that they had to deal with. I know one of Twilight’s friends on the other side can vouch for me on that.”

Calvin wasn’t quite entirely sure what he meant by that. Not only that, but the mirror on the projection screen looked to be set in a room that would be a part of the castle. However, he decided not to think about it too much and instead ask a different question. “What about the other Pillars? Can you tell us about them?”

“Oh, certainly! Starswirl’s only just one element. All the others have equally impressive talents and stories,” the draconequus chuckled, before having the screen go back to the silhouettes that he showed to start off this conversation. “Which one would you like to hear about next?”

“Well, you already shared the last one, silly,” Pinkie giggled, swallowing some pieces of food whole before continuing further, “So, why don’t you just start from the beginning? Most stories do start from there, after all!”

Shortly after the suggestion was made, the scene changed again. This time, it focused on the mask as a light cerulean earth pony with a fluffy scarlet mane tied up in a tower of sorts appeared, “To start from the top, we have the Element of Healing. While there are folktales that refer to her as ‘The Mystical Mask’, this particular Pillar is widely known as Mage Meadowbrook.”

“O-oh! I remember this one,” Fluttershy squeaked, “M-my parents told me about her w-when I was a filly.”

“Oh, well if that’s the case, why don’t you go ahead and share the story then?” Discord asked, stepping aside so that the pegasus could share with everyone else.

“W-well, long ago, she lived in a village by the Hayseed Swamp and studied medicine with her mother. F-from what I remember, one of the m-main tales involved her searching for a cure for a terrible illness that h-her mother and her villagers were infected by called Swamp Fever. A-after discovering that a species of insects called Flash Bee’s were immune to S-swamp Fever, she used some of the honey from their hive to create the cure she was looking for. Afterwards, she dedicated her life to healing the sick, not just in her village, but all across Equestria.”

The story of Meadowbrook was one that surprised Calvin. Many stories that he had heard about before involved characters that would make a name for themselves through their heroics in battle. Yet, Meadowbrook’s story wasn’t like that at all. There was no fighting, battles or a ‘great evil’ that needed to be vanquished. Yet, he still enjoyed it. Her determination to find a cure despite all odds was rather inspiring, to say the least.

“Huh, that’s an interesting tale. I can see why you would like it,” Spike told the pegasus, who just shyly blushed in response, “She sounds like a very kind pony, just like you.”

“Aww, stop it, Spike. You’re making her blush,” Pinkie chuckled, trying her best to be supportive of her friend, who still had a giant blush on her face.

In an effort to try and shift the topic of the conversation, after finishing the food on her plate, Raquel took it upon herself to ask another question. “So, aside from Starswirl and Meadowbrook, who were the other elements? And why is one of them Beauty? It kind of seems… out of the ordinary, compared to the last two we talked about.”

“That is because the story behind it is a little more specific,” the Spirit of Chaos replied, changing slides once more as a book fell into his lion paw. Instead of the figure with the shield being the next one, the horn was chosen next, and much to the surprise of all three humans there, the equestrian in question this time was… older than they originally thought, like Granny Smith older in terms of age, but had a long mane, like that of a princess.

“This is Mistmane, the Element of Beauty,” Discord continued, “Her story is that, back in the day, she was renowned for both her kindness and her beauty, so much so that it made her best friend, Sable Spirit, rather jealous of her. One day, while Mistmane was away at magic school, Sable Spirit attempted a spell to have her beauty match that of her friend. However, her spell ended up having the opposite effect.”

As he spoke, the slides behind him changed to portray the scene Discord was describing to him, “After her spell backfired and made her hideous, she proceeded to steal the beauty from everyone in their hometown. When Mistmane returned home and saw what was happening to her friends, she confronted Sable Spirit in a magic duel. Even though she won the confrontation that followed, it did little to help those who were affected. So, she cast a spell to restore the beauty of everyone in the village, at the cost of her own.”

“Sable, who had been jealous of Mistmane for a long time, was moved by her sacrifice and, from that day forth, ruled with kindness and compassion. As for Mistmane herself, she dedicated her life to spreading beauty throughout Equestria. To her, beauty isn’t defined by the appearance of somepony, but that it could be found in all things.”

Raquel did not have any specific questions after Discord was finished. Instead, she was rather surprised by the events of Mistmane’s tale. She honestly thought that the story was going to end differently, but the Aberrant Mind never anticipated that Mistmane willingly gave up what made her elegant in the eyes of her friends just to save them. Such humble generosity, oddly enough, reminded her of one of Twilight’s friends.

“Does anypony have any other questions? I would ideally like to try and finish this up before the rest of the food gets cold.”

“Well, if that’s the case, then maybe you could summarize the other three?” Spike suggested, “I mean, I… don’t think there’s anything complicated with them now, is there?”

“Two of them are simple, but one will need a little more context,” Discord said, the book vanishing from his hand as Mistmane’s picture was replaced by the images of two stallions. One of them was a pegasus, while the other one was an earth pony that looked like Big Mac’s size. Most notably, the pegasus had a very particular shield, while the earth pony had a shovel.

“On the left, we have Flash Magnus, the Element of Bravery. His story was that he was part of the Royal Legion, a precursor of the Wonderbolts. When his squadron was attacked by dragons, he valiantly put himself in harm’s way as a decoy, so that the other ponies in his squad could be rescued and brought to safety. His commanding officer, Ironhead, gave him the fireproof shield Netitus, and after the successful rescue, allowed him to keep it.”

Once the story was shared, Flash’s side faded from view as the draconequus continued, “As for who we have on the right, we have Rockhoof, the Element of Strength. When he was younger, he tried to join a guard unit called the Mighty Helm. However, because he lacked physical prowess, other ponies ridiculed him, gave him a shovel and told him to stick to digging instead. However, when a volcano started to erupt and ponies from the nearby village refused to leave, Rockhoof pushed himself to his limits to dig a trench and divert the flow of the lava. In the process of doing that, he ended up turning into the mighty stallion that you see on the screen behind me and got accepted into the ranks of the Mighty Helm because of his heroics.”

Despite the Spirit of Chaos giving a ‘simplified’ version of the stories, there was still a lot to process with so little words. But it wasn’t long until another question surfaced, this time from Calvin, “Huh… I see. Though, if those two are both Bravery and Strength, then who represents the Element of Hope?”

Once more, the graphics on the projection screen changed again. This time, what was on screen was a pegasus mare with an egyptian style headdress and a transparent garb over their body. “That would be Somnambula-”

“Ooh! I heard of that place before!” Pinkie interjected.

The party pony’s sudden outburst just confused Calvin and the twins. “Place? Isn’t Discord talking about a specific pony?”

“Pinkie’s not wrong, but she’s also getting rather ahead of herself,” the draconequus replied, exchanging a simple glance with her before going further into detail, “The story goes that in Southern Equestria, somewhere in the desert, there was a village that was being menaced by a sphinx that took all the crops that the villagers needed for themselves. Things looked hopeless and a bit grim at times. However, one particular mare did everything that she could, including selling her necklace of pearls to provide food for the villagers, to give them hope. That mare was Somnambula.”

“Her efforts to provide hope for the village did not go unnoticed. Inspired by her compassion, the son of the pharaoh, Prince Hisan, stood up to the sphinx and tried to defy her. Unfortunately for him, all that did was have him get captured. The sphinx would then challenge the ponies of the village, saying that if any of them were to answer her riddle, she would let the prince go free.”

“Wait a minute,” Raquel interjected, “Riddles? I was… expecting something different.”

“Sphinxes by nature are rather cunning and intelligent, laying traps and tricks for ponies to fall for. They use riddles as a way to see if anypony they come across are as smart as they are, and mostly end up assuming that they won’t answer it correctly,” the Spirit of Chaos deviated for a moment to explain that, before steering back on topic, “Which is why this sphinx was furious when Somnambula was able to do just that. However, she feared that such an outcome would lead to the sphinx going back on her word. So, Somnambula asks for the sphinx to give her one more challenge, on the condition that if she can successfully complete it, the sphinx would have to leave the kingdom forever and never return.”

“W-what kind of challenge?”

“The challenge that the sphinx had Somnambula do was that she had to walk to Hisan across a narrow bridge. She was blindfolded and couldn’t use her wings to fly. The Sphinx assumed that Somnambula would just make one misstep, fall off the bridge and to her demise. Instead, she used Hisan’s voice as a guide to make it across, and when Somnambula reached the other side, the sphinx furiously flew away.”

Then, Discord paused for a brief moment as he looked back to Pinkie, “As for what Pinkie mentioned, there is some truth to it. After Somnambula rescued him, Prince Hisan did three things to show his gratitude to her. The first was that he replaced the necklace she used to provide food for the villagers, the second was that he had a statue of her constructed, and the last one was that the village was named after her, in honor of her deeds that day. To this day, the town of Somnambula still stands in Southern Equestria.”

As he finished the story, the draconequus collected everything from his presentation and snapped them out of existence. Once they were gone, he was sitting back at the table and only posed one question for his audience. “So, any questions?”

To which, the Skyshifter that was a couple spots next to him had a response, “I have one. You were mentioning all their stories and everything, but what happened afterwards?”

That had the smile that was on Discord’s face fall down as he shrugged. “As difficult as it may seem to believe, since it’s coming from me… It’s unclear.”

Trevor almost choked on his food when he heard that, “S-Seriously? But you-”

“What I told you was based on all known historical records and folktales on them. The last time anypony has heard anything of the Pillars was when they came together to fight off a ‘great evil’ a thousand years ago, that being the sirens that got banished because of Starswirl’s ego. However, everything past that point is a blank slate. There’s no records or information as to what happened afterwards. I even checked my own personal sources, and I couldn’t find anything, which is surprising, since those sources have kept me up to date on a lot of things going on across Equestria.”

Trevor wanted to say something in return, but he couldn’t exactly find the right words to say. Despite everything Discord had told them though, he doubted that they just simply disappeared and that was the end of it. His sister didn’t think that Calvin disappeared, and that belief brought the twins straight to him. There was an overwhelming feeling that there was more to this than anyone knew, but without any proof, he couldn’t really do much.

His train of thought stopped when he heard Raquel speak up, “So, uh, where were we before that whole talk about the Pillars?”

“I think we were talking about what the girls might be doing while camping-”

Just as that was said, the door to the castle opened. Much to the surprise of everyone at the table, the ponies that were at the entrance just so happened to be the same friends that they were talking about a few moments ago. “Well, all of ya seem to be having a good time. Got room for a few more?”

“Applejack?” Calvin spoke up, “I thought you girls were out camping this weekend.”

“We had a bit of a change in plans,” Rainbow Dash spoke up as she was idly flying above Scootaloo and her friends, “Long story, not really eager to talk about it, and some of us are hungry as heck.”

“Well, lucky for you, we just happen to have a lot of extras!” Pinkie proclaimed, bouncing around to get a bunch of extra chairs to put around the map table. Around the same time, Discord excused himself to retrieve some more plates and a few extra pieces of silverware. “Go ahead and help yourselves!”

The ponies that had just entered were quick to take up the offer, as they took up seats and began to fill their plates with food. Then, once they were all settled, Scootaloo looked over to Calvin & the twins and asked a question. “So, what were you up to while we were away?”

The Skyshifter just looked at both of the twins as Raquel took it upon herself to answer, “Well, Discord was just telling us about some stories and such.”

“Oh, really?” Sweetie Belle asked as she sat down nearby her, along with Apple Bloom, “What kind of stories?”

Calvin had only one question to ask in return, “…Have you heard of the Pillars of Old Equestria?”

End Scroll 35

Author's Note

Hey guys, Frost here. Got another chapter here and this time, we're sort of back on track.

After the last couple of chapters involved dealing with some personal hurdles for our characters, we're now back in the swing of things. There are some hints and clues as to what might be coming, and I took some inspiration for a few of them based on the Tails of Equestria tabletop game.

Hopefully, I'll get the next chapter ready for you guys soon. Until then, I hope you guys have a great day.
-Frost

P.S. A small little fun fact, 'Annex' is the name I thought of for the Equestrian Equivalent of the board game 'RISK'.

Scroll 36- The Library

Author's Note

This chapter takes place in between the end of Season 7 and in the time between that and season 8. For this, I wanted to take elements from other forms of media and find ways to incorporate it into this story.

For this particular one, I focused on the 'Judge Not By the Cover' adventure in 'Tails of Equestria- The Storytelling Game' and one of the main locations in that adventure for this particular chapter.

This, like a lot of my recent works, took a lot longer than normal and I do hope that you guys enjoyed it.

Until then, see you next time.
-Frost

Scroll 36- The Library

Beyond the Skies- The Library

The sounds of clashing metal continued to ring out throughout the training grounds. What started as a simple training match between some of the more recent ‘students’ that were being taught at the academy now escalated into a clash, where both sides tried to give it their all. Even though the battle was being supervised and watched rather closely, there were a few times where those who were watching were tempted to just stop it outright, because of how serious everything was getting.

Yet, much to the surprise of pretty much everyone, this was something that one of the students requested. Up until this moment, Trevor had been focusing all of his attention on training his newfound magic, as well as his capabilities as a fighter. However, despite all the lessons he was given, he felt that his training lacked putting the teachings into practice, not just against wooden dummies or greebles, but actual skilled fighters.

Luckily for him, he had two things going for him. The first was a friend whose special traits involved him transforming into powerful warriors, and the second was a staff member who just so happened to agree with him.

So, with Buzz watching over the battle between him and his friend Calvin, Trevor now had the opportunity to put his skills to the test. Of course, given that the Skyshifter had more experience compared to him, Buzz had to put some limitations on how he would fight, to make the match seem somewhat fair. Which was fine with him, because he only thought of one form that would fit the criteria of this fight.

Fast forward to what’s happening now, and Trevor was going toe to toe against a skeletal knight that Calvin had turned into. He couldn’t remember his name, but names meant nothing when your opponent was charging at you with weapons at the ready. For the last few minutes, he had called forth weapons he could conjure to deflect incoming attacks and tried to find openings to exploit.

Of course, that wasn’t quite easy. Even though Calvin claimed that he had not used this form before, he still found ways to somehow get the upper hand.

After about a few more minutes, a whistle was blown, as both fighters stopped in place. “Alright, that’s enough. Time’s up.”

The mabu’s voice had Calvin change back to his normal form, while Trevor dismissed the weapons he conjured. “So? How did we do?”

“Well, let me first start by saying that for your first real fight, what you demonstrated was rather impressive,” Buzz complimented him, “However, there still seems to be some room for improvement.”

At that, Trevor was puzzled, “Improvement? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean by that.”

Buzz couldn’t help but chuckle at that, “Don’t worry, it’s not that big of an issue. In fact, this is something that happens a lot with many students that come here. The skills you demonstrated today are rather impressive. Though, perhaps Calvin has the answer already.”

As he turned to his friend, Calvin nodded, “One of the things Buzz taught me, and pretty much every Skylander, is that repeating the same kind of attacks or strategies over and over again will lead to whoever you’re fighting to come up with ways to get around it. You might’ve noticed that, at one point, I was using my shield more to block your attacks first.”

“Exactly. By teaching our Skylanders to use different moves to use in battle, it allows for them to catch whoever they might be fighting by surprise,” Buzz tapped his cane and glanced over at a clock on a nearby wall, before looking over towards Trevor, “I had hoped to see if we can find a way to expand your arsenal. Unfortunately though, that’s all we’ll be able to do today.”

Now, both of them looked over at Buzz with a confused expression, “Really? It’s still a couple hours early.”

“That is true. Though, I have a meeting I need to attend that I can’t quite skip out on,” the mabu insisted, “I’m not sure how long it will be, and I would rather not have you just standing around and waiting for me to return. Though, perhaps this off time can help you think a bit more on what we’ve discussed today.”

With a simple wave, Buzz exited the training room and left both of them alone. After a moment of silence, it was interrupted by a new question from Trevor. “So, what now? I don’t think either of us expected for class to end early today.”

“Maybe we should just go back to the castle?” Calvin shrugged his shoulders, “I’m pretty sure there’s no other reason to stick around, unless Raquel’s here, and you want to wait for her.”

“I’m pretty sure she and I have lessons on different days,” Trevor replied, before he started to walk out of the training grounds, with the Skyshifter following behind him, “Whenever I’m here, she’s back with Twilight, and whenever I’m at the Castle, she happens to be here. Not entirely sure as to why that is though. If anything, I honestly thought that we would be doing this training thing together when we first agreed to this.”

Calvin understood a bit of what he meant. Though considering how much experience Buzz has as head of security, as well as his other occupation, there must’ve been some kind of reason for that. What that reason was, he had no idea, and it was probably better not to dwell on thinking about it too much.

As both of them walked out of the academy and into the expanse of the M.A.P, both of them ran into someone that they didn’t expect to find there, that being the same sibling that they had talked about only a few moments ago, “Oh, there you guys are.”

“Raquel?” Trevor asked, “What are you doing here?”

“I would ask you the same thing,” she replied, “Don’t you guys have class going on right now? Please tell me you’re not skipping out.”

Calvin was quick to shake his head as he looked back at her, “No, no! Buzz had a meeting he needed to attend, so class ended a bit earlier than normal today.”

For a moment, it looked like Raquel flinched a bit, and there was a glow from her eyes, before she let out a deep breath. “Okay, I guess that makes sense somehow,” then, she looked over at her brother, “As for why I’m here, let's just say that Twilight somehow brought a lot of house guests with her on a recent trip. Too many minds in one place and so many thoughts bouncing around is a recipe for the mother of all headaches.”

Both Trevor and Calvin glanced over at one another with confused expressions, before Trevor slowly looked over at his sister, “Did Twilight say that she was going to have people over today?”

“No, which is why this is kind of weird,” the Aberrant Mind shook her head, “There’s one other thing that also doesn’t make sense.”

“What would that be, Raquel?” the Skyshifter asked, now slightly curious as to what she was talking about. While it wasn’t uncommon for Twilight to have guests at her castle, the three of them would normally get some form of advanced warning before they would arrive.

“Well, I didn’t hear too much, but one thing I did hear was the mention of some names that were in those stories Discord told us about a couple of weeks ago. You know, the Pillars, or whatever they were called?”

Now, Calvin couldn’t help but feel as if something else was going on by how Raquel said that. Plus, considering that Twilight was specifically mentioned, it meant that things were either going well… or going rather poorly. “Maybe we should go check on her and make sure everything’s alright? I mean, it’s not like her to just forget to tell us anything, especially when she has guests coming over.”

While there was some hesitation from Raquel, both of the twins agreed with their friend, as the three of them proceeded to head to the doorway that led back to Equestria, unsure of what they would happen to find on the other side.

Out of all the possibilities of what Twilight thought was going to happen today, what had transpired today was not one of them.

It all started earlier in the week, when Sunburst showed them the supposedly lost journal of Starswirl the Bearded. Much of the entries matched many known historical records, but the last entry in the journal was written in a form of dialect that was rather difficult to decipher. Whenever some form of progress was made, there was a new obstacle in their path that made things a bit more difficult.

Fast forward several days, a visit to the site of Ponhedge and also a scavenger hunt to try and find all the relics that were associated with the Pillars of Old Equestria led to the discovery that they had sealed themselves away in Limbo. However, in their attempts to free them, they also freed the Pony of Shadows that they tried to lock away.

Originally, at Starswirl’s insistence, it was believed that the Pony of Shadows was a vengeful monster that had to be sealed away. However, that was farthest from the truth. In reality, the darkened monster was an entity that possessed Starswirl’s own apprentice, who wanted nothing more than just to help those that he saw as his friends. When the Pillars realized their mistake, they collaborated with Twilight and her friends to free Stygian and banish the darkness into limbo, where it belonged.

After all was said and done, each one of Twilight friends decided to try and show their heroes how much had changed over the last thousand years. Rainbow was probably showing Flash Magnus around Cloudsdale, Somnambula and Rockhoof were being given a ‘grand tour’ around Ponyville by Pinkie Pie and Applejack, Mage Meadowbrook was at Fluttershy’s cottage, and Rarity had invited Mistmane over to her boutique. As for Starswirl and his apprentice, the two of them were still at the castle, since both of them were rather exhausted after everything that had happened.

While it was beyond her wildest dreams to talk to the one pony that she idolized since she was a filly, the direction of the conversation was not quite one that Twilight prepared for. Despite having a stockpile of things to ask Starswirl, the Princess of Friendship didn’t quite have that many answers to the questions both Starswirl and Stygian had for her in return. There were even times where she didn’t even have a proper answer for some of their inquiries.

Fortunately, there was a moment where the inquiries from both of them had to be put on hold. Unfortunately though, that moment in particular was less than ideal.

“Excuse me for a moment, princess.”

Without any sort of reasoning, Starswirl left the table in a flash and teleported to the other side of the room. The sudden and abrupt departure confused both Twilight and Stygian, because up until that point, Starswirl had been rather relaxed. Now, he looked rather serious. “Uh, Stygian? Is something like this normal?”

“Not really,” Stygian shook his head, “Maybe he felt something that didn’t settle right?”

“Felt something? What do you mean?”

“Oh, right, uh…” he scratched the back of his head, “He kind of has this… thing where he could feel strange sources of magic that… shouldn’t be here. I can’t quite remember how he phrased it. If something doesn’t feel right, he goes to investigate-”

“Huh? Who’re you-? Hey!! What’s the big deal?!”

Immediately, Twilight knew whose voice was that. But before she could say anything, Starswirl returned back to the Cutie Map, while holding three familiar figures in a powerful levitation spell. All three of them were caught by surprise and did not look rather pleased by what was going on, “Forgive me, Princess Twilight, but I felt these intruders come in and-”

Before he had the chance to finish, the alicorn let out a small breath as she looked back at the wizard, “Starswirl, could you please let them down?”

Starswirl blinked at that, confused by the request, “Let them down-? Princess, they just entered the castle without warning. Are you certain they’re not threats?”

“I’m certain. In fact, if you let them go, I can explain everything,” Twilight nodded. Despite Starswirl being rather hesitant, he listened and followed through on her request. Shortly afterwards, the magic around the wizard's horn disappeared, and the spell was dropped… as well as all three of its captives, as they fell to the floor, “I was hoping to do these introductions later, but I guess now is a better time than any. Starswirl, Stygian, these three are some special guests that are staying at the Castle of Friendship. This is Calvin, Raquel and Trevor.”

“H-hi,” Calvin spoke up as he slowly got off of the floor and back onto his feet.

“T-they’re guests?” Starswirl asked, a bit baffled and caught off guard by what Twilight just said, “But the magic I felt wasn’t from Equestria though. How-?”

“Would that be because you felt these?” The question from Raquel was followed by her helping her brother get back on his feet, before pointing at the bracelet on her wrist and the pendant around Calvin’s neck. The sight of the wizard’s eyes widening was enough to tell her what she needed to know, as she looked back towards Twilight. “Thought so.”

“Huh? Raquel, what do you mean-?”

Before Twilight finished her question, she had an answer, “If I had to take a guess, even though we’re not using them at the minute, the fact that we have these means that he could tell they’re magical in nature.”

Even though her guess was correct, it did little to help with Starswirl’s dwindling patience, “Yes, but how does that relate to you coming into possession of such things? Such artifacts are rare to come by, and also dangerous-”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the voice of Stygian echoed as he got up from the table and trotted over next to where Calvin was standing, “But maybe we should hear their story first before we jump to conclusions? Any questions we might have could easily be answered if we listened to them first.”

The wizard didn’t seem to be rather open minded at first, but after a few moments, he straightened himself up and looked back towards Stygian with an expression of recognition and familiarity. “Very well then. Please, share with us your story.”

For the next few minutes, the three of them took turns recalling everything, to make sure no stone was left unturned. The conversation first started with explaining how they arrived and how long they’ve been around for, to bring both of the unicorns up to speed. Calvin went first, giving a brief summary of what life in Equestria had been for him over the last couple of months, before Raquel and Trevor shared their story of how trying to look for their friend led to them ending up here as well.

Then, each one of them explained that when they ended up displaced here, each one of them had something on them that allowed them to use a particular form of magic and why Starswirl was able to feel dormant magic from them. Raquel’s bracelet allowed her to use a mixture of both arcane and psychic based magic, Trevor’s band allowed his magic to take the form of weapons to use in battle, and Calvin’s pendant allowed for him to take the form of different creatures he called ‘Skylanders’ for a limited time.

Out of all three, Starswirl was most surprised by Calvin’s capabilities. Though, a look of familiarity also seemed to be on his face as he watched the Skyshifter showcase his abilities, like there was something he wanted to say that was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was.

“Does that help answer any questions you might have?”

Stygian looked a bit nervous as he tried to process everything, before looking to the wizard that stood next to him, “It did answer a few questions I had at least. What about you, Starswirl? Was there anything else you wanted to ask?”

“Well, there are always things to ask about,” he retorted in a knowingly manner, before looking over to the three non-equestrians in the room, “But with regards to this, I think it would be better to ask such things another time.”

The wizard looked back to the unicorn next to him, and both of them turned to head out towards the door. Though, before either of them could step outside, that was when Calvin interrupted, “Uh, c-can I ask you something before you go, please?”

Starswirl stopped, just before reaching the door as he turned back around. He didn’t seem to have an annoyed expression on his face, but one that almost seemed like he anticipated something like this. “Sure, I guess. What would you like to know?”

“Are you familiar with somebody named Eon?”

While the question was simple, Starswirl’s reaction was anything but that. There was a look of recognition, but also confusion on his face as he scratched his beard with a hoof. “Eon… that name’s familiar for some reason,” he pondered, before looking back at him, “Could you give me some time to think? We’ve all been through a lot today, and I think I’ll have a proper answer for you, once I've had the chance to rest my mind.”

Calvin, and by extension Twilight, both nodded their heads as the elderly wizard went through the door and stepped outside, leaving the three of them alone with Twilight as they looked back to the alicorn and sat down by the Cutie Map. “So, uh, what exactly happened while we were gone? Raquel said that you had a lot of guests earlier?”

“That’s a bit of a long sto-” the princess said, before she blinked in realization as her eyes drifted to a nearby clock on the wall, “Wait a minute. What are you doing back here so early? Are you skipping class?”

“Buzz had an important meeting, so he had class finish up earlier than normal today. Shortly after we left the academy, we ran into Raquel.”

Twilight looked back at both Trevor and Calvin with a raised eyebrow, before she looked over to Raquel. “They’re not lying, Twilight. I did run into them earlier and also checked their minds, to make sure they weren’t hiding anything.”

The princess felt a bit relieved to hear the reassurance from her, before looking towards each one of them. “So, for what happened today, it all started a few days ago, when Sunburst found the lost journal of Starswirl the Bearded.”

As time passed, Starswirl and the others learned much of what had changed since the day they sealed themselves in Limbo to keep the Pony of Shadows at bay. Small villages during their time had now become towns and cities, nations that were once at odds with Equestria were now allies, and even creatures that were believed to be beyond redemption like Discord and the changelings had changed their ways for the better.

Even with all that had happened today, a single thought still lingered in Starswirl’s mind. The name that the boy mentioned earlier, he could’ve sworn that he had heard that name once before in passing. But the question that still lingered was where did he hear it?

Then, a single thought came to mind. One that even he was uncertain about. “Wait. Did he mean… Ordo’s student?” The question was then followed by him shaking his head as he floated his hat on his desk and hung up his robe. “No, no, no. That can’t be right. Did he ever mention who his successor was?”

The wizard then let out a sigh. Now wasn’t quite the time for late night quandaries. After everything that happened today, rest was what he needed the most. But it was as he laid down to sleep, another question surfaced.

If this ‘Eon’ was the successor of his friend, how did a boy that he had met only a few hours earlier know about him?

The Following Morning

By the time that the light of the morning sun filled his windows, Calvin really wanted to just sleep in longer. Compared to most other days, where he had to be up early so he wouldn’t be late for class, the weekends were the only days that he didn’t have to be awake at the crack of dawn. From what he could remember, nothing important seemed to be going on today. So, maybe he could see if Apple Bloom and the Cutie Mark Crusaders wanted to do anything?

Unfortunately, any thoughts of what he wanted to do today changed the moment he heard a knock on the door. “Hey, uh, Calvin? Are you in there?”

The simple question from the dragon that was outside his door was enough to leave him wide awake and staring at the ceiling. He didn’t say anything at first, but after a good minute or so, he rolled out of the bed and went to the door with his PJ’s still on and his hair being a curled mess. “Good morning, Spike.”

“Oh, uh,” Spike nervously looked from side to side, “D-did I interrupt something?”

While the answer in Calvin’s mind was definitely a yes, he refrained himself from saying it out loud. “N-not really. I’m at least awake right now. Is there something you need?”

“Well, I was going to start with breakfast soon. Since Twilight’s not up, I thought I’d ask if you wanted to help. But, I can wait a bit if-”

The Skyshifter shook his head, before giving Spike a soft smile. “Of course I’ll help. Just give me a second for me to change clothes, and I’ll join you.”

The young dragon nodded, before scurrying back down the stairs as Calvin took a couple of moments to get himself ready, just to brush out his hair, change into some more suitable clothes and so on. Though, it was as he was about to descend down the stairs that he heard a knock at the door, not to any of the doors in the guest wing, but at the front door to the castle itself. It was something that Calvin only noticed when he reached the bottom of the stairs, seeing Spike standing there and staring at whoever or whatever was on the other side.

“Spike? Is everything okay over there?”

“Uh, Calvin,” the dragon slowly turned around, looking back at him, “There’s somepony at the door that wants to see you.”

“Huh? Who would-” The moment that he looked past the dragon to see who was on the other side, the question that he was going to ask was answered almost immediately. The pony that was at the front door was none other than the wizard that he and the twins just so happened to have ‘met’ yesterday, the pony that Twilight called ‘Starswirl’.

“Good morning,” the wizard greeted both of them, tilting his hat with a simple spell, “May I come in?”

“S-sure,” the Skyshifter nervously replied, looking over to Spike briefly before both of them moved to the sides of the doorway, to allow Starswirl to trot inside, “Um, Mr. Starswirl? What brings you here?”

“Please, Starswirl is just fine,” he insisted, glancing over at both Spike and Calvin, before trotting towards the Cutie Map, “As for why I am here, I did say yesterday that once I had the chance to rest, I might have the answer to the question you posed to me. So, I came here as soon as I could to discuss it. Unless, right now is an inconvenient time for you?”

To Calvin, it did surely feel that way. Only a few minutes ago did he promise to help Spike with preparing breakfast. Now, a famously renowned wizard that Twilight saved with her friends just yesterday happened to show up on the doorstep of the castle. Not only that, but he was here to pick up on the conservation they were having just the other day and to possibly provide an answer to the question Calvin left for him.

Not a really convenient position to be in, if he had anything to say about it. “I-”

“We were going to start on breakfast,” Spike interjected, “But if this is important, then I guess I can hold off a moment and wait until-”

“Spike, there’s no need for that. I’m sure that there’s still some way that I can help,” he replied while looking back towards the dragon.

“Well, if you’re certain about that,” Spike insisted, before opening the door to a cabinet in the kitchen. As he was talking, the dragon brought out a stack of plates, as well as some silverware, “Then, how about you help with getting the table set up? Shouldn’t be too difficult of a thing to do.”

“Thanks, Spike,” he smiled, before taking some of the plates into his hands as he started to bring them over. Once they were set on the table and he started to put them in place, Calvin looked back over to Starswirl, “I kind of promised that I would help him this morning. So, I didn’t want to go back on my word.”

“Understandable,” Starswirl nodded, before he took a moment to clear his throat, “Now, before I go any further, there’s something I want to ask you, if you don’t mind?”

The question came off as a bit of a surprise for him. Honestly, Calvin thought that Starswirl was directly going to provide the answer right away. Though, it didn’t seem like too much of an issue. After all, he had no idea what the wizard was going to ask him. “Sure, what is it?”

“The name you mentioned yesterday. Eon, I believe it was. How do you know them?”

The Skyshifter paused for a moment, gently setting down another plate before he looked at the wizard, “Well, that’s… a bit of a tough one to answer. The best way I could describe him is that he’s like a mentor to not just me, but many others in a place called the Skylands. He’s a Portal Master that taught me about my necklace, what I can do with it and a few other things. He also seemed to know about you.”

“Really?” the wizard asked, his curiosity piqued a bit, “How so?”

“If I remember correctly, Eon found a journal from his predecessor, and when he read it, there were entries about you in it: How you were Celestia’s teacher, and that, after something happened between her and Luna, you wanted to say something to her, but couldn’t find the right words,” he tried his best to recall from memory as he placed a few more plates down, “I-If I may though, how… does that relate to the question I asked yesterday?”

The wizard took a moment to adjust his hat and robes, before he pulled out what looked like an old piece of paper from a pocket in his robes. “Did he look like this?”

On the paper was a sketch of a tall human-like figure who looked almost like Eon. The robes, helmet and staff that he carried were exactly the same. However, the only thing that was different was that his beard was wider in length and thickness compared to the shorter beard that he remembered on Eon.

“Almost, but not quite. Why?”

It was as Starswirl folded up the paper and put it back in his robes that he began to explain everything. “Because that was someone else I happened to know a long time ago. His name was Ordo, and he had the same title as this ‘Eon’ that you described to me. Master Ordo, he called himself. If I remember correctly, he told me once that he had an apprentice that sounded a lot like Celestia, when she was under my tutelage.”

That almost had Calvin lose his grip on the dishes that he was setting on the table. If what Starswirl was saying was true, then the ‘apprentice’ he spoke of was Eon. “Huh, I see. So, how did you and Ordo meet?”

“Well, Ordo himself would say that it was fate that had me land in his sanctum. I, however, say otherwise,” the wizard said, “Working with various powerful magics in enclosed spaces tends to not go so well when things don’t go the way you think they would.”

“So, it was an accident?”

“I prefer miscalculation, but yes,” Starswirl corrected, “It did not take too long for Ordo to help me return to Equestria. But, in the short time there, the conversations we had were… very intriguing. Despite this ‘Skylands’ and Equestria being vastly different from one another, there were certain similarities that couldn’t exactly be ignored. So much so that, after coming back to Equestria, I managed to stay in contact with him and asked for his assistance in a research project based on the similarities I mentioned earlier.”

At that point, Calvin had finished setting down the plates and now was placing the utensils on the table. “I-If I may, what… were these similarities? I don’t think I quite heard that.”

“Oh, my apologies. Almost left out that detail,” the wizard backtracked a bit, “What we noticed was that, out of almost everything that would make the Skylands and Equestria different, there were two elements that were almost the same, those being what we called the Elements of Order and Chaos.”

Mere seconds after that was mentioned, a different voice happened to echo in the map room, a voice that was recognizable to both of them. “Really now? You were doing a project on chaos back in the day and didn’t even bother to ask me about it? That’s rather hurtful, Swirly.”

Starswirl didn’t even flinch at the voice. In fact, the wizard just rolled his eyes and let out a deep breath. “Oh, here we go.”

As if he had been here the whole time, Discord suddenly manifested himself behind the chair that the wizard was nearby as he looked back at him. “Now, if this were about any other subject, then I honestly would not be too concerned about it. However, chaos and anything with it is my field of expertise. Why wouldn’t you want to seek out my professional opinion on a subject such as this?”

Of course, Starswirl was not having any of the draconequus’ shenanigans this morning. “For your information, when we were doing this project, it was months after you became the stone centerpiece of Celestia’s Garden. Freeing you just so you can answer a few questions would have more risks than benefits, especially since you weren’t so honest compared to how you are now.”

Discord folded his arms, not too amused by the choice of words the wizard had said, “So, what sort of second-hand sources did you rely on then?”

“Why does it really matter?” Starswirl then retorted, “That project’s never going to be finished anyways.”

The last remark from the wizard caught Calvin’s attention as he finished setting up the table and looked back towards Starswirl, “If I may, why is it never going to be finished?”

“Well, just as we were getting to the point that we could’ve had a breakthrough, I was called away, along with the rest of the Pillars, by Stygian,” he sighed, looking at both Discord and Calvin this time. “Both of you might already have an idea as to what came next. Not only that, but when I went back to my old study the other night, most of the journals that were originally there were no longer present. Celestia told me that some of them had been put in the restricted section of the Canterlot Library, for safe keeping. But not everything’s there, I’m sure of it.”

When the Skyshifter looked over towards the draconequus, he watched as a look of realization dawned on his face. “Yeah, about that-”

The moment he heard those words, Starswirl looked far from pleased, as he narrowed his gaze at Discord, “What did you do?”

“Okay, but you can’t be mad at me.”

“What did you do?”

“So, for context,” Discord clarified, holding up a single digit of his paw to try and get a moment to speak, “This happened shortly after somepony, who ended up getting reformed by Princess Twilight later, tried to use your time travel spell for some revenge plot-”

“They tried what?!”

“SO, in order to try to avoid something like this from happening again, I took some of your more dangerous works and put them in a place that only you would know about. If I had to take a guess, if the journal that has the notes from this project isn't in your study or in the restricted section of the library, then it would be there.”

At first, it didn’t look like Starswirl had any idea what the draconequus was talking about. As Calvin watched, it looked like he was trying to mentally put together pieces of a complex puzzle that Discord put in front of him. “Uh, Discord-?”

“Wait for it.”

Then, as if a lightning bolt had struck outside, the wizard immediately came to a conclusion and stared directly at Discord. “You didn’t-”

The Spirit of Chaos smiled, “See? I told you that it would be a place that only you would know about.”

“You put some of my belongings in your library, of all places?!”

Starswirl’s outburst was enough to even have Spike stop cooking as both he and Calvin looked over at Discord, “Wait a minute, you have a library?”

The Spirit of Chaos slowly turned his attention over to both of them, “Why, yes, I do. Why do you think it’s so strange for me to have a place to curl up and read? You live with a princess that’s also a full time bookworm.”

Immediately, Starswirl was quick to cut back into the conversation, “That place is anything but a library!”

“How would you know that, Swirly?” Discord asked, playfully messing with the wizard's hat before turning to face him, “Have you ever been inside?”

“Well, no,” the wizard said, “But I have been observing it. Ever since you were originally sealed in stone by the sisters, your library has been behaving like it has a mind of its own! It’s one of the most unsolved phenomena in Equestrian history, for Celestia’s sake!”

At that point, before either Discord or Starswirl could go any further, Calvin decided to speak up and ask a question, “Uh, some of us don’t quite get what you two are talking about. C-can we please get an explanation?”

Not missing a beat, Starswirl straightened up his coat and hat before looking back to him, “The Library of Discord, as I mentioned, is self explanatory as to what it is. However, because of the magical nature of such a place, it always spontaneously disappears without warning and manifests in a new location in Equestria every one hundred years.”

“So, because of that, nobody knows what’s actually inside?”

“That’s right,” the wizard nodded, before his eyes shifted over to the draconequus in the room, “Except for one particular individual. However, I doubt he’s rather keen on ‘spoiling’ anything, as he would put it.”

Discord gave off a small chuckle at that, as he comfortably sat himself down in one of the chairs around the Cutie Map. “Oh, you know me too well, Swirly. It feels just like old times.”

Before Starswirl even had the chance to say anything, someone else spoke up. This time, it came from the stairwell, as everyone looked to see none other than Starlight Glimmer trotting down the stairs. “U-uh, good morning, everypony-” she greeted, before realizing that both Discord and Starswirl the Bearded were present by the Cutie Map, “Am I… interrupting something?”

“Apparently, Discord put some of Starswirl’s stuff in his library, and he’s not happy about it.”

That had the unicorn blink for a moment, stunned by what Calvin tried to summarize for her. She wanted to ask for clarification, but before she could, Spike called out from the kitchen. “Hey, uh, I hate to interrupt, but breakfast is done, and I don’t think any of us want cold pancakes. Maybe we could talk about this while we eat?”

The question was answered by both Discord and Starswirl responding at the exact same time. “Yes, please.”

By the time that she had finished breakfast this morning, Starlight was half expecting for the Cutie Map to light up, because the more that she listened to Discord and Starswirl speak to one another, the more that it sounded like it was going to escalate and turn into a Friendship Problem at any moment.

It started off simple, with Starswirl stopping by to answer a question that Calvin had asked him the other day. However, the moment that ‘chaos’ was mentioned, it quickly began to go off the rails, once Discord got himself involved. Now, she wasn’t even sure if what they were talking about was remotely related to the question that Calvin asked Starswirl.

Still, the only way that it seemed that she could steer the conversation back on course was by trying to speak up. “So, uh, can I ask something? I-I know you two are busy with your conversations, but I feel that there’s something I’m missing.”

Both Discord and Starswirl paused, their attention shifting from one another over to her, “What sort of thing?”

“What exactly was the thing that Discord ‘moved’ again?” she asked, shifting her gaze to the draconequus, “Calvin said it was a project on something, before Discord… well-”

“Arrived?”

“Yes, that.”

The wizard sounded a bit relieved to actually hear her question. If anything, it was probably safe to assume that he’d rather answer a question from somepony else, if the alternative was being in a constant argument with Discord. “Well, to summarize, the purpose of our research was to try and expand further on something Ordo mentioned, when we originally talked about magic.”

“What kind of something?” Spike asked. With the times that he had traveled with Calvin over to the Skylands, it was hard to think that there were similarities between what was over there and what was in Equestria. If anything, both places just seemed vastly different.

“Well, oddly enough, this happened to involve what he called the Elements of Order and Chaos,” Starswirl explained, glancing over at Discord briefly before his gaze returned back to them, “To be completely honest, I didn’t exactly believe it at first. Though, the more that we talked about it, the more that I noticed certain parallels.”

“Parallels? With my chaos?” Discord questioned, before manifesting what looked like a pipe in his paw as he blew what looked like chewing gum bubbles out of it, “Oh, Swirly. You originally had my curiosity, but now, you have my attention. Please, go on.”

The wizard groaned, but let out a sigh as he continued, at the draconequus’ insistence. “Well, the Element of Chaos that Ordo was familiar with may be seen by you as a mockery of your capabilities,” he said, motioning to the pipe that Discord was holding, “The chaos he knows is the mimicry of other forms of power that are channeled outward into different forms of energy.”

That had Discord throw the pipe behind him, before it blew up in a puff of smoke, “So, it’s just a cheap imitation? Now, that’s just disappointing.”

Now, Calvin was confused. Given that he had witnessed Kaos use his powers several times before, he’d thought that the Spirit of Chaos would react much differently when talking about something that was his particular specialty. “Huh? Why’s that?”

“The best way to explain it is that my power is chaos in general. Since chaos affects all things, my power is rather expansive in regards to the things I could do,” Discord explained, “What Swirly just described to me sounds like a very limited version of that same chaos. Only being allowed to do certain things, but not everything that chaos is supposed to be.”

“So, almost the same thing… but not quite?”

Discord shook his head, “The best way I can explain it is that this ‘Element’ is the idea of ‘Profound cosmic POWER!’ squeezed into a itty bitty little space. You can do it, but it severely restricts what you are capable of. Like, if you take up painting as a hobby, but you force yourself to only paint one thing over and over again.”

The more that they continued to discuss this, the more that Calvin began to realize something. This element they were discussing sounds eerily similar to the magic that Kaos can use. Though, it was very unlikely that Kaos was around thousands of years ago. So, that meant there could’ve been only one other possibility.

“Starswirl, if I may, did Ordo know of anyone who used the Element of Chaos back then?”

The wizard’s gaze was fixed to him, before he let out a low and deep sigh. “There was one particular sorceress who was able to wield such chaotic magic back then. Her name was Aris, and to put it bluntly, she hated Ordo with a passion.”

“W-why was that?” Spike asked.

“Both of them were complete opposites, not just in magic, but in personality,” As Starswirl was speaking, he pulled out the same piece of paper that had the picture of Ordo on it. Then, a second piece of paper was placed, depicting a woman with very little hair and a familiar image of six small triangular shapes in a ring as a mark on her hands, “Ordo wanted to maintain balance and greatly cared for those that were under his protection. Aris, on the other hoof, cared little for such things. All she wanted was to use her powers without any shackles, not even caring for the damage it would bring or who she would end up hurting.”

The wizard then looked over to Calvin, “Is there a particular reason why you asked?”

“Well, that’s a bit of a long story. But to start,” as he was speaking, Calvin pointed towards the picture of Aris: more specifically, the markings on her hands, “There’s a… let’s call him a bad guy for now, who has the same kind of magic we’ve been talking about. Not only that, but he’s called Kaos and has this mark on his forehead.”

To say that Starswirl was caught off guard was a bit of an understatement. If anything, he looked as if somepony pulled out the chair that he was sitting on. The more he listened to Calvin speak about him and what he’d been up to, the more that the wizard grew concerned.

Before he had the chance to say anything though, that’s when something odd happened.

“Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be right back,” Discord apologized, before quickly snapping his talon and disappearing from the Map Room.

“Uh… where is he going?” Spike asked. The question was followed by Calvin and Starlight shrugging their shoulders, while Starswirl just deeply sighed.

“Knowing him, I doubt it’s anything serious-”

As soon as Starswirl said that, the Draconequus came back immediately, “I hate to stop our current conversation, but something serious has come up.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Ironically enough, it involves my library,” he said, “A couple of visitors were felt in the proximity of my library, and when I happened to see them, they were definitely not friendly. I tried to apprehend them, but they were able to slip through my grasp, and-.”

“What do you mean by ‘not friendly’?”

“Well, they don’t look like they’re from Equestria, that’s for sure. They had weapons on their person and also looked like that one creature that Calvin can change into. You know, with the green skin and pointy ears?”

Immediately, that had a chill run down Calvin’s spine, as he recognized what Discord was talking about right away. “Oh, that’s not good.”

“I fail to see what makes this concerning-”

Before the wizard could finish, the Skyshifter interjected as he turned towards them, “The creatures that Discord is talking about are Drow elves, many of which serve as minions to Kaos, the one that I told you about earlier. If they’re here in Equestria and sneaking around the entrance to Discord’s library of all places…”

Then, everything clicked into place. “Then, they would want to take what’s inside,” In an instant, Starswirl rose from his chair and immediately looked towards the door, “If those thieves think they can steal my research, then-!!”

“Uh, Swirly? Where do you think you’re going?”

“Well, to your library, obviously-” the wizard was going to say more, before remembering something he said not that long ago as he stopped, “Oh. Right.”

The Spirit of Chaos couldn’t help but smirk as he folded his arms and looked back at him, “You said it yourself. Every hundred years, it manifests in a new location. Fortunately, not only do I happen to know where that location is, but I also am not a fan of creatures wandering around my library and acting like they own the place.”

As he was speaking, Discord then extended a lion paw to Starswirl, as if expecting a handshake, “So, how about this once, we set aside any grudges we have with each other for the moment and try to handle this problem together?”

The wizard’s eyes narrowed as he looked back at the draconequus. Personally, Starswirl didn’t like this and doubted that Discord was being completely truthful with him. However, without his assistance, trying to find the library on his own would be next to impossible. Unless he wanted to search every nook and cranny across the entire realm, and there was no telling how much time that would take.

“Grr… fine,” he begrudgingly replied, “We’ll work together, but on one condition.”

Discord couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as he looked back at Starswirl, “What’s the condition?”

“We have somepony else come along, to make sure that you’re true to your word. Even though you say that you’re reformed, I’ve yet to see that for myself.”

Now, the Spirit of Chaos couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Funny you say that,” he said, before briefly glancing over at Calvin, “Because I was going to ask for Calvin to join us anyways. Compared to the two of us, he has a better understanding of who we may be dealing with, especially if these crooks work for this Kaos fellow.”

“Wait, what?” Calvin briefly said, realizing that he was now getting dragged into this conversation by Discord. “Are you sure about that?”

It did not help that shortly after he asked that, Starswirl’s attention was now focused on him, “Normally, I wouldn’t be so keen on dragging others into situations like this. But, even though I hate to admit it, Discord makes a valid point.”

“Don’t I always?”

The wizard let out a low groan, before picking up where he left off. “If those thieves are able to take anything out of that library back to their master, then I can guarantee that only trouble will follow suit. With your help, we can ensure that doesn’t come to pass. So, can we count on you?”

At that point, Calvin found it rather difficult to say no. Not only that, but if he didn’t do anything, then Kaos may end up finding something he could use to cause trouble in both the Skylands and Equestria. “Y-yeah, uh, hold on a second,” Calvin said, before he glanced over at Starlight and Spike, “Could you-?”

“Don’t worry about anything,” the dragon reassured him, “If anybody asks, we’ll fill them in.”

Slowly, the Skyshifter nodded and thanked them, before he turned back towards Starswirl and Discord. “Okay, I guess I’m ready. Though, where exactly are we-?”

Not a moment later, a single snap was heard, as all three of them vanished within an instant, as Starlight and Spike were left by themselves in the middle of the map chamber. Though, the silence that followed didn’t quite last too long, as they heard a series of hoofsteps reaching the bottom of the stairs.

“Good morning,” the sound of Twilight’s voice had a slight shiver go down their spines, as she looked around the map room, “Oh, you made breakfast already?”

“W-we were in the process of it,” Starlight nervously replied, while Spike scurried back into the kitchen.

“Oh, okay then,” the alicorn said, “I’m going to try and organize some things in my study. Can you call me when the food's ready?”

“Sure, we can do that.”

For a moment, the princess just smiled and walked down the hall, as Starlight just looked back over at the dragon in the kitchen. However, Twilight returned a bit sooner than expected, with a different question to ask them.

“Oh, by the way, have either of you seen Calvin this morning? I went to check on him, but his room was empty. Did he have something going on today?”

Elsewhere…

Before Calvin even had the chance to finish the question that he was asking, he found himself landing roughly on the ground underneath him. In all fairness, he should’ve expected something like this from Discord. However, the Skyshifter honestly thought that the draconequus would tell both him and Starswirl where they were going before they left.

Instead, Discord took more of a direct approach. While it was effective to an extent, Starswirl had some choice words for him. “Did you have to be so abrupt about that?”

“What? I thought you were the one that seemed eager to get this done quickly, with how fast you wanted to leave the castle,” the draconequus shrugged, “Sheesh, and this is what I get for trying to be helpful.”

By that point, Calvin was able to brush the dirt off his clothes and take in his surroundings. Unlike the crystalline confines of Twilight’s castle, where they happened to be now looked a lot more like a dense jungle. Various trees and plants bloomed around them, and the environment was a lot more colorful, compared to that of the Everfree Forest. As he tried to move some of the foliage away, he found the edge of a giant cliff in front of him, as the forest extended into grassy hillsides.

Further ahead, there looked to be a city of some kind. Strangely enough, each one of the buildings looked like the furniture pieces that cats would use as scratching posts, from this distance. He couldn’t even tell if anyone actually lived there, either.

“Uh, Discord?” he now asked, “Where exactly are we?”

At the question, Discord and Starswirl looked back towards where he was and walked over to see what he was seeing, the sight of which had the draconequus smirk. “Well, what do you know? That’s the kingdom of Abyssinia.”

“Abyssinia?” Starswirl asked, baffled by what he said, “You mean on the other side of the Celestial Sea? That Abyssinia?!”

“What? You didn’t think that my library would just confine itself to only Equestria now, did you?” As he asked that, a loud whirring noise was heard, as wind began to pick up all around them. Right above their heads, several flying vessels started to make their way towards the kingdom, bearing the symbol of what looked like a two pronged spearhead on its sides, “Though, I don’t quite remember that being there the last time I visited.”

The wizard then looked towards Calvin, “Does this look like something that Kaos would use?”

“He would have an airship,” he remarked, “But his ship would be a lot more obvious than whatever that is. He kind of has a knack for going all out with presentation.”

“Perhaps that’s something we can ponder on later?” Discord suggested, “We still have thieves to catch. Now, if you would follow me, please.”

At his insistence, Starswirl and Calvin started to follow him. At first, the two of them weren’t sure where Discord was leading them exactly. Though, after a few moments, they were greeted by a giant structure that looked to be hidden away in the dense foliage of the jungle. In fact, because of its sheer size and appearance, it wouldn’t be a surprise to have people mistake it for some kind of observatory, with doors that were half as tall as the ones leading into the castle in Canterlot.

“This is the library?” Starswirl asked, “It looks… different from what I last remember.”

“Well, let’s just say that you’re part of the reason for that,” the draconequus replied, just as he manifested what looked like a lock in his hand and one of his talons shifted to resemble that of a key with the word ‘King’ emblazoned on it.

Starswirl blinked at the comment and was going to say something. Though, as he was about to do so, an audible click was heard from the lock, as it released. Once this was done, Discord opened one of the doors and motioned for the other two to come inside. “After you.”

Both of them had completely different reactions to the gesture. Starswirl was hesitant, unsure if the Chaos Spirit was being genuine or not. Calvin, on the other hand, did the exact opposite and just walked right inside. In his mind, this place was probably just a library like the one in Twilight’s castle or the academy. It couldn’t be that hard to find what they were looking for.

Immediately, as the Skyshifter stepped into the main hall, he was proven wrong. Unlike the other libraries he had visited, two major things stood out. First and foremost, the bookcases that held everything were massive. From where he stood, the shelves looked as if they were as tall as some of the mountain ranges in Equestria, perhaps even as tall as the mountain that held Canterlot.

The second thing was that, unlike the well organized archives Calvin had seen in other places, this library was a disorganized mess. Some things were on the shelves, but many books and loose papers were scattered all over the floor. He couldn’t even see the floor, since the pages were everywhere he looked.

“Geez, when was the last time that Discord cleaned this place?” he thought as Calvin tried to navigate his way through the numerous piles of books and paper. He could hear Discord and Starswirl not that far behind, but he couldn’t quite tell the expression that was on the wizard’s face. It looked like awe and wonder, mixed with utter disgust at the state of the room around him.

He couldn’t quite tell what exactly they were talking about from this far away, but Calvin wasn’t quite paying attention to them, for he happened to notice something else that was among the mess that was on the floor. In the back corner, there happened to be a hallway leading out with another room in front of him and also a direction to the right. The room in front of him was filled with… feathers for some reason, and when he looked down to the right, he happened to find a spiral staircase…

…and a room with books that just so happened to have ink flowing out like water. “Uh… Discord? Where are we?”

When the draconequus peaked out of the room, he immediately had a look of recognition on his face. “Oh, right. I should’ve mentioned that.”

“Mentioned what?” Starswirl now asked, his attention focused on him.

“We’re not exactly in the entrance to the library. This is what’s underneath it,” Discord then shrugged, “My non-reformed self sort of took inspiration from the many trap doors and pranks from the old castle in the Everfree and used that as a defense system for the upper levels. If they do happen to find their way in, it would be a heck of a time trying to go through everything up top.”

While his words sounded reassuring, Calvin didn’t want to think it was done for. Besides, Kaos happens to have the habit of being just one step ahead of anyone trying to pursue him or prevent them from taking something he wants. “Discord, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Are there any floors farther down besides this one?”

The draconequus scratched his chin at that, thinking for a moment as something began to surface in his head, “Well, there is one particular one farther down. But why-?”

“If I happen to know Kaos as well as I think I do, then he’s not the kind of person that would take his time trying to solve puzzles,” the Skyshifter attempted to reason with him, looking down another hallway to his right as he stood next to the spiral staircase, “If anything, he’d be more like the kind of person that tries to either brute force his way past obstacles or avoid them entirely.”

At that, both of them seemed rather concerned. Though, it was Starswirl that was the first to speak on it, “So, you’re saying that there’s a possibility that this Kaos is right now underneath our hooves, and we don’t know it?”

“Maybe,” Calvin said, before looking back down the hall, “Either way, I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave it to chance.”

“Well, if you want to go down there and make sure, then I’m not stopping you,” Discord replied back, “However, if you do happen to find yourself in trouble, there’s one thing I’d like to request from you.”

“What is it?”

“Well, having seen you in action, I know that some of your strongest forms allow you to control fire,” the draconequus said, taking a second to bite his lower lip before he continued, “However, if you do happen to find yourself having to fight, please refrain from using anything related to fire. The library is old and many of the things still down there, including what we’re looking for, are rather flammable. It would be a shame to have what we’re looking for go up in smoke, after coming all this way.”

Despite his hesitancy on the suggestion, Discord did make a valid point. Though, trying to figure out what to use instead would be a matter that he’d have to worry about later. “I can do that. Now, where should I go?”

“Head down the hall on your right and keep going. When you see something that looks like an hourglass, take a left. You’ll find the way down over there.”

Shortly after the chaos spirit finished, Calvin followed his instructions and began to move. Even though this place had a number of oddities that looked out of place, learning more about them would have to wait. To waste any time now would be like giving Kaos what he wanted. So, he needed to hurry, as quickly as possible.

When he did reach the end of the hall though, there was a slight snag. Even though there was a way down, there wasn’t exactly a stairwell, for the only thing he could see was an extensively long shelf, like in the first room he entered. The only difference was that it was heading down, instead of up, and he couldn’t see the bottom.

“Well, I guess getting down safely is out of the picture,” he thought. While there were ladders along the edge of the bookcase, none of them went all the way down. So, there was only one potential idea for what he could do. Though, the only problem was that he never tried anything like this before.

Back at the academy, he remembered a particular Skylander that was a friend and teammate of Spitfire. Her name was Stormblade, and from what he could remember, she enjoyed being a daredevil. In fact, when she wasn’t on duty, she would sometimes pull off aerial stunts and dive deep into the sky, as far as she could go. Since time was of the essence, something like that would be what he needed right now.

Taking in a deep breath, Calvin backed away as far as he could from the edge. Then, he sprinted towards it and jumped, his necklace glowing as the air began to pick up around him, “Feather the Storm!”

Once the transformation was complete, the Skyshifter did an immediate dive towards the bottom. Various books and the shelves that held them became a blur the faster and farther he descended into the dark unknown. There was no telling what awaited him down there, but as long as he reached the bottom, everything should be fine.

However, at one point, something flew past him that caused him to stop his descent. “Woah-!”

At first glance, he honestly thought that it was some kind of projectile attack aimed at him. Yet, as he looked behind him, he saw something different. It was a bird made out of paper, but it acted like it was alive… and it was focused on him.

“Um… hi?”

Less than a few moments later, the bird emitted an outward cry. No less than a few seconds later, papers from the nearby shelf began to float out and fold themselves into airplanes. First, there were only two of them. Then, there were eight and more were continuing to take form. All of them being focused on him.

“Okay, that’s bad. Time to go!”

The moment he took off to make his way back down to the bottom, a whole swarm of paper airplanes and birds started to pursue after him. At one point, Calvin tried to throw a few feather blades to slow them down. Yet, even if he was able to hit something, it did little to push them back.

The only thing he could do was to try and get as far away from it as he could, and the Skyshifter had no idea how far down this would go.

It was as he was thinking this through that he happened to see something flicker farther down, from two forms of light that were small, but steadily grew as he continued to dive deeper and closer to it. As he continued to glide down, the glimmer he saw started to come into focus, as two burning blue torches were set by a giant wooden door as the ground floor got closer. At first, Calvin was only thinking about trying to get to the door as quickly as possible, before the paper creatures would catch him.

Then, he remembered something that Discord specifically told him not too long ago.

“-please refrain from using anything related to fire. The library is old, and many of the things still down there, including what we’re looking for, are rather flammable.”

That alone was enough to spark an idea. If he could reach the torches, then perhaps whatever these things were would stop chasing him. Since these beings were made of paper, it was more than likely that they might have a fear of fire.

“Well, only one way to know for sure!”

As soon as his feet touched the ground, the Skyshifter bolted straight for the door. With every step he took, he could hear his pursuers getting closer and closer. Even as his transformation gave way, Calvin continued to run as fast as he could and not look behind him. All that mattered was reaching the doors and getting inside.

Upon reaching the door, the noise that was very close to him began to back off. As he slowly turned around, he saw that the light of the torches and the crackling fire was keeping them away. Calvin wasn’t quite sure how exactly this was working, and honestly, he didn’t quite care. If it was enough to keep them away for a brief moment, then that was good.

Yet, when he got closer to the door, something didn’t feel right. Instead of some form of lock or something that blocked the door, it opened without any issues. He didn’t know if this was because Discord had it this way and was too lazy to lock it up, or because someone else was already here. Either way, Calvin wasn’t too comfortable with this, as he slowly made his way further in.

Behind the door was a room that had some similarities to the first one, but a few noticeable differences. For one thing, even though there were still papers on the floor, the room was a lot larger in size. Instead of shelves that reached up all the way into the ceiling, there were circular ones that curved along most of the walls and a giant table in the center. The books on the walls looked to be covered in dust, and no one else seemed to be around.

It was quiet and peaceful. However, something felt very off about this place.

Like, despite everything that he was seeing in front of him, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. It felt unnatural, as if something was right behind him, that he couldn’t see.

“Okay, let’s just stay calm and keep an eye out. Who knows where he might be?” he thought to himself, slowly approaching the table. The books on the table were not as dusty, compared to what he was seeing on the walls, so he assumed that they happened to have been more recent additions to this collection down here.

Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to take a look. If he was lucky, this might point him in the right direction.

As Calvin inspected each of the books, he saw that the covers for each one did not exactly have words on the front of them. Instead, each one had a specific picture or symbol on the front. At first, the symbol’s didn’t quite make sense and seemed a bit random.

It was only after he looked beyond the cover of each book and at the titles did each one start to make some manner of sense. A book with a five pointed star on it was one that focused on astrology and constellations. Three of the books with a different sized swirl on the front discussed basic magic at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Another book with a burning torch and a crown on the front was a guide on how to identify items with magical properties and so on.

The common similarity with each book he read was the author; Starswirl, the Bearded.

“Well, that’s a good sign, at least,” he thought to himself, setting a few books to one side of the table and looking towards what happened to be left. Although, despite everything that was there, it was what was hidden underneath that really got his attention. Compared to the hardcover textbooks that were already there, there was one that looked more like a small sized diary, that didn’t have any discernible markings on the front.

So, to be absolutely certain this was it, he opened to the first page and started to read.

Knowledge of the unknown is always something that will elude anypony, no matter how many try to understand or make sense of it. Threads of what we do happen to know lead to more questions than the elusive answer we’re trying to find. Though, as of this moment, I happen to find myself in the rarest of unforeseen circumstances, as well as blessed with an opportunity to bring understanding to a subject that had eluded many arcane scholars for decades.

With this in mind, this record will be used to contain information regarding a collaborative research project with a newfound friend, Ordo, into the nature of Order and Chaos. Two complete opposites, given form here in this place I found myself in. It is my hope that this project will bear fruit, to help understand the nature of these fundamental forces more clearly.

While the nature of the subject is not the same compared to the chaos magic used by Discord, back in Equestria, there happens to be parallels between them that I couldn’t just overlook. So, it is my hope that-

Before he could read any further, the Skyshifter felt a cold presence linger in the air around him. The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up on end, and he carefully turned around, back towards where he came in. “Who’s there-?”

In the blink of an eye, the doors burst open, as a flood of books and papers immediately began to spill out into the room. The Skyshifter had mere moments to get out of the way, as the table and what was on it ended up getting swallowed by the massive collection. Calvin was lucky that he didn’t get crushed by the oncoming avalanche, but now, he had to find a new way to get back to Discord and Starswirl.

To make matters even harder for him, he soon realized that he wasn’t alone.

“GLUMSHANKS!!”

“Oh no,” the Skyshifter thought, watching as a pair of robed arms attempted to pull themselves above the surface of the books, with little success. He knew who that voice belonged to, and it was the last person he wanted to run into down here.

“I-I’m here, Master!” another voice was heard, followed by a familiar Troll emerging from the book flood and trying to pull the Dark Portal Master he served out of the mess. Yet, instead of any sign of thanks, Glumshanks instead received an earful from his master.

“You IMBECILE! Why didn’t you warn me that something like this would happen?!”

“S-sir, I tried. B-but you wanted to speed things up and-”

“And because you interrupted my concentration, what we came here to find is now buried under everything else in this mess!!” the Dark Portal Master snapped in frustration, “Sombra told us that this place would have knowledge that would be of use to us, and I am NOT leaving here empty handed!”

That alone revealed enough for Calvin to know that this was bad, and if the two of them happened to spot him, it was going to get a lot worse. He could change forms, but something flashy like that was probably going to end up drawing their attention. There had to be some other way out of here, and something that wasn’t too obvious.

Carefully, Calvin stayed along the walls, hoping that the two of them would be distracted by their own antics, to the point that they wouldn’t even notice him. At first, it looked like such an idea seemed to be working. Both of them were too busy dealing with one another and digging through the contents of the books, while he was looking for a way out.

That is, until he accidentally lost his footing, and several books next to him fell off the shelf and hit the floor.

“Uh oh-”

“Lord Kaos, d-did you hear that?”

Immediately, Kaos’ head turned straight towards where he heard the noise, before locking eyes with Calvin. A spark of recognition could be seen in the Dark Portal Master’s eyes, as he stared directly at him. “You! You’re the one who hit me with the spawn of trees!!”

“Oh, he still remembers that,” Calvin thought, desperately trying to look for a way out of this situation, but coming up empty. So, he tried his best to downplay the situation, “Um, hello there.”

“H-hi-”

“Don’t be nice with him, Glumshanks!” Kaos snapped, narrowing his gaze and not taking his eyes off of him for even a moment, “This kid is friends with those pesky Sky-losers! Clearly, he’s here to find what we’re after and take it from us!”

“A-are you sure, Master?” the Troll asked, looking at Calvin with a confused expression, “H-He doesn’t look like he’s dangerous.”

It was as the two of them were talking that something else caught the Skyshifter’s attention. Unbeknownst to that of the Dark Portal Master or his butler, the papers on the floor were starting to move on their own and fold into different shapes. With each second that passed, the shapes started to come together and form a towering knight-like figure behind them.

“Hah!! You really don’t think he’s dangerous, Glumshanks!?” Kaos boasted, unaware of the danger that lurked mere inches behind him as he continued to ramble on, “You’re going to see how dangerous he is soon enough!”

“Uh, sir-” Calvin tried to interject and motion to what was behind them, only to be ignored, as the Dark Portal Master kept talking and the knight behind finished forming its body as it raised its giant origami fist.

“Watch Glumshanks! I’m going to get attacked by him in three, two, one-!”

SMACK!!

In an instant, a giant gauntlet smacked the Dark Portal Master from behind and sent him flying into a nearby bookcase. When Glumshanks turned around to see what it was that hit his master, he watched in fear as a giant origami knight stood before them. Papers from the floor now swirled in the air and started to form another creation, as the knight grasped a giant paper blade of its own. Its non-existent gaze now focused solely on him.

“M-master? W-What-?”

As if on instinct, Calvin immediately sprang to action, as the knight readied its blade. He didn’t need to transform, but he ran as quickly as he could and dove towards the troll, to push him out of the way. Luckily, he was barely able to reach him in time, as the knight tried to bring its blade down upon them.

“W-what is that thing?!”

“I have no idea,” he remarked, trying to put himself between the troll and the massive figure that just manifested, “But I’m gonna take a guess that it doesn’t like us being here.”

The knight did not respond, but instead turned towards both of them and prepared to raise its weapon again. However, before it had the chance to swing down, a blast of energy struck it in the back of the head and sent the knight tumbling to the ground. Both Calvin and the Troll looked over to see a very annoyed Kaos rise up from the floor, with magic wildly churning in both of his hands.

“Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?! I am KAOS, and you will greatly regret that!!”

Despite the Dark Portal Master’s cocky bravado, the knight looked unfazed by the attack. More papers continued to rise from the floor and fly around the room, folding together to take the form of other knight-like figures of various sizes. Each one had their own weapons at the ready, as the situation was starting to escalate very quickly.

“M-Master? T-this isn’t looking good-!”

“I can see that!”

Immediately, several of the knights charged towards Kaos, with freshly created paper weapons at the ready. While his butler tried to scramble out of the way and Calvin tried to think of a way to get out of this predicament, Kaos took the fight directly to them. Magic crackled to life in his hands, as he summoned a pair of spectral soldiers to his side to clash with the newly formed knights. Though, the Dark Portal Master’s attention was more on the first Origami Knight in the room, as it approached him.

This time, as the paper soldier tried to strike the Dark Portal Master, its blade was stopped by a pair of giant magical hands that grasped the weapon, as the knight was trying to swing it down on him. “I’m going to make you regret making an enemy of me!! Now, feel the wrath of KAOS!!”

At his proclamation, the giant hands pushed the knight backwards, to knock it off balance, followed by a strike that was powerful enough to send the giant Origami Knight crashing into one of the bookcases, something that made the Dark Portal Master laugh with joy, as he watched these creations struggle to stand up to him. However, something that Calvin happened to notice was that, for each one that Kaos supposedly ‘defeated’, more would be created to take its place. And with so much paper being scattered everywhere, it was possible that the amount of knights that could be created were endless.

However, that was when Calvin heard something. As the giant knight pushed itself off of the bookcase, an audible click was heard, as it pushed down on one of the shelves. No less than a few seconds later, a large section of the wall began to crack open and rotate, with a hidden passageway that wasn’t there before right behind it.

The moment he saw it, the Skyshifter immediately made a break for it and raced over to the entryway, something that didn’t go unnoticed by the Dark Portal Master. “What the-!? HEY, GET BACK HERE!! Glumshanks, after him!!”

“B-But Master-”

“I SAID AFTER HIM!!!”

As he heard Kaos screaming to give chase, Calvin was trying to run as fast as he could. In any other circumstance, he would stay and fight. However, even if the Skyshifter were to do that here, he would be vastly outnumbered and possibly overwhelmed by the various paper entities that Kaos just so happened to anger. Right now, the only thing that mattered was that he needed to find a way out of this chaotic labyrinth of a library.

Inconveniently, it was right around now that a certain draconequus decided to check on him. For as Calvin tried to look around this new area he found himself in, he felt something tap his shoulder, as a small miniature version of Discord was standing there. “Hey, uh, how’s everything going? Starswirl and I heard some commotion from up here-”

The Skyshifter took a deep breath, not even questioning how or why the Spirit of Chaos was on his shoulder. Instead, he decided to try and summarize everything that happened, “Well, I found what I was looking for-”

“Huh, that’s good!”

“Then, Kaos and his butler arrived and kicked up a hornet’s nest in the process.”

“Oh, uh… that’s not good.”

“So… I’m running, it’s bad, and I need to find a way out, before they catch up with me,” Calvin tried to summarize, just as he heard another bookcase crash farther behind him, “All the while, I need to make sure this doesn’t fall in Kaos’ hands.”

The little draconequus slithered down his arm like a snake, as he got a closer look at what was in his hand. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Yeah. That’s the project he told us about,” the Skyshifter said, quickly glancing around the corner, before he looked back at him, “I found some of Starswirl’s other things back in the other room, but because of the unwelcome guests here, it’s all buried underneath a pile of books.”

“Well, I can come back and fix that later. Right now, let me take that off of your hands,” with a simple touch of an outstretched talon, Discord was able to shrink the journal down to the same size of his current form and pocket it away, “As for an exit, I can-”

Before he could continue, Calvin placed a finger on Discord’s mouth to silence him, “Hold on a second,” he whispered, before grabbing hold of his pendant, as he heard the encroaching sounds from farther down the hall, “We should find a place to hide first.”

“Right, right,” the Spirit of Chaos retorted, “Do you have a form or something that can help with not being seen?”

The question alone was enough to prompt Calvin to smirk, as his pendant began to glow an emerald green. After he spoke a few words in a whisper, his form shifted into that of Stealth Elf, as ‘she’ looked back to Discord, “Would this answer your question-?”

The sound of more bookcases falling over prompted both of them to look behind, before the Skyshifter hugged a nearby wall, as he placed Discord on his shoulder and vanished from sight. As he slowly moved away, the two of them could see that Kaos and Glumshanks were on the other side, as the Dark Portal Master used the fallen shelves like a makeshift barricade.

“So, what kind of hornet’s nest did he-?”

Before Calvin could answer, a giant paper claymore came crashing down towards the barricade, as the giant knight from the main room was followed by a battalion of smaller paper knights with various weapons right behind them.

Seeing this, the Skyshifter did not want to stick around and get caught up in this mess, so he continued to hurry down the hallway towards another corridor. This time, there were only two particular ways he could proceed, since the door at the north end was closed off. So, his only options were another hallway that was directly to his left or a spiral staircase leading upwards, to his right.

As Calvin shifted back to normal, he was going to head over towards the staircase. However, before he could even take a step, Discord’s voice echoed in his head. “Calvin, wait. Whatever you do, don’t go that way.”

“Huh? What’s the matter-?”

Suddenly, a giant figure crashed into the staircase, forcing him to quickly back away. As the dust cleared, the stairway leading up wasn’t just simply broken. It looked as if a section of it had been eaten. Not a small piece, but the entire bottom half was gone.

“Oh, that’s not good. Calvin, hide!!”

As Calvin backed up and hugged a wall away from the entrance, the dust faded, and he could see a new monstrous figure. Like with the other Origami creatures, its body was fully made of paper, with closed books along its spine. Magic coursed throughout the creation’s body, as it took the form of a large serpentine dragon that dwarfed that of the knight the Skyshifter just fled from. Antler-like horns and burning eyebrows rested on the creature’s head, as its head careened around and started to search.

“Discord, what is that?”

“That… is a Bookwyrm,” the draconequus said, “And we’re in trouble.”

“How bad?”

“Let’s just say that my younger and more impulsive self made it as a way to deter possible thieves, but didn’t realize how problematic it would end up becoming,” Discord admitted. “I mean, having a monster feared for being able to eat anything sounded practical on paper-”

“Wait a minute. You’re saying that you created something that could eat anything, including the very stuff here, around as a pet?”

“You can’t blame me for what Young Discord did. That guy’s an idiot,” the Spirit of Chaos said, “Something tells me that the commotion from down the hall disturbed its slumber and caused it to go on the prowl again.”

“So, what do we do?”

“Preferably, we stay away from it and try to hide. Because once it catches sight of something, it will not stop until it catches whatever it’s pursuing,” Discord groaned, walking along Calvin’s shoulder as he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, “We’ve already had enough problems right now, and it’s not like they’re going to cancel each other out.”

Even though it was just a simple remark from him, pieces of an idea started to surface and come together within the Skyshifter’s mind. “What if we can do that?”

“…Would you care to elaborate?” the tiny draconequus asked as he folded his arms.

That had Calvin drop down to his knees, picking up a piece of paper that was by his foot and quietly moving over to an empty desk in the center of the corridor. As he started to crouch underneath, he grabbed a small vial of ink and a quill off of the desk to bring with him. Once underneath, the Skyshifter started to draw a bit of what was on his mind.

“You said that it would not stop unless it catches something, right?” he pointed towards the creature that was a few feet away, “Well, what if we had it chase something and lead it over to where the knights and Kaos are?”

As Discord slithered down his arm and onto the paper, he scratched his chin and began to think. “You think that we could knock out two birds with one stone? That is a one sided fight there-”

“Having the two of them fight is not what matters. What matters is that they’re distracted,” Calvin pointed out. “The more that this book dragon is focused on something or someone else, the less likely that it would pay attention to us, so we can find a way out without a monster breathing down our necks.”

“That’s… huh,” Discord said, a bit surprised by what he was suggesting, as the draconequus looked back at him, “That could work. Though, I must say, this sounds like a plan that a villain would do. Overwhelm the heroes with impossible odds and then slip out the back while they’re distracted.”

“Well, now that you mentioned that, I am kind of taking a page out of Kaos’ book with this one,” the Skyshifter chuckled, before he picked up the small chaos spirit and placed him on his shoulder, “Since it’s worked for him so many times, perhaps it might work for us if we try it?”

“Hey, I’m all on board for reckless ideas,” the draconequus insisted, “Though, I think I should probably ask this. What do you plan on distracting the Wyrm with?”

As Calvin began to think, an idea slowly began to come together. It was unlikely that this wyrm would chase after anything, like a dog would chase a tennis ball. There needed to be something that would convince them that whatever they were going to chase was suitable prey, and the more he thought on it, the more that one possibility came to mind.

“Remember the form I was in earlier? Well, there’s one trick I can do with it that might work for this.”

“Glumshanks!! Stop hiding like a coward and do something!!” Kaos ordered as he channeled more power through his hands. Despite making sufficient progress in preventing the knights from gaining a foothold, the fight was at a standstill. Any time the knights started to lose ground, he’d lose a few more of the spectral soldiers he conjured. Not to mention that the doom sharks he can create did little to improve anything.

“M-Master, are you… sure about that?” the troll questioned, “H-How can-?”

As Glumshanks frantically looked around to try and find something to help his master, he happened to notice an odd sight. From an alley to his right, he noticed that someone was running towards them, an elven figure with features that were strikingly similar to an elf that lived at Skylander Academy. But, he couldn’t figure out why they were here.

“U-uh, M-master? Someone else is coming-!”

“What?!” Kaos snapped, turning to see what his butler was looking at as he let out a groan, “Oh, brilliant. How could this get any worse-?!”

Before he could even finish, a completely different threat was now seen barreling down the hallway. It looked like a massive paper dragon with books along its spine and magic coursing throughout its entire body. The beast steamrolled past what they now saw was just a decoy of whoever was there previously, before setting its sights on a new target, as it charged straight at them.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!”

Upon hearing the cries of disbelief from down the hall, Calvin couldn’t help but smirk as he peaked out from under the desk. “Well, what do you know? That worked like a charm! If I didn’t know you better, I thought you would be a little agent of chaos.”

“Uh, thanks?” Calvin said, unsure if that was supposed to be a compliment or not, before turning his head towards a door that was to his left and the only one that wasn’t blocked off, “We should probably get going.”

The little chaos spirit nodded, before whisking over towards the door and opening it for him, as the Skyshifter rushed inside. As he stepped in, Calvin was greeted by the sight of another long hallway. This time, it was filled with a bunch of bookshelves that were about as high as a pony and extended all the way down. Much to his dismay, this almost looked like the last one.

“Discord, what part of the library are we in now?”

“Oh, this is where I keep all the short stories I read,” Discord chuckled, which only had Calvin raise an eyebrow in confusion, “You know, because… well, it’s short.”

Normally, he would respond in turn to something like this. But instead, the Skyshifter started to pick up on something not that far from where he was. It was a familiar scent, too, for it was the smell of something burning. As he followed it, Calvin soon found what looked like a small crack in the wall that was behind a bookcase.

“Do you think you can fit through that?” he asked.

“I’ll do you one better,” Discord replied as he snapped his talon. In an instant, the bookshelves parted, like a set of sliding doors, and the crack in the wall became wide enough for Calvin to barely squeeze his way through.

Once on the other side, Discord changed his form back to his normal size. “Well, at least we’re out. Now, if you excuse me, I gotta grab the other guest we had come along with. Hang tight.”

When the spirit of chaos left, Calvin tried to follow the whiff of smoke he smelled earlier. For one thing, he found himself back in the same forest they arrived in. But, something seemed very wrong. Birds and animals were moving past him frantically, and the clear sky from before was now a darkened hue that blocked out any sunlight. His heartbeat was beginning to quicken rapidly. With each step, he rushed to the edge of the cliff face to look out at what was below.

Immediately, he felt something drop within him, as he stared at what was playing out before his very eyes, “Oh, no.”

The city that once stood proudly in the distance was now ablaze. Embers from the fires in the burning buildings were out of control, as blazing sparks danced on the wind and ignited trees in the forest farther down. He could see figures in the streets panicking and running around, unsure as to what they were doing.

He had only been inside the library for a short while, and in that time, a storm of untold proportions had razed the kingdom of Abyssinia to the ground.

End Scroll 36

Scroll 37- A Different Approach

Author's Note

Following immediately after what happened in the previous chapter, Calvin gets an unexpected visit from a familiar friend. However, when discussing what went down, things get tense when a certain thing ends up being much bigger than he realized.

Meanwhile, another friend decides to take matters in their own hands so to speak

Once again, thank you for being patient with me as I work on this. Things have been relatively busy the last few months, so it takes longer to get these chapters out for you guys to read. Still, thank you very much for your support and Happy Holidays.

Until next time
-Frost

Scroll 37- A Different Approach

Beyond the Skies- A Different Approach

If it were up to him, the elderly mabu named Buzz would be spending his afternoon doing things that would be considered a bit more ‘relaxing’ than what he was working on this late in the day. Over the last few months, after releasing a memo to the Skylanders that attended the academy for appropriate conduct with those from Equestria, he had received reports about several of those rules being broken only mere days after being put in place. So, not only did he have to go through each rule to make sure everything was properly changed, but place new guidelines based on more recent events that had happened.

This was something that he wished to address sooner, rather than being this late. Yet, his duties as the academy’s head of security, special instructor and head of secret ninja commando operations tend to get in the way of such things. Though, despite how many times he mentioned it, Buzz thought it better for less people to know about the latter.

“Okay, number 8 and 26 need to be revised in some capacity, while 13d needs to be scrapped entirely. Not sure what changes to write up in the meantime,” the mabu grumbled, turning to look at a stack of manila folders on the other side of his desk, “I swear, I put these guidelines in so there isn’t any trouble, and yet, these reports tell a different story. It’s going to take ages before-”

As he said this, a knock at the door echoed through his office. It was enough for him to turn his attention away from his work, as he got out of his chair and grabbed his cane. “Now, who could be knocking at my door now?”

Much to his surprise, as he opened the door, Buzz happened to find himself looking upon a pair of familiar faces. “Howdy, partner. We’re not interruptin’ anything now, are we?”

“Well, I was working on something, but it can wait,” the mabu smiled at Mags, as well as Tessa, “What brings the both of you here? Did Flynn cause a mess with his ship again?”

“Honestly, I would take that over anything else any day,” Tessa replied, “Unfortunately, what Mags and I found while surveying the surrounding islands is a little more concerning.”

The head of security raised an eyebrow at that, as he motioned for both of them to follow him inside. As they came in, he used his cane to lock the door, as he walked over to a large stretched out table with what could be described as a ‘map’. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense now. What are we dealing with here?”

“Ah guess there’s no point in trying to sugarcoat it, then,” Mags insisted as she looked over at Tessa, “Remember some time back, when we tried to spy on Kaos’ movements? Well, it turns out that he’s now decided to start making moves completely out in the open.”

To Buzz, he wasn’t too entirely surprised. For as long as he knew about the Dark Portal Master’s activities, the one common factor was that Kaos never did things quietly. Anything he did usually involved some giant monster, an army invading a town, or something that was clearly noticeable. “Well, he’s kept us waiting, that’s for sure. Even his own castle has been eerily quiet over the last month or so. What’s he doing this time?”

“Actually, that’s the thing that we wanted to talk to you about,” Tessa replied, “Mags and I think he’s setting his sights on somewhere other than the Skylands.”

It took a bit for the mabu to process that, as he raised an eyebrow at both of them. There was only one possible meaning to that. Though, he wanted to hear more on what they had to say first, before jumping to conclusions, “Care to elaborate further?”

“Well, when I was on patrol with Whiskers earlier, we both caught sight of him and Glumshanks reappearing on an island not that far from one of his ships,” she continued, “Both of them looked exhausted, and Kaos looked rather upset as they were leaving. Like he left empty handed, or something like that.”

“Now, there’s also another piece to this,” Mags interjected, “Ya probably know already that ah’ve been focusing my studies on that boundary ever since we learned that there’s a world beneath the islands, right?”

Buzz nodded, “Yes, but if I may, how-?”

“Well, earlier in the day, mah scanning equipment started to pick up magical fluctuations. Ah thought it was a glitch at first, but after hearing what Tessa had to say, ah’m starting to think it’s much more serious then that,” she continued, “If Kaos found a way to ‘poke holes’ in the boundary and cross freely on his own, without having to go through the M.A.P. to do it, then we might have a problem on our hands.”

That seemed definitely concerning for sure. But the information that both of them provided only left him with other questions, with one particular one at the forefront of his mind. “Do we have any idea why he would want to go down there? We all know that he doesn’t go anywhere in the Skylands unless he’s specifically looking for something.”

“Well, I did hear them mention something about a library and… plans being thwarted by some meddlesome kid? It didn’t sound like he was making much sense, if I have to be honest.” Tessa shrugged.

“A meddlesome kid, you say?” Buzz scratched his chin.

“Yeah, but that could probably be anybody… couldn’t it?”

Tha mabu couldn’t help but chuckle for a moment as he looked at both of the faculty members in his office. “I don’t know about you two, but I do believe there’s at least one person we know that not only lives down in Equestria, but also qualifies as a ‘meddlesome kid’ by Kaos’ standards. In fact, you’ve probably seen him come by, every now and then.”

“Correct me if ah’m wrong, but weren’t there others that started coming over and attending classes here?” Mags asked, “Two of them, ah think.”

“The twins are more recent additions and probably aren’t so familiar with Kaos, his schemes or his family. Calvin has already had run-ins with him before, so that’s more of a safe bet to me,” Buzz reminded the tinkerer, “Besides, it would be beneficial for us to know more about what’s waiting for us on the other side, if Kaos is setting his sights there.”

At this point, with a clear goal in his mind, the mabu made his way out the door, something that caught the other two off guard, “W-wait, you’re going now-?”

“Why, of course. With something this important, we should strike while the iron is still hot,” he insisted, “Besides, I’m sure you two have better things to do rather than just stand around and talk to me.”

Both Tessa and Mags looked at one another, a bit caught off guard by this. Then again, Buzz wasn’t exactly someone known for waiting around if something needed to be done, especially when evil could be afoot. Yet, with everything that had been happening over the course of the last few months, it wouldn’t be a wise decision to go alone.

Fortunately, someone just so happened to be coming around a corner and accidentally bumped into the mabu. “Oh, my bad, Buzz. I didn’t quite see you there-”

“Ah, Spyro. Just the dragon I was looking for,” Buzz chuckled, as he straightened himself up with his cane. Once he was upright, the mabu focused his attention away from the faculty behind him and more on the purple dragon in front of him, “Would you happen to be free at the moment?”

“Uh, yes?” the dragon tilted his head, puzzled by the question, as he noticed Tessa and Mags coming out of Buzz’s office, “Do you need something?”

“Well, I was hoping that you would want to come with me on a little field trip of sorts,” Buzz smirked, “We’re going to pay a visit to our friends on the other side.”

Meanwhile…

By the time that he had been brought back to Twilight’s castle, there were a lot of things on Calvin’s mind. Some of it were things that were actually simple to wrap his head around. However, like that of Discord and the library he was in just a couple of hours ago, most of the things on his mind didn’t quite add up or make any sense.

It did not help that, as soon as he was dropped off back at the Castle of Friendship, somepony in particular had quite a few questions for him, many of which he found rather difficult to answer. “I’m sorry, Twilight, but we weren’t exactly there so Discord could give us a tour of the place. I don’t really think that there’s a lot I can tell you.”

“Calvin, from what I was told, you were in a place that many would believe to be the stuff of mystery and rumors, with Starswirl of all ponies. Are you sure you can’t tell me something?”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around how exactly you found out about this,” he said as the dragon Spike pulled himself up on a chair next to him, “I’m pretty sure not that many people were awake when we left, unless Starswirl woke up someone by accident.”

“Oh, Starlight told me.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he thought to himself, while Spike gave him an expression that read ‘we had to’ on his face, “Still, I can’t really share anything about it. He said if I did, then the library wouldn’t be that much of a mystery anymore, and many ponies would come to try and find it. This time was probably the only exception he would make.”

Twilight ears dropped down at that. “That’s… disappointing. But knowing him, I could only guess that he has his reasons,” she replied, sounding disappointed by the answer she was given, only for those thoughts to be replaced a couple moments later when a new question happened to surface in her mind, “Well, could you at least tell me what you were doing there?”

“Didn’t Starlight tell you-?”

“She told me where you were, but before I could ask about what you were doing, she had to leave the castle and tend to… something. She didn’t really say, but it sounded important.”

Spike couldn’t help but let out a low chuckle as Calvin let out a sigh. “Do you want the short version of the story or the long one?”

“Either or. I’m not picky,” the alicorn replied as she picked up a cup of tea in a levitation spell and started to drink it.

“In that case, I’ll give you the short version,” he straightened himself on the chair he was in as he looked back at the alicorn, “It started when Starswirl tried to provide an answer to a question I asked yesterday. He mentioned the library briefly, which was enough to get Discord’s attention. Both of them started arguing, then Starswirl found out that Discord put some of his more… dangerous research in his library, without his permission.”

Twilight blinked, surprised by what she was hearing, but then shrugged. “That explains some of the commotion I heard. Though, how did you-?”

“Discord and Starswirl came to an agreement involving him getting his stuff back, with the condition that I would come along, because Starswirl wanted to make sure that he was telling the truth,” he replied, “Of course, it wasn’t exactly easy because, as we found out upon arriving, the library had some unwanted guests-”

Before the story could go any further, a loud knocking started to ring throughout the castle. Though, it wasn’t coming from outside the front door or anywhere upstairs. Which, in this case, could mean only one other possibility.

“Should I go check the door to-?”

Twilight wasn’t even able to give an answer, for the sound of footsteps and a familiar voice was heard in the direction of where the basement door would be, as another purple dragon entered the castle, “Oh, there you are.”

“Spyro?” the Skyshifter said, just as surprised as both Twilight and Spike as he got up out of his chair and walked over to him. It was by that time that he also noticed that Spyro wasn’t here by himself, as Buzz had finished walking up the stairs to join them, “Buzz? What are you two doing here?”

“Well, there was something that we wanted to talk with you about, and given the subject matter, I thought it would be best to come to you directly,” Buzz insisted, before noticing Twilight and Spike not that far from where Calvin was standing, “Unless I was interrupting something-”

“I don’t… think so. I was just recapping something I ended up getting dragged into this morning,” he shrugged his shoulders, before looking over at Twilight.

“Actually, you were about to tell us of the unwanted guests that you ran into while you were there.”

“Oh. Right,” at that, Calvin couldn’t help but scratch the back of his head, as he turned back to face the newfound company that was present, “So, to keep it brief, I was asked to come to an ancient library this morning that belonged to our friendly neighborhood draconequus, Discord. One thing led to another, and just when I thought we were done, it turned out that someone that all of us are probably familiar with decided to show up.”

That had Buzz smirk as he scratched his chin, “Let me guess. Bald, angry and screaming about doom?”

The Skyshifter couldn’t help but blink at that, a bit surprised by what he heard Buzz say, “Yeah, that’s right. How did you-?”

“Funny enough, that’s what we’re here to talk about, apparently,” Spyro spoke up as he walked over towards the Cutie Map and stood next to the chair that Calvin sat at not too long ago, “But first off, how exactly did you run into him? It couldn’t exactly be a coincidence that both of you were in the exact same place.”

“That’s what I want to know,” Calvin told the dragon, “One moment, I was trying to find something that belonged to a very ancient and powerful wizard in a magical library. Then, just as I find what I was looking for, both him and his butler show up and cause a pretty big mess of the place.”

“How would they even know about the library though?” Twilight asked, “With the amount of effort that Discord probably goes through to make sure that his library isn’t found, how exactly could they have known about it?”

“Honestly, I can’t count the number of times where Kaos has found something that was supposed to be ‘hidden’ or not known about,” Spyro replied, before a new question came to mind, “Still, everytime we do find him, it’s always because there’s something he’s looking for that could help with his plans. Calvin, was he looking for anything in particular while he was there?”

“It didn’t sound like it,” he shook his head, “All I heard was that he was looking for ‘knowledge that would be of use to him’, which could mean anything… but…”

“But what?” Twilight asked, her tone sounding both curious and also concerned.

At that, the Skyshifter sighed, before taking out what appeared to be a small object that looked like some kind of book. As he set it down, the object gave off a dramatic puff of smoke, as it changed back to its original size. “But, I would think that if he were successful, then he would probably take this.”

The mabu looked at the journal, a bit curious as he took the handle of his staff and pushed it closer towards him. “Huh… and what might this be?”

“A journal of some particular research that Starswirl the Bearded did. From what he told me this morning, it was a project he worked on with Eon’s mentor, Ordo.”

“Woah, hold on a minute,” Spyro interjected, caught off guard by what he just heard, “Eon had a mentor? I thought Eon was just… Well, Eon. Have you heard of anything like that, Buzz?”

“I always assumed that he did, but thought that it would be rude to ask,” Buzz replied, looking at the cover of the journal, before he pushed it back over to Calvin, as his gaze shifted back to him, “But more to the point, what exactly is the research in there supposed to be about?”

At that, Calvin took a deep breath and slowly let it out, before he started to answer, “Well, from what Starswirl told me, their research involved what he called the Elements of Order and Chaos.”

Immediately, the whole room went quiet. Barely anything could be heard, as they all just sat there, silently thinking about what was just said at the table. It was a silence that was starting to feel very uncomfortable, like if somebody said something very rude to the point that everyone’s attention was on them, and they didn’t know why.

The silence was only broken when one figure, Spike, decided to speak up, “Uh, why are you guys so quiet?”

It was then that Buzz calmly asked a single question, his attention fixed on the Skyshifter at the opposite end of the map, “Calvin, do you realize that what you just said is one of the most well kept secrets in not just the Academy, but the Skylands?”

This statement not only caught him by surprise, but also caught Spyro off guard as well. He was waiting for Buzz to change his tone, but that never happened, “Wait, you’re actually serious, Buzz?”

“Spyro, there are a lot of things that I would joke about with the students on campus, and even my fellow faculty members,” the mabu replied, “But this is not one of them. In fact, aside from me, the only other person who knows about this is Eon himself.”

All of this was news to Calvin. He honestly thought that what Starswirl left him with was just old notes that he no longer needed. He had no idea that what was in here was considered a major secret that very few people actually knew about. Was this ‘Order and Chaos’ thing dangerous somehow?

There was only one real way to know for sure… and even he didn’t think that Buzz would be on board with it. “I honestly had no idea that something like this was as important as you say it is. Can you possibly tell us why?”

Buzz was not so quick to give an answer to that. The only thing they saw him do was look away and scratch his chin as he pondered to himself. But, just as Twilight was going to say something, the head of security for Skylander Academy had a response, “You know, out of all the things that I thought that I was going to do while I was here, this was not one of them.”

That sounded hopeful, at least.

“Alright, I’ll tell you. But on the condition that whatever I say here stays here. This is something that we don’t talk about openly, and for good reason.”

“Then, perhaps we can move this conversation to my study?” Twilight offered, “Anypony could just walk in through the front door, so we could go there for privacy? Spike can also make sure that nopony gets in.”

“That’s fine with me. Lead the way.”

Shortly after Buzz’s answer, Twilight knew exactly where they needed to go. The castle was filled with various different rooms throughout several halls that would have anypony else probably get lost. But this room was a place that she would go to almost every day, even more so since they had strange visitors show up there that one time.

When all of them arrived at the door to her study, Calvin and Spyro could tell why this might have been a good place to continue their discussion. The study itself looked as if a library, an office and a laboratory were condensed into a single room. There were books with note pages serving as bookmarks on a desk and graphical readings pinned onto cork boards along the back wall. Even more so, there weren’t any windows or openings that anyone could just peak their head through.

“Not the most cozy of places, I admit, but it’s ideal if you need privacy,” the alicorn admitted, turning around and channeling her magic to close the door behind them, while also locking it for good measure.

Knowing that they were in somewhat of a place where they could talk freely, Spyro decided to be the first person to speak, “So, Buzz, what exactly is this Order and Chaos thing? You said it was a secret, but how big of a deal is this?”

“A very big deal, Spyro,” the mabu said, “Though, there really isn’t a simple way for me to share it.”

“It doesn’t have to be simple,” Calvin insisted, looking over at Twilight and Spyro, “I think all of us just want to know why the stuff in the notes I was given is so important.”

Buzz couldn’t help but let out a sigh as he scratched the back of his head, “Would it be safe to assume that all of you have met Brain already?”

Twilight was quick to provide an answer for that, trotting over to a cushion as she sat down and made herself comfortable, “Yeah. He was the ancient who helped Trevor and Raquel learn about their powers several weeks ago.”

“Good, then this might make what I have to say a little bit easier,” the mabu said, before looking at Calvin, “About a week after he originally joined the academy, long before we knew about you and what you could do, Eon and I had a conversation with him. There were things we wanted to know that we thought only someone like Brain would have the answers to. After all, having a conversation with a living Ancient is rather rare in this day and age.”

That seemed simple enough. Yet, Calvin couldn’t help but wonder how it got from that to-.

“So, what we decided to ask him was about the history of the Ancients. There were significant gaps between the time of the Ancients to the present day, so Eon and I thought that by asking him about it, we could potentially fill any of those gaps, let alone the origins from before recorded history. Yet, it was what kind of information Brain shared with us during our conversation that we realized that what he told us needed to be kept secret.”

“What sort of secrets? Like the Scholarville kind of secrets, or greater than that?” Spyro asked.

“Greater, and not as obvious,” Buzz nodded his head, before he continued, “The history he shared with us was much further back, A time before the Skylands that we all know, when the world was much different. Back then, the world faced a grave crisis because of a powerful undead entity, powerful enough to cause a cataclysm of untold proportions and turn the world that once was into the Outlands that we know today.”

“The Outlands?” Twilight blinked, “I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.”

“Oh, that?” the purple dragon turned to the confused alicorn, “The Outlands are a place far away from the Skylands that’s not exactly an ideal place to go and visit. Kaos was banished there once, and somehow, he built a mobile fortress out of whatever scraps he found. I think it was called Castle Blackthrone?”

“It was, actually. Though, I believe Hugo just called it the ‘Lair of Kaos’ to keep things simple,” the head of security spoke up, regaining control of the conversation, “Now, no one knows what happened to the entity responsible for the cataclysm way back when, but because of them, what ended up becoming the Outlands was devastated. Anyone that did survive would find that whatever remained was inhospitable and very unstable.”

“So, how did we get from that to the Skylands? It couldn’t have just randomly appeared now, could it?” Calvin now asked.

“It’s funny you ask that question, because it’s at this point in the story that Brain shared with us that it was during this time of turmoil that the Ancients were created.”

That had everyone that was listening just look to each other for a moment, before they all had the same response, “Created? By who?”

“From what he shared with us, Brain and the rest of the Ancients believed that they were created by a collective of spirits called the Precursors. They believed that the Precursors were there to prevent the cataclysm from successfully destroying everything, and if it weren’t for them, the effects of the cataclysm would be much worse. However, their efforts came at a great cost.”

Buzz paused for a brief moment, before looking over at the purple dragon in the room, “Spyro, do you remember some of the basic rules of combat that we teach at the academy?”

Spyro, not expecting for the topic of the conversation to suddenly shift over to him, looked rather puzzled at that, “Uh, I think so? Never underestimate your opponent, be ready to adapt to any situation, never use up all of your power at once and space it out over the course of a fight, trust your teammates… Wait a minute, how exactly does that relate to this?”

“Let’s just say that the third rule sort of relates a bit,” he said, “You see, to prevent a disaster on a global scale, you need a lot of power. That was something the Precursors learned the hard way, for even though they were able to prevent the cataclysm, they barely had any strength left to help the survivors still stranded in the Outlands. But, since they couldn’t just leave the survivors to fend for themselves, they had to come up with a solution using what small amount of power they had left.”

That was the moment that everyone that was listening started to piece together what Buzz was referring to. “They used the last of their power to create the Ancients?”

“Not only create them, but give them something essential. Mind Magic,” Buzz continued, his gaze shifting to Calvin now, “The same kind of power that you use to turn into your imaginator was given to the Ancients, so they could provide new homes for the survivors that were fleeing from the Outlands, a chance for them to start over, as many people were forced to leave their old lives behind.”

“How does that tie to the Elements we were talking about though?” Twilight asked.

Buzz could only smirk, as if expecting for those questions to be asked, “I’m glad to see you were paying attention. The reason this ties to it is because, some time after things had settled down, the Ancients started to learn more about the world they were left to watch over. Through research and experimentation, they made numerous discoveries, and the knowledge they gained would end up being the basis for several ‘concepts’ of theirs.”

That surprised Calvin. He was not too familiar with what they were talking about, but some things were slowly making some kind of sense, “Were the elements one of these… concepts?”

Buzz was quick to shake his head at that, but still gave Calvin a small chuckle, “Not quite. The elements are as old as the world itself, but the Ancients discovered that in the aftermath of the cataclysm, these same elements were a lot more potent than what they used to be. Some elements remained the same, others had undergone a lot of change and became something different, and new elements started to appear as well.”

A thought entered Twilight’s head soon after, and just as Buzz finished what he was saying, she added on, “So, instead of making something new, they redefined what was already there to begin with, to account for everything they were finding with their discoveries?”

Much to the surprise of both Spyro and Calvin, it took Buzz a moment to actually respond to what she said, “Yes, and for the record, that is a much easier way to put it than what Brain told us. Back on topic though, their research on the elements served as the foundation for everything else the Ancients created. They were the ones who defined the ten elements we’re all familiar with from what was left behind, but there were also two more. Unlike their counterparts, the Elements of Order and Chaos are much different. Would you like to take a guess as to why?”

Calvin felt a little bit relieved when hearing Buzz say that. He was wondering when the mabu would get back on track. However, despite his best attempts, he couldn’t quite think of a response to the question that Buzz was asking. He had only heard of these elements by name from Starswirl, and knew that Chaos was an element that related to… well, Kaos. But other than the fact that it allowed the dark portal master to mimic the other elements, he didn’t know anything particular about it.

“Does it involve Kaos somehow? Before I talked with Starswirl, I only heard of a Chaos element once before, and it had to do with Kaos’s power of mimicking other elements, something that Discord called a cheap imitation of what he could do.”

Buzz raised an eyebrow, before he looked at both Twilight and him this time, “I don’t believe I’ve met this ‘Discord’ before, but I think I’ve heard about his exploits in previous reports. Though, you aren’t too far off with your guess. The first thing to know about Order and Chaos is that these elements are very rare, and the only ones who we know that currently possess the capabilities to control them are the Portal Masters. And before you ask Spyro, the clone of Kaos that we have at the academy counts as well. He does control chaos magic, but his power is admittedly weaker… despite how much he claims otherwise.”

Immediately, Calvin and Twilight were taken aback. Not by the first comment, but by the statement that Buzz said to Spyro, “Wait, there’s a clone of Kaos? Since when?”

“Oh, right,” Spyro replied, giving a nervous look to both of them, “Remember when we told you before about Kaos’ numerous attempts to try and take over the Skylands? Well, the last attempt he made before everything he’s done over the last few months involved him getting his hands on Mind Magic. Of course, in order to see if Mind Magic was as effective as he was led to believe, his first attempt at creating something with it was a copy of himself.”

Twilight couldn’t help but facehoof herself, “This is getting ridiculous. You’re telling us there’s been two of them?”

“Yes, but there’s a catch,” the dragon clarified, “Apparently, Kaos believed that no one could stand up to more than one Kaos and tried to have his clone fight us in his place. What he didn’t expect was that the clone wanted victory for himself. So, that clone decided to turn on him and agreed to help us to stop the real Kaos. So, when Buzz mentioned that, that’s what he was referring to.”

Part of Twilight felt a bit concerned by Spyro’s words. Though, she also felt relieved that someone like Kaos did not know about the Magic Mirror Pond that was sealed up, far away from town. “So, let me see if I’m understanding this right. Order and Chaos are elements that are not only very rare, but the only known wielders of said elements are the Portal Masters?”

“As far as we are aware, yes. As for what these elements can do, let’s start with Chaos first, since you already have some familiarity.” From his coat pocket, Buzz pulled out what looks like a particular mechanical gizmo. It wasn’t ancient, but looked to have been crafted with extreme care, as he twisted it onto the top of his walking stick.

“What’s that, Buzz?”

“Oh, this? It’s just a little recorder I keep on hand for times like these, one of a few different contraptions I carry on me. Being the head of security, and secret ninja commando operations, means you need to have the right tools for any situation.”

With two taps of his cane, the recorder that was attached flipped open and flickered to life. From the top of the walking stick, a light shimmered and projected itself onto the crystalline floor in between them. In a matter of seconds, a holographic image of what was believed to be the clone of Kaos was now on the floor.

“For right now, let’s focus our attention here. These recordings were from when we asked the Kaos clone to give a demonstration of his combat capabilities. So, watch closely.”

As Buzz pressed the top of the recorder, the image started to move. As the clone of Kaos waved his arms, various spectral weapons started to manifest and move with them, as they attacked a training dummy that was in front of him. Each time he attacked, the weapon that he created would change. First, it was a sword, then an axe and a spear, followed by a bow as the arrows it fired hit its target.

But, it wasn’t just weapon attacks that the clone could do. He had a variety of other tricks up his sleeves. One such trick involved him summoning what he called ‘doomlanders’ that would charge towards the dummy and attack it with a motion of his hand, before disappearing in a massive explosion. Another involved tapping his forehead and simply pointing at a particular place, to have two spectral fists crash into the ground. Furthermore, Kaos could simply place both hands on the ground and summon a wave of sharks that swam through the ground like water.

And just when they thought that was the end of the recording, there was one more technique that acted as a grand finale, where Kaos transformed into a giant projection of his own head as laser beams erupted from his eyes.

It was only when the clone changed back to normal that the recorder stopped, and the projection freezed in place. “Now, remember how Calvin mentioned earlier that the Chaos element involves mimicry? Well, that is on full display here.”

Twilight blinked, before moving her puzzled gaze away from the projection on the ground as she looked over at Buzz, “All of that… was just him mimicking? How?”

“That’s a question that we’ve tried asking the clone, but much like the real Kaos, he’s very stubborn about sharing the ‘secrets’ of his techniques. Aside from the reports of any encounters with him over the years, there is one other recording that we have on the real Kaos, back when he was imprisoned inside Traptanium. While the imprisonment didn’t last that long, it did give us a good impression of how the Chaos element can copy other elements.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the mabu readjusted the recorder on his walking stick, as a different projection came into view on the floor. At first, it showed a different figure standing in an arena, filled with greebles. He was a Crocogator that Calvin had seen and worked with before, the trap master known as Snap Shot, and he was one of many Skylanders in charge of the Cloudcracker Prison.

In the beginning of the recording, it seemed very straightforward. The Greebles tried their hardest to gang up on Snap Shot, only to be outmaneuvered as Snap Shot fought back with his traptanium weapons. For a moment, Calvin and everyone else with him thought that this wasn’t the thing that Buzz meant to show them, that this was accidentally the wrong recording.

Then, in the blink of an eye, Snap Shot stepped aside, and where he once stood, Kaos appeared instead. Clearly annoyed, but not in a position to complain, he turned around to see the foes coming straight at him. With wild motions from his arms, markings that resembled the symbols of the elements appeared on the ground, changing with each wave of his arms. When he actually decided which one to go with, the element that matched the symbol would start to spew forth and harm those who came close to it, changing with every new symbol.

Of course, Kaos still had some of the other abilities that the clone demonstrated, such as the doom sharks and the summoning of his giant head. But, watching this was concrete enough to see how Kaos was able to copy the elements with his power. Balls of flame would erupt outward from the ground, as a burning fire symbol was seen. Then, ghosts began to fly around, as a symbol of the undead element appeared shortly after. Lastly, when the earth symbol appeared, the ground shook underneath his feet, as it knocked any foes trying to attack him off balance.

Yet, just as quickly as he arrived and started wrecking havoc, Kaos was immediately yanked away, as Snap Shot retook his position on the battlefield. As he did, the recording stopped moving and froze in place. “Now that you’ve seen it for yourself, you probably might have an idea as to how powerful the Chaos element can be, especially in the hands of someone who is equally dangerous, as Kaos has proven to be on multiple occasions.”

As the clip stopped, the mabu turned the recorder off, before untwisting it from the walking stick and putting it back in his coat pockets. “Do any of you have any questions before we continue?”

Only one particular question surfaced in Calvin’s mind, as the Skyshifter looked back at Buzz, “Well, if Chaos works by copying the elements we know, then how does the Order element work?”

Buzz let out a slow sigh, before he looked back at him, Twilight and Spyro, “Compared to Chaos, the best way to describe Order is similar… yet different. It is similar in the sense that, like Chaos, it copies the elements we already know. But unlike Chaos, the Element of Order doesn’t manifest in the same way. To harness Order, you need to have your body shape itself into something you can channel that power through.”

Then, the mabu posed a new question for the trio, “Since we are talking about Master Eon in this example, would you like to guess how he channels this element?”

That question was one that Calvin and Twilight didn’t really have an answer to. Any time they have met Master Eon, it was only just to talk with him about things that were going on in the world or asking for his help in deciphering something they found. They’ve never actually seen him ‘fight’ anything before. So, the only creature in the room that could give an answer to Buzz’s question was Spyro.

However, the dragon’s answer to the question that was posed left much to be desired. “I’m… not really sure how to answer that one, Buzz. I mean… some of the other skylanders had a few guesses, but that’s all that they were. Some guesses were just borderline weird. I told them that I thought Eon would fight using his beard, since I’ve seen it grow and him using it for things before, but-”

Buzz couldn’t help but chuckle as he raised a hand and interrupted the dragon, “Funny you mention that, because you’re not that far off.”

The dragon blinked, glancing over at Calvin and Twilight, before looking towards the mabu with a puzzled expression, “W-wait, are you serious? It was just a guess though-”

“An educated one, since you have seen Eon use his beard before,” Buzz corrected him, “But yes. The Element of Order is used by having your body be an extension of that power. Case in point with Master Eon, he channels his power through his beard, which can then be shaped into whatever form he chooses.”

At that point, the alicorn was compelled to interject, “So, wait… if his beard is the catalyst for channeling this element, then does it mean that his beard changes depending on the element Master Eon wishes to copy?”

The mabu couldn’t help but grin as he answered her question with a simple nod of the head. “Now that you know the extent of the powers we’re talking about and how important it is, I have one last question for all three of you. And I need you to be very careful with how you answer it.”

The Skyshifter, the dragon and the alicorn couldn’t help but feel a small shiver go down their spines as Buzz asked that. All of them knew that, when it came to his job, he always took it seriously. But right now, none of them could shake off the feeling that whatever he was going to ask did not have an easy answer.

“Now that you know about Order and Chaos, how powerful they are, and also know about one of the most well kept secrets of the Skylands… what do you plan to do now?”

As Calvin heard the words, uncertainty began to settle in. When this conversation started, all he wanted was to understand why the notes Starswirl let him keep were so important. But now that he knew the reason why, he wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t think of the words, but in his mind, Calvin wasn’t sure if this really changed anything. While there was no doubt that Order and Chaos were powerful forces and their origins were a closely guarded secret, it was extremely unlikely that someone like him would be able to use such power. Knowing about it would at least be helpful, in case he had another run-in with Kaos, but he doubted that he could do something on the same level as a Portal Master.

So, after some thought, he did the first thing that came to mind. “Well, if this is supposed to be a safely guarded secret, then I won’t say anything about it,” he said, pulling out the notebook that Starswirl had given him, “I still have a lot to learn about what I can do right now, so adding Order and Chaos on top of that would just be a bit too much for me. So, I think it would be better if you held onto this. You and Master Eon might have more use for this than me.”

The mabu looked at the notebook, carefully reading through some of its pages as Calvin waited with Twilight and Spyro. In his mind, he fully believed that this was the right thing to do. However, the silence in the room while he waited for Buzz’s response made him feel very uncomfortable. What if the notes were not enough? What if there was something Buzz wanted that he didn’t have?

Luckily enough, those concerns weren’t necessary. For when Buzz looked back at him, it was with a friendly smile on his face and a chuckle in his throat. “Well, it seems I have nothing to be worried about then.”

Calvin, Twilight and Spyro were all caught off guard by this, but none more so than Spyro, “Wait a minute, Buzz. Why are you acting so casual? Didn’t you say earlier this was a well kept secret-”

“Oh, it still is, there’s no doubt about it. But the fact that Calvin decided to give us what he found instead of keeping it to himself speaks volumes. Otherwise, we would be having a much different conversation right now,” he stated, pausing briefly to put the notebook that Calvin had given him inside his coat, “Still, that doesn’t mean we’re done just yet. There’s still another matter I wish to discuss.”

“You mean what you wanted to talk about earlier, before we got sidetracked?” Twilight asked, noticing that Spyro seemed to have the exact same thought.

“Indeed. Before we came here, we received reports that suggested that Kaos has been focusing more of his attention on Equestria than the Skylands. Of course, we weren’t entirely sure what he could be doing and wanted to see if you had noticed anything. Then, you told us about your trip to that library that belonged to… Discord, was it?”

Calvin nodded his head, but before he could say anything, Buzz asked a question that caught him by surprise, “Is there any way that we could possibly meet him? I think there were a couple of reports on him before, but I never had the chance to meet him.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Buzz,” the Skyshifter shrugged, “You can’t just have him show up whenever. That, and when he brought me back to the castle, he said that he was ‘late’ for an important meeting and just… vanished.”

“Important? With Discord?” the alicorn blinked, “What exactly could he be doing that’s so important?”

Elsewhere...

Canterlot Castle was as busy as ever as Princess Celestia passed through the doors that led out of the throne room. Day court wasn’t in session today, but her attention was on another matter, as she trotted down the hall. Over the last few months, Equestria had formed new alliances with many of its neighboring nations. Kingdoms that were once enemies of the crown were now seen as allies, all bound together by the ties of friendship.

So, Celestia had an idea, an event that would not only celebrate the friendships that her subjects had with one another, but also the same friendships that Equestria had with its allies, a festival to bring every creature together. Much of what that festival would have was still something she needed to figure out, but Celestia thought that the city of Canterlot was the perfect place to hold an extravaganza like this one

As these thoughts were still on her mind, a familiar feeling began to creep in, like if somepony knew that something seemed off or out of place, but they couldn’t quite put their hoof on what that something might be. To make matters even stranger, as she turned to look outside at the royal garden, she saw what looked to be a pair of chairs and a coffee table set in between two potted ferns that weren’t there before.

Compared to their usual day to day theatrics though, this was relatively tame. And that was something Celestia couldn’t help but be curious about.

As she trotted through the garden to the chairs, she kept an eye out for if there were any other oddities that were somehow different around the garden. Though, there didn’t appear to be anything else that stood out, aside from the chairs and table. The rest of the garden and the statues in it looked exactly like how they always did. Nothing appeared out of place, and that was both a relief… and a concern.

So, seeing that there were two chairs and a table, Celestia sat down on the one on the left. Almost immediately, a familiar voice was heard, as she saw a pink poof of smoke go off in the other seat. “Well, hello there. I didn’t think I would find you wandering through the garden at this hour.”

“Discord, if this was an attempt to try and make some renovations to the castle without me noticing, then you will have to try harder than that.”

“Oh, you wound me with words like that,” the draconequus said, pretending to look like he was in pain for a brief moment, before he looked back at the alicorn, “But no, that’s not what I was trying to do. In fact, I just wanted to talk with you… if you got the time. I know how extremely busy you are, and those important things you call ‘responsibilities’.”

Even though Discord brought up a fair point, Celestia could only raise an eyebrow. With the spiritual embodiment of chaos, it was never as simple as ‘just wanting to talk’. The last time that Discord came for a visit, he decided to hide himself inside the cake that was made for her birthday, without the baker even knowing, something that he apparently saw Pinkie Pie do one time and thought it would be fun to replicate. It took weeks for the staff to clean up the dining hall afterwards.

“Just to talk?” she asked, followed by a nod of the head from Discord as Celestia asked a follow up question, “Well, what was it that you wished to talk about?”

“Since you asked so nicely, there was something I wanted to bring to your attention,” the chaos spirit said, having what looked like a pair of photographs manifest from nothing at the snap of a claw, “After everything that happened at Ponhedge, I thought that things would start to calm down, but it appears that’s not case.”

Celestia couldn’t help but feel a bit hesitant at what he said. What he said could imply a number of things, but the only way to really find out what was happening was through asking him. “How so? Last I heard, Hollow Shades and any surrounding towns affected by what happened have almost recovered completely-”

“Ah, yes. But, you see, trouble has a tendency to brew in many places, and sometimes do so in places outside of your jurisdiction, my dear,” Discord interrupted, before gently setting down the photographs on the table and pushing them to her, “Would you care to have a look?”

Carefully, the princess levitated the photos to examine them. However, what was in the photos caught her off guard. The first picture showed a jungle landscape, with smoke in the air and the sight of burning buildings from afar. The second one, however, was more vivid. Creatures displaced from their homes, many of them running for their lives, as metal warships hung in the sky.

“Discord… what am I looking at?”

“I’m glad you asked, because this is the state of Abyssinia right now,” the draconequus remarked, his tone sounding a bit more serious as he looked back at her, “I was in Abyssinia to take care of some business, but as I was leaving, I happened to bare witness to what was happening here. I’m not entirely sure who is responsible for this atrocity, but their methods seem eerily similar to another adversary from the other side.”

It took a moment, but after some time, Celestia blinked, as she looked back at him, “Do you mean that villain that Calvin’s… friends over there have to deal with?”

“Somewhat, but I doubt this creature even knows about the other side,” Discord replied, “There’s a saying in Chaosville that ‘for every original idea, there’s always a cheap knock off’. If we consider that villain on the other side as the original, then this figure going around and making a mess of Equestria’s neighbors here is unknowingly being a copycat. Both of them are on a campaign of conquest, have little regard for the well being of those that cross their path, and will do anything to get their hands on what they want. The only difference is that this copycat is on a direct path towards Equestria, give or take a few of our neighbors along the way.”

All of this was a lot of information to process, and Celestia did not like what she was hearing. Any threat against her subjects should be taken as rather serious. However, the thing that bothered her the most was how little they knew about it. Other villains had either been locked away in Tartarus or have some known records on them. However, this figure that Discord is describing sounded as if they appeared out of the blue.

Which begged the question, how do you stop a villain when you know nothing about them? That was something that Celestia hoped her chaotic friend had an answer to, even though she did not want to admit it.

“You happen to know quite a bit about this figure in such a short time,” she said, “But what compelled you to share all of this with me?”

“Let’s just say that after some… recent events, I thought I would do more to contribute to help Equestria. It is still technically my home as well, and I think we can both agree that we rather not be blindsided by another villain after what happened with Chrysalis a few months back.”

As much as the diarch of the sun hated to admit it, what Discord was saying right now sort of made sense. Which seemed rather strange, since anything involving him, and by extension chaos, never makes sense. Still, with an impending threat getting closer to her kingdom’s doorstep, and them being the only creatures who knew about it, something had to be done at the very least, “So, in your honest opinion, what do you believe we should do?”

At that, Discord was honestly a bit surprised. Normally, when it came to matters like these, Celestia would already have some sort of plan or contingency that she prepared, just in case. So, the fact that she wanted to hear the draconequus’ input was a rarity in itself. “Well, ideally, the first thing we should do is not tell anypony else about this. You know, make sure not to cause unnecessary panic and all that. The other thing that we need is information, because right now, we know nothing about this villain except for the havoc they’re leaving behind at each place they go to. Not even a name.”

“Well then, what would you suggest we call them?”

While the question was simple, it took a moment or so for the draconequus to process his thoughts, “Well, considering how little we know of them, we should have a placeholder name for the time being. Since we only know of them by what they’ve done and everything left behind, let’s just call them like it is. Havoc.”

Celestia nodded, taking in a deep breath before she asked one more question, “Simple enough. Though, now that you decided on a name, how do you plan on actually finding out more about them?”

All the princess saw was a mischievous grin on his face as he raised his talon, “That, you can leave to me. Besides, you have other things to attend to.”

With a snap of the talons, Discord was gone, along with the pictures he had and the tableset, leaving Celestia standing in her garden with two potted ferns. While the conversation with him wasn’t exactly what she was expecting, it was… rather insightful.

Now, she hoped that there was enough time to prepare for what was coming.

End Scroll 37

Scroll 1- Through the clouds

Beyond the Skies- Through the Clouds

Equus

It was quite a calm day in the world of Equestria as Night drew closer. Clouds of an evening storm were beginning to form over the setting sun thanks to the weather ponies that were working at the weather factory. One pony in particular being Rainbow Dash. The self proclaimed “Fastest Flyer in Equestria” that also spent the vast majority of her days sleeping as she did flying. Today, she was asked to assist in preparing for the coming of Spring for Ponyville and she was super excited for it. Mostly because her pet tortoise named Tank would be coming out of Hibernation after two long months. Both she and Scootaloo would be happy to see him again and have him flying by her side.

The thought of flying made Rainbow look up as she saw some other pegasi talking while moving and some couples cuddling on top of clouds. However, there was one thing that she noticed that was out of the blue. Somepony or…… something was falling out of the sky.

And towards her house.

At that same moment…

As time flew past him, a young twelve year old boy named Calvin was trying to make sense of what was going on. Earlier that day at the neighborhood Toy’s R Us, he won a promotional item for being the 1,000,000th customer of the store when he came to buy a gift for his friends. The item itself was a necklace that had a crystal in the center. It glowed a Rainbow-ish color when held up to sunlight, but when he found that out though was when he started to realize that he wasn’t on solid ground anymore. And instead falling head first.

It was like flying through the sky. Except… he was going straight down. Calvin began to panic a bit, thinking that this was somehow a dream as he curled himself up into a ball. Taking hold of his pendant, he whispered to himself something that would try and calm him. A phrase he remembered.

Back home, he liked to play Skylanders with his friends. Calvin had quite a few favorites and remembered the catchphrases for each one. So, he thought of the first one that came to mind and said one of its phrase.

Light’s out

As he closed his eyes though, he didn’t realize two things. One, the pendant glowing and it’s light beginning to cover him. Second, the house that was on a cloud that he was going to crash into.

CRRRRRAAAAASSSHHHHH!!!!!!!

“MY HOUSE!!!” came the screams of someone as Calvin reopened his eyes. He felt himself on a solid floor, unaware of where he was. Was he home? Was he in heaven? No matter how many questions he had, none of them prepared him for the surprise that he was going to get in front of him.

“Who the hay are you!?” Asked Rainbow Dash, taking an offensive stance to the creature that crashed landed into her home. “You got a lot of nerve if you thought it would be funny to crash into my house!?”

For Calvin right now, his vision was foggy. All he was getting was in and out blurs of what appeared to be a pegasus. One that could speak no less. “I-i…… wh-who…… are you?” Before he could adjust himself anymore, he tried to move his arm, only to realize that his arm was now a dragon’s foreleg. His eyes widened as he began to panic. “W-WHAT-!? What is happening to me!?”

“A dragon huh? Well don’t think you can come into my home and get away with it.”

“N-no please!! Don’t hurt me!!” He pleaded, but was forced to move when the Pony tried to kick him with her hoof.

“Hold still, you little pest!”

“Please… just STOP!!” Calvin’s final plea ended in a roar that caused his newfound wings to move and block the hoof before pushing the Pegasus back across the room. ‘D-did I just… do that?!’ He asked himself. Now, he was beginning to realize what happened. He looked at a mirror on the wall and realized it for himself.

He just turned into Blackout. The Dragon Skylander of the Dark Element.

But Rainbow Dash didn’t care what he was. Because she was MAD. “Oh, I am so gonna pound your face in just for doing that twerp!!”

“Nononono, not my face!!” Calvin said, trying to scramble to his feet and get use to his new four legged body. But unknowingly, the dark dragon used one of his abilities that was able to teleport himself out of the way of Rainbow’s charging attack through a black hole on the floor. It also kept Rainbow in the center of the hole and preventing her from trying to go at her. That was… until the hole was gone and she was free once more.

“Looks like somepony lost all their magic.” Rainbow Dash said, walking towards the dragon with a devilish smile on her face. “Now it’s my turn twerp.” Calvin gulped. This was not going well for him. He wished that this pony could just calm down for a moment and just help him. That was when he felt a warm light surround him again and when it faded, he was back in his human form, shocking both the pony and himself. Personally, Rainbow was shocked because she didn’t realize that what she was attacking was a child! “W-Wait, you’re just a kid!?”

“Y-yeah… W-who are you?...... What happened to me?” He asked, looking back at his necklace that just hung from his neck. The boy had only a simple sleeveless shirt and jeans with some sandals to match his shaggy black hair.

“The heck if I know kid. You were the one that crashed into my home after all, so you should know what you did.”

“I did what?” Calvin said, now realizing the hole in the roof. “Oh my……”

“Yeah, so care to explain why you crash and wreck my home, kid?”

“I don’t know!” Calvin told the pony, a little stressed out. “All I know was that I was coming out of a toy store from where I was, passed out, saw myself falling, closed my eyes and next thing I know, I wake up as Blackout.”

“Yeah right, how do I know you not a changeling in disguise? Or a spy sent here to spy on how awesome I am?”

Calvin himself began to question that himself, even though he didn’t know what a Changeling was. That was when he felt something painful around his shoulders and putting a hand there, his eyes widened at the sight of his own blood and the pain that ran through his body. “AGH!! M-my arm!”

“Whoa, hey kid you okay?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Blood began to drip a little as he slowly removed his hand from his arm. “I-it hurts……”

“Oh man, hold on kid.” Rainbow Dash picked the boy up and placed him onto her back. “I know a pony that might be able to help.”

“Urrrgh!!” Calvin groaned in pain. Rainbow soon realized that due to his weight, she couldn’t go as fast as she would have wanted to. Now, the pegasus had to refer to plan b. Bring that pony to him instead.

“Okay bad idea. You stay here while I go get my friend to help you. Be back in a flash.”

“H-hurry…” He moaned, trying to bear the pain. Before Rainbow left, she went over and gave the boy a clean cloth to cover the wound and try to stop the bleeding while she was gone. Of course, given Rainbow Dash and how dire the situation was, this only lasted like two minutes.

“Told you kid I would return with help in a flash.” Said Rainbow Dash, busting the door open. The sound startled the hurt human, almost causing him to lose his grip on the cloth on his shoulder. He was panting now, a sign that he was beginning to tire out. The Pegasus had to hurry. Motioning both Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle, she kicked the door back into place “Alright everypony, get inside!!”

“Oh my goodness! What did you do this poor creature, Rainbow Dash?” Asked Fluttershy, as she rushed towards Calvin with medical kit in hoof.

“Me!? He was the one that crashed into my house!!”

“How can somepony like him could do something like that?”

“I don’t know, what am I? Miss ‘know it all’ pony or something? Anyways, why don’t you ask the kid when you’re done patching him up-.”

“Girls please! Stop your arguing!” Yelled Twilight. “Can we please focus on what’s important here?”

“R-Right, the kid! So Fluttershy, how’s he doing?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

“Well the wound isn’t that deep, but he won’t be using his arm for quite a while. But other than the blood loss, the creature’s going to be fine.” The Yellow Pegasus said as she finished her examination. Fluttershy was familiar with the upper anatomy of the subject since her encounter with the Minotaur named Iron Will and the Centaur named Lord Tirek, who was back in Tartarus. She noticed that the boy was recovering a little bit more and has now lying back against the sofa he was on. It would be about an hour or so before he would be awake again. But in that time, Calvin received a very special visitor.

When he opened his eyes again, the young human named Calvin found himself in what looked like an ever expanding sky with himself being on a floating island. He didn’t know if this place was real or not, but soon though, another voice caught his attention.

“Greetings, youngling.”

The boy turned around, only to be surprised by what he saw. A glowing white silhouette of Eon, the Elder portal master of skylands. He was beginning to think that this was all a dream. A trick. But, as it turns out, it wasn’t. The Elderly man was truly real and in front of him.

“You seem to have many questions… Please… take your time.”

“I-i… don’t know where to begin…” He finally said after a few seconds. “W-what happened to me?”

“You were somehow brought from your home into the world underneath the skylands. The history books refer to it as Equus, yet it has been laid as undiscovered for over thousands of years.” The Portal Master told him, scratching his chin. “Tell me though, may I see that pendant around your neck? It feels like I’ve seen it somewhere before.”

Calvin nodded his head, taking it off of his neck and handing it to the elder portal master. Eon carefully inspected the materials of the crystal, even summoning a book from thin air for him to refer to something that he had seen previously before. “Remarkable… I never knew something like this would show up in your world no less.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t follow.”

“This, young boy, is a very rare crystal. It was referred to by the ancients as Elementanium or “The Mineral of Elements” by the Molekin. A magical crystal that can harness all the elements that the Skylanders represent. However, it seems that it has been bound to you specifically and with it, comes newfound gifts.”

“Gifts?”

“Earlier, you closed your eyes and recited something that Blackout would say, did you not?”

He was right. Calvin did remember that happening. But what exactly did that mean? “Y-yeah I remember. But what does that have to do with me?”

“Young lad, with this crystal of yours, you can become the Skylanders that you know and cherish back where you are from. However, it does not mean that you can be one forever. Through observing your encounter with the Cyan Equine, you can only stay in a transformed state for no more than five minutes at a time. This goes for all Skylanders, including Swap Force, Trap team and even the Giants.”

Calvin’s eyes widened. He could…… turn into a Skylander? Was that right? Boy, did he feel like jumping for joy right now. However, Eon wasn’t quite done with him yet.

“Before you go though, you may need to take care of something first.”

“What’s that, Master Eon?” The Boy asked, politely. He learned from others that it was polite to treat others with respect.

“You will need something for other to call you by if in trouble and need your help. A token that represents you. And I think I know just the thing that’ll work.”

“Umm… I’m sorry for interrupting you Eon, but I just found out about these powers recently.” Calvin had to remind him. “Do you think we could hold off on that until I’m a bit… familiar with where I am and what I can do.”

The Elder Portal Master sighed. “If you insist. Remember though, I’ll always be here if you need my guidance, young SkyShifter.” Before Calvin could say anything else, everything around him began to blur and turn to a bright light. Only to be greeted by the sound of the Cyan Equine he encountered before.

“Hey, you awake kid?”

That was the first few words that Calvin heard as he began to open his eyes again. Seeing the Cyan Equine again. “Y-yeah. I’m sorry about your roof miss……”

“The names Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in all of Equestria. As for my roof, well I guess I’ll let it slide seeing how you’re just a kid and all.”

“Thanks. I’m still sorry for earlier. You know…… after I crashed in here. My name is Calvin. Nice to meet you.”

“Huh, that’s a weird name for…...whatever you are?”

“I’m a human.” Calvin replied, trying to straighten himself up on the couch slowly.

“Human huh? Do all you guys look like hairless apes or something or is it just you?”

“Well, not really. I’m only twelve years old. Though, I’m not really sure if I can answer a lot of question you might have. There are some things I’m still confused about myself. Like earlier…… who were your friends? Like the Pegasus that bandaged my arm?”

“Oh them? That would be Fluttershy and Twilight. I got them to patch you up.”

Calvin smiled a little, not feeling any pain in his arm when he tried to move it. “Hey, next time you see them, can you give them my thanks?”

“By all means, tell them yourself.”

“Wait, wha-?” Before Calvin could say anything else, the two ponies from before re-entered the room, surprising him. “Well… This is awkward.”

“Just wait until Twilight ask you some questions about yourself. Then it will be awkward.” Upon saying that. Twilight jolted up in front of Calvin with a quill and scroll in hoof.

“How did you end up here in Equestria? Do all humans have the ability to fly? Do you like books? How many of you species is there? Do you eat meat, fruits, or vegetables?” Before Twilight was able to ask anymore questions regarding any subject, Calvin coughed a little and interjected.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t Flying, I was falling. Depends on the book. Billions back home, but I’m now there, and all of the above.” Looking at Rainbow now, he watched her jaw hang loose and her eye pupils shrink. “What? Was it something I said?”

“T-There’s h-how many of you humans?”

“It honestly depends on what country you’re talking about. I don’t know exact numbers.”

“B-but how can a species population grow so fast?”

“Miss, I don’t even know myself to be honest with you. I honestly don’t even know how I got here.” Calvin replied. “I’m only twelve years old. I’m not Albert Einstein.”

“So I won’t get that much from you huh?”

“Sorry If I’m not that helpful.” The boy replied back. “I’ve only graduated Elementary school recently.”

“Oh so you’re just a kid then? Then I’ll have to send a letter to Celestia about this-.”

“Hang on, Twi.” Rainbow interjected for a second. “Aren’t you going to ask him about what I told you earlier? You know? Turning into a dragon and what not?”

“Yes well. I think we should wait until tomorrow for-.”

“No need.” Calvin interjected. “I’ve kind of got an understanding of it, so why not demonstrate it to you.” With his good arm, Calvin held the crystal and began to think of Blackout again, then muttered “Lights out” in a soft tone. The light covered him for just a moment, like a blanket. But when the blanket was removed, the dragon Rainbow saw earlier had taken form again. “Please though, let’s keep this between ourselves for now.”

“But Celestia has to know about this-.”

“She can know once I know more about it. This is all new to me as well.” He spoke in Blackout’s voice. “But I have gotten a bit comfortable on knowing how to do this.”

“Then how does it work than?”

“Where I’m from, there are a collection of heroes in a game that are called Skylanders. Using the Necklace that was around my neck, I think of one of them, say a phrase they would say and then turn into them. Just now, I turned into one of the ten different skylander types called Blackout. A dark Skylander who uses his wings to fight. However, these transformations can’t last forever.” Just when he said that, Calvin returned to his normal human form. “Transformations only last for a limited amount of time. Five minutes at most I believe. Given how long Rainbow thought that I was some Changeling or whatever she called it.”

“That’s quite amazing. You said that there were ten types right?” Calvin nodded his head briefly before Twilight spoke again. “What are they?”

“Fire, Earth, Air, Water, Life, Undead, Tech, Magic, Light, and Dark. Blackout is only a Dark type, but he’s very quick and mobile in combat.” Calvin explained. “While on the other hand, another one might me more focused on blasting monsters with spells than going at them head on.”

“Hold on, they’re Undead and Dark Skylanders? Aren’t those like… villains?” Twilight had to ask. After remembering her encounter with Sombra in the Crystal Empire and knowing that raising the dead was straight out forbidden in Equestria, she had some growing concerns about what the boy had just said.

“Not really. Despite the sounds of their sinister origins, Dark and Undead Skylanders use their powers for good and are sometimes the ones who are recognized the most for their courage and bravery despite their appearance. Never judge a book by it’s cover.”

“Pfft… Eggheads.” Rainbow groaned. She personally not liked having to fight from afar when she could just swoop in and deal a good ol’ hoof of justice! “Hey, maybe there's a way to help you train you to make the most out of your transformations!”

“Rainbow, you’re forgetting that he still is hurt.”

“I was saying for after he’s healed. Now right now, bookworm.” The pegasus retorted back, getting a chuckle out of Calvin.

“But... but what about my plans, and the others?”

“Calvin should be well before he should meet everypony,” Fluttershy softly spoke. “If you think it’s okay, I can have him stay with me and the animals tomorrow.”

“Wait, you raise animals?” Calvin asked, surprised. “What kinds?”

“I have a Rabbit named Angel and a bear named Henry-.”

“SOLD!!!” Calvin shot upward. “Lead the way. I like all animals, but especially bears!!”

“Fine, but I still have some more questions for Calvin once he feels better.” Twilight said. “Oh and how are we going to get him down there-?”

“Not to worry, I got something I think can work.” Calvin said as he stepped outside, holding onto the Crystal again. “Full Scream Ahead”. A few moments later, Calvin took the form of the Griffon Air Skylander named Sonic Boom. Mostly since she was able to fly on her own as one of her upgrades in the games. With that, Fluttershy and Calvin left Rainbow’s home, smiling a little as they ascended into the sky. But for Twilight, the shock of what just happened was making her eyes twitch.

“Uhh… Twilight? Are you okay?” The nearby element of loyalty asked out of concern. Only to watch her friend pass out.

“Oh great. I think Calvin broke Egghead.”

End Scroll 1

Author's Note

I made this to try some more PG related writing and because I wanted to test some new character ideas. I'm not revealing any villains off the bat, but I will add more over time. Oh and this takes place some time after Tanks for the Memories...
-Frost

Blackout:

Sonic Boom:

Simple Facts on Calvin
Height: 4ft 9in
Weight: 120lbs
Noticeable feature: Tan skin, Blue eyes, Black shaggy hair.

And to leave you off, this as found on the Skylanders Wiki page for Blackout
◾Blackout resembles creatures of the Changeling species from the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Scroll 4- Preparations

Beyond the Skies- Preparations

Castle of Friendship

“It means I’m going to have to craft you a suit for the occasion.” Rarity’s words had Calvin become a bit surprised and also left him a bit puzzled as well. He didn’t know what exactly the “Grand Galloping Gala” was or why he had to dress like he was going to a wedding for it, but those were all things that he had to ask the ponies in the room. He took a moment to think things through, but after five minutes, the young boy began to ask the questions that popped up inside his mind.

“Wait a second, what is this Grand Galloping Gala though? I’ve only been here for a few hours, and I’m not exactly familiar with what it is.”

“The Grand Galloping Gala is a formal social event where almost all the highest of Nobles and diplomats from across Equestria, and in some cases other countries, come to socialize with one another, along with getting to meet Princess Celestia herself.” Twilight explained to him. To Calvin’s young brain though, he couldn’t understand most of the words that the Alicorn was saying.

“Uhh… English please?” Twilight’s only response was a raised eyebrow as Rainbow Dash was the only one who picked up on Calvin’s confusion.

“He wants you to speak in non-egghead, Twilight,” Rainbow clarified, “He is just as old as Scootaloo, so he wouldn’t understand those big words that you always find in the dictionary.”

“Right…” Twilight sighed. “It’s a big party-”

“Oh, you mean like New Year's Eve?” Calvin asked, “Back home, it’s a huge celebration where we say goodbye to the old year and hello to the new one.” The thought of that surprised Twilight, but she resisted the urge to reply with another long and drawn out question.

“Something along those lines if you want to call it that. Whatever the case may be, Rarity is right. You’ll need some casual clothes for the evening if you plan on meeting the Princess, which means she’ll have to help make you some new clothes.”

“But, I already have my clothes? Aren’t these casual?” He asked. “I feel casual in them.”

Twilight sighed, facehoofing herself as she sighed deeply. “I mean casual in appearance.”

“Well, that could mean multiple things-”

“Calvin, what Egghead is trying to tell you is that you need a nice dress shirt and slacks for the event. Plus, Rarity would need to talk to the shoemaker to see if they could get you something to cover your feet,” Rainbow Dash told him, “No offense, but seeing those out in broad daylight makes me think you’re an ape.”

“None taken,” came the sarcastic reply. “So, I guess I’ll just follow Rarity then?”

“Sure thing. Come along now, dear.” Rarity told him as she trotted out of the castle. Calvin followed her along with Rainbow Dash, who wanted to spend some more time with the boy. However, while he was walking by the train station, he thought that he heard the sound of screaming. Something along the lines of “OH, ELEMENTS! PLEASE SPARE ME!!!”

“Hey girls, did you hear that?” He asked both Rainbow and Rarity as they passed by the station.

“Hear what, Calvin?” Rainbow then asked.

“Something that sounded like someone screaming?”

Rainbow herself raised an eyebrow and looked around. Normally, she would be the first pony to hear screams, because she would be the one to save them. But this wasn’t really synching and just shrugged it off. “… Nah, all I hear is the train on the tracks.”

“Odd,” the boy muttered. “I swear I thought I heard someone just now.” Calvin just shook his head a little and kept on walking. Soon, they reached Rarity’s home, and the boy now began to realize why it was called the “Carousel” Boutique. The whole interior almost resembled a carnival ride with the mannequins looking like the animals of a carousel back home, just this time... with only ponies.

“Now, Darling, before I begin sewing anything, I wanted to make sure you feel comfortable. So, I’m going to need your input on a few things.”

“Input?”

“Your opinion.”

“Oh, alright,” Calvin said. “What is it that you need my opinion on?”

Rarity chuckled a little to herself as she looked at the young boy. “Well, for me to be able to make your clothes, I’m going to need your measurements in shirt and pants size and also know what kind of color fabric you prefer.”

“Okay, what are my options for the colors of my clothes?”

Rarity’s eyes twinkled a little at the question. Oh, she could not wait to surprise him with what she had in store. Soon, she had a huge book filled with numerous patterns, textures, and styles of fabrics in front of the boy. Calvin took a little bit of time to look over the numerous designs before choosing a dark and crisp navy blue for both the pants and shirt. After some time and a few measurements, the unicorn had what she needed in order to begin making the outfit for the young boy.

However, as she was just about to begin with the sewing, the door to the room opened and a small bell began to chime, causing Rarity, Rainbow and Calvin to turn around in the direction of the noise. “Rarity, I’M HOME!!!”

“Goodness, Sweetie Belle. What have I told you before about yelling inside the house while I’m working?”

“S-sorry-... Wait a minute…” The filly stopped speaking as soon as she and her friends that were right beside her saw Calvin. “M-monster!!”

“Wait wha-!?”

“GET HIM!!”

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, MONSTER CATCHERS YAY!!!” Without warning, all three fillies that were by the door tried to pounce onto Calvin and tackle him to the floor. However, the orange pegasus was stopped by Rainbow Dash and Rarity used her levitation spell to pick up her sister in mid-air. Leaving a young Earth Pony to knock him onto the floor.

“Ah got him, girls!!”

“Applebloom? What the hay are you doing!?” Rainbow snapped. “Calvin is a friend of ours, not somepony for you to knock over like that!”

“Wait… A friend? Does mah sister know-?”

“What in tarnations is going on here!?” Came the voice of another earth pony a few seconds later, who on first instinct used a Lasso that she had to try and tie up Calvin and separate Applebloom from him. Calvin, out of instinct, grabbed hold of his necklace before being tied up and then said something.

“Fuel the Flames.”

Blue fire began to channel around him, burning the ropes as the boy turned into Spitfire. His burning claws cutting through the ropes briefly before turning back to normal a few seconds later.

“Calvin, was that really necessary? Applejack is a friend of ours,” Rainbow told him as she set down Scootaloo. “The one with the bow is named Apple Bloom, the little squirt right here is Scootaloo, and the one with the cat is Sweetie Belle.”

“I-I’m sorry Rainbow. I just don’t like the feeling of getting tied up like that. Brings back bad memories of when I was in school.”

“Oh? Why’s that, sugarcube?” The pony with the Stetson hat, who Calvin assumed was Applejack, asked him.

“Back home, bullies use to tie me up with their jackets and shove me into a locker.” He sighed a little, recalling the memories. “I’ve had a bit of a rough life back where I’m from, so some things that remind me of those bad moments cause me to react like that.”

“It’s alright, partner. Care to tell us though what was the thing ya’ did with the flames?”

“Oh, right…” Calvin sighed. “You see, that’s the thing. My necklace allows me to transform into a series of creatures back from where I’m from called Skylanders. By saying something they would say and focusing, I can turn into one of them for a short amount of time.”

Rainbow and Rarity helped out Calvin with filling in the gaps in his explanation to the three fillies and the Element of Honesty, adding in the encounter he had with the Princesses and the fact that Calvin will be joining them during the Grand Galloping Gala. In addition, Rainbow helped recall what Fluttershy had told her about the incident regarding the “Chompies” and the pod that was found in the back of the school, surprising the fillies when they realized that what terrorized the whole town was their school project. Still, the three of them found it as quite awesome to see someone with powers and abilities that would make him be on the same level of “Awesomeness” as Rainbow Dash.

Later in the day, Rainbow went with Calvin in order to go get some of the other things that he might need for the event. But also, he began to wonder about the voice he heard… and where it could possibly be right around now.

Glumshanks

He had been running non-stop, mostly out of fear for his life, but the minion serving under Lord Kaos finally felt safe once he stumbled into the snowy wastes of the Crystal Empire. But with that though, there came some new problems. First off, it was flippin’ cold. He was shivering every ten steps he took with no source of heat or anything to keep him warm. Second, the weather wasn’t doing him any good either with the raging snowstorm that was kicking up. Third, there was the thought of Kaos in the back of his mind and how he’d react if he came back empty handed. Possibly being yelled at for being “useless” like all the other times before. He really made it a goal of his to find something that could possibly please his master. Soon though, he saw a faint glimmer of hope that he stumbled upon: a cave. What was inside the cave though was actually more important: the leftovers of an old makeshift shelter.

As he walked through the frozen tunnel, the minion soon felt something along his feet and looked down. What he saw looked like a curved Red horn of some kind of fang, but as he picked it up, he saw shadow like magic seep from the horn, like it was smoke. As more smoke gathered, a pair of devilish eyes began to form as Glumshanks backed up against the wall. He couldn’t stop his shaking body as he looked at whatever this… thing was.

“O-oh no… W-what did I do?”

The black spirit looked at Glumshanks, confused. He wanted answers and wanted them now. “Who… are you?” It’s tone came out subtle. But soon, the voice rose into an ear piercing screech “I SAID… WHO… ARE… YOU!!?!”

Glumshanks was terrified now. He dropped the horn, muttering his name in a low whisper like tone. He thought that whatever this was, it couldn’t have heard him. He was soon proven wrong.

“Glumshanks? Is that Right? You are…… Interesting… I feel the darkness and fear in your heart, but feel something… foreign. Pfft, forget it… Tell me, why do you disturb me at this hour?”

Gaining courage, Glumshanks spoke again and told the wisp everything. From his master to his crash landing and lastly, running from the wolves all the way to here and finding him. The blackened soul was intrigued by the story, especially the mentioning of the Lord Kaos that this underling had served.

“Interesting…… Is it possible for you to take me to this… Kaos that you serve?”

“I would… but my transport crashed and is nothing but scrap metal-”

“‘Tis alright. We will improvise-”

“B-but you haven’t even told me your name,” The Loyal minion protested.

“I believe it would be easier if I introduced myself to both you and your master at the same time,” It replied, “Do you have a backup plan?”

Glumshanks thought it through for a long amount of time, but then remembered something. Despite the radio he used to contact Kaos being trashed, he had a long range emergency radio that he kept on him. However, he is unsure of if he should contact Kaos until after he found out all he knew about the surface. To him, it seemed too soon.

“Well?” Came the impatient voice of the wisp.

“Oh, sorry! I have an emergency radio to use, but my master told me only to use it once I found out all I knew about this surface world.”

“Hmm… Then maybe I can help. I know all about these lands and can be quite useful to your ‘master’. All you need to do is take me to him.”

Now, with that in mind, Glumshanks turned on the radio. After figuring out the right transmitting frequency, he soon was able to connect to an open communication channel. “L-lord Kaos? Lord Kaos, come in.”

Back at his Castle, the unexpected call of his loyal minion caused Kaos’ concentration to break as he fell down with a loud THUD! When he stepped out with his evil bath robe on, he soon picked up the other end of the radio. “Glumshanks, how many times have I told you not to contact me while I’m busy!?!”

“What were you even doing exactly…? Did you slip in the shower again?”

“Fool!! I was just simply washing my head… and my arms… and my hands… and- Oh whatever. It doesn’t really matter. What do you want!?” He demanded. Kaos wasn’t really in the mood for any failures.

“I found something that could be beneficial in your plans, but my transport crashed when I landed. Could it be possible for you to teleport me back to the castle?”

“Ugh, fine… I hope this is actually useful, Glumshanks. I don’t want you to fail me again.” It took Kaos a little bit to prepare himself for the summoning, because he needed to change back into his proper robes. His bath robes wouldn’t exactly do the trick for this anyways. As he walked over to his dark portal of power, he began to conjure the necessary magic in order for him to summon his loyal minion back to his fortress.

When he did return, all Kaos saw was him holding a fang of sorts. “Glumshanks, I did not ask you to bring back a souvenier. I asked for information. Do I seriously need to try and drill it into that thick skull of yours!?!”

“B-but-.”

“Maybe I should do the talking?” The black wisp spoke as he flowed out of the horn again. This time, the wisp took the form of an Equine like figure that was transparent and couldn’t be touched. “My name is Sombra, and I believe both you and I, Lord Kaos, have some common interests between each other.”

“Oh really? Why’s that?” Kaos folded his arms, displeased.

“Well, from what I can concur, you want to conquer the lands below am I right?”

“H-how do y-?”

“Glumshanks told me.” The statement was followed up by a swift glare to the loyal minion, whom quickly ducked for cover behind Kaos’ throne. “Anyways, there are things that I know that can be useful to you.”

“Oh, really?” Kaos asked, unimpressed. “Define useful.”

“Well, I know all about those lands, the species that live there and the ones who might get in the way of your goals. With my knowledge and power, I can make those dreams become a reality… You will be unstoppable… What do you think?”

Kaos smiled mischievously. “I believe that’s something I can agree to. Now, tell me this… when is a possible time that I can introduce myself to these creatures?”

Sombra grinned. “Well… There is one social gathering that takes place every year called the Grand Galloping Gala…”

End Scroll 4

Author's Note

And the plot thickens... Got the chance to play Superchargers during Comic con and I gotta tell you, Spitfire is fun to play as. I might have Calvin using him more often. Enjoy!

Scroll 18- Hypno Havoc

Author's Note

So yeah... this chapter is one of the longest ones that I have done for this one yet. I do hope you guys like it, and also spot some hidden easter eggs to some movies I did with certain scenes that had Discord in them.

New Skylanders-
Chop Chop

Hoot Loop

Magna Charge

Sorry for making you wait on this. Thank you for being patient and I hope you enjoy it.
-Frost

Scroll 18- Hypno Havoc

Beyond the Skies- Hypno Havoc

It had been around two weeks since Calvin’s first initial ‘meeting’ with the unicorn named Starlight Glimmer, and in the weeks since, there had been a couple of noticeable changes since then. For one thing, since Starlight had agreed to become Princess Twilight’s student. She now had her own room inside the castle, which was directly next door to that of Calvin’s. Another was that since she saw the whole ‘student of friendship’ opportunity as a fresh start. She decided to change her mane as well to reflect on that. Most of the days were spent with Twilight, reviewing numerous times that each one of her friends had learned a valuable ‘friendship lesson’, while also having Starlight try to understand it, too.

Yet, today was different. It started around the time that Calvin was getting up, yawning as his eyes fluttered open, and he slowly emerged from the comfort of his bed. As he walked to the door, he began to feel that something wasn’t quite right in this scenario. Normally around now, he would hear the voices of either Twilight, Starlight or Spike echoing throughout the hallway as they were talking in the center of the castle or having breakfast. Yet, right now, it was quieter than an Undead Sensei realm.

Opening the door only led to him being even more curious, as he did not see anypony around, nor hear anypony either, just the sound of wind softly blowing outside. Though, as he walked closer to where the Cutie Map was, he did happen to find something laid out across the table. It looked to be a piece of parchment, the same kind that Twilight would use to write letters to Princess Celestia, as well as that one note that she did for him a while back.

“Well, I guess it might not hurt to read it,” he said to himself, picking it up with his left hand as he read the words that were written on the page.

Dear Calvin,

Sorry for telling you about this on short notice, but Princess Cadance had invited us over to the Crystal Empire for the Crystalling. My friends and I are going to be gone for most of the day, along with Spike and Starlight, so you’ll be by yourself for the time being. Even so, please make sure to be on your best behavior.

Sincerely,

Twilight

P.S. You don’t have to stay inside the castle all day if you don’t feel up for it. Maybe you can check if Apple Bloom and the Cutie Mark Crusaders are doing anything today and see if you can join them? Just a thought.

That did seem like a good idea, he had to admit. Though, just to make sure, he flipped the parchment around, so he was certain that he did not accidentally overlook anything that Twilight might’ve frantically scribbled on the back. When seeing that it was completely blank, all he did was let out a sigh of relief. “At least we won’t have the same kind of mix up like before.”

Of course, Twilight’s letter also did tell him one thing, considering the language of the message. Not to head to the Skylands. For you see, Twilight didn’t just want to immediately show her student the M.A.P. just yet. Of course, Starlight was partially familiar with the Skylanders, given the encounter with Stealth Elf, and that required both Twilight and Calvin to just give her a general explanation on the matter. However, she was not fully aware of the Skylands and was given the impression that the Skylanders were like ‘familiars’ that Calvin could summon.

Though, the full conversation on that topic was for another day. Right now, the Skyshifter needed to figure out what was going to be on today’s agenda. The letter gave him one potential idea, yet the only problem was that he wasn’t sure where Apple Bloom and her friends might be right around now. At first, he thought that Sweetie Belle would be at Carousel Boutique. But after walking over to the shop, he noticed a ‘SORRY. WE’RE CLOSED.’ sign on the door, and nopony else was inside.

“Well, that rules that out.” Calvin grumbled, folding his arms as he looked around, trying to think of some other place that he could possibly find them. Then, he remembered something. Back during Nightmare Night, the apple family was the one who had set up the corn maze by Sweet Apple Acres. So, maybe Apple Bloom was still at the orchard with Granny Smith. Or at the least, they might know where she is.

With that thought in his mind, Calvin now set off towards Sweet Apple Acres, keeping his eyes open, just in case the three fillies that he’s looking for happen to pass by. Though, as he walked through Ponyville, the only ponies that he did happen to see passing by were those who lived in town, the ponies that were buying their groceries at the market and some of the children from Cheerilee’s school playing on the playground. Nopony in particular he recognized though.

Eventually though, as he got closer to the orchard, he was able to find somepony that he did recognize. That being Big Mac, Apple Bloom’s older brother. He looked to have been finishing up some apple bucking and was placing the baskets on a cart that he was going to bring back. Though, Calvin took the chance to speak up after he placed the last of them on the cart. “Hey there, uh… you’re Mac, right?”

It took a moment for the stallion to turn around and recognize him, before giving his answer. “Eeyup.”

“Oh, good. Was kind of worried that I would mistake you for somepony else,” Calvin let out a small sigh of relief. “Anyways, have you seen Apple Bloom? I was wondering if she and the crusaders were doing anything today.”

“Nope.” For a moment, Calvin thought that he was going to add something onto that, like give a bit more detail as to where she might be. But, from the looks of it, he didn’t seem to say anything on that, which prompted the Skyshifter’s follow up question for the farm pony, after giving it some thought.

“Do you know where she might’ve went?”

Unfortunately though, the response remained the same. “Nope.”

“Dang it, that’s two strikes so far,” he told himself. In Calvin’s mind, three strikes when it came to conversations meant that there were three different times that someone or somepony in this case said no. Usually, by the third time, they would either get irritated or it would get to the point where he might have better luck if he still kept looking around. Though, it did not mean that he should give up just yet. All it meant was that he needed to think of a good question for him to ask that wasn’t so complex.

Hopefully, this one would work. Because if it didn’t, then he had no idea where else he should start looking. “Do you know somepony who might know where she is?”

“Eeyup.”

Immediately, Calvin’s mind had an internal sigh of relief. At least he was getting somewhere now. “Great! Who is it?”

“Granny.” At first, that confused Calvin. But after looking back at the barn, he happened to notice the pony named Granny Smith at the front porch on her rocker. Which, in Calvin’s mind, meant that she was the next person that he should talk to.

“Okay. Thanks for the help, Mac.” With that, he began to walk over to the front of the barn and then go around the side to approach the elderly mare. He was careful because he didn’t want to accidentally startle her at all, since it looked like she was taking a nap, only for her to raise her head and look directly at him as he approached the steps to the porch.

“Why, hello,” the elderly mare spoke up. “You’re Apple Bloom’s friend, right?” The only response Calvin gave was a nod of his head as she smiled back at him. “Thought as much. She left to go to the clubhouse after finishin’ her chores this morning.”

The last part had Calvin a little bit puzzled as he looked back at Granny Smith, tilting his head. “I’m sorry… the clubhouse?”

Granny Smith just raised an eyebrow for a moment as she looked back to the young boy. “Wha? She didn’t tell ya?” she then asked, only leading to Calvin shaking his head from side to side as the elderly mare let out a sigh. “Figures… she and her friends have a clubhouse where they meet up every once in a while if they were gonna do something. Ya can’t miss it. It’s in a tree on the same path ya came here on, just around Sweet Apple Acres.”

Out of all the places that he thought that the Cutie Mark Crusaders would be at, a clubhouse that was in a tree was not what he was thinking at all. If anything, that would probably be the last place he would honestly expect to find them. Not to mention the fact that it wasn’t exactly easy to find a single clubhouse, considering the fact that the entire pathway to Sweet Apple Acres had trees on both sides, meaning that it was probably going to take him a while in order to figure out where exactly they were and which tree had their clubhouse.

Of course, it wasn’t until he made his way down the path towards Ponyville and then went back towards the orchard that he heard a familiar voice call out to him, just as he was considering asking a Skylander for help. “Hey, Calvin, up here!”

He lifted his head up, turning to the left to see one particular tree that was in front of him before noticing a ramp that led up to the front of the wooden structure that he believed was the clubhouse, and Apple Bloom waving from outside a window. All that did was just have him facepalm for a moment. All this time he spent looking for the clubhouse, only to realize that it was right there in plain sight the whole time.

“You will not believe how long it was taking me to try and find you girls.”

“What are ya doing out here anyways?” Apple Bloom then asked.

“Well, Twilight and her friends are going up to the Crystal Empire with Starlight and Spike, so I was wondering if you girls wanted to do something. Probably would be better than just sitting around in the castle doing nothing, right?” he asked, which led to Apple Bloom looking back inside the clubhouse for a moment. In Calvin’s mind, she was probably talking to both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, since he was hearing three different sets of voices, which was confirmed because not too soon after that did all three of them stick their heads outside the clubhouse.

“I guess that makes sense,” Sweetie Belle then added. “Though, we’re not entirely sure what to do either. We were trying to think of ideas before Apple Bloom noticed you walking around like a lost puppy.”

“You don’t have to tell him that!” Apple Bloom then spoke up, which led to Scootaloo rolling her eyes as Sweetie Belle just looked back at her friend and shrugged her shoulders.

“So, uh… aside from that, do you have any ideas on something we could do?” the pegasus filly asked. “Because I’m not sure if we’re going to end up coming up with anything yet that we haven’t already done before. Plus, I’m pretty sure that it might be better than just sitting around, bored out of our minds.”

For a moment, Calvin pondered on what they could do right around now. A few potential possibilities came to mind, but after giving it some thought, one idea stood out to him the most. “How about we head to Fluttershy’s cottage? I mean, given how quickly she must’ve left, someone has to look out for Angel and her animals, right?”

All three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at each other for a moment, talking amongst themselves and trying to see if what he suggested was a good idea. Though, not a moment too soon after that, Sweetie Belle had a question for him. “Um… it sounds good, but wouldn’t her place be locked up? I mean, nopony is probably in there right now.”

That just had Calvin let out a sigh as he looked back at the filly. “I can think of one person that might be there.”

“So, you think that it’s possible that Discord is at the cottage right now?” Sweetie Belle now asked him as the four of them were making their way over to Fluttershy’s home.

“Most likely,” the skyshifter told her, “Most of the times that I’ve been at the cottage, he’s also there, too. I think today’s no exception.”

“I thought I heard Twilight say once that he had his own place,” Scootaloo then added, which had Calvin look back at her as he shrugged his shoulders.

“If he did, then I don’t really know why he would come to Fluttershy’s cottage so often.”

“Maybe he’s lonely?” Apple Bloom then asked. That in turn had both of her friends and Calvin stop walking and look back at her. “What? It’s just a thought. Perhaps he prefers to come here so that he can have somepony to talk to?”

All Calvin could do was look back at the two other fillies before shrugging his shoulders. “It’s a possibility. But more than likely, it’s probably so that he doesn’t get bored,” he told them, “Heck, the first time I met him, he was trying to roleplay as a knight saving a princess from a dragon and put Angel in a dress and wig so he played the part.”

“Who was the dragon?” Scootaloo asked.

“Harry. Had a costume for him and everything,” he said, just as they were approaching the door to the cottage. Of course, before he could knock on it in order to see who was inside, they all soon heard a voice. At first, it sounded like it was Discord. Though, something about it was different this time.

“Of course not! You can’t come up here!! You are neighlish Putts!!”

That had Calvin back up from the door as he looked back at the girls. “Oh boy, here he goes again.”

“What? You mean him doing that roleplaying thingy?” Sweetie Belle then asked, which had Calvin nod. Shortly before she decided to ask another question this time. “What do you think he’s doing this time?”

“I’m not entirely sure, to be honest-”

“I’m prench!! Why do you think I have this outrageously silly accent, you stupid king?!” They all heard Discord speak up again, his voice adding more emphasis to the change in tone. “Now, mind your own business!!”

That had all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Calvin look at one another. They were not sure if that was part of this act that Discord is doing or if he actually meant that, even more so when they heard what he said next. “You don’t scare us, you neighlish pigs! Go and boil your bottoms under a silly pony!! I’ll blow my nose at you so cold, flanky king!!” That was followed by the sound of what seemed like somepony sticking out their tongue and using it to insult them, before hearing another statement. “I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty headed cabbage patch kids. I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries!! Now, go away before I taunt you a second time-”

That was when Calvin personally thought that he heard enough and decided to just open the door instead of knock first. In the living room, they found Discord hiding behind what looked like a cardboard castle while Angel and four other critters were all dressed up like a series of knights, with Angel looking like a king, especially since the rabbit had a crown on his head to match the clothes Discord had given him. “Um… should I even ask what you were doing?”

“What? You don’t even know what this is from?” he asked, which led to all four of them shaking their heads from side to side as he let out a sigh before snapping his talons to put away all of the costumes and roleplaying equipment that he had out. “Man, you kids really are missing out… So, what brings you here?”

“Well, since Fluttershy and her friends were going to the Crystal Empire, we thought that we could help take care of Angel and the rest of the animals,” he explained to her.

“They’re going to the Crystal Empire?” Discord then asked, sounding rather surprised by that statement. Which, in turn, surprised Calvin and everypony else.

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No, she just said that she was going to be out with her friends to see Cadance and the Princesses before leaving to meet them at the train station. I just thought that meant they were going up to Canterlot, even though it’s a bit of a silly place,” the draconequus chuckled as the crusaders began to get a couple of items from Fluttershy’s pantry to feed to Angel and some of the animals outside.

“Well, it looks to be something different. Though, Twilight didn’t give me much details about it in the letter she left for me back at the castle other than suggesting that I should be with Apple Bloom and the other crusaders,” Calvin replied back to the draconequus, before asking him the first question that came to his mind right around now. “How about you? What have you been doing all day besides acting like an insulting prench pony?”

“Well, I’m glad you asked,” he said, before conjuring a slide projector as he had it show several images on the nearby wall. Most notably, pictures of him when he turned into Blackout, Spotlight, Spitfire, and a few of his other Skylander transformations he had already done before. That was also followed by a few pictures of what looked to be when Spyro and Stealth Elf found Twilight’s castle on their own, via the M.A.P. “Earlier, I was trying to ponder a bit about the different kinds of species that not only have we seen you turn into, but also have seen come here through Twilight’s basement. It got me curious, and I was wondering what else there was that I did not know about. But before I could continue, Fluttershy asked me to watch over the animals while she was heading out.”

“So, wait… you were trying to find out more about them?” Calvin asked, a bit curious by the way he phrased it. “Why is that?”

“Now now, can’t somepony be a little curious without having their reason’s being questioned?” Discord’s question was only met by silence and a glare from Angel before he let out a deep sigh. “I’m the Lord of Chaos. Why else would I be curious about all these new events?”

“I don’t know… unless there’s something that I have that you’re still trying to make sense of, then-” Calvin paused for a moment upon hearing himself say that as well as noticing Discord’s ears twitch in response too. “It’s my pendant, isn’t it?”

“Righty-o, good sir!” he declared, a monocle and a bowler hat appearing on Discord’s head to make him look like a gentlemen before dismissing both things as he looked back at Calvin. Yet, the Skyshifter was not entirely comfortable with where this conversation might be headed. Eon did emphasize that the elementanium crystal only worked with him and that he should do everything he could to keep it safe. So, it did not seem like a good idea to just hand it over to Discord of all creatures.

“Um, Discord… I’m sorry, but I made a promise to a friend to keep it safe, so I can’t really show you or let you mess around with it,” he told him, now trying to think of a way to try and not have him come off as disappointed. “Maybe we can make a deal?”

That immediately had the draconequus refocus his attention as Calvin could see a smirk begin to form on his face. “Go on…”

“Well, in return for not messing around with my pendant, I can tell you about something that might answer a lot of questions that you might have bouncing around in your head.”

The sound of that seemed rather intriguing to the Lord of Chaos as he began to think it over. “I’m liking this so far… now, what exactly is this ‘something’ you wish to share?”

“If you agree to the deal, then I’ll tell you,” the Skyshifter then responded, extending a hand for him to shake.

“Aw man, no sneak peaks? No hints or subtle clues?” the draconequus complained, which only led to Calvin shaking his head. Discord just grumbled in response, looking around for a moment before grabbing hold of Calvin’s hand with his lion paw. “Alright, you got yourself a deal. Now, what’s this little secret of yours?”

Around that point though was when Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle came back inside as Sweetie used her magic to close the door. “Alright. Every one of the animals has been fed,” She said, before turning to Calvin. “So, what did we miss?”

“Well…”

“Calvin and I were just talking. I was curious as to how his transformations work and wanted to take a closer look at his pendant. But he told me that he couldn’t,” the spirit of chaos told the three fillies, “But he did say that he could share something else with me instead.”

That just had all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders look to one another, before looking back at Calvin. “Hey... uh... Calvin? Can we talk to you for a moment?”

“Uh, sure-” he started.

“No, I mean…” that had Sweetie Belle look back to Discord briefly, before looking back at him. “Just us.”

“Oh… uh, ok,” he said, a bit puzzled by why Sweetie Belle and the rest of the crusaders were acting this way. The fillies led him to another room where they were sure that Discord would not listen in on what they were going to be talking about. After the door to the room was closed, he looked back at all three as he had a new question for them. “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah… why would you try to help Discord of all beings?” Scootaloo now asked, getting on top of the bed in the room as she stared down Calvin, almost causing him to fall over.

“Girls, I didn’t want him trying to mess around with my pendant since I promised to keep it safe,” he told Scootaloo, “But I can’t just make him think that I’m a mean jerk.”

“Calvin, if ah may say something,” Apple Bloom now spoke up as the filly looked back at him. “The girls and ah have known for some time that, even if ya try to help him and he has good intentions, things just seem to… uh… what’s the word?”

The Skyshifter himself had one guess, “Backfire?”

“Ya, that,” she nodded, “Even if there is a good reason for something, it’s not always a good idea.”

“Well, it's not like I can really back out of it now,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “I already made a deal with him in order to tell him something that might answer a lot of the questions that he might have in exchange for him not trying to tinker around with my necklace,” he explained further while also getting the pendant out from under his shirt as he looked back at them. “I can’t let anypony mess with this.”

Scootaloo, while still looking at Calvin, could only facehoof herself as she looked back at the other crusaders. “Great… now, what are we gonna do?”

“Um… out of curiosity, what were you going to tell him?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Personally, Calvin was tempted to tell them right then and there. But he still remembered the deal that he made with Discord. “How about you girls be with me when I tell Discord? That way, both of you will know.”

Each of the girls looked at one another for a brief moment, trying to think it over as they were beginning to wonder if such a thing was a good idea. Though, it was by the time that they actually came up with an answer that they realized one thing. Calvin had already left the room, leaving all three of them to frantically rush back over to the living room to catch up with him before he says anything that he might end up regretting.

“Ah, there you girls are,” Calvin then added, “Discord, would you mind if I add one more piece to our deal?”

“Why, of course. I’m feeling rather generous today.”

“Apple Bloom and her friends get to hear what I have to say as well,” he told the spirit of chaos. “They had some… concerns, so I thought it would be better if they were here, too. You know, to make sure nothing bad happens.”

“Alright, I guess that makes sense,” Discord replied back as he folded his arms, “Though, in all seriousness, what exactly do you have to share with me that would make the mighty Cutie Mark Crusaders worried of all things?”

“Why don’t we focus more on what I have to say first before you try answering that one?” he suggested.

“Fair enough, I suppose,” Discord told him, “Though, fair warning, you can only keep me in suspense for so long.”

On that note, Calvin found himself coming back to something that he was still trying to think on before the Cutie Mark Crusaders pulled him aside. How exactly should he tell them about this? Personally, he couldn’t recall how much either Discord or the Cutie Mark Crusaders knew about the Skylanders. But perhaps that could be a good talking point to start at. “Alright. Though, let me ask all of you something first. What do you know about the Skylanders?”

“Well, they are the creatures that you transform into,” Scootaloo now spoke up, remembering the different times where she had seen him use a transformation. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle nodded their heads in agreement as well, all while Discord just rolled his eyes.

“Should we also presume that they come from a place called the Skylands, too, and that they’re a bunch of floating islands in the sky?” the draconequus asked, sounding as if he was unmoved by what he was saying. Yet, it was Calvin’s response back to him that surprised him.

“Yes, actually… how did you know?”

“Wait, hold on. You’re actually serious?” Discord now asked, which only led to Calvin slowly nodding his head. Yet, despite that, and the surprised reaction from all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, the spirit of chaos still remained unconvinced. “Hah! Prove it then! Show me something that oh so clearly is something even I’ve never seen before. I bet you fifty bits that you can’t!”

At first, he looked back at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were frantically shaking their heads side to side, though all Scootaloo could do was just shrug. The mixed signals from the three fillies weren’t quite helping him, but after a few seconds, he made his choice. “I’ll take that bet. Though, can I take a moment to think on it first?”

“Take whatever time you need… but not too long,” the draconequus insisted, “I may be patient, but my patience has its limits.”

That had Calvin just walk over to a nearby windowsill, trying to think about what he could potentially transform into that would ‘prove’ to Discord that he was being truthful about the Skylands. He already had to rule out a lot of the transformations that he had done before, considering that Discord had already seen a few of them. So for this one, he had to come up with something out of the ordinary that he hadn’t tried before.

Though, there did come one potential idea. In fact, two potential ideas. The first was something undead, considering that it wasn’t quite normal for skeletons to pop out of the ground and say hello. The second was the arkeyans, since only remnants of them were seen in Griffonstone. Drobot was one potential idea, but part of him thought that couldn’t work since Equestria was already quite familiar with Dragons. Another was Funny Bone, yet he personally was not quite sure if he can be as humorous as the actual Skylander.

Though, it was as he was trying to choose between the two of them that a third idea came into his head. How about instead of picking one or the other, he turned into a Skylander that had both traits? Though, there were not many options that could possibly qualify there… except for one. And the more that he thought on it, the more that he was getting excited about trying it out.

“Alright. I think I got one,” he now declared, walking back over to where Discord and the fillies were standing right now. The pendant around his neck began to glow as he said the three words that consisted of the catchphrase needed to turn into the Skylander he had in mind.

“Slice and Dice!”

After speaking those words, an eerie dread began to fill the room as Discord and the Cutie Mark Crusaders watched. Not long after he said that, a skeletal warrior stood right where Calvin was, wearing cobalt armor on its chest, head, hands and feet while also carrying a sword and shield. For a moment, it stood still. But then the lenses on the helmet began to glow as he turned to the spirit of chaos.

“Well?” he asked, his voice echoing inside the helm. “Is this enough proof for you?”

The voice made the pupils in Discord’s eyes begin to shrink, before looking back at him. Snapping his fingers, he now donned what looked like a lab coat with a magnifying glass, before taking a closer look at him. Analyzing each of the bones and even trying to see if he could fit his hand through some of it. But the real test came when he took out what looked to be a toy hammer and hit Calvin on the bony forearm that he had.

“Hey! What gives!?”

That almost had Discord fall backwards, staring at him in disbelief as he snapped his talon and dismissed the research equipment. “N-no way… If that’s true then…” Immediately, he bolted forward and grabbed the helm of Calvin’s new form. “Where is it?! Where are they?!”

“Uh… What do you-?”

“The Skylands!! Where are they?!” he now demanded, just as Calvin was beginning to turn back to normal now.

Finding that things were definitely not going well, that was when Apple Bloom and the other Crusaders decided to step in. “Discord, are you okay?”

“Am I okay? Am I okay?!” he now snapped, looking back at all four of them as he found himself falling back onto a couch. “Do you know how many CENTURIES it has been since I have found something new in this world that I had not created myself?!”

“Um… I don’t know-” Was the only thing that Sweetie Belle could be able to say, just before Discord cut her off.

“ALL OF THE CENTURIES!!!” the draconequus’ voice boomed throughout the entire cottage, “Everything that many ponies could just see as dreams could possibly become reality! New species that ponykind have not met before, new places to explore, new knowledge to understand!! Hay, there are so many possibilities right now that all of this is really making my head spin. I just GOT to see this all for myself now.”

Calvin was a bit surprised by that as he looked back at the Cutie Mark Crusaders, unsure of what exactly Discord was going to try now. But before they could really say anything, that’s when they watched as he sat in a cross legged meditation position as he sat on the couch. He said ‘ohm’ to himself a few times, which had the three fillies and the Skyshifter look back at him, nervous as to what to ask him.

Of course, after a few moments, that was when Sweetie Belle actually decided to speak up. “Um… Discord? What exactly are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m using scrying magic to see the Skylands for myself,” he then answered, opening his eyes. Though, instead of the yellow eyes and red pupils that they were familiar with, his eyes were now pure white as he looked around the room. “Oh my… Is that… a land of food creatures? With a unicorn that has a churro horn!? Why did I not think of that sooner?!” He turned his head to the left now, before seeing something else that made him shutter. “Oooooh… Ghost possessing machines! Machines controlling the dead?! A skeletal Jazz band, complete with my list of greatest hits?! A dancing undead mariachi city!?”

“He has a list of that?” Calvin then asked, which had all the crusaders just shrug as they kept on listening to him.

Discord now turned his head to the right, followed by another gasp. “My goodness, a gravity distorted prison? Land of the Tikis? A shrine on the back of a mountain dragon? Magical artwork coming to life?!!” Another turn of the head, but this time, his neck circled around and looked like that of a spring. “Floating eyeball fortune teller!? Robots that know archery? A city where Time Distortion is strangely normal, even amongst the townsfolk?! Solar systems that flash to the sound of music? Sand rivers?! Deadly ammunition races that are legal!?! A library where books come to life and pull in the readers!!?!”

“Let’s not tell Twilight about that one,” Apple Bloom muttered, which had everyone else immediately agree with her on the spot.

That now got Scootaloo’s ears to perk up as she looked back at her friends. “I want that.”

“Scoots.”

“What? How exactly am I going to be able to learn how to fly using these?!” she now asked, but Calvin was not exactly focusing on that part right now.

Instead, he was paying more attention to the fact that as Discord continued to list off all the oddities of the Skylands, he began floating in place higher and higher, almost as if there was no law of gravity to hold him down. His head was spinning so fast, and his mouth was moving quicker with each passing moment.

“Museum where the world is like living shadows?! Orbitting wishing stars housing ancient wish granters?! Vortex Sheep Tossing is a sport!? A place where musicisactuallyinasolidphysicalform!? AcoupleofvillainsscryingusasIscrythem!?!”

“Wait a second, what was that last part-?”

And as he touched the ceiling, his body began to bounce off the walls like he was a ball in a pinball machine. All before crashing back on the couch as his eyes became nothing more than swirls and his body was left facing towards Calvin and the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“Uh, girls… I think I might’ve broke Discord,” he said, only to get no response as he turned around to try and look at the fillies. “Girls? Girls, are you okay?”

As the Skyshifter turned around, all he saw now was that all three fillies were each left in their own hypnotic trance as they stared at Discord’s eyes, causing him to groan. “Brilliant… how am I going to fix this now?”

“Fix what?” he heard a familiar voice as the sound of Spitfire echoed in his mind.

“Oh, good. Spitfire, I need a bit of help right now,” Calvin replied back mentally as he looked around the room. “Remember Discord?”

“Wasn’t he the guy we ran over that one time? You know, with all the strange animal parts?”

“Yeah, him,” he nodded his head, “Well, earlier he tried wanting to get a closer look at my pendant. I told him no and instead told him and a group of fillies known as the Cutie Mark Crusaders about the Skylanders. Next thing I know, he tries a… scrying spell, or something like that, in order to try and see everything in the Skylands, and… well, it looks like he hypnotized himself on accident.”

“How… does something like that happen on accident?”

“I don’t know. Now, the Cutie Mark Crusaders are also hypnotized as well after looking at him, and with Twilight and her friends out of town, I can’t ask for her help on this. You got any ideas on what I can do?” the Skyshifter finished, hoping that there was something that he could do in order to fix this mess.

The first answer that he got though from Spitfire didn’t quite give him a lot of confidence. “Have you tried poking his eyes?”

“Why would I do that!? That’s gross!”

“S-sorry… I just kind of assumed that it had something to do with eye contact,” the fire Skylander apologized, “Hang on a second. I’m gonna go ask Hugo and see if he knows something that could help fix this,” For a moment, things went quiet as Calvin stood around and waited for a response. “Okay, I got some good news and some bad news. Which would you like to hear first?”

“The bad,” Calvin mentally replied.

“The bad news is that Hugo doesn’t exactly know anything to help with the problem. Though, the good news is that he knows a Skylander that might,” Spitfire’s words filled Calvin with a bit of hope as he waited to reveal who it was. “Hugo thinks Hoot Loop might be your best bet here, so summon him and see if he can help out.”

“Thanks,” he thought, before realizing something as he added on to what he was saying. “Hey, uh… could you remind me what his catchphrase was? It’s kind of hard to keep track of all of them, considering how many Skylanders there are.”

“If I remember correctly, it’s ‘Let’s ruffle some feathers’.”

Calvin, upon hearing that, thanked Spitfire one more time before grabbing hold of his pendant again, reciting the phrase that the supercharger told him. “Let’s ruffle some feathers!”

Mere seconds after saying that, a golden ring began to form around his feet and move upward as his body began to glow once again. Feeling himself change into the owl Skylander of the magic element for just a few brief moments, before changing back to his regular self. Since he could only summon Skylanders that he had already transformed into, summoning Hoot Loop now on his own should not be a problem as he grabbed hold of his necklace again. “Excuse me, Hoot Loop? My name is Calvin. I’m a friend of Spitfire, and I need your help with something.”

Not a moment too soon did the magic Skylander of the Swap Force show up in the living room of the cottage from the same ring that previously was around Calvin mere moments ago. Hoot Loop’s appearance was that of a bipedal owl who wore a dark lavender tunic and gold colored sash around his waist. He also wore a gold colored helmet which pointed towards the ceiling and held his specialty wand in his right claw, which he kept on hand to use his teleportation abilities. All the while, he continued to float in the air, a hovering enchanted ring beneath his feet. “Ho ho!! I’ve been waiting for the chance to just stretch my wings!!” the owl proclaimed, before looking back towards Calvin now. “Why, hello there. You said you needed help with something?”

“Uh, yeah,” Calvin told him, before pointing towards Discord and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “My friend Discord kind of hypnotized himself on accident, and in doing so, hypnotized my three friends over there. Is there a way we can fix this-?”

Before he could explain more, he felt a talon being put to his mouth as Hoot Loop shushed him. “Now, now… Haven’t you noticed it’s a bit too quiet in here? Let’s fix that,” Shortly afterwards, with a flick of his wand, magic hit all four of them. Forcing them to stand upright, and for some odd reason, Hoot Loop had his arms up like he was the composer for an orchestra. “And a one… and a two… and a one, two, three!”

Just mere moments after laying down on the floor, Discord and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were now all singing and dancing around the living room of the cottage like it was a musical number. What made things worse was that with Discord’s magic, anything that was not nailed down to the floor was beginning to float and bounce in the air to the beat of the song that they were singing. Which, in Calvin’s mind, was the exact opposite of what he had originally summoned Hoot Loop for in the first place.

“Hoot Loop! This wasn’t what I meant!!” he spoke up. But even Hoot Loop himself wasn’t listening. In fact, when the song finished, he had them do an encore. This time though, he included all of Fluttershy’s animals in on the performance.

“Yes! Yes!! Marvelous!! Let’s put on a show!!” Hoot Loop cheered, before realizing that the draconequus now sported a red suit of a circus ringleader with a top hat and cane to match. All with the snap of a talon. “Um… kiddo… not to sound rude, but what was that just now?”

All Calvin could do was sigh as he looked back at Hoot Loop. “The reason why you shouldn’t have done that.”

Seconds afterwards, they heard another snap as the living room transformed more into the setup for a circus, complete with Angel doing a trapeze act, Henry on a tightrope and the Cutie Mark Crusaders acting as stage performers that got shot out of a cannon. At this point, even though Hoot Loop tried to regain control of the performance, Discord had turned the single song routine into a complete full on musical while also including a chorus to match. And it did not help any that part of the chorus said ‘I make no apologies’.

Of course, what made things even more crazy was that during the song, Discord used his magic to turn all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders into humans. Apple Bloom was dressed in a yellow t-shirt and overalls with her bow on the back of her head, Sweetie Belle was wearing a light colored shirt alongside a short skirt that looked to match her mane and Scootaloo was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, each one of them having a patch of their cutie mark sewn onto their clothes.

Now, why did Discord do this though? Well, apparently, the draconequus noticed that Calvin himself wasn’t participating and thought that it was because ‘he must be lonely being the only human around’. And as the three of them tried to pull Calvin into the act, that was when he turned to Hoot Loop. “Hoot Loop!! Break the trance on the girls!!”

“What? Why do you want them flying the coop?”

“Because the Cutie Mark Crusaders know how to deal with Discord more than I do,” he told them, struggling to not get pulled in. “If you free them, then they can help us get out of this mess!”

Hoot Loop didn’t even try to come up with a retort after hearing that. With a more focused turn of his wrist, he fired a different bolt of magic towards the three girls once Calvin broke free of their grip on him. In a matter of seconds, the swirls from their eyes began to fade as they looked like they had just woken up from a dream. “Ugh… w-what happened?” Apple Bloom asked, yawning before opening her eyes.

“Why does my head feel tingly?” Sweetie Belle was the next to speak as one of her newfound hands touched the top of her head. “W-where’s my horn!?”

“And where the hay are my wings!?” Scootaloo then followed up.

“Girls, calm down,” Calvin spoke up, catching their attention. “I need your help. Discord and his chaos are going haywire right now. It’s the reason why he turned you into… well… humans.”

“Wait…” Sweetie Belle now asked. “So, you’re saying… we’re like you now?”

“Yeah. I bet if we can knock some sense into Discord, then he can fix you girls up.”

All three of the girls looked at one another for a moment, before each of them were nodding their heads in agreement at that idea. But that wasn’t until Apple Bloom asked something. “Um… if ah may ask, where is he?”

That question alone hit Calvin with an immediate realization. Discord was no longer inside the cottage. Sure, everything looked like it was back to normal, but there were no signs of him or any of Fluttershy’s animals anywhere. Of course, it wasn’t until they heard what sounded like music coming from outside that they noticed Hoot Loop pointing at something.

“If you want to snap him out of it, you might want to hurry before he hits town-” Just as he said that, they heard the sound of a couple of ponies screaming as they all looked outside to find that the ponyville fountain was now spraying cola everywhere. “Oh, feathers, I didn’t think he could do that.”

“We gotta hurry! Come on-!” Calvin got out, before turning back to the door and realizing another dilemma this time. Since the Cutie Mark Crusaders were now humans, they did not know how to walk on two legs properly since they were used to being on all fours. Of course, that was also when he turned his head to see Angel trying to get his attention as Henry looked to be pulling out a wagon from a toolshed. “Angel, you are the best pet anypony can have. Hands down!”

“W-what’s the plan, Calvin?” Sweetie Belle asked, just as Henry now approached the door where they were laying down at, the bear looking back at the skyshifter now and waiting for him to say something.

“Help them into the wagon,” he instructed the bear, before grabbing hold of his pendant. “I’m going to get us over there as fast as we can. Hopefully, we can stop Discord before this gets too out of control.” As the bear placed all three of the girls into the wagon, Calvin looked back at them and told them one last thing.

“Alright, make sure to hold onto something,” he said, just as a golden colored light began to glow from his crystal. “Attract to attack!!” Seconds after saying that, the Skyshifter began to take on another new form, this time of the Tech Swap Force Skylander named Magna Charge. A red colored ultron robot that had a single green eye and a head shaped like a magnet, who had a magnet crafted cannon on his left arm and was able to move around because of the green magneto ball that replaced his legs. In Calvin’s mind, he chose to transform into the Tech Skylander for one reason. Magna was a swap force member whose ‘swap power’ was focused on speed. Therefore, it would allow for him and the girls to be able to try and reach Ponyville before Discord could cause any major chaos.

Of course, when they arrived, several things were off right away. For one thing, cola was springing forth from the fountain that was in the center of town, and there were slices of cake that had angel wings attached to some while horns and a demon tail attached to other slices. Discord himself looked like he was just about to start eating a piece, until Calvin and the others arrived as he changed back. “Discord, what do you think you’re doing?!!”

Yet, nothing happened. It was like Discord was not listening to what they said at all. Which, was even more the case when the Cutie Mark Crusaders tried.

“Discord, yer not thinking straight! Please snap out of it!!” Apple Bloom now spoke up from inside the wagon.

“Yeah, what would Fluttershy think?”

“Girls, I don’t think that’s going to work,” Calvin shook his head, “If he can’t listen to us, then he can’t answer us either.”

“Then, what are we going to do now? We can’t just let him keep doing this!” Scootaloo protested.

“Maybe we can find a way to get his attention?” Sweetie Belle then suggested, before looking back to where Hoot Loop was. “Hey, uh… do think you can-”

“Sweetie, part of the reason why the town is in a mess is because of Hoot Loop right now,” Calvin quickly retorted. “I originally summoned him here in order to help me with breaking Discord’s hypnosis, but all he did was have him and the three of you do a circus act-”

“He had us do what!?!!” was the reaction from all three fillies as Hoot Loop felt like he was being put into a corner.

“Well, looks like I back my feathers up into a corner here,” the Swap Force Skylander nervously spoke, before thinking of an idea. “Oh! I got an idea-”

“Should we even hear it considering what you have done already?” Calvin then asked.

“It’s not like any of those, I swear!” Hoot Loop insisted, “Just let me lead that fellow of yours out of town, so he’s away from civilians. I’ll distract him and buy you four some time to think of something.” With that, the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Calvin immediately tried to find a place to lay low while the owl attempted to distract the draconequus.

“Okay, what exactly can we do to stop him? There’s gotta be some way right?” Calvin asked the girls, knowing that they have some knowledge of how to handle the Spirit of Chaos based on what they told him before.

“Yeah, but we don’t have Twilight, the girls or probably even the princesses,” Sweetie Belle added, “Heck, Spike and Starlight are in the Crystal Empire, too.”

“So, what? We could just ask some of the other ponies around town-” Just as Scootaloo said that, they noticed that many of the ponies that were once outside were taking up shelter inside their homes and in buildings, leaving the four of them just by themselves out in the middle of town square. “… or not.”

“We should at least try to find someplace to hide while we-” As Apple Bloom was talking, that’s when all four of them noticed something. A bunch of cherries were landing on the ground. At first, they thought that the cherries were just something that was scattered by the mad dash of ponies trying to flee from the Ponyville market. However, Calvin noticed something off. He could hear a hissing sound come from them as well as see the stems slowly disappearing.

Then, it clicked. “Oh no… We need to go!”

“But they’re just cherries-” Instantly, the sound of small explosions went off as the cherries that were on the ground began to explode one by one. The sudden realization of this had Calvin turn back into Magna Charge again to pull the girls out of there before any of the cherries could get too close.

Not a few seconds later though did they see Hoot Loop appearing on a rooftop. “Alright uh… small problem. Your friend’s magic has led to the creation of exploding cherry bombs.”

“Yeah, I think we noticed that-” the skyshifter retorted, turning around as he looked back at Hoot Loop, as well as something else that the owl was not paying attention to. “Hoot Loop, behind you!!”

“Wha-?” Instantly, Hoot Loop found himself trapped inside a giant bird cage, one that floated next to Discord as the Spirit of Chaos noticed all four of them. Hoot Loop, in a desperate attempt, tried to teleport out and escape, but all that did was lead to him hitting his head against the bars of the cage. “Okay, I really don’t like it when my feathers have been plucked like this. Run!!”

Calvin didn’t need to be told twice. Immediately, he took off, trying to get out of the draconequus’ sight as Discord snapped his talons again to make more cherry bombs rain down. “Girls, we need to find somewhere to hide! Where’s the closest place we can go-?!”

“Sugarcube Corner! Over there!!” Apple Bloom immediately pointed out to him as the Skyshifter saw the bakery. For a moment, Calvin thought that it was all closed up in the mad dash of ponies that were seeking a place to hide. Yet, he found himself being surprised when he looked ahead to see Mr. Cake holding the door open and using a hoof to tell them to hurry and get inside.

Yet, just as they were about to go in, a cherry bomb landed by the back end of the cart and went off, throwing the cart and everypony inside forward onto the floor as Mr. Cake closed the door before putting a table behind it to bolt it shut. “I-is everypony okay?”

“Y-yeah, I think so,” Calvin let out a sigh, changing back to normal now as he first looked towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders. All three of them were flown out of the cart because of the cherry bomb just now and were stuck in a pile on the floor. “Girls, are you-?”

“C-calvin?” Immediately, the voice that came from behind him had Calvin turn around. Finding himself staring at not just Silver Spoon, but also Diamond Tiara and one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders friends that he met on Nightmare Night.

“Silver? Diamond? Rumble? What are you guys doing here?”

“We ran to the closest place that we could find once we saw Discord doing… that,” Diamond Tiara asked, gesturing to what was happening outside before looking to the three girls that were behind him. “Wait… are those three behind you who I think they are?”

“Hello to you, too, Diamond,” Scootaloo now groaned.

“How did-?” Before Silver could even think of finishing, she shook her head, before looking back at Calvin. “Would it be safe to assume that what Discord’s doing is why they’re… almost like you?”

“That’s one way to put it,” he nodded as he brushed some dust off of his clothes, “Yet, it’s not like he intended for any of this.”

That had the three kids, including Rumble, exchange glances for a second before the colt asked a new question. “Okay, what exactly makes you say that? Because given everything going on right now, I’m not sure if I should believe that.”

“He tried some kind of spell earlier to see where the Skylanders that Calvin can turn into come from. However, all that did was cause himself to be in some kind of trance,” Apple Bloom told them, trying to use a chair to support herself as she and her friends tried to figure out how to stand up in their newfound forms.

“To make matters worse, I tried summoning one that could’ve helped break it earlier. However, all they did was end up making it worse, and now, they are stuck in the birdcage Discord’s holding.”

Again, there was another exchange of glances from everypony in the room after Calvin said that, before they looked out the window to see Hoot Loop still stuck in the cage, despite multiple attempts to get out. All the proof they needed to see before a new question came up, this time from Mr. Cake as Calvin could now see his wife trotting down the stairs. “Alright, but what exactly are we going to do now? Do you have some kind of plan?”

“We were trying to think of one, before we had cherry bombs thrown at us,” was the only thing Calvin could say as he let out a sigh. He watched as the Cutie Mark Crusaders were now trying to come up with ‘ideas’ on what could work with Diamond and the others. Which, personally seemed like a better time than any to try and talk to Spitfire. “Spitfire, if you are listening, I can REALLY use your help right now.”

“Calvin? What’s the matter?” he heard the sound of the Supercharger speak again. This time though, he sounded a little bit more concerned, unlike earlier.

“Well, the situation’s gone from bad to worse. Hoot Loop might not have been the best Skylander to have helped me with this.”

At first, all he heard was silence. But when he heard Spitfire speak again, the Supercharger sounded a lot more serious. “What did he do?”

“He tried having fun with Discord and the Cutie Mark Crusaders by having them do a song and dance routine while they were hypnotized. However, Discord has now turned the entire thing into a circus act. Even though Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo are no longer hypnotized, Discord still is. And to make matters worse, it’s gotten to the point where his chaos magic has led to the Ponyville fountain spewing soda, flying slices of cake, explosive cherries, and Hoot Loop is stuck in a bird cage. That and he turned the Cutie Mark Crusaders into humans.”

Once more, there was silence. But now, Spitfire was letting out a sigh. “Okay, that is really bad. Hang tight. I’m going to get Master Eon before things get even worse.” As Calvin heard that, he directed his attention back to everypony else in the room. Each one of them seemed to be at least trying to think of something that could work, but were soon met by frustration shortly afterwards.

Of course, around then was also when Scootaloo turned towards him and decided to ask something. “So… do you have any kind of plan as to how to stop Discord? Because we’re not getting anywhere.”

“I’m trying to think of something,” he told her in response, “I’m talking to another Skylander that I know right now, and they’re trying to get ahold of Master Eon.”

“Who?”

“Master Eon,” Calvin repeated, before thinking of the best way to summarize it. “He’s like a wise mentor to the Skylanders, like how Celestia was to Twilight. If anyone could help us figure out a solution, then it might be him.”

All that did was just have the cerise haired girl tilt her head, confused by what he was saying. “So, let me get this straight. We’re out of options at the moment, and our only hope right now is some wise old guy?”

Unknowingly though, the person that she was talking about was not entirely amused by Scootaloo’s choice of words in that moment. “I am not old. I prefer the term ‘experienced’, if I do say so myself,” the voice of Eon echoed shortly afterwards. Hearing the Portal Master speak to him was not entirely that surprising to him. However, what was surprising was that Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo all seemed startled, almost as if they heard Eon as well.

“W-what was that?” Apple Bloom then asked.

“What was what?” they heard Rumble ask, “I didn’t hear anything.”

“Man, am I glad to hear your voice, Master Eon,” Calvin replied back mentally, “I’m guessing you have a rough idea of what’s going on?”

“To put it mildly, yes… and I’m going to have to have a word with Hoot Loop once we’ve cleaned up this mess,” the Portal Master spoke again, clearing his throat for a moment, “Though, there was one thing that Spitfire told me that caught my attention the most. He mentioned that this… Discord used Chaos Magic, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he replied, “Why? Do you know about it somehow?”

“Okay, just how are you exactly talking to this guy, Calvin?” Scootaloo impatiently asked, “We’re not hearing you say anything, but it sounds like this guy understands you.”

“We’re communicating mentally, young one,” the Portal Master spoke up. “How about you think your words instead of saying them? It would be easier that way.”

Apple Bloom was the first to try as she looked at Calvin. “Alright… Am ah doing it right?”

“Indeed you are. Now, the reason why I asked about Chaos Magic is because of two things. One, it is technically the same form of magic that Kaos would have at his disposal… and two, it was originally born from Mind Magic. The same magic that allows you to change into an Imaginator.”

“So, wait… are you saying that if I use my Imaginator form… I might have some kind of chance at beating him.”

“It is possible. Though, based on what Spitfire has said, Discord’s magic is much different from that of Kaos’. If anything, his magic is a sub-variant compared to what you are up against.”

“Um… Mister Eon, sir?” Sweetie Belle was the next one to speak as Calvin looked towards him. “H-how can we help him? Calvin’s our friend. I don’t think the girls and I would want to let him just go in without some way to help.”

“Hmm… I can think of one possibility. Though, I’m not sure if it would be seen as safe for the rest of you,” he told them, “Skylanders are known to have themselves get launched out of cannons to either travel quickly or get the drop on an enemy. I suggest trying that first.” Before Calvin or any of the girls could respond, that was when he looked around the room for a moment, thinking on what he said before looking to one of the adults in the room.

“Mr. Cake, do you mind if the girls and I head up to Pinkie Pie’s room for a moment? I think there’s something in there we might need.”

“Okay, I know that we don’t have a lot of options here, but are you insane!?”

“You heard what he said, girls. I just see this as listening to Master Eon.”

“You’re talking about firing yourself out of Pinkie Pie’s party cannon just to get the drop on Discord of all creatures,” Scootaloo retorted. “On a scale of one to ten of how crazy this idea is, I say that this plan of yours is a twenty.”

“Do we really have any other ideas?” Calvin’s question led to silence from all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders as Calvin aimed the cannon out of the window in Pinkie Pie’s bedroom. “There we go. I’m gonna get inside. I need you girls to aim the cannon and fire when I tell you to.”

All three of the girls exchanged worried glances with one another as Calvin took on the form on his Imaginator and climbed into the cannon. Of course, there really wasn’t any time in order to argue or make Calvin change his mind as both Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle focused on positioning the cannon while Apple Bloom was in the back.

“Alright, ready on three,” they heard him speak. “One… Two… THREE!”

Immediately when Calvin said three, Apple Bloom pulled the rope at the back of the cannon, firing him into the air as he flew towards the Spirit of Chaos in the center of town. The Skyshifter himself, while in flight, had to avoid the numerous pieces of cake that Discord had floated in the air, so they would not affect his trajectory. As he got closer, Calvin prepared to channel his strength into a technique that he had been practicing with King Pen, focusing his power into one curled up fist as he got closer to the draconequus.

It wasn’t until he was within mere inches of Discord’s face that the draconequus had some kind of clue as to what was going on. “Hey, is it a little warm in here, or-?”

WHAM!!!

The moment that Calvin’s fist connected with Discord’s face, it sent the draconequus flying. Some of his teeth had come loose upon impact, and the Spirit of Chaos landed in the middle of the lake outside of Ponyville. A few seconds passed, and the cakes that were flying began to turn into puffs of pink smoke along with the cage that Hoot Loop was locked in as Calvin landed on the ground.

LEVEL UP!!

“Well… it’s been a while since I last heard that,” he chuckled, before changing back to his regular form as he looked back at Hoot Loop. “You alright?”

“Y-yeah. Aside from my own feathers being ruffled, I’m alright.”

“Good-.”

LEVEL UP!! LEVEL UP!!

Calvin twitched for a moment upon hearing that again. He didn’t think that just delivering a blow like that would lead to him having his Imaginator level up more than once, but that was something that he could worry about later. “You should probably head back to the academy. Master Eon would probably like to have a word about you regarding this.”

Without even a second thought did Hoot Loop leave, just as he turned around to see the girls again. However, they were still stuck in their human forms. “Calvin! You’re alright!!”

“You took him down in one hit! That was cool!!”

“That was awesome!! Well, not as awesome as Rainbow Dash, but still awesome!!”

Calvin chuckled at that last part, letting out a sigh. “Thanks, girls… Now, let’s get Discord back to the castle. Something tells me that we have some explaining to do once Twilight gets back.”

“Wait, explaining? Why?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Well, for one thing, you know of the Skylands now… and secondly, you haven’t exactly changed back,” he pointed out to them. “There’s no way that you can just simply ignore everything after what just happened.”

“He’s got a point,” Apple Bloom shrugged.

“So, let’s get Discord, drag him back to the castle and just remain there for now.” Calvin replied back to the girls. “Besides, I can already picture what Twilight’s going to say when she sees you like this.”

“WHAT THE HAY HAPPENED TO YOU!?!!”

“Called it.”

End Scroll 18

Scroll 25- Pawful Chaos

Author's Note

In this chapter, Calvin begins to learn that just because you're resting at home doesn't mean that the shenanigans would cease. If anything, it just immediately becomes part of your daily routine. That and trying to help Dusty adjust to everyday life can also be a bit of a challenge

I hid a couple of references, including one that I thought of when thinking the personality for some of the characters while working on this. Otherwise, I hope you like it.

One more thing, this takes place during 'No Second Prances'. Let me know what you guys think of everything so far. Your feedback keeps me motivated
-Frost

Fun fact... Writing Dusty and how adorable she acts around others is one of my favorite things about this chapter.

Scroll 25- Pawful Chaos

Beyond the Skies- Pawful Chaos

It was the day after the rather exciting trip to the Skylands and Munitions Forge with his friends, and right now, Calvin was in his room, trying to enjoy the much deserved rest that he needed as he slept in his bed. After coming back to Ponyville yesterday, the rest of his day consisted of trying to show Dusty around the castle, having dinner and also getting an earful from Rarity after she noticed what happened to his clothes. Now though, he was asleep in his room and felt relaxed under the covers.

As the morning sun began to gleam through the windows, he slowly began to rise from his slumber. As he was waking up, he began to realize something. It felt rather warm under the sheets for some reason, and he was sure that he didn’t have the comforter for his bed over him, not to mention that he was feeling a sudden pressure on his chest. Slowly, he pulled back the sheet, only to find something he definitely did not expect this morning.

What he found was Dusty nuzzling her head against his chest with her front paws trying to grasp his sides to hold herself closer to him. It caught him by surprise, especially with how adorable she was being right now. So, gently, he extended his left hand and started to pet the top of her head.

At first, he thought Dusty would like that. However, he got a much different response than he expected. Immediately, she lifted her head, before suddenly backing away. “I-I’m so sorry, master!” she yipped, sounding afraid as she looked back to him and leapt off the bed, “I d-didn’t mean to-”

“Dusty, it’s okay,” he stopped her, before looking back at the lava dog with a smile, “You don’t have to apologize. I-I actually kind of liked it.”

Hearing that had Dusty blush, turning her head away in embarrassment. Many thoughts were going through her head right now, and she was having trouble processing everything. Yet, before her master could say anything, she immediately cut him off, “Y-you must be hungry! L-let me get you something to eat! Wait there, master!” Immediately afterwards, she bolted out of the room, leaving Calvin rather puzzled.

“Uh… w-what just happened?” he asked himself, before he began to realize something, “Wait, do you even know where the kitchen is?!”

The thought of Dusty desperately running around to try and satisfy her master without really knowing what she was getting into had Calvin immediately jump to his feet and leave his room, still in his pajamas as he was looking all over to find Dusty before she caused any trouble. The thought of a major mess happening on her first day here was not exactly a good first impression, especially if Twilight were to possibly have any guests come over today.

At first, he was having trouble trying to find the small pup in the giant labyrinth that was Twilight’s Castle. Though, the sound of several pans hitting the floor immediately pointed him in the right direction as he turned around and ran back towards the front of the castle. “Dusty? Dusty, where are you!?”

He didn’t hear Dusty respond to him, but he did see the mess that was spilled out all over the castle floor. Metal pans and trays scattered everywhere as he noticed Spike on the ground, claw over his head as he groaned to himself. “Ugh… w-what just hit me?”

“Spike, are you alright?” Calvin then asked him, offering a hand to help him back up on his feet, something that the dragon took hold of as the Skyshifter helped get Spike off of the floor.

“T-thanks,” the dragon told him, before looking around and realizing the mess that was made all over the ground as well as the fire dog that was not that far away from the two of them. Out of both of those things, it was the latter that caught his attention the most, “O-oh, hello… W-who’s this?”

Immediately, Dusty scurried over towards Calvin and hid behind him, only peeking out to look at Spike briefly, but hiding the moment that he tried to look at her. Prompting Calvin to get down to her level as he looked back at her. “There’s no need to be scared. Spike’s a friend of mine.”

Dusty looked towards Calvin, a little bit confused by what he was saying, before turning towards Spike. As she looked at him, along with the pans on the floor, she looked back at the dragon with a pair of puppy dog eyes and said the first thing she could think of, “I-I’m s-sorry.”

Spike blinked for a moment, trying to process what was happening inside of his head first before finally speaking. “I-It’s okay. Accidents happen,” he told the fire dog, “What’s your name?”

At first, Dusty looked back at her master with a look of uncertainty, but after seeing Calvin give her a nod of encouragement, the fire dog looked back at Spike before speaking, “D-Dusty.”

“Nice to meet you, Dusty. I’m Spike,” the dragon smiled, before looking back at Calvin, “Why are you downstairs in your PJ’s, Calvin?”

“Well, to answer that, Dusty came down here trying to find something for me to eat, and I was worried that she would get lost,” the Skyshifter explained, answering the first part of the question before getting to the second half, “As for the other part, since my clothes got torn up yesterday, the only clothes that I have until Rarity fixes mine are my pajamas.”

“Huh… Alright, I guess,” Spike replied, “Speaking of eating, would you like for me to make some breakfast? You did kind of sleep in a bit-”

“No!” Dusty immediately yipped out of nowhere, “I’m supposed to get breakfast for master!”

“Master?” Spike asked, looking to Calvin with a confused look on his face.

“It’s… complicated.”

That didn’t exactly help with Spike’s question, but it instead had him look back to the fire dog as he had a new question for her. “Umm, Dusty… do you even know what’s safe for him to eat?”

At first, Dusty looked like she was going to say something, but was left silent as Calvin let out a sigh. “Spike’s got a point, Dusty. Since I’ve arrived here, Spike’s been one of the best cooks I’ve had the chance to eat from,” he told her, before looking to the dragon, “Maybe after we have something to eat, Spike can teach you a couple of things.”

“I don’t mind,” he replied, “We already have most of the hard stuff for later out of the way, so I got some time now.”

That had a new question form in his head as Calvin walked over and took a seat on a stool that was nearby the kitchen. Bringing out a second stool for Dusty to sit on, he took a moment to ask the dragon his question as the fire dog began to climb up. “What exactly is going on later?”

“Twilight didn’t tell you?” Spike asked, sounding surprised by that, “She’s having Princess Celestia over for Dinner to discuss Starlight’s progress with her friendship lessons. Since Twilight’s helping make sure the castle’s all organized, it’s my job to help with the food.”

“What about Starlight? Shouldn’t she be helping with the preparations, too?” Calvin then asked, just as Spike began to get the pancake mix, before turning back around to get two more things.

“If I remember correctly, Twilight told her that she needs to bring a new friend that she made in Ponyville with her to dinner tonight as a guest as part of another lesson. So, she’s kind of out in Ponyville right now,” the dragon explained, grabbing the milk and eggs before setting them on the counter. Before he could start making anything though, he noticed Dusty looking at the dragon with an attentive stare. “Would you… like to come closer-?”

“Yes!” she yipped, which prompted Calvin to get off his stool for a moment so he could move Dusty closer to Spike. That way, the fire dog could have a better look and watch the dragon while he was cooking. Once the dragon had all the ingredients he needed, he soon got out a measuring cup, a stirring spoon and a bowl to put everything in before he could get started.

As Spike was getting the necessary measurements for each ingredient and pouring each one into the bowl to be mixed, Dusty was doing her best to pay as much attention to how the dragon was able to do this. Yet, a lot of what Spike was doing was new to her, something that she had not seen at all during her and her sibling’s stay in Tribus’ cave. That didn’t stop Dusty from trying, as she was repeating the steps of the recipe that Spike was telling her out loud in order to memorize the recipe.

As they were mixing all the ingredients together, that was when Calvin heard a set of hooves walking along the floor of the castle and turned around to see Twilight. She was holding what looked like some kind of checklist in a levitation spell and seemed a bit relieved. “Alright, most of the preparations are done. How’s the food coming along, Spike-?” When the princess noticed what was going on, it was enough to have her stop and stare for a few seconds as she tried to take in what was happening. Yet, that just left her with one question. “What’s going on?”

Before either Spike or Calvin could say anything, Dusty was the first one to say something, “Master has convinced… ‘Spike’... to teach me how to cook suitably for Master’s species.”

That response had several different thoughts echo in Twilight’s mind, shortly before she turned towards the Skyshifter. “Calvin, can I talk to you for a moment? I know you said you’d explain what happened in Skylands later, but I think ‘later’ should be ‘now’.”

That had Calvin look back to Dusty, before looking back towards Twilight and getting up out of his seat. “I’ll be back in a moment Dusty. Keep listening to Spike, ok?” he reassured her, the tone of his voice sounding similar to if he was giving her an order, which was enough to convince Dusty as she returned her focus back to Spike while Calvin followed Twilight down to one of the halls on the first floor that was away from the kitchen.

“Now that we’re by ourselves, let me ask you,” the alicorn replied back, “Why does Dusty refer to you as her master? I know that you said that she’s only comfortable around you due to some complications. So, tell me, what exactly were they?”

That had the Skyshifter let out a small breath, thinking to himself about what to say before looking back at Twilight. “Remember when we mentioned Tribus and what he was doing to Sheer and her siblings?” the alicorn nodded, shortly before looking back at Calvin as he continued what he was saying, “Dusty was a different case. Back when she was still living in the volcano before we came, Dusty was so scared and afraid of getting punished by him that she decided she had to follow the orders that he gave her in order to remain safe. To her, safety is happiness to the point that she got obsessed with following orders, because she believes that following orders is happiness.”

That had Twilight stare at him with a shocked expression. She couldn’t find any words to say in that moment, especially with what he was describing. But... it did not stop there. “During the fight against Tribus, I had to stop her from fulfilling any commands that he told her, while also saving her from one of his attacks. The only way I was able to get her out was by ordering her to come with Hot Dog and I,” the Skyshifter explained, recalling every moment during his encounter with her, “After Tribus was hauled out of the cave, she came to me and begged for me to be her new master, told me that she could not live without orders, and that since I protected her, it could only be me. There was no possible way that I could tell her no, not after everything she had been through.”

As Twilight was beginning to process what Calvin was saying, she had a few questions begin to form in the back of her head. “What do you plan to do with her now?”

For a moment, Calvin took in a deep breath, before looking over to where Dusty and Spike were at in the kitchen. As he watched them, the answer to the princess’ question began to form in his mind. “I wanted to show her that you can be happy without being told to do so,” he explained, “Before she saw me as her master, she couldn’t eat or fall asleep without being ordered to do so by Tribus. I wanted to show her that you don’t need orders in order to truly be happy,” at that point, he began to turn back around to face Twilight, “It may seem like something that’s very far away… but I do think that it’s possible.”

That had Twilight blink for a moment, staring at him in bewilderment as she tried to process what he just told her. “Wow, that’s rather mature of you. I think you’ve grown a bit.”

“Really? I don’t exactly feel taller.”

Now Twilight was letting out a sigh herself as she looked back at Calvin, “Not what I mean, but let’s not worry about that,” the princess replied back as she looked back at him, “Now that I think of it… who else might know about you and Dusty? Surely, it’s not just me who knows, right?”

That had Calvin take a moment in order to think it over, before looking back at Twilight. “The first few that come to mind are Applejack, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Hot Dog, and Dusty’s siblings. Most of them were in the cave when Dusty begged for me to be her master, so they would know that I told her yes.”

“What about Rainbow? Wasn’t she with you?”

“At the time this happened, she and Rubble Rouser were making sure that Tribus was getting picked up by the Trap Masters, so they probably wouldn’t have noticed, considering that they were busy with another task,” he added, “Of course, out of the ones who do know, Dusty’s siblings and Hot Dog might be the only ones who know why having me as her master would be important to her. If anything, I’m not sure what the girls would be thinking or what Applejack thinks of all this?”

“So… you’re saying that even though the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Applejack saw Dusty beg you to be her master, they probably don’t know why something like that is important to her?”

“Pretty much,” the Skyshifter told her, “Of course, the reason why Hot Dog would know is because Sheer told both of us about Dusty before we met the rest of her siblings.”

In Twilight’s mind, that made sense, especially since Hot Dog and Calvin were the ones who were doing a lot of recollection involving Tribus before Sheer and the Cutie Mark Crusaders started explaining about how they got the crystals they needed. Not to mention that it explained a bit as to why Dusty was acting so nervous when they were at the academy and always stayed close to him. Though, the fact that Dusty seems so attached to him could also be seen as a potential problem.

“Uh, Twilight? Are you okay?”

The alicorn blinked for a moment, looking back at Calvin with a puzzled look on her face. “Yeah, why? Is something wrong?”

“No, you just looked like you were staring off into space,” he told her.

“My apologies, I was just thinking. That’s all,” she said, trying to think of something else to say as she looked back towards Calvin, “On a different note, why are you still in your PJ’s?”

“Because these are the only clothes that I have until Rarity patches up the ones that I had the other day,” he explained, “I hope that she will have them done soon. It would be a bit embarrassing to have Princess Celestia come over while I’m still wearing these.”

“Fair point,” Twilight nodded her head. Before she could say something else, Calvin soon spoke up.

“Can I ask you a question though? Very few people really know about how Dusty sees me as her master and why that’s important to her, so could you keep it a secret?” he asked her nervously, “I have a bad feeling that some people might get the wrong impression if they heard that I was her master without knowing what exactly that means.”

“Don’t worry, Calvin. I can keep it a secret,” the princess assured him as a familiar scent began to linger in the air, “Why don’t we go check on Spike and Dusty? I can smell the scent of pancakes from over here.” Shortly after hearing her ask that, Calvin nodded his head as they both began to make their way back over to the kitchen.

Of course, when they arrived at the kitchen, both of them arrived to a plate of pancakes waiting for them, Spike holding onto a letter and Dusty having some pancake batter stuck on her. “Spike? Why does Dusty have pancake batter on her?”

“Well, I was just finishing up with the pancakes when a new letter from Celestia came in. Which startled Dusty and resulted in some batter getting stuck on her,” the dragon explained, tossing the scroll for Twilight to catch with her magic as he brought the dishes to the sink, “Do you need some help getting that off, Dusty-?”

Of course, it didn’t help any that by the time that Spike looked back at Dusty, the batter that was stuck on her head was beginning to cook, and smoke was beginning to rise, “Uh oh. Hold still for a moment, Dusty,” the dragon told her, taking the spatula that he was using to flip the pancakes and carefully placed it along Dusty’s forehead, so he could pick up the piece of pancake batter and take it off of her before it started to burn. After a moment, he was able to take it off of her rather easily and throw out the piece of pancake that was stuck on her, “There we go. Nothing to worry about.”

Though, when Calvin looked back at Dusty, he saw something different. She was holding still, not even moving a muscle and holding her breath in as he let out a bit of a sigh, “Dusty, you don’t have to hold still anymore.”

The fire dog let out a deep breath, before turning herself around and redirecting her attention to him, “Yes, Master.”

Upon hearing that, Calvin smiled and pet Dusty on her head before sitting back at his stool, as Spike had the plate of pancakes ready along with some butter and syrup. As the Skyshifter was beginning to cut through the fluffy flapjacks, he then looked towards Dusty as an idea came to him. The fire dog was learning how to cook from Spike, yet she herself looked rather hungry. It would seem inhumane to not let her have anything.

“Hey, Dusty,” he said, catching her attention as he cut a couple pieces of pancake and placed them on a smaller plate, “Would you like to have some?”

“May I?!” she yipped, sounding rather interested as Calvin pushed the smaller plate closer to her, allowing for Dusty to try the dish for herself as she immediately began to start eating. As she began to devour what was on the plate that Calvin set aside for her, melted butter and syrup began to splatter all over her face as she took a moment to lick it off her face before starting to eat again.

All of this left Calvin with only one question for Spike as he turned towards the dragon. “What… exactly did you put in those pancakes?”

“Nothing outside what I normally use,” Spike told him as both of them watched Dusty eat everything that was on her plate, “She’s probably just really hungry.”

That had Calvin start to think for a moment, before cutting a few more pieces for her to the point that each of his pancakes were cut in half before placing those pieces on Dusty’s plate. The fire dog did not hesitate to start eating at the new pieces that were cut for her, diving in the moment that they were set on her plate. She had never tasted anything this delicious before and could not find it in herself to stop eating while Calvin himself was eating his meal.

Yet, as she was finishing the last few scraps of food and looked back towards her master, Dusty began to feel something that she never thought she would feel: that being the feeling of her stomach being full… along with a sudden burden of guilt, realizing that the more food that she ate, the less food that would be left for her master.

As for Calvin, he was close to finishing his meal when he turned to look at Dusty, noticing that she wasn’t exactly looking so happy and eager like earlier. He set the silverware that he was using down on the place and turned to face the fire dog. “Dusty, are you okay? Is something wrong?” he asked, the first concern that came to his mind being that the food she was eating wasn’t settling well with her stomach.

Yet, how Dusty reacted to his question was much different than he expected. Leaping off of her stool, she threw herself onto Calvin and buried her head into his chest. “I’m so sorry master! Please forgive me!!”

“Uh… for what?” he asked, honestly confused by why Dusty was acting this way. Especially since she was looking at him with the same puppy dog eyes as before, “Dusty, what’s wrong?”

“I-I… I ate the food that was supposed to be for you!” she cried, tears pouring down her face and soaking Calvin’s shirt. In his mind, part of him felt relieved that she wasn’t sick at all, but this was a misunderstanding that he had to clear up with her.

“Dusty, it’s okay. I don’t mind at all,” he told her, petting the top of her head and hoping that doing so would calm her down, “I cut those pieces for you because I didn’t want you to be hungry. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

The fire dog looked up at him, a bit shocked by what he told her as she tried to figure out what to say. So instead, she just buried her face into his shirt again. But based on what Calvin could see, she seemed a lot happier this time. Her tail was wagging from side to side and, he did not feel any tears come down her face when she moved her head closer to him. “T-thank you, master-”

“Good morning, everypony!”

The joyful and unexpected morning greeting from one of Twilight’s friends was enough to startle Dusty while she was with her master, which led to both of them falling onto the floor, all while Spike let out a small groan and facepalmed himself. This was the second time that Dusty had been startled this morning, but instead of being startled by something, she was startled by someone. “Good morning, Rarity.”

“Well, good morning to you, too, Spikey-” the seamstress paused, noticing both Calvin and Dusty on the floor as she let out a gasp at the sight, “Oh my! What happened here?”

Spike wanted to reply to that, but part of him decided not to as Calvin began to slowly rise up from his position on the floor. “O-oh... hi, Rarity.”

“Hello there, darling,” the unicorn replied back to him, before taking a look around, “I came by with the shirt that you needed to have patched up, along with a few other things.”

Around the time she said that, a rather exhausted Sweetie Belle could now be seen carrying what looked like a week’s worth of clothing in her arms, setting them down on one of the chairs by the Cutie Map before feeling the urge to fall on the ground. “Why did you have me carry all of them?”

“Well, you did ask if there was anything you could do to help,” Rarity replied back, before looking back to Calvin, “I took the liberty of making a few more shirts for you based on the size of the one that you gave me. That way, you don’t have to wear the same one everyday-” Before she could finish her sentence, her eyes drifted a bit as she now noticed Dusty. Yet, her first response to that was not exactly the most ideal. “Oh... why, hello there. Calvin, you never told me that you got yourself a pet.”

Immediately, the Skyshifter shook his head and tried to clear up the misunderstanding, “Rarity, it’s not quite like that-”

“What’s going on here?” Everyone heard the voice of Twilight now speak up as she was trotting back into the room, before noticing Rarity and Sweetie Belle. She had to step away for a moment in order to read the new letter that had just come in from Princess Celestia. Though, she honestly did not think she would come back to find a mountain of clothes spread out across the floor of the castle.

“Good morning, dear,” the unicorn now spoke up as she looked towards her friend, “I was dropping off Calvin’s clothes this morning and-”

“Clothes?” Twilight raised an eyebrow, “I thought you were only fixing one shirt.”

“Rarity got carried away again,” Sweetie Belle groaned, slowly lifting her head up and looking at the alicorn.

“Well, as the saying goes, variety is the spice of life,” the seamstress chimed, before looking back at her sister, “Now, why don’t you help bring these clothes up to Calvin’s room? Twilight and I need to catch up a bit.”

Sweetie herself let out an exaggerated sigh, before she began to start picking up some of the clothes that were on the floor. Yet, after picking up a couple of the clothes, she looked up to notice that Calvin had gotten up off the floor and was proceeding to pick up the rest of the clothes himself. She also happened to notice the fire dog that was nearby looking towards Calvin, the look in her eyes implying that she wanted to help, too.

“Hey, Dusty, there’s a couple of shirts that are out of my reach over here,” Calvin told her, pointing to a pair of shirts that were farther away from him and Sweetie, “Could you bring them over here, please?” Immediately, Dusty nodded her head as she scurried over to where the clothes were and picked them up with her mouth, a smile on her face as she brought the clothes over to Calvin before dropping them by his feet for him to pick up and add to the shirts that he was already carrying.

Once they had collected all of the clothes that were scattered throughout the floor, Calvin led both of them back up to his room. Before he could set them down though, he had to straighten out the sheets and comforter that was on his bed. “Now, let’s see,” he said to himself, looking at each one of the shirts that were spread out on the bed. Each one had a different color and style to it, and in his mind, he was having a bit of difficulty choosing which one he should put on for today. Calvin was half tempted to choose the one he always wore, but given that it recently had just been fixed, he didn’t want to do anything that would have it tear open again.

After giving it some thought, he made his choice and picked out a cyan colored t-shirt, setting it to the side as Calvin put the other ones in the space that was deemed as his closet before grabbing a few additional clothes. “Alright, I’ll be right back. Need to take a moment to change clothes,” he assured Dusty and Sweetie, before walking into the restroom and closing the door behind him, leaving both of them by themselves as the room went silent.

It was while they were waiting that Dusty heard Sweetie ask a question, one that was directed to her, “So… um, how is your… stay with Calvin?”

Awkwardly, Dusty looked back at Sweetie, trying to think of something to say to her. “U-Uh… I-I feel… happy?”

Sweetie Belle, even though the response was not quite what she thought Dusty would say, just smiled, “Happy’s good,” she replied, before thinking of another question to ask her, “Do you… uh… like to keep him company?”

Immediately, Dusty flinched. The memories of what happened earlier in the morning returning to her as she looked away from Sweetie Belle. The fire dog had no idea why those thoughts were returning to her, or for that matter, why was this happening to her?

“Uh, Dusty?” she now heard Sweetie speak up, her voice causing a small shiver to flow down her spine, “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

The fire dog looked back at the girl, but still could not find it in herself to say anything as she just stared at Sweetie. Yet, after a few moments, Dusty was able to say something, “N-Nothing’s wrong. I just… l-like how he m-makes me feel happy. Master’s really kind and gentle, y-yet brave and c-commanding-”

Of course, when she was saying that, Dusty did not anticipate a reply from her master to follow suite. “Why, thank you, Dusty. Hearing that means a lot to me-”

“Eep!!” the fire dog jumped, turning to see that Calvin was now out of the restroom and not that far away from her, wearing the new shirt along with a pair of shorts, “H-How long were you there!?!”

“Not long actually,” Calvin admitted, dropping the pajamas he was holding in a laundry hamper that was not far from his bed, before noticing that Dusty was trying to hide her face, “Hey, it’s not a bad thing. Hearing you say that tells me that I’m doing a good job at being your master. It makes me happy when I hear that you’re happy,” he told her, sitting on the floor so he could be right next to the fire dog.

“Th-thank you, mast-”

“Aw, that’s so heartwarming.”

Immediately, both Calvin and Dusty turned towards the open door of his room to find Rarity standing there, with Twilight immediately behind her. Naturally, both the fire dog and the Skyshifter had one response, “How long have you been standing there!?!”

“Not long actually,” the seamstress chimed in, “After finishing my conversation with Twilight, we were wondering why you had not come downstairs yet. After we came up, we found the door to your room open, and… Well, let’s just say that curiosity got the better of us…”

“Us?” the alicorn asked in response, which her friend shrugged off as she looked back to the two of them as well as Sweetie Belle.

“I must say though, I have been quite curious for a while, especially with the amount of times that I’ve heard Sweetie Belle talk about you any day after she sees her friends,” Rarity added, which resulted in a blush forming on Sweetie Belle’s face as she looked at her sister.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the image of Sweetie Belle’s face right now was the word ‘ABORT!’ repeating itself a thousand times.

“Hey, Twilight,” they heard Spike call out from downstairs, “I’m finished with preparing the food. Is there anything that needs to be done before our guests arrive?”

Immediately after hearing Spike say that, Rarity immediately turned to Twilight, caught off guard by what the dragon just said, “My word! I apologize. I didn’t know that you would be expecting company later,” the unicorn gasped, before redirecting her gaze to Sweetie Belle, “Let’s go home, Sweetie. It would be rude of us to stay around for too long.”

Sweetie Belle immediately nodded, letting out a sigh of relief as she looked back at her sister and walked over, “Good to see you again, Calvin. You, too, Dusty.”

“Good to see you as well, Sweetie Belle,” Calvin told her, before looking back to Rarity now, “Thank you for fixing my shirt… and also all the other clothes you gave me as well.”

“The pleasure was mine, Calvin. Have a lovely day, you two!” Rarity replied, before she and her sister proceeded to leave the castle as the Skyshifter let out a sigh. Part of him was relieved that Rarity was no longer making things uncomfortable for both him and Dusty, but another part of him was confused as to why Sweetie Belle was so embarrassed when her sister mentioned about Sweetie talking about him.

“Well, I’m going to go downstairs to see if Spike needs any help,” Twilight said to both Calvin and Dusty, “Let me know if you need anything.” As soon as she finished her sentence, the alicorn teleported back downstairs, leaving the fire dog and the Skyshifter by themselves as they looked back at one another, trying to figure out what exactly to do as Calvin took a moment to put his pendant on.

“So, um…” he tried to think of something to say in order to break the silence that was drifting over the room, “How are you… liking the castle so far? I know it’s… different, but are you enjoying yourself?”

“I… don’t know,” she replied back, “I-I haven’t felt anything like this before… but w-whatever it is, I wish to f-feel more.”

That had Calvin scratch his chin for a moment, before looking back at Dusty. “Let me try something for a moment,” he said, shortly before picking up Dusty, carefully holding onto her with his hands and petting her head and belly, “Are you feeling those same feelings now?”

All that could be heard from Dusty was a couple of squeaks from the fire dog and a blush on her face, which had Calvin smile as he looked back at her. But, before he could say anything in order to compliment her, he could hear the sound of somepony’s voice echoed throughout the entire castle.

“TRIXIE!?”

The loud shout from downstairs by Twilight was enough to startle Calvin and almost drop Dusty. By now, he knew that Twilight would raise her voice if there was something that startled her. Yet, the only thing that he didn’t take into account was how quickly her voice echoed all around the castle, “What in the world was that all about?” he thought to himself, before looking back at the fire dog as he set her down on the floor, “Are you okay, Dusty?”

The fire dog herself could only nod her head at first, taking a couple of moments to get herself adjusted as she looked back at her master. “Y-Yeah. W-What was that, M-Master?”

“I’m… not sure,” the Skyshifter honestly told her before looking towards the open door to his room, “Though, something must’ve startled Twilight if we could hear her from up here.” Even though things have begun to simmer down, Calvin was a bit unsure as to what exactly was going on downstairs that prompted that reaction from Twilight. The only detail that seemed to be missing from his thought process was what exactly was this ‘Trixie’ that Twilight had said?

Of course, after thinking all of this through, there only seemed to be one reasonable thing to do as Calvin looked back towards Dusty, “Want to come downstairs with me and see what’s going on?”

Dusty was quick to nod her head, eager to help her master as he got back up on his feet. Stepping out of the room and closing the door behind them, Calvin and her began to immediately make their way to the stairs and walk on back down to the first floor of the castle, looking through every possible place that Twilight could be while also sticking together. If Dusty ran off like she did this morning, all that would do was just lead to the Skyshifter to have to search for two people instead.

The first place that they checked was the library, but the room was completely empty. Afterwards, the two of them knocked on the door to Twilight’s personal study, but nopony answered. Another door they did open only led to them finding the castle’s pantry, and no one was in the kitchen when Calvin thought that they could just ask Spike where Twilight was at.

After a bit of looking around, the two of them soon realized that there was one place that they had not had the chance to look at yet. The room where the Cutie Map was. Of course, as they were walking over, Calvin heard an unfamiliar voice speak, “The grrrrreat and powerful Trrrrixie has come to perform a new stage show of grand illusion! I’m calling it ‘The Humble and Penitent Trixie’s Equestrian Apology Tour’!”

“That’s… a new one,” the Skyshifter thought to himself. Though, upon hearing this new voice say ‘stage show’, all that did was give Calvin flashbacks of when Discord turned the Cutie Mark Crusaders into humans, not to mention reminding him of how Hoot Loop didn’t quite help make things any better.

When they finally made it to the map room, the first thing that both of them saw was an azure unicorn with a pale cerulean mane and tail as well as purple eyes. She also had a lavender colored cape and a wizard’s hat, too, that had stars all over it. Of course, back home, anytime that he saw someone dressed up with a special cape and hat like that, he would think of those ‘magicians’ that would be hired for birthday parties and do balloon animals. The only thing that she seemed to be missing though was a wand… aside from the one that was on her cutie mark.

Which only left one question in his mind as he looked towards the mare, “Um… who are you, and why are you dressed like a silly wizard?”

“Well now, I’m no mere ‘silly wizard’. For you see-” the unicorn turned around, looking as if she was going to say something, but stopped the moment that she laid eyes on Calvin, “What the hay? Where did you come from?!”

“Upstairs,” he said simply.

“W-what?”

“You asked me where I came from, so I told you: My room upstairs,” Calvin explained again as he looked back at her, folding his arms now, “Though, you still haven’t exactly told me who you are.”

That had the unicorn blink for a moment, staring at the Skyshifter as she tried to process what he said. “Y-you don’t know who I am!?”

“Well, I kind of thought that you were one of those magicians that shows up at birthday celebrations and does party tricks for those who are attending,” Calvin shrugged, looking back at the unicorn before trying to add a bit to what he was saying, “You know, given your cape and hat-”

“Let me make it clear that I am not a conjurer of cheap tricks,” the unicorn quickly interjected before the Skyshifter could be able to continue with what he’s saying, standing on her hind legs and posing dramatically, “I am the majestic mystic! The travelling illusionist! The grrreat and powerful-!”

“Trixie, what are you doing?”

Immediately upon hearing that voice, the unicorn found herself back on all four of her hooves as she turned around to look at another unicorn, this one being Starlight Glimmer, somepony that Calvin had already met before. She was just walking back into the room with Twilight right behind her as they saw Trixie trying to ‘introduce’ herself to Calvin, something that made the azure mare a little bit embarrassed as she looked back at the unicorn.

“Oh… Well, I was just giving a simple introduction to… this child here,” Trixie explained.

Of course, given what had just happened, all the unicorn’s answer did was prompt for Calvin and Starlight to briefly look at one another, before simultaneously saying the same exact thing, “Simple?”

“Well, how else would Trix-. I mean… how else would I be able to have those who attend my shows, especially young children, remember me?” Trixie then asked, correcting herself partway through before looking back at Calvin, who took the chance to interject before the mare could continue.

“It is possible, if you think about it. If she’s having as much fun cheering others up as the people she’s entertaining,” he explained, before letting out a sigh as he looked back at the mare, “Though, since I’m not exactly a ‘child’, I’m not sure how I would exactly fit into all of this. I mean, you took so much time to introduce yourself just now that you didn’t take the chance to ask for my name.”

That had Trixie blink for a moment, before looking back at him and following up on what he just pointed out to her. “Well, my apologies. What is your name then?”

“I’m Calvin,” he simply told her as Starlight was now standing next to Trixie. The Skyshifter also noticed Twilight being closer to the Cutie Map now.

“It’s nice to meet you, Calvin,” the mare responded, before looking back to Starlight, “Unfortunately, we must leave. My show tonight is not going to prepare itself.”

As both unicorns began to leave, that prompted Twilight to try and say one last thing to her student as she was trotting away, “Starlight, remember what we talked about! Please make sure that you’re back in time before-”

SLAM!

“-dinner…” the princess finished, seconds after the doors to her castle closed before looking around and noticing Calvin and Dusty not that far from where she was standing, “I really hope that Starlight heard that.”

“Would you happen to know that Trixie pony that she was with?” he asked her, taking a seat in one of the chairs at the Cutie Map and allowing for Dusty to sit on his lap.

“Trixie… has been around Ponyville before, but the last two times she’s been here, all she did was cause mass panic. One of her first shows here led to an Ursa Minor being brought into town, while her second time here was because she was possessed by an artifact called the alicorn amulet and-”

“Isn’t that all in the past though?” Calvin interjected before the princess could finish speaking, “I mean, I might have only met her just now, but she seemed like somepony who was trying to move on from that. I mean, why else would she have an ‘apology tour’?”

“Trixie’s been known to stretch the truth. Remember when I mentioned that one of her shows led to a Ursa Minor being brought into Ponyville?” the Skyshifter nodded in response to the princesses’ statement before she continued, “Well, that was because earlier that day, she claimed that she vanquished an Ursa Major in Hoofington, but when two ponies brought one into town to see it in action, she admitted that her statement was fabricated and made up.”

“When exactly did this happen?” Calvin now asked her.

“A couple of years or so. Why?”

That answer from Twilight only caused the Skyshifter to let out a deep sigh as he looked down for a moment, before saying something that definitely caught the alicorn’s attention. “…Not again.”

Twilight blinked, caught off guard by his statement before asking a new question that formed in her head. “Wha-? Again? What do you mean ‘again’?”

“Don’t you remember that a few weeks ago, before you took on Starlight as your student, that you assumed that Discord was up to no good because your friends were able to have fun with him without you being there? Not to mention telling me that there’s no way you can be jealous because you’re the Princess of Friendship,” he reminded her, noticing her nod her head and taking that as a sign to continue talking, “The reason why I say ‘again’ is because, like with Discord, you’re making assumptions about Trixie based on the last two times that you’ve seen her. Heck, if you give her the chance, you might find out that she’s not the same pony that you remember from before.”

“He makes a very valid point, dear Twilight.”

Immediately, all three of them, including Dusty, turned towards the sound of the newfound voice that had just entered the room. Much to their surprise, Princess Celestia herself was in the Castle of Friendship, much earlier than what Twilight planned for.

“P-Princess Celestia!? W-What are you doing here so e-early?” Twilight asked, having a bit of trouble trying to remain composed because of the sudden arrival of her teacher and mentor.

“Well, after hearing about the wonderful time that Luna had while she was over in the Skylands the other day, I thought I would ask Calvin about his trip with his friends,” Celestia explained to her former student. Yet, before she had the chance to ask Calvin any questions, the first thing that she noticed was the fire dog that was sitting in his lap. “Oh, my… who’s this adorable little one?”

Upon hearing Celestia say that, and seeing the princess lower her head to get a closer look, Dusty squeaked as she anxiously looked back at Celestia. Of course, that was until she felt Calvin placed a gentle hand on her back. “It’s okay. She’s a friend of mine. Go ahead and say hello.”

“H-Hi,” the fire dog squeaked, “I-I’m D-Dusty… H-How do you know master?”

At first, Celestia was going to introduce herself, but when the fire dog asked her question, it had Celestia look back at Calvin with a stare that was not one you would expect from a warm and friendly princess, but one from a parent who found out their child had gotten into trouble at school. “Calvin… please explain.”

“Uh…” Calvin found himself at a bit of a loss for words, trying to find the right thing to say to her. Yet, in the back of his mind, he was also a bit worried about how Dusty would react if she had to hear him explain everything with Tribus, especially since both of them could agree that they wanted to move on from that. “D-do you want the short version or the long one? Because I… kind of already told Twilight.”

Twilight herself even nodded when she heard her name mentioned, before trying to come up with something that would make explaining things to Celestia simpler. Of course, when she did not think of any, all she could do was let out a sigh and try to summarize everything Calvin mentioned earlier in the easiest way possible, “Princess, Dusty is a fire dog that Calvin saved. The living circumstances that she escaped from were harsh, even from Equestrian standards.”

“She lived under the rule of a creature that was beyond cruel and would harm her if she or her siblings stepped out of line,” Calvin then explained as he looked at Celestia, “So, to her, since Dusty found happiness in safety, and the only time that she felt safe was whenever she would follow orders…”

Upon hearing that, the solar princess’ eyes widened, “You don’t mean…”

That just had Calvin nod as he felt Dusty brush against his shirt, “To her, following through on orders is happiness. After I put myself in harm's way to save her and after the Skylanders that were with us defeated the creature Twilight mentioned, Dusty pleaded… no, begged me to be her new master. She saw me as the only one who was capable after what I did to protect her, and I could not find it in myself to refuse, especially after everything that she’s been through. So now, I’m looking out for her.”

Dusty herself was now smiling happily as she rested by Calvin, even enjoying some pets that he gave her before looking back at Celestia with a pair of puppy dog eyes, something that even the princess herself was caught off guard by, especially with how the fire dog was acting. “I see,” Celestia responded, smiling for a moment as she looked at both of them, “I’m glad to see that you’re taking on some more responsibility, Calvin. Dusty seems like the perfect fit for you.”

“T-Thank you, Princess,” Calvin blinked, surprised by the sudden shift in Celestia’s tone, especially since Celestia’s tone came off rather serious at the beginning of the conversation. Now though, Celestia just looked back towards Dusty as the fire dog just tilted her head.

“B-But… H-How do you know M-Master?” she asked.

“Oh, my apologies,” the solar diarch told the fire dog, realizing that the question that Dusty asked earlier remained unanswered, “To answer your question, I’ve met Calvin a few times before, but have not always had the opportunity to speak with him, given my duties as a Princess of Equestria. Luckily, I arrived early so we could have the chance to converse.”

“W-What’s a Princess?”

That had Celestia look back at Twilight and both of them look back at Calvin, who just shrugged in response. He wasn’t quite sure how to explain something that was this complex to Dusty, so he thought it would be better for somepony who was a princess to explain it. Besides, it couldn’t be too hard for them to explain their occupation.

“W-Well, you see… A princess is somepony who helps watch over everypony who lives in their kingdom. A-Almost like how Calvin watches out for you,” Twilight tried her best to explain to the fire dog in the simplest way possible, “Celestia cares for everypony who lives here, along with her sister Luna, and would do anything to-”

“S-So, she’s… m-more important than M-Master?” the fire dog’s question was followed by a look of shock and disbelief, pulling herself closer to Calvin’s chest as she stared at Twilight. Right now, Dusty looked like a filly who was told that Santa Hooves did not exist… which was definitely not exactly what the Princess of Friendship was trying to go for.

“I… don’t think she meant it like that, Dusty,” Calvin tried to tell her, “C-Celestia’s a very good friend, and one who looks out for everybody. L-Like Master Eon at the Academy-” Of course, all that did was have the fire dog hold onto him tighter to the point that it felt like her paws were grabbing hold of the sides of his chest.

“Well, it’s a matter of perspective, really,” Celestia admitted, looking down at the fire dog, “I might be seen as important in the eyes of many because I’m the ruler of my kingdom, but what I believe is the most important thing differs depending on who it is. I, myself, value the friendship and bonds that we all share with one another, while you value the bond that you share with your master.”

That had Dusty look back at Calvin for a moment as he smiled and returned the hug. Around this time, Spike had decided to join Twilight as Celestia began to bring up another point. “Of course, the bonds of family are also another example of a strong bond-”

Before she could finish though, something unexpected happened.

“Watch out, Watch out, watch OUT, WATCH OUT, WATCH OUT!!!!”

Out of nowhere, a pink blur the size of Dusty barreled their way through the room and knocked over Spike like a bowling pin, sending the dragon sliding across the floor as everyone was trying to make sense of what had just happened.

“W-what was that?” Twilight asked, looking back to Celestia and then looking to where Spike ended up after rolling on the floor, “It looked like Pinkie, but was too small to be Pinkie.”

As he heard Twilight say that, the Skyshifter looked back in the direction where the pink blur was going, though only one possibility came to his mind as he looked back down at where Dusty was resting. “Skippy, was that you?”

“Who-?”

“Hiya, Calvie!!” the pink fire dog jumped up out of nowhere next to Twilight, startling the alicorn to the point that she fell out of her seat at the table as Skippy jumped up and sat in it, inhaling some air through her nose as her tail started to wag from side to side, “Woah!! Is this where you live!? With all these smells, it’s a doggy paradise here!!!”

Calvin blinked, looking at Twilight for a moment as well as the other alicorn in the room as Celestia now spoke. “Calvin, who’s this?”

“That’s Skippy. She’s a friend… and one of Dusty’s siblings,” he added on, while Dusty looked a bit embarrassed by the sudden arrival of her energetic sister, “Skippy, how did you find this place?”

Not missing a beat, Skippy immediately got to answering his question, “Well, I was bored and waiting for Hot Dog, so I took a stroll, found a door, walked through it, got to exploring and such the moment I walked in, and knocked over some tall thingy with a lot of those things that Hugo guy keeps holding by accident,” the last part of Skippy’s sentence had Twilight immediately teleport out of the room, just before Skippy smiled and looked at who was holding onto Calvin, “Oh, hi, Dusty!!”

“Hang on,” Calvin now asked, looking at Skippy, who seemed like she wanted to pounce over to where he was at to give Dusty a hug, “By ‘things’, do you mean books?”

“I think that’s what he called them-”

“MY LIBRARY!!!”

The scream from Twilight began to echo all around the castle now, and it was enough to get Spike to get up off the floor and groan for a moment. “W-what just hit me?”

“That would be Skippy,” Calvin pointed to the fire dog, who happily just waved at the dragon, smiling almost like she was Pinkie Pie. “Dusty’s sister and the puppy version of Pinkie Pie, based on sheer energy alone. That, and she’s pink.”

“I can tell,” the dragon sighed.

“Spike, Dear, Could you go check on Twilight? She rushed off to her library in a hurry,” Celestia now spoke up as she looked back at the dragon, whose only response was a salute with his right claw before leaving the room and heading towards the direction of the library.

Personally, all Calvin could do was watch as he looked back at Celestia and asked the first question that came to his mind, “Do you think Twilight’s going to be alright?”

“I’m sure that it’s not too bad. Twilight does tend to over exaggerate sometimes-”

“HOLY SCALES, DID A HURRICANE GO THROUGH HERE!?!” they now heard Spike’s shocked response echo throughout the castle.

Of course, all of this just led to Skippy letting out a small sigh as she looked back at Calvin and Celestia, “I guess I should go fix this,” the fire dog said, before yanking out a heart shaped ‘I’m sorry’ card from underneath her as she got off the chair and ran off after Spike, leaving both the princess and the Skyshifter stunned by that.

“D-Did she have that prepared ahead of time?” Calvin now asked.

Of course, Dusty was the only one who could actually respond to that kind of question. “…You’d be surprised how much she needs to use it.”

“Your sister reminds me of one of Twilight’s friends, Pinkie Pie,” Celestia commented as she looked back at the little dog, “Energetic, happy, always trying to make her friends laugh and smile,” the princess let out a small breath as a smile could be seen on her face, “She also has a habit of just popping in from out of nowhere-”

“PINKIE!! WHEN DID YOU GET HERE!?!”

“Case in point,” Celestia sighed, looking up to Calvin now, “Would it be right to assume that both Dusty and Skippy happen to be from Skylands?”

“Y-Yeah, actually. What gave it away?” the Skyshifter replied back, a little bit curious as to what Celestia’s response would be as both him and Dusty looked towards the princess now.

“Well, there is no mention of anything like their species at all in the Canterlot Archives, so I just took a guess,” the princess said, just before they could hear the sound of hyperactive squeals of joy from the nearby hallway, “I am quite interested to learn more about them, but… we got company.”

No sooner after Celestia said that did Calvin and Dusty witness Pinkie Pie sliding across the floor like it was a water slide. Skippy herself did the exact same thing, but instead left behind a trail of burnt spots on the crystalline floor as she bumped into the party pony. “WHEE!! That was SO MUCH FUN!!”

“Told you it would be, Skippa-roo!!” Pinkie Pie let out a giggle snort as she poked at Skippy’s muzzle with a hoof before looking around a bit as she noticed Calvin, “Oh, hey Calvy!!”

“Hello, Pinkie,” he greeted the party pony, “You seem quite energetic today.”

“Yepperoni!! Spikey asked if I could help him make dessert for a special meal that Twilight was having, so I-!” At that point, Pinkie stopped, looking directly at the fire dog that was on Calvin’s lap as she immediately bounced over. “Oh, hello there! Who’s this little cutie?”

The party pony’s sudden focus on her, as well as her trying to get a closer look at Dusty just made her squeak and curl up in Calvin’s arms, trying her best to hide from Pinkie Pie, even though the party pony took this as something else entirely. “Oh my goodness, she’s so adorable!! She’s like if Marble was a puppy!! Can I hug her, Calvy!? Can I!?!”

“I would suggest against doing that, Pinkie,” Celestia now spoke up, catching the party pony’s attention, “She’s a bit timid and scared around those she’s not met before. I know that you’re eager to say hello, but frightening her would not be a good first impression. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Hearing the princess’ words was enough for Pinkie Pie to back up as she looked down at the floor. “I guess y-you’re right,” she said, before looking back at Dusty as she slowly was beginning to poke her head up, “S-Sorry. I was just so eager to meet new friends. I didn’t mean to spook you… uh…” following that, Pinkie then turned to Calvin, “What’s her name?”

“Dusty.”

“I didn’t mean to spook you, Dusty,” Pinkie said, letting out a sigh of relief after finishing that sentence, “I reaaaaaaaaaaaaally hope that you can forgive me.”

“I’m sure that she will. You just need to give her some time,” Celestia assured Pinkie, placing a hoof on the earth pony’s shoulder before thinking of something off the top of her head, “How about you go find Spike? You did say that you were going to be assisting him, right?”

That had Pinkie’s ears immediately stand up on end, before she started bouncing in place, realizing that she got sidetracked before immediately taking off to try and find the dragon that was in the castle as Celestia let out a smile. She then blinked and shook her head upon noticing Skippy run off after the party pony. Afterwards, Celestia took a seat at the table and looked back towards Calvin and Dusty. “So, where were we?”

Calvin had to take a moment to think on that question first, before looking back at the princess and saying the first thing that he could think of, “I think we were talking about family and such before Skippy arrived,” he honestly told her, “Which, now that I say that out loud, seems rather ironic, since Skippy is one of Dusty’s siblings.”

“Really now?” the princess asked, sounding a bit intrigued, “How many does she have?”

“F-Five,” Dusty herself answered that question, “T-Two sisters, t-three b-brothers.”

“I see,” Celestia replied back, before thinking of a new question to ask. This time, it was one for Calvin, “Out of curiosity, how did you happen to come across them, Calvin?”

“Well, they happened to be in the volcano that the girls and I were going to,” he began to explain, “They wanted us to help them, and afterwards, they helped the girls with finding the crystals they needed.” When he was explaining, Calvin intentionally tried to keep the details as short as possible, mainly because he was concerned about how Dusty would act if Tribus was brought up again. “Thanks again for casting that spell on us, by the way. It was a major help.”

“You’re welcome, Calvin. Anything to help a friend of Twilight.”

Ironically, around the same time that Celestia said that, Twilight herself soon entered the room as she started looking around, not noticing the spots that were on the floor as she looked at Calvin and Celestia. “S-Sorry for interrupting you two, b-but have you seen-?”

“Pinkie?” Calvin assumed, “She and Skippy just left to look for Spike.”

“Well, even though that bit of news is rather helpful, I was asking if anypony had seen Starlight,” Twilight finished her sentence, “I’m just a bit concerned that she would not be back in time for when we’re supposed to have dinner.”

“I’m sure that everything will be fine, Twilight. There’s no need to be concerned,” Celestia assured her, “It’s never wrong to be a little bit fashionably late. Besides, we still have a while before the time that dinner’s supposed to start.”

“I… guess you’re right. I’m probably just worrying over nothing. Silly me,” Twilight sighed, “So, what were you talking about?”

“Well, I was mentioning to Celestia about how we found Dusty and her siblings and thanking her for casting the spell on us that we needed the other day,” the Skyshifter replied back, “Other than that, you didn’t miss out on too much. Would you like to join us?”

“Why, sure. Thank you,” Twilight replied back, taking up a seat next to Princess Celestia at the Cutie Map. Once she was seated, Calvin took the time in order to explain to Celestia what exactly happened on their trip in vivid detail, everything from the flight over in Flynn’s ship and having to fight against the pirate armada of Captain Ironbeard, to their trip to the volcano and meeting Dusty and her siblings. Calvin took the time to try to explain every detail to Celestia, with some assistance from Twilight if there was some information that he forgot so that the solar diarch could try to picture it as if she had been there with him.

Of course, one subject that Calvin made sure to try and avoid as much as possible was that of Tribus. He was concerned that just mentioning him would not settle well with Dusty, especially now that she and her siblings no longer had to deal with him anymore. It was something that he had to be careful with and choose his words carefully. Thankfully though, there weren’t many instances where that subject might have come up, and when it did, Twilight and Calvin just referred to Tribus as a ‘giant monster’ that kept them inside the volcano and left it at that.

Of course, one of the things that Celestia seemed to be interested in was when the topic of discussion was about Dusty and her siblings, mainly because, as she put it, some of them happened to remind her of Twilight’s friends. Skippy reminded her of Pinkie, Dusty reminded her of Fluttershy and Hot Block reminded her of Applejack since she’s protective when it came to the subject of family. Though, she unfortunately could not think of any similar comparisons for the other three pups as she took a sip of some tea that Spike brought out for her and Twilight to have. “So, it seems like your trip over to the Skylands was rather successful, I imagine.”

Calvin, who was drinking some water, took a sip of his drink before setting it down as he looked back at Celestia, “Mostly successful, yeah.”

That had Celestia pause and stop sipping her tea, before setting it down on the saucer that was by her on the table, “Mostly? How so?”

“Well, as we found out from the Crusaders themselves, they found the crystals and were able to transform. However, they weren’t able to fully transform into the Skylanders they were trying to change into.”

“Like if you stopped casting a spell halfway,” Twilight added for clarification.

“Right,” Calvin continued, “One of the Academy staff members, Mags, took a look at the crystals and figured out what the problem was. Unlike my crystal, the crystals that the Cutie Mark Crusaders found are disjointed, which cause sparks of magic that weaken the power of the magic inside the crystals, meaning we would need to come back at a later date in order to get that fixed.”

“They know somepony who could help, but they’re right now on assignment,” Twilight recalled from their meeting with the Skylander Academy Staff the other day. “So, the staff at the academy are going to let us know when they’re back, so that they can help fix the crystals the girls have.”

“Interesting,” Celestia nodded as she looked back to Twilight first and then Calvin before asking another question, “And how are your friends after your trip yesterday? Did they enjoy it?”

“So booooooored!!”

“Come on, Scootaloo. It can’t be too bad.”

“Says you, Bloom! It’s the day after our trip yesterday, and Sweetie said that Rarity had her carry a cartload of clothes in her arms to Calvin’s place. Yesterday was fun, but today feels like we’re back to doing the same old thing we always do.”

“But at least we got our crystals right? That’s a plus.”

“Yeah, but they aren’t working. They’re more of a souvenir than something we can actually use to help Calvin. Plus, I really wanted to fly in one of those forms! You girls know how long I’ve been wanting Rainbow to give me flying lessons.”

“You… aren’t wrong. But hey, as soon as that Prism Break guy returns to the academy, he’ll help us get them fixed. We just got to be patient.”

“If you say so, Sweetie.”

“I think they’re alright,” Calvin answered Celestia’s question before drinking another sip of water, “They definitely enjoyed the trip yesterday.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” the solar diarch smiled back, lifting her tea cup with her magic and drinking another sip before setting it back down, “Out of curiosity, who were the Skylanders that assisted you with your trip? I do recall that you said there were two of them that helped you.”

“That’s right. The first one is Rubble Rouser, whose an Earth Skylander stone golem that's an expert when it comes to mining and exploring caves, while the other is-” At that point, Calvin immediately stopped speaking, his gaze shifted away from both Princess Celestia and Twilight as his eyes widened, “Hot Dog!?!”

“Wha-?”

“No, I mean… Hot Dog, what are you doing here!?” His question, led to both Twilight and Celestia look in the direction that Calvin was looking at as they both noticed who exactly he was talking about. In the hallway behind them stood the Fire Skylander named Hot Dog, who immediately noticed the Skyshifter calling out to him as he hurried over.

“Calvin? What are you doing here?”

“Uh… Hot Dog, I live here,” Calvin told him, getting up from his chair and having Dusty sit there as he looked back at him.

“Oh… well, I guess you learn something new everyday,” he said, before shaking his head, “Though, now that I found you, have you seen Skippy anywhere? She wandered off, and I’ve been looking for her with her siblings for the last… seven hours I think-?”

“Is that Hot Dog I hear!? Wowee Zowee!! Pinkie, my best friend is here!!”

Hearing that did not exactly go down so well with Hot Dog, who’s eyes just widened as he looked behind him. “Uh… guys, I found her-”

In a matter of seconds, Hot Block, Sheer, Digger and Smoky charged into the room, knocking over Hot Dog like he was a traffic cone as they stormed into the room. Looking all over the place to try and find Skippy, right around the same time that she was casually walking out of the kitchen and noticed them coming towards her.

“Oh hey, guys! When did you get here?” Skippy casually asked them.

“When did we-? Skippy, do you have any idea how long that we were looking for you?!” her brother, Hot Block, asked, “We were worried sick about you-!”

DING!

The sound of a kitchen timer going off, followed by Hot Block sniffing the air prompted him to ask an entirely new question now, “What was that-?”

“Perfect timing! Treats are done!!” Skippy cheered, before scurrying over to the over and pulling out a tray that had freshly baked dog treats on it.

“Isn’t that tray supposed to be hot? Matter of fact, when were you even-?” Calvin said, before shaking his head as he looked back at the fire dog pack before looking to Dusty, “You know what, I’m not questioning it.”

“Oh my gosh!! So many adorable pups in one place!!” they now heard Pinkie squeal in joy as she stood next to Skippy, right around the same time that Hot Dog was coming to his senses as he was trying to get back up on his paws after being knocked over.

Unfortunately for him though, the first thing that he happened to see after getting up was both Pinkie and Skippy standing beside one another. “By the elements, I-I think I’m seeing double.”

“That’s just me, silly,” he heard from behind him, turning around to find Pinkie Pie standing there. The Fire Skylander jumped at that, looking back at Skippy to find that Pinkie herself was no longer standing there right next to the fire dog, despite literally being there a couple of seconds ago.

“W-W-Wha-!? How-!?!”

“Hot Dog… just go with it,” Calvin told him, “It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie.”

“That doesn’t make it better!” Hot Dog yipped.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Hot Block soon declared, “We’re going back to the Academy right now. No exceptions.” That had some of the fire dogs let out a low groan, before they all started to make their way out of the castle through the basement door with Digger dragging Skippy behind him as the fire dog was waving goodbye. Which, coincidentally, prompted Pinkie Pie to wave goodbye to her in response as the door closed behind them.

At first, Calvin thought that they had all left, which was a bit of a sigh of relief. That was, until he saw Skippy out of nowhere appear in the middle of the room again the moment he sat back down. “Oopsie. Nearly forgot these,” she giggled, swiping the treats off of the tray before scampering back over to where her siblings were.

Though, not everything was peaceful just yet, because as they heard the basement door slowly begin to close again, they heard Hot Block shout one last thing, “How could you lose her when you had a hold of her!?!

As the exit to the room closed on itself, all was quiet, even Pinkie Pie didn’t say anything as everyone looked back at one another. Yet, it did not remain silent forever as Spike was the first to speak. “… Do the rules of world just ignore her or something?”

“I’d… rather not even think about it,” Calvin added.

“I’m so proud of her,” Pinkie Pie smiled, “Go forth, my young padawan.”

“What?”

“Nothing! I said nothing!” Pinkie said before zipping back into the kitchen, leaving Calvin, Spike and Dusty with Princess Celestia and Twilight.

“Well, that was… eye opening,” the dragon said to himself, before turning to look towards Twilight, “By the way, Twilight, is Starlight going to make it? The food’s almost ready, and I don’t think I’ve seen her come back yet.”

At first, Twilight just blinked, before looking off to the side anxiously, “Oh, right, uh… let me go check on that. Be back in a jiffy,” With that, Twilight got out of her chair and immediately used her teleportation spell, leaving only four creatures present in her castle as the Skyshifter took another drink of water.

As he finished the drink that he was holding though, a question began to surface in his head, something that didn’t really come to mind until a while ago after explaining the entire trip to the Skylands again. It was something that had been chewing away at some of his attention, but as he let out a sigh and looked back at Princess Celestia, he finally had a bit of courage to ask someone about it. “Celestia, can I ask you something?”

“Oh? Why, of course, Calvin. What’s on your mind?” the princess asked as Calvin set down the empty cup he had.

“Well, I have this friend… she has a job that’s rather dangerous, but is always rather careful. I… haven’t heard from her in a while, and I’m worried that she might be in trouble,” the Skyshifter explained, “Do you have any advice on what I should do?”

Meanwhile…

“Come on, why can’t we pick code names for this?”

“When I said that we need to take this mission from Master Eon seriously, I did not imply that we needed code names,” Jet Vac told his fellow Skylanders that were picked for this mission, “Besides, if we did have code names, then all of you would either complain about the name you were assigned or keep on asking me to change it for you. We got more important things to focus on than temporary titles.”

“He is right,” the Life Skylander Sensei named Ambush, who was assigned as the leader of the group, now spoke up. A mystical spikey ‘haired’ tree-knight who wore a black combat gi with a gold colored sash tied around his wooden waist, “We have a mission from Master Eon that is of dire importance. He fears that two of our comrades have been captured by Kaos after he lost contact with them while they were on a reconnaissance mission. We need to find any information that we can regarding what happened to them and report back to Master Eon immediately.”

“Really? Who exactly are we looking for?” Aurora, Swashbuckler Sensei of the light element, and the same Skylander that was trying to suggest code names, asked. She wore a white helmet that had the same appearance as that of Master Eon’s along with her choice of black and white garbs while also carrying her two blades.

“Master Eon originally sent Trap Shadow to investigate, but afterwards, had Stealth Elf come out here to support him,” Ambush explained further, “However, he’s not heard from either of them since. He’s also tried using his powers to communicate with them directly, but they’re somehow being disrupted.”

“So, we look around, find out what happened, where they are and report back? Seems simple enough,” Prism Break, a hunchbacked Earth Skylander that was a stone golem with glowing crystals replacing part of his back and his hands.

“We’re doing all of this in enemy territory,” the fifth skylander that was with them, the dark dragon named Blackout, pointed out to the Crystal Golem.

“...I take it back, this is going to be a bit rocky,” Prism corrected himself, “So, what’s the plan, Sensei?”

“I say that once we touch down, we look out for any kind of clues that could possibly lead us on a trail,” Jet Vac suggested as he looked towards Ambush, “Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow aren’t the kind of Skylanders to leave something lying around without a particular reason.”

“Agreed. They probably set up an area as a base camp, too, someplace where they can blend in and not be detected by enemy patrols,” Ambush pointed out as well, “We need to find it as well as find anything there that could possibly serve as a clue to where they are now.”

“While also not getting detected by any of Kaos’ forces?” Aurora asked as she continued to take in their surroundings, trying to be careful in case there was someone following them.

“Preferably, yes,” Ambush acknowledged the fellow sensei, “Now then, let’s-”

As the tree-knight turned his head, he noticed that Blackout was not with the rest of them, but instead looking at something that seemed to be farther away. “Master Ambush, I think there’s something over here that you should see.”

“What is it, Blackout?” the Life Sensei asked as the dragon pointed in the distance. It looked like some kind of deserted building, but upon looking a bit closer, he could see a few zombies and monsters around the outside of the building.

“I noticed this as we were walking through here,” the Dark Skylander explained as everyone else on the team began to come over, “There doesn’t seem to be any sign of Kaos troops nearby, yet those creeps are attracted to that building over there. Do you think that we should investigate?”

“Now, why exactly would that seem like a place to look into?” Aurora now asked, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, but aside from the baddies, it looks to have been abandoned for a while.”

“Do you think that Kaos’ minions would come by here if there was nothing suspicious within?” Blackout then asked. It was a question that was met by silence at first, before they began to realize what he was referring to, “Regardless of Stealth Elf and Trap Shadow’s best attempts, the chances of intruders leaving a trail is still possible, not to mention that this unusual grouping of undead may be a clue.”

“So, you think that they were using the building as a potential base of operations?” Jet Vac now asked, which was followed by a nod from Blackout as the air Skylander began to think, “It is possible, but how are we supposed to get in? Not all of us are as capable when it comes to stealth like you.”

“I could lure them away from the building long enough to let you go in first, then join you,” Blackout suggested, before looking to Ambush, “But I believe that is Master Ambush’s decision to make, not mine.”

The Life Sensei nodded in acknowledgement, before looking back at the building, “We should get a closer look first, see if there’s a particular entry point that they used before we make a plan to get inside. Any objections?”

All four of them shook their heads, which Ambush took as a good sign. Shortly afterwards, he had the other Skylanders follow him as they made their way towards the abandoned building while also trying their best to not be spotted by the monsters around the building. Once they got closer though, they began to pick up on something that might have been what was attracting the zombies here in the first place: the smell of raw meat that lingered in the air and was coming out from a few broken windows along the front and left side of the building.

Fortunately, once Jet Vac did some aerial recon of the building itself, he was able to find a possible entryway inside from the back of the facility. Provided that they had one of their team distract the monsters that were outside, Jet Vac could go in and open it from inside for everyone else. It was a plan that Blackout himself could agree with, since he was the one who originally suggested the distraction idea.

While the dark dragon was getting the attention of the monsters at the front of the building, Ambush and the rest of the team used the opportunity to sneak around to the back side of the building as Jet Vac was getting the door open for them. Once most of the team was in, Prism stepped out to fire an energy beam from his crystals to send a signal for Blackout to get him to regroup.

Upon seeing the beam, Blackout used his wings and channeled two black holes, one that was right in front of him with another one being along the right side wall of the building. Diving in, he immediately popped out of the second one, while the portal that was left behind immediately pulled each of the monsters together into the small vortex. As the black hole disappeared and each one of the zombies were back on the ground, they all looked around to see that the Skylander that was there only just a few moments ago was no longer there.

For Blackout himself, he was the last one to come through the door as Jet Vac closed it behind him. “Nicely done.”

“Thank you,” the dark dragon accepted the compliment as he tried to not be overwhelmed by the strong smell of raw meat inside the building, “Have you guys found anything so far?”

“Other than leftover bones and fliers, I’m not really sure what else we could find in here,” Aurora said, trying her best not to breathe in the scent, “Guh, I feel like we’re all going to need a shower to get the scent out of our clothes after this.”

The last part of what Aurora said earlier had Ambush become a little bit curious as he looked back towards the Light Sensei, “What kind of fliers specifically?”

“I don’t know, something about some arena or something. There’s even a giant poster sized one on the wall behind you,” she pointed out, prompting the Life Sensei to turn around. The poster on the wall was for what looked to be a gladiatorial arena called the MaguDome with a giant drow elf with blue skin, gold and black helmet, green and black clothes with a matching cape and a form of energy gauntlets flexing on the front.

Much to his surprise, it even had its own caption on the poster, ‘Calling All Gladiators!! Are you tired of getting yourselves kicked to the curb because you have to ‘follow the rules’ in every other battle you faced? Are you looking for a place that has barely any rules and a lot more carnage? Well, come on down to the MaguDome!! Where we hold multiple different combat tournaments, without the need for petty things such as rules or safety regulations! You can even win big prizes just for participating in our various competitions, such as Drow Devastation, Chompy Conquest and Machine MAYHEM!! If you enroll soon, you can even get the chance to take place in Battalia, our annual charity tournament where all proceeds will go directly to the one who made all of this possible! Glory to Lord Kaos!!!’.

As well as its own fine print disclaimer, ‘WARNING! Any participation in any of these events will lead to the loss of limbs, dignity, life or a combination of all three. Please ask a doctor if MaguDome is right for you before participating in any events. All proceeds from the Battalia tournament go directly to Lord Kaos’ personal piggy bank. Therefore, they are non-refundable and will not count towards your tax returns’.

“Well… that is something,” he said, placing his hand along the poster. As he was guiding his hand across it, something felt off. Around the back left corner of the page, he did not feel any walls or hard surface behind the poster as he looked back towards his comrades, “Everyone, I think I found something.”

“What, a poster?” Prism Break then asked, “How does that help?”

“It’s not exactly the poster itself, but what’s behind it,” the Sensei explained, pulling the bottom corner back and revealing a hole that was in the wall, “Prism, can you shine some light over here?” The crystal golem just nodded, illuminating one of the crystals on his arms over the hole. In doing so, the light revealed what looked like a journal that was inside, one that had the seal of the Element of Life on it.

“Did you find something?” Jet Vac then asked.

“Possibly,” the tree knight replied, taking the journal out and pulling the corner of the poster back over the hole in the wall, “I found something that looks like a journal, something that Stealth Elf might’ve used to record her findings out in the field. Though, I didn’t see anything that would’ve belonged to Trap Shadow in there.”

“Meaning that it might be hidden somewhere else. Brilliant,” Blackout sighed as he turned around and began to walk around the room to look for something that could lead to where Trap Shadow kept his notes.

Jet Vac himself was also looking around for any possible clues, and at one point, he thought he had found something. There was a desk in the back corner of the room with drawers underneath, possibly used by the owners of the building to keep documents on hand for if any inspectors came by. Of course, when he pulled the chair away and opened the drawers, all he could really find was a bunch of old shipment receipts, business transactions, and bank records, nothing that even related to what it was that they were searching for.

“Find anything, Jet Vac?” Aurora asked him, noticing what he was searching through.

“I thought I did, but unfortunately, no,” the sky baron replied back, putting all the documents back in the drawers and closing them before facing the Sensei, “I noticed that the desk here had drawers and thought that he might’ve hid it in there, but all I’m finding is transactions and old tax documents from whoever was the owner of this place.”

“That honestly doesn’t sound like Trap,” Prism Break then added, “It sounds too simple. He would’ve put some thought into it and make it rather difficult for anyone to find.”

That was soon followed by Blackout speaking up a few moments later, “Knowing him, he'd choose to place it in a spot one would be least likely to look. Maybe nearby a place one would expect to find it, yet in a different place that's near it instead?”

“So, you mean that even though it’s not in the drawers here, it could be in the general vicinity?” Jet Vac asked, which led to Blackout giving his answer in the form of a single nod of the head.

“Okay, but the only closest thing that’s nearby is the chair, and there doesn’t seem to be anything off about that,” Aurora then added.

“Maybe that’s what Trap wants for us to think,” the dark dragon replied back, circling around the chair and trying to get a closer look at it. After inspecting it from all possible angles, Blackout lifted up one of his wings and hit the chair, knocking it down to the floor.

“Was that entirely necessary?” Ambush now asked, walking over to where the other Skylanders were after seeing Blackout attack the chair.

“I would think so,” he replied, pointing at the chair that was at the ground. More specifically, the underside of the arm rest and pointing out a latch that was not seen previously. After seeing it, Aurora took the chance to pull on the latch, which revealed a hidden compartment as a roll of papers fell onto the floor that were held together by a ribbon that had the magic symbol on the front. “Bingo.”

“Alright, I call that a success,” Ambush said, looking towards the entryway that all of them came in through, before turning back to see that Aurora was undoing the ribbon that was on the papers they just found, “Aurora, what exactly are you doing?”

“Well, we came out all this way. Should we at least look and see what their notes contained first before reporting anything, right?”

“She does have a point,” Jet Vac then added, “If both of them went through the trouble of hiding them like this to begin with, then we should at least see what these notes contain.”

Ambush said nothing, but instead nodded his head as he watched Aurora finish untying the ribbon as she looked at the paper that was in her hands, trying to make sense of what was on there before handing the paper to Jet Vac to see if the Sky Baron could determine what it is. At first, he was deeply analyzing it to see what it was. Though, after a few moments, the pupils in his eyes shrank as he looked at the page. “By t-the elements, i-is this what I t-think it is?”

“Jet Vac, are you okay?” Prism then asked him.

“I-I’m fine,” he assured his fellow Skylander, “But I think what we found here is rather big.”

“How big are we talking about here?” Blackout then asked, just as Jet Vac cleared off everything that was on the desk and spread out the papers that he was holding. The paper themselves were four pieces of what looked to be a map with a fifth that had a series of written steps, with different points in the map containing red dots that matched the steps.

“This is a map of Kaos’ Fortress… as well as instructions for how to get inside.”

End Scroll 25

Scroll 32- An Unexpected Series of Events (Part 1)

Beyond the Skies- An Unexpected Series of Events (Part 1)

Earlier

By the time that Calvin woke up, it was still very early in the morning as the rays of sunlight began to peak through the windows of the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ clubhouse. After being grounded by Twilight, and having the restrictions be revised, he was finally able to be outside the castle after so long. When Apple Bloom and the others heard about this, they decided to celebrate by holding a sleepover at Sweet Apple Acres. While it was a bit sudden at the time, Twilight thought it would be a nice change of pace for him and encouraged him to do so.

“Mornin’, sleepyhead,” he heard Apple Bloom say to him, while also placing a tray that had a plate of waffles and some apple slices down, as well as a glass of water, for him, “Apologies for waking ya this early, but I didn’t want ya to end up missing breakfast.”

“O-oh, uh… thanks,” the young teen replied as he took a sip of water and looked back at the earth pony, “H-how are the girls?”

“They’re doing pretty well. Right now, Sweetie and Scootaloo are helping Mac and Granny with cleaning the dishes,” she said, before motioning her head towards the barn. As Calvin grabbed an apple slice and straightened himself up, he could see both of the fillies that Apple Bloom was talking about in the kitchen. Sweetie herself was holding different plates and utensils with her magic, while Scootaloo was drying them off with a dish. Once that was done, the clean dishes were handed off to Big Mac and Granny to be put away.

Though, there was one particular pony that happened to be missing from the picture. Once Calvin had finished with his meal, he decided to ask about it. “Hey, have you seen Applejack this morning? Is she out bucking the apples out of trees again?”

Much to his surprise though, Apple Bloom’s response to the question was not what he expected. “A-actually, ah saw her leave earlier this morning, like earlier than when she normally gets up. However, something about her seemed different though.”

“Different?” he asked, “How so?”

“Well, usually, if my sister had to go somewhere early, she would usually leave behind a note and tell us,” the filly replied, “Though, when ah saw her this morning, she not only didn’t leave a note, but almost forgot her hat. Whenever AJ heads out into town, she never forgets to bring her hat with her. Mac thought that it was just her being sleep deprived, but you and ah both know that she’s an early riser.”

That was definitely weird. While he might’ve only been around Applejack a few times, Calvin saw it as a bit strange for her to just leave without telling anypony. If anything, it almost felt like she was trying her best not to be found. Though, one possibility came to mind as he was thinking this over. Perhaps Apple Bloom was not the only one who noticed her acting like this.

As both the Skyshifter and the earth pony climbed down from the clubhouse and landed back on the ground, that was when Calvin decided to ask something, “Hey, Apple Bloom, before we do anything today, would it be alright if I made a quick trip to Twilight’s castle?”

“Uh… sure, ah guess,” the filly shrugged her shoulders, “Why ya asking me though?”

“Well, I was going to let Twilight know that I was going to spend the rest of the day with you and the girls,” the Skyshifter replied back as he moved his hands to his pockets, “Though, I was thinking that while I’m there, I could ask Twilight and Spike about Applejack. Surely, if anypony notices anything about ponies acting strange, it’s got to be her, right?”

At first, Apple Bloom wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Though, as she thought it over, the earth pony began to realize that Calvin made a valid point. Hay, perhaps Twilight knew the reason as to why Applejack was acting this way. “Alright, that’s fine. Though, once ya found an answer, ya better come back and tell me. Ah don’t like being kept in suspense, ya hear?”

“Loud and clear,” the Skyshifter replied with a mock salute as he left the dishes from breakfast on the patio before he made his way out of the front gate and onto the road that led back to Ponyville.

As Calvin was making his way back to town, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he wasn’t alone. Despite him being by himself with nopony else around, the young teen felt that either something or someone was watching him, perhaps even following him, given that he could hear the sound of wings, but he didn’t see any pegasi flying above him. Whatever it was, it got to the point that he couldn’t just simply shrug it off and ignore what was happening.

Eventually, Calvin stopped walking and immediately turned around to see what was following him. Much to his surprise, he found what looked to be a barn owl about thirty feet or so behind him. However, instead of landing on the ground or in a nearby tree, they were just flying idly in place, which was weird. From what he knew, owls were supposed to be asleep during the day, instead of flying around like this one was.

Unless they were someone pretending to be one. “Who are you?”

Much to his surprise, he actually got a response. However, it wasn’t exactly what he expected. In the blink of an eye, a flash of green light enveloped the owl, as a much different creature landed on the ground in front of him. The creature looked like a pony, but its body and appearance looked a lot more insect-like in nature, with holes in its legs and tail.

“Please don’t freak out. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Despite what he was saying though, Calvin wasn’t exactly scared by these sudden developments. If anything, he was puzzled. “What made you assume I was going to do that?”

For a moment, the bug creature blinked, before looking back to the young teen, “W-what? Y-you’re not… afraid of me?”

“Why would I be?” Calvin asked as he folded his arms, “We haven’t met before. If anything, I’m curious about why exactly you are following me.”

Again, the creature blinked as it looked back at itself. It seemed like he didn’t even take into account the flaw in his transformation. Though, he was quick to refocus his attention back to him. “Let me ask a different question then. Are you a friend of the dragon named Spike?”

At that question, the young teen was quick to nod his head. “Well, yes, actually. He and I pretty much live in the same castle. Are you a friend of his by chance?”

“You can say that,” the creature nodded, “My name is Thorax. It’s kind of a long story, but I don’t have the time to explain right now. There’s something I need to warn Princess Twilight about immediately.”

Originally, Calvin was going to ask more specific questions about what exactly Thorax was and how he would be able to transform like that. However, the mention of him needing to warn Twilight immediately had everything else in his head come to a halt, “Warn her? About what? What seems to be the problem?”

At this, Thorax looked behind him, before his gaze returned to Calvin. “If you can take me to where Princess Twilight lives, then I can fill you in on the way. This really can’t wait, and I need to see her quickly.”

“Uh… sure, I-” Before he could even finish what he was saying, another green flash went off right before his eyes. This time though, Calvin was caught off guard by the sight of a black spiral band around his right wrist. At first, it looked like any ordinary wristband. Though, that was when he saw two dots that were the same color as Thorax’s eyes. “Okay, I must ask. How are you doing that?”

“Are you saying you haven’t met a changeling before?” the band hummed back in a muffled voice that sounded like Thorax.

When that question was asked, it felt something had clicked in Calvin’s mind as he looked back at the band. “Oh, you’re a changeling? I’ve heard some ponies I know mention them, but never really told me about them or… well, met one. All I remember was that they mistook my transformations for-”

“Transformations? You can transform like I can?”

“Well, yes, but actually, no,” the Skyshifter retorted, “It’s a lot to explain. Though, I don’t think now is the right time for this discussion. After all, you did say you were in a hurry.”

By the time that Calvin arrived back in Ponyville, everything seemed to be as normal as any other day in the week. Even though Thorax had informed him of what he wished to warn Twilight about on the walk over, there wasn’t anything going on in town that would show that the same thing happened here. Everypony was acting normally, from those who ran the markets to the ponies coming in and out of Mayor Mare’s office. Even when he passed by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, the two of them seemed to be in rather high spirits.

However, as he saw the castle in the distance as well as a familiar mare standing outside and talking to a dragon in the entryway, the band on his wrist tightened. “Stop.”

“W-what’s wrong?” he asked.

“Something’s not right,” Thorax hummed again, “I don’t know why, but something feels off, like they’re not even there.”

“What are you talking about? Spike’s-” Just as he was about to finish what he was saying, the dragon at the door did something unexpected and slammed the door in Starlight’s face, a move that even startled the unicorn that was trying to talk to him. “-right there. Okay, that doesn’t seem right. Spike isn’t the kind of person who just slams doors in people’s faces like that.”

“If that’s the case, I fear that we might be too late,” the band hummed as the ‘eyes’ on it blinked for a brief moment, “However, there’s only one way that we can be absolutely certain.”

“What exactly did you have in mind?” Calvin asked.

“While I can’t sense them, I remember enough of their personalities to determine the real one from a fake,” he said, all while Calvin watched Starlight try and talk with him again. Only this time, Twilight was there, too. “However, I need to be really close by, in order to hear them.”

“So, what you’re saying is the only way we can know is if I have a door slammed in my face?”

“Pretty much. Though, that’s just an alternative. Would either of them happen to be talking to somepony right now? If so, we could try to-”

As he said that, Calvin looked up towards the castle entrance, only to find that Twilight and Spike had already gone back inside, while Starlight was trotting away. He could see that the mare looked rather confused and she was talking to herself, but couldn’t quite hear what she was saying.

“Yeah, I don’t think that first option is going to work,” the young teen told him, “Seems like the only choice we have is the alternative.”

“Alright, but keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be a full conversation. It can be a brief and short exchange.” With that in mind, Calvin walked on over towards the castle and knocked on the front door. Not a moment afterwards did Spike answer the door, but he looked extremely annoyed and irritated by his presence.

“What do you want?”

“Oh, uh… hi, Spike,” Calvin replied. Immediately, the Skyshifter was surprised by how the young dragon was acting, but tried his best to not show it. “I was wondering if-”

“Listen, buddy, the princess is very busy today and really does not like interruptions with her work. Like I told the mare before you, unless it's an emergency, either come back tomorrow or make an appointment.”

Immediately, the dragon slammed the door in his face, as the sound of a lock being put in place was heard on the other side. Yet, while the exchange between them was rather short lived, he was quick to move along the side of the castle and away from sight before he looked down at the band on his wrist. “Well, was that enough for you?”

“More than enough. That’s definitely not Spike,” Thorax confirmed, shortly before transforming back into his normal form, “Yet, that’s only one of them. When the changeling’s captured Cadance, they also replaced her family and the Crystaller Sunburst. Unless one of us gets inside, there’s no way we can tell for certain.”

At that, an idea happened to strike Calvin as he looked up at the top of the castle. “You know, Twilight’s castle does have a balcony. Given how rarely it’s used, it could serve as a way in for you?”

The changeling blinked at that, before tilting his head. “Me? Why me?”

“Because this fake Spike is already suspicious of me. If he caught me sneaking around, he would probably warn anyone else they’re working with,” the young teen tried to reason with him, “Not only that, but compared to everyone else in this town, I stand out like a sore thumb.”

“Didn’t you say earlier that you could transform though?”

That had the Skyshifter scratch the back of his head as he let out a small breath, “Yeah, but those are a little more specific and not really ideal here. Not only that, but since you were able to tell that the Spike we just met was a replacement, then you can more than likely determine if anypony else he’s with is also a replacement.”

“I guess,” the changeling nervously replied back as he looked towards the balcony, before briefly looking back at Calvin, “You’ve been inside the castle before, right? Is there anything in particular that could help me blend in?”

“My best guess is something rather small and quiet that you can quickly move around with,” he replied, “Don’t turn into any objects though, especially books. If I learned anything from living with Twilight for some time, it's that she has an impulsive need to put away any loose item or book she finds. If her replacement is trying to pretend to be Twilight, then it’s safe to assume that they would try to copy her habits as well. You know, so that no one suspects anything?”

It took Thorax a minute or two, but afterwards, the changeling transformed into that of a house fly and flew up to the balcony as quickly as he could. Once he was up there, the fly quickly darted inside the castle and left Calvin to wait outside for his return.

Yet, as Calvin waited for Thorax to return, a different thought came to mind, after he remembered what he was told back at Sweet Apple Acres. Was it possible that the ‘replacements’ that Thorax spoke of not only captured Spike, but also Applejack as well? While such a possibility might’ve explained the odd behavior that Apple Bloom mentioned, he didn’t want to immediately jump to conclusions just yet. After all, he didn’t exactly have any solid proof right now to back up his claims.

After about ten minutes, the young teen felt a familiar tightness around his right arm. When he looked down, he found that the same spiral band that Thorax had turned into before was back again. “Sorry if I kept you waiting. My observation ended up taking a bit longer than expected.”

Even though he was back, Calvin had a feeling that the changeling’s findings weren’t exactly promising, based on his tone. “It’s alright. Is it as bad as you thought it was?”

“No. It’s much worse,” the band hummed, “It’s not just Spike that’s been replaced, but also the princess and her friends. Even though I haven’t met all of her friends, I could tell that the other mares in the castle were replacements.”

“Through the same way that you were able to tell that Spike was one?”

“Not quite. Back in the Crystal Empire, Cadance and Sunburst told me a lot about Princess Twilight’s friends, on the off chance that I would meet them if they ever came to visit. So, based on what they told me and how these pretenders were acting behind closed doors, the difference was obvious. However, I did not see any of them change back to their original bodies while I was inside.”

The young teen could only let out a small sigh, “Well, this is going to be very problematic. For another reason, I mean.”

“How so? I don’t understand.”

“One of Twilight’s friends happens to be the older sister of a friend of mine, Apple Bloom,” he explained, “She told me this morning that her sister, Applejack, had been acting strange, and I promised that I would try and find out what’s going on. Now, how am I going to explain to her that her sister had been kidnapped and that an imposter is pretending to be her? She wouldn’t believe me, unless I had proof of some kind.”

“Oh. I did not know that,” he replied, “I wish there was something I could do to help, but our options are rather limited right now. We’re the only ones that know of the replacements. Everypony else would assume that they’re actually the princess and her friends.”

It was as the changeling said those words that Calvin thought of an idea as he leaned back against the side of the castle and folded his arms. “What if we aren’t the only ones though? Surely, somepony else in town has probably noticed the strange behavior of the replacements, right?”

“That’s… plausible,” the changeling admitted as the band hummed again, “However, given everything that you and I have found out so far, we probably don’t have a lot of time on our side. Not only that, but we need to be very careful. If word got to the replacements of us asking a lot of questions around town, they would get very suspicious of what we’re up to.”

“Then, what exactly can we do?” he asked with a bit of frustration in his voice, “You mentioned that our options are limited. So, if the idea I suggested isn’t going to work, then what are some options that we can do?”

At first, Thorax didn’t have an answer for him. Calvin watched as the eyes on the band blinked and shifted around a bit, as the changeling seemed to be thinking. Despite how bad their current situation was, there should’ve at least been one possible solution, or at least, somebody they could talk to if they couldn’t think of something.

It was as Calvin straightened himself up and prepared to walk away from the Castle of Friendship that the changeling finally said something, “There may be one pony we could talk to. However, I’m not sure if they’re actually in town or not.”

“Well, I guess it’s a start, at least,” the Skyshifter thought to himself, before he looked back to Thorax, “Who are you thinking?”

“The only other pony that comes to mind is Sunburst’s friend and Princess Twilight’s student,” the band hummed some more, “I believe her name is Starlight Glimmer-”

“Wait a second, Starlight?” he asked, “I saw her earlier today.”

“You did? When?”

“Starlight was actually at the door to the castle and talking to the replacements of Spike and Twilight before we tried anything earlier,” Calvin explained, before he shrugged his shoulders, “It looked like she was trying to ask Twilight for advice on something, but whatever she was told didn’t really settle right with her.”

“If that’s the case, then it’s possible that Starlight might’ve noticed the same changes that we have noticed so far,” Thorax said, sounding rather hopeful by this, “Did you happen to notice where she went?”

That question didn’t really help their current situation as Calvin shook his head, “Not really. Around the time she was leaving, we were preparing to have that ‘talk’ with the replacement Spike at the door. I had no idea where she might have gone afterwards.”

“Does she have a home or residence in town that we could visit?”

“Not really. Most of the time, she lives in the castle, like I do,” the young teen replied back, as he started to walk away from the castle. However, as he was looking around town, the young teen heard the crumpling of paper underneath his foot. When Calvin looked down to pick it up, he happened to find what looked to be a faded flier of sorts. Despite it being aged a bit, he could make out some of the pictures on the page and one particular showpony that was front and center on the page.

“What is it?”

“It’s a flier for a magic show, I think… from yesterday?” Calvin said, before he tried to read the partially faded print, “The humble and penitent Trixie would like to invite you all to take part and witness dazzling new magical feats and sights as part of her ‘Great Equestrian Apology Tour’! Our performance begins at six o’clock this evening and tonight. Trixie has a rather special guest assisting her. No need to buy tickets, but tips are greatly appreciated.”

“It just sounds like what Sunburst calls a ‘promotional poster’. I’m not sure if it can help us right now.”

“Actually, it might,” the young teen replied, which was enough to surprise the changeling, “The mare this flier is talking about, Trixie, is actually friends with Starlight. If we find her, then perhaps Starlight may be with her as well?”

“If that is true, then that may be possible. Though, we should be careful, unless we want to let the replacements know what we’re up to.”

Despite how simple it might have seemed to Calvin at the time, it turned out that trying to find a single unicorn that would clearly stand out in a town like Ponyville was much harder than he thought. The young teen had tried asking ponies at places that he thought either Trixie or Starlight would visit, such as some of the shops around the marketplace. However, despite his best efforts, nopony happened to know where either of them could be. Some ponies didn’t even know that the two of them were back in town.

Fortunately for him, it wasn’t entirely a waste of time. When he was just about to call it quits, he actually learned one detail that could possibly lead both him and Thorax in the right direction. Much to his surprise, Trixie happened to stop by the Tea Shop in Ponyville to order a few things she ran out of. Furthermore, the owner of the shop told him that Trixie was outside of town, on the assumption that he was there to pick them up and deliver it to her.

Of course, the stallion also happened to mention that Trixie went on about other topics as well while she was here. However, such things weren’t really that important compared to actually finding her.

The directions that they were given led the two of them to the edge of the Everfree Forest, a location that was rather convenient, since it allowed for Thorax to drop his disguise and be back in his normal form again once they were there. Unfortunately, the directions themselves weren’t rather specific on where Trixie’s wagon happened to be, so the two of them had no other choice but to walk around and hope that they would eventually run into what they were looking for, all while being on the lookout for any beasts that might be hiding.

Luckily, their search didn’t really last that long. “-my gosh, I can’t believe-!”

“Did you hear that?” Thorax was quick to ask.

“Yeah, but barely. I could only hear a few words,” the Skyshifter grumbled, “Darn it, we’re going to need to get closer. I can’t hear them from this far away.”

When the changeling heard that, he took a quick look around the area to try and see if there was anything that could possibly help them. Luckily, Thorax was able to find one thing that could possibly work. However, there was something he had to ask first. “Calvin, I have a question. Remember earlier, when you told me that you could transform?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, do you have anything that could help you climb that?” the changeling asked, before he motioned a hoof over to a big oak tree that was on the side of the road. “I was thinking that if you can get up there, you could get a better vantage point and make it easier to listen in on whoever’s talking right now.”

Immediately, when Calvin first looked at the tree, the first thought he had would be to turn into a Skylander like Stealth Elf and use her blades as a way to climb up the side of the tree. However, it was then that he noticed that some of the wood on the tree had aged significantly. If he tried anything rash, he might end up knocking the whole tree over by accident.

Luckily, he had an alternative option in mind. “Yeah, I think I got something. Give me a second,” Calvin told him as a blue glow began to emit from his pendant, “Eight Pegs and No Legs!”

“I’m sorry, wha-” Before Thorax could even finish his sentence, the changeling was startled by the sight of Calvin changing into what looked like a walking pirate squid with arms, “What the-?”

“What? I did tell you earlier that what I could do was more specific, didn’t I?” the Skyshifter replied in a lower tone, his voice sounding like that of Wash Buckler as he began to use the legs of his new form to move up along the side of the tree. Once at the top, he changed back to his regular form and gave Thorax a thumbs up as a sign that he reached the top before moving closer to where he heard the voices from earlier.

Fortunately, Calvin did not have to wait for too long. As he reached some of the branches on the other side of the tree, he found the sight of Trixie’s wagon and two mares who were talking in front of it. At first, he couldn’t tell whether or not they were actually the ponies they were looking for. Yet, it soon became clear as he overheard their conversation.

“Trixie, let’s just take a moment and stay calm-”

“Stay calm?! Starlight, we both heard what they said in the castle. I-I can’t deal with this! I-I’m just a performer, not some hero! This… this is princess-level stuff! But the changelings ponynapped all the princesses! We’re doomed!!”

“Well, it seems like we’re not the only ones who know about the replacements anymore,” Calvin remarked, before looking back down to listen some more. “That’s a relief.”

“Maybe not. Chrysalis only said that they took Celestia and Luna along with Twilight and the others. But maybe-” Before Calvin had the chance to listen in further, the sound of a snapped twig echoed in the forest and alerted both of the unicorns, “W-who’s there?!”

Immediately, Calvin moved away from where he was and hurried back down the tree, something that surprised Thorax because of how suddenly he was back. “That was… quick. Did you learn anything?”

“You can say that,” he replied, “Apparently, the voice that we heard earlier was Trixie herself. From the sounds of it, she and Starlight tried sneaking into the castle by themselves and saw the replacements talking with Chrysalis.”

The changeling himself was surprised when he heard that, “That’s… rather fortunate to hear. Were you able to hear anything they were talking about?”

“Not a lot, but we probably have a bigger problem to deal with right now,” Calvin told him, “Before I could hear anything else, something startled them. I’m not sure if it’s a beast from the Everfree or not, but I don’t think we’re the only ones trying to find them.”

“If it’s possible that some of the replacements followed them, then that could be a problem,” he replied as he glanced farther down the road.

“We don’t know if it is, though. For all we know, the two of them could be panicking over nothing,” Calvin reminded him, before an idea came to his head, “Alright, here’s what we are going to do. You stay here for a moment, while I go over and take a look. If the coast is clear, I’ll let you know, and you can join me.”

Before the changeling even had the chance to say anything, Calvin was already making his way over to the wagon. He could hear the sounds of commotion, but couldn’t quite make out too much at first. As he got closer, the young teen began to hear the two unicorns again, yet this time around, it sounded as if the two mares had switched roles. For now, it was Starlight that was beginning to panic instead of Trixie.

“Oh, no. Oh, dear Celestia, no!!”

“Starlight? Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?!” Starlight retorted, “Trixie, don’t you realize how bad this is?! We spent so much time sneaking around the castle, trying to find answers, and yet, we forgot to check and see if-”

By this point, Calvin had reached the wagon and chose to make his presence known, “Oh, hey, there you are.”

The unicorn’s reaction to what he said was almost immediate as she jumped in fright and landed in Trixie’s forelegs, like it was a scene straight out of Scooby Doo. Not only that, but it took Starlight a bit to realize that he was there. When she finally did, that was when the unicorn forced Trixie to put her back on the ground before she looked towards him, “Calvin, do not scare me like that!”

That had Calvin scratch the back of his head as he was quick to apologize, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I think I’m just relieved to find you, with what’s been going on lately-”

It was as he was saying this that his eyes shifted and noticed that there were two others with Starlight and Trixie. However, they weren’t Equestrian at all. In fact, they were actually humans. The two of them, a boy and a girl, looked to be a bit older than he was and wore casual clothes that were kind of similar to his. However, both of them had a strange band that was around their wrists.

“What the heck!? Starlight, what’s-?”

“Honestly, that’s what I think, Trixie, and I want to know,” Starlight replied back, “Before you arrived, the only thing that they told us was that they were humans, like you.”

“Like… me?” the young teen asked, before looking at both of the twins, “That’s the first time I’ve heard of there being other humans here…” Unlike with Cruger back in the Skylands, these two did not look like they had been summoned here in some particular manner. If anything, it was entirely possible that they probably arrived here the same way he did, when he first came to Equestria.

However, the weirdest part of this whole thing was that even though Calvin just saw them, it felt like he knew who they were. “Have we met before?”

“Wait, you know these two?” Trixie asked, who seemed just as confused about what was happening.

“I think so,” he replied with a puzzled expression on his face, “They seem familiar… Who-?”

“Calvin, don’t you remember us?” the girl soon asked, their expression seemed to be a mix of both shock and disbelief, “We went to school together? We were all in the same class? Surely, you remember my brother, right?”

Despite what she said, that did little to help jog his memory. Calvin wasn’t even sure how long it had been since then or who these two were. Yet, the two of them seemed to know him for some reason. “Uh, if I have to be honest, I’m better when it comes to remembering names,” he admitted as he tried his best to jog his memory a bit, “Besides, the only people I remember from then were-”

Then, for a moment, it felt as if something clicked into place. The two of them were siblings, and they knew him from his old school back on earth. Surely, it couldn’t be who he was thinking of… could they?

“W-wait a minute… are you-”

However, before he had the chance to finish what he was saying, he heard a different voice speak up from behind him, “Uh, Calvin? Can I come out now? I’ve been waiting back here for the last few minutes, and you haven’t told me if it was safe or not.”

Immediately, Calvin turned his head back to where Thorax was once he realized this, “Oh, shoot!! Sorry!!” he apologized, before he looked over to Starlight and Trixie, “There was someone I ran into on the way here that wanted to talk to Twilight and such. Though, after we found out that something bad was going on in the castle, we began searching for you instead.”

Both mares looked to one another for a brief moment, before Starlight tilted her head and looked back at him with a puzzled expression, “Really? Who?”

“Promise me you won’t freak out, alright?”

Starlight blinked, looking at Trixie before she tried to ask a question. “Uh, what-?”

“Do you promise that you won't freak out?” Calvin rephrased his question.

This time though, Starlight had a different response for him as she let out a low sigh, “I promise that I won't freak out.”

As soon as he heard that, the young teen smiled as he looked back over towards where the Changeling was hiding, “Okay, Thorax. It’s safe to come out.”

As the changeling emerged from their hiding spot, Trixie was quick to overreact and assume that Thorax was a villain. However, Starlight was quick to come to his defense, and when the unicorn was asking how exactly he was who he said he was, Thorax recalled the acts of kindness that both Spike and Princess Twilight showed him in the Crystal Empire. Once the initial panic had subsided, that was when the Changeling began to inform them about what happened in the Crystal Empire, as well as the current situation.

However, as he was talking, Calvin couldn’t help but focus his attention back to the two newcomers. Even though he was trying to focus on the current conversation, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew these two from somewhere. It was as if the answer was on the tip of his tongue, and yet, he did not know what to say, because he couldn’t tell who either of them were.

Of course, that all changed when Trixie made a comment about how everypony they knew with powerful magic is gone… and then, the friendly neighborhood draconequus decided to make an unannounced visit. “You know, whenever somepony decides to start a conversation involving powerful magic, they always seem to forget to ask if I wanted to take part in it. Why, I would have been insulted by that, if I hadn’t changed my ways for the better.”

Perched up in a nearby tree like the Cheshire Cat, Discord took a quick glance at everyone before he snapped his eagle talon and reappeared alongside Trixie’s wagon. “So, can anypony explain why we have Twilight’s own friendship student, a magical showmare, a rogue changeling, Calvin and a pair of twins that he happens to know, for plot convenience’s sake, standing around in the middle of the woods?”

“Wait, what was that last one-?”

Immediately, Calvin saw the girl faint on the spot. Yet, ironically, that was when the young teen got his answer as to who they were. “Raquel!! Hey, what did you do to my sister!?”

“What? Immediately assuming I did something when all I did was just make an entrance? Now, that’s just uncalled for,” the draconequus retorted, holding both his paw and talon up in innocence, “While I admit, I am curious about you two, my attention is a bit more focused on the situation as a whole. Hence, the reason why I asked my question.”

At that moment, Calvin now knew who these two were. Trevor and Raquel Arlott; a pair of twins that attended the same elementary school he used to go to back home. However, while Trevor saw him as a friend and someone that shared a few interests with him, his sister was the complete opposite. In fact, it would be accurate to say that Raquel was his Diamond Tiara, because of the amount of times that she had teased and made fun of him, all because he didn’t really fit in with the other kids in their class.

Now, much to his shock and utter disbelief, the two of them were somehow here. Words weren’t enough to describe how Calvin felt in that moment. To know that there were other Displaced like him was one thing, but to know that there were others like him in his world that he actually knew felt completely different. He felt a strange sense of joy and happiness wash over him as he looked over towards Trevor and acted on impulse.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?! Huh? Calvin, what-?”

Before Trevor even realized what was happening, his old friend from elementary school had come up to him and wrapped his arms around him in an unexpected hug. He could feel the tears that ran down Calvin’s face as they stained his shirt as he tried to make sense of everything. Yet, it was then that he heard the young teen mutter just a few words under shaky breaths. “Y-you’re here… Y-you’re a-actually here. I-I…”

When Trevor heard that, any anger that he once felt mere moments ago began to evaporate. He had no idea how long Calvin had been by himself in this place and was honestly worried that he had forgotten who they were. Yet, the very few words that were spoken were enough to dispel his doubts as he returned the hug and pulled his friend in closer to him, “I missed you, too, buddy.”

For a single moment, it felt as if the rest of the world had stopped around them. It had been too long since they had seen one another, and while this wasn’t exactly the reunion that either of them were expecting, they were happy to see each other again nevertheless. Eventually, the two of them loosened their grips, and Calvin tried to dry his tears to recompose himself, yet such a simple thing was rather difficult for the Skyshifter to do at that moment.

However, before either of them could say anything, that was when they heard the conversation that was going on between Starlight and Discord that had them snap back to reality, “They took Fluttershy?”

“Yes!”

“Where?”

“The Changeling Kingdom-!”

“ …Who or what is Fluttershy-?”

In an instant, the two of them heard a loud snap, and in the blink of an eye, every other creature that was nearby had disappeared. Only Trixie’s wagon remained as Calvin got back on his feet, while Trevor was still confused by everything that had just happened. “What… in the world was that? And how-?”

At that point, the young teen finally felt composed enough to speak as he looked back at his friend, “It’s rather complicated,” he explained, before he heard the sound of a small groan as he looked over to where Raquel was, “Hey, I think she’s waking up.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Trevor let out a sigh of relief as he went over to his sister and tried to lend a hand, “Raquel, are you alright?”

“P-please tell me the big one’s gone,” the two of them heard her groan, before placing her right hand on her head as she propped herself up with her left arm. As her eyes readjusted, Raquel first looked towards her brother, before her gaze met Calvin’s, “O-oh, uh… Hi, Calvin. I-I’m not sure if you remember me, but-”

“I remember you,” the young teen told her, “We did go to school together, but you weren’t that friendly to me.”

Raquel blinked for a moment, before she looked away with an expression of regret on her face, “I… don’t do that anymore. A lot’s changed since then, and… w-well, I’m sorry for what I-”

Before she had the chance to finish what she was saying, Calvin said something that Raquel did not expect. “I’m not mad. In fact, I’m really happy to see you and your brother again.”

“Y-you’re not… angry? After all that I-”

At that, the young teen let out a chuckle, “Raquel, I’ve met people here who used to do bad things and then found a way to turn their lives around for the better, two of them being the same mares that you two just so happened to be talking to a few moments ago,” as he was speaking, Calvin extended his arm forward and offered a hand to her, “As far as I’m concerned, all that’s in the past. Now, would you like some help getting up?”

It took Raquel a moment to fully grasp what she heard, and yet, part of her couldn’t bring herself to believe it at first. She didn’t even think that she deserved his forgiveness. Although, now was not the time to ponder on such things, for the three of them weren’t exactly in the safest of places right now.

So, she stretched forth to grab his hand, and as she did, Calvin carefully pulled her up and back on her feet. “T-thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Calvin smiled as he turned his head to look at her brother, “Now, I’m going to guess that both of you have quite a few questions?”

“More than you can imagine,” Trevor nodded. “However, I don’t think this friendly chat is meant to be held in the middle of these woods. Would you happen to know someplace where we can go?”

The young teen could only scratch his head as he looked back at the twins, “I do know one place, actually. However, there’s a lot to catch you two up on. I’ll try my best on the way since where we’re headed is going to be on the opposite side of town.”

“Town?” Raquel asked, “There’s a town out here?”

At that, Calvin couldn’t help but give the two of them a small smile, “Oh, you two are in for a surprise.”

End Part 1

Author's Note

To Where and Back Again... from a different perspective.

Part 1 of 3