Skylanders: Second Leaf

Chapter 14 ~ Freedom

Shade and Mammagma snuck silently through the corridors of the body. Well, Shade was silent. Mammagma was still as loud as a rolling thunderstorm no matter how hard he tried to be quite. It just wasn't possible. Trying to find the source of Skeleborg's immense power so they could blow it to kingdom come was proving harder than they had suspected. Mammagma lit his hands so they could see in the immense, thick darkness that filled the robot's insides. Shade was constantly teleporting away, then back as soon as he had gone, trying to the best of his abilities to locate the core source of energy before Skeleborg realized he had a pair of rats crawling through his system. After a few minutes of wandering and teleporting, Shade and Mammagma finally came to a bend in the 'hallway' they were trucking down. Shade took a deep breath.

"This must be it." Shade mumbled, motioning to the sudden bend in the path, "Fire elements first."

Mammagma rolled his eyes as Shade gestured down the corridor. Mammagma trundled forwards a thundered down the pathway. Shade following close behind. Sure enough, there it was. A set of double doors set into the wall at the end. Shade and Mammagma pressed on, approaching the doors which were firmly shut and latched. Shade nodded to Mammagma, then backed up. Mammagma lowered his shoulders and shot a round of Magma Missiles at their perfectly smooth, grey surface. The door burst open with an ear shattering bang, a cloud of shrapnel and smoke. Shade and Mammagma burst through the thick, swirling, grey fumes and into the room on the other side. Shade gripped his blade in one hand and his whip in the other. Mammagma's hands were glowing and boiling with volcanic energy. They glanced around the circular, silver room. Long, fat wires of red and blue hung from the ceiling. Snaking around the metal beams that stretched from the floor to the roof, making sure the room itself wouldn't collapse, and into the floor. Liquid seemed to be pumping and bubbling through them, flowing like blood through the veins that ran through a mortal's body. In the center of the room rested a large, steel tube that spanned from the floor to the ceiling. The front of it was cut out, leaving at least two centimeters of steel left between where it met the floor and where it met the ceiling, and replaced with thick glass. But what was within the tube caught the two Skylanders' eye the most. Suspended within the tube was a tall, slim being that glowed a brilliant blue like the lightning from a thunderstorm. Its cold, dead eyes - or lack thereof - seemed to stare directly into the souls of the two heroes. After a few seconds of the two sides staring each other down, the glowing being sighed.

"I always knew that you were capable, but I'm getting quite tired of this endless cycle." Skeleborg scolded.

At that moment, a handful of laser blasters rose from the ground around the core that held Skeleborg's immortal spirit and aimed at Mammagma and Shade.

"This ends now." Mammagma growled menacingly.

"For one side, yes. Pray that your side isn't the one that goes down in flames."

The blasters fired at the heroes, but with a wide wave of his arms, Shade brought up a shadow barrier around the two that blocked the shots. At that moment, doors on either side of the room slid open and lines of robots filed in.

"You've got to be kidding me." Mammagma groaned.

"No one's joking!" Shade cried, "You take the blasters, I'll take the robots!"

Mammagma nodded, then charged at the blasters, using his trunk and tusks to tear the blasters up from their roots. Shade hacked and slashed at the robots, which were closing in fast.

Kaos sat on the ground, his head in his knees. His back pressed up against the wall of Skeleborg's base of operations. Listening to the carnage and havoc being wreaked by none other than the skeletal overlord himself. Thoughts bounced and rattled around within his mind. Most centered around Shoria and what he had done. He could almost hear her words, her thoughts, her voice within his head. As if haunting him. She was sobbing. Crying. Weeping over her loss. Kaos buried his head in his knees even deeper, trying to block out his thoughts. Trying to block out everything that had happened. Trying to fade away into the dark.