Skylanders: Found

9. Sporadic

Stump Smash blinked before blinking once again; his excitement suddenly halted as he glared down at his coffee-coloured bark, which had been briefly developed a legendary, cobalt shine. Cali's smile dropped, eyes were fixed on him, along with Chill. Upon a further glance, Stump also noted that Chill's legendary armour had evaporated, exposing the twinkling, silver armour underneath. The solitary soldier of ice ran to the edge of the lake and scowled.

"ORO!" She yelled, frost materialising before her. With a flash, the golden fairy returned from their soggy home. She was holding a heavy book wrapped in a plastic bag, labelled 'An Extensive History of Butterbeans', her attention fixed to it entirely. It almost seemed as if she had not noticed whatsoever that she had surfaced at the call of Chill. However, Oro's glance was finally drawn at an 'ahem' coming from the very same ice cold warrior.

"Oh, you've changed already?" Oro inquired, taking a confused look at both of the legendary Skylanders. Chill rolled her eyes and shook her head, the frost spreading across the edge of the lake.

"No." Chill replied. "The armour is gone."

"Gone?" Oro interrogated, a golden spark or two escaping from her hands. "But that's impossible, I'm afraid." She smiled. "Are you sure you didn't simply remove i-"

"Do you take me for a fool?" Chill yelled back, "Of course I didn't remove my armour; you took it from me." Cali's eyes widened.

"Chill!" She gasped, "Calm." She jogged from behind and tugged Chill back just as she was about to pounce on the richly coloured fairy. "Calm." Chill scrunched her face up, but did as Cali requested, taking a few steps back. Stump Smash stepped forward.

"Is there anything which would prevent us from activating our legendary armours?" He commented quizzically. Oro's eyes lit up.

"Why, yes!" She recognised, "The Legendary Armour is directly linked to the portal network. No portal, no armour." She tilted her head. "Though, the network is always up and running, so that isn't a problem." Her voice sounded concerned. In that instance, a flash of colour zapped over Stump's body.

"It doesn't matter," He recognised, realising his legendary armour had returned. His eyes darted to Chill, who too was sporting gold and blue, "its back now."

"Wonderful!" Cali enthused, pulling Chill further away. "Well, we'll be on our way no-" And with that, the colour was drained once more from the legendary heroes who stood sombre in the bitter situation they had found themselves in. Oro watched as the gold and blue she had become accustomed to vanished from both the skylanders in unison. Something, most assuredly, was wrong.

"Follow me." She ordered. She said no more, alarming all those around her. If Oro had limited her speech, something must be up. Henceforth, the group silently departed from the lake and began to retrace their steps.

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While Cali began to climb back down the jagged cliffs, Chill decided that her time was best well spent sliding down the steep decent rather than wasting any more of the day on the wall of rocks. Stump Smash, who was found the whole situation rather peculiar, decided to follow Chill, leaving Cali to do her thing. Stump thought such a decision was justified; Cali loved to hike whenever she could find the opportunity to. Oro was flying quickly ahead, only visible because of her golden glow. Eventually she stopped and returned to the crew. The talkative fairy's expression was completely unfamiliar and she did not utter a single word. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was firmly shut without any sign of her previous cheer and her glow had dimmed somewhat. Chill and Stump exchanged a glance of apprehension before turning back to the fairy.

"Show us." Stump ordered seriously before they rushed forward. By this point, they had almost reached the portal, a thought which weighed deeply on his mind; if the portal network was being patchy, they might struggle to go home. However, what soon met his eyes was far worse and deeply disturbed him. Chill gripped her ears.

"What is that terrible noise?" She complained, not directing the question to anyone in particular. The noise reached the tree a few moments later: a violent noise like the roaring of engines filled the atmosphere. It was unnatural, as if the sound of thousands of civilisations being shattered had been condensed into a twenty-metre radius of their destination; it reminded the poor tree stump of the deafening rumble of troll machines of destruction. His feet began to pick up until a new sight in the horizon immediately made him solidify. Chill, was too, frozen in fear.

A kaleidoscopic vision could be observed; colourful mists pirouetted between each other, shrouding the ancient portal which existed within, and sparks of immense radiance flickered from the mysterious cloud. Everything about this was wrong, though Stump to himself. However, what was there to do? Clearly, the portal was malfunctioning. The vortex of colourful smoke had formed in the shape of a giant fishbowl, a quite irregular phenomenon. However it became clear very quickly that it was spreading. "We've got to stop it." Chill interrupted, trooping towards the unprecedented marvel that had gobbled up the previously-fabulous portal. However, upon impacting with the bubble of colour, Chill simply bounced back.

"Watch out!" Cali cried out, stumbling past Stump Smash. She was panting as she stopped and clutched her knees, breathing heavily. As Chill picked herself up, Cali began to look around. "The Portal is overpowered! We've got to shut it down!!" Oro moved forward with a smile of pride.

"A portal can be shut down by forcibly removing it from the network and exhausting the power of the internal rift." She explained. "You could also shut down the entire system by-"

"How do we remove it from the network?" Stump Smash interjected, recapturing the focus at hand. Cali was right, the portal – in all its beauty – would have to be shut off because of the deadly implications that it could have on all of Skylands.

"Oh," Oro chimed in, "you can remove it from the network by, well, manually disconnecting the portal's network." She thought for a second, seeing the frustration on Chill's face. "I could probably get through and disconnect it, but," she paused for a moment, "I'll have to leave rift exhaustion to the rest of you." Stump Smash wished to ask how to exhaust the power of the internal rift, a phrase which he had never seen built in such a way previously. He'd heard of rifts, of course, and recognised that portals had a similar – but more majestic – construction to rift engines. Alas, exhausting the power of a rift was not something he had ever bothered to learn how to do. But before he could ask any questions, Oro shot into the storm.