Skylanders Quest For The Core

Ch 23 Into the shadows

(Spyro's point of view)
As soon as the Dread Yacht landed, the four cadets followed by Sprocket made their way to the core with a piece of Petrified darkness in hand. The complex machine sparked sudden interest in Sprocket, who began shooting a bunch of questions about it to all of the team members. She was so excited about it that she didn't realize that she was talking as fast as Flameslinger could run, leaving them all confused. "I think it would be better to ask Hugo over there, he's the one with the blue prints," Spyro pointed at Hugo. Sprocket instantly ran up to the poor mabu and started asking away.

The Petrified darkness levitated out of Stealth elf's hands as Eon began to speak again. "Petrified darkness, a rare gem indeed, used to harness the power of the shadows. The steel pipe holding up the crystal eye and spouts had two rings built into it, in which the Petrified darkness snapped into place within the smaller ring.

"Now we just need the eternal Dark source," said Spyro, "think we should steal Hugo back from Sprocket for a moment?" The group walked up to the poor mabu, who now had a headache from the multiple questions Sprocket had been asking him.

"You'll find the eternal Dark source within the moonstone caves, the darkest caverns in Skylands," said Hugo, "now if you excuse me I need to lay down, give Sprocket this dictionary on the Ancient language so she can decode the blueprints herself...," He groaned, stumbling over to the cot he had been resting on. *What a drama queen,* Spyro thought and chuckled to himself.

The trip there was surprisingly short, the ship landed and the four teens made their way inside.
The moonstone cavern truly was extremely dark, Spyro couldn't even see his claw in front of his own face. "Ow! Who stepped on my tail?!" Shouted Cynder. "Sorry, that might have been me!" Responded Stealth elf, "hey what's this?" "That's my ear, Stealth," Flameslinger answered her, "hey Spyro hold still, there's a big spike on front of you!" Just like in Dark water cove, Flameslinger guided his friends through the darkness, they trusted him, but they didn't know how he knew where he was going. "How can you move very well in the dark and in fog?" Spyro questioned him. "I don't really move using my eye sight anyway, so moving in the dark really isn't any different," he replied.

They continued to wander into the darkness, until Spyro made out a faint indigo light in the distance. "That must be it!" Spyro shouted excitedly. The source of the faint light was indeed the eternal Dark source, it resembled an egg-shaped bubble with a small cloud of smoke swirling within it.

Suddenly, spotlights turned on around them, revealing the circle shaped cavern they were in. The entrance quickly shut behind them. "So you fools really think it was going to be that easy?" A familiar evil voice chuckled. Kaos appeared from what remained of the shadows within the room. "I realize that trying to fight "sky-fools" with "Sky-fools" doesn't work when you try combining all of your abilities into one walking junk heap," he explained, "but now I know my mistake, if I'm going to copy you, I need to actually copy you!" Using his own evil powers, he cast a spell on the shadows cast by the four heroes in the spotlight, bringing them to life to take them on. They looked exactly alike, only the shadow copies were pitch black, and each pulsed with a different color energy. Spyro's copy pulsed purple, Stealth's pulsed green, Cynder's pulsed red, and Flameslinger's pulsed orange.

This fight wasn't as smooth as most, Everytime they attacked, their copies would copy them and cancel out they're attack, and trying to switch up rivals was impossible. Then Spyro got an extremely crazy idea. "Flameslinger! Shoot me!" "What!? Spyro have you gone crazy!?" The elf yelled back. "Just do it!!!" Spyro yelled. Reluctantly, Flameslinger shot an arrow at Spyro at the same time Flameslinger's copy did the same and fired an arrow at the shadowy Spyro. While the arrow simply bounced off of Spyro's underbelly, the shadowy Spyro faded back to a regular shadow. "I new it! Girls, their weakness is eachother!" Spyro yelled.

Stealth heard him, stopped what she was doing, and took a swipe at Cynder's underbelly, causing their shadows to copy them. After the two elf shadows were left, Flameslinger shot an arrow at Stealth, who quickly and skillfully deflected it with her elven sunblades. Her shadow wasn't so lucky, leaving Flameslinger's shadow last to defeat. Since defeating shadow Cynder gave Cynder her ability to turn into a shadow again, she was able to go after him, all Flameslinger had to do was hold still.

"Arrrgggghhhhh!" I'll get you stupid children yet!" Kaos yelled as he vanished off into the darkness again. The entrance opened again and Flameslinger led them all back to the Dread Yacht safely with the eternal Dark source. *This will definitely make for an intresting story,* Spyro thought to himself as they flew towards the horizon.