Skylanders: Second Leaf

Chapter __ ~ The Crystal Cube

"I didn't know Slendy was a Portal Master..." Kaos muttered, thinking out loud more than anything once they had gotten moving.

Despite Lucarian telling them it was only a few more steps, once they had reached the bottom of the winding staircase, it became clear a few more steps wouldn't be anywhere close. They were now presented with a slightly sloping cave, leading deeper into the island's depths. The only light now was that of the lava, glowing behind solid sheers of frosted ice. The deeper they walked, the more Kaos felt the shivers running through his body, a sense of unease settling on top of him like a layer of stifling cold snow. It was unsettling to say the least. This entire place was unsettling. This had been too easy, getting this far and only encountering the one wolf pack. Something just wasn't right with this. When she heard Kaos mumbling to himself, Wisp broke her focus from the whole group and focused on just the Tiny Tyrant.

"Dummy. Master Slenderman's not a Portal Master. He's one of the most powerful Creepypastas out there, up with Zalgo and..." she paused, shivering at what she was about to say, "the Rake. I personally don't favor either of them, but if I had to choose, Zalgo can actually be nice if he likes you. That, and he's River's father."

"No one asked you, Proxy..." Kaos grumbled in an undertone, just loud enough for Whisp to hear.

Whisp glowered down at him, but quickly turned away. They didn't have time to be grasping at each other's throats, but Kaos was starting to really get on her nerves. Scrape gave Whisp an apologetic smile on Kaos' behalf, but she just sighed and continued on walking. As the group carried on, Lucarian stared down at an object he had pulled from his pocket. It was a small, mask-like toy that fit in his palm. He sighed, his gaze so fixed on the toy he didn't notice Mammagma was staring intently at him, trying to assess what he was doing.

"What's that?" The magma elephant finally asked, pointing to the mask held tightly in Lucarian's grasp.

Lucarian looked up, a look of surprise on his face, though it quickly faded back into his usual demeanor. "It's a Bionicle mask. The Kanohi Hau Nuva - the Great Mask of Shielding. This mask is the symbol for one of my fan-made characters of the same name. It was red, but I spray-painted it. This series inspired me to make my own characters. If I could come here with powers like Whisp, it would be this."

As they grew closer and closer to the end, Shakai seemed to zone off heavily, giving his wings a flap every so often to keep himself in the air. It was like he was running on a very sluggish auto-pilot. Quinn looked up at him and bit her lip, a little frightened by the glossy look in his eyes and how much he didn't take notice to the situation they were in. Quinn slowly made her way over to BEN, not sure what to say, if anything, to snap Shakai out of it; she was simply seeking someone to go for for her worries. BEN smiled over at her as she approached, and they soon found themselves lost in conversation.

After nearly an hour of walking, the group finally came to a stop as the winding, sloping cave opened up. Despite the time constraints, everyone found they needed to stop for at least a few seconds to recover. Kaos leaned up against the wall, making sure to seclude himself from the others as he looked around, his gaze eventually coming to rest upon where the winding pathway opened up into another chasm-like room.

"I need to rest!" Mammagma panted, falling on his back. "That walk killed me!"

"That is incorrect." Metaltaur spoke. "You are very much alive."

"Whatever." Mammagma retorted.

Kaos rolled his eyes at the others, clearly not impressed by their antics. As Lucarian turned to look into the next room, Kaos was already approaching, tired of waiting for the others to follow.

"We are very close," hissed Zelcron, "I can feel the energy."

"Well, no duh." Kaos scoffed, looking back at the others. "Just look in here."

The others hurried up to all get a look, ignoring Kaos' condescending tone for the moment as awe overcame their fatigue and disgruntled emotions. They found themselves staring at another large chasm, though this one was unlike anything they had seen so far. It was perfectly symmetrical, the flat walls forming a large square. Massive icicles lined the roof of the cave, glittering and shining in the lava that flowed down and over the intricately carved walls of light blue stone in bubbling streams, pooling together in a moat that lined the edge of the room. Plumes of white hot fire shot up from the cracks in the floor, crashing against the ceiling, then falling back down to the ground in a shower of sparks. In the center of the room was a large structure that looked like a frozen stream of water that once had flowed down from the ceiling, something was contained within its center, suspended in a thick layer of glimmering ice, slowly pulsating with a faint red light.

Lucarian's eyes lit up. "It's the cube!"

Shade elbowed Shakai to wake him up as Lucarian ran into the room and up to the icy structure to get a better look at the cube. It looked to be about the size of his hand, crafted entirely of rubies; the same markings that lined the borders of the walls engraved in its crystalline surface. Scrape giggled, never having seen Lucarian this enthused before. Shakai blinked a few times, then looked over sheepishly to the darkling. Shade rolled his eyes, then followed after Lucarian into the room, keeping his guard up just incase there was a trap set up for them. Just like Kaos, Shade had found this to be too easy, and it was causing his skin to crawl. BEN put his arm gently around Quinn's waist, holding her close to his side, just in case. He didn't want her hurt. He didn't want any of their allies hurt, but he especially didn't want Quinn harmed. Quinn stared on in wonder, amazed by the room's beautiful looks. Shoria flew into the room from the cave opening and gazed at the cube.

"It's... gorgeous." She breathed.

"I've seen better." Kaos commented.

"No one asked you, runt." Whisp commented, giving him a taste of his own medicine from earlier.

Mammagma walked over to the ice structure, holding out his hands as they began to glow with volcanic energy. Everyone stood back and watched as he placed his hands on the structure, the ice slowly beginning to melt away in rolling droplets down from his touch. Scrape grinned, clapping her hands together. They had this in the bag.

"HALT!"

Everyone looked back to the entrance to see Saberclaw, poised to attack with several winter werewolves behind her. This time, however, there were others. Several ape-like creatures had joined her pack, heavily decked out in dark crimson armor and eyes glowing with fire.

"You again?" Shade sighed, his Shadow Saber materializing in his hand.

"We've brought help this time." Saberclaw smirked. She turned towards the largest magma ape, supposedly the leader of the group. "Caliente Kong. Give the word."

Kong raised his hand, pointing his mace at the Skylanders. "ATTACK!!"

At that moment, magma apes and winter werewolves charged from all sides of the area, feral and ferocious.

"You take care of them!" Mammagma shouted, still working away at the structure. "I'll work on this!"

The others nodded, getting into their attack positions.

"Skylanders, UNITE!"