Skylanders Quest For The Core

Ch 27 Into the fire

(Flameslinger's point of view)
Flameslinger was first to jump off of the ship as Flynn actually landed it quite smoothly for once, or so it seemed. As it turns out Sprocket had actually installed an auto landing software that landed the ship for Flynn, he was just too busy bragging to notice, and none of them had the heart to tell him about it, not even Cali, who'd usually be the first to call him out.

Spyro carried the relic over to the core, and it floated towards it and gently  placed itself beneath the pipe column. Right in the center of the stone circle. "The crucible of the ages," said Eon, "made by the Dragons centuries ago to withstand the heat of a thousand burning suns!"

Meanwhile, deep within the storm of corruption, Kaos began frantically pacing around his portal, not even a juice box seemed to calm him down. "Glumshanks!" He called. "Yes sir?" His loyal Butler answered. "Things aren't turning out so good for us at the moment...." He began. "But I thought you said it didn't matter what they did, sir. In fact you said...." "NEVERMIND WHAT I SAID!" He snapped, cutting Glumshanks off mid sentence. "Look....," He said after calming down a bit, "All we need to do is capture at least one of those stupid eternal sources, and it'll be all over!" He leaned over to Glumshanks, "this is where you come in, "old friend", all I need you to do is sneak past the lava gaurdians and sabotage the path to the lava lakes deep within the cloud break volcano, while I go after the fire source," he explained with a sudden crazy expression on his face. Glumshanks gulped, but reluctantly made his way to the hanger to pilot a doom jet. As he left he heard his master laughing hysterically. "There's one way to knock their plans OFF TRACK!" He laughed. " Ugh, He didn't just say that......" Groaned Glumshanks as he walked down the dark hallway towards the hanger.

Back at the academy, Flameslinger listened as Hugo explained where to find the next source. "The eternal fire source is deep within the cloud break volcano in a place called the lava lakes," said Hugo. *Oh, joy....* Thought Flameslinger, *oh well, for Skylands I'd burn off my dominant arm...* While Flameslinger was the fire type member of the team, he was anything but a fire elemental. His chainmail leather mix armor and his boots protected him from minor fire, but he was just as vunerable to getting burnt as his friends were.

The flight there was pleasant, but as soon as they were over the mouth of the volcano, they kissed the air conditioner good bye and slowly flew down into a lava filled cavern. "As soon as this is all over, I'm moving to the empire of ice," Flameslinger joked, leading his friends along the stone path before them.

After sometime, the heat was becoming even more unbearable, and even worse, someone or something had used a pickaxe to destroy the stone bridge to the chamber of the lava lakes. "We've come so far, only to get stopped by a stupid lava filled rock!" Said Spyro, the poor dragon slumped over into a puddle of his own sweat, panting like a dog. The team looked at the obstacle before them. It was so hot, Spyro and Cynder couldn't fly, and it was much too far to jump across, or was it?

Flameslinger got up, despite feeling like he was half slow roasted, and got some good distance between him and the gap. "Flame?" Asked Stealth elf half exhausted, "what are you doing?" Flameslinger built up speed faster than a bullet, and much to the surprise of his friends, he took a grand leap of faith across the pool of firey death, and made it. "Don't worry, you guys go get cooled off!" Flameslinger yelled, "I'll get the source!" "But we're supposed to be a team!" Stealth yelled back at him, "we'll get over there! Right you two?" Stealth elf gasped as poor Spyro and Cynder laid there in a sweaty heap, panting like crazy, they were in no condition to fight. "I'm at least getting over there!" Stealth elf yelled, "you two go cool off!" She told her friends. The Dragons didn't even argue, and slowly made their way back the way they came.

Stealth elf got up, took a running start, and took a leap of faith, but she just narrowly missed the other side, she surely would have died a horrible firey death if Flameslinger didn't catch her. She didn't like being a damsel in distress, but if it was Flameslinger she didn't seem to mind.

The lava lakes were hotter than the rest of the lava pools in the whole volcano, even Flameslinger's "running to create a breeze" trick didn't work, but they hadn't come all this way for nothing. "Awww... What's wrong, elves can't take the heat?" An annoyingly familiar evil voice rang out. "Of course he'd attack now...." Stealth elf groaned. "Come on, cheer up," said Kaos, "my fire minion here wanted to cook dinner! How does barbequed elf sound?" He chuckled, as he sent out a pitch black figure pulsing with red energy to fight them. It somewhat resembled a crow, but Flameslinger and Stealth elf were too hot and grumpy to care.

The battle was a little slower, but the two elves rised victorious as usual, destroying the red shadow like minion. Kaos got mad, at least I'm still the one leaving with this stupid fire source!" He teased. Flameslinger just shot an arrow in his general direction and caught his cloak on fire, as the tyrant began freaking out, him and Stealth elf got the source and quickly ran back the way they came without a word spoken.

However, Flynn had taken it upon himself to fly the ship in as far as he could, much to the relief of the four heroes as they flew back to the academy.