Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun bled gold and crimson across the horizon of Skylands, painting the undersides of the floating islands in hues of fire and fading daylight. For most, it was a time to wind down, to gather for supper and share stories of the day. For Snowy, it was the loneliest hour.

From her perch on the windowsill of the Bright Meadow Orphanage, the small, four-foot Kittigon watched the other children in the yard below. A boisterous game of Skystones was underway, the clatter of the pieces and the triumphant shouts echoing up to her. Mabu children with nimble fingers flicked their stones, while a young Greeble excitedly hopped up and down, his long ears flapping. They were a kaleidoscope of shapes and sizes, all united in their fun. All united in their complete ignorance of the blue and cream-furred cub watching them with a heavy heart.

Snowy sighed, her breath fogging the glass for a moment. Her round, freckled face was reflected back at her, her large, curious yellow eyes looking far more melancholy than they ought to. She tried to join their games, she really did. But her boundless energy, her tendency to narrate every action as if it were part of an epic saga, and the fact that she walked on four paws while most of them walked on two, created an invisible wall. She was “weird.” She was “too much.” She was the geeky cub who’d rather talk about the legendary battles of the Giants than the latest gossip from Skylander Academy.

A small, worn book lay open on the sill beside her, its pages filled with illustrations of heroic Skylanders. Her favorite was a detailed drawing of Knight Light, his crystalline armor shimmering. She traced the outline of his Traptanium lance with a clawed paw, her mind a swirl of fantasy. To be a hero… to have a grand destiny, a place where her oddities were not just accepted, but celebrated. Where being a headstrong, quick-thinking cat-dragon was an asset, not a social hindrance.

“Snowy! Supper time!” The call came from Matron Gildwing, a kindly but perpetually flustered bird-like creature whose feathers ruffled with every minor inconvenience. “And get your nose out of that book! It’ll rot your brain, all that nonsense about magic and monsters.”

Snowy’s ears drooped. Nonsense. To her, it was everything. She pushed the book gently under her small cot and padded toward the door, her tail tuft dragging slightly on the wooden floor. Supper would be the same as always. Loud chatter she wasn't a part of, shared jokes she didn't understand, and the crushing weight of being utterly alone in a crowded room.

Tonight, something snapped. A quiet, determined little spark ignited in her chest. Flash, her best and only friend, was visiting his father, Blasthorn, for the week. Without the calm, rational presence of the gentle manticore to ground her, Snowy's impulsive nature took the wheel. She wasn't going to sit through another lonely meal. She was an adventurer. And adventurers, she knew from her books, didn't wait for adventure to find them. They sought it out.

Her plan was simple, born of a fourteen-year-old’s blend of cleverness and recklessness. She ate her stew quickly and quietly, ignoring the lively conversation around her. Then, feigning a headache, she got permission from Matron Gildwing to retire to her room early.

“See? Too much reading,” the matron clucked, though her eyes were soft with concern. “Get some rest, dear.”

Once the dormitory was empty, save for the rhythmic breathing of sleeping orphans, Snowy made her move. The Whispering Woods bordered the orphanage grounds. It was a place of legends, of ancient trees that were said to murmur secrets on the wind. The other children were terrified of it, a fact that only made it more alluring to Snowy. With the skill of a character from one of her stories, she nudged her window open with her head, squeezed her short, round body through the gap, and landed with a soft *thump* on the perfectly manicured lawn below.

Freedom. The air tasted different out here—thicker, sweeter, scented with night-blooming moonpetals and damp earth. She cast one last look back at the warm, glowing windows of the orphanage, a place that was both her prison and her only home. A pang of guilt twisted in her gut, but the thrill of the unknown quickly squashed it. Tonight, she wasn't Snowy the orphan. She was ‘Snowy the Intrepid,’ charting the unknown territories of the Whispering Woods.

Her four paws padded silently across the grass, the soft ground a welcome change from the hard wooden floors. She easily slipped through a gap in the old stone wall that separated the orphanage from the wilderness, and instantly, the world changed. The manicured lawn gave way to a tangled undergrowth of ferns and gnarled roots. The gentle evening breeze became a series of distinct, rustling murmurs that seemed to flow from the trees themselves. The air grew cooler, carrying the scent of pine and decay. It was magnificent.

“Okay, Snowy the Intrepid,” she whispered to herself, her voice barely disturbing the quiet. Her yellow eyes, now wide with excitement, darted everywhere. “First expedition. Objective: locate the mythical Sunken Glade of the Glimmering Moss. According to legend, its glow can reveal one's true destiny.”

There was, of course, no such legend. She’d just made it up. But saying it aloud made it feel real, made her feel like a real hero on a real quest.

She trotted deeper into the woods, her natural curiosity overriding any sense of caution. Her busy mind, so often a source of social awkwardness, was now in its element. She saw a strange, twisting vine and cataloged it as a ‘Constrictor of the Gloom.’ A patch of glowing mushrooms became ‘Fungal Lanterns of the Elder Fae.’ She was so engrossed in her world-building, so focused on the fantasy swirling in her head, that she failed to notice the ground becoming steeper, the moss beneath her paws slicker with evening dew.

Her front paw slipped first.

“Whoa!” she yelped, scrabbling for purchase. Her claws scraped uselessly against a wet, smooth stone. Her momentum carried her forward, and the gentle slope she’d been traversing abruptly became a steep, treacherous hill. The world became a dizzying, terrifying blur of green and brown. She tumbled head over paws, a flurry of blue and cream fur rolling uncontrollably downward. Branches whipped at her, leaves stuck to her mane, and the grand adventure suddenly felt very, very real and incredibly painful.

*Thump.*

She landed hard at the bottom of the hill, the wind knocked out of her. For a moment, she just lay there, a dazed heap of fur and bruised pride, blinking at the canopy of leaves far above. Stars were beginning to prick the darkening sky.

“Okay,” she groaned, shaking her head to clear it. “Note to self… Adventurers should probably watch where they’re going.”

She pushed herself up, wincing as a dull ache throbbed in her shoulder. She seemed to be in a small, shadowy clearing. The air here was thick and stagnant, carrying a cloying, sickly-sweet smell, like rotting fruit. Strange, pulsating pods, the size of her head, littered the ground, connected by a network of thick, thorny vines.

A low hiss slithered through the air.

Snowy froze. Her ears swiveled, trying to pinpoint the source. Another hiss answered the first, this one closer. One of the pods near her feet trembled, then split open with a wet tearing sound. A creature made of writhing green vines and tipped with a maw of razor-sharp thorns unfolded itself, its form a grotesque mockery of a Chompy. It fixed two glowing red spots, its eyes, on her.

Snowy’s heart hammered against her ribs. This wasn’t a ‘Constrictor of the Gloom.’ This was real.

All around the clearing, more pods burst open. One, two, then five, then a dozen of the plant monsters, which she would later learn were called Vine Snappers, rose from the earth. They rustled and hissed, their thorny bodies twitching as they began to close in, forming a hungry, contracting circle around the terrified Kittigon.

“Uh… nice… nice plant doggies?” she stammered, backing away slowly. Her back bumped into a large, un-hatched pod. “I’m, uh… a friend to all things green! I'm a big fan of photosynthesis!”

One of them lunged, its thorny maw snapping shut inches from her nose. She yelped and scrambled back, her heroic bravado evaporating into pure, undiluted panic. Her mind raced. *Ice powers! Do something!* She took a deep breath, puffed out her chest, and blew as hard as she could.

A pathetic little cloud of frost, barely enough to chill a glass of water, drifted out and dissipated harmlessly on the monster’s vine-hide. A few sparkly snowflakes fluttered down and melted. The Vine Snapper just hissed, seemingly annoyed.

“Okay, new plan,” she squeaked, her voice trembling. “Run!”

But there was nowhere to run. The circle was complete. They were shuffling closer, their rustling vines sounding like a thousand knives being sharpened. The air crackled with their malevolent energy. Snowy squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable. This was it. This was how the grand adventure of Snowy the Intrepid ended—not with a heroic last stand, but as a midnight snack for a bunch of killer salads.

Suddenly, a voice, smooth as silk and sharp as obsidian, cut through the tense air.

“Well, now. This simply will not do.”

Snowy’s eyes snapped open. Standing on a low-hanging branch just above the clearing was a figure silhouetted against the rising moon. He was sleek, cat-like, and dressed in a dark purple thief's ensemble. A bandit's mask covered the top half of his face, but there was no mistaking the smug, predatory grin or the piercing light-blue eyes that seemed to glow in the gloom.

“An audience of uncultured vegetables preparing to devour the only spectator?” the figure continued, his tone one of theatrical disappointment. He leaped down from the branch, landing in the center of the clearing with the silent grace of a falling shadow. “The sheer lack of showmanship is appalling.”

It was Nightshade, the infamous Doom Raider of the Darkness element. Snowy had read all about him. A villain. A master thief. A performer of criminal artistry. The Vine Snappers shifted their attention to the newcomer, hissing with renewed aggression.

Nightshade paid them no mind, his gaze still fixed on Snowy. “No, no, this is all wrong. The lighting is dreadful, the stage is a mess, and the extras are painfully unconvincing.” He gestured dismissively at the plant monsters. “Honestly, who did your casting?”

One of the larger Vine Snappers charged, its thorn-maw wide. Nightshade didn’t even flinch. With a lazy flick of his wrist, a fan of what looked like solid shadow blades shot out, slicing the creature into a pile of wilting vegetation that dissolved into purple dust.

“See?” he said to Snowy, as if giving a lecture. “No dramatic tension. No witty retort before the inevitable demise. It’s just… crude.”

Snowy could only stare, her jaw hanging open.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Nightshade sighed, stretching theatrically. “The premiere of my latest heist is later this evening, and I simply *must* make an entrance.”

What happened next was not a fight. It was a performance.

Nightshade vanished. Not run, not jump. He simply dissolved into the shadows, leaving the Vine Snappers hissing at empty air. A moment later, he reappeared behind a cluster of them, a dark-glowing scythe of solidified shadow in his hand.

“Encore!” he declared, sweeping the scythe in a graceful, devastating arc. Three monsters disintegrated.

He moved through the horde with an arrogant, unhurried ease. He’d taunt them, disappearing mid-lunge only to reappear perched on a different monster's head, tipping an imaginary cap before delivering the final blow.

“Really, is that the best you can do?” he quipped as a thorny vine whipped past his ear. He caught the vine, and the shadow magic seemed to creep up its length, turning it brittle and black. It crumbled to dust in his paw. “My great aunt Mildred knits with more aggression.”

Snowy watched, utterly mesmerized. This wasn't the brutish, snarling villainy she’d read about. This was art. It was elegant, precise, and breathtakingly cool. Her fear was slowly being replaced by a star-struck awe she usually reserved for the top Skylanders. He moved with the grace of Trap Shadow and the flair of Star-Strike, all wrapped up in a package of condescending charm.

Within moments, it was over. The last Vine Snapper lunged, and Nightshade simply held up a paw. A perfect circle of shadow appeared on the ground beneath the creature. It fell through, vanishing without a sound. Nightshade brushed some imaginary dust off his tunic, the shadow circle sealing itself as if it had never been there.

The clearing was silent, save for the gentle rustling of the un-awakened woods. The sickly-sweet smell was gone, replaced by the crisp scent of night air and something else… a faint, electric smell, like ozone after a lightning strike.

Nightshade struck a final, dramatic pose, one paw on his hip, the other held out as if accepting applause from an unseen crowd. He held it for a beat, then turned his light-blue eyes on Snowy.

The little Kittigon finally found her voice. “That… that was… AMAZING!” she burst out, her yellow eyes shining with unfiltered admiration. She scrambled to her paws, forgetting her aches and her fear. “You’re incredible! The way you vanished, and the shadow blades, and the—the thing with the hole! Are you a new Skylander? I haven’t read about any Dark element heroes who fight like that! You have to be!”

A visible shudder ran through Nightshade’s frame. The smug grin on his face faltered, replaced by an expression of profound, comical horror. He took a step back, as if she had physically struck him.

“A… a *Skylander*?” he sputtered, his voice cracking with indignation. “*Me*?” He placed a paw dramatically over his heart. “Oh, you wound me, kitten. Deeply. To the very core of my artistic soul.”

Snowy tilted her head, confused. “Wha—? But you saved me! You beat all the bad guys! That’s what Skylanders do!”

Nightshade let out a short, sharp laugh, a sound like breaking glass. “My dear, misguided furball,” he said, his composure returning, now layered with a thick coating of condescending amusement. He began to pace in front of her, his movements lithe and deliberate. “Comparing my work to the clumsy, brutish hammering of a Skylander is like comparing a masterfully composed symphony to a toddler banging on a pot with a spoon. Both make noise, I suppose, but only one is *art*.”

“Art?” Snowy echoed, still not understanding. “But… they were going to eat me!”

“A minor, albeit distasteful, plot point,” he waved a dismissive paw. “You misunderstand my purpose. I am not a ‘hero.’ I am a performer. The world is my stage, and my chosen medium is the audacious, the impossible, the art of the steal. Those… *things*,” he gestured to a lingering puff of purple dust, “were hecklers. They were interrupting a perfectly good moonlit reconnaissance with their tacky, uninspired brand of villainy. It was aesthetically offensive.”

He stopped pacing and leaned in closer to Snowy, his light-blue eyes seeming to pierce right through her. His grin was back, sharper than ever. “I am Nightshade. And I, little one, am a Doom Raider. The undisputed star of this, and every other, show.”

The name clicked in Snowy’s brain, pulled from the pages of her books. The Doom Raiders. The most notorious villains in Skylands, second only to Kaos himself. She was standing face-to-face with one of them. Her hero… was a bad guy.

A thousand questions bubbled up inside her. Her headstrong curiosity completely overrode any remaining fear. “But… if you’re a villain… why did you save me?” she asked, her voice small but insistent.

Nightshade straightened up, looking slightly flustered for the first time. He cleared his throat. “As I said. They were an eyesore. An artistic crime. Their demise was a matter of professional pride.”

“But you called me your ‘only spectator’,” Snowy pressed on, her quick mind latching onto his words. “And you said the show was for me. So you saved me because you wanted an audience?”

The sleek Mabu’s pointed ears twitched. He averted his gaze for a fraction of a second, looking up at the moon. “A performance is meaningless without someone to appreciate its brilliance,” he muttered, his voice losing some of its theatrical boom. “And those troglodytic weeds were a thoroughly unappreciative audience.” He seemed to be wrestling with the words, as if admitting to any motivation beyond pure, selfish artistry was physically painful.

“So… you do have a code? Of honor?” Snowy asked, her eyes wide with fascination. This was better than any storybook. A complex villain with layers and motivations!

Nightshade scoffed, but it lacked its earlier conviction. “Don’t be ridiculous. Honor is a concept for fools and… well, Skylanders. I have standards. There is a difference.”

“But you still saved me,” Snowy said, a small, genuine smile spreading across her face. For the first time all day, she didn't feel lonely. She felt… seen. Even if it was by one of the most wanted criminals in Skylands. “Thank you, Nightshade.”

He looked down at the small Kittigon, at her earnest, beaming face, and for a moment, the master performer seemed at a loss for a script. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. The calculating, cunning gleam in his eyes was replaced by something unreadable, something almost… soft. It vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“Hmph. Don’t get sentimental,” he snapped, turning away with a flick of his stub tail. “It was a one-time engagement. Do try not to get eaten in the future; it’s terribly cliché.”

He took two steps toward the darkest part of the clearing, his form already beginning to blur at the edges, melting back into the shadows from which he came.

“Wait!” Snowy called out.

He paused, a mere silhouette against the darkness. “What is it now? I have jewels to liberate, you know. My public awaits.”

“Will I… will I see you again?” The question tumbled out before she could stop it, small and hopeful.

Nightshade was silent for a long moment. The shadow around him seemed to deepen. Then, his silky voice drifted back to her, laced with its familiar, infuriating amusement.

“Only if you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be, watching something you shouldn’t.”

And with that, he gave a final, mocking "tip of the cap," and dissolved completely, leaving nothing behind but the scent of ozone and a very confused, very grateful, and very, *very* star-struck little Kittigon alone in the moonlight. Snowy stood there for a long time, replaying the entire encounter in her head. She had met a real villain. And he was the most heroic person she’d ever seen. The world, she was beginning to realize, was far more complicated and wonderful than her books had ever let on.

Chapter Text

The days following her moonlit rescue were a strange, hazy dream for Snowy. The mundane reality of the Bright Meadow Orphanage seemed to have lost its color. The lukewarm stew tasted blander, the drone of lessons felt longer, and the cheerful shouts of the other children in the yard were nothing but a grating noise. Her mind was elsewhere, back in that dark clearing, replaying the ballet of shadows and the impossible grace of the villain who had saved her.

She tried to explain it to a squirrel once, while sitting alone under the big oak tree during recess.

“He wasn’t like the villains in the stories, you see,” she’d explained earnestly, holding up a small acorn for emphasis. The squirrel, predictably, just snatched the acorn and scurried up the trunk. Snowy sighed. “You’re an unappreciative audience, too.”

Her books, once a source of endless comfort, now felt… inadequate. The depictions of heroes were too simple, their motivations too pure. Knight Light was still cool, of course, but he lacked a certain… panache. A theatrical flair. He didn't have the condescending wit or the effortlessly cool demeanor of Nightshade.

Her nights were filled with failed attempts at shadowmancy. She’d stand in the darkest corner of the dormitory, long after the others were asleep, and try to melt into the wall. She’d hold out her paws and concentrate with all her might, trying to manifest a blade of solidified darkness. The most she ever managed was to make her own shadow wiggle a bit, and once, she gave herself a headache so bad she saw sparkly spots for an hour.

It was no use. The encounter had lit a fire in her, a burning curiosity that gnawed at her day and night. She had to see him again. She had to understand. Why would a master villain, a Doom Raider no less, bother with a lost little Kittigon? What did he mean by ‘standards’? And how, *how* did he move like that?

After three days of this internal torment, she couldn't take it anymore. Waiting for adventure was for side characters. The protagonist, she knew, had to be proactive.

That evening, she enacted the same escape plan, slipping out her window and into the cool, embracing darkness. This time, the Whispering Woods felt different. Less menacing, more like a familiar secret. The trees didn’t whisper threats; they seemed to be guiding her, their rustling leaves like encouraging murmurs. She navigated with a newfound confidence, her paws finding the path she had so clumsily tumbled from before.

She found the clearing. By daylight, it had seemed mundane, but under the silvery light of the twin moons of Skylands, it regained a little of its magic. The air was still, pregnant with anticipation. He wasn't there. A sharp sting of disappointment pierced through her excitement. Of course, he wasn’t here. Why would he be? He was probably off liberating priceless jewels from some floating fortress, charming his way past laser grids and pressure plates.

Dejected, Snowy was about to turn back when she heard it. Voices. One was the smooth, silky baritone she’d been dreaming of. The other was… different. It was bright, clear, and carried a melodic, almost disturbingly cheerful tone.

“—utterly tasteless, my dear. A garish display of unchecked luminescence. You nearly blinded me!”

“Nonsense, Nightshade,” the bright voice replied, impossibly polite. “I was merely purifying the immediate vicinity. The shadows in this dreary glade are positively thick with gloom. It’s unhealthy. A proper cleansing is essential for promoting clarity and purpose.

Driven by her insatiable curiosity, Snowy crept forward, her blue and cream fur a perfect camouflage in the moon-dappled undergrowth. She peered through a thick cluster of ferns and her jaw dropped.

Nightshade was there, looking just as impeccably villainous as she remembered. He was gesturing dramatically with one paw, his face a mask of artistic offense. But it was his companion who stole her breath.

Standing opposite him was a being made of pure, yellow light. He was tall and slender, encased in gleaming white armor that seemed to hum with inner power. A sharp white helmet covered his head, and a brilliant white cape flowed behind him, untouched by the evening breeze. The only features on his smooth, radiant face were two large, brilliant red-orange eyes with small white pupils. They burned with an intensity that was both majestic and terrifying. It was Luminous, the evil overlord of the Light Element. Snowy recognized him instantly from the Skylander archives. He was a Doom Raider, just like Nightshade. A fanatic obsessed with eradicating all darkness.

“‘Cleansing’?” Nightshade scoffed, his voice dripping with disdain. “You call that blinding flashbang a ‘cleansing’? I call it a vulgar assault on the senses! Ambiance, my dear Luminous, is a delicate art. It requires subtlety, nuance, a gentle interplay of light and… its far more interesting counterpart. You, on the other hand, approach it with all the finesse of Trigger Happy at a fireworks convention.”

Luminous tilted his radiant head, his burning eyes fixed on a patch of deep shadow beneath a gnarled root. “The darkness is a stain, a flaw in the grand design. It breeds uncertainty, laziness, and poor posture. It must be scoured away, leaving only the pristine, unwavering perfection of the light.” He raised a hand, and a small, intensely bright orb of energy formed in his palm. “Observe. A concentrated application of pure, untainted energy can—”

“Don’t you dare!” Nightshade hissed, swatting the orb away with a flick of his shadowy claws. The light dissipated with a sad little *fizz*. “That is a perfectly sculpted piece of primordial shadow! It has character! It has depth! You can’t just go around… bleaching the scenery!”

“You are far too attached to the dirt, my love,” Luminous said with a sigh that sounded like chiming bells. “One day, I will help you see the truth. The world will be a single, glorious, brilliantly-lit stage, with no messy shadows to trip over.”

“A world without shadows is a world without mystery, without style!” Nightshade shot back. “It would be dreadfully boring! And frankly, I look much better with dramatic backlighting.”

It was the most bizarre argument Snowy had ever witnessed. They were two of the most dangerous villains in Skylands, arguing like an old married couple about interior decorating. She was so fascinated, so utterly captivated by the strange, conflicting dynamic between them, that she forgot to be stealthy. She leaned a little too far forward on her branch, a twig snapped under her paw with a loud *crack*.

Both villains froze instantly. In a blink, the domestic squabble was gone, replaced by a tense, predatory silence. Nightshade’s sleek form lowered into a crouch, his light-blue eyes scanning the darkness. Luminous’s radiant body seemed to glow even brighter, his red-orange eyes narrowing into piercing slits of fire.

“It appears we have an eavesdropper,” Luminous chimed, his polite tone now laced with cold steel.

“How delightful,” Nightshade purred, a dangerous edge to his voice. “A new critic has entered the theatre.”

There was no point in hiding. Snowy pushed her way through the ferns, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She felt incredibly small under their combined, intense gazes.

Nightshade’s eyes widened in recognition. The predatory tension in his shoulders relaxed, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated annoyance. “You,” he groaned, as if he’d just discovered a stain on his favorite tunic. “Of course, it’s you. Do you have some sort of latent homing ability for inconvenient situations?”

Luminous’s glowing head tilted, his burning eyes examining Snowy from head to tail. He took a step forward, his movements unnaturally smooth. “Ah, so this is the ‘spectator’ you mentioned. The stray kitten you couldn't resist performing for.” His voice was still melodic, but it made the fur on Snowy’s neck stand on end.

“It was a matter of professional integrity,” Nightshade grumbled, refusing to look at Luminous. “The local talent was subpar.”

Snowy found her voice, her excitement overriding her fear. “I-I came back to thank you again!” she said, her words tumbling out in a rush. “Properly! And to ask how you did that thing with the scythe, because I’ve been trying to make a shadow claw all week and all I get is a cramp in my paw.” She then turned her wide, curious yellow eyes to the being of light. “And who are you? You’re so… shiny! Are you a Light Skylander? You don’t look like Knight Light or Spotlight. Is your armor made of actual stars? Because it looks like it is!”

Luminous let out a booming, echoing laugh that seemed to shake the very air. “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! A Skylander? Oh, this one is precious, Nightshade! Truly!” He floated closer, circling Snowy like a radiant shark. “No, little one. I am no simpering guardian of the Core of Light. I am its glorious replacement! I am Luminous! The one true bringer of the dawn! The future! The Evil Overlord of the Light Element!”

He struck a pose, his body flaring with a brilliance that forced Snowy to squint. Tendrils of pure light danced around him like a celestial crown.

“Oh,” Snowy said, blinking away the spots in her vision. “Another one.”

Nightshade pinched the bridge of his nose, a very Mabu-like gesture of exasperation. “Yes. Another one. Now, if your… fan-cub adoration is satisfied, we have important, top-secret villainous matters to attend to. So run along before you get stepped on.”

“But…” Snowy started, but Luminous held up a glowing hand, silencing her.

“Patience, my shadowy associate,” he said, his eyes never leaving Snowy. He crouched down, bringing his intensely bright face level with hers. Up close, his red-orange eyes were like miniature suns. “Tell me, little creature. When you were threatened by those filthy weeds… you attempted to defend yourself, did you not?”

Snowy nodded nervously. “I tried to use my ice breath. But it didn’t really work.”

“Indeed,” Luminous hummed. “A flicker of power, untamed and unfocused. Like a candle trying to be a star.” He straightened up, a thoughtful, calculating expression in his fiery gaze. He glanced at Nightshade, a silent communication passing between them.

Nightshade’s ears twitched. He looked at Snowy, truly looked at her, not as an inconvenience or an audience member, but as… something else. He remembered the pathetic puff of frost, the look of sheer terror on her face, and then the unfiltered awe after he’d finished. A powerful, untrained cub. Earnest. Naive. Utterly impressionable. An idea, devious and brilliant, began to form in his performer’s mind. A protege. A new character to mold for his grand production.

Luminous, following a similar, albeit more fanatical, train of thought, spoke first. “A blank slate,” he murmured, his voice filled with a chilling sort of reverence. “So much raw, undirected potential. Crying out for guidance. Crying out to be filled with brilliant, unwavering purpose.”

“A diamond in the rough,” Nightshade added, catching on immediately, his voice regaining its silky, persuasive quality. “Untrained, yes. Uncouth, certainly. But brimming with a certain… dramatic possibility.”

They both turned to look at Snowy, their expressions a predatory blend of interest and opportunity. Snowy shuffled her paws, feeling like a particularly interesting bug under a microscope.

“What… what are you talking about?” she asked timidly.

“We are talking about you, little one,” Nightshade said, stepping forward and circling her in the opposite direction of Luminous, the two of them weaving a visual trap of light and shadow around her. “We saw what you tried to do. A spark of impressive, elemental power. But a spark is useless without the knowledge to coax it into a roaring flame.”

“Or a cleansing, purifying inferno,” Luminous corrected him smoothly. “That power you possess is a gift. But left untamed, it is a liability. It will fail you when you need it most. It will leave you helpless, at the mercy of any… weed… that happens to sprout in your path.”

The memory of the Vine Snappers, their hissing and snapping jaws, sent a shiver down Snowy’s spine. He was right. She had been completely helpless.

“The world is not a storybook, kitten,” Nightshade continued, his voice low and conspiratorial. “The heroes don’t always arrive in the nick of time. True strength, true survival, comes from being able to write your own script. To direct your own scenes. To be the star, not the victim.”

Snowy’s ears perked up. He was speaking her language. This was everything she dreamed of.

“We,” Luminous declared, spreading his arms wide, the light he cast making the clearing as bright as midday, “can give you that strength. We can teach you. We can show you how to harness that chaotic frost within you and turn it into a weapon of surgical precision.”

“We can unlock your true potential,” Nightshade finished, his voice a seductive whisper. He leaned in, his sly grin mesmerizing. “We can teach you how to be a fighter. A survivor. A legend in your own right.”

The offer hung in the air, shimmering with impossible promise. To be mentored? By them? Two of the most infamous, powerful, and undeniably skilled villains in Skylands? It was insane. It was terrifying. And it was the most tempting thing anyone had ever offered her.

Her mind raced. *They’re Doom Raiders! They’re evil!* a small, sensible part of her brain screamed. But a much louder part, the part that felt lonely and weird and powerless, was shouting back, *But they see you! They think you have potential! And Nightshade saved you! Maybe… maybe evil isn't what the books say it is.*

“But… why?” she finally managed to ask, her voice barely a squeak. “Why would you help me?”

Luminous’s laugh chimed again. “Let us call it… an investment in new talent. The current roster of heroes and villains is so terribly stale. So predictable. You, little one, are something new.”

“Think of it as an apprenticeship,” Nightshade added with a flick of his wrist. “Every great artist needs a student to carry on their legacy. We see in you the clay from which a masterpiece can be sculpted. Under our tutelage, you will become… exquisite.”

This was it. A choice. A real, life-altering, story-defining choice. She could go back to the orphanage, to being the weird, lonely cub who lived in fantasy books. Or she could step into a fantasy, a dangerous, uncertain, but thrilling one. She could learn to control the power humming beneath her fur. She could become strong. She would never be helpless again.

She looked from Nightshade’s cunning, expectant eyes to Luminous’s burning, intense gaze. One offered her style and skill. The other offered her power and purpose. Both offered her a place to belong.

Her decision, when it came, felt less like a choice and more like an inevitability. It was the answer to a question she’d been asking her whole life.

“Okay,” Snowy said, her voice small but firm. She lifted her chin, her yellow eyes meeting theirs with a newfound determination. “Okay. I’ll do it. Teach me.”

A slow, deeply satisfied grin spread across Nightshade’s face. He looked every bit the cat that got the cream. “An excellent choice, apprentice. You have a fine appreciation for a good offer.”

Luminous’s form seemed to pulse with a triumphant light. “A wise decision, little acolyte. You have chosen the path of brilliance.” He raised a glowing hand. “We will purge you of your weakness, burn away your doubt, and forge you into a perfect, shining instrument of power.”

A shiver of unease went down Snowy’s spine at his words, but it was quickly overshadowed by a surge of exhilarating excitement. This was real. This was happening.

“Your training,” Nightshade announced, his voice taking on the tone of a grand director, “begins at dawn. And be prepared to work. Artistry requires discipline.”

“And purification requires fire,” Luminous added, his cheerful tone making the statement sound all the more ominous.

With that, they turned to leave. Nightshade gave her one last, conspiratorial wink before dissolving into a wisp of smoke that coiled and then vanished into the deepest shadow in the clearing. Luminous simply grew brighter and brighter, until he was a blinding star of pure energy, and then he shot up into the sky, disappearing among the real stars above.

Snowy was alone again, but the loneliness was gone. The clearing felt charged, electric, brimming with the promise of her new, secret life. Her heart hammered with a mixture of terror and glee. She, Snowy the orphan, was about to be trained by the Doom Raiders. She was finally going to find her place in the world.

She had no idea, of course, that the place they were carving out for her was not on the side of the heroes she so admired, but on a path shrouded in shadow and blinding, fanatical light. Their plan was in motion. The corruption of the little Kittigon had begun.

Chapter Text

The world felt sharper the next morning, polished by the night's strange and thrilling encounter. The sun filtering through the orphanage’s grimy window seemed to possess a new, golden intensity, and the air that slipped through the cracks was crisp with the promise of adventure. Snowy, for her part, was a ball of coiled energy. She prodded her breakfast porridge around its bowl, her mind a thousand miles away, replaying Nightshade’s dramatic rescue and deciphering the cryptic instructions he’d left behind on a silvery moonpetal leaf.

“Follow the path of forgotten prayers,” she whispered to herself for the tenth time, her tail giving a little thump-thump-thump against the leg of the bench. “To where stone slumbers and shadows dream.”

It was perfect. It wasn’t a simple, boring “meet me at the old quarry.” It was a quest prompt, a line straight from one of her beloved books. After putting on a convincing performance of an early morning “headache” for the perpetually unimpressed Matron Gildwing, Snowy slipped out the back gate. She found the oldest, most neglected path leading away from the Whispering Woods, its stones nearly swallowed by moss and weeds. The trail wound upwards, leading her into the craggy hills where the floating islands of Skylands cast long, cool shadows that stretched like sleeping giants across the land.

And then she saw it. An abandoned stone temple, a crumbling monument to a deity so old its name had been worn from the stone by wind and time. Great, carved pillars, now being slowly strangled by ivy, listed at precarious angles. The center of its domed roof had collapsed inward, creating a natural skylight that allowed a single, perfect column of morning sun to pierce the gloom. The rest of the vast, circular chamber was a playground of deep, dancing shadows. It was, Snowy thought with a shiver of delight, the perfect synthesis of her two new, mysterious mentors.

She padded inside, her four paws silent on the dusty flagstones. The air was thick and still, heavy with the scent of old stone, damp earth, and something else… a faint, electric tang of ozone and a crisp, clean scent like the first breath of winter. It was the smell of power.

“Punctual,” a silky, amused voice echoed from the shadowed rafters high above. “An admirable, if somewhat pedestrian, virtue. I had half-expected you to get lost chasing a butterfly.”

Snowy’s head snapped up. There, perched effortlessly on a high crossbeam, was Nightshade. He was a mere silhouette against the shadowed ceiling, a study in graceful repose. He looked down at her, the faint glint of his light-blue eyes appraising her from beneath his mask.

“Welcome, apprentice,” he declared, his voice resonating with theatrical flair. “Welcome to your new classroom. Your stage. Your crucible.”

As if summoned by his words, a second figure materialized from the single column of sunlight. Particles of light seemed to coalesce, weaving themselves together until they formed a radiant, humanoid shape. “A sanctuary for your re-education,” Luminous chimed in, his melodic voice filling the vast space with an almost unnerving clarity. He stood, imposing and brilliant, his white armor immaculate against the temple’s decay. His very presence seemed to banish the dust motes from the air around him. “Here, we shall scour away the dross of your undisciplined nature and reveal the brilliant, focused weapon within.”

Snowy’s tail began to wag, swaying slowly and stirring up little puffs of dust from the floor. Her yellow eyes were wide saucers of pure, unadulterated geeky joy. “Whoa! This place is amazing!” she chirped, her voice echoing slightly. “It’s exactly like the Lost Temple of the Sun-Shadow Priests from ‘Legends of the Sixth Spire’! You know, the one where the hero has to align the solstice beam to uncover the secret passage? Are we going to find an ancient artifact? Is there a puzzle to solve to open the training chamber?”

Nightshade dropped from the beam, his descent utterly silent. He landed in a perfect, four-point crouch that didn't stir a single mote of dust, then rose with a long, drawn-out, and deeply theatrical sigh. “No. There are no ‘Sun-Shadow Priests.’ There are no secret passages. The only puzzle to solve, apprentice, is how to instill a modicum of competence into a furball with the attention span of a caffeinated spin-bug.” He began to pace, his movements fluid and predatory. “Let us begin with the fundamentals. The art of presence, or more accurately, the art of absence. To be a true master of the stage—of the heist, of the battlefield—one must control their entrances and exits. You must learn to be unseen. To move like a whisper, a thought, a rumour.”

He gestured with a sweeping paw to the far side of the chamber, where a jumble of fallen stones and rubble created a natural, albeit chaotic, obstacle course. “Your first task is simple in concept, yet profound in execution. Cross this chamber. Traverse that field of debris. Do so without making a single, solitary sound. Become one with the shadows. Erase yourself. Go.”

Snowy’s entire body wiggled with determination. This was it! Her first real lesson in being a cool, mysterious hero! Or… villain. The details were still a bit fuzzy. The coolness, however, was paramount.

“Okay! Operation: Silent Ghost Cat, phase one, is a go!” she whispered, her whisper carrying an impressive amount of volume. “Engaging stealth mode!”

Nightshade’s pointed ear twitched violently. “The first, and most crucial, rule of stealth,” he hissed, his voice a low, dangerous purr of irritation, “is to not announce you are being stealthy.”

“Right! Got it! Commencing radio silence! Over and out!” she whispered back, even louder this time.

She lowered herself into what she imagined was a sneaky crouch, her short, round body comically close to the ground, her fluffy tail sticking straight out behind her. She took a deliberate, careful step forward. Her front paw landed directly on a loose, flat flagstone. It tipped on its axis, clattering against its neighbour with a sharp, loud CLACK! that echoed through the cavernous temple like a gunshot.

Snowy froze, her eyes wide with horror. “Whoops! Uh… that was… the wind?” she offered weakly.

Nightshade buried his face in his paws, his shoulders slumping. “The wind,” he mumbled into his fur, his voice thick with agony. “Yes. Of course. The wind, which now apparently wears tiny, clumsy, stone-slapping boots.”

“Do not be discouraged, acolyte,” Luminous’s voice boomed, imbued with an unnerving, otherworldly patience. “Focus is a mountain. You have merely stumbled at the base. All great structures are built upon a foundation of failure. Center yourself. Banish the distracting noise of your misstep from your mind. Become a perfect, silent vessel of intention.”

Snowy took a deep, fortifying breath, nodding seriously. Silent vessel of intention. Right. Got it.

She tried again. This time, she avoided the loose stones, her gaze fixed on her target on the other side of the room. She moved with more care, her paws padding softly. But her busy mind, already choreographing her grand debut as a shadowy avenger complete with a cool theme song, made her completely oblivious to her own tail. The dark blue tuft at the end snagged on a thorny vine hanging from a crumbling pillar. She felt the tug and, without thinking, gave a sharp tug back. The vine held fast. She gave a harder, more indignant tug.

There was a deep, grinding groan from the pillar. A large chunk of its stone facing, loosened by centuries of neglect, dislodged and crashed to the floor with a deafening CRUNCH-BOOM! A thick cloud of grey dust billowed through the chamber. From a dark crevice high above, a family of bats, rudely awakened from their slumber, squeaked in panic and flapped chaotically through the air.

Snowy stood amidst the settling dust, a piece of vine still stuck to her tail tuft, her expression one of utter mortification. “Okay… that one… that one’s a little harder to blame on the wind,” she admitted sheepishly.

Nightshade was now slowly, rhythmically, and very deliberately banging his head against the pillar he was leaning on. Thump. Thump. Thump. “Why me?” he muttered to the unfeeling stone between impacts. “I, a maestro of malice, an artisan of appropriation, a veritable virtuoso of villainy, reduced to tutoring a walking calamity. What transgression did I commit in a past life to deserve this? Was it the Starfire Diamond heist? It must have been the Starfire Diamond heist. I knew the final monologue was a touch overwrought.”

Luminous’s perfect, radiant smile, usually a fixed beacon of unnerving politeness, began to twitch at the edges. A tiny, almost imperceptible flicker disturbed his steady, golden glow. “Discipline, apprentice, is forged in the crucible of failure. The light of perfection is brightest when it banishes the deep shadows of incompetence. Again.”

The rest of the “stealth” lesson devolved into a symphony of escalating disasters. Snowy, determined to prove herself, tried to leap gracefully over a two-foot chasm and completely misjudged the distance, landing in a pile of dry, ancient leaves with the sound of a startled sheep jumping into a haystack (WHOOMPH-CRUNCHLE!). She then knocked over a stack of precariously balanced ancient urns that had likely sat undisturbed for a thousand years (CRASH! TINKLE-TINKLE!). Her grand finale was attempting to squeeze through a narrow gap in a collapsed wall, only to get her round body momentarily wedged. Her panicked wiggling sent a cascade of pebbles skittering down a nearby rock slide, creating a sound not unlike an actual, miniature rock-slide.

Finally, Nightshade held up a paw, his entire body trembling with a barely suppressed, highly theatrical rage. “ENOUGH!” he shrieked, his voice cracking with strain. “ENOUGH! My ears are bleeding! The ghosts of a thousand forgotten monks are weeping at your cacophonous ineptitude! You move with all the subtlety of a Crusher trying to tiptoe through a library! A library filled with landmines and noisy puppies!”

Snowy’s ears drooped. Her tail tucked between her legs. The vibrant optimism she’d felt all morning was rapidly draining away, replaced by a familiar, heavy shame. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, her voice thick. “I’m really, really trying.”

“Trying isn’t good enough! You must be!” he retorted, before taking a deep, calming breath, smoothing his dark purple tunic and recomposing his posture. He was a performer, after all, and losing his composure was simply not part of the act. “Clearly,” he continued, his tone regaining its silky condescension, “the delicate, nuanced art of the shadow is beyond your current… capacities.” He waved a dismissive paw at Luminous. “Your turn, my shining beacon of… endless, baffling patience. See if you can teach the little avalanche how to become a snowflake.”

Luminous floated forward, his radiant smile now fixed and rigid. The twitch was more pronounced, a regular, pulsing flicker at the corner of his unseen mouth. “The path of shadow requires a quiet spirit, a quality you clearly and profoundly lack, acolyte. But the path of light—and by extension, its crystalline reflection in ice—is a matter of pure, focused will. It is not about hiding your presence, but projecting it. Annihilating your target with overwhelming, concentrated power.”

He gestured to a single, dead weed sprouting defiantly from a crack in the floor twenty feet away. “Behold this flaw. This blemish of decay in this otherwise perfectly ordered stone. It is an affront to perfection. An insult to existence. Your task is to purify it. Channel the cold that sleeps within you. Focus all your frustration, all your energy, all your failed attempts at stealth, into a single, sharp point. Feel the absolute zero of your elemental core, and unleash it upon this wretched imperfection.”

Snowy looked at the sad, brown little weed. She looked at Luminous’s burning red-orange eyes. This seemed much more straightforward. No sneaking, no tiptoeing, just… blasting. She could do that!

She puffed out her chest, trying to mimic the posture she’d taken in the woods. She closed her eyes, trying to find her ‘elemental core’. She thought of the coldest things she could imagine: the biting wind on top of Frost-Spire Peak, a long, starless winter night, Matron Gildwing’s stare when you tracked mud into the dormitory. A familiar, deep chill began to gather in her lungs.

“Focus!” Luminous commanded, his voice a clarion call that seemed to vibrate in the very air. “Let the fire of your will give form to the ice of your spirit! PURIFY IT!”

Snowy opened her mouth and blew with all her might.

A fine, sparkly mist erupted from her mouth, accompanied by a sad little sound not unlike a leaky balloon (pffftheeeew). A single, beautifully formed, perfectly six-pointed snowflake drifted lazily through the air. It floated down and landed gently on one of the weed’s withered leaves, where it glistened for a moment in the ambient light before melting into a tiny droplet of water.

There was a profound, echoing silence.

Snowy coughed, a few more errant sparkles dusting her nose. “Did… did I do it?” she asked, her voice full of hopeful uncertainty.

From the shadows, a dry, sarcastic, and painfully slow clap started. Nightshade emerged, a cruel, mocking smirk playing on his lips. “Bravo, apprentice. Truly. A masterful display. The weed is, I am certain, utterly terrified. It has been… accessorized… to death.”

The light emanating from Luminous flickered violently for a full second, his entire form dimming and then flaring like a faulty magic lantern. His smile was now a terrifying, stretched-thin line of pure light. “You are distracted,” he stated, his voice dangerously, unnaturally calm. “Your mind is a chaotic tempest of pointless daydreams and childish fantasies. You must learn to be a serene glacier. Empty your thoughts. Banish everything. Think only of the cold. The silent, creeping, absolute cold that freezes all things into perfect, unchanging, eternal stasis.”

So began the montage of magical mishaps. Luminous had her meditate, but Snowy’s idea of meditation involved humming the Skylander Academy fight song under her breath. He had her practice arcane breathing exercises, but she kept getting light-headed and seeing dancing Chompies in her peripheral vision. Every attempt to produce a focused spray of ice resulted in a new and unique failure: a chilly sneeze that startled a nearby lizard, a thin layer of frost that formed only on her own front paws, and, at one point, accidentally freezing a small puddle of water on the floor, which she then immediately slipped on, landing with a soft thump and a groan.

“It is a simple matter of projection!” Luminous insisted, his hands of light clasped so tightly they seemed to vibrate with contained energy. “You are not trying to persuade the ice to appear! You do not ask! You command it! Your will must be as absolute and unyielding as the void between stars!”

“Maybe if I had a cool magic wand?” Snowy suggested helpfully, rubbing her bruised hip. “You know, like a wizard? Or maybe a focus crystal? In ‘Mage Quest of the Crystal Orb,’ the hero couldn’t cast a single spell until he found his family’s focusing gem! It helped him channel his inner power!”

“You are the focus!” Luminous boomed, his voice echoing with a cosmic frustration that seemed to shake the very stones. “Your lack of imagination is astounding! You cling to the trappings of power, rather than seizing power itself!”

“But I have lots of imagination!” Snowy began to protest, but stopped when she noticed Luminous was just staring at her, his light pulsing in a steady, ominous rhythm. “Oh. Right. Maybe that’s the problem.”

Nightshade, who had been thoroughly enjoying the spectacle from a comfortable perch on a fallen pillar, decided to intervene. “Alright, alright, that’s enough torture for one day. For us, I mean. The child is clearly more brawn than brain, in the most minuscule, most pathetic sense of the word ‘brawn’.” He leaped down gracefully. “We are approaching this incorrectly. We are trying to teach her technique before she understands philosophy.”

He began to circle Snowy, his movements sinuous and predatory, his stub tail twitching. “Agility, apprentice. Power. These are mere tools. A hammer is useless in the paws of an idiot. The true weapon is your mind. Your perspective. Tell me,” he stopped in front of her, his blue eyes sharp and piercing, “when you look at your surroundings, what do you see?”

“Uh… old rocks? Some vines? A really, really shiny guy who seems kinda stressed out?” Snowy answered honestly.

“Wrong,” Nightshade said with a dramatic flourish. “You see a stage full of props, waiting for a master performer to use them. That loose pillar?” he pointed. “Not a crumbling ruin, but a potential trap for a pursuing oaf. That dark alcove? Not an empty space, but a hiding spot, a place for a dramatic entrance, or a tactical retreat. The world is a weapon, apprentice, and everything in it is a dagger waiting for you to pick it up. Your goal is not to meet your enemy head-on with brute force. It is to outwit them, to use their strength, their expectations, their very environment, against them.”

He set up a simple course, a series of low walls and gaps. “Your small size is not a weakness. It is a strength. While a lumbering goliath like Tree Rex must smash through a wall, you can slip through the cracks. Now. Evade me.”

What followed was a chaotic game of tag. Snowy was surprisingly nimble on her four paws, her low center of gravity making her difficult to corner. But she lacked foresight. She’d dodge one way, only to run straight into a dead end.

“Don’t just run!” Nightshade critiqued, appearing in front of her as if from nowhere, having melted into one shadow and emerged from another. “Anticipate! See the entire board, not just the square you’re on!” He would disappear again and reappear behind her, tapping her shoulder lightly. “Too slow.”

Slowly, clumsily, she started to get it. She used her size to duck under a fallen pillar he clearly expected her to go around. She kicked up a thick cloud of dust to momentarily obscure his vision while she scrambled away. It was a tiny victory, a fleeting moment of competence, but it was her first one.

“Better,” Nightshade conceded, with the air of a master admitting a student had correctly spelled a three-letter word. “Deception. Misdirection. These are your truest allies.” He tried to instill the lesson’s darker, more villainous meaning. “Remember, your opponent’s trust is their greatest weakness. It is a vulnerability you must learn to exploit without hesitation.”

owy’s face lit up with sudden understanding. “Oh, I get it! It’s like a surprise party! You make your friends think you forgot their birthday, and they get all sad, but really you’ve been planning a big celebration to make them super happy! Their trust that you forgot is what makes the surprise so great! That’s a wonderful idea!”

Nightshade’s smug, professorial expression dissolved into a mask of pure confusion. “…No. Not… not like a surprise party. Not like that at all.”

Luminous decided to try a similar tactic with her magic. He floated over and gently placed a beautiful, vibrant flower on a small stone pedestal. “This flower,” he began, his voice regaining some of its melodic calm, “it is disorganized. Chaotic. Its life is fleeting, its beauty temporary, its purpose pointless. It is a flaw in the eternal, unchanging landscape. Now, channel your power. Feel its imperfection. Its weakness. And correct it with the perfect, sterile, eternal beauty of ice.”

Snowy looked at the flower. It was so pretty, its petals glowing with a faint, soft light in the temple’s gloom. She couldn't bring herself to see it as a flaw, as something to be corrected. Instead, she felt a wave of protective affection for the small, beautiful thing. She focused, not on annihilation, but on preservation. A delicate, shimmering spray of frost, finer and more controlled than she’d managed before, settled gently on the petals. It didn't crush them; it encased them, each one perfectly preserved in a shimmering, beautiful layer of ice that caught the light and refracted it into a dozen tiny rainbows. It looked like a crystal jewel.

“There!” she said proudly, her tail wagging. “I protected it! Now its beauty will last forever!”

Luminous stared at the perfectly preserved flower, his burning red-orange eyes wide with abject disbelief. He had asked for annihilation, for purification through destruction, and she had given him… decorative art. The twitch was now a full-blown ocular spasm, causing his entire head to flicker.

As the day drew to a close and the sunbeam in the center of the room began to fade, they made one last, desperate attempt to instill their villainous worldview.

“Final lesson for the day,” Nightshade said, sounding utterly, spiritually drained. “A thought experiment. A test of your philosophical core. You are travelling down a path. You see a lone Mabu merchant, struggling under the weight of a very heavy, very full sack of what is obviously priceless, glittering gems.” He paused for dramatic effect, leaning in. “What do you do?”

Luminous added his own spin, his voice a low hum of intensity. “This Mabu is clearly burdened by his material possessions, his spirit weighed down by avarice and earthly concerns. He is flawed. Incomplete. His soul is in shadow.”

They both looked at her, expectant. It was the simplest, most fundamental test in the villain’s handbook.

Snowy tilted her head, thinking hard for a moment, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her mentors waited, Nightshade hoping for an answer involving stealth, larceny, and perhaps a witty parting line. Luminous was anticipating something about purification through the forceful removal of property for the Mabu’s own good.

“That’s easy!” Snowy finally declared, her face breaking into a bright, innocent smile, convinced she had found the simple, obvious solution. “I’d go right up to him and say, ‘Excuse me, sir, that bag looks awfully heavy! Would you like some help carrying it?’”

Nightshade and Luminous stood in stunned, absolute, profound silence. They looked at each other. The master of shadows, the artisan of theft, looked at the overlord of light, the fanatic of purification. And for the very first time since they had met, they were in perfect, unspoken, and horrified agreement: this was going to be completely and utterly impossible.

Snowy, meanwhile, glanced over at the crumbling entrance, noticing that the sky outside was turning a lovely shade of orange. “Oh, wow, it’s getting late! I have to go before Matron Gildwing locks the gate,” she said, standing up and shaking the dust from her fur. She was covered in grime, bruised from her falls, and exhausted, but she was beaming. “Thank you again for teaching me all these awesome things! This was the best! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

She gave them both a cheerful wave of her tail and trotted out of the temple, her heart full of heroic purpose and newfound knowledge, completely and blissfully oblivious to the deep, philosophical, existential crisis she was leaving in her wake.

Nightshade watched her go, then slowly turned to Luminous. “Her kindness,” he said, his voice a strained, incredulous whisper. “It’s… it’s deflecting the lessons. It’s like trying to teach a wall the art of the pirouette. The wall just stands there, being a wall.”

Luminous’s light was flickering erratically, his entire form wavering as if he were a mirage. “Her spirit is a chaotic swirl of unstructured, naive optimism,” he stated, his voice tight with a frustration so deep it seemed to shake his very essence. “It is the most stubborn, most resilient darkness I have ever encountered. It… it actively resists the light.”

They stood there for a long time, surrounded by the evidence of their spectacularly failed first day: a collapsed pile of rubble, the glittering shards of shattered urns, and on a small pedestal, a single, beautifully, defiantly frozen flower. This wasn't going to be a simple matter of molding clay into a weapon. They were going to have to break the mold entirely. And as they contemplated the sheer, infuriating, monumental scale of the task ahead, they both found themselves looking forward to it with a new, perverse, and invigorating determination. The challenge, it seemed, was turning out to be the best part of the show.

Chapter Text

Weeks turned into a month. The abandoned temple became Snowy's second home, a sanctuary of spectacular failures and tiny, incremental victories. She still couldn't move without making a sound, but the *jingle-jangle-CLANG* of her training bell had softened to a more respectable *tingle-shuffle-thump*. Her ice breath was still more of a chilly sigh than a weapon, but she could now reliably frost over a small puddle on command, a feat that filled her with immense pride.

One sweltering afternoon, Nightshade was attempting to teach her the art of the dramatic entrance.

“No, no, NO!” he cried, gesturing wildly from his perch on a high ledge. “Your entrance lacks gravitas! It has no suspense! You just… trotted in! Where is the mystique? Where is the panache? You must emerge from the shadows as if you were born from them, leaving the audience to wonder, ‘Who is this enigmatic figure, and what breathtaking feat are they about to perform?’”

Snowy, who was standing in the middle of the sun-drenched chamber, tilted her head. “But it’s really bright right now. The shadows are all small and grumpy.”

“A true artist works with the stage they are given!” Nightshade retorted. “Now, from the top! This time, try to invoke a sense of impending doom!”

“Impending doom, got it!” Snowy chirped, trotting back out of the temple entrance.

Luminous, who was attempting to meditate nearby to “purge the ambient noise” of Snowy's training from his consciousness, let out a soft, pained chime. “The only impending doom I sense is that of my own sanity.”

Before Snowy could make her grand, doomed-filled re-entrance, a new sound cut through the quiet air of the valley. It was a low, powerful thrumming, the sound of massive engines displacing the very air, accompanied by the creak of wood and the faint, distant sound of a sea shanty being played on what sounded like a concertina.

A vast shadow fell over the temple entrance, plunging the chamber into an abrupt twilight. All three of them looked up.

Descending from the brilliant blue sky was a magnificent sky-ship. It was a marvel of engineering and piratical charm, its hull crafted from a dark, barnacle-encrusted wood, with sails the color of a stormy sea. A beautifully carved axolotl figurehead with menacing ruby eyes jutted proudly from its bow. The name *The Sea Serpent* was emblazoned on its side in bold, gold lettering. The ship settled with a gentle groan onto a flat, grassy mesa just outside the temple, its anchor, a massive piece of sharpened coral, dropping to the ground with a resounding *thud*.

“Well now,” Nightshade purred, his annoyance forgotten, replaced by a glint of genuine interest. “An unexpected arrival. How delightfully dramatic.”

“Guests,” Luminous stated, his radiant form a beacon in the sudden gloom. “Uninvited, but potentially… illuminating.”

Snowy, however, was completely and utterly captivated. A real sky-ship! A pirate ship! It was like a page from her wildest adventure books had torn itself out and floated down from the heavens. Her heart hammered with a new and powerful strain of excitement.

A boarding plank slammed down from the ship's deck, and figures began to emerge. Snowy, her lesson on stealth completely forgotten, bounded out of the temple and toward the ship, her curiosity an unstoppable force.

“Apprentice, wait!” Nightshade hissed, but it was too late. She was already halfway to the mesa. He and Luminous exchanged a look of shared exasperation and followed, melting into the shadows at the edge of the treeline to observe.

The first person—or rather, orca—to disembark was immense. Standing a good eight feet tall, the first mate was a solid wall of black and white muscle. He had a kind, intelligent face and an air of calm, steadfast responsibility. This was Algae.

He spotted Snowy immediately, a small, four-foot ball of blue and cream fur trotting eagerly toward his ship. His eyes widened slightly in surprise, but his friendly demeanor didn't waver.

“Well hello there, little one,” he said, his voice a deep, gentle rumble like the tide. “A bit small for a welcoming committee, aren't you? Are you lost?”

“I’m not lost! I’m in training!” Snowy chirped, her tail wagging furiously. She looked up at the towering orca with unabashed awe. “Wow. You’re huge! Is this your ship? It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen! Does it have cannons? How fast does it go? Have you ever outrun a Skylander Sky-Patrol cruiser?”

Algae chuckled, a warm, booming sound. “Easy there, guppy. One question at a time.” He tapped a communication device on his wrist. “Algae to the bridge. Captain, our contacts are here. And they’ve… brought a friend. A very enthusiastic, very small friend.”

A voice crackled back, female, with a crisp, commanding tone and a distinct accent Snowy couldn’t quite place. “A friend? Copy that, Algae. On my way down. Try not to let them talk your ear off.”

Just then, Nightshade and Luminous emerged from the shadows, their entrance perfectly synchronized and impossibly cool. Nightshade tipped an imaginary cap. Luminous simply glowed.

“Algae, my good man,” Nightshade said smoothly. “Always a pleasure to see the most competent member of this floating menagerie.”

Algae’s friendly grin widened. “Nightshade. Luminous. It’s good to see you both. Pearl was just asking about you.” He gestured to the small Kittigon who was now staring at the two villains with an expression that said, *You know these amazing pirates?!* “Care to introduce your… apprentice?”

Before Nightshade could formulate a suitably dramatic and evasive response, the captain herself appeared at the top of the gangplank.

She was a living legend. Captain Coral, an axolotl pirate whose reputation preceded her across the sky-lanes. Her skin was a vibrant pink, crisscrossed with the pale lines of old scars. Dark scarlet eyes, sharp and intelligent, missed nothing. She wore a black tricorn hat, a long dark-red frock coat, and had a glittering gold hoop in each of her slightly darker ear fins. One leg ended in a tall black boot; the other was a sturdy wooden peg-leg that clicked authoritatively on the gangplank as she descended. A cutlass was belted at her waist, its hilt worn smooth from years of use.

“Nightshade, you sly devil,” she boomed, her voice rich with humor and command. She spread her arms in a grand gesture. “Still skulking in ruins and consorting with beings of offensively high wattage?” She winked at Luminous, who merely inclined his radiant head in greeting.

“Coral, darling,” Nightshade replied, placing a paw over his heart. “Your insults are as sharp as ever. I trust your voyage was profitable?”

“Profitable enough to keep this rust bucket flying and my crew in rum,” she said with a hearty laugh. Her gaze then fell upon Snowy, and the laughter died in her throat. Her sharp eyes narrowed, all traces of playful banter vanishing in an instant. She took in the small Kittigon, her earnest and star-struck expression, and then looked back at the two Doom Raiders. The air grew thick with unspoken questions.

“And who is this?” she asked, her voice dangerously low and devoid of its earlier warmth.

Snowy, completely intimidated but also utterly thrilled to be in the presence of such a legendary figure, found her voice. “I’m Snowy! I’m their apprentice!” she declared proudly.

Coral’s eyes flicked from Nightshade’s smug grin to Luminous’s serene, unreadable face. An expression of profound disbelief and dawning horror crossed her features. She looked at Snowy, then back at them, as if trying to solve an impossible equation.

Just then, the rest of the crew began to emerge onto the deck, drawn by the commotion. A seven-foot-tall hammerhead shark with a fierce expression, Clam, leaned over the railing, a massive wrench in her hand. A tall, laid-back jellyfish in a medic’s coat, Shell, drifted into view, humming a cheerful tune. A rambunctious barracuda, Striker, zipped past them, nearly tripping over a quiet, gentle lobster, Crush, who was meticulously polishing a brass fitting. A tiny, hardworking clownfish cabin boy, Kelp, scurried by with a mop nearly twice his size. From the galley, the grumpy aroma of frying fish wafted out, followed by the sight of a six-foot-tall squid, Stretch, glaring at them all from the doorway.

A beautiful, enchanting melody began to drift from the ship, played on a concertina. A graceful, seven-foot-eleven manta ray with clever, observant eyes, Shimmer, emerged, her voice a deep, resonant hum as she provided a counter-melody. Beside her stood a beautiful narwhal, Pearl, her horn adorned with small, colorful beads, a baby bump visible under her tunic. She smiled warmly at Algae, her music a song of welcome.

Leading the charge down the gangplank, however, was a formidable octopus with a greedy glint in his eye, Barrel. He was the Master-at-Arms, and his gaze was immediately suspicious.

Snowy’s jaw was on the floor. It wasn’t a crew; it was a family. A chaotic, vibrant, motley collection of the most fascinating people she had ever seen. They bickered, they laughed, they moved around each other with the easy familiarity of people who had shared a thousand storms. Her lonely orphan heart ached with a feeling she couldn't name—a mixture of awe and a deep, profound longing.

“An apprentice?” Barrel grunted, his arms crossed over his chest. He eyed Snowy with open distrust. “Looks more like a stray. What’s your game, Nightshade?” He never liked the theatrical Mabu or his shiny partner, seeing them as a corrupting influence on his captain.

Pearl’s music faltered for a moment, and she looked at her husband with a questioning glance. She, Algae, Shimmer, and Shell genuinely considered the Doom Raiders to be friends and were more accepting.

“Now, Barrel,” Algae said gently, placing a calming hand on the octopus’s shoulder. “They’re guests.”

Coral ignored them all. Her focus was laser-sharp, locked onto Luminous and Nightshade. “A word,” she said, her voice a low command. “In my quarters. *Now*.” She then turned to her first mate. “Algae, show our… *smallest* guest around the ship. Make sure she doesn’t fall overboard.”

“Of course, Captain,” Algae rumbled. He gave Snowy a reassuring smile. “Come on, guppy. Let me show you a real cannon.”

Snowy’s skepticism-dar went off for a second, a flicker of unease at being separated from her mentors, but the promise of seeing a real pirate cannon instantly obliterated it. “Really?! A real one?!”

As Algae led the ecstatic Kittigon up the gangplank, Coral jerked her head toward the captain's quarters, a silent order for the two villains to follow. Her friendly demeanor had vanished completely, replaced by a storm cloud of fury.

She led them into her cabin. It was a space that was both spartan and deeply personal. Charts of unknown sky-currents were spread across a large wooden desk. A collection of strange, beautiful artifacts from a hundred different islands sat on shelves. A single, lovingly framed sketch of her crew, all of them laughing, hung on the wall. She kicked the door shut with her good foot. The sound echoed like a gunshot.

She spun on them, her scarlet eyes blazing. “¿Estáis locos?” she hissed, the Spanish curse flowing from her like venom. “Have you both completely lost your minds? An apprentice? A child? A godsdamn *kid*?!”

“We prefer the term ‘protégé’,” Nightshade said, striking a casual pose against a bookshelf, though he looked visibly unnerved by her fury. “It has a more artistic ring to it.”

“I do not care what you call it!” Coral snapped, slamming her fist on the desk. The artifacts on the shelves rattled. “You bring her here, to my ship, parading her around like some new pet! Do you have any idea what you are doing?”

“We are providing guidance to a promising, albeit chaotic, young talent,” Luminous stated, his voice calm, but the light he emitted seemed to pulse with a defensive energy. “We are honing her potential. A noble endeavor, I should think.”

Coral let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Noble? *Noble*? ¡Puta madre! You two wouldn’t know ‘noble’ if it bit you on the ass! This isn’t about her potential. This is a game to you! Another performance! Another grand experiment to see if you can twist something good and pure into a reflection of your own warped philosophies!”

“Her inherent kindness is proving to be a… stubborn variable,” Nightshade admitted with a wry smirk. “But every audience can be swayed with the right performance.”

“She’s not an audience, you narcissistic fool, she’s a child!” Coral stepped closer, her voice dropping to a fierce, trembling whisper. “She looks at you two like you hung the moons in the sky. She trusts you. Do you have any concept of what a dangerous, fragile thing that is? You are playing with fire. And it is not you who will get burned when this all goes up in smoke. It will be her.”

“We have the situation perfectly under control,” Luminous said, his tone unwavering. “She is a tool to be sharpened. Once her power is focused, she will be an invaluable asset. Her… sentimentalities… will be purged in time.”

The word ‘tool’ hung in the air, cold and ugly. Coral stared at him, her expression a mixture of pity and disgust.

“A tool,” she repeated softly. “Is that what you think? That you can just shape a person, a soul, to your will without any consequences?” She shook her head, a profound sadness in her eyes. She held up her right hand, turning it over to show them the palm. An intricate symbol of an eye was etched into her skin, a mark that seemed to glow with a faint, malevolent light.

“I know a thing or two about being an asset,” she said, her voice barely audible. “About trusting someone who offered me power, who promised me salvation for the ones I love.” The memory of her pact with Lord Prospero, the bargain that had saved her crew but shackled her own soul, flashed behind her eyes. The humiliation, the servitude, the slow dimming of her own spirit.

She looked them both in the eye, her gaze hard as diamonds. “This little game of yours will end one of two ways. Either you will break her spirit, and you will have created a monster far more chaotic and unpredictable than you can possibly imagine. Or… she will change you. And frankly, I don’t know which outcome is more terrifying.”

She lowered her hand, her expression hardening back into a captain’s mask. “So I’m giving you a warning, both of you. For the sake of whatever strange friendship we have. End this. Let the kid go back to whatever life she had. Before you get in too deep. Before you do something you can’t take back.” She looked toward the door, her thoughts on the innocent, happy chatter she could faintly hear from the deck. “Before you make her just like me.”

Nightshade’s smug demeanor had vanished. For once, the master performer was silent, his light-blue eyes clouded with an unreadable emotion. Coral's words, especially the quiet despair with which she spoke them, had struck a nerve he hadn't known existed. Luminous stood perfectly still, a silent, glowing statue, his own fanatical certainty momentarily shaken by the raw, painful honesty of her warning.

The happy sound of Snowy’s laughter drifted in from the deck, oblivious to the storm raging in the captain's quarters. For the first time, a sliver of doubt, cold and sharp as a shard of ice, pierced the villains' grand plan. They had been so confident, so sure of their script. But Coral's final, haunting words echoed in the silence: *Before you make her just like me.*

Chapter Text

The sun began its descent, bathing the sky-ship in the warm, honeyed light of evening. Lanterns strung across the main deck flickered to life, casting a cozy, golden glow on the eclectic gathering. Stretch, the perpetually grumpy squid, had outdone himself. The air was filled with the mouth-watering aroma of grilled sky-kelp, seared scallops, and his famous seven-sea stew, a dish so delicious it could allegedly make a Chompy weep with joy.

Snowy sat on a coiled rope, a half-eaten fish skewer clutched in her paw, her yellow eyes wide as saucers. She was utterly enchanted. The Saltrock Crew wasn't just a crew; they were a cacophony of stories, a living, breathing saga. She was in the heart of the greatest adventure she could have ever imagined.

Clam, the fierce hammerhead gunner, was regaling them with a tale of a narrow escape from a squadron of Drow frigates, her booming voice making the deck plates vibrate. “…so I says to the lead pilot, I says, ‘You and what navy?!’ and then I blasted his port engine clean off with a perfectly aimed chain-shot! AHAHA! You shoulda seen the look on his pointy-eared face!”

Striker, the barracuda powder monkey, zipped back and forth, impatiently acting out the explosion with his hands. “*KA-BOOM! FWOOSH!* It was brilliant! The whole sky lit up like a fire festival!”

Snowy was hanging on every word. “Wow! You’re so brave!”

“Brave is one word for it,” Shimmer, the elegant manta ray navigator, interjected from her perch on the railing, her deep voice a calming counterpoint to Clam's bombast. “Reckless is another. If I hadn't plotted us a course through the Serpent's Tooth nebula to shake them, we’d have been Drow-bait.”

Pearl, the gentle narwhal, played a soft, adventurous tune on her concertina, the perfect soundtrack to their stories. Algae sat beside her, one arm resting protectively around her and their unborn child, a quiet, happy smile on his face as he listened to his family. Even Barrel, the gruff octopus, had cracked a smile, though he was trying his best to hide it.

Luminous and Nightshade were there as well, though they held themselves slightly apart from the main group. Nightshade leaned against the mainmast, the picture of detached, cool observation, though his ears were clearly swiveling to catch every detail. Luminous stood near the bow, a silent, radiant sentinel whose very presence seemed to make the lanterns burn a little brighter. He found the crew’s boisterous energy… chaotic, but the undercurrent of loyalty was something his orderly mind could, on some level, appreciate.

Coral sat on a large crate, a mug of steaming grog in her hand, her peg-leg propped up on a barrel. She watched the scene with a captain's satisfaction, her earlier anger from the confrontation in her quarters banked, but not extinguished. She caught Nightshade's eye and gave him a look that was sharp enough to cut diamonds. He deliberately ignored it, taking a sudden, intense interest in a knot in the rigging above his head.

After Clam’s story wound down, there was a comfortable lull, filled only by the soft creak of the ship and Pearl’s gentle music. Coral turned her keen, scarlet eyes on Snowy, who was practically vibrating with secondhand excitement.

“Well, apprentice,” she said, her voice carrying a teasing, friendly warmth that hadn’t been there before. “You’ve heard our tall tales. We’ve all been professional cannon-dodgers and treasure-chasers our whole lives. What about you? You said you were ‘in training.’ You must have some grand adventures of your own to share.”

Snowy’s enthusiasm faltered for a moment. Her tail, which had been wagging like a metronome, stilled. “Oh! Um… well… they’re not as exciting as yours. I haven't fought any Drow or… or navigated a nebula.”

“An adventure is an adventure, guppy,” Algae rumbled encouragingly. “Doesn’t matter the size.”

Snowy looked around at the circle of expectant faces. Pirates, villains, a walking star, a living shadow… all of them were looking at her. For the first time, it didn't feel like pressure. It felt… welcoming.

“Well…” she began, shuffling her paws. “Most of my adventures are… kind of solo missions. It’s usually just me.”

A quiet settled over the group. It was Shell, the laid-back jellyfish medic, who asked the next question, his tone gentle. “Just you? Why’s that, little sprout? No friends to get into trouble with?”

The question was innocent, but it landed like a lead weight in Snowy’s chest. The dam she’d built around her loneliness, the one she patched with fantasy and daydreams, suddenly sprang a leak.

“Oh… um…” she stammered, looking down at her paws. The deck boards suddenly seemed incredibly interesting. “I have a friend! His name is Flash! He’s the best! He’s a manticore hybrid and he’s super smart and wants to be a healer mage. But he’s visiting his dad this week.”

“That’s good,” Pearl said softly. “It’s good to have a best friend. But… just one?”

Snowy took a shaky breath. The warm, familial atmosphere of the crew had lulled her into a sense of safety she’d never really felt before. The words began to tumble out, quiet and hesitant at first, then flowing like an unstoppable tide.

“It’s… it’s always been hard,” she mumbled, her voice barely a whisper. “At the orphanage… the other kids… they think I’m weird. I like to make up stories and give everything cool names, and I have all this energy but I don’t have hands like them, so I can’t play Skystones right, and… and I’m a runt. A Kittigon my age is supposed to be way bigger, but I’m just… small.”

The deck was utterly silent now, save for the hum of the engines. Even Striker was still.

“They’d call me names,” she continued, her voice trembling. “‘Freak-les.’ ‘Chatter-cat.’ They’d tell me to go play with the weird monsters in the woods. So… I did. My adventures were my own little world. ‘Snowy the Intrepid’ explores the ‘Caverns of Couch Cushion Chaos’! ‘Snowy the Valiant’ retrieves the ‘Lost Scepter of Spatula-Kind’ from the kitchen!” She tried for a little laugh, but it came out as a watery, broken sound.

“I don't remember my parents. The Matron at the orphanage says they were lost in a great battle, but… that’s all I know. So I made up stories about them too. That they were the greatest heroes in Skylands, and that one day they’d come back for me. But they never did.” She wiped a tear away with her furry forearm. “So I just… pretended. Pretended I didn’t need anyone else. I had my books and my stories and that was enough. Until I met Flash. He didn’t think I was weird. He thought my stories were cool. But… it was still just us against everyone else.”

She looked up at the two Doom Raiders, her mentors, her heroes. “That’s why… that’s why when you two offered to train me… it was the best thing that ever happened. Because you saw something in me. Not just the weird, lonely orphan. You saw… potential.”

Her confession hung in the salty air, raw and vulnerable. And in that moment, something shifted.

For the pirates of the Saltrock Crew, every single one of them was an outcast. Misfits, runaways, criminals, and pariahs who had found their only true home on the deck of *The Sea Serpent*. Coral herself was a veteran of forging her own path against a world that didn’t understand her. Snowy’s story was their story, written in a different font. A wave of collective, quiet understanding washed over them. Clam looked down at her wrench. Barrel studied a scuff on the deck. Algae held Pearl’s hand a little tighter.

But the reaction of the two Doom Raiders was far more profound.

Nightshade stood frozen by the mast. The smooth, arrogant mask of the performer had cracked. Beneath it was something lost and unguarded. He remembered a lonely, wealthy Mabu child, ignored by his parents, who honed his skills in the shadows of a vast, empty mansion simply to feel seen, to feel like he was the star of his own life because no one else would cast him in theirs. The feeling of being an outsider, of choosing villainy as a way to impose his own narrative on a world that refused to give him one… it was a feeling he knew intimately. And hearing it echoed in the trembling voice of this earnest, hopeful little cub… it hurt in a way he hadn't anticipated. It felt like guilt.

Luminous, the being of pure, fanatical light, felt a flicker in his own core. His crusade to annihilate all darkness was born from a crippling phobia, a deep-seated feeling of being fundamentally flawed, of having a shadow that made him incomplete, impure. He sought to create a world of absolute, uniform perfection because he could not accept the imperfection in himself. Snowy’s confession of being a ‘runt,’ of being ‘weird,’ of being ostracized for being different… it resonated with a terrible, familiar clarity. He had dismissed her kindness as a flaw to be purged. But now, hearing the source of that earnest, desperate need to see the best in others, he felt a deeply unsettling emotion. It was sympathy. And for a being who believed all emotion was an impurity, it was agonizing.

The silence was finally broken by Captain Coral. She slid off her crate, walked over to Snowy, and knelt down, her peg-leg making a soft thud on the deck. She placed a gentle hand on Snowy’s head.

“Hey,” she said softly, her scarlet eyes full of a warmth that was fiercely protective. “Being weird isn't a curse, *pequeña*. It's a brand. It means you’re not like everyone else. And in my experience,” she grinned, a flash of her old, piratical swagger returning, “the ones who aren't like everyone else are the only ones worth a damn.”

…

Later that night, long after Snowy had been shown to a small, cozy guest cabin by a doting Kelp and a surprisingly gentle Crush, Nightshade found Luminous staring out at the star-dusted clouds. The ship drifted peacefully, a single lantern at the stern casting a lonely glow.

Nightshade emerged from a shadow, his usual flair conspicuously absent. “This… this has become an unacceptable complication,” he said, his voice strained.

“The variable has become… disruptive,” Luminous agreed. His own melodic voice was flat, devoid of its usual booming certainty. “My core processes are… experiencing a logical conflict.”

“She looked at us as if we were her salvation,” Nightshade murmured, pacing restlessly. “When in reality, we are meticulously planning her downfall. The dramatic irony is… unpalatable.”

“Her emotional vulnerability has introduced a contaminant into the system,” Luminous stated, his glowing hand clenching into a fist. “This… unpleasant sensation. A pressure in the energy matrix. A bio-feedback loop of… negative resonance.”

Nightshade stopped pacing. “It feels like I ate bad shellfish. Is this… regret? No, that’s far too pedestrian an emotion.”

“It is an impurity,” Luminous insisted. “A weakness. An illogical response to sentimental data input.”

“Right. Illogical,” Nightshade agreed quickly, a little too quickly. “We must be… malfunctioning.”

“Aha!” a voice cut in, dripping with sarcasm. Coral limped out of the shadows, a knowing, infuriating smirk on her face. She’d been listening the whole time. “Malfunctioning? Is that what you call it? ¡Ay, por Dios! You two are a piece of work.”

Both villains jumped, startled by her sudden appearance.

“We were having a private, high-level tactical discussion!” Nightshade snapped, trying to regain some of his bluster.

“It sounded like two idiots trying to describe a stomach-ache,” Coral shot back. She leaned against the railing, her arms crossed. “So the little one’s sob story finally cracked through those thick skulls of yours, did it?”

“We are not ‘cracked’,” Luminous stated stiffly. “We are merely recalibrating our strategic approach in light of new… psychological data.”

Coral rolled her eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn't fall out of her head. “Psychological data? You’re feeling guilty, you luminous moron! That horrible, squishy feeling you can’t stand? The one that’s telling you that maybe, just maybe, manipulating a lonely, traumatized orphan into being your personal attack pet is a bad idea? It’s called a conscience. And the other feeling? That painful ache you get when you see someone else hurting?”

She leaned in, her grin widening. “That’s called sympathy.”

The two Doom Raiders reacted as if she’d just accused them of collecting cute fluffy bunnies.

“Sympathy?!” Nightshade gasped, clutching his chest dramatically. “How dare you! I am a master of the shadow arts! An icon of villainous chic! I do not *do* sympathy! I do witty banter and dramatic exits!”

“It is a logical fallacy!” Luminous declared, his radiant form flaring in agitation. “A defect in emotional processing! Sympathy is for the weak! For… for Skylanders! And people who like puppies!”

“I am an artist of larceny!”

“I am an engine of purification!”

“I am entirely without remorse!”

“My purpose is absolute!”

Coral just watched them, shaking her head, the smirk never leaving her face. Their frantic, panicked denials were the most hilarious thing she'd seen all week. “Right, right. You’re two cold, unfeeling masterminds. Got it.” She pushed off the railing. “Just remember what that ‘illogical data input’ felt like. Because if you keep this up… you’re going to be feeling it a whole lot more.”

She left them there, their denials echoing weakly into the night. The two villains stood in silence for a long time, stewing in their own shared, deeply uncomfortable, and vehemently denied… sympathy. The script for their grand performance had just been set on fire, and they had absolutely no idea how to improvise the next scene.

Chapter Text

Two months.

Sixty-one days of training, of shared secrecy, of existing in the strange, suspended reality of the abandoned temple. The blistering heat of summer had bled into the crisp, cool air of early autumn. The leaves of the ancient trees surrounding their valley were beginning to blush with hues of crimson and gold, their discarded brethren crunching underfoot. The world was changing, and so were they.

The training sessions were still a chaotic blend of exasperation and absurdity, but the tone had shifted. The sharp, demanding edges of their instruction had softened. The lectures on ruthless efficiency and dramatic flair were now occasionally punctuated by moments of genuine connection, of shared laughter that echoed through the stone halls.

“Higher, Snowy! Use the momentum from the pillar swing to launch yourself onto the archway!” Nightshade called out. His voice was still that of a director, but the impatience was gone, replaced by the keen focus of a coach invested in his star player.

Snowy, a blur of blue and cream, was navigating the obstacle course of crumbling ruins with a newfound, if still slightly clumsy, grace. She’d learned to move with the bell around her neck, its silence a testament to her progress. She hit the pillar, her four paws finding purchase for a split second, and then she *leaped*. She twisted in mid-air, a maneuver they’d practiced a hundred times, and landed perfectly, silently, on the narrow stone archway high above the floor. She struck a pose, mimicking the dramatic stances Nightshade was so fond of, one paw held high.

“Ta-da!” she whisper-shouted, her yellow eyes glowing with triumph.

Nightshade watched from below, his arms crossed. For a moment, he said nothing. Then, a small, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. “Acceptable,” he said, the single word of praise landing with the weight of a thousand accolades.

Snowy’s heart soared. An “acceptable” from Nightshade was the equivalent of a standing ovation. Her tail gave a happy, uncontrollable flick.

Luminous’s lessons had changed, too. His fanatical intensity was still present, but it was now tempered with a surprising gentleness. He no longer spoke of purging her of weakness, but of helping her find her focus.

“Feel the chill, Snowy,” he said, his melodic voice calm and encouraging. They stood in the center of the main chamber, a single autumn leaf placed on a stone ten feet away. “Do not force it. Do not see it as a weapon. See it as an extension of yourself. The quiet, still place inside you. Let it flow.”

Snowy closed her eyes, her breathing steady. She remembered her loneliness, the cold feeling of being an outsider. But now, it wasn't a painful memory. It was just… a feeling. A part of her. She took a slow, deep breath and exhaled.

A delicate, shimmering trail of frost shot from her mouth, perfectly straight, and touched the leaf. It instantly froze, encased in a beautiful, crystalline shell of ice.

She opened her eyes, her jaw dropping slightly. She’d never done that before. It was controlled. Precise.

“I… I did it!” she gasped.

“Indeed,” Luminous said, and the light he emitted seemed to pulse with a warm, pleased glow. It wasn’t the triumphant flare of a master seeing his tool sharpened; it was the quiet pride of a teacher watching his student succeed. “A perfect expression of focused will. Well done, Snowy.”

He had called her Snowy. Not ‘acolyte.’ Not ‘little one.’ Snowy.

Nightshade, too, had started using her name, the shift so subtle she’d barely noticed it at first. The formal titles of ‘apprentice’ and ‘kitten’ had slowly faded from his vocabulary, replaced by a simple, familiar ‘Snowy.’ It was a small change, but it was everything. It meant she wasn't just a project anymore. She was a person.

Their grand, villainous plan to corrupt her had hit a catastrophic, unforeseen snag: they had come to care for her. Her unshakeable optimism had chipped away at Nightshade’s cynical shell. Her boundless affection had introduced a warmth into the cold, logical core of Luminous’s being. She was a contaminate, an impurity, a hopelessly sentimental variable… and she was becoming the most important thing in their strange, fractured lives. They had set out to corrupt an innocent, and in the process, their own dark and bright convictions were the ones being eroded. The guilt from her confession on the *Sea Serpent* was a constant, low hum beneath the surface, a reminder of the lie they were living.

This particular afternoon, they were combining their disciplines.

“The scenario is this,” Nightshade began, pacing the chamber floor with his old theatricality. “You have infiltrated the gala of Baron von Pompous. Your objective is the Baron’s priceless collection of enchanted gem-crickets, located in a display case across the room.” He pointed to a small, makeshift pedestal they had set up. “However, the floor between you and the prize is a pressure-sensitive alarm grid.”

“A metaphorical alarm grid,” Luminous clarified, indicating a large square of floor he had marked out with glowing lines of light. “Any disturbance within this grid will trigger the guards.”

“And by guards, I mean me,” Nightshade finished with a sly grin, vanishing into the deepest shadows of a nearby archway.

“To disable the alarms, you must freeze the central control panel,” Luminous instructed, pointing to a small stone Snowy had placed in the middle of the light-grid. “You will have one chance. Your approach must be silent. Your aim must be true. The moment you enter the grid, Nightshade will be alerted. You will have mere seconds.”

Snowy took a deep breath, her eyes narrowed in concentration. This was her final exam, the culmination of everything she had learned. She crouched at the edge of the glowing grid, her body low to the ground. She took a moment, silencing the little bell around her neck with a practiced paw.

Silence.

She moved.

She was a whisper, a flowing current of blue and cream fur. Her paws, which once scraped and scuffled, now kissed the stone, making less sound than a falling leaf. She flowed around the edge of the grid, using the darkest patches of floor as her path. Her movements were fluid, precise, a perfect fusion of Nightshade’s stealth and Luminous’s focus.

She reached the optimal spot, just at the edge of the grid. She could see the target stone clearly. She took one more silent breath, finding the still, cold center within herself. The world seemed to slow down. She could hear the faint drip of water in a far-off corner of the temple, the gentle rustle of the autumn wind outside.

A blur of shadow erupted from the archway. Nightshade.

But she was ready. She exhaled. A perfect, concentrated beam of ice shot from her mouth. It struck the target stone dead center. A split second later, Nightshade’s shadowy claws swiped through the air where she had been a moment before. He had missed.

The ice beam, however, did not stop at the stone. It ricocheted.

It shot up at a wild angle, bounced off a crumbling statue of a Mabu king, caromed off a support pillar, and struck the exact spot on the high archway where Luminous had been observing, a silent, glowing spectator.

*CRACK!*

The ice beam, supercharged with her focused intent, froze a large chunk of the ancient stone. Luminous, startled by the ricochet, let out a very undignified yelp of light and zipped out of the way just as the frozen section of the archway groaned, cracked, and then came crashing down to the temple floor with a deafening *BOOM!* that shook the entire valley.

Dust and rock fragments filled the air.

Silence.

Then, a small voice from the dust cloud. “Did I pass?”

The dust began to settle. Nightshade was standing frozen in place, his claws still extended, staring at the pile of rubble where Luminous’s perch used to be. Luminous himself was hovering nearby, his radiant form flickering in shock.

Snowy trotted out of the settling dust, completely unharmed, her tail wagging tentatively. “So… my aim was a little off on the ricochet calculation, but my stealth was good, right? And the initial freeze was perfect! And you didn't catch me!”

Nightshade slowly lowered his paw. He looked from the pile of rubble, to the still-glowing Luminous, to the hopeful, dust-covered face of their apprentice. A strange, strangled sound escaped his throat. It might have been a laugh.

“Your stealth,” he said, his voice choked with what sounded suspiciously like amusement, “was impeccable. Your power is… alarmingly potent.” He then looked at Luminous. “And your choice of observation post was, as always, catastrophically flawed.”

Luminous just floated there, speechless. His student had just demonstrated a level of destructive power he hadn't thought her capable of, and had nearly flattened him in the process. He wasn't sure whether to be terrified or proud.

Before any of them could properly analyze the results of the spectacularly failed-yet-successful test, a new sound intruded.

A sharp, grating cry, like stone scraping on stone, echoed from outside the temple. It was followed by a frantic, high-pitched squawk.

A small creature, no bigger than Snowy’s head, swooped into the chamber through the hole in the roof. It looked like a nightmarish fusion of a raven and a gecko, with leathery black wings, a scaled body, and sharp, intelligent eyes that glittered like shards of obsidian. Clutched in its talons was a scroll of dark parchment, sealed not with wax, but with a shard of pulsing, dark crystal that seemed to absorb the light around it.

Snowy stared, fascinated. “Ooh! What is that? Is it a Shadow-Gryphon? A Gloom-Pterodactyl?”

But her mentors weren't listening. The moment they saw the creature, the lighthearted, post-disaster atmosphere in the temple vanished, sucked away as if by a vacuum.

Nightshade’s amused smirk dissolved, replaced by a tense, stony expression. His body went rigid, all playful theatricality gone, leaving only the cold, sharp lines of a predator scenting danger.

Luminous, who had been flickering with shock, solidified into a being of intense, unwavering brightness. His red-orange eyes narrowed, and the air around him grew heavy, charged with a power that had nothing to do with teaching and everything to do with war. Their demeanor darkened in a way Snowy had never seen before. It was a cold, absolute seriousness that chilled her to the bone.

The flying lizard-bird circled the chamber once, its glittering eyes fixing on the two Doom Raiders. It let out another grating squawk, then dropped the scroll. It clattered to the stone floor between them, the dark crystal seal glowing with a faint, ugly light. The creature then banked sharply and flew back out of the temple, disappearing as quickly as it had arrived.

The scroll lay on the floor, an object of palpable menace.

“What is it?” Snowy asked, her voice small. The sudden, terrifying shift in her teachers’ moods frightened her more than the crashing pillar had. “Is that… bad news?”

Nightshade didn’t answer. He walked slowly toward the scroll, his movements no longer graceful, but cautious, like a cat approaching a snake. Luminous floated down beside him, his radiant form casting harsh, sharp shadows from the scroll.

“It has been a long time,” Luminous said, his voice a low, dangerous hum.

“Not long enough,” Nightshade replied, his own voice a grim whisper. He reached out a trembling paw and tapped the crystalline seal. It pulsed once, a wave of dark energy washing over them. The seal dissolved, and the scroll unrolled itself with a dry, rustling sound.

The script inside was sharp and angular, written in an ink that seemed to shimmer with a malevolent, sunset-colored light.

“What does it say?” Snowy asked, creeping closer.

Nightshade read the words aloud, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “‘Your presence is required. All debts will be called due. The final stage is at hand. Do not be late.’” He fell silent, his light-blue eyes staring at the signature at the bottom of the scroll. It was a single, powerful rune that seemed to writhe on the parchment.

“Who is it from?” Snowy pressed, her curiosity overriding her fear.

It was Luminous who answered, his melodic voice now as cold and sharp as the ice Snowy had just created. “The one who holds the contracts.”

“Who’s Lord Prospero?” Snowy asked, her head tilted.

Both villains froze. They turned to look at her, and for the first time, she saw real, undiluted fear in their eyes.

“Where did you hear that name?” Nightshade demanded, his voice a low, dangerous growl.

“On the scroll,” Snowy said, pointing a paw at it. “It’s signed… ‘Prospero.’”

A heavy, suffocating silence filled the temple. The name hung in the air like a death sentence. Lord Prospero. The ancient sorcerer. The founder of The Eclipsers. A being whose name was only spoken in the darkest of circles, a name synonymous with unbreakable bargains and absolute, methodical evil.

Luminous and Nightshade looked at each other. A thousand unspoken words passed between them. Their little game, their secret life with Snowy in their ruined temple, was over. The real world, in all its darkness, had found them. The summons was not a request. It was a command, backed by the weight of old, terrible debts and magical contracts that could not be broken.

Nightshade looked down at the scroll in his paw, then at Snowy’s innocent, questioning face. The master performer had run out of script. The director had lost control of his own show. And the curtain was about to rise on an act he was not prepared to play.

Chapter Text

The world felt gray.

That was the only word Snowy could find for it. After the arrival of the terrifying lizard-bird and its ominous scroll, the vibrant, secret world she shared with her mentors had leeched of all its color. Nightshade, her witty, dramatic teacher, had retreated into a grim, unbreachable silence. Luminous, her bright, focused guide, had become a being of cold, distant light, his usual radiant warmth extinguished.

They had dismissed her from the temple with a curtness that felt like a slap. "Training is concluded for today," Nightshade had stated, his voice flat. "Go home." He wouldn't meet her eye. Luminous had simply turned away, a silent, glowing statue of dismissal.

Snowy had trudged back to the orphanage, the familiar sting of loneliness returning with a vengeance she hadn't felt in months. The cold feeling inside her wasn't the focused, powerful chill she had just summoned; it was the hollow ache of being shut out. Who was Lord Prospero? And why did his name have the power to erase the smiles from the faces of two of the most powerful beings she'd ever known?

She barely slept, her mind a swirl of worried questions. By the time dawn broke, painting the sky in pale shades of pink and orange, she couldn't stand it anymore. She had to know what was going on. Forgoing her usual stealthy escape, she practically bolted from the orphanage the moment Matron Gildwing's back was turned and raced toward the hidden valley.

By the time the pale morning light filtered through the dormitory window, Snowy had made a decision. She wasn't a side character to be written out of the story. She was the protagonist. And the protagonist didn't just give up when things got confusing. They investigated. They sought answers. They were headstrong and determined and maybe a little bit reckless.

She didn’t bother with the pretense of a headache this time. She slipped out of the orphanage with a grim sense of purpose, her paws moving swiftly and silently over the familiar path to the temple. She was going to find them. She was going to demand an explanation.

As she crested the final hill, her heart leaped into her throat. There, docked in the exact same spot as before, was The Sea Serpent. Its proud, dark timbers and vibrant flag were a welcome, reassuring sight. Hope surged through her. If Captain Coral was here, everything would be okay. The captain wouldn’t let them just abandon her.

She crept closer, her stealth skills, honed by weeks of clumsy practice, finally kicking in. She stayed low, using the large boulders and overgrown scrub for cover, her blue and cream fur blending into the morning shadows. She could hear voices coming from the gangplank.

“—absolutely certain this is necessary?” It was Nightshade’s voice, tight with irritation. “A personal appearance feels so… pedestrian. Can’t we just send a magically binding note of declination?”

“Prospero does not accept RSVPs, and you know it,” Captain Coral’s voice boomed, sharp and impatient. “He summons, we appear. That is the nature of the arrangement. Now stop whining and get on the damn ship. We’re burning daylight.”

Snowy peered around a large rock. She saw the full, tense tableau. Captain Coral stood at the top of the gangplank, her arms crossed, her scarlet eyes narrowed. Algae stood beside her, his usually friendly face set in a grim, stoic line. Nightshade and Luminous were at the bottom, their postures rigid. They looked like prisoners being escorted to the gallows.

“I simply do not see why you must be involved, Captain,” Luminous said, his voice a low, unhappy thrum. “This is a matter for the Doom Raiders.”

“Your ‘Doom Raider’ business became my business the second he called on all three of us,” Coral shot back. “He wants his lieutenants. We are his lieutenants. End of story. Now move it.”

A cold dread washed over Snowy. So, Captain Coral was involved, too. This Lord Prospero had summoned them all. This was bigger and more serious than she could have imagined. Her plan to march up and demand answers suddenly seemed incredibly childish.

Nightshade and Luminous exchanged a dark look, then ascended the gangplank, their movements stiff with resentment. They boarded the ship without a backward glance.

“Algae, cast off,” Coral commanded. “Set a course for the Maw of Malice. Full sail.”

“Aye, Captain,” the first mate responded, his voice heavy.

The Maw of Malice. Even the name sent a shiver down Snowy’s spine. The crew began to move with practiced efficiency, their usual boisterous energy replaced by a quiet, somber professionalism. The great anchor hooks were being winched up, their chains rattling like ghostly moans. The gangplank was being raised. They were leaving. And they were taking her only chance at answers with them.

Panic warred with a new, fierce determination. She wasn't being left behind. Not again.

Her eyes darted around the ship’s hull. The training—all the lessons on seeing the environment as a tool, on using her size to her advantage—kicked in. She saw it: a small, circular porthole on a lower deck, left open to catch the morning air. It was a tiny target, maybe twenty feet up the side of the hull. A month ago, it would have been an impossible leap. Now… it was just a more difficult version of the pillar run.

She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t second-guess.

As the last anchor lifted from the ground and the great ship began to groan, drifting slowly away from the hilltop, Snowy burst from her cover. She sprinted across the remaining patch of grass, her four paws digging into the turf. She hit the edge of the cliff just as The Sea Serpent began to gain altitude.

She leaped.

For a terrifying, heart-stopping moment, she was suspended in the air, the wind whistling past her ears, the ground falling away beneath her. She stretched her body out, paws reaching, her yellow eyes fixed on the open porthole. She wasn’t going to make it. It was too far.

Then, she remembered Nightshade’s voice: *Trust your claws.*

Her front paws slammed against the wooden hull just below the porthole. Her claws, sharp and strong, dug into the weathered timber, arresting her fall with a jarring jolt. She scrambled, her back paws finding purchase, and with a final, desperate heave, she pulled herself up and through the small opening, tumbling head over paws onto the floor of a dark, cramped room.

She landed in a heap, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The room smelled of rope, tar, and bilge water. It was a storage hold. Above her, she could feel the deep, resonant vibration of the ship’s engines coming to life, the gentle rocking motion as it caught the sky-currents and began its journey.

She had done it. She was on the ship. A giddy, triumphant laugh bubbled up in her chest. For the first time, all her training had come together in a single, flawless, spectacular maneuver. Nightshade would have been… well, he’d probably still call it ‘agricultural,’ but he might have nodded.

“Well now,” a calm, lazy voice drawled from the corner of the room. “That’s not something you see every day. A flying cat-dragon delivery. Are you a stowaway or just exceptionally bad at aiming for the main deck?”

Snowy yelped and scrambled to her paws. Lounging on a hammock strung between two crates was Shell, the jellyfish medic. He had a book resting on his gelatinous belly and he regarded her with an expression of mild, unruffled amusement.

“Shell!” Snowy gasped, her relief overwhelming her surprise. “I-I-I… uh…”

“You decided to board without a ticket, is what I see,” Shell finished for her, not sounding accusatory in the slightest. He slowly marked his page with a translucent tentacle. “Bold move, little guppy. The captain runs a tight ship. She’s not overly fond of uninvited passengers.”

“Please don’t tell her!” Snowy pleaded, her triumphant mood instantly evaporating into panic. “I had to come! They were just going to leave me! They wouldn't explain anything!”

Shell sighed, a sound like a gentle wave washing over sand. He swung himself out of the hammock with a squelching sound. “Kid, let me give you a piece of advice. When a couple of high-strung, dramatic villains and a one-legged pirate captain with a temper all look like they’re heading to a funeral, the smart fish swims the other way. You… you seem to have a talent for swimming directly into the shark’s mouth.”

“But I have to know what’s going on!” she insisted.

A slow, knowing grin spread across Shell’s face. “Oh, I bet you do.” He ambled toward the door, his movements languid. “You know, I’m supposed to report this to the first mate immediately. It’s protocol.” He paused, his hand-like tentacle on the latch. “But… I have a feeling this is going to be far more entertaining if I report it directly to the captain, right in the middle of her big, serious briefing.”

He winked at her, a gesture that looked very strange on a jellyfish. “Come on. Let’s go make some waves.”

---

On the main deck, the mood was somber. The familiar, familial banter of the crew was absent. They were all gathered around Captain Coral, their faces grim. The Sea Serpent was now high above the clouds, a silent speck cutting through the sky.

“…and that’s the long and short of it,” Coral was saying, her voice hard and clipped. She had just finished briefing the crew. “The summons is from Prospero. It’s a meeting at his lovely little holiday home, the Obsidian Citadel. He wants to discuss a… new venture. Which means he wants to give us a new, impossible, probably suicidal order.”

A low murmur of discontent rippled through the crew. They hated Prospero. They hated what he had done to their captain.

“The Citadel is bad sky,” Barrel grunted, his tentacles writhing with agitation. “Heavily fortified. No-fly zone for anyone with half a brain. It’s a suicide mission, Captain.”

“Which is why,” Coral said, her voice leaving no room for argument, “the plan is this. Nightshade, Luminous, and I go in. Alone. We hear what the slimy bastard has to say, we fulfill the letter of our… agreement, and we get out.” Her gaze swept over her crew, hard and fiercely protective. “The rest of you stay with the ship. You keep the engines hot, the cannons primed, and you wait for my signal. If we are not back in three hours, or if I give the signal… Algae, you take the helm, and you get them out of here. You do not wait. You do not attempt a rescue. That is a direct order. Understood?”

Algae met her gaze, his own face a stoic mask that didn't quite hide his deep concern. “Understood, Captain.”

It was at that moment that Shell drifted out of the hatchway leading to the lower decks, a thoroughly guilty-looking Snowy trailing behind him like a small, furry shadow.

“Uh… Captain?” Shell said, an unapologetic grin on his face. “We seem to have picked up a little extra cargo.”

Every head on deck swiveled. The crew stared. Coral, Luminous, and Nightshade all went rigid. Snowy gave a small, pathetic wave.

“Hi,” she squeaked.

For a moment, there was absolute, stunned silence. You could hear the wind whistling through the rigging.

Nightshade was the first to recover, slapping a paw dramatically over his eyes as if he’d just witnessed an artistic travesty of unimaginable proportions. “Oh, for the love of—You have *got* to be kidding me.”

Luminous’s radiant form flickered violently, like a candle caught in a storm. “How did you…”

Coral, however, was silent. Her face, already grim, became a thundercloud of pure, distilled rage. Her scarlet eyes locked onto Snowy, but her fury was aimed squarely over the cub’s head at her two so-called mentors. She didn't need to say a word. The look she gave them was a masterpiece of non-verbal communication. It was a look that could curdle milk from across a room. It was a look that promised a slow, painful, and deeply inventive demise.

Snowy, completely missing the homicidal glare being beamed over her head, decided to take charge of the situation. “It wasn't their fault!” she declared, stepping forward bravely. “It was my idea! I had to come! You’re my teachers, and you’re going somewhere dangerous. Apprentices are supposed to help their masters! It’s in all the books!” She looked up at them, her yellow eyes shining with earnest, misguided loyalty. “I used my training! I was silent, and I used the environment, and I did a pillar-swing-launch thing! You would have been so proud!”

Coral's eye twitched. “You…” she began, her voice a low, dangerous growl.

Nightshade, seeing the volcanic eruption about to occur, quickly stepped in front of Snowy, shielding her from Coral’s gaze. “Yes, yes, a brilliant display of initiative and resourcefulness,” he said quickly, his voice tight with panic. “Full marks for execution, zero for common sense. We are… deeply impressed and utterly horrified.”

“We are several light-minutes past horrified,” Luminous added, floating nervously behind Nightshade. “We have ventured into the uncharted territories of cataclysmic stupidity.”

“Captain,” Algae said, his calm voice cutting through the tension. “We are approaching the Dead Zone. We don't have time to turn back. We need to decide what to do with her.”

Coral closed her eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath, and seemed to physically wrestle her fury into a cage. When she opened them again, the inferno was banked, replaced by a cold, hard pragmatism. He was right. They were out of time. They were stuck with her. The thought made her stomach turn.

“Fine,” she bit out, the word sharp as a shard of glass. She knelt down in front of Snowy, her expression grim. “Fine. You are here. You cannot go back. So you will listen to me, and you will listen good, *pequeña*. You will stay on this ship. You will not leave it for any reason. You will do exactly what Algae and the rest of the crew tell you to do, when they tell you to do it. Am I clear?”

Snowy nodded, her ears drooping. This wasn't how her heroic rescue was supposed to go. “Yes, Captain.”

“Good.” Coral stood up. “Algae, she’s your responsibility. Keep her out of trouble. And out of my sight.” She turned and stalked toward her quarters, her peg-leg stomping a furious rhythm on the deck. She jerked her head at the two Doom Raiders. “You two. My cabin. *Now*.”

Luminous and Nightshade shared a look of pure, unadulterated dread. They had faced down Skylanders, battled ancient monsters, and committed acts of legendary villainy. But the prospect of what awaited them in that cabin clearly terrified them more than anything else in Skylands. They followed her like two prisoners on their way to the gallows.

As soon as Snowy was distracted by Pearl offering her a comforting mug of warm cider, the cabin door slammed shut, and the shouting began.

Even through the thick, soundproofed wood of the captain's quarters, Coral’s rage was a palpable force.

“¡ME CAGO EN LA LECHE!” The roar tore from Coral's lungs as she skidded to a halt, planting herself before them. “Are you two the single stupidest, most monumentally incompetent, pathologically narcissistic imbeciles in the entire history of the godsdamn Skylands?!”

“In our defense,” Nightshade began, trying for a placating tone, “we genuinely had no idea she was capable of such a feat.”

“THAT IS NOT A DEFENSE, YOU ARROGANT BASTARD, THAT IS THE ENTIRE PROBLEM!” Coral screamed, advancing on them. She poked a finger hard into Nightshade’s chest. “You gave a lonely, impressionable child with uncontrolled powers a masterclass in infiltration and espionage! What did you THINK was going to happen when you mysteriously vanished onto a flying ship?! That she was going to sit at home and KNIT?!”

“Her emotional attachment to our persons has exceeded initial projections,” Luminous stated, which was perhaps the single worst thing he could have said.

Coral turned her fury on him. It was like watching a hurricane turn its attention to a lighthouse. “EXCEEDED PROJECTIONS?! She trusts you! You idiot! She adores you! And you are leading her, whistling a happy little tune, straight into the dragon’s den! Do you have ANY idea who Lord Prospero is?! What he does to things he finds… useful? What he does to things that are pure and powerful?”

She backed them against the wall, her fury a palpable force. “¡Hijos de puta! I am shackled to that monster because I made a deal to protect MY family!” she jabbed a thumb toward the door, indicating her crew. “I traded my freedom for theirs. Now YOU, with your selfish, little ‘art project,’ have brought an innocent child to his front door! If he sees her, if he senses what she is, what she can do… he won't make a bargain with her. He will just take her. He will break her down and rebuild her into a weapon that will make what he did to me look like a mercy!”

She finally backed away, pacing the small cabin like a caged animal. She was breathing heavily, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “We can’t turn back. We’re already on his timetable. He’ll know. And if he finds out we tried to hide her from him, it will be even worse.”

She stopped pacing and looked at them, her rage now replaced by a cold, hard despair that was somehow even more terrifying. “So, congratulations, you two. Your little apprentice gets her first real field trip.”

Her voice dropped to a venomous whisper. “You will keep her out of his sight. You will protect her with your lives. Am I clear?”

“Crystal.” The two doomraiders whispered.

“Good.” Coral growled, turning around and leaning on her desk. “Now get out. I need to figure out how to keep a child from getting her soul devoured, no thanks to you two.”

They didn't need to be told twice. Luminous and Nightshade practically fled the cabin, escaping her wrath. They emerged back on deck to the deeply unsympathetic, and highly amused, faces of the Saltrock Crew. Shell gave them a slow, lazy salute with one tentacle. Clam just grinned, showing all her teeth.

The two most feared Doom Raiders in Skylands had just been thoroughly, and deservedly, chewed out. And as they looked over at Snowy, who was now laughing as Kelp showed her how to tie a proper slipknot, they felt the crushing weight of their failure. They had set out to make her a villain. Instead, they had made her a target.

Chapter Text

The journey to the Maw of Malice was a descent into a nightmare. The sky, once a brilliant, endless blue, slowly curdled into a sickly bruised purple, shot through with veins of angry red. The clouds were no longer fluffy continents of white, but ragged, greasy streamers of black and grey that choked the air. The Sea Serpent, which had always felt like a bastion of life and adventure, now seemed like a tiny, fragile shell navigating a dead and dying sea.

Snowy stood on the foredeck, her paws planted firmly on the wooden planks, her fur bristling in the unnaturally cold wind. She had tried to talk to the crew, to Luminous, to Nightshade, but a grim, impenetrable wall had descended over everyone on the ship. The vibrant pirates were now a silent, efficient machine, their eyes constantly scanning the roiling, hostile sky. Luminous was a pillar of cold, concentrated light, all warmth gone. And Nightshade… Nightshade had simply vanished. Snowy knew he was there, probably hiding in the deepest shadows of the ship, but his presence was a chilling void rather than a comforting one.

"Approaching the Citadel, Captain," Shimmer's deep, steady voice called from the navigator's post.

Coral, who had been a stoic figurehead at the helm since her explosion in the cabin, grunted in acknowledgement. "Algae, take us in slow and steady. No sudden moves."

And then Snowy saw it.

The Obsidian Citadel  rose from the swirling chaos like a poisoned tooth. It was a fortress of impossible scale, carved from a single, colossal shard of obsidian-like rock. Jagged towers and cruel spires clawed at the sickly sky, their surfaces so black they seemed to devour the very light that touched them.

As The Sea Serpent drew closer, Snowy felt a palpable wave of despair wash over her, so potent it was a physical force. Her optimism, her boundless curiosity, her very sense of adventure—it all shriveled and faltered for the first time in her life. This place was wrong. Deeply, fundamentally wrong. It was a place where stories ended, where heroes failed. She wanted to be anywhere else but here.

As they approached the main docks, carved directly into the sheer, glassy cliff face of the citadel, Snowy noticed two massive figures perched atop the gateway arch. At first, she thought they were statues, ornate and terrifying gargoyles with leathery wings and glowing, sunset-colored eyes. Then, one of them moved. It turned its massive stone head, its eyes tracking The Sea Serpent with an unnerving, predatory focus. Her breath hitched. The citadel itself was alive with guards.

Captain Coral’s voice cut through the heavy air like a ship’s horn. “Alright, you hear me and you hear me good! We’re setting down on the designated landing docks. Shimmer, bring us in smooth and easy. No sudden moves. Barrel, man the aft cannons, but do not, I repeat, do not power them up unless I give the word. I want us looking like humble visitors, not an invading army. Stretch, douse the galley fires. I don't want so much as a puff of smoke coming from this ship. We are ghosts. We are not here.”

Her orders were crisp, efficient, and laced with a tension so thick Snowy could taste it. The vibrant, chaotic family of pirates had transformed into a disciplined, silent military unit. The fear was there, she could see it in Kelp’s wide eyes and the way Striker’s usual manic energy had frozen into a nervous stillness, but their loyalty to their captain was a tangible force, stronger even than the dread pulsing from the citadel.

Shimmer was at the helm, her usual graceful movements now intensely focused as she navigated the treacherous air currents around the island. The ship next to the dark wooden docks,  with a barely perceptible bump. The silence that followed was deafening. The engines hummed down to a near-silent standby, and the only sound was the cold wind whining through the rigging.

Coral strode to the center of the deck, her expression carved from stone. Nightshade and Luminous materialized beside her, their faces grim masks.

“Right,” Coral said, her voice low. “This is it. We go in, we listen, we nod, we do not piss off the dark lord in his evil fortress. We get out. Simple.” She then turned and fixed her gaze on Snowy, who instinctively flinched. The captain's scarlet eyes were hard, but beneath the hardness, there was a flicker of something else. A deep, profound worry.

“You,” Coral said, her voice softer than Snowy expected, but no less firm. “You stay here. You do not set one paw off this deck. You listen to Algae. If things go sideways… you run with them. Do you understand me, Snowy?”

Snowy nodded, her throat suddenly tight. “I understand, Captain.” She understood all too well. This wasn't a game. This wasn't training.

Coral gave a curt nod, then turned to her first mate. “Algae. You have the conn.”

“Aye, Captain,” he replied, his voice a low, steady anchor in the sea of tension. “We’ll be here.”

“I know you will.” For a fraction of a second, the iron mask of the captain slipped, and a look of deep, familial affection passed between them. Then it was gone.

A narrow bridge of shimmering, solidified shadow extended from the spire to a small, unassuming door in the side of the citadel. It was one of Nightshade’s, but it lacked his usual flair. It was a simple, functional bridge of pure darkness.

The trio—the axolotl pirate, the cat-like thief, and the being of pure light—walked across. Snowy watched them go, her heart pounding a frantic, terrified rhythm. They looked so small against the immense, light-devouring blackness of the fortress. As the door opened to receive them, a wave of cold, magical energy washed out, so potent it made the air ripple. The door slammed shut behind them, and they were gone.

---

The inside of the Obsidian Citadel was even worse. The air was frigid and utterly still. The walls were the same polished black stone, reflecting their images back as distorted, shadowy specters. There were no torches, no lanterns, yet the halls were lit by a cold, sourceless twilight that seemed to emanate from the very stones themselves. The silence was absolute, pressing in on them, broken only by the click of Coral’s peg-legs. Luminous’s radiant form was the only source of warmth and color in the entire place, and even he seemed dimmer, his light struggling against the oppressive gloom.

“Home sweet home,” Coral muttered under her breath, her hand resting on the hilt of her cutlass.

They were led by a silent, draconoid guard down a long, impossibly vast hallway. Gargantuan statues lined the corridor, depicting not heroes or kings, but concepts: a hooded figure of Despair, a leering face of Doubt, an armored titan of Tyranny. It was a monument to misery.

“Subtle,” Nightshade muttered under his breath, his voice swallowed by the oppressive silence. “He’s really toned down the decor since my last visit.”

“Be quiet,” Coral hissed, her voice a tight whisper. “His eyes are everywhere.”

The guard shoved open a set of gargantuan doors, the grinding of stone on stone echoing like a moan in the dead air. He gestured them inside, then stepped back, the doors sealing shut behind them with a boom that vibrated in Snowy’s bones. They were in a throne room of nightmarish proportions.

The chamber was a vast, cavernous dome, so large that the ceiling was lost in a swirling, artificial nebula of dark energy. The floor was a polished black mirror, reflecting the cold, star-like lights above. In the center, on a raised dais of jagged, crystalline steps, sat an empty throne. It was not carved, but seemed to be grown from the same living obsidian as the fortress, a throne of solidified shadow and malice.

A reception party was waiting for them. And it was a veritable who’s who of Skylands’ most notorious villains.

Standing around the room, in small, tense clusters, were the other attendees. On one side stood the infamous Doom Raiders. The Golden Queen was there, her gilded form radiating an aura of immense power and undisguised avarice. Beside her, Wolfgang lounged, his bone guitar slung over his back, a restless, feral energy barely contained beneath his skin. Chef Pepperjack adjusted his fiery hat, his expression unreadable, while the Dreamcatcher, a disembodied, ghostly head, floated lazily, humming a discordant tune. Dr. Krankcase polished his goggles, his spider-like mechanical legs twitching with nervous energy. The Gulper just gurgled, a disgusting, bloated mass of appetite, and the Chompy Mage cooed to the small Chompy puppet on his hand.

Coral, Luminous, and Nightshade entered, and the low murmur of conversation in the room ceased. All eyes turned to them. The Golden Queen raised a perfectly sculpted golden eyebrow. Wolfgang shot Nightshade a look that was part rivalry, part camaraderie.

Then there were the others, a group that radiated a different, more disciplined kind of menace. The Eclipsers. Prospero's inner circle.

A hulking figure with a head made of a raw, jagged cluster of violet crystal sat near the far side of the table. A single, cyclopean eye in the center of the crystal head shifted and fixed on Coral, and a deep, rumbling voice that sounded like grinding stones echoed in the chamber. "Coral! Hullo!"

Before she could respond, a sleek, black-furred sphinx-like creature with a sneering grey face and a meticulously groomed goatee shot the crystal-headed golem a venomous glare. "Shut it, you dolt," the sphinx, Storm Clouds, hissed, his sharp yellow eyes flickering with malice. "We are not here to exchange pleasantries with the help."

Crystal-Quake, the brutish golem, looked momentarily confused, then just shrugged and fell silent. Coral shot a glare of pure hatred at Storm Clouds. Of all of Prospero’s enforcers, she despised the arrogant, spiteful sphinx the most.

Looming near the crystal-headed brute was a horrifying fusion of prehistoric predator and advanced war machine. The 20-foot-tall “Chomp Bot,” crafted from gleaming silver and a sickly green metal, stood utterly motionless, its massive, chompy-like jaws closed, its metallic claws silent. A booming, synthetic voice, dripping with condescension and arrogance, suddenly projected from a speaker on its chest.

“Your temporal alignment is… adequate, Captain,” the voice of Dr. Bites announced. “I trust your primitive vessel did not suffer any catastrophic mechanical failures due to… atmospheric dust?”

“It flew just fine, Bites,” Coral grunted, not bothering to look at the massive automaton. “Try not to leak any oil on the floor. It’s a pain to get out of the carpets.”

The Chomp Bot’s single, glowing red eye swiveled to focus on her, but it said nothing more, a low, menacing hum its only reply.

Not all the Eclipsers were so overt. A slithering, unsettling presence made Nightshade’s fur prickle. Partially hidden in the deepest shadows of the chamber, a colossal python lay coiled, her scales the color of graveyard dust. Her unblinking silver eyes watched them with a cold, ancient hunger. This was GraveViper, the Undead Eclipser, a creature whose very presence seemed to make the air colder, to suck the life from the room. Luminous, a being of pure light, visibly recoiled from her, his radiant form dimming slightly as if in pain.

Another figure stood near the viper, a majestic Qilin of the Light element, whose regal red fur and luminous emerald eyes flickered with a strange mixture of steadfastness and fury. This was Brighthorn, and her gaze, when it met Luminous’s, was one of pure, unadulterated contempt, a look of betrayal so deep it was a physical force. Luminous returned the stare, his own red-orange eyes narrowing, a silent, bitter history passing between the two beings of Light.

But the most formidable of the Eclipsers stood like a statue near the head of the long, obsidian table. He was an imposing draconid knight, clad from head to foot in full plate armor of a dark, lustrous metal that seemed to drink the twilight. His horned helmet was featureless, save for two narrow slits through which a pair of cold, calculating crimson eyes glowed faintly. A massive, two-handed greatsword was strapped to his back, its hilt wreathed in tendrils of void energy. This was Obsidian Vanguard, Prospero’s most loyal and capable enforcer. He regarded the newcomers with a silent, dismissive stillness that was more intimidating than any overt threat.

The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. The Doom Raiders, a chaotic force of individual ambition and theatrical villainy, were on one side. The Eclipsers, a disciplined cabal of bound, fanatical enforcers, were on the other. It was a gathering of sharks and wolves, all forced into the same tank, all waiting for their master to appear.

“Coral,” The Golden Queen’s voice rang out, sharp and clear as a golden bell. “How good of you to finally arrive. One hopes Prospero hasn’t been working his favorite little errand-runner too hard.” The insult was perfectly delivered, a silken dagger coated in condescending honey.

Coral’s jaw tightened, but she gave a thin, humorless smile. “Your Majesty. Always a pleasure. And no, the work is fine. At least my master pays me.” It was a direct jab at the Queen’s legendary greed, and it landed perfectly. A low, appreciative snicker came from Wolfgang.

The Golden Queen’s eyes narrowed, her golden fingers drumming a silent, angry rhythm on the table.

Before any more pleasantries could be exchanged, the very air in the chamber grew heavy, the pressure dropping as if before a mighty storm. The sourceless twilight in the room seemed to coalesce, to darken, to gather at the head of the table.

A figure materialized from the shadows, not with a dramatic flash or a theatrical puff of smoke, but with the quiet, absolute finality of a setting sun.

Lord Prospero had arrived.

He was an ancient draconid, his scales a dark, regal purple, his horns a polished, gleaming silver. He stood tall and straight, radiating an aura of immense, ancient power that had nothing to do with brute force and everything to do with a cold, calculating, and utterly superior intellect. His piercing sunset-colored eyes burned not with rage, but with a patient, methodical ambition that saw every living being in the room as a piece on his grand chessboard. He held a large golden staff, topped with a crystal eye that mirrored his own, pulsing with a slow, hypnotic light.

“My friends,” Prospero’s voice was a low, resonant baritone, a sound like stone grinding on stone, yet cultured and impossibly smooth. It filled the vast chamber not with volume, but with sheer presence. The crystal eye on his staff slowly swiveled, its gaze passing over each of them, a silent, all-seeing appraisal that made even the Golden Queen sit a little straighter.

“Doom Raiders. Eclipsers. I am so pleased you could all attend.” He glided to the head of the long obsidian table, his movements unnervingly fluid. He did not take a seat, but remained standing, a position of unquestioned authority. “I trust your journeys were… uneventful.”

His sunset-colored eyes settled on the Golden Queen. A thin, cold smile touched his lips, a gesture that held no warmth, only the dry satisfaction of a predator contemplating its next meal. “Your Majesty. You honor us with your presence. I know how you value your time. I promise not to waste it.”

The Queen, for her part, inclined her head, a regal and dismissive gesture. “See that you don’t, Prospero. My kingdom’s coffers do not fill themselves.” Even in the presence of this ancient evil, her avarice was her armor.

Coral, Nightshade, and Luminous watched the exchange with wary, hidden contempt. They knew this game. Prospero’s respect was a currency he spent to buy loyalty, a calculated manipulation to appeal to the Queen’s monumental ego. He was playing her, and she was letting him, believing she was the one in control.

“Indeed.” Prospero’s smile didn't waver. He then turned his gaze, letting it sweep over the entire assembly. “I have summoned you all here today because we stand upon the precipice of a new era. For too long, Skylands has languished. It has grown soft, decadent, basking in the so-called ‘eternal’ light of a Core that offers nothing but stagnation.”

He began to pace slowly, his claws clicking softly on the obsidian floor. “We see it every day, do we not? This world is governed by relics. By old fools and their outdated ideals. Master Eon and his precious Skylanders… they are yesterday’s message. A clapped-out, distracted regime, clinging to a vision of heroism that is as hollow as a rotten log.”

His voice grew stronger, filled with a messianic fervor that was both captivating and terrifying. “Their time is over. Their constant squabbling with the buffoon Kaos is a sideshow, a pathetic circus that distracts from the real, systemic rot at the heart of this world. Their failings are not just mistakes; they are a prophecy. They presage the need for a different dream. A new order.”

Wolfgang, who had been restlessly tapping a beat on his guitar, stopped. The Chompy Mage’s puppet seemed to listen intently. Even the disembodied head of Dreamcatcher ceased her humming, her ghostly eyes focused on the sorcerer.

“I have a vision,” Prospero continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, seductive whisper. “Of a Skylands unshackled. A world returned to its natural state. A world of pure power, where strength is the only law, and the will to conquer is the only truth.”

He stopped pacing and spread his arms wide, a grand, theatrical gesture that was somehow devoid of flair and full of menace. “For generations, we have been told that the Core of Light is the heart of Skylands. Its protector. Its source of life.” He let out a soft, dismissive chuckle. “Lies. All of it. The Core is not a heart; it is a cage. It is not a source of life; it is a font of limitation.”

His sunset eyes swept across the room, lingering on each of them in turn. “Think of it. It radiates an energy that empowers those who subscribe to its pathetic ideals of heroism and self-sacrifice. It fuels the Skylanders. It props up Eon’s anachronistic order. It is a leash, my friends. A glowing, golden leash that keeps true power, *our* power, in check.”

“Your powers,” he continued, his voice taking on a sympathetic, understanding tone, “are constrained, dampened by this constant, oppressive light. They are forced to operate within a system that fundamentally opposes their nature.” He gestured to GraveViper. “Your command over the Undead is a struggle against the very life force the Core exudes. Your decay must fight against its regeneration.” He turned to Wolfgang. “Your chaotic symphonies of sound are muted, their sharpest notes softened by its harmonious drone.”

Wolfgang let out a low growl, his hand tightening on the neck of his bone guitar. The idea that something was holding back his rock-and-roll fury was a deeply personal insult.

“The Core does not empower Skylands,” Prospero declared, his voice rising again. “It *imprisons* it. It sets the rules. It dictates the balance. But what if… what if we were to shatter that balance? What if we were to break the cage?”

A low, collective murmur went through the room. This was not a plan for a simple heist or a territorial conquest. This was heresy on a cosmic scale.

“You speak of destroying the Core of Light?” The Golden Queen’s voice was sharp, cutting through the murmurs with the precision of a diamond drill. She leaned forward, her golden form gleaming in the twilight. “Prospero, for all your talk of visions, you seem to have overlooked a rather… significant detail. Eon. The Skylanders. The entire might of their pathetic little Academy. They guard that Core with their lives. They are powerful. Too powerful for a direct assault. We have all tried, in our own ways. We have all failed.”

Chef Pepperjack nodded in vigorous agreement, his flaming hat bobbing. “She’s right! That place is locked up tighter than a pickled pepper jar! I once tried to sneak in a batch of my Five-Alarm Doom-cakes. They detected the chili powder from a mile away!”

Prospero’s thin, cold smile returned. “Ah, Your Majesty. As pragmatic as ever. And you are correct. A direct assault would be… unsophisticated. Brute force is the tool of the unimaginative.” He turned to Obsidian Vanguard, his most loyal enforcer. “It has its place, of course, but not here. Not for this.”

He raised his staff, and the crystal eye at its tip projected a shimmering, three-dimensional map into the center of the room. It was a detailed, rotating schematic of Skylander Academy, with the Core of Light pulsing at its center like a captive sun.

“The Skylanders are indeed powerful,” Prospero conceded. “But their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness. They are predictable. They are defenders. They react. They do not anticipate a threat of this magnitude because they are incapable of conceiving it. Their morality is a set of blinkers, preventing them from seeing the full scope of what is possible.”

He pointed a long, scaled finger at the map. “They expect a frontal assault. They expect a villainous monologue and a predictable army of minions. They expect… Kaos.” He said the name with a dismissive sneer. “We will give them something else entirely. We will not knock on the front door. We will shatter the foundations.”

His plan, as he outlined it, was one of surgical precision and breathtaking audacity. He revealed hidden, ancient pathways beneath the Academy, ley lines of forgotten magic that bypassed the main defenses. He spoke of exploiting the Skylanders’ own protocols against them, using their disaster-response plans to create openings. He detailed a series of coordinated, simultaneous strikes on key strategic locations across Skylands, designed to stretch their forces thin, to pull them away from the one place that truly mattered.

“It will be a death by a thousand cuts,” he explained, his voice weaving a hypnotic spell. “While they are racing to put out a dozen small fires, we will be at the heart of their home, ready to extinguish the sun.”

“And what happens then?” Wolfgang asked, leaning forward, his earlier restlessness now replaced by a feral grin. “When the big lightbulb goes pop?”

Prospero’s smile widened. “Then… the leash is broken. The cage is shattered. The oppressive, dampening field of ‘goodness’ that suffocates this world will dissipate. The natural order will be restored. Your powers, all of our powers, will be magnified tenfold. The very air will crackle with untamed magic. It will be an age of glorious, beautiful chaos. An age of absolute power for those with the strength to seize it.”

The vision he painted was seductive. A world without limits. A world where their ambitions were not just possible, but inevitable. The Golden Queen’s eyes glittered, not just with the reflection of the map, but with the prospect of a world where her power over gold could become absolute. Dr. Krankcase let out a manic, cackling giggle, imagining the twisted, unrestrained experiments he could conduct. The Chompy Mage began whispering excitedly to his puppet.

“What about the Skylanders?” Dreamcatcher’s ethereal voice echoed. “What happens to Eon’s little pets when their battery pack runs out?”

Prospero’s expression was one of faux sympathy. “Without the Core to sustain them? Their connection to the elements will wither. Their powers will fade. They will become… irrelevant. Relics of a bygone era, wandering through a world they no longer understand. A far more fitting, and humiliating, fate than a simple defeat in battle, wouldn’t you agree?”

The room, which had been simmering with skepticism and rivalry, was now united in a current of avaricious, ambitious excitement. The plan was insane. It was brilliant. And it was, for the first time, believable.

Wolfgang was the first to break. A slow, wicked grin spread across his furry face. He slammed his fist on the table. “Heh. Shatter the Core of Light… I like it! Now *that’s* my kind of rock and roll!”

“A reality where everyone’s worst nightmares are just a whisper away?” Dreamcatcher’s ghostly voice purred with delight. “Ooh, now that sounds like fun!”

The Golden Queen leaned back in her chair. The initial shock had passed, replaced by a cool, calculating glint in her eyes. A world in chaos was a world ripe for financial takeover. A powerless Skylanders meant no one could stop her from gilding the entire realm. A thin, greedy smile touched her lips. “Your plan is… audacious, Prospero,” she conceded, the word a high compliment coming from her. “The risks are astronomical. But the potential returns…” She let the sentence hang, her golden eyes gleaming. “You have my attention.”

The tide had turned. Prospero had them. He had taken their greed, their ambition, their egos, and woven them into a tapestry of conquest with his vision at its center.

Only three beings in the room remained silent, untouched by the intoxicating wave of revolutionary fervor.

Coral stood like a statue carved from ice. She had heard his promises before. She knew the poison hidden in his pretty words. Her mind wasn't on the glory of a new world; it was on a small, blue and cream-furred Kittigon waiting on her ship, a cub whose innocence was now in the crosshairs of this magnificent, articulate monster. The weight of his plan felt like a physical stone in her gut.

Luminous, the being of pure light, felt a sickening conflict in his core. The destruction of the Core of Light… it was an idea that appealed to the deepest, most fanatical part of him. He had always seen it as an imperfect, flawed source, a pale imitation of the absolute light he envisioned. Prospero was offering a blank slate, a chance to build a world of pure, unwavering order from the ashes. And yet… the method was one of darkness. The alliance was with chaos. And the image of Snowy’s trusting, innocent face flashed in his mind. He had promised to be her teacher, to guide her power. And now, he was complicit in a plan to destroy the very foundation of her world.

And Nightshade… Nightshade, the master of shadows and dramatic flair, felt a cold dread that had nothing to do with fear for his own safety. He saw the genius of Prospero’s plan. It was elegant. It was precise. It was a masterpiece of villainous strategy, the kind of grand, world-altering performance he had always dreamed of starring in. But his role in this play felt… wrong. He was supposed to be the star, the artist, the one who controlled the stage. Here, he was just a supporting character in Prospero’s epic. A pawn. A beautifully costumed, witty, and utterly disposable pawn. And the thought of Snowy, of the reluctant, infuriating affection he felt for her, being caught in the fallout of this grand, terrible production… It made him feel sick. This wasn't the kind of show he had ever wanted to be a part of.

But they said nothing. They couldn’t. Their silence was their assent, their presence, their pledge. They were caught in the gears of a machine far grander and more terrible than their own little games. Prospero had cast them in his masterpiece, and the curtain was rising, whether they were ready or not.

Chapter Text

The return trip from the Obsidian Citadel was a journey through a shared, suffocating silence. The three of them—Coral, Luminous, and Nightshade—had not spoken a word since leaving Prospero’s throne room. They had crossed the shadow bridge, its swirling darkness a reflection of their own churning thoughts, and boarded The Sea Serpent, each retreating into a private hell. There was nothing to say. The plan had been laid out with the cold precision of a funeral rite. The end of the world had been scheduled. Their roles had been assigned.

When they stepped back on deck, the worried, questioning faces of the Saltrock Crew were met with a wall of grim finality. Algae took a step forward, his broad chest rising to ask the question on everyone’s mind, but the look in his captain’s eyes stopped him cold.

Snowy, however, was not so easily deterred. She had been waiting, a knot of pure anxiety coiled in her stomach. She ran to them the moment the gangplank was secure, her yellow eyes wide with a hundred desperate questions. “What happened? Is everything okay? Who is he? What did he want?”

She reached Nightshade first, her small paw almost touching his leg. Before she could make contact, he dissolved into the deck’s shadows, reappearing moments later by the railing, his back to her. The rejection was as silent and cold as the void. Undeterred, she turned to Luminous, her voice trembling slightly. “Luminous?” He didn’t look down. Instead, his light flared with a painful, blinding intensity, a wordless command to stay away. Finally, she looked to Coral, her last hope. The captain’s gaze slid past her, focusing on her first mate as if the small kittigon wasn't there at all.

“Algae,” Coral said, her voice a hollow rasp that scraped the air raw. “We’re holding position here until further notice. Maintain cloak. Set watches. Double them.” And with that, she strode toward her cabin, her peg leg making a stark, rhythmic *thump-click* on the deck that sounded like a death knell. She locked the door behind her without a backward glance.

The rejection, so absolute and delivered by all three, was a physical blow. Snowy stumbled back, her breath catching in her throat. Luminous had ascended to the highest point of the mainmast, a silent, flickering beacon of anguish. Nightshade, true to form, had merged with the deepest shadows of the ship's hold, becoming a phantom of pure, brooding misery. She was alone again. She had spent the rest of the day in a state of confused misery, cared for by a deeply concerned Pearl and a quietly sympathetic crew, who could offer gentle comforts but no answers.

The oppressive atmosphere hung over the ship for the rest of the day and through a long, tense night. The Sea Serpent floated like a ghost ship in the sickly purple sky of the Maw of Malice, a lone outpost of sanity in a sea of encroaching madness.

The next morning brought no relief. The bruised sky remained, a permanent, oppressive ceiling. A tense, miserable quiet had settled over The Sea Serpent. The crew went about their duties with a hushed efficiency, their usual boisterous energy replaced by worried, sideways glances at the captain's locked cabin door, the silent figure on the mast, and the unnerving emptiness where Nightshade should have been.

The galley, usually a warm, chaotic hub of noise and savory smells, was as quiet as a tomb. Stretch was polishing the same spot on a copper pot for the tenth time, his tentacles moving with a grim, methodical rhythm. Snowy sat at the small table, staring into a mug of warm cider, watching the steam curl and dissipate like her own hopes. Her mentors had built her up, shown her a world of magic and purpose, told her she was special, powerful even. And then, in the face of a true threat, they had pushed her away as if she were nothing more than a liability, a child to be sheltered. The sting of their rejection was sharper than any of the shadow-blades Nightshade had ever thrown at her, reopening a wound she thought had long since healed—the old, aching loneliness of the orphanage.

Barrel’s gruff announcement cut through the silence like a ship’s horn, making Snowy jump. “Deck activity, Captain’s orders. Everyone topside.” His voice, usually laced with a greedy impatience, was tight with alarm. “Looks like we have visitors.”

The squid’s polishing ceased. He and Snowy exchanged a look of shared dread. Visitors? Here? In this dead and dying corner of the sky? It could only mean one thing: Prospero was not done with them.

The crew assembled on the main deck, the tension snapping back to the high-strung pitch of the day before. Snowy followed them, her small heart hammering a nervous rhythm against her ribs. The captain’s cabin door was open. Coral stood by the gangplank, which was still extended to the citadel docks. Her face was a pale, exhausted mask, but the deep lines of despair had been replaced by something harder: defiance. Her eyes were sharp, her posture radiating a captain’s unyielding authority. Luminous had descended from the mast, his light no longer flickering with anguish but burning a cold, defensive white. And Nightshade… Nightshade materialized from the shadows beside the railing, his usual relaxed grace replaced by a coiled, dangerous stillness, his hand resting near the daggers at his belt.

Two figures were walking down the dark wooden docks toward the ship, their approach announced by two starkly different sounds. The first was a rhythmic *thump… drag*, the sound of immense weight followed by a scraping protest from the aged wood. The other was the near-silent padding of a predator.

One was a hulking behemoth, his body a mountain of dark grey muscle wrapped in rough leather and fur. His head, a jagged, unmistakable cluster of green crystal, caught the sickly purple light and fractured it into a hundred dead slivers. Crystal-Quake. He moved with a heavy, clumsy gait, his single cyclopean eye fixed on the ship not with malice, but with a look of simple, straightforward purpose. He was a battering ram waiting for a wall.

The other figure was his polar opposite. Sleek, arrogant, and radiating a contempt so powerful it was practically a heat shimmer. Storm Clouds. The black-furred sphinx moved with a liquid, predatory grace, his immaculately groomed goatee a sharp, mocking point beneath a permanent sneer. His sharp yellow eyes scanned the ship and its occupants as if they were insects to be studied before being squashed.

“Well, well, well,” Storm Clouds’ voice sneered as they reached the bottom of the gangplank, the sound as pleasant as electricity crackling down a spine. “The beacon, the ghost, and the broken toy captain. The holy trinity of disappointment, all assembled for my review.” His malicious gaze swept over the three of them, savoring their tense defiance.

He looked up at Luminous, a cruel, knowing smile twisting his lips. “How does it feel, trapped under a sky with no sun, pretty boy? So much… *shadow*. I can see it from here, smudging your precious finish.” Luminous didn’t grace him with a response, but the light he emitted hardened, casting sharp, angry-edged shadows that pulsed once with contained rage.

Storm Clouds’ eyes then slid to Nightshade, his voice dropping to a condescending purr. “And the artist. Still playing with your little shadow puppets? Prospero commands the abyss. You just borrow its curtains to hide behind. Tell me, did you find his performance… derivative? Or were you just upset you weren't the star?” Nightshade’s claws flexed, extending a silent, deadly inch from his bracers before retracting. His face was a mask of cold fury, a stillness more terrifying than any outburst.

But Storm Clouds saved his most venomous disdain for the captain. He sauntered a few steps up the gangplank, his movements deliberately slow and mocking, his gaze raking over Coral with theatrical contempt. “And then there’s the *capitana*. Playing with the big boys now, are we? Or are you just Prospero’s glorified, one-legged delivery girl today?” He let out a low, cruel chuckle. “That's a nice little trinket you have there,” he added, flicking his gaze down to her peg leg. “A constant reminder of what happens when you fail to protect what's yours.”

Coral’s hand shot to the hilt of her cutlass. The urge to draw it and wipe the smug sneer off the sphinx’s face was a white-hot scream in her skull, a fire she had to actively fight to contain. Her vision tunneled. “What do you want, Storm Clouds?” she bit out, her voice dangerously low.

“Lord Prospero merely sent us to ensure you understood your… assignments,” Storm Clouds said, inspecting his claws with an air of profound boredom. “He felt your departure yesterday was a bit… abrupt. He worries you lack the proper motivation.” As he spoke, his gaze drifted pointedly over the assembled pirates, and a low, collective growl rippled through them. Clam’s jaw set like she was trying to bite through steel, and she took a half-step forward. Algae placed a calming hand on her shoulder, but his own face was a grim mask of fury.

The threat, vile and perfectly aimed, hung in the air. Coral’s face went white with rage. Her hand, which had been resting on her cutlass, now gripped it so tightly her knuckles were bloodless. “You tell Prospero,” she hissed, her voice shaking with a fury so profound it was almost silent, “that my crew is not part of his bargain. I am aware of my obligations.”

“Excellent. Clarity is so important,” Storm Clouds purred, clearly enjoying the wave of pure hatred directed at him. He glided onto the deck, Crystal-Quake following with a ground-shaking thud. His leisurely stroll continued, his gaze cataloging every detail with a predator’s idle curiosity. He passed Barrel, whose eight arms seemed to tense simultaneously, looking ready to constrict. He glided past a simmering Clam and a stoic Shimmer. His eyes flickered over the assembled pirates, a connoisseur tasting a fine wine of fear and anger. He was demonstrating their powerlessness, showing them he could walk among them with impunity.

And then he saw Snowy.

The sphinx stopped dead in his tracks. His sneering, leisurely assessment came to an abrupt halt, his body freezing mid-stride. His yellow eyes, which had been flickering with idle malice, now narrowed into sharp, focused points of golden light. He had found something unexpected. Something utterly out of place. Something interesting.

Snowy stood half-hidden behind Pearl’s comforting bulk, her small frame tense with a mixture of fear and protective anger for her friends. The insults thrown at them were ugly and unfair, and the anger she felt on their behalf was a small, hot coal in her chest. She met his gaze, and for a second, her innate, unshakable instinct to see the best in others overrode everything else. This creature was horrible, arrogant, and cruel, yes, but he was also… just a person. Maybe he didn't know any better. It was the kind of naive, hopelessly optimistic logic that had governed her entire life. It had gotten her hurt more times than she could count, but it was as much a part of her as her own blue fur.

Taking a deep breath, she took a small, hesitant step out from behind Pearl. The narwhal made a soft, worried noise of protest, but Snowy didn’t hear it.

“Um… hello,” she said, her voice small but clear, a tiny chime in the oppressive silence. “I’m Snowy. It’s… nice to meet you?”

Storm Clouds stared at her. For a full, suspended second, nothing happened. His head tilted slightly, a look of profound, almost comical disbelief smoothing the sneer from his sleek, grey face. The sheer, unadulterated innocence of the greeting, offered here, in this cesspit of gloom and villainy, seemed to short-circuit his brain. He looked from Snowy's earnest, freckled face to the three grim figures of her mentors, and then back again.

Then, the disbelief broke, and a slow, ugly smirk spread across his lips. It was a look of pure, dawning delight, the expression of a predator who has just discovered a new, fascinating species of prey. He let out a low, hissing chuckle that scraped on the ears.

“Oh, you have *got* to be joking,” he purred, his voice dripping with condescending amusement. He completely ignored Snowy, his words aimed like poisoned darts at Coral, Nightshade, and Luminous. “A pet. You actually brought a tiny, fluffy, talking *pet* with you to the Maw of Malice.”

He took a slow, deliberate step toward Snowy, who flinched but bravely held her ground. He circled her like a shark, his gaze analytical and cruel. “I must say, I am… disappointed. I always thought you three, for all your respective flaws—fanaticism, melodrama, and a crippling inferiority complex—” he gestured to each in turn, “—had a certain professional edge. A commitment to the craft.” He shook his head in mock sadness. “But this? Letting a stray tag along?” His yellow eyes flashed with venom as he stopped directly in front of Snowy, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him. “It’s sloppy. It’s sentimental.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial, vicious whisper. “It’s *soft*.”

The word hung in the air, the ultimate insult in their world, a synonym for weakness and death. Nightshade’s form seemed to flicker, the shadows at his feet writhing as if alive. Coral’s hand was no longer on her cutlass; it was gripping it, her knuckles bone-white.

“She is not a part of this,” Luminous stated. The words were not spoken so much as emitted, a low, dangerous growl of fused light and sound. He had taken a half-step forward, his radiant body subtly positioned between Storm Clouds and Snowy, a silent, unyielding shield. “Your business is with us. Leave her out of it.”

“Oh, I think she’s very much a part of this,” Storm Clouds purred, his grin widening at Luminous’s protective stance. It was a confirmation, a validation of the weakness he had scented. He took a languid step to the side, maintaining a clear line of sight to Snowy. “She is a symptom. A fluffy, blue-and-cream representation of the rot that’s set in among our ranks. You’ve lost your edge, all of you.” His eyes glinted, a cruel, spontaneous idea taking root in his malicious mind. “You say she isn’t part of this? Let’s put that theory to the test. Let's apply a little… *pressure*… and see what cracks.”

He moved with a speed that was simply impossible. It defied the laws of physics, a brutal negation of space and time. One moment he was ten feet away, a sneering, arrogant statue. The next, his physical form dissolved, not into a blur, but into a searing, crackling line of static electricity that shot across the deck.

The air next to Snowy’s head *exploded*.

*CRACK-BOOM!*

A bolt of raw, brilliant white lightning, summoned from the sickly purple sky in the blink of an eye, struck the deck planks with the force of a cannonball. The world became a flash of searing white and a deafening roar. Splinters of wood, superheated and blackened, burst outwards like shrapnel. The air filled instantly with the suffocating, chemical tang of ozone and the acrid smoke of burnt wood. A gaping, cauterized wound was left in the deck, inches from where Snowy’s paw had been, its edges still glowing a malevolent orange.

Snowy had reacted on pure, pre-verbal instinct. In the microsecond before the strike, she had felt the static charge in the air, a violent prickling on her fur, an invisible hand pressing down on her. Her body moved before her brain could register the danger, a primal, terrified lunge backward. She landed in a heap against Barrel's coiled tentacles, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs, her breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps. Her ears were ringing with a high-pitched whine, and the heat from the blast had singed the dark blue tuft on her tail. It had been a warning shot, yes, but one delivered with enough power to obliterate. He hadn't tried to miss by much.

A collective cry of shock and rage went through the crew. Clam didn't just draw her gully knife; she let out a furious roar and took a step forward, only held back by Algae's powerful arm. Striker let out an involuntary, high-pitched snarl of anger. The ship, which had been simmering with tension, had flash-boiled into open hostility.

Storm Clouds didn't even glance at the damage he’d caused. His malevolent yellow eyes were fixed on Snowy’s trembling form, and he was laughing. It was a low, ugly, rumbling sound of pure, unadulterated enjoyment.

“Well, look at that!” he chuckled, his voice dripping with condescending delight. “The little pet has reflexes. How charming.” He savored the terror in her eyes, the protective fury radiating from the crew, the incandescent rage building in her mentors. This was better than any simple taunt. This was a direct, brutal confirmation of his power and their weakness.

The shadows on the deck didn't just coalesce; they *snapped* into a solid form. Nightshade materialized between Storm Clouds and Snowy so fast he seemed to have teleported. There was no theatricality now, no dramatic pose. His body was a coiled spring of pure, murderous rage. His light-blue eyes, usually cool and calculating, were blazing like chips of ice ignited by a feral, protective fire that Snowy had never seen. Daggers, darker and sharper than she had ever seen him summon, bled from his knuckles, solidifying from raw, hungry darkness.

“You will not touch her again,” Nightshade hissed, his voice a low, guttural growl that scraped from his throat, utterly devoid of his usual silken baritone.

Storm Clouds just smirked, unfazed and visibly thrilled by the reaction. “Oh? Did I strike a nerve, ‘artist’?” He mockingly put a paw to his chest. “Forgive me. I didn’t realize the stray was so important to you. Does she fetch your stolen jewels for you? Or does she just keep your lonely, empty mansion warm at night?”

The insult, personal and deeply cruel, was the final spark in the powder keg. The air on the deck, already thick with tension, seemed to solidify.

“Get off my ship.”

Coral’s voice was now unnaturally calm. It was a dead, cold calm that was far more terrifying than her earlier fury. The sound of her cutlass being drawn from its scabbard was a sharp, lethal *shing* that cut through the silence. She held the blade not in a flashy duelist’s stance, but with the steady, practiced grip of an executioner. Its polished steel gleamed dully in the gloom.

“Get off my ship, Storm Clouds. Now,” she repeated, her dark scarlet eyes promising a slow and painful demise. “Or so help me, I will tear you apart, piece by piece, and feed you to the sky-sharks myself. I hear they like the taste of burnt meat.”

Storm Clouds let out an exaggerated sigh, a performance for an audience of one: himself. He was thoroughly enjoying the chaos he was orchestrating. “Such hostility. I’m only having a bit of fun with the help.” He looked past Nightshade’s furious form, his yellow eyes locking back onto Snowy, who was still trying to process the near-death experience. “Although… I must admit, I’m curious. That was an impressive little dodge. What other tricks can the pet do?”

That was it. The mask of the gentleman thief, the cool and collected artist, didn't just crack—it shattered into a thousand pieces. The shadows at Nightshade’s feet, which were always just passive extensions of his presence, now coiled around his legs like hungry, agitated vipers.

He didn't shout, he didn't declare his attack. He just moved.

With a snarl that was more beast than Mabu, he lunged, a blur of shadow and rage, his dark daggers aimed straight for Storm Clouds’ throat.

It was an attack born of pure, protective instinct, and it was useless. The sphinx didn't so much dodge as he did… flow. He sidestepped the furious assault with contemptuous ease, a blur of motion so fast that Nightshade’s daggers met only the suddenly cold air where his neck had been.

“Too slow,” Storm Clouds whispered, his voice a mocking caress of air by Nightshade's ear. And then he was gone. He dissolved into a bolt of living lightning, zipping between the dumbfounded villains and reappearing behind them near the helm.

“Predictable,” he mocked, his form solidifying back into the sneering sphinx. He gestured dismissively at them. “You still rely on direct assaults. On aiming at where your opponent *is*. How quaint. I have evolved beyond such… pedestrian tactics. You fight *things*. I am a concept.”

Before Luminous or Nightshade could turn, Storm Clouds became lightning again. The sound was a deafening *CRACK* as he ricocheted off the mainmast, using it as a springboard. He slammed into Luminous from the side. The impact sounded like a star cracking. The being of pure light was thrown across the deck like a discarded toy, his radiant form flickering violently as he crashed through a stack of supply crates, which exploded into a shower of splintered wood.

“Luminous!” Snowy cried out, scrambling to her paws, her fear momentarily eclipsed by horror.

Nightshade spun, his face a mask of cold, calculating fury, but Storm Clouds was already on the move. He zipped past the enraged thief, the displacement of air from his passage a physical blow. A single, lightning-charged claw raked across Nightshade’s back. It wasn't just a cut; it was a brand. The scent of ozone and burnt fur filled the air, and Nightshade roared in pain and surprise, his muscles seizing from the electric shock as he stumbled to one knee.

The fight was a mockery. A high-speed execution. The Saltrock Crew could only watch in horrified paralysis. They were seasoned brawlers, veterans of a hundred skirmishes, but they were used to tangible opponents—to cannonballs and sword fights. How could they fight a living thunderbolt?

Storm Clouds stood over his two downed opponents, his chest puffed out with arrogant satisfaction. He turned his malevolent yellow eyes back on Nightshade, who was struggling to rise, his movements stiff with pain. A grin of true, sadistic cruelty spread across the sphinx's face as he began to gather energy for the final blow. The air around him became a vortex of crackling, yellow power, static making the fur on everyone’s arms stand on end. He was preparing not just to defeat Nightshade, but to annihilate him.

Luminous was down. Nightshade was injured. The crew was helpless. Coral was gripping her cutlass, her face a mask of desperate fury, but she knew with a sickening certainty that she wouldn't be fast enough.

Snowy watched, her world narrowing to that single, terrible scene: the smirking, arrogant monster standing over her fallen teachers. The absolute, suffocating certainty of what was about to happen pressed down on her, a physical weight. Her fear was a living thing, a cold, frantic creature clawing at the inside of her chest. But something else was stirring in the depths of that terror, something buried beneath the hurt of their rejection and the confusion of the last two days. It was a white-hot, roaring fire.

It was rage.

He had hurt them. He had hurt *her* mentors. Her friends. The only people in the whole of Skylands who had not just tolerated her, but had *seen* her, who had believed in her, who had given her a chance when no one else would. He had come onto their ship, insulted them, threatened their family—*her* family—and now he was going to destroy them right in front of her.

Her mind, usually a chaotic whirlwind of daydreams and insecurities, went completely, blessedly silent. There were no more stories of heroic deeds. There was no more lonely orphan cub yearning for acceptance. The years of being called a freak, of being ostracized, of feeling utterly helpless, converged with the last few months of being told she was powerful, of being pushed to her limits, of being taught to focus. It all coalesced into a single, crystalline point of absolute certainty.

*No.*

The internal cold she had always struggled to find, the chill she had to concentrate to summon for the simplest trick, was no longer a quiet center she had to seek. It was a blizzard. It was an arctic, unstoppable glacier of pure, protective fury, rising from the depths of her soul. It was an instinct more primal and powerful than anything she had ever felt, a territorial imperative that screamed a single, deafening command: *protect your own*.

She didn't think about her breath. She didn't think about her stance. She didn't think about a target. Her entire being *was* the focus. Her entire world *was* the target.

Storm Clouds, still gathering his power, a cruel, triumphant sneer plastered on his face as he savored the moment, heard a low growl. Annoyed by the interruption to his grand finale, he glanced over at the small, trembling Kittigon. He was expecting to see tears. He was expecting to see pathetic, terrified pleading.

He saw two yellow eyes, no longer wide with fear, but narrowed into slits of pure, blazing arctic fury. And in their depths, a terrifying, blue-white light was beginning to glow.

He never got the chance to react.

Snowy opened her mouth and unleashed her soul.

It wasn't a puff of frost. It wasn't a flurry of snowflakes. It was a solid, roaring torrent of pure, elemental ice. The blast was the size of a cannonball, a churning vortex of jagged ice shards and sub-zero energy that erupted from her with a sound like a glacier calving off into a frozen sea. The air in its path flash-froze, vapor crystallizing into glittering dust. The deck planks beneath it were instantly coated in a thick, crystalline rime that spread outwards with spiderwebbing speed.

The blast was impossibly fast, impossibly powerful, impossibly *focused*.

Storm Clouds' sneer of triumph evaporated into a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. His own electrical energy, which he was gathering for the killing blow, was snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane as the wave of absolute zero hit him. The world's fastest villain had no time to become lightning. He had no time to dodge.

He only had time to throw up his front legs in a pathetic, instinctive attempt to shield himself before the blast hit him dead center.

*KRUMP-FOOM!*

The impact was cataclysmic. Storm Clouds was lifted off his feet and hurled backwards across the deck like he’d been hit by a wrecking ball. He slammed into the mainmast with a sickening *CRACK* of splintering wood that echoed across the ship. He was pinned there for a split second by the sheer, relentless force of the ice torrent, his body completely and instantly encased in a jagged, rapidly expanding cocoon of ice.

The blast continued for a full three seconds—a sustained roar of elemental fury—before it finally, abruptly, cut off as if a switch had been flipped.

Silence descended, thick and absolute.

The only sound was the cold wind whistling through the rigging and the faint, tinkling music of ice crystals forming on the ropes and rails.

Storm Clouds was slumped at the base of the mast, which was now sheathed in a thick, groaning column of ice ten feet high. His sleek black fur was matted and frozen stiff, glittering with frost. His arrogant sneer was gone, replaced by a slack-jawed expression of pain and utter disbelief. He was trembling violently, not from the cold, but from the raw kinetic shock of the impact.

Every single person on the deck was frozen in place, staring. The Saltrock Crew looked at the small Kittigon with a newfound, profound sense of awe. Coral’s eyes were wide with shock, her cutlass hanging limply in her hand, a dawning, fierce pride eclipsing her anger. Luminous and Nightshade, both pushing themselves painfully to their feet, stared at Snowy as if they were seeing her for the first time. The raw, untamed power they had been trying to coax and bully out of her for months had just been unleashed, not by their teaching, but by her own fierce, protective heart. And it was more potent, more terrifyingly beautiful, than they had ever imagined.

Storm Clouds groaned, a low, pathetic sound that was swallowed by the sudden silence. He tried to push himself up, but his limbs were shaking too badly to obey. He looked at Snowy, and for the first time, his yellow eyes held not arrogance or contempt, but a flicker of genuine, undiluted fear.

“You…” he rasped, his voice a hoarse, broken whisper. He staggered to his feet, a puff of frosty air escaping his lips. “You will… regret that.”

With a final, hate-filled glare, he did the only thing he could. He dissolved into a weak, sputtering bolt of lightning—a far cry from his earlier effortless transformations—and zipped unsteadily back towards the citadel, a retreating blur of humiliated glory.

Crystal-Quake, who had been watching the entire exchange with a horrified, slack-jawed expression, his one green eye wide as a dinner plate, finally seemed to snap out of his stupor. He looked from the retreating electrical fizzle of his partner, to the hole in the deck, to the ice-encased mast, and then to the small, panting Kittigon who was now trembling with the aftershock of her own power.

“Uh… Right,” he rumbled, deciding with dawning clarity that he was profoundly and utterly out of his league. “We’ll… just be going now.” He gave a clumsy, apologetic wave to Captain Coral, turned, and lumbered over the side of the ship, landing on the dock with a ground-shaking thud. He then began to walk, then jog, then run back towards the citadel, leaving The Sea Serpent in a state of stunned and complete silence.