Ch. 2: The Kaos Trap

Echo screamed. Literally. Her Siren Screech was a rather disconcertingly distracting attack. "Ow, my ears!" Smoke Scream shouted, relinquishing the controls in favour of clutching his ears closed in a pathetic attempt to repel Echo's deafening sonic disruption.

And while Smoke Scream was stunned from the seahorse dragon'a attack, Wallop threw both of his hammers into mid-air, where, once again, they improbably grew larger while suspended in mid-air, before crashing down on Smoke Scream's head, one at a time. "Ow, my head!" Smoke Scream shouted in agony as Echo performed an exuberant victory dance. Wallop shook his head at his younger partner's antics as Smoke Scream recovered and rapidly turned to face his Earth-element assailant.

"Try this on for size!" Smoke Scream smirked, as the large ring of spotlights around the cockpit began to rotate and barrels began firing out of the furnace in every direction. "We need to take out that furnace!" Wallop shouted. "On it!" Echo replied, climbing up the supports of one of the platforms that was above them.

"What in the name of Eon's beard are you doing?!" Wallop asked incredulously. "He can't hit what's above him, can he?" Echo rhetorically questioned.

Wallop blinked, then smiled. "We'll make a Skylander of you yet, girlie!"

Smoke Scream looked up at Echo. "Planning to jump down on me, are you? We'll see about that," he growled, before stomping his way out of Echo's range. "Who said anything about that?" Echo asked innocently, before blowing a large bubble that floated in midair. Carefully, Echo jumped on top of it, and was relieved to find that it supported her weight.

Smoke Scream and Wallop duked it out, while Echo stealthily made her bubbly way above them. "Hey, where's your little friend? Did she get scared and run off?" he taunted.

Echo then announced herself. "Close. Ya going down!" she shouted, catapulting herself off her bubble and onto Smoke Scream's head.

The second she landed, right behind Smoke Scream, she yanked on his ears with her front paws, before clapping her paws to the ground and causing a Sonic Slam.

In an instant, both Smoke Scream and his mech vanished in a flash of red light. Echo fell to the floor. "Oof!" she gasped as she landed on the cold metal of the platform.

Wallop triumphantly picked up a small red crystal. "Hey! Let me out of here! I promise I'll only burn you a little!" Smoke Scream's voice echoed from inside the trap. Echo folded her forepaws. "Really?" she questioned, skeptical. "Hey, I'm working with what I got," Smoke Scream defended himself from within the trap, and Echo could just imagine him petulantly folding his arms within the trap.

Wallop sighed and tucked him away in a pocket, before sealing it shut, rendering the troll's cries of vehement protest inaudible. "Shall we proceed?" he asked rhetorically, already making his way towards the platforms that lead deeper into the machine, guarded by a variety of energy pulsors. Echo shrugged and followed her mentor.

Making their way up a series of platforms to reach the next door that lead into the Traptanium-powered machine's gizzards proved remarkably easy, however Wallop and Echo were surprised to find that there was actually no door. "Okay. Now what?" Wallop pondered, searching for a way to continue.

"I wonder what this button does?" Echo pondered, reaching out to hit a large red button mounted on a pole near the edge of the small circular platform. "Echo, no!" Wallop shouted, but the overcurious dragonoid had already pushed it.

A large pipe appeared above them and sucked them both into it with the force of a million vaccum cleaners.

X

"That little delay with the pipe was odd," Jack commented. Lucy shrugged. "It's not important,"

"Skystones?" Jack questioned. "Naah, waste of time," Lucy decided, passing Glumshanks. Jack shrugged and Wallop followed Echo as she briskly moved past Glumshanks without even a second glance.

X

"You think we should have captured Glumshanks or something?" Wallop asked Echo. She shrugged, not even looking back at the troll as they continued to negotiate the intricate miasma of metal that was the inside of Kaos' superweapon. "It's Glumshanks. He's like a little lost puppy without Kaos' guidance," she shrugged the suggestion off.

After a couple of minutes of climbing and dodging random electric pieces of metal that swung around in circles and delivered a surprisingly mild electric shock by Kaos' standards to all who were misfortunate enough to touch one, they emerged back to the outside of Kaos' machine. Wandering down a platform and pulling a few levers to arrange a ridiculously simple crystal puzzle, they were confronted with a duo of large gears with platforms to take them higher up the machine. "Kaos is really losing his edge, isn't he?" Echo commented out loud. "I mean, other than Smoke Scream, and a few Thornpies, Grinnades and Rocket Ravens, we've done nothing but solve mediocre puzzles and make small talk with loudspeakers," she continued. "You forgot walking way more than should be necessary," Wallop added. "I get the," he imitated Kaos' voice, "Making people suffer by making sure that they need to do wa-ha-ha-he-hay more walking than they really should have to is totally evil!" here he returned to his normal voice, "but seriously, would it kill the guy to install a freaking elevator around this thing?"

"Finally. You get me!" Echo smirked, leaping on a large platform and being whisked away through the machinery. "Hey! Wait up!" Wallop called after her, jumping on the next chunk of corrugated iron to pass and following after her.

"Whee, can't catch me!" Echo continued to negotiate a series of platforms, pulleys and the occasional random hot-air balloon/platform as she ascended the machine's external workings. Wallop frantically rushed after her. "Wait! It's dangerous! This is Kaos himself we're talking about! A rookie like yourself can't take him on alone!"

Echo paused at the top of the machinery. In front of her was an elevator that would take her to a door that lead to Kaos. She could feel it in her gut.

"Echo! Wait!" Wallop shouted as he caught up with her, panting. "This lift will take us to Kaos," she stated to her mentor. "How do you know that it will?" Wallop questioned, skeptical. "How do you know it won't?" Echo asked. Wallop shrugged. "Fair point,"

Simultaneously, they stepped on the platform, and it raised itself up to the highest level of the machine.

X

Wallop bashed the door at the top of the elevator down to reveal - a teleport pad. "Huh?" he asked, confused. "I think we use this thing, right?" Echo questioned, frowning. "Well, doesn't look like there's anywhere else to go," Wallop shrugged, and added, "On three. One -"

Echo jumped on the pad. "Hey, wait!" Wallop shouted, following her into the abyss of intangibility that teleport pads crossed between.

X

Echo landed and smirked. "Hey, where's Wallop?" she questioned, looking around. She was on a large, circular stone platform that almost seemed to be inside a Portal of Power. Random, assorted shards of multicoloured - but dominantly a disturbingly sickly mixture of blue and black - Traptanium protruded at all angles from the edges. A single massive overhang of dark-coloured crystal protruded above the north-east (relatively speaking) eighth of the circular battle arena.

"Oh no, it's the Skylanders!" Kaos mock gasped, before holding out his hands and bowing down his head, conceding, "Okay, I give up," before bursting into maniacal laughter.

Wallop appeared next to Echo. "You were supposed to wait for three," he growled at the seahorse dragon with his customary frown. "But you always tell me that if you ever say we do something on three, we do it on one instead to surprise the enemy?" Echo questioned, matching his expression on her webbed muzzle.

"Ha ha ha, I was only joking there, Skylosers!" Kaos added, smirking, before registering the argument going on between Trap Master and Corelander. "Hey! Are you even listening?"

In perfectly exact synchronisation, they turned and shouted; "No!" Before resuming their argument on the meaning of the phrase 'On three,'.

"Fine!" Kaos fumed. "I'll make you listen!"

He had successfully captured Echo's attention. "This should be good," she smirked. Wallop frowned. "He's planning something. And I don't think we wanna know what," he frowned.

Sure enough, the Traptanium crystals around the edges of the battlefield - for what else could it be? - crackled with lightning as Kaos, laughing triumphantly, extended his cute little arms into the air and let the lightning arc towards them and through him as he rose into the air. Echo watched, almost bored, as his clothes grew larger, as did his arms and head, but instead of something similar to the disgustingly gross and uncared for feet Echo had heard about from the Swaplanders the time that Kaos had super-evilised himself inside the Cloudbreak Volcano, a single, long shard of crystalline blue Traptanium slid out of the bottom of his cloak, now shredded at the edges for no apparent reason, and clicked into place. "Oh boy," Wallop commented, fear evident in his face as he looked up at the new and not-very-improved Kaos.

Kaos maniacally laughed in a voice much deeper than before. "BEHOOOOLD!" he shouted. "Er, what do we behold?" Echo questioned. Kaos glared at her. "What do you think you should be beholding?"

Kaos instantly formed a massive ring of black energy around himself, about two metres in diameter and held his arms out with his head raised to, er, what seemed to be upwards. You could never really tell with these portal vortex subdimensions. Left could be forwards, backwards could be upwards, there was no way to know, Wallop mused.

Echo charged forwards into the dark energy field - and gasped in shock as she was spat back out like a spitball. "Don't try gong into that thing," she advised Wallop. "It was horrible!" she added. "Why, what does it do?" Wallop asked. "Let's just say, I found out where Kaos' smelly, disgusting feet went," Echo gagged.

Kaos interrupted them again. "Behold, your DOOM at my hands! My aweaome, Traptanium-powered hands!" Having finished ranting, he released an omnidirectional shockwave of purple energy that was moving ridiculously slowly.

Wallop and Echo jumped over it with ease. "That the best you got, short stuff?" Echo taunted. Kaos snorted. "Fool! That was only the beginning!" He then screamed in pain as Wallop smashed him repeatedly with his twin crystal hammers, which, once again, were glowing with Traptanium energy.

After a minute of this, Kaos recovered and levitated upwards, out of the two Skylanders' reach, and laughed maniacally. "You think you can stop me? I will attack your Portal Master right at the source!"

"Who, Eon?" Wallop asked, frowning. But Kaos wasn't listening as, suddenly, various random household appliances appeared out of nowhere, floating in mid-air. Wallop poked an egg whisker and it floated away, spinning end over end. "I think your plan failed," Echo sarcastically told him, but as usual, Kaos had all the attention of a fan-loved TV game show host.

"What?" the Dark Portal Master asked, confused. "This doesn't look like a Portal Master. But no matter, because I, KAOS!, can even use this in my fight against you! Behold! Water Bullets! Earth Bullets!"

Translucent spheres with Water and Earth symbols in them swamped the battlefield, and Wallop and Echo were having a hard time dodging them all. But eventually there were simply too many energy orbs to dodge and Echo fell into the path of a Water bullet - which absorbed itself into her. "Hey," Echo frowned. "I feel, rejuvenated. Like there's some new energy charging through my veins,"

Wallop frowned and also touched a Water bullet. This one, however, exploded and blew him into the path of an Earth bullet - which absorbed into him in the same way. "Echo! Bullets of your matching element give you a power surge, but bullets that don't match hurt you! So stay away from bullets that aren't Water!"

Echo smirked. "Not gonna be a problem," and spun through a line of several Water bullets. "With this much energy, I feel like a whole new dragon!"

Kaos gasped. "What? You shouldn't be using my abilities against me like that! That's cheating, which is my job!" he growled.

Wallop didn't deign to respond, instead threw one of his hammers at the nearby vertical Traptanium crystal. It bounced off the Traptanium shard, crashed through a series of Earth bullets, gaining in size, power and velocity with every bullet, then hit another crystal and, soaring into the air, crashed into Kaos, knocking him to the ground as ever single bullet disappeared. "Not trying that again," Kaos groaned as he tried to raise himself, only to be interrupted by both Skylanders piling into him, Wallop having somehow regained his hammer.

"ENOUGH!" Kaos shouted, knocking both of his assailants away and raising himself into the air, where lightning crackled ajd charged him up once again. Shards of Traptanium broke off the crystals around the battlefield and flew towards him, forming into twin crystalline swords that he caught, threateningly levelling them at his opponents. "Behold, my new power! he shouted, flying to the edge of the battlefield, before charging across it, smashing the blades of his swords into the ground as he went. Wallop was nowhere near his line of fire, but Echo barely avoided a rather fatal dismemberment.

Suddenly an energy shark slammed into her. "What?" Echo gasped, stunned. Kaos had gone to the edge of the battlefield and shouted, "DOOMSHARKS! ATTACK!"

A massive wave of blue energy sharks swept across the field of battle. So both Skylanders, being unable to fly, did the sensible thing and jumped onto the crystals of Traptanium around the edges, where they were above the waves of sharks.

Incredibly, Kaos didn't notice, or at least chose to ignore it in favour of unfounded gloating. "Hah! You cannot defeat me, Kao - WILL YOU SHUT UP!" Kaos shouted at Echo as he covered his ears, who was singing at the top of her voice. "Gaburincho! Meccha mucho! Areteyaru ze kyou mo! FIRE! Ikuze, Kyoryuger!"

Kaos screamed as Wallop laid into him with his hammers again with fresh enthusiasm. "That's not part of the song!" the seahse dragon took a breath to complain, before continuing. "Buttobasso! Yancha motto! Acchikocchi kamitsuite dare ni mo tomerarenai! Kiite migoto odoroke! Zyuden Sentai, VAMOLA! Kyoryuger!"

Kaos levitated out of Wallop's reach again. Echo promptly stopped singing, and Wallop rapidly moved over to her. "What was that?" he asked, genuinely curious. Echo suddenly got surprisingly defensive. "I'm an otaku, okay?"

Wallop shrugged. "I have no idea what that means, but okay,"

"SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU!" Kaos raged. "No thanks!" Echo retorted. "Fine! I'll make you listen!" Kaos shouted, and raised his hands once more, as lightning began to crackle again. "Oh, what now?" Wallop sighed, as Kaos electrocuted himself with Traptanium power again and great, black, feathery wings burst from his back. "Oh, so he has wings, but no feet. That makes a whole lot of sense," Echo sarcastically commented.

Suddenly a dozen swords appeared out of nowhere behind Kaos, and he gloated, "Behold! My ultimate attack!" The twelve swords, as well as the two he held in his hands, vanished into nothingness. "Where did those go?" Echo questioned. Wallop didn't respond, simply pointed upwards, where Echo could see all 14 swords poised to bisect them multiple ways. "Look out below," Kaos smirked as for the second time in as many hours, she narrowly avoided being bisected. Looking over, she saw that Wallop had avoided a similar fate by the crystal of his hammers.

Kaos paused underneath the massive crag of crystal they had noticed earlier, and repeated his earlier attack of generating a black force field around himself. "Wait for the shockwave, then rush in and attack," Wallop instructed. Echo nodded, then eyed the crystal crag above him.

The shockwave came and both flawlessly jumped over it. Wallop charged, but Echo hung back, seeing that the force field refused to come down. Meaning more was coming.

Sure enough, Wallop was totally unprepared for the second shockwave that rammed into him, knocking him off his feet. And the third threw him across the ring, leaving him dazed and semi-conscious against a Traptanium shard. Kaos leisurely advanced towards him at a snail's pace, taking his time and savouring the moment if his victory, completely and utterly oblivious to Echo's presence. Which was his fatal mistake.

With a single sonic screech, Echo shattered tje crystal at the base of the crag. Kaos turned to see what had interrupted him, and an anxious expression locked itself on his face as the massive piece of crystal crashed on top of him, breaking into several pieces around him and revealing Kaos - bruised, unconscious, and most importantly, completely reverted to normal. Echo waved the stench away feom her nose as Kaos, despite his unconscious state, made the biggest fart the seahorse dragon had ever heard. Green smog emitting from his body was rapidly sucked into the vortex around them, which was acting as a better air freshener than anything else Echo had ever seen.

She heard someone behind her. Wallop was bleeding from two gashes down his face, had several bruises covering his body, was cradling his left arm and had only one of his hammers slung over his back - looking back to where he had been thrown, Echo recognised several brown crystalline shards as all that remained of the other - and a grim smile plastered across his face. He placed a hand on Echo's back, and commented, "That was a bloody stupid thing to do, kid,"

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Echo retorted. Wallop shook his head. "Someday you'll understand. Either way, we'll talk about it later. For now," he grimly gestured to Kaos. "We have an evil lunatic to capture,"

X

Jack triumphantly pulled the black Kaos Trap out of the Traptanium Portal. "Wait until everyone at school sees this!" he smirked. "It's gonna be awesome," Lucy agreed.

X

Kaos sleepily roused himself from a ill-fitting slumber, to find himself on a pedestal inside a black crystalline prison. "What? Where am I? Is this . . . . . . Is this a Traptanium Cell? Impossible! How dare they put Kaos in a place like thi-is!? Hello? Can you even hear me?"

X

Wallop smiled. "A job well done, now," he looked around at the Portal subdimension. "How do we get out of here?"

A/N

A/N

So, since I can't think of any way to explain this story-wise, here's a quick rundown on what's going on with Wallop and Echo. Each of the 16 Trap Masters have been assigned to train one of the 16 new Core Skylanders in Trap Team. Sort of like the sixteen newbies are apprentice Skylanders, each being individually trained by one of the Trap Masters, and if the Trap Masters think their trainees are up to it, they are initiated as Skylanders. I thought it would be appropriate, with the entire Skylanders Academy thing in Trap Team. Some get along with their trainees. Some, as seen here, do not.

Also, since for some reason they no longer give the grunt villains that you can't trap at any point in the game introductions or even names, I have decided to make up my own; i.e. Thornpies, Rocket Ravens, etc, etc.

And if anyone's wondering about Echo's Japanese singing, I just feel like she's the sort of person who'd be a big fan of Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger. That may or may not come up later in a Chopper-related subplot. Anyway, time to end that! Shine bright! Yes, I got one! I got a catchphrase!