Love at First Boom

The wind was rushing past Flynn's face and he had his volcano hat tucked under his arm for fear of losing it. Tessa seemed to enjoy the wind rushing through her fur, but Flynn really preferred things with cockpits.

Tessa and Flynn were on Whiskers' back, flying through the far west of the Southern section of Cloudbreak. They had already been flying for about half an hour.

Tessa said that there was a rather nice cafe in a town inhabited by Dirt Sharks and Kangarats called Iron Jaw Gulch. Tessa said she had been there before, and they even had giant musical trampolines. To which Flynn had replied, "Well, how can I say no to giant musical trampolines? But do we have to take your bird? I mean, I'm sure it's a great mode of transportation for you, but I would really prefer something with propellers and a cockpit,"

Bringing us to the present moment. "You know what your problem is, Flynn? You spend so much time around machines, and technology, that you ignore your instincts. Besides, Whiskers' grandmother was a phoenix, and Whiskers is a smart bird. He'll do us fine,"

"I'll have you know that ignoring my instincts is the only reason I'm on this feathered -" At which point Whiskers turned his head and used his long neck to reach past Tessa and nuzzle Flynn with his beak. "Awwww, he likes me. Okay, I'll give this bird a try," Flynn finished, rubbing the top of Whiskers' head as they crossed the boundary between the South and East sections. The change was obvious as suddenly, greenery became amazingly sparse.

They flew for about another hour in peace. Until Flynn spotted something that was amazingly familiar moored near a ragtag place that looked like it was part town, part mine, and part junkyard.

"Hey! That's my ship!"

Sure enough, the Dread-Yacht was moored on the edge of the area. But it looked different. It's chipped, ragtag paint job had been repainted a glossy dark purple and on the crane deck, the crane had been removed and replaced with what looked to Flynn like a massive, purple laser pointer. "That was my favourite crane!" Flynn complained.

"You have a favourite crane?" Tessa had to ask.

"My favourite crane on my favourite ship in my favourite ocean. Boom!" Flynn replied, smiling.

"So, that's your ship down there?" Tessa asked, gesturing at the Dread-Yacht.

"She was stolen last week. And I want her back. Now let's go down there and tell the pirates who captured her to give her back, or feel the power of my awesomeness! Boom!"

Tessa discreetly landed Whiskers behind a pile of old train cars. It wasn't hard, they were all over the place. "I think that's two of the evil-thingy Skylanders! Zap and Jet-Vac!" Flynn whispered to Tessa. The two were peering out at a very curious sight. The two evilised Skylanders were talking to what looked like a big crab. It reminded Flynn of an alien from a cartoon Scott loved, called '10 Ben' or something like that. But that one had been orange. This one was grey.

"Be quiet! I think I can make out what they're saying!" Tessa whispered back.

"I've got a better idea," Flynn told her, pulling out a small, round device. "My Farspeaker," he told Tessa. Flynn attached the Farspeaker to a long metal pole and slowly and carefully slid it out until it was right near the conversation. Suddenly, everyone in Motleyville could hear the conversation.

". . . . no doubt that this 'eviliser' thing of yours looks impressive, and I can agree that you do bear a resemblance to the Skylanders Jet-Vac and Zap, and that ship does bear a resemblance to the Skylanders' Dread-Yacht, but it's still possible that this is some kind of hoax. I want to see a being get evilised before I believe this story of yours and throw my lot in with your group. Again," the big crab said, unaware that he could be heard from anywhere in Motleyville, due to the Farspeaker's magical properties.

"That's Baron Von Shellshock! The Skylanders kicked him out of Cloudbreak a hundred years ago, after he tried to take over the West section of Cloudbreak with a giant robot crab! What's he doing back here?" Tessa whispered to Flynn.

"I don't know. Look, here's the plan. You and Whiskers cause a distraction, fly into the sky and call them names or something, just get their attention away from the ship. Then I'll sneak behind their backs and recapture the Dread-Yacht. Once I'm in in control of her again, I'll swing round and you and your bird can land on the deck, then you get down to the turret mounted on the lower deck, shoot at Zap and Jet-Vac until they're de-evilised, then we pick them up, capture Baron Von Shellshock and get back to our trip to this cafe in Iron Jaw Gulch. Got it?"

Tessa nodded. "You're so brave, Flynn. Good luck!"

The first stage of the plan worked perfectly. Tessa and Whiskers took off into the air, and with a cry of "Baron Von Shellshock? More like Baron Von Shellstopped! And are you two Skylanders, or Sky-losers?"

Zap growled like an animal. Evilisation had a side-effect of devolving the subject's mind, unless the mind was very advanced, or the evilisation was very specialised. Zap had been reverted to the days of evolution when dragons were little more than wild beasts. However, Jet-Vac still had his sentiency about him. "Ach, does that gal hava death-wish or summat? Ya say ye wanted a demonstration, Shellshock. I'd be happy to give you one with that lass up there. SPROCKET! HIT THAT BIRD WITH THE EVILISER, AND GET IT TO BRING THAT LASSIE DOWN HERE! Then, we'll show you the true power of the Eviliser, ha ha ha,"

Flynn had forgotten to consider that there might be others aboard the ship, and, hearing that and fearing someone else might be coming from the ship, he dived off the gangplank and through a door set into the hull that had been the only way into the galley, before the techies had gotten to it and built a corridor on the inside of the ship leading from the gun deck to the galley. He crashed into a pile of pots, and rubbed his head before standing up again.

Clearly, these evilised Skylanders aren't big on cleaning, the pilot thought to himself as he surveyed the state of filth the kitchen was in.

But mum always said not to play with knifes, because someone could get hurt, Flynn reminisced as he selected the largest kitchen knife he could find from the pile, rubbed the worst of the filth off, and took a moment to sharpen. I guess it's time to find out if she was right or not.

The Mabu stepped out into the corridor and made his way to the gun deck.

Flynn cautiously peeked out from under the massive hatch that lead to the gun deck. Satisfied that everyone that he could see was occupied by Tessa and Whiskers, he quietly snuck out through the hatch and up towards the cockpit. Of course, he didn't think about the fact that the eviliser was mounted at the far end of the ship and probably had it's own set of controls. The pilot just assumed it would be controlled from the cockpit, like everything else.

Flynn punched in the start-up sequence, and the ship's engines started up, lifting the purple, up-side-down-dome-shaped ship into the air. This, of course, got the attention of Shellshock and the two evil Skylanders that were on the ground.

Flynn slammed his foot down on the accelerator and wrenched the steering wheel around, careening the ship towards Tessa. The giant laser gun, which had been aimed at Tessa and Whiskers, fired it's evil pulse off into space.

Flynn flipped the ship up-side-down in a massive barrel roll, dropping evil Sprocket off the deck, then brought it the right way up again in time for Tessa to land Whiskers on the main deck. "The gun deck is just through that big, black hatch. It's normally red, they repainted her," Flynn called out to her, and after tethering Whiskers to a safety rail, Tessa yanked the hatch open and dived through it, completely disregarding the ladder.

Tessa climbed into the turret, took a moment to work out the controls, and aimed it's twin cannons at the three below her.

She opened fire.

Evil Jet-Vac fell to the ground, the Darkness trickling out of him in a pile of smoke that evaporated in a matter of seconds. Shellshock dived out of the way to a position inside an abandoned train carriage. Evil Zap, however, jumped around like a dog, expertly dodging every single round.

Then Flynn spotted her predicament and took the rather unorthodox response of pulling the ship into a dive and flattening the water dragon.

The ship bounced off the ground, leaving a de-evilised Zap squashed rather cartoonishly into the ground, skimmed a couple of times, demolished a massive stack of train carts and settled into the ground.

Where it cracked in two across the middle.

Whiskers had the good fortune to be tethered to the back half of the ship, which was mostly upright, an advantage of the turret was that there was really no space to be sent flying, so Tessa suffered nothing worse than a few mild bruises. But Flynn reeled straight into the windscreen.

The expression on his dazed face against the glass was absolutely priceless. Tongue-drool everywhere.

Tessa ran up to the cockpit to check on Flynn. She hauled him onto his back, and tried to rouse him. "Huh? What? Oh, hey Tessa. Why is the floor on an angle? Did I crash again?"

"You were AWESOME! Like, you just KA-BLAMED straight into that evil dragon with this ship that - really needs a repair job," Flynn sat up straight at the words 'needs a repair job'. That was always ominous.

The pilot registered the massive crack in his ship - and fell over again.

"Hey, here! Can someone let me out of this amazingly well-cushioned prison?" A muffled voice came from Persephone's cabin. Tessa, after making sure that Flynn was fine, jumped down and picked the lock on the cabin door. A well-dressed cerulean blue Dirt Shark with a golden chainsaw adorning his head climbed through the door. "Oh," Tessa said, clearly disappointed. "It's you, Sharpfin,"

"Eh, what, heh, huh," Flynn muttered as he regained consciousness, sticking his head over the incline of the remnants of the upper deck. "Who's this guy?"

"Flynn, meet Admiral Sharpfin. Unofficial mayor of Motleyville, and one of the biggest crooks in Cloudbreak," Tessa told him sourly, with more than one disgusted glance at the Dirt Shark.

"I don't care what his title is, I just wanna know one thing. Can you do anything to fix my ship? She was stolen by a bunch of crooks and I just got her back, now there's a giant crack in her midriff!" Flynn exclaimed heatedly, gesturing at the gap that exposed half of the craft's innards.

"Tell ya what, as thanks for rescuing me, I'll personally have this ship towed back to your home with my own private craft, and as soon as I track down my boys, I'll get them to give this thing the biggest and best overhaul and restoration Cloudbreak's ever seen. My ship's just over by the old mines. I'll go get it and bring it round here," And Sharpfin jumped down from the Dread-Yacht onto more stable ground. And trudged off.

"We'd better find those two Skylanders who we de-evilised. You find the dragon, I'll get the bird-dude," Flynn suggested.

An hour later, Sharpfin and some of his 'boys' who he had found hiding around Motleyville had tied chains between the two halves of the Dread-Yacht, carefully positioned some small Skylands underneath them to keep them in the air, for it was a known fact that while it was perfectly possible for a Skyland to move forwards, backwards, left or right, no Skyland will ever move up or down, no matter how much weight is placed upon it, and tied them to Sharpfin's sleek blue-and-gold boat, which Flynn described as 'totally awesome'.

However, Flynn was back in the cockpit of the Dread-Yacht, claiming that 'no amount of awesomeness could tear me apart from reuniting with my beloved ship'. Tessa had pulled some cushions from Persephone's cabin, and was sitting on them near Flynn. Zap and Jet-Vac were unconscious in Persephone's cabin. Somehow, everyone had forgotten about Sprocket.

"Flynn, you are an amazing hero," Tessa smiled, showing some of her canine, fox-like teeth.

"Well, I wouldn't describe myself as a hero. Sure, I'm pretty amazing, but I'm no hero. Boom!" Flynn replied, smiling bashfully.

"Are you kidding? You're so smart, the way you made that plan for just the two of us - and Whiskers, of course - to defeat all of the bad guys in Motleyville, and you're so brave, how you ate that chocolate stuff without having a clue what it was, and the courage you showed when you didn't want to fly on Whiskers, but did so anyway! You probably already have a girlfriend. I'm just sad that we missed our date in Iron Jaw Gulch," Tessa finished gloomily, and her ears and tail drooped sadly.

"Actually, no, I don't, and who cares about some single date when so many more are right around the corner? I've been waiting for the right gal -" And, seeing Tessa's ears and tail lift up again, he finished "- and I think I've just found her,"

And there, on the deck of the ruined Dread-Yacht, the new couple shared their first kiss.

Half an hour and one of the best kisses of Flynn's life later . . . .

"Yeah, this is taking too long," Flynn assessed. "Let's get on that bird of yours and get back to Woodburrow. Sharpfin and co. can catch us up,"

So, whaddya think? Too mushy? Too action-y?

'I think you got a perfect balance of both, Technow,'

Oh, come on! I thought you went to the {CENSORED FOR SPOILERS}, you stupid bird! You'd better leave now, or I won't be accountable for what I do to you in Dragon Chronicles!

'Please. I can read minds. I already know that you're planning to {CENSORED FOR SPOILERS}, and that I'll still {CENSORED FOR SPOILERS} because of your indisciplined, uncontrollable imagination,'

It's not too late to write explosives or tsunamis into your scenes, Gaiphe.

'Thank you for using my chosen name. Gaia Phoenix was just too wordy, as you'd put it,'

Oh, you - Flynn, did my Arkeyan Copter arrive yet?

"Well, it did, but it looked so awesome that I had to take it for a spin, and I was awesome! BOOM, BABY!"

You watched Despicable Me at the theatres again, didn't you? And you crashed my new copter, didn't you?

"Yes on both counts. BOOM, BABY! VECTOR ROCKED!"

Why did I put you in charge of post?

"Because I have -"

IT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION, YOU GOOF! Now, if all you readers will excuse me, I've gotta go order a new Arkeyan Copter - hey, with money taken out of Flynn's pay-cheque.

"I have a pay-cheque? Awesome, BOOM! What's a pay-cheque?"

'It's those slips of paper that are worth money, Flynn dear,'

Goodbye! Peace!