by Onk Beakman
“Of course,” replied Finella. “But they never came back, either.”
“It’s like their minds have been . . .” Aquan’s words trailed off.
“Like their minds have been what, Your Majesty?” Gill prompted, but the Prince didn’t reply. He was just staring past them, into the distance.
“What are you young people chattering about?” asked King Scalebeard, shaking his ear trumpet in frustration. “I can’t hear a thing.”
“Neither can he,” Zap said, waving a hand in front of Aquan’s eyes. The prince didn’t flinch. “He’s in some kind of trance.”
Finella was the same, as were the three mer-knights. Worst of all, their eyes were beginning to turn glassy and milky white.
“Just like the Cloud Kraken,” Gill exclaimed.
“What is going on?” demanded the king, even as his knights dropped their spears and began to swim silently toward the throne room’s stained glass windows. “Aquan? Finella? Where are you going? Oh no, not you as well.”
Sure enough, the prince and princess were following the knights, their faces slack, their eyes white as chalk.
Gill tried to grab Finella’s hand, to hold her back. The Princess’s head snapped around, her pretty mouth twisting into a snarl. She swiped at Gill with her long tail, thwacking him across the chest and sending him spinning back into Wham-Shell. Then she turned back to the window and continued on her way.
Zap shot forward, putting himself between the window and the entranced merfolk.
“Oh no you don’t,” he cried defiantly, only to be grabbed by the horns by the first knight and tossed out of the way like a soggy rag doll.
“Okay, maybe you do,” he yelped as he crashed into a suit of armor.
Picking up speed, the lead knight swam straight through the window, followed by the others. Gill made one last grab for the princess’s tail but they were gone, swimming up into the ocean.
“I thought the kingdom was protected by a magical shield,” said Zap.
“That’s just to stop from people getting in.” Gill swam up to the smashed window and peered outside. “Not to stop people from getting out.”
All across the city, the remaining merfolk were abandoning their homes, streaming up to who knew where, each as glassy-eyed as the next.
“We have to go after them!” Wham-Shell had joined the others by the window, his fingers flexing around his mace’s shaft. “Find out where they’re heading.”
Gill swam back to the glum-looking king.
“What’s the point of a king with no one to rule?” the old man was muttering. “I might as well retire and grow anemones. At least anemones don’t leave you.”
“Don’t worry, Your Majesty,” Gill said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “We’ll find out where they’re going. We’ll get them back.”
“Eh?” the King said, thrusting the ear trumpet to his ear. “You fancy a snack? How can you think of food at a time like this?”
“Never mind,” Gill said, swimming back to the window. “Come on, you two. Follow those merpeople!”
King Scalebeard sat back on his throne and watched the Skylanders slip through the broken window.
I don’t know, he said to himself, looking around the empty throne room in dismay. Young people today. They never listen.
“They . . . sure . . . swim . . . fast,” gasped Wham-Shell, struggling to keep up thanks to his heavy armor.
“Not fast enough.” Zap shot by in a blaze of crackling electricity, hot on the heels, or at least the fins, of the fleeing merfolk. “Grab on.”
Catching Zap’s drift, Gill snatched hold of Zap’s short, stubby tail with one hand and Wham-Shell’s claws with the other. They rocketed forward and had soon caught up with the shoal of zombified merpeople.
“Hey!” shouted Gill, as they sped through the glassy-eyed throng. “Wake up! You all need to wake up.” He let go of Zap and swam toward a bulky merman with a bushy green beard. “What’s happened to you? Where are you going?”
“I think I can answer that,” gulped Wham-Shell, pointing ahead. Gill looked and moaned softly. Just when he thought today couldn’t get any worse.
“Is that what I think it is, dude?” asked Zap.
Gill nodded. “I’m afraid so. Electro-jellies.”
Of all the many creatures that live in Deep Water Wasteland, electro-jellies are the worst. They look like normal jellyfish—if normal jellyfish are the size of elephants and pack a ten-thousand-volt punch, that is. Brush against just one of an electro-jelly’s many dainty-looking fronds and you’ll receive a jolt that makes Zap’s own electric breath feel like a feather-light tickle.
Oh, there’s another major difference. Normal jellyfish just hang around in the water, minding their own business until someone blunders into their tentacles. Electro-jellies are more proactive.
“They’ve spotted us!” boomed Wham-Shell. “Watch out!”
If any of the entranced merpeople heard the crabby prince they didn’t respond. They carried on swimming toward the brood of electro-jellies, even as the devilish creatures started pushing toward them, fronds flailing out in greeting.
“Stop them!” shouted Gill, trying to grab the green-bearded merman. “They’ll never make it.”
“Try telling them that!” replied Wham-Shell, grappling with a mer-knight, only to find the soldier’s gauntleted hands grabbing his own armor plating. “Hang on. Aren’t we supposed to be grabbing them?”
Gill didn’t answer. He was too busy trying to remove himself from the clutches of green-beard. The merman had clamped a burly arm around Gill’s neck. The merpeople were pulling the Skylanders into the oncoming electro-jellies!
Gill thrashed as hard as he could, but couldn’t get the merman’s arm to budge. He glanced up to see a mass of sparkling fronds rushing toward him. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the first electric shock. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.
Chapter Ten
The Guppy Gates
The shock never came. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, Gill could feel himself being twisted back and forth. He opened one eye and wished that he hadn’t. All he could see was a throng of fluffy pink fronds—fluffy pink fronds sparking with ten thousand volts apiece.
But, amazingly, every time a tentacle drifted dangerously close, the green-bearded merman changed direction, dodging left and right to avoid being stung. Gill twisted in the merman’s grip to look at his captor’s face. Somehow the entranced merman was keeping Gill safe.
The water sparked beside Gill’s right ear as a tentacle breezed a little too close, and then they were through, shooting clear of the attacking brood. As Gill watched, the mer-knight dragging Wham Shell appeared from the mass of electro-jellies, the eyes beneath his helmet staring blankly ahead.
The merpeople had saved them! They may have been mindlessly swimming to Eon-knew-where, but they’d still gotten them through without a scratch. These were the merpeople he knew and loved, not these glassy-eyed zombies.
Gill turned to say thanks, but didn’t have a chance. Green-beard suddenly relaxed his grip and powered on, leaving an increasingly bewildered Gill Grunt floating away. Wham-Shell had also been released and swam up to join his friend.
“That’s no way to travel, if you ask me,” the royal crab said, “although I bet Zap enjoyed it!”
“Zap!” Gill exclaimed. “Where is he?”
The two of them looked around, but the water dragon was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he hadn’t been so lucky? Perhaps he had gotten stung? Even though Zap could manipulate electricity himself, there was no telling if his energy harness could absorb that much power. Gill peered down to the mass of electro-jellies below. “He must still be in there.”
Wham-Shell sighed. “I’ve got a horrible feeling I know what you’re going to say next.”
“We’ve got to go back in.”
“Yup, that’s the one. I’ve got a horrible feeling you mean it, too.”
“Of course I do.” Gill didn’t wait around to
argue. They couldn’t leave Zap injured and alone in a sea of electro-jellies. They had to rescue him.
Bracing themselves, Gill and Wham-Shell swam back towards the electro-jellies, only to see a flash of blue in the midst of all the deadly pink jelly. Like a cork flying from a bottle, Zap shot from the middle of the brood of electro-jellies, an unconscious merman held fast in his jaws.
“Zap, you made it!” Gill exclaimed happily.
“Course I did.” Zap came to a halt beside them, opening his mouth to release the sparked-out merman. “That was rad. We’ve gotta do it again.”
Gill wasn’t so sure about that. “Hopping halibut, that’s Prince Aquan.”
“His Mer-Majesty got zapped by one of the electro-jellies,” Zap explained, still buzzing from his wild ride through the deadly sea creatures. “Knocked him out. I only just got him out before he became a jelly snack.”
The prince groaned, coming around. Sleepily he opened his eyes.
“Look,” said Gill. “His eyes are normal. They’re not glassy at all!”
“G-Gill,” Aquan stammered. “What happened?”
“That’s what we hoped you could tell us,” admitted Wham-Shell. “Why did you leave the palace?”
Aquan looked confused, his regal brow creasing as he tried to remember. “The voice told us to come.”
“What voice?” Gill asked, the memory of the black cloud on the horizon springing to mind. Was this all Kaos’s doing?
“I don’t know,” replied the prince sadly. “The last thing I remember was being in the throne room with my sister and . . .” He trailed off. “Finella. Where’s Finella?”
Without another word, Aquan powered after the rest of the merpeople, desperate to find his zombified sister.
“Here we go again,” grumbled Wham-Shell as he began to swim after the prince. Giggling, Zap grabbed the crustacean’s carapace and shot forward. “Come on, slowpoke. I’ll give you a lift.”
The prince had found his sister by the time the Skylanders had caught up. He was shaking Finella gently by the shoulders, trying to rouse her from her milky-eyed trance.
“Come on, Finella. It’s me, Aquan.”
“It’s no good, Your Majesty,” Gill said, swimming up beside them. “We tried, but we couldn’t break the spell. The magic that is controlling them is too strong.”
“But I must stop them,” Aquan argued, his face lined with worry. “I just must . . . ”
A strange look passed over the prince’s features, as if he was fighting something. Gill grabbed Aquan’s arm.
“Your Majesty, what’s wrong?”
“I must . . .” Aquan’s face went slack and he closed his eyes, his voice dreamlike, free of any emotion. “I must . . . follow the voice.”
When Aquan opened his eyes again, they were glassy and milky white.
“He’s been taken over again,” said Zap, as the prince’s arm slipped out of Gill’s grasp. “Oh no!”
“Must follow,” the prince droned as he rejoined his sister and the rest of the hypnotized merpeople. “Must follow.”
“Let me guess,” murmured Wham-Shell, “we’re going to do a bit more following ourselves.”
This time they didn’t have to swim far. The entranced merpeople were heading toward a long rubber pipe that snaked down from the surface.
“What’s that thing?” asked Zap as the merpeople swam down to the seabed.
“No idea,” admitted Gill. “Maybe some kind of air line.”
“Whatever it is, it’s burrowed straight into the seabed,” pointed out Wham-Shell. “See, right by those gates.”
Wham-Shell was right. The tube plunged into the rock beside a pair of huge silver gates that were set into the seabed itself.
“Hang on a minute,” Gill said, peering down into the depths. “They’re not gates.”
“Then what are they?”
“Tiny silver fish, swimming together to form a barrier.”
“A barrier to what?” asked Zap, but again Gill had no answer.
As the Skylanders watched in amazement, the shoal of fish split in two, parting so the zombified merpeople could swim through.
“Quick!” shouted Gill. “We need to get through those guppy gates before they close.”
They swam forward as fast as they could, but it was no good. As the last merman crossed the threshold, the fish swarmed back together, forming the barrier once again. Gill couldn’t stop himself. Carried on by his own momentum, he crashed straight into the gates. It was like trying to burst through a trampoline. He bounced off the mass of silvery scales, straight into Wham-Shell.
Zap managed to pull up before he too whacked into the gates. He looked more closely at the tiny fish. “Hey,” he called back to his friends. “These little guys’ eyes are glassy and white. Sound familiar?”
“They must be under the thrall of the mysterious voice, too,” Gill said, swimming nearer. Zap was right. They were all slack-faced, completely under the voice’s spell. He pushed against them with both hands. It was no good. They were now packed together so tightly it was like trying to shove your way through a brick wall. Someone definitely didn’t want the Skylanders to get past. If only there was a way to break the spell.
“Of course.” Gill slapped his hand against his forehead. “Aquan broke free of the trance when he was shocked by the electro-jellies,” he said. “If we could somehow give these fish a little tingle of electricity . . .” He looked at Zap expectantly.
“What about one of my megavolt lightning bolts?” the water dragon asked excitedly, before his face fell. “Oh, hang on. I can’t direct my lightning when I’m underwater. You’ll get shocked, too.”
“What if you get really close to the gates?” asked Wham-Shell. “If we stand well back . . .”
Zap nodded furiously. “It might work. Yeah, let’s give it a go.”
While Gill and Wham-Shell swam back to a safe distance, Zap pushed his nose right up to the guppy gates. “Are you clear?” he shouted back to Gill. “I’m amped and ready to go!”
Gill gave Zap a thumbs-up. “Get zapping,” he called out, ready to thrust himself forward as soon as the barrier was broken. He watched Zap take a deep breath, preparing to let loose the lightning, when . . .
Whoosh!
Something zipped past Gill’s ear and thudded into Zap.
Whizz!
There was another one. Zap cried out as he was hit on the head with a . . . wait, that wasn’t possible. It was one of Wham-Shell’s Starfish Bullets.
Gill glanced over his shoulder and gaped at what he saw. Wham-Shell was firing starfish from the end of his magic mace. Firing at Zap! But that wasn’t the worst of it. His eyes were milky white.
Gill grappled with his entranced friend, trying to wrestle away the mace, but Wham-Shell swatted him aside as if he was a shrimp. Gill called for Zap to help, but the water dragon needed assistance himself. Stunned by the starfish, Zap was dazed, not even sure which way was up.
“Wham-Shell,” Gill shouted, “this is wrong. Zap is your friend.”
When Wham-Shell replied, the voice was not his own. “Turn back if ye want the water dragon to live.”
“What?” Gill spluttered. “You don’t mean that, Wham-Shell. This isn’t you!”
But Wham-Shell wasn’t listening. He was swimming forward to grab the barely conscious Zap. Gill tried to stop him, but had to dive to the side to avoid a bombardment of deadly starfish from Wham-Shell’s mace. When he looked up, the gates had opened and Wham-Shell was dragging Zap into the cave beyond.
“Remember, stay away, ye scurvy wretch,” Wham-Shell bellowed, before the guppy gates slammed shut behind them.
Chapter Eleven
The Mine Under the Sea
Gill didn’t know what to do. He knew he had to get past the gates, but he couldn’t shock the fish like Zap. How could he break the spell?
“Hang on a minnowing minute,” Gill said to himself. “I may not be able to shock the guppies, but I sure can surprise them!�
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Gill raised his water cannon, pointing it toward the barrier. He knew blasting it wouldn’t do any good, but his trusty weapon could still help. With the flick of a switch, he slammed the cannon into reverse, sucking water into his water barrel. That wasn’t all the cannon sucked in. The gates buckled as the fish were pulled into the gun, unable to swim against the current. With a long sucking slurp, they disappeared into the cannon and burst out of the top of the water barrel on Gill’s back.
A dizzy guppy swam past, its eyes rolling. Its normal-looking eyes. Yes! The fish had been so shocked by their impromptu journey through the cannon’s mechanism that the spell had been broken.
Now, for stage two of the plan.
As the gates buckled under the pull of his cannon, Gill flicked the switch again and the weapon fired out a barrage of completely bewildered fish. The dazed minnows slapped against their guppies-in-arms and, in the confusion, the barrier broke up, shocked fish scattering everywhere in surprise.
Gill took his chance. Before the gates could reform, he swam as fast as he could, rushing past the mass of flustered fish into the cave.
He was through!
As the gate closed behind him, Gill swam down a dark, rocky tunnel heading toward a soft glow ahead.
What he saw at the end of the channel made his jaw drop. In a massive cave, lit by balls of glowing krill, toiled hundreds of hypnotized merpeople. They were tapping at the walls with rusty pickaxes, digging gem-eels from the rocks. Gill had heard about gem-eels but never seen one. These beautiful jewel-encrusted creatures were made up of thousands of brightly colored gems. Safe while under the water, the eels simply collapsed into heaps of precious gems when on dry land. Everywhere Gill looked, the entranced merfolk were herding the helpless eels into cages ready to be winched up to the surface. He had to stop them, but first needed to find Wham-Shell and Zap.
Gill nearly jumped out of his scales as he felt hands suddenly slapping down on his shoulders. Twisting around, he found himself staring into the milky-white eyes of Aquan and Finella.