Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was, essentially, the end of the world.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t the end of the world, but for Hugo it certainly felt like it was. The entire island was being torn to shreds by a massive, unprecedented tornado, and the Skylander that Master Eon had promised would be summoned wasn’t showing up! Hugo looked around fearfully, desperately praying to whatever new Portal Master there was that the Skylanders would show up soon.

“Eon said this would be where the Skylanders would show up, come on…”

As if to answer his desperate pleas for help, a beam of light shone down from the sky. Though the light blinded him, he couldn’t bring himself to avert his eyes. Finally! A Skylander! Skylands wouldn’t be doomed after all! Hugo knew he should’ve had more faith in Eon and the new Portal Master.

A massive thud sounded; the sound of the Skylander touching Skyland soil once again for the first time in many years. A ring of gears rose from the ground, obscuring the image of the newly-arrived Skylander but signifying to Hugo that whoever they were, they were aligned to the Tech element.

Who could it possibly be? Possibilities raced in Hugo’s mind in that fraction of a second. Trigger Happy was eccentric, but he could always be counted on to get the job done. Drobot worked like a machine but had a curious nature and a good heart and was known to work meticulously to get to the bottom of any problem. Boomer was a unique character, what with his love for explosions being more than a little concerning, but at least he had respect for his fellow Tech experts and rose above the bad reputation that trolls had to help bring peace to Skylands.

The gears dissipated, and Hugo was left staring face-to-face with Drill Sergeant.

Oh no.

Ohhh no.

Not that thing. Not that killing machine of a Skylander.

“Uh, a Skylander! I knew you would come!” Hugo tried his darndest to sound excited, but only managed to sound extremely worried. Probably because he was extremely worried. He and the Arkeyan drilling-machine-that-functioned-better-as-a-killing-machine stared at each other for approximately half a second before it immediately dozer-dashed away.

“Wait!” Hugo hugged his book close to himself as he tried to keep up with the robot. He might not have liked Drill Sergeant, and certainly wouldn’t prefer the machine over literally any other Skylander, but at this point he was going to have to take what he could get. 

Hugo ran to the wooden bridge that Drill Sergeant had crossed 3 seconds ago. “The Mabu, they need–”

A giant chunk of the stone collided with the bridge, creating an utterly impassable gap in the bridge. “–help…” Hugo trailed off, helpless to do anything but watch the rapidly disappearing form of Drill Sergeant dash across the ruined islands. As Hugo stood there on the broken bridge and decided that Skylands was either saved or completely and utterly doomed, a single, weary thought popped into his mind.

Why did Eon make this thing a Skylander?

It was good to be operational again, Drill Sergeant decided as he sped through the Mabu village. The villagers had thanked him for rescuing them even though he had unlocked the gates and moved the turtle because they were in his way, not because there were innocent people caught up in the frenzy. Frankly, Drill Sergeant had forgotten that non-combatants existed to begin with.

Bouncing along some jump pads onto a tall outcrop, Drill Sergeant met up with Flake —or whatever his name was, at least— and proceeded to ignore everything he said. Drill Sergeant scanned the area below, noting that there was nowhere for him to land in order to continue progression. As soon as the Arkeyan machine had made this observation, however, the towering pillar of stone and dirt than Drill Sergeant was perched upon with Folin was, presumably, struck by something. Drill Sergeant had deductively come to this conclusion when the structure collapsed, throwing him onto the next island. Good for progression, at least. It was unfortunate that Flane wouldn’t survive.

Tuning out the annoyingly persistent Mabu named Blobby or something (how did he even get here? Wasn’t he on the previous island chain?), Drill Sergeant absentmindedly turned the small hoard of attacking chompies into ash and splatters of chompie guts. It was fun to fight again, but this was still pretty boring. Chompies were really only fun to kill in large hoards, when Drill Sergeant could bulldoze lines straight through them and watch the little green monsters fall before his drills. These chompies only came at him two or three at a time, which was so manageable for Drill Sergeant it was painful.

The monster gate opened, and Drill Sergeant immediately dashed through it. Passing by Bobber, who was still talking, Drill Sergeant made his was up the stone ramp and to the remains of what he assumed to be the Mabu Palace. There were more chompies here, and honestly Drill Sergeant was so bored that he didn’t even try to kill them, just turning on his autoblaster and dashing his way up to the cannon. Igniting the cannon, the Arkeyan machine bounced along the jump pad, quickly grabbing the now-revealed key, and sped down to the final locked gate to continue progression.

Oh, and release the Royal Mabu family or something. That too.

Tragically, the path ended here, and Drill Sergeant was considering jumping off the island and hoping to land on a new island to continue his rampage when a familiarly annoying voice spoke from behind him.

“Hey, Skylander! Get on my balloon! Hugo-dude over here says that he has a place he needs to show ya!”

Oh, so it looks like Fly actually survived. Drill Sergeant spun around and, without a moment’s hesitation, dashed for the hot air balloon. He might have taken up a significant amount of the space in the balloon’s basket and might have accidentally poked the other two occupants with his drills once or twice… or more… but that was not important.

Chapter Text

The moment the balloon was above solid ground, Drill Sergeant tossed himself out of the basket and began destroying every single piece of pottery in sight. He meticulously continued this task of violence aimed against all things capable of being broken until Hewno approached him.

“Skylander… Skylander, that’s enough.”

Okay, so maybe Drill Sergeant continued to destroy breakable items. That didn’t matter! That wasn’t important! Hucko didn’t understand the importance of destroying these pots and crates; it had to be done for the good of all.

“Skylander?” No visible reaction.

“Skyyylander?” Still nothing.

“...Drill Sergeant?”

The aforementioned piece of Arkeyan drilling technology stopped launching drill rockets at the dust that once was pottery and twirled around on his wheels to stare directly into Hupgo’s soul. Huyo immediately looked frightened, but nonetheless stood his ground.

“Skylander, uh, you need to go to, uh,” Higgo stuttered out words and Drill Sergeant immediately tuned him out, turning away to go look for more crates and pots to smite.

“WAIT! You need to talk to Flynn to go save Cali!”

That immediately piqued Drill Sergeant’s interest. Save? That means adventure, and adventure means progress. And more opportunities to commit violent acts.

Without even pausing to look at Hyugug, Drill Sergeant spun around on his wheels and dozer-dashed in Flyke’s general direction.

Hugo stared at the mechanical monstrosity dashing away and worried for Cali’s safety.

Drill Sergeant touched down onto the grass and sped away from Flyke’s hot air balloon, the latter in the middle of another one of his rants on how “awesome” he was. Drill Sergeant didn’t care and ignored it, but it was still annoying to hear his voice in the background so the Arkeyan robot was very glad to get away from the man the first chance he got.

Speeding through the pasture, Drill Sergeant grabbed a key and committed violent acts against sheep in no particular order. He didn’t bother to mess with the sheep for too long, though; there was progress to be made, after all. Using the key to unlock the gate, Drill Sergeant bulldozed down the quaint grass path, leaving a mess of tossed-up dirt in his wake. The Arkeyan machine was met with a Drow spearsman, but made quick work of the green-skinned fellow and unlocked the gate in one fell swoop.

On the other side of the gate was The Fairy Ring, a small grass field with some sheep and a chompy pod. For a millisecond, Drill Sergeant debated on whether to go about killing the sheep or the chompy pod, but decided to do neither, dozer-dashing over to the inconspicuous block of stone that the Arkeyan drilling robot figured could be pushed aside. He needed to get that key on that ledge over there, anyway.

He pushed the block of stone with little effort, entering the clearing on the other side. Drill Sergeant only needed a single glance at the block and the ledge in order for the puzzle to solve itself in his mechanical mind, and he quickly got to work shoving the block back into the place it had come from.

Some more Drow spearmen decided that this would be a great time to hop over the edge of the island and ambush him, but both were quickly met with drill rockets and an autoblaster to the face. Drill Sergeant had no regrets as he watched the Drow plunge off the edge of the island and into the infinite blue sky below.

Anyway, with those out of the way, Drill Sergeant bulldozed his way along his newly-created path and grabbed the key, dropping down into The Fairy Ring and turning on autoblaster to take care of the chompies while he tried to figure out how to insert a key without having hands. How did he do that the first three times, anyway? He hadn’t thought too hard about it in the moment, but in retrospect it should have been impossible to complete such a feat.

After a moment of existential questioning and nearly discovering the fact that his entire life was just a video game, Drill Sergeant decided to stop thinking about it and put the darn key in the gate. It unlocked without a hitch and opened up, revealing a new path for the Arkeyan machine to blaze down while also committing property destruction. There was a turtle blocking the way forward at the end of this path, so Drill Sergeant promptly shoved it off the ledge, following suit shortly after.

There was a Water elemental gate at the bottom of the drop, but Drill Sergeant didn’t care because that wasn’t going to contribute to progress, only completion. Besides, Drill Sergeant himself was aligned with the Tech element, not the Water element, so it’s not like he would’ve been able to open it, anyway.

Water gate aside, the Arkeyan drilling machine began shoving the box-shaped turtle along the path forward, yeeting it into a hole to fill a gap in the path, and dashing forwards into a field filled with Drow elves and chompies. Drill Sergeant turned on his autoblaster and began launching his drill rockets, dashing along and mowing down anything and everything that stood in his way for about 4 seconds before he heard a familiar annoying voice.

“Hey, ya Skywatsit, I managed to find Cali!”

Drill Sergeant stopped his drilling spree (but kept his autoblaster on) to face the edge of the island. Flane (Drill Sergeant was pretty sure that was his name, anyway) was hovering a distance away from the precipice in his balloon.

“It looks like the evil Drow dudes managed to capture her, and she’s behind that gate over there.” Well no dip Sherlock, Drill Sergeant could see the gate covered in padlocks. “There’s a turret over there in the middle of that field, maybe you can shoot the locks off!” Drill Sergeant absentmindedly impaled a Drow that tried to sneak up on him, tossing the elf’s corpse over the ledge before it fully processed Flane’s statement. A what now?

Drill Sergeant whipped around on his wheels to look behind himself before spotting it.

A turret.

Drill Sergeant practically cackled madly, although the only thing that was able to escape his speakers was a monotonous series of beeps. It was a turret! Oh, the atrocities he could commit with this beautiful technology! The Arkeyan machine dozer-dashed to the turret and didn’t waste a second, immediately hopping into the machine and calibrating the guns instantly. Another series of beeps were emitted from Drill Sergeant’s speaker; oh, those Drow would not know what was going to hit them!

Every enemy outside of the turret immediately suffered from simultaneous heart failure and flopped onto the ground, dead; Drill Sergeant’s elation disappeared with the lives of his enemies. Darn, he didn’t get to smite anybody with this turret.

Doing a cursory exam of the surrounding area, Drill Sergeant confirmed that yes, all of his enemies were either bits of flesh on the ground or just straight up dead from cardiac arrest. Drill Sergeant let out a sad badap and turned the turret back to the gate. Well, may as well continue with progression.

Shooting the locks off of the gate was simple enough, really. With his drills hooked up to the interior of the turret, the machinery was practically an extension of his own body. When the locks were off, though, Drill Sergeant had to leave behind the turret. He was very sad about this, but it had to happen in the name of progression.

Dozer-dashing his way to the lady-whose-name-he-did-not-catch, he was forced to engage in a one-sided conversation.

“Thanks for rescuing me,” Drill Sergeant didn’t really care, he just wanted to get on with this mission. “If it weren’t for you, who knows how long I would’ve been locked up.” Hopefully forever; Drill Sergeant already didn’t like her that much. “Wait, you’re a Skylander, aren’t you?” Yes, he was mostly in it for the killing. “I was just rescued by a real Skylander!” Yes, Drill Sergeant thought that they had just established this. “I–”

She was cut off by the ridiculously enthusiastic voice of Flane.

“And me! Don’t forget about me!” Lo and behold, the man himself floated down in his balloon and landed his onto the nearby wooden dock. The woman stared at him with an almost exasperated look.

“Who are you?” The woman asked. Drill Sergeant beeped impatiently, but nobody really understood the meaning behind it and continued on with their pointless conversation.

“Why, I am Flynn the Balloonist, at your service. Did I mention that I’m the best pilot in all of Skylands? BOOM!”

Drill Sergeant badapped this time, trying to signal that he wanted to go now, but his mechanical pleas were overlooked.

“Charming.” The woman remarked sarcastically in response to Flane. Flane didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm, though.

“Yes, yes I am. It must be pretty overwhelming to meet me, I know.”

Finally, finally, the two shut up and got into Flane’s balloon, flying back to the island that the Core of Light resided on.

Progress, finally.