As the four of them stumbled into the dark depths of the underground, Chihiro paused and leaned against a cold, gritty wall that she assumed was probably stone and caught her breath. Well, at least, she hoped it was stone and not some weird magical material that would come to life and attack her when she least expected it—it was kind of hard to tell with all this darkness.

From around her, Chihiro made out Spyro, Wrecking Ball and Trigger Happy as they panted from a very close distance. Good, they were all still together. Guess she supposed that was her cue to move on, so Chihiro took a step forward…

"OWCH!" Spyro cried as something was yanked out from under Chihiro's foot. "That's my paw!"

And Chihiro promptly lost her footing and fell on her butt. As she hit the cold floor, Chihiro yelped and rubbed her back. Yeah, that floor underneath her was definitely stone; nothing else could hurt as much as that.

"Sorry 'bout that, Gold!" Chihiro winced as she scratched her head. "It's kinda hard to see around here!"

"No kidding." Spyro's voice took on an exasperated tone, or maybe that just came from the residual pain of someone stepping on his paw. "Normally I'd get a torch, but I can't make a light source with that no-sell spell—" Spyro grunted as his claws clacked against the floor below "—and as you can guess, seeing in the dark is out of the question, too."

"This is why I hate no-sell spells." Chihiro huffed and crossed her arms, then shook her head. Her cheeks puffed from the sheer frustration she felt, and she lost her balance as she fell on her back with a grunt. "Where's a flashlight when you need one?"

"Wait, did somebody say flashlight?" Trigger Happy asked from behind.

The sound of his hops echoed around the room for a few moments, and a bright flame emerged at just a short enough height that the halls around them illuminated just slightly! Underneath that flame, Trigger Happy grinned as he held a small, golden pistol as high as his arms could reach!

"Wait, you have a torch gun?" Chihiro asked as she jumped to her feet and admired the flames, but leaned back as they started to crackle a little too high for her liking. "Why didn't you tell us until now?"

"You never asked~" Trigger Happy chuckled as he spun both of his pistols around his finger, stashed them in his fur and skipped along. "Now come on, we've got a fancy beacon to find!"

Chihiro rolled her eyes and grinned. Typical Trigger Happy, always acting goofy like that. Well, it seems as though his hidden secrets saved them some trouble this time, so she pulled out another map and rolled it out.

This one was a perfectly crisp, printed map of the halls that laid before them, right down to a massive hallway filled with a ton of doors that resided at the end. The beacon that powers the no-sell spell should be a room in these halls, but, which one? Surely there had to be a marker or something on this map that would show the way, right? Chihiro frowned as she pushed the map closer to her face and scanned it over, but no such marker revealed itself! She frowned as she drew the map back, and her frown sunk deeper while realization kicked in. In her haste to get everything together, she must have completely forgot to mark down which one had the beacon!

"Hey, Chi!" Spyro called as he flew over to Chihiro's side. "Which one of these rooms was supposed to have the beacon, again?"

Chihiro winced, giggled as she rolled the map up, and hid it in her pocket. Crap, what was she going to tell him? She didn't remember to mark it down, and she even knew she was forgetting something, too! This was definitely going to throw a wrench in their plans, but it wouldn't stop them entirely. Chihiro took a deep breath in, out, and turned back to Spyro as she sighed.

"Yeah, we've got a bit of a problem. The map doesn't say," Chihiro said as she shook her head, "but, don't worry! If we don't know which door has our beacon—" Chihiro grinned as she held her head and dashed forward "—we'll just check all of them!"

Chihiro dashed across the dark halls, which grew less and less dark as a soft light echoed at the end of the hall. With one last stride, she found herself in a cobblestone hall illuminated by dim, flickering ceiling lights! But, that was hardly important compared to the masses of doors that lined both sides of the hallways. It looked like they found their destination!

Spyro paused in midair for moments as he, Trigger Happy and Wrecking Ball finally joined Chihiro. He nodded, and flew from door to door in a chain of opening, peering inside and closing; Trigger Happy and Wrecking Ball did the same as they bounced from door to door.

But, it was to no luck, for nothing seemed to have what they were looking for!

Spyro opened one door to find a spell punk potion making session, closed it and flew into another room, but met with a broom closet instead. He grunted as a mop fell on his head, tossed the mop aside and slammed the door shut. Spyro flew up to the door next to it and pulled it open, but all he spied was a lava king taking a lava bath! Spyro and the lava king both screamed as Spyro slammed the door shut; he pressed his back against it and winced as his scales turned hot.

"Talk about awkward," Spyro whispered as he pulled himself from the door and shook his head. "Well, onto the next one—"

"HELP!"

Wait a second, that was Wrecking Ball's voice! Everybody else turned to an open door ahead as Wrecking Ball popped out with a sausage link in his mouth, and an angry spell punk armed with a rolling pin on his tail!

"Get back here, thief!" the spell punk cried as they zoomed after Wrecking Ball and shook their rolling pin in the air. "Those sausages were for my shepherd's pie, not your mouth!"

Wrecking Ball just squealed and slurped down the sausage link as he bolted across the floors!

"Wrecking Ball, seriously?" Spyro exclaimed as he pinched the bridge of his snout. With a groan, Spyro took to the skies and narrowed his eyes. "Don't worry, I'm coming!"

Spyro's wings pounded against the air as he flew straight towards Wrecking Ball, but before he could reach Wrecking Ball, Wrecking Ball dove into one of the doors and disappeared!

Spyro froze and blinked as the spell punk chef jumped into the same door, but right as it did, the door Spyro checked moments earlier flung open and spat out none other than Wrecking Ball himself!

Wrecking Ball grunted as he planted face-first on the floor, sat up and blinked for a moment as he licked steak sauce off of his lips. "Huh, I thought that weird spell punk was right behind me!" Wrecking Ball remarked as he looked back at the open door, shrugged and waddled off. "Looks like I lost 'em!"

Spyro turned around and peered inside the open door that Wrecking Ball leaped out from. "Wait a second, I'm pretty sure it didn't look like that when I opened it earlier," Spyro whispered as he scratched his claw against his chin.

Chihiro frowned as her eyes fell on Spyro. She jumped to one of the doors and went to open it, but before she could, a loud scream echoed around the halls and shook her to her core!

"NO YOU DIDN'T, YOU PESKY LITTLE GRUB!" yelled an absolutely furious voice as another door slammed open to unveil a bright mass of colors.

The colorful warp warbled and rippled like water, and out from it popped that same spell punk, who was still just as furious as before!

"Nobody steals from my kitchen and gets away with it!" the spell punk cried as it pointed its rolling pin at Wrecking Ball. "And as it just so happens, my next recipe calls for some grub worms!"

"NOOOOOOO!" Wrecking Ball squealed as he rolled up into a ball and got ready to zoom off. "I don't wanna be food!"

The spell punk snarled as it rushed forward. It got ready to conk Wrecking Ball on the head with its pin, but before it could do the conking, it got conked itself by a gigantic, solid gold pot of golden coins! The spell punk groaned as the pot crashed down into the floor and left a nasty hole in the wood, and the spell punk itself collapsed beside Wrecking Ball, now completely unconscious.

Wrecking Ball perked up, unfurled himself and waddled towards the spell punk. He let out a small whimper as he lifted up one of the spell punk's eyelids with his tongue, and the next eyelid, but the spell punk refused to awaken—much to Wrecking Ball's relief!

"Phew, close one!" Wrecking Ball sighed as he sat down and giggled. "I like food, but not that much!"

"Hey, guys, guess what I found!" Trigger Happy shouted as he burst out of a door with golden jewelry all over his tiny, furry body and twin pots of solid gold in hand. "If you guessed the jackpot, you're right!"

Trigger Happy and Wrecking Ball both giggled as Trigger Happy waddled over and showed off his new golden collection, but both of them froze and turned back as Spyro groaned.

"Guys, don't forget why we're here!" Spyro scolded as he flew over and yanked a golden crown off of Trigger Happy's head. "We didn't come here for Kaos's food or riches. We came here to find the beacon that's putting out this no-sell spell and take it down!" Spyro sighed and shook his head as he turned back to Chihiro. "That is, if any of these things even have it…"

Chihiro didn't pay any sort of attention to the ongoing fiasco, for she was more concerned with opening and closing one of those doors in rapid succession. She seemed oddly transfixed as she slammed the door closed, hummed and opened it once more just to slam it shut again.

"Chi?" Spyro tilted his head as he flew in place. "Chihiro, what are you doing?"

Chihiro perked up, released herself from the door's trance just enough to face Spyro, and waved him over as she turned back to the door.

"Spyro, come here!" Chihiro called as she slammed the door open and shut once more. "I found something!"

"You did?" Spyro grinned as he flew straight up to Chihiro's side. "Is it the beacon?"

Chihiro tilted her head down at Spyro as he sat by her side and gave her an eager look, and shook her head as she turned back to the door. "Look at this."

Spyro peered inside the door's open path to find the entryway to some sort of laboratory filled with test tubes, and leaned back as Chihiro slammed the door shut. As she opened it once more, he peered back inside to find not that same laboratory, but a break room where greebles in ties talked over frothy liquid mugs! Chihiro slammed and opened the door a few more times, but each time she did, a new scene showed—training rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, gyms… Even what was presumably Kaos's bedroom, what with all the pictures of Kaos himself strewn about its walls the same way one would hang up posters of their idols.

"Seem as though every time we close the doors and open them again, they take you to a different place!" Chihiro remarked as she closed the door and sighed. "Looks like our job just got a whole lot harder."

Spyro sighed and pursed his lips as he tapped his claws against his chin. His brows twitched as he delved deeper and deeper into his thoughts, and finally he groaned and lifted his head. Before he could say anything, he paused as he looked over Chihiro, who seemed equally deep in thought as he was while she glazed over the map.

"What're you doing, Chi?" Spyro asked.

Chihiro hummed, pressed the map in Spyro's face, and pointed towards a small, square box printed in the very center of the map. It was something innocuous enough that it might not have been noticed by most.

"I was thinking, actually," Chihiro said as she traced her hand around the map's paper surface. "Maybe, just maybe, the door we're looking for isn't here?" Chihiro rolled up the map and stashed it in her pocket as she wiped her hands. "Think about it. If you were Kaos and wanted to hide something that would keep any unwanted visitors from taking you on full-throttle, where would you put it?"

Spyro hummed and tapped his chin.

"You probably wouldn't just hide it in some random door, right?" Chihiro chuckled as Spyro perked up beside her. "If anything, you'd probably just put all these doors here to mislead people!"

"So what you're saying is, all these doors are just decoys to draw suspicion from the real one?" Spyro's eyes glazed over the doors that lined the halls while his eyes went wide. A small smile formed on his face as his eyes trailed from door to door, and his smile turned to a wide grin as he looked back at Chihiro. "That's it! Can't believe I didn't think of that first."

"That's what I'm here for~" Chihiro stuck her tongue out at Spyro, chuckled, and crossed her arms as she looked back at the halls. "Now, we just have to look for something well-hidden, something that only Kaos and his minions could access…"

Chihiro hummed as her eyes fell on the still-unconscious spell punk chef; she skipped across the floor, leaped past the massive hole in its boarding, and seated herself right next to the spell punk. She hummed as she dove her hand into the pocket of its robes, rummaged around, and cheered as she yanked out a small, metal device vaguely shaped like a pen with a red button on its side.

"Now, what might you be, I wonder?" Chihiro asked. She held out the pen, tapped the button, and frowned as it just emitted a vast beam of light. "A flashlight?"

Chihiro tapped the button on and off a couple more times as she waved its light across the halls. She turned its light towards the ceiling, and gasped as the light unveiled a simple wooden door embedded in the ceiling!

"A hidden door!" Chihiro grinned and pumped a fist. "Knew it!"

Spyro flew up to the ceiling, yanked the door open and flew through its open doorway. He disappeared for a moment, but knelt and poked his head back down!

"I can see something up ahead!" Spyro cried as he flew down and grabbed Trigger Happy by the hand. "Come on!"

Chihiro giggled as she jumped right on Spyro's back. Wrecking Ball jumped into her arms and snuggled into her grip as Spyro whisked them all back through the ceiling doorway! As he hit the wooden floors above, Chihiro, Trigger Happy and Wrecking Ball all jumped off, and promptly broke into sneezing fits, for this place was dusty!

The door led them to a dimly-lit wooden attic that seemed like it had been abandoned for ages. A the fine layer of dust coated everything from the floors, to the ceiling, to the various banged-up cardboard boxes and wooden crates littered around every nook and cranny. Spiderwebs coated the ceiling and found homes in the support beams that held up the entire attic, and a few spiders skittered to and fro as they chased a fly across the floors.

But, none of those things caught attention like the tall, spiraling beacon at the very back of the attic that emitted an eerie blue light!

"That has to be the beacon we're looking for!" Spyro cried as he charged forward. "Come on!"

Chihiro, Trigger Happy, and Wrecking Ball all grinned to each other as they all dashed after Spyro. They were all more than ready to take down the beacon; Trigger Happy whipped out a gigantic gun, and Wrecking Ball curled up like he was about ready to charge! The beacon's light glowed bright and brighter around the room as they all trailed forward.

All their eyes went wide with excitement as they went in for the charge, but right as they came within inches of the beacon, something slammed into Spyro and tossed him right into Trigger Happy, Wrecking Ball and Chihiro! All four of them cried out as they flew into four different directions, and crashed into the masses of assorted boxes and machinery around the attic!

"Ugh," Spyro moaned as he sat within the contents of a half-crushed cardboard box, and lifted a cracked metal disc from his head. "Just what was that?"

"I dunno," Trigger Happy whined as he sat on top of a broken and splintered wooden crate. "All I see are spinning coins…"

Chihiro groaned as she pushed herself up from the floor, frowned, and narrowed her eyes as she swiped her flashlight off the floor! With a single button press, she shone its light right in front of the beacon, and unveiled a trio of snickering spell punks clad in purple robes hovered right in front of it!

"There's our answer!" Chihiro cried as she pointed towards the spell punks. "We've got company!"

Right as Chihiro cried out, the spell punks turned their eyes on her and shrieked! Two of the spell punks spun around each other and chattered in panic, but the third bonked the other two on the head and cursed them out in some kind of angry gibberish! All three spell punks scowled as they turned back to Spyro, Trigger Happy, Chihiro and Wrecking Ball; with a wave of their spindly hands, they shot a round of bright magic orbs like stars straight at Chihiro’s team!

Trigger Happy gasped as the orbs came in fast, sprang from the broken crate where he sat, and whipped out two massive golden pistols! Trigger Happy licked his lips as his furry fingers wrapped around the triggers, and out from his guns came a wave of golden light so massive that just firing it blew Trigger Happy back by a foot!

"Bang bang bang!" Trigger Happy cackled as he soared backwards and hit the ground! His guns slipped out of his hands and collapsed onto the floor, but Trigger Happy just giggled and jumped back to his feet as he shot a fingergun back at the spell punks. "You're dead!"

Thin, cream-colored smoke wafted through the attic and obscured most-everything from view, but as it thinned and floated away, the sound of cackling proved that Trigger Happy was quite wrong! The spell punks stood firm behind the safety of a gigantic magic shield, and they didn't even have a scratch on them.

Trigger Happy's jaw dropped right to the floor, yet Spyro snarled and charged right for the spell punks! His feet pounded against the wooden floor as he dashed forward, and with one leap, he slammed into the center spell punk and pinned it to the floor. The spell punk squealed as it squirmed against Spyro's grip, but it completely stopped as it smirked at Spyro and split into two!

The twin spell punks slipped out from under Spyro's paws as he reeled back in shock, and they all cackled and cried out as they duplicated further! Four spell punks became eight, twelve and sixteen… Before anyone knew it, the spell punks completely flooded out the attic, and definitely outnumbered Spyro!

Spyro gasped and charged right into one, but it just disappeared into a puff of smoke! He spun around and went for the one behind him, yet it shot a magic-laden comet at him and tossed him into the wall!

It wasn't just Spyro that struggled with them, either. Across from him, Trigger Happy and Wrecking Ball winced as they backed across the floor, and an entire group of spell punks pushed them further and further back.

Trigger Happy snarled and whipped out his guns. "Eat gold, suckers!" Trigger Happy cried as he pulled the trigger and sent waves of gold coins flying through the crowds!

The coins slammed into the spell punks and knocked them out in droves, until only a few remained. The spell punks just shrugged, and cried out as they duplicated again and refilled their ranks!

Trigger Happy gasped and stumbled back, but Wrecking Ball just shook his tail and squealed as he bolted forward!

"Wreck and roll!" Wrecking Ball cried.

He let out a squeal of pure, unadulterated glee as he tackled right towards the spell punks, but a comet slammed him backwards into Trigger Happy! The two of the squealed as they slammed into the wall and slunk down, and Wrecking Ball planted face-first into the floor.

"You sure wrecked and rolled, alright," Trigger Happy moaned.

Chihiro winced as she fell down to the floor, ducked underneath another magical comet, and frowned as she turned her attention back to the flashlight that still laid safe in her grip. She pinched the red button on the flashlight's side just slightly, twisted it around just a bit, and the flashlight's light grew shinier and more intense! Chihiro gasped and turned the flashlight on the massive spell punk swarm that chased after Spyro and Trigger Happy—but as she did, all the spell punks disappeared save for three!

"Trig, Gold!" Chihiro cried as she sprang to her feet and pointed towards the heart of the swarm. "Those three in the center are the real ones! The rest are fakes!"

Spyro and Trigger Happy perked up as they turned to Chihiro, nodded as they fixed their gaze towards the center and charged!

Right before they struck, however, the real spell punks squealed and made a mad dash for the attic's door! When they did, their army of copies did as well; screeching rattled every corner of the attic as the spell punks flooded out the ceiling door, and they flew off with such intensity that it shook the entire floor!

"I'll handle these guys!" Chihiro cried over the intense wails of spell punk shrieking as she bolted for the door. "Just worry about taking down that beacon!"

Chihiro jumped back down the ceiling door and grunted as her feet hit cold, stone floors once more! She staggered back up and balled her hands into fists as her flashlight's shine fell on a mass of quivering spell punks that eyed her like a sheep eyed a lion. Her eyes fixed on the three in the center, who shuddered and held each other as they looked directly back at her!

Chihiro heaved heavy breaths as her eyes fell back on the unconscious spell punk chef. She simply knelt down, snatched its rolling pin right out of its hands, and heaved it over her head like a sword!

"Alright!" Chihiro cried as she pointed the rolling pin directly at the trio of spell punks in the heart of the spell punk crowd. "Who's ready for a beatdown?"

The spell punks squealed as they scattered in fifty different directions! Some of them dashed down the halls, hopefully never to be seen again, but most just made a mad dash for the doors and yanked them open!

One tiny group of spell punk clones immediately leaped into one open door beside Chihiro, but as the last one leaped inside, Chihiro grinned and slammed the door shut! With a few jiggles of the knob, Chihiro locked that one door shut, jumped to the next and locked it, the one after and the following! Chihiro went into a door-locking frenzy, and the spell punks were so scared that they didn't even notice.

Three more spell punks made a mad dash for the hallway's exit as the sounds of ramming and crashing echoed from the attic, but they froze in their tracks as their eyes fell on Chihiro!

"Sorry, buddies! You're out of luck!" Chihiro proclaimed as she placed her hands on her hips. "There's nowhere you can run!"

The spell punks snarled and yelled as they dashed forwards towards Chihiro instead. Well, seemed as though there was somewhere they could run after all! Chihiro snarled as she gripped the rolling pin in her hands like a baseball bat, and she bolted right towards the spell punks! Two of them managed to swerve out of her way, but one wasn't quite as lucky and got slammed on the head with a hard, wooden bowling pin!

It groaned as it slunk down and fell to the floor with a massive bump on its head, and the other two spell punks froze and shouted as they jabbed towards the unconscious spell punk.

Chihiro dashed forward, smacked the second spell punk in the face with the rolling pin, and leaped forward as the one she knocked unconscious fell into the hole in the floor. The third spell punk wouldn't go down easy! It slid out of Chihiro's way just before she could strike, held its hands out as it readied an orb, but just as it got ready to fire, a loud rumble shook the entire area and broke its concentration! The spell punk gasped as the quake settled, and chattered as it turned its eyes back to the attic door. Could it be?

Chihiro frowned and gestured with her hands, just to be sure, yet grinned as a swirl of blue magic leaped from her palms!

"Alright, the beacon's down!" Chihiro shouted as she tossed the rolling pin aside. "Forget this thing! Now I'm breaking out the big guns!"

The spell punk gasped and got ready to fly away, but it didn't get the chance! Right before it could sweep back up to the attic, Chihiro teleported behind it, snapped her fingers and shot a misty cloud right in its face! The spell punk groaned and sneezed as the mist clouded around its face, and its eyes twitched for a few moments before it instantly collapsed to the floor and snored!

"Sleeping powder, always a classic," Chihiro remarked as she crossed her arms and kicked against the floor. "Anyways, seems like my work here is done!"

Chihiro froze as a chill rushed through the area, turned around and raised an eyebrow as the spell punks completely vanished from the hall! All that remained was a thin, vaguely lizard-like shadow that seemed to trail across the walls before it disappeared entirely.

Chihiro raised an eyebrow, shrugged it off. and smiled as she teleported back to the attic in a flash.

The attic was still dusty and disheveled from the earlier fight, but now the light that once surrounded it vanished. At the end of the attic sat Spyro, Trigger Happy, and Wrecking Ball who dutifully smashed away at the beacon!

Chihiro grinned as she waltzed up to the battered and bruised beacon, and with a snap of her fingers, she summoned a gigantic magic hammer and heaved it over her shoulder.

"And just for good measures," Chihiro said as she swung the hammer down on the beacon and smashed it to teeny-tiny bits, "DIE!"

Everyone around broke into laughter as Chihiro lifted up the hammer. She whooshed it away with a simple shake of her hands, but Chihiro didn't pay much mind to them! Rather, her eyes fell on Spyro as she started to chuckle as well, and his golden eyes fell on her as he beamed.

"Nice thinking back there, Chi!" Spyro praised as he swished his tail. "If it weren't for you, we might not've gotten to that beacon in time!"

"Well," Chihiro replied as she hid her hands behind her back and chuckled, "I learned from the best!"

Spyro's smile faded as he tilted his head. "You did? Who?"

"You, of course!" Chihiro giggled as she knelt down and poked Spyro's snout.

Spyro let out a sharp gasp, and his tail twitched as he turned away from Chihiro's gaze—but not from embarrassment of any sort! His smile stretched wide while faint giggles escaped from his mouth, and all he could bring himself to do was scratch his horns.

"Thanks, Chi."

Trigger Happy raised an eyebrow as Spyro and Chihiro shared in each other's laughter, and a small, thin smile stretched across his lips.

"I see what's going on here," Trigger Happy said as he crossed his arms and made a sagely nod.

"What's going on here?" Wrecking Ball asked as he perked up and looked all around.

Trigger Happy chuckled as he laid an arm around Wrecking Ball's back. "Well, you see, Wrecks…"

Trigger Happy went to whisper something in Wrecking Ball's earholes, but before he could even get a word out, a glare from Spyro shocked him into silence.

"Anyways," Spyro said as he flew away from Chihiro and tapped the button on his communicator, "we need to signal the others and let them know the spell's down!"

So, they all nodded and tapped their communicator, all while a string of beeps echoed throughout the attic and into the stratosphere.