Skylanders Pick Your Portal: The Troubles with Doubles

Skylanders Pick Your Portal: The Troubles with Doubles
Author:	Barry Hutchison
Publisher:	Puffin Books
Release Date:	September 5, 2013
Pages:	80
Category:	Choose your own adventure
Based on:	Skylanders franchise

Skylanders Pick Your Portal: The Troubles with Doubles, also called just Skylanders: Pick Your Portal, is a choose your own adventure book for the Skylanders franchise. It was also released as part of the broader Pick-Your-Path series of choose your own adventure books.

Story Summary

When the heroic Skylanders see their world faced with a dangerous threat, they call upon a new ally to help them to victory: you! In this first ever Skylanders 'Pick Your Path'-style adventure, you choose the story and decide which of the Skylanders will leap aboard the Portal of Power to seek out victory.

Plot

As a choose your own adventure book, Skylanders: Pick Your Portal has multiple endings that the reader can achieve. Regardless of whichever ending is chosen, the book begins on the same storyline.

It is a beautiful day in Skylands, and Spyro, Pop Fizz, Hot Dog, Terrafin, Fright Rider, and Stealth Elf have gathered in the Ruins to do some training with Cali under the watchful eye of “You,” a young portal master who watches over the Skylanders from afar, with Flynn joining them soon after. Just as the Skylanders prepare to start Cali’s latest Heroic Challenge, however, Master Eon appears to warn the Skylanders of a grave report. A town of Mabu on Shattered Island had been attacked by none other than Spyro, much to everyone’s shock. With the report fresh in their minds, the Skylanders and Cali debate on whether they stood stay and train before heading out or immediately go to address the threat, and it’s up to “You” to decide what they should do...

Good Ending

The book has one good ending, which can be obtained through any of the following paths: 8-63-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-23-50-59, 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-23-50-59, or 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-23-50-59.

In this ending, the Skylanders head to Shattered Island to investigate the attack on the Mabu town (possibly after training with Cali or getting upgrades from Persephone on their portal master’s advice), and upon arriving, find the village in flames. The Skylanders jump into action to stop the fires, but upon saving the village, the villagers attack Spyro and accuse him of being the one to set the village alight.

On the portal master’s guidance, Spyro stands down and Hot Dog comes in and points out that after everything Spyro had done for the village, there is no way he would have burned it down, and urges them to calm down so they can help the Skylanders find the real culprit. As the villagers finally calm down, Hugo and Flynn arrive to inform the Skylanders that more evil doubles of them had been sighted on Dragon’s Peak, and the Skylanders make haste to find out what the doubles are up to.

Following a run-in with some Chompy Pods upon arrival, the Skylanders locate evil doubles of Stealth Elf, Chop Chop, Gill Grunt and Slam Bam walking inside a cave, and the portal master sends Stealth Elf in to spy on them before the other Skylanders listen in on the conversation with her. Inside the cave, the evil doubles meet with an evil double of Terrafin, and trash-talk the Skylanders as they wait for Kaos to arrive (much to Stealth Elf’s anger). As they wait, Stealth Elf returns to report her findings, only to find that the other Skylanders had gotten bored of waiting and followed her in. As they try to keep their cover, Pop Fizz’s potion bottles clink together and alert the evil doubles to the Skylanders’ presence.

Rather than battle the Skylanders themselves, the evil doubles send an Arkeyan Hammah to fight the Skylanders. The portal master sends Terrafin to fight the Hammah, and after a fierce brawl, defeats the Hammah much to the evil doubles’ shock. The doubles split up and flee, so the portal master sends the Skylanders after the evil doubles of Gill Grunt and Terrafin. Upon catching up with them, the Skylanders find none other than a gigantic Kaos, who had gained his new form while the Skylanders were busy dealing with the doubles.

After failing to get Glumshanks to dispose of the Skylanders for him, Kaos himself takes them on. The Skylanders initially get the upper hand over him, but Kaos quickly regains his footing in the battle by summoning the throne of Dragon’s Peak and using it to grow even larger, into a form he dubs “Ultra-Kaos.” The Skylanders are seemingly at a loss, but the portal master has one last trick up their sleeve—summoning Thumpback to keep Ultra-Kaos preoccupied while the Skylanders reverse the growing process using a reverse switch on the back of the throne. Kaos returns back to normal and flees as the heroes celebrate.

Bad Endings

In addition to the good ending, the book also has multiple bad endings that the reader can achieve.

Bad Ending	Path(s)
The Skylanders try some “unpredictable” training with Cali, which turns out to be a game of “Catchy Catchy Boom Boom” with Boomer. They are then caught in an explosion during the game and are forced to rest.	8-28-48
The Skylanders get lost in a maze after being misdirected by Fright Rider during Cali’s Heroic Challenge.	8-28-67-52
Because the Skylanders took too long to address the mission, a disappointed Master Eon sends another team to deal with the mission instead.	8-28-67-38
The Skylanders choose to head to Falling Forest to deal with reports of evil minion attacks instead and leave the Mabu town to its doom.	8-63-54-22 8-63-9-54-22 8-28-67-18-54-22
Spyro tries to convince the angry Mabu townsfolk of his innocence, but only makes them angrier and leaves the Skylanders unable to get any information out of them.	8-63-54-31-60 8-63-9-54-31-60 8-28-67-18-54-31-60
The Skylanders pursue the Evil Dragon Minion at Falling Forest, but Spyro fails to defeat it and ends up seriously injured.	8-63-54-31-60 8-63-9-54-31-60 8-28-67-18-54-31-60
The Skylanders immediately attack the evil doubles at Dragon’s Peak, but the evil doubles flee and the Skylanders are caught in a surprise Boom Fiend ambush instead.	8-63-54-31-40-73-37 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-37 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-37
In a fit of rage, Stealth Elf attacks and defeats the Evil Minions, but as a result, the trail goes cold and you are unable to find out what they were up to.	8-63-54-31-40-73-25-34 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-25-34 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-25-34
Pop Fizz is sent out to fight the Arkeyan Hammah, and after a fruitless battle, attempts to defeat it with one of his potions. However, the potions fails to affect it and he is knocked unconscious.	8-63-54-31-40-73-25-77-56-17 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-25-77-56-17 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-25-77-56-17
Pop Fizz is sent out to fight the Arkeyan Hammah, and after a fruitless battle, attempts to defeat it by transforming into his Beast form. Though successful at first, a bad head injury during the battle knocks him back down to size.	8-63-54-31-40-73-25-77-56-44 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-25-77-56-44 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-25-77-56-44
Terrafin attempts to punch the Arkeyan Hammah into submission, but the Hammah knocks him out via some key blows with its weapon.	8-63-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-16 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-16 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-16
The Skylanders follow Stealth Elf and Chop Chop’s evil doubles to a narrow corridor, where they are cornered by both the closing corridor and the Evil Chop Chop double. Spyro defeats the double with a fireball, but the Skylanders get caught in a tremor that traps them in a cave-in.	8-63-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-75-72 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-75-72 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-75-72
The Skylanders follow Stealth Elf and Chop Chop’s evil doubles to a narrow corridor, where they are cornered by both the closing corridor and the Evil Chop Chop double. Pop Fizz manages to free the Skylanders by transforming into his Beast form and spreading out the corridor’s walls, but they are forced to flee due a tremor causing the underground to collapse.	8-63-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-75-72 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-75-72 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-75-72
The Skylanders all rush to attack the giant Kaos’s foot, and he promptly stomps them flat.	8-63-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-23-58 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-23-58 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-23-58
The Skylanders unleash the strongest attacks on Ultra-Kaos, but he barely notices the attack and leaves Dragon’s Peak to conquer the rest of Skylands.	8-63-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-23-50-71 8-63-9-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-23-50-71 8-28-67-18-54-31-40-73-25-77-46-35-23-50-71

Featured Characters

Skylanders

• Spyro
• Pop Fizz
• Hot Dog
• Fright Rider
• Terrafin
• Stealth Elf
• Boomer
• Gill Grunt (mentioned)
• Thumpback

Characters

• "You" (unnamed portal master)
• Cali
• T-Bone (cameo)
• Flynn
• Master Eon
• Hugo
• Persephone
• Evil Dragon Minion
• Evil Knight Minion (Referred to as Evil Chop Chop)
• Evil Ninja Minion (Referred to as Evil Stealth Elf)
• Evil Amphibious Gillman (Referred to as Evil Gill Grunt)
• Evil Ice Yeti (Referred to as Evil Slam Bam)
• Evil Terrafin
• Kaos
• Glumshanks

Trivia

• As the book contains evil doubles of Spyro and Terrafin, who do not have evil minion counterparts in the game, this also makes the book the only piece of Skylanders spin-off media to introduce members of Kaos’s Minions not seen in the games.
• It is implied that the portal master who guides the Skylanders throughout the book is the same person as the Earth portal master/the player, due to them watching and guiding the Skylanders from afar and also utilizing a Portal of Power. If this is the case, this also makes the book one of the few instances in Skylanders media of the Earth portal masters having a direct role in the story, as opposed to just summoning Skylanders behind the scenes.
• The battle with Kaos at the end of the book is similar to the fight with Super Evil Kaos, as both involve the Skylanders fighting against a gigantic version of Kaos that was powered up by external forces and trying to stop him by attacking various parts of his body.
  • Coincidentally, the book was released a month before Skylanders: Swap Force was released and revealed the fight.