- "This is why I usually stay on the plane."
- —Sky Monster's discomfort for any kind of non-aerial combat
Ernest 'Ernie' Q. Sheperd II, known to everyone only as Sky Monster, is a New Zealand Air Force pilot and a member of the Coalition of Minnows and Jack West Jr's team, primarily operating as the pilot for their aircraft.
History[]
Early History[]
At some point after turning 18, Ernest Sheperd joined the New Zealand Air Force, where he earned the call-sign Sky Monster.
Through his adult life, Sky Monster's parents were constantly on his back to provide them with grandchildren.
Sky Monster was assigned to take part in Desert Storm operations in 1991, working alongside U.S. forces and their allies. During an operation to destroy a SCUD base in Basra, Sky Monster served as the co-pilot on a chopper proving support to the troops on the ground. When the Delta team requested an evacuation, the choppers moved in to extract Cal Kallis and his men, however Sky Monster's chopper was hit by a missile and crashed onto the airfield. As the Republican Guards closed in, the unconscious Sky Monster was pulled from the wreckage by the Australian SAS specialist Jack West Jr and carried into a nearby hanger. When he regained consciousness, Jack asked if Sky Monster could fly the 747 in the hanger so they could escape; determining that he could fly anything, Sky Monster proceeded to pilot the 747 away from Basra. Grateful to Jack for rescuing him, Sky Monster would strike up a friendship with the Australian.
In 1996, Sky Monster was among New Zealand's representatives in a meeting of small nations to discuss uniting to restore the Golden Capstone in order to avert the destruction threatened by the Tartarus sunspot. Soon the pilot was chosen as his country's representative to help guard Lily until she was old enough to begin translating the clues leading to the hiding places within the seven Ancient Wonders.
Over the next several years spent raising Lily at the team's base in Kenya, Sky Monster took to looking after the 747 that he and Jack had taken from Iraq, known as the Halicarnassus. At some point he began working with Wizard to develop a Retrograde Thrust System to allow the Halicarnassus to hover in the air vertically. Sky Monster and Lily enjoyed reading the Lord of the Rings novels together, and after they watched the film adaptions together, he gave Lily her own call-sign; Eowyn.
When Lily turned ten, she managed to decipher the first part of the Callimachus text, and soon afterwards Jack led Sky Monster and the rest of the team to the Sudan to locate the Colossus of Rhodes Piece.
Seven Ancient Wonders[]
Being that he had little-to-no experience in ground combat, Sky Monster remained in the Halicarnassus while the team entered the ancient mine. After they were forced to abandon the Piece to Cal Kallis's CIEF team, Jack called Sky Monster to request that he extract them and their swamp-runners in the Hali.
After the team determined the Alexandria Lighthouse Piece was located at Hamilcar's Refuge, Sky Monster dropped them off on the Tunisia coast while they made their play for the Piece against the CIEF. A day after he picked up the team following the failed mission, Sky Monster piloted the Halicarnassus to pick up Jack from an Italian resort island.
In the wake of their failures, Jack called a team meeting, during which Sky Monster left the plane on auto-pilot. During the discussion regarding the final resting place of the Temple of Artemis Piece with the Cult of Amun Ra, Sky Monster spoke up to note that he was under the impression that the Cult had long since died out, to which Wizard informed him that the Cult of Amun Ra was now the Catholic Church.
Once Jack reluctantly decided they needed to liberate Mustapha Zaeed, an expert on the Capstone, from Guantanamo Bay to help, Sky Monster piloted the Hali while other members of the team took control of the plane's turrets. He managed to make a landing on the base's golf course with ease, having earlier teased Jack to give him a harder challenge. With Zaeed's assistance, the team were able to determine the locations of the next two Pieces, and soon afterwards Sky Monster dropped off the divided team to Paris and Rome so that they could retrieve the next Pieces. Once Jack's team retrieved the Zeus Piece, Sky Monster picked them up and escaped to Spain.
Later, after they had landed back at Victoria Station, Sky Monster was in the middle of doing a post-flight check when they suddenly came under fire from the Judah's men. Sky Monster was quickly able to get the Halicarnassus up and running in time to allow most of them to escape. When taking the team to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Iraq, Sky Monster heard radio chatter of approaching CIEF forces and warned Jack. Following the disastrous mission in which only Jack and Pooh Bear made it back, Sky Monster picked them up, and was subjected to watch as Jack checked them all for tracking bugs and Jack himself failed.
Next, Sky Monster and Pooh Bear attacked the CIEF forces gathered at the Great Pyramid in order to prevent them from attaining global power. Initiating the Halicarnassus's vertical hovering ability, Sky Monster was more freely able to assist in the assault by firing missiles at the enemy choppers. When the battle was over, Sky Monster took the team away from the area.
In the following weeks after the battle, Sky Monster assisted Jack in retrieving the Pillar from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and Mirror from the Lighthouse of Alexandria from Hamilcar's refuge, and transported them to the nearest airfield to Jack's new farm in Australia.
Between Seven Ancient Wonders and The Six Sacred Stones[]
Some time after the mission was completed, Sky Monster returned to New Zealand to resume his regular duties, while occasionally being asked to go over some details of the Capstone mission. During his time off, he would regularly visit Jack and Lily at the Great-Sandy Desert Farm. Though the absence of most of her former guardians, including Sky Monster, was hard on Lily at first, she in turn took to visiting of then in their home nation whenever possible.
After reflecting on the deaths of Big Ears, Doris and Noddy during the mission, Jack realised that there would always be the risk of being killed without a chance to say goodbye, and so he suggested that Sky Monster and everybody in the team write an email to be read by him or someone else important to them should they perish during a mission, which they called Messages from the Other Side.
Sky Monster was able to rejoin the entire team as they celebrated the 2007 New Year at the Burj al Arab in Dubai.
On one occasion while staying with Jack, Sky Monster accompanied his friend to Pine Gap, where he scoffed at the fact that the Australian military claimed it housed giant underground antennas.
Some time shortly before the first of December 2007, Sky Monster was visiting Jack's farm to visit him and Lily during her school break.
The Six Sacred Stones[]
Sky Monster was awoken by Jack as he called to his guests that the farm was about to be attacked by invading Chinese forces, and rushed off alone to get the Halicarnassus ready for everyone to flee. Meeting Jack and Zoe's Light Strike Vehicles on the highway, he extracted them and began a fire fight with Chinese MiGs, which they managed to repel or destroy. Jack then instructed Sky Monster to fly them on a non-direct route to Dubai, where Wizard had requested Jack arrange a new meeting of nations.
Once everyone had gathered, Sky Monster represented New Zealand once again as Jack revealed what he had learned from Wizard's notes; a zero-point field referred to as the Dark Star was due to enter the solar system, and unless it was repelled, then its deadly energy would destroy all life on Earth. To this end, they needed to gather six oblong diamonds called Pillars and set them at various locations around the world to rebuild an ancient machine. In order to find the Pillars and Vertices, determine when each Pillar had to be set and cleanse them, they would need to find the Six Sacred Stones.
In need of Wizard's greater knowledge of the situation, Sky Monster transported most of the team to China so that they could free Wizard and Tank from the Chinese, and waited for them at a different rendezvous point as they performed the break-out of Xintan and then retrieved the Philosopher's Stone from Witch Mountain. Once their tasks were completed, Sky Monster picked up the team and began flying them to Mortimer Island, where they were to go over the information they had learned.
Sky Monster joined the rest of the procession as they identified the location of the First Vertex at Abu Simbel, learned the Pillar-laying dates from the Killing Stone of the Maya, and cleansed the two Pillars they had with the Philosopher's Stone. Once they were ready, Sky Monster took control of the Halicarnassus to transport the team to Abu Simbel to lay the First Pillar at its Vertex.
However, while the team were busy on the ground, Sky Monster and Stretch learned of an invading force heading for the team, and after they eventually made contact to warn them, he dropped Stretch off so that they could rendezvous at the highway. When Wizard's car arrived, pursued by the enemy forces, one of the Hali's engines was damaged by an RPG and troops prepared to invade. The angered Sky Monster left Wizard to steer them towards a stretch of highway they could still take off from while he went after the troops with a shotgun. Unaware his radio ear-piece had come loose, Jack saved him from an ambush, and told Sky Monster to leave everyone else behind if it meant getting Wizard, Lily and the Pillar away. With the last stretch of highway looming, Sky Monster was forced to leave Jack, Stretch, Pooh Bear and Astro behind as they headed for the Congo.
However, with the damage the Halicarnassus had taken and lacking the necessary fuel, Sky Monster had to join Wizard's team as they left the Halicarnassus on an abandoned airstrip and began driving through Rwanda to rendezvous with Solomon Kol. After meeting up with the Kenyan, Sky Monster and Solomon's friends began making their way back to the Hali with the fuel they needed to get to Victoria Station.
Once they arrived, Sky Monster spent the next few days attaching a new engine he'd kept at the farm to the Hali before he headed off to the Congo, listening for any radio chatter about the team. After following an aerial contingent at a distance, Sky Monster soon spotted a Clipper flying out of the area, and upon making contact with it discovered that Wizard, Zoe and Lily were in it and in need of an escape. Utilising a dog-sniffer maneuver, Sky Monster quickly extracted everyone onto the Halicarnassus before the natives within the Clipper brought the small plane down
While trying to come up with a plan to get to the Second Vertex under Table Mountain, Sky Monster discovered that all traffic into South Africa was blocked, and they were thus unable to reach the Vertex. While resting at an airfield, the team was contacted by Jack, and Sky Monster and the others watched Jack make his way through the Vertex via a video feed, and his subsequent fall into the chasm. Though as shocked as everyone else, Sky Monster noted that Jack had managed to lay the Pillar, but then had to prepare the Halicarnassus for take-off as enemy F-15's approached their position.
The Five Greatest Warriors[]
Sky Monster flew the Halicarnassus out over the sea to force their pursuers to abandon the chase, and once the F-15's turned away Sky Monster received a message from Jack, who had survived the fall and rescued Alby. Sharing the others' relief, Sky Monster then followed Jack's instruction for them to rendezvous with him at World's End.
After Jack decided they needed to help Pooh Bear rescue Stretch, Sky Monster waited with the Halicarnassus on edge of the Jordan-Israel border while Jack and Zoe infiltrated the Dimona Nuclear Research Centre. As Jack used another of Hussein's planes to fool Muniz into thinking he had eliminated them, Zoe drove Pooh Bear and Stretch to Sky Monster's position. After Jack contacted them to request a pickup from his original landing position, Sky Monster teased his friend and suggested they stick to his original rendezvous point.
Once the whole team was reunited at Sea Ranger's base in Zanzibar to prepare their next move, Diane Cassidy suggested they focus their research on a prophecy in which five figures throughout history known as the Five Greatest Warriors would affect the Machine, the Pillars and the Vertices. As Cassidy explained, Moses, Jesus Christ, Genghis Khan and Napoléon Bonaparte all fit the descriptions in the prophecy, while the Fifth Warrior was unknown and set to be present during the Dark Star's return. Cassidy's suggestion turned out to be quite fruitful, and Sky Monster and the rest of the team spent the next two months undergoing research to confirm the Five Warriors' connections to the Machine.
When Lachlan and Julius Adamson discovered that Genghis once possessed a Fabergé Egg with images of the entrances to the Vertices, kept in his long lost Arsenal, Sky Monster flew Jack, Wizard, Zoe and Lily to Mongolia in order to locate it.
Having to land some distance away, Sky Monster joined the group as they traveled over-land towards where they believed the Arsenal was, and Zoe was amused by the pilot's discomfort as she drove. When they arrived at the concealed meteor crater containing the Arsenal, it became clear that their enemies had already entered the Arsenal, and so Jack had Sky Monster remain up top with the Chinese vehicles to act as their lookout. When the rest of the Chinese forces arrived, Sky Monster hid beneath one of the abandoned vehicles until Wolf emerged and ordered Mao Gongli to destroy the Arsenal with the team inside it. Sneaking into the entrance, Sky Monster cut the suspension bridge and radioed Jack to warn him of the danger, and soon Jack sent him to help Zoe dig out an old escape tunnel beneath Genghis's sarcophagus to avoid Mao and his forces.
After they had laid low for a week, Sky Monster took Jack, Lily and Zoe to an abandoned airfield so that they could monitor the situation around the Third Vertex at Hokkaido, and soon informed Jack of a call from Pooh Bear's team in England. Since the captive Tank had revealed that the Blood Brotherhood was supported by the Japanese government and had blockaded the Vertex, Jack opted to use the Black Bee to move in and assist Wolf's forces with Lily and Zoe, while Sky Monster was to remain with Tank. Though he lost contact with Jack while his team were in the Vertex, Sky Monster realised the Pillar must have been successfully placed when the time to do so had passed, and contacted Pooh Bear's team to let them know.
Soon afterwards, however, Sky Monster was captured by Russian forces, along with Tank and the Hali, and taken to a dam in Siberia belonging to the Russian royal known as Carnivore, who also captured Jack, Lily, Zoe and several other players in the Machine-restoration mission. Soon Carnivore revealed his intention to take the Pillars and their rewards and manipulate everyone else into completing the Machine's restoration for him. To free the hostages from the tank of formaldehyde, Sky Monster was sent with Jack and Lily to Diego Garcia to lay the Fifth Pillar at its Vertex on Carnivore's behalf.
Upon landing, Sky Monster remained on the Halicarnassus with the two guards Carnviore had sent to watch them while Jack and Lily went with Iolanthe Compton-Jones to lay the Pillar. Predictably, the Americans turned on them as soon as the Pillar was laid, and Sky Monster rushed to get the Hali airborne before damaging the base's runways to keep enemy fighters from taking off. As he dodged the anti-aircraft fire, Sky Monster arranged with Jack to pick him, Lily and Iolanthe via a parachute hook before fleeing the area.
Once Jack decided they needed to recover the final Pillar before their enemies, Sky Monster piloted the Hali to the Dead Sea and remained onboard with Carnivore's guards once again as Jack, Lily and Iolanthe entered the abandoned salt mine containing Jesus's tomb. Soon, Pooh Bear's team arrived and helped to disable the guards, and Pooh Bear and Stretch left Sky Monster, the twins and Cieran Kincaid with the Hali. Unfortunately, Kincaid, in fact an agent of Carnivore, knocked Sky Monster out with a nerve agent and drugged Julius and Lachlan.
After Jack and the others emerged from the mine, they saw that Carnivore had arrived at their position and Sky Monster and the twins had been handcuffed to the Hali's cargo ramp struts. Though Carnivore and his people managed to get away with Lily and the final Pillar, Jack managed to keep his friends from being executed by Kincaid by killing the treacherous Irishman first. When Sky Monster regained consciousness, the nerve agent Kincaid had used on him kept the pilot very ill and vomiting. Once Jack had patched up the team as best he could, he opted to head to the final Vertex on Easter Island by himself. Sky Monster watched with the others as Jack took flight on the damaged Halicarnassus, and was saddened since the Hali was unlikely to have a safe landing and would never see the plane again, commending it as having been a part of the team.
Sky Monster and the others began making their way back to civilisation, and then proceeded to to Carnivore's base to release the captives from the Living Tombs. After helping them recover over the next few days, they were joined by Jack and Lily, and when he got a moment Sky Monster asked Jack about the Halicarnassus. After hearing about its fall into the Vertex's abyss, Jack suggested that Sky Monster could help him in getting themselves a replacement plane.
A few weeks later, Sky Monster helped Jack break into the hanger on Easter Island where Carnivore's abandoned Tupolev-144 had been left, and flew it to Jack's new farm. Later Sky Monster was present to watch as Jack and Zoe got married in a small civil ceremony, and five weeks after the Dark Star's return, Sky Monster was staying at the farm and working on the newly-christened Sky Warrior.
Between The Five Greatest Warriors and The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]
Thanks to Jack putting Alexander in the care of Sky Monster's parents, the New Zealand pilot was no longer nagged about providing them with a grandchild.
During the course of the next eight years, the members of the Coalition team continued largely as they had before, returning to their home nation while making the odd visit to one another, and Sky Monster continued his regular visits to Jack's farm to work on the Sky Warrior.
When Jack's old neighbour from the Simpson Desert, Wally Ferguson, was kidnapped by the Chinese, Sky Monster aided Jack in rescuing him by flying the Sky Warrior over the Fiery Cross Reef base and collecting them via the plane's capture cable.
In November 2016, while he was at the West farm, Sky Monster piloted Jack, Lily, Alby and the dogs to Pine Gap where Jack's presence had been requested. However, while remaining on the Sky Warrior to tinker around as Jack was being briefed, Sky Monster was knocked out by a sleeping gas and summarily taken away, along with Jack, Lily, Alby and the dogs by a group of people led by Iolanthe.
The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]
Sky Monster would wake up two days later inside a train-mounted cage, and forced to watch as a mysterious man calling himself Hades announced the beginning of the Great Games of the Hydra in the Underworld, and as Jack struggled through a pit of rising water in order to obtain a strange gold sphere.
Shortly after Jack was reunited with his friends in the interim before the next Challenge, Sky Monster and the others were met by Iolanthe, who explained to the group about the Four Legendary Kingdoms of Land, Sky, Sea and Underworld which secretly ruled the world from the shadows. Iolanthe also explained that the Games were a ritual to prevent the Hydra Galaxy from destroying the Earth, in a trial set by the Super-Ancient Beings, with Jack chosen as the Kingdom of Land's last-moment replacement Champion.
After Vacheron told Jack to select one of his allies to accompany him during the next Challenge, the Australian choose Sky Monster, and after being handcuffed together they were brought to the starting point for the Third Challenge. Unfortunately, they were faced with an army of minotaurs and armoured elephants, and Sky Monster's lack of fitness slowed them down as they struggled to survive. Sky Monster became fearful of falling victim to the minotaurs after watching Gregory Brigham and the Gorkha cut their companions' arms off and sacrificed them to further their chances, though Jack assured his friend he wasn't going to do that to him.
When it became apparent that Jack wouldn't make it while still handcuffed to him, Sky Monster managed to get their handcuffs cut off by one of the rolling iron balls, but was hit by one of its spikes in his forearm. Sky Monster implored Jack to reach the finish line and survive without him, insisting that he was just a pilot and not as special as Jack himself. After Jack managed to defeat the Gorkha, ensuring that he wouldn't be eliminated, he went back to help Sky Monster, retrieving him before a river of sludge could overcome the pilot. After Jack rescued one of the minotaurs, they and Sky Monster exited the arena.
After the Challenge, Sky Monster had his injured arm bandaged and then ate with his companions and their new ally E-147. The next morning, Sky Monster watched from the hostage train and Jack, Alby and Roxy tackled the wall maze of the Fourth Challenge. When Jack was instructed to select two of his people to aid in in the Fifth Challenge, he chose Sky Monster and E-147 to join him in his Light Strike Vehicle, with Sky Monster in the driver's seat. Sky Monster drove hard to ensure that Fear's attempts to crash them failed, though Jack soon told Sky Monster to go on without him as he took down Fear. Knowing that he wouldn't live long if Jack died, the pilot went back for his friend, helping shrug off the various attempts by the minotaurs and the Hydra to stop them until Jack got the Sphere off Brigham.
As Jack had learned that the hostages were all going to be kill after the Challenge, he had Sky Monster drive a Typhoon truck to the finish, and once they had grabbed Alby, the dogs and Scarecrow's hostages, they began their escape from the Underworld. As Sky Monster drove them out of the Underworld and worked to evade the Hydra and the minotaurs, Jack, knowing at some point the explosive in his neck would be detonated, told his allies to go on without him and proceeded to distract their enemies as Sky Monster and the others drove away.
As it got dark, one of the Underworld's chase choppers located them, but the group was lucky enough to be rescued by the newly arrived Pooh Bear, Stretch and Mae Merriweather. As the group asserted they'd need an army to storm the Underworld and free their friends, Alby realised he could get them one, and as Alby won the minotaurs to their side, Sky Monster repaired the chopper and flew himself, Pooh Bear and Stretch back to the Underworld.
Arriving just as the ceremony to divert the Hydra galaxy was underway, Sky Monster fired at the camouflage netting covering the Underworld and brought down the relay antennae Alby had instructed him to destroy to keep Vacheron from detonating the explosive in Jack's neck. After covering the minotaurs as they assaulted the mountain, Sky Monster waited until Jack, Lily and the others had been found, before flying alongside the chopper Hades had secured for them back to the mine where the Sky Warrior was parked, and from there they proceeded on to the West farm to recover from the ordeal.
The Three Secret Cities[]
Over the next few days at the farm, Sky Monster took the chance to rest after the Great Games ordeal. Soon Hades informed Jack and the others that he was being forcibly abdicated from the Four Kingdoms, and with the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains approaching, they would need to collect the Helmet of Hades of the Immortal Weapons, items which needed to be empowered at the Three Secret Cities of Thule, Atlas and Ra, from his New York penthouse.
Sky Monster then joined the team in flying to New York on the Sky Warrior. After leaving the plane on auto-pilot, Sky Monster joined the others as they listened to a message Hades has received from Minotus, who stated that a silver coffin had opened and unleashed a monstrous "bronze man" that was attacking the minotaurs. Sky Monster, recalling seeing hundreds of these silver coffins during the Fifth Challenge, reminded Jack of this fact, prompting Jack to send Stretch and Pooh Bear to the Underworld to investigate.
Upon arriving at Teterboro Airport, Sky Monster dropped the team off before taking off again to head for a rendezvous point on Long Island.
After losing Hades in New York, their primary source of knowledge, Jack decided their best move was to view a charcoal rubbing of the full Altar of the Cosmos tablet kept by the Fraternal Order of St. Paul at the Gallerie dell'Accademia, and so Sky Monster began piloting the Sky Warrior to Venice. With Jack and Lily needing a way to sneak into the Accademia undetected, Sky Monster suggested they steal a luxury yacht named the Belarus so that they could use its compact submarine to traverse Venice's canals.
While Jack and Lily snuck into the Accademia, Sky Monster and Alby kept an eye out for patrols on the canal. When the Knights of the Golden Eight suddenly arrived in a huge aquatic Hercules, Sky Monster drove the Belarus up to the Accademia where Alby rushed in to find Lily and Jack, but luckily Sky Monster caught up to Lily and Alby in time to knock out one of the Knights with a pipe. Using the Belarus's floatplane, Sky Monster attempted to get the group to safety, but was hit in the right shoulder by a bullet from the Knights' chopper, forcing Alby to take the controls. After being assisted into Jack's boat, Sky Monster, Jack and Lily were forced to leave Alby behind (at his own insistence) in order to escape.
After hiding out in an abandoned hotel to have his wound seen to, Sky Monster joined Jack and Lily as they rendezvoused with Zoe's group at a safe-house in London. As they discussed the locations of the Three Cities with Iolanthe, a commotion on the Thames led them to discover how far the Knights were willing to go to draw Jack and Lily out, displaying feeds of Lachlan and his family being blown up. Seconds later, Jaeger Eins revealed that they also had Sky Monster's parents at their mercy, and Sky Monster was horrified as he watched a new feed showing his parents, crucified to the wall of their own home, being blown up as well. As guilt for endangering the lives of his team's family members engulfed Jack, he and Lily elected to confront the Knights, but not before Sky Monster assured Jack that he was not responsible for his parents' deaths.
When Jack and Lily were captured, Sky Monster stayed at the safe-house with Zoe, Iolanthe and Mae while they researched the location of the Royal Prison of Erebus.
After Jack was rescued, Sky Monster rejoined the team as they prepared to assault the Knights' base at Aragon Castle to rescue Alby and Lily. Sky Monster assisted by driving a supertanker into Aragon Castle's underwater seagate, followed by a second second tanker driven by Zoe and Hades, to distract the Knights from Jack and Aloysius Knight's approach. Once the Knights were forced to retreat and Alby was secured, Sky Monster flew Stretch and Pooh Bear to Iceland so that they could back up Orlando Compton-Jones's people in case they failed to empower the Sword of the Rock.
Soon Sky Monster headed straight for Thule after receiving the coordinates that Iolanthe, Mae and Nobody had obtained from Francis Drake's coffin. While Stretch and Pooh Bear headed into the City, the still-injured Sky Monster remained outside with the Sky Warrior.
Sometime after the Weapons had been empowered and Stretch and Pooh Bear returned to the plane, they and Sky Monster heard Knight report that he and Jack had been too late to save Lily, who had been sacrificed on the Altar of the Cosmos by Sphinx to complete the trial. With nothing else to be done, Sky Monster and the rest of the team agreed to rendezvous back at Hades' safe-house in Rome.
The Two Lost Mountains[]
In the next few weeks after the Trial of the Cities and Pooh Bear's discovery that it was Alexander's body in the sacrificial pool at the Altar of the Cosmos and not Lily's, Sky Monster and the rest of the team based themselves at Hades's Estate in Alsace-Lorraine as they began using facial recognition software to comb the world's security cameras in the hope of finding Lily while preparing for the next trial.
After a few weeks, Lily was discovered to be is Moscow, and so Sky Monster, Pooh Bear and Stretch set off for Russia in the Sky Warrior, with Jack, Knight and Alby intending to catch up. Once they arrived over Moscow, Stretch used Jack's Gull Wings to get to the ground while Sky Monster and Pooh Bear stayed aboard the Tupolev to be prepared for a quick extraction. Watching the feed from Stretch's mask of the city, Sky Monster was shocked by the sight of Moscow's citizens in a comatose state, wondering if they were in fact dead. Soon, however, Stretch called in a warning for the pair to don protective headphones and put the Sky Warrior on autopilot, though Sky Monster of course had his usual noise-canceling headphones on, which kept the Siren bell that was rung over Moscow from knocking him out.
Unfortunately, communications were jammed, preventing Monster and Pooh Bear from contacting the rest of the team while they escaped Sphinx's forces in Moscow. Soon after, as the Sky Warrior continued flying away on its automated flight path, Jack and Rufus attempted to contact the pair on the Sky Warrior, but were forced to assume that Sky Monster and Pooh Bear had been rendered comatose by the bell. When Sky Monster detected a missile fired from a Russian military satellite targeting the Tupolev, he and Pooh Bear were forced to ditch the Sky Warrior and parachute out to safety before it was destroyed. While Jack assumed that Sky Monster and Pooh Bear had been killed in their sleep, the pair landed safely in some remote farmland.
With no means of communication, Sky Monster and Pooh Bear were forced to trek their way to the nearest regional airport, where they stole a plane and started heading back to Hades's estate, but still could no get in touch with the team.
Meanwhile, as Jack prepared to head to the first iron mountain, he opened Monster and Pooh Bears' Messages from the Other Side, reading Sky Monster's message in which the pilot expressed his gratitude to Jack for including him in his adventures and giving his life meaning, and which was also signed off with his real name.
Almost a day after the events in Moscow, Sky Monster and Pooh Bear arrived back at Hades's estate, only to find it in ruins after it had been attacked by Yago and his bronzemen. Taking a seaplane that had remained intact, the pair headed off again, soon discovering radio communications mentioning Jack at Mont Blanc's Aiguille du Midi. Rushing to the French Alps, Sky Monster and Pooh Bear arrived just as an observatory Jack and the others were in was sent sliding down the slope after being hit by a missile. Maneuvering the seaplane so that it was keeping pace with the observatory, Sky Monster kept the plane steady as the others jumped onto the pontoons to keep them from sliding away to their doom. Once they had landed safely nearby, Monster helped explain what had happened to him and Pooh Bear.
As the team had reconvened to figure out their next move in locating one of the two lost mountains so that they could perform the Fall and get into the Supreme Labyrinth, Jack confessed to reading Sky Monster's Message while he was assumed dead, and the kiwi assured him that he had meant every word in it. After the team determined that the fourth mountain was beneath the Dome of the Rock at the Temple Mount, Sky Monster piloted their newly-acquired C-5M Super Galaxy to Jerusalem to transport Jack and his sub-team.
When that mission failed, Sky Monster flew the team to Egypt so that they could try perform the Fall at the final iron mountain beneath the Great Sphinx of Giza, and remained at the Cairo Airport while Jack, Lily and Zoe headed out to receive the burning key needed to enter the Supreme Labyrinth. Once they returned, Sky Monster helped the rest of the team in their preparations to head to the Labyrinth and for the fight against the forces Sphinx had left to guard the gates, and soon set off with Monster piloting the team's Super Galaxy.
Arriving at the location of the Supreme Labyrinth's gates in the Sinai Desert, Sky Monster took part in enacting Jack's "Russian Doll" plan in order to barrel through Sphinx's defences. The pilot waited until Knight's Hercules had run through the first of the battalion of bronzemen at the far left gate, then followed up in the Super Galaxy to plough through more of the bronze automatons to get Jack, Lily and Zoe closer to the gate. As the Wests moved on to enter the Labyrinth, Sky Monster remained hidden inside the Super Galaxy.
The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
Sky Monster remained in hiding in the Super Galaxy as Sphinx's forces packed up, emerging once they had left to examine the carnage around him. Reuniting with Rufus, his fellow pilot assured Sky Monster that Jack had made it inside the Labyrinth, though Alby and Knight had been captured and were being taken by Sphinx's forces to the Red Horizon Star-4. Sky Monster decided that they should go rescue their friends, and find out what the surface point of the Labyrinth was, so he and Rufus took an abandoned motorcycle and started heading for the Red Sea's coast.
After a day-and-a-half of travel, Sky Monster and Rufus arrived at the coast of the Red Sea, where they found that Sphinx's forces had set up a temporary airfield near to a fleet of Russian naval vessels on the water by the oil rig. Observing their enemies, Monster deduced that their enemies had long known about the Labyrinth's surface point and suggested that the Red Horizon Star-4 was in fact owned by the shadow royals. Rufus soon pointed out where Alby and Knight were being held, and the pair worked on coming up with a plan to bust them out.
After seeing Alby and Knight being transported over to the oil rig, and in the mass confusion caused by the damage caused to the wall of the Labyrinth's raised City-Maze, Sky Monster and Rufus managed to steal one of the Russian choppers on the airfield, flying over to the Red Horizon Star-4. They arrived over the precariously-toppled oil rig just as Jaeger Zwei was about to ambush Alby and Knight, opening fire on the Golden Knight to take him down before recovering their friends. Spying Lily and Easton trapped on a tower in the City-Maze, Sky Monster and the others reunited with them.
After swapping stories, Sky Monster decided to join Knight and Rufus as they prepared to do some damage, using their chopper to rain fire upon the temporary airfield and scatter the now-leaderless forces. As Knight wondered if Jack was still alive inside the Labyrinth, Sky Monster openly believed that if anyone could save the world it was Jack, recalling how he had first met Jack in Basra.
Some time later, shortly after the Omega Event had been successfully averted, Sky Monster and the others were contacted by Jack, who had beaten Sphinx to the throne of the Labyrinth. Sky Monster grabbed a transport chopper and set off with the others to pick up Jack, the rest of their friends, and the captured Sphinx.
In the aftermath, and once the team had reunited with Iolanthe and Nobody, Sky Monster flew the recently-acquired Orphean bell around the world with a number of escorts, helping to awaken the cities Sphinx had struck with the Siren bells. As the world got back to normal, Sky Monster purchased the large property neighbouring Jack's farm, often receiving supplies and messages from Easton through Smiley.
Personality[]
It has been noted that Sky Monster can be slightly crazy, as he often displays an excited and almost-reckless demeanor when given a typically difficult piloting assignment such as difficult landings and unorthodox maneuvers. Even in spite of this, he takes his job as the team's pilot seriously, doing his best to support them from the air during their missions. While he is far more comfortable fighting in the air than he is on the ground, Sky Monster is a reliable ally and a true friend to everyone in the team.
Regarding the planes he pilots, Sky Monster has a close attachment to the team's aircrafts, treating them almost like people. As the Egyptian Army assaulted the Halicarnassus, Monster becoming furious enough to abandon his post to go after the assailants, and later, when the damaged plane was being prepared to go to the final Vertex, Sky Monster sadly acknowledged that the Hali would not have a safe landing and that he would never see it again, proclaiming that it been just as much a member of the team as everyone else.
Monster can be somewhat self-depreciating, acknowledging that he is not very smart and of his lack of fitness, knowing that he was little help to the team in actual combat situations or being able to assist in their research. Accepting this, he was willing to injure himself in an attempt to sacrifice himself to ensure Jack's success in the Third Challenge, knowing that he would only slow Jack down. However, even knowing his limitations, Monster has found himself enjoying taking part in the team's adventures, feeling that because of them he has something worth fighting for, that he can be a little braver, and even take pride in helping them in their struggles to save the world.
Skills[]
- Expert Pilot: Having trained in the New Zealand Air Force, Sky Monster can pilot a variety of military aircraft, including fighter jets and helicopters. Sky Monster enjoys challenging his piloting skills by undertaking unusual maneuvers and landing on unconventional landing strips, and is able to adapt to any kind of odd aerial combat situation. Sky Monster is competent enough of a pilot to be able to teach Jack how to fly choppers.
- Trained Marksman: Presumably as a necessity of serving in the New Zealand armed forces, Sky Monster is capable of using a variety of different firearms should the need arise.
Equipment[]
Weapons[]
- Remington Model 870: During the assault on the Halicarnassus, Sky Monster wielded a 12 gauge Remington shotgun to fend off the attackers.
Vehicles[]
- Halicarnassus: A specially modified Boeing 747 plane which was once owned by Saddam Huissein until Jack stole it in order to escape from Basra, Jack has allowed Sky Monster to be its primary pilot and carer for the Coalition of Minnows team's use in their missions. When the Hali's forward landing gear was damaged by Carnivore, Jack managed to take off for one last flight to the final Vertex on Easter Island, and Sky Monster was disheartened knowing that there could be no safe landing for the Halicarnassus, saying it was just as much a member of the team.
- Sky Warrior: A Tupolev Tu-144 which was once owned by Carnivore, and later appropriated by Jack and Sky Monster to serve as a replacement for the Halicarnassus.
- Light Strike Vehicle: A small, unarmoured military vehicle used for fast hit-and-run style raids, one of which Sky Monster drove briefly in the Fifth Challenge of the Great Games of the Hydra, helping Jack as he raced against the other Champions to try and reach the Golden Sphere.
- Typhoon: A Russian-made armoured troop transportation vehicle that Sky Monster drove for Jack towards the end of the great Games' Fifth Challenge as they prepared to make their escape from the Underworld. Despite his broken arm, Monster managed to maneuver the truck to avoid the various attempts to stop their escape, though they were later stopped by a Kamov Alligator that found them.
- Belarus: A luxury super-yacht belonging to a Russian oligarch which Monster first learned about from one of his yatch magazines. When Jack needed to infiltrate the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Monster suggesting stealing the Belarus from its mooring and using its submersible to navigate Venice's canals.
- Piper PA-18 150 Super Cub: The Belarus's accompanying floatplane, which Sky Monster attempted to use to fly out of Venice, only to be shot in the shoulder mid-takeoff.
- ICON A10 Seaplane: An amphibious light-sport aircraft previously owned by Zaitan DeSaxe called Sexy Prince Two, which Sky Monster and Pooh Bear took from Hades's estate to catch up to the team at Aiguille du Midi and rescue them from the crashing observatory.
- C-5M Super Galaxy: To Be Added.
- Russian Werewolf: TBA.
Trivia[]
- Sky Monster's actual name was not revealed until The Two Lost Mountains; before then, it was constantly joked that only his parents knew what it is, although Jack was apparently the only member of the team that also knew his true name.
- Sky Monster is also the only team member who did not get a new nickname from Lily.
- Ironically, however, he is the one who gives Lily a nickname of her own; Eowyn.
- Sky Monster typically spends his time on the plane reading luxury jet and yacht magazines while the team is working.
- As revealed in his Message from the Other Side, Sky Monster is a rugby fan who supports his homeland's national team (the All Blacks).
- Sky Monster, along with Jack, Lily, Zoe, Stretch and Pooh Bear, is among the few characters who have appeared in every novel in the Jack West Jr Series.
- He did also receive a mention in one of the series' two short stories, Jack West Jr and the Chinese Splashdown; aiding in Jack's rescue of Wally Ferguson.