Spyro: Dawn of Light, 2-40

SPYRO: DAWN OF LIGHT
Part 2




CHAPTER 40




Plazyma and Caelos' wrath against the encamped horde had much further effect.  Before nightfall, their journey across the plain half over, Spyro and Cynder were forced to take shelter as a massive thunderstorm swept in over the mountain and grew towards the Settlement.  The only shelter they could get though was contrived.  Being out in open grassland, devoid of trees due to the gnorcs and apes hewing everything down for the small wars they'd waged, there was very little cover, so Spyro had to "terrashift" a pocket up out of the very earth.  He made a small hill and an entrance, then gathered some wood scraps from a nearby stump and started a fire to keep Cynder warm.  They laid there quietly, listening to the pouring rain outside, the oddly frequent thunder, and the fire crackling, Cynder draped over Spyro's side with her chin on her paws, rising up and down with his breath.  Eventually though, she spoke up.

"About our fight earlier..."

He groaned.  "Really?  Right now?  I was starting to like the quiet."

"Me too but...Spyro, I need to know.  When I blasted you with that Fear energy, why'd you back down so easily?  You're always so tough but you gave in like a little kid."

He grumbled irritably.  "I dunno, why does it matter?"

"It matters a lot."  She sat up and stared down at him, regarding him in the firelight.  He seemed a hair darker than usual, and not just from the close confines of their little pocket.  If another enemy blasts you with Fear, you're screwed.  You're unusually susceptible to it all of a sudden."

He shrugged.  "What you did was unexpected and it shocked me I guess."

She rolled her eyes.  He had that look in his eyes, the one she remembered well from their training three years ago when he'd not divulge everything to the elders.  "Keep your secrets then, but I'm warning you Spyro, whatever's changed, unchange it.  You wanna know my theory?"

"Not really," he grumbled, laying his chin on his paws.

"You're falling too easily into darkness.  Think about it.  You're more susceptible to my dark-based powers.  You snapped at me needlessly.  You almost burned the library rug when Hunter told us about the kitten's father.  You rushed out here heedless of the dangers and possibilities.  What happened to the careful, wise purple dragon that saved me?"  She gave him an accusing glare.  "You gave me your word that if you failed to destroy the mountain, you'd go hiding to weather the Night.  But the way you are now, how can I trust you to keep your word?"

Spyro sighed heavily and covered his eyes.  "Cynder...you don't know what I go through...just...drop it, please, I don't need more things to worry about..."

"See?  There you go!  Instead of facing an issue concerning your own immediate health and safety you just want to ignore it!  I don't know what you're going through, granted, but that's not the issue here!  The issue is your nonchalance!"  When he didn't respond she sighed and laid down atop him, nuzzling his foreleg and trying to pry his paw from his eye.  "I know you need to not distract yourself, but doing so to the point of ignorance is a path to darkness, Spyro.  How can you defend the Settlement, how can you prevent more parents being lost, if you just throw yourself blindly into the fire?  How can you protect others when you don't protect yourself?"

As much as he was loth to admit it, Cynder was right.  He didn't reply, but in his mind he grudgingly admitted defeat.  He was pissed, but how could he avenge the kitten's dad and protect other families if he screwed up here?  As the fire dwindled to small tongues and embers and Cynder's breath grew slow and heavy with dreams, he gave a prolonged sigh, feeling like he was deflating.  Cynder was right, but what was he supposed to do?  One side of him knew he should take it easy and lay low, but the other side urged him to toss everything to the wind and tear Ripto's heart out.  His internal battle raged for hours, leaving him ever more agitated.  Hadn't they settled this hours ago?  Why couldn't he give it up?  Finally he couldn't take it anymore and carefully wormed his way out from beneath Cynder, heading out into the rain.  The lightning and thunder had died off hours ago but the rain still persisted.  It felt cold against his scales... Cold, clammy, gloomy.  Not even nature was respite from the impending Night.  Walking further from the hill he sighed so heavily tongues of fire leapt from his jaws.  The ground started shaking around him, the rain shattering against him on impact in an endless shower of ice, his wings crackling with electricity.  Moisture from the grass around him began spiraling into the air, the wind whistling around his horns.  Light from the electricity and fire mixed with his own shadow and the those of the grass blades around him.  An acrid smell began rising around him, the grass dissolving in a fine mist of poison.  The electricity sparked above him, the air dancing as various gases were isolated and set aflame.  The smoke of the burning grass and the burning gases fused into a glowing wreath of plasma, spinning around him.  The ground beneath him shifted from one material to another, small chunks floating up and joining the supercharged rain, gas and smoke, the electricity on his wings jumping into the plasma.  The air itself shuddered, tendrils of dark matter materializing and joining the fray, flashes and balls of light emanating all around him as matter itself was converted to pure energy.  Acids, bases, toxins bubbled up from his scales, getting sucked into the frenzied halo now blindingly bright and hot around him.  Colors began to materialize and swirl in.  Hidden from view, waves of gamma, infrared, ultraviolet and others rippled, the plasma acting almost like a star, its intense power-gravity sucking the electromagnetic waves in.  Magic power, and even unclassified energies and materials began to appear around him, but even they fell to the vortex.  Then, here and there around the wreath, flashes of an unknown purple let off loud blasts.  The ground bubbled up in a few places near him and small stalks of purple gems began to grow, every blast of purple around him fueling the nearest outcrop.

But Spyro was oblivious to it all.
His mind was at war.

He stood before a black copy of himself, a copy that, when it moved, seemed to give off momentary flashes of either his colors or an entire palette inversion.  The world around him was pure chaos, fragments of other places and objects flickering in and out all around him.  
All Spyro could feel was unfettered rage.
For they were circling around him.
His body lay between them, motionless.
Yet even as he glared at the hideous twisted version of himself, it seemed to mirror him at times, and he couldn't figure out which he despised more.  Everything began to blur, he couldn't tell if he was looking at an evil version of himself, or if he was the evil seeing the good side as dark.  

You don't know who you are...came a voice all around him.  A neutral voice, but Spyro simultaneously perceived it as helpful and demeaning.  You cannot overcome yourself if you do not know the enemy...but you cannot overcome the enemy if you do not know even your own self.

"WHO ARE YOU?!" Spyro snapped, his voice seeming like a sonic boom that shook the landscape, the "glitches" shimmering and rapidly cycling with the rumbling.

You do not know who you are...many times you have chosen, but not once have you adhered.  You stand at the threshold of doom.  Choose now.

"CHOOSE WHAT?!"  But no reply came.  Instead, the Spyro before him, the body on the ground, suddenly flickered and became Cynder for but a brief moment.  The copy across from him became wreathed in flame, emitting a force of power so strong Spyro felt flattened.  His body between them flickered again, becoming Ignitus, then cycling through his friends and the guardians, faster and faster.  At the same time, his copy cycled through various elements, taking on forms he couldn't even describe, but all emitting an intense power.  Faster and faster the images flipped by until they encompassed his entire vision.  

Spyro loosed a shuddering roar of strangled rage and confusion.  The wreath of purple power around him dissipated in a bright flash, everything around him returning to normal as if nothing had happened, though the smells of smoke and acid still lingered in the wet air.  Spyro flopped to the ground, soaked, panting, lost.  He shuddered and started to cry, his mind still spinning painfully.  He shakily stood up, slipping a few times as he madly scrabbled against the mud and grass, then he bolted, running blindly.  He never noticed his headlong falls into puddles or when he smashed clean through a withered tree.  All he could remember after that was opening his eyes to find that small hill rushing up to his sight, with Cynder framed in firelight in the small cave mouth.  He slowed to a crawl, head slung low until he felt his forehead against her chest.  He just stood there, shivering weakly until she sat back and pulled him close, hugging him tightly without a word.  She kept him there until the rain washed him off, then she led him back into the hill and touched a few Health Crystal shards to the bruises and cuts, watching his scales close up.  The purple dragon fell asleep almost instantly, hiccuping a bit.

"All I know, Spyro, is that you're overburdened," she whispered sadly, licking his cheek.  She draped herself over him and hugged him tightly, a tear rolling down her cheek.  She couldn't imagine what he was going through, but as she hugged him she felt a dark power.  Something was attacking him even more fervently than before.  




The rising sun went largely unheeded across the lands, as the haze had grown thicker overnight.  An oppressive force loomed over the world like a thick fog.  In fact, many later claimed to have seen a fog.  When Cynder awoke though, she felt no fog, but rather an intense elemental pressure.  She stretched atop Spyro, licking her lips absently as her tired mind wandered and struggled to wake up.  The first thing she noticed was that the scales of her lips felt unusually dry.  The air itself felt dry, and yet wet.  It was a very strange sensation.  A bit alarmed by this she shook Spyro a bit, but he merely groaned and covered his face with his paws.  "Go away Ignitus..."

"You must really be out of it if my tiny paws feel anything like his," she quipped.  "Get your lazy ass up Spyro, something's not right."

He groaned again, this time with both awareness and irritation.  "Yeah, so what..."

She sighed and smacked him lightly upside the head, making him flinch.  "Come on, we've got a mountain to destroy."  When he didn't respond, last night's episode replayed in her head and she sighed again, rubbing his back softly.  "Spyro...please, tell me what's wrong."

"I can't keep doing this..." he whispered.  

"Doing what?"

"I keep telling myself I'm not gonna care, that I'm gonna deal with things as they come...I keep saying it and I do it for a few days but then fall right back into it again!"

The black-scaled dragoness huffed softly in thought, then sat up on her haunches and laid her paws on his back, kneading him firmly.  "It's hard to commit to something.  I've noticed you still haven't committed to using natural energy versus your body's for your elements."

"I keep forgetting..."

"Were you using your power or the surroundings for your last fight?"

"That was all me."

Her paws paused.  All that earth power throughout the whole fight had been him??

"Well...almost all.  I used the earth power in the rock shards to save on my power, but yeah...I used more of my own than I should have.  It could've been far stronger now that I think about it..."

Cynder's jaw dropped a bit, eyes wide as she stared at him.  "Spyro...?"

"Yeah?"

"If you were to go completely all out using both your power and the surroundings...what would happen?"

The purple dragon gave a long sigh of contemplation.  "I don't know.  And that's what scares me."  He craned his neck to look back at her.  "Cynder...what scares me the most is my potential and that there's something struggling to get it...to get me."

"And yet you were about to fall into their trap yesterday."

He groaned and facepawed.  "I don't know anymore... I'm just tired of everything."

Not wanting to push him further and cuse another outbreak Cynder left it at that, continuing her massage until Spyro's stomach complained.  She produced some more dried fish, then after settling the hill back into the ground they continued their trek.  The oppression in the air seemed to affect the air itself; distant objects slowly wavered back and forth, twisting and swerving, as if a very thick, very slow heat wave was rising from the ground.  The heviness also seemed to push against them, the walk felt very long.  There was no wind either, making everything eerily silent.  Unable to take the silence much longer Cynder cleared her throt, coughing a bit from the dry air.  "What's the difference between a mana-sink and a light-sink?" she asked.  "I know I asked back at the Settlement but... What makes it 'light'?"

Spyro jumped a bit, yanked from his thoughts, then coughed when he tried to speak, his throat a bit scratchy.  "I don't really know.  I just know that by melding the eight cardinal elements together you get 'dragon light', different from elemental light, and when focused into a pool like that it draws magic power and mana through itself."

"But Grendor thought he could break it."

Spyro nodded.  "A mana-sink is like a gravity well, it draws mana and magic into itself, and can be broken if the victim is able to draw more magic power through the sink than it can drain.  A light-sink, however, is more like a lens that focuses power into an outside point near itself, and by drawing more power into himself Grendor increased the lens' focusing power on him, making it drain him faster.  I'm not really sure of the mechanics behind it, I just know it was a tactic developed by one of the guardians ages ago."  Cynder cocked her head curiously.  "They were up against The Sorceror, a mage far superior to even Ripto or Gaul.  The guardian gathered dragons of every element and had them pool their elemental breaths into a large crystal orb, creating a light-sink.  The Sorceror was unable to counter its vacuum and lost all his power."

"Is there a dark-sink?"

"Yes.  It's basically a mana-sink converted into a bomb.  It also generates darkness as it gains power."

Cynder winced.  "So...if Ripto sets those up..."

"Yeah.  He may have riddled the plains with traps."

Silence fell again as Cynder followed him, though it didn't last long.  "Spyro...I have an idea.  About the light stuff."

"Hm?"

"It sounds like it might be related to Convexity."  His silence would've seemed ignorant if not for the twitch in his tail from his contemplation.  "And what is dragon light versus normal light?"

"'Normal' light is actually a misnomer.  Technically, the light we see is just a small fraction of an energy spectrum given off by anything that emits light.  Or well, most things.  But you know how when you pass light beams through clear crystals, it breaks up into a rainbow?  Or how you get rainbows in the mist of a waterfall when the sun hits it just right?"

"Kinda, yeah."

"Volteer went too rambly on the subject so I didn't pay much attention, but normal light that we see is white light, and it breaks up into colors.  It's made up of the six rainbow colors.  Dragon light is kind of the same concept but in elemental terms.  When you combine the...what was it, 'wavelengths'? of the eight cardinal elements, the energy waves combine into dragon light.  It hasn't been accomplished since the Light Dragons disappeared, but...yeah."  He ended off a bit lamely, not really knowing where else to go with the subject.

"You can manifest light, is that what you're making?"

He shook his head, then yelped lightly when the motion threw his paw's aim off and he almost tripped on a root.  "Dragon light doesn't have the same properties.  I can bend elemental light and use it for attack, but dragon light is all eight elements focused into a single...um...thing.  Y'know.  Ugh where is my head today..."

"Fortunately, still attached to your neck."

The sudden voice and unfamiliar accent made the two dragons freeze.  Next to a withered tree stood...someone.  They couldn't tell who it was, only that he was quite fat and covered in brown fur beneath his rather nicely-pressed black suit.  On the ground beside him sat two cloth bags, one of which was tipping over, a familiar-looking red gem visible to them.  "Who are you?" Spyro demanded.

"No one of general importance in this inner realm, at least not as of yet," came the reply.  The figure was staring off at Elamrof's imposing tooth-like peak, flipping through a notebook.  "My apologies, Master Spyro, I did not intend to alarm you or your lovely lady, although I do suppose I should've taken a less ambush-like approach to introduction.  Pay no mind to this old bear, I am simply conducting some research."  He reached up and removed something from his face.  A monocle sat between his fingers briefly before he brought it to his pocket to wipe it off.  "Proceed with your business and I shall with mine."  Spyro and Cynder, not knowing what else to do with this situation, did just that, walking past him.  They didn't see him smirking to himself at the double meaning of his parting words.  "Business research is quite important after all..." he muttered when they were out of earshot.  "Now I lie in wait, observing my investment, will I cash or bail?  Oh that's a good one, I should write that down..."

"Who the heck was that?" Cynder whispered, glancing back.

Spyro shrugged with his wings, continuing walking.  "If he's still there when we're done, we'll ask.  Right now...I don't know why but I feel like we shouldn't get any closer to that mountain."

"About time.  But lemme guess, we're still going anyway?"

The purple dragon glanced at her over his shoulder.  "I need to try at least, Cyn.  If it works, it works, if it doesn't, well...it doesn't, I guess."  He suddenly stopped and snapped his neck around, tail rigid and wings flared a bit.  Cynder felt herself mimic him immediately; a fight or flight response.  

"What is it?" she whispered even quieter.

"An insane power level..."

Without warning the ground beneath them lurched upwards, Cynder pinned flat to the dead grass and feeling winded by the sharp uprise.  It was very brief though, but that speed...When she pulled herself up, gasping for breath, she found Spyro still standing, the two of them near the edge of an immense stone pillar.  Glancing over the edge her fears were confirmed; they were VERY high up.  "Brings back memories, huh kiddos?" came a grating familiar voice.  "You were right, Spyro about the dark-sink traps scattered around the plains.  Took all the fun out of it."

"What dark-sinks?" Cynder growled.  

"And if it isn't my little doll DerDer," came the taunting reply, Ripto fading in from thin air before them.  Cynder snarled at the nickname, wanting nothing more than to hook his windpipe out of his throat with the curve in her tailblade.  "It's been so difficult managing the army without you, won't you come back to where you belong?"  Not getting a response from either of them beyond a matching pair of glares he cackled.  "Oh come on, Spyro, I thought for sure you'd enjoy her petname!  It's hilarious isn't it?  You gotta admit it's amusing!"  The diminutive dinosaur began pacing, twirling his staff, the gem at the end changing colors.  "I enjoyed how you wove her through the field avoiding my traps, Spyro.  You keep finding ways to impress me, which is impressive in itself seeing how inane dragons are.  Stupid smelly abominations."  Spyro and Cynder both bristled.  Years of rage and hatred began to well up, but while Cynders muzzle scrunched as she bared her teeth in a savage snarl, Spyro's face went back to a rather calm, focused look.  His eyes though...  "Aren't you going to say anything?  Anything you say is of course, inane and pointless, but come on."  Ripto adjusted his cape in a flamboyant fashion, brushing it off and acting quite lofty.  "It's been four long years, hasn't it?  Aren't you glad to have this chance to pit your puny powers against your superior you've struggled so hard to resist?"

Spyro remained silent, but Cynder's hide crawled as something flared up around him.  All at once she felt as if he'd quadrupled in size or something, yet he stood beside her unflinching.  "Cynder, I want you to escape with your shadow power," he whispered, his purple irises starting to glow.  His body glowed too, the purple light from his scales shifting into a familiar form, his armor from Logan materializing already strapped to his body.  "I don't want you snared again," he added as his head glowed and one of the ancient dragon helms from the Outer Realms appeared.

The black dragoness was conflicted.  She wanted to help, but before them stood Ripto, the one who had cursed her years ago, the one responsible for her capture and brainwashing.  Chills ran down her spine as memory fragments haunted her.  But she couldn't leave Spyro, this was as much her battle as it was his!  But he had a valid point, Ripto could quite easily kidnap her again...

She shivered, then stood up and approached the unmoving Spyro.  "Be safe..." she whispered, giving him a quick lick on the cheek before melting into his shadow beneath his armor.  

"I'm very disappointed in you, purple dragon," Ripto continued, picking his nose.  "You shouldn't have sent her off.  What can a lone dragon do against me?"  Spyro again stayed silent, but his body seemed to relax all over, a fluid air about him.  "Say something you damn scaly!"

They stood there staring each other down, Ripto's breath becoming angered huffing at the dragon's impertinence.  Spyro, meanwhile, heard nothing of Ripto's taunts, having muffled his hearing with his wind power.  He stood there, biding his time and watching, feeling Ripto's powers.  At first his senses were overwhelmed; he'd never faced something with such a strong power signature!  How could he best such a foe?  But by calming himself, he began to notice that Ripto's absurd power level seemed to be a pattern of pulses.  As he stood there goading the puny punk with his silence, he focused on those pulses.  Ripto had a barrier of some sort around himself, but there was a second set of pulses on his immediate body.  A double layer of protection, and those pulses...they were elemental energy.  

"I've had enough of your foolishness, you stupid whelp," Ripto snarled, holding his staff up.  "This is why I should rule thiGUH-"

In a split second, the purple dragon had flashed forward.  Had Cynder been watching, she might've thrown up.  Spyro's entire foreleg up to his shoulder was now thrust through Ripto's chest, his paw a bladed spear of ice.  Limbs shaking, Ripto gasped, then oddly, started chuckling darkly, leaning down and whispering.  

"Again, stupid dragon.  My body is phased in shadow.  I'll be taking your arm now."

Spyro felt dark matter accumulating around his scales, but he also felt those pulses flare up tangibly around himself.  His eyes glowed, time slowing down until two pulses lined up.  Ripto yelped and gasped in pain as Spyro yanked his arm out, dark matter spewing like blood from Ripto's chest and back.  In his paw, Spyro held a ball of shadow power.  From her vantage point in Sparx's little slot in the armor, Cynder could see the dark power conglomeration beating like a heart, but it confused her; what was going on?  Ripto snarled angrily.  

"That's twice now you've broken through both my defenses at onceGAH!!" he cried out, Spyro having flashed in again, a spear of ice manifesting itself through Ripto's left shoulder.  This time, there was real blood.  Ripto stumbled backwards, utter shock and dismay scrawled all over his face as his hand clawed in disbelief at the weapon.  Spyro stood there, still posed as he'd been when he thrust the spear, slowly letting himself down to all fours, still holding the shadowy "heart".  He brought it up to his mouth and exhaled sharply, a beam of light tearing clean through it and vaporizing it.  

"You used an elemental shield combination against me and were stupid enough to set it to cycle in a pattern.  Lining up the pulses is all it takes."

Panting deeply from the pain, Ripto's face slowly turned from dismay to a mischievous sneer.  He struggled to his feet, a bit hunched now from his injury.  "And you stole my shadow-phasing spell I'd wrapped around my heart as a safeguard.  No wonder Grendor was so interested in you, now I don't want to kill you.  I'll make you part of my army."  The air around him shimmered and pulsed in a dome.  "But telling me the weakness of my defenses...you're still so dragonishly stupid."

"And you're still so childishly prideful, little weakling ant."

The mage's eye twitched, his smirk immediately flattening.  He held his staff out, the gem glowing brightly.  The ice spear shattered, the fragments swirling around his body and enlarging into a titanic ice suit, with Ripto as the head.  The stone pillar beneath them quaked violently and thick stone walls shot up around them, a ceiling magically filling in overhead.  The ice suit pulsed up and down repeatedly with a strange non-elemental glow, a power Spyro could only assume was magic.  "You have crossed the point of no return, whelp.  Where you submit to me or not, the Eternal Night will be brought about."

In his armor, Cynder shivered, the power levels in the room rising tangibly.  She'd never felt so much evil power before and it scared her.  "Spyro, how are you gonna beat his if he's this powerful??" she hissed as the ice titan loomed over him.

"You asked about what would happen if I went all out?"

"...Oh...shi-"  She was cut off when Spyro's power flooded around her.  No mana sinks this time, no foolery or deceit.  This is my power.  This is me.  She felt those words through her shadow power as he pulsed with all eight elements, a strange purple inferno engulfing him, the air thrumming from the sheer intensity of the wavelength he was emitting.

The stone tower completely disintegrated.
Ripto's icy armor vaporized in an instant.
His magic barrier shattered.

As they fell to the ground the two were at each others' throats, Ripto flying through the air, Spyro's wings flared as they madly mauled each other.  Magic and elements flashed every which way as they blocked each others' strikes, missiles and blades and spears of various powers materializing all around them and flying in only to be instantly nullified.  When they hit the ground a deep crater formed, Ripto' staff turning into a huge warhammer.  He slung it around in controlled arcs, spewing lines of fireballs or lasers of magic or forks of electricity, but Spyro merely dodged them, eyes almost completely closed as he cleared his mind, that purple fire still raging around him.  Ripto moved in to physically strike him, but Spyro skirted around him at the last second, the blow flung wide.  Cynder cringed, feeling the strength behind that blow as it whooshed right over his back.  Had Spyro taken it, none of his ribs or even his back would have survived!  Ripto spun around, using the momentum to strike again, but the purple dragon rolled aside, then hooked his claws into the ground and lunged.  Ripto yelped, the hammer instantly disappearing as the jewel on his staff flashed and a set of large cards appeared around him.  He started madly flinging fire shots at Spyro, but they merely bounced off the purple dragon's armor.  Spyro rushed in and skullbashed one of the cards, but was sent flying back, the card rapidly flashing a lightning bolt symbol.  The cards began spinning around Ripto as he advanced; Spyro righted himself and dashed away, analyzing this new tactic.  Ripto, however, would not let him rest.  He danced around in a mad little circle, orbs of green poisonous fire speeding along the ground in all directions.  Spyro hopped over them, but they kept on coming, forcing Spyro back with each hop.  Magic missiles flew up from his staff and homed in on Spyro, the dragon quickly flinging ice-powered wings across his front, a dome of thick ice springing up.  Ripto stopped dancing and drew closer; Spyro bashed through the ice shield with an electric charge, smashing through the electric card.  Ripto, however, was magically repulsed from Spyro's attack much like a rubber ball, the remaining cards glowing.  Spyro growled, then bent down and exhaled sharply, the purple fire around himself flaring up before his maw.  Small tongues separated and changed color before firing at the cards.  Ripto shielded himself with his staff, but the elemental-aligned cards couldn't withstand the barrage and quickly succumbed, leaving Ripto unguarded.  He cried out in pain, Spyro landing nearby after delivering a sound smack to the gut with his forehead.  Struggling to get to his feet, the mage rolled aside when Spyro attempted another charge, swinging his staff wide and throwing Spyro to the ground with a blast of magic force.  

The battle raged like this for an hour, Ripto stubbornly adhering to his card defense system, trying to change up the elements but losing to Spyro's prowess.  He had walked into this battle believing he was the master of elemental power, but his every attempt was ultimately thwarted by this...this...this dragon, this loathsome impertinent whelp!  With an enraged yell he swung his staff at Spyro again, unleashing a barrage of fire bolts, but Spyro rolled under the arc and popped back up, not mounting a counterattack as he had been.  Ripto smirked triumphantly, seeing Spyro's wings flaring and falling with heavy breath.  "Aww is the baby purple whelp all tired out?  Well let's turn out the lights already!  Go to sleep you stupid scalyhead!!"  He spun around, letting off another set of green fireballs, but Spyro sidestepped them easily.  Ripto's arms shook with rage.  "WHY DO YOU INSIST ON TAUNTING ME??"

"Hm?"  Spyro glanced up, tilting his head.  "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to miss that last one.  I'm just getting really bored of this fight."

"...What..."

Spyro shrugged.  "You keep putting up your cards, doing your little green-fire dance, I destroy the cards and headbutt you, you try to shoot me with fire, rinse and repeat.  If it didn't get me the first time, it's not gonna get me the eleventh time.  Spamming the same crap over and over is too predictable."

The dinosaur mage howled in frustration, slamming his staff on the ground repeatedly, the ground shaking with each impact.  "I AM THE SUPREME RULER OF THIS WORLD!!  YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO DO THIS TO ME!!!"  Glaring at Spyro, he held his staff aloft, dark power swirling into it.  "You leave me no choice you stupid worthless heap of scales!"

"I have every right to defend my home from an incompetent invader," Spyro replied, then flashed forward with another ice spear in his jaw.  Ripto screamed in agony, the spear right through where the first had impaled him.  The dark cloud above his staff shot at Spyro and knocked him back, the purple dragon writhing and crying out in surprised pain as something was sucked from his entire body.  Gasping for breath, Ripto held up his staff again, the dark cloud flowing into the jewel and coloring it a deep mauve.

"Who's the incompetent one now?!  Who's the runt!? AHAHAHA!!"  Ripto limped up and went to kick Spyro, but Cynder lunged at him from her friend's armor, Ripto's neck in her jaws.  She rolled with him and pinned him to the ground, slowly tightening her grip on him.  Ripto struggled beneath her, but she had laced her fangs with poison and it was already starting to numb his body, replacing conscious motion with an excruciating fire.  He'd relied so heavily on that shadow-pass spell in the past, he hadn't thought to set up another, and Cynder had taken that window of opportunity, feeding more poison into him.  This wasn't the plan!  TELEPORT!! TELEPORT DAMMIT TELEPORT!!! he screamed at himself.  Cynder meeped and bonked her muzzle on the ground when her applied strength of pinning him suddenly sent her toppling forward, her prey vanishing into thin air.  

"Owowowow...ow..." she whimpered, rubbing her nose and chin.  "DAMNIT!!! GET THE HELL BACK HERE YOU COWARD!!" she screamed, then growled loudly and stamped on the ground, the stone hissing beneath her pawpads as a bit of her poison power leaked out and manifested in her anger.  Behind her, Spyro groaned in pain, snapping her back to her senses.  She wheeled around and bounded over to him.  "Omigosh Spyro are you okay??"

"He got away..." he snarled, shakily standing up.  "He got away!"  He took a step and immediately faceplanted with a startled yelp, the helmet's extended edge just barely preventing him from dashing his nose against the ground.  "Ugh...what the hell did he do to me..."

"I dunno, but was that...going all out?" she asked.  Spyro shook his head.  

"I did at first to destroy his defenses but when we hit the ground I tried to conserve my power..."

"You should've just kept going and wiped the floor with his ass."

"I should've but...ugh..."  He grumbled and curled up on the ground, clutching his belly.  "What the hell..."

She looked back at Elamrof and snarled.  She'd had him.  She'd had the runt!  She'd finally had her chance and he'd run away like the little pansy he was...  Sighing heavily and mentally cussing at herself for not snapping his neck immediately, she helped Spyro up.  "C'mon...let's find a place to rest up a bit, it's still morning anyway.  If it counts, I pumped him full of venom, I doubt he'll survive long even with his magic."

"How do you know..." Spyro wheezed.  "Gah why am I so dizzy..."

"Dizzy?"  Her eyes widened.  "Uh...oh..."  She glared at Elamrof.  "Spyro...I know he won't survive long because he exhausted most of his magic with that last attack...but...if you're dizzy...that attack was an elemental drain."

"Wuzzat mean..." he slurred, flopping down again.  "Ow my everything..."

"Yep...case closed.  He stole your elemental reserve powers.  You have no elemental energy left in your body."  She stamped her paw again.  "That little...RRRRRGH!!!"



The air about halfway up the mountain slope rippled, Ripto reappearing, panting and clutching his shoulder.  "Good thing I drained his elements or I'd have absolutely no power left...but this is gonna take a long time to close up even with magic..." he grumbled.  He'd managed to wipe the poison from his system, though his entire body still dully burned with after-memory.  Through the trees he spotted a motion; a large, burly figure was trudged through the brush, the mist obscuring it.  "Who goes there?" he called out shakily.  The creature stopped, then turned and approached, hefting a mighty warhammer with two giant gems.  

"Well, well...well."  Gnasty stomped up, slinging his hammer off his shoulder and catching it with his other hand.  

"Gnasty...get me into the mountain."

The gnorc, however, smirked wickedly.  "Of course, 'boss'."  He walked down the slope a bit.  "Me always want to try golf."

"Golf...?"  Ripto's eyes flared and he turned to protest, only for his face to meet its reflection at a very painful speed.  The stunted mage was flung further up the slope, crashing through branches until he tumbled to a stop.  He could dimly hear Gnasty's hollering laughter, but the impact had knocked him a bit stupid.  Shakily climbing back to his feet he fumed to himself.  "That damn gnorc has crossed the line too far...and he will get what is coming to him, ooohh yes..."  His staff glowed, dulling the pain as he glared in Gnasty's direction.  "Two days...two more days and we shall finally open you up," he cackled, gazing up the slopes.

Then the mountain exploded.

Right beneath his feet the ground suddenly blasted out in a shower of boulders and dust, trees and bushes flying every which way.  The diminutive dinosaur mage was sent careening through the air, then down the mountain slope.  Rolling madly, his only halt was a tree branch into his side.  With another cry of pain he glanced up as the dust settled, a roar of voices meeting his ears.

"N-no...no...this can't be..." Ripto grunted, coughing up blood as he held his side, watching the flood of Nonsleepers and other spirits wash down the slopes towards him.  His staff glowed and the wave stopped, a shimmering wall holding them back.  "I AM RETURNING YOUR MASTER TO YOU!!  YOU SHALL NOT-"

An ear-splitting roar rose from the earth itself, only a second before an earth-laced tail smacked Ripto clean off his feet and sent him hurtling further down the slope.  He struggled to his feet, gasping for breath.  

"Te...Tephra..."  Surely now that she knew the plan, she'd come help him!

She strode up to him, every pawstep like a small earthquake, large spiderwebs of cracks forming under each toe and claw, small rocks lifting up and hovering around her.  Like before, her face was completely devoid of emotion as she stared at him, eyeing the bloody hole in his shoulder and the bites around his torn cape neck.  "What's the matter, little shrimp?  Plan not going the way you wanted?  Perhaps some stability earlier on, like, I dunno, treating your subordinates properly, might've turned a different outcome?"

"You...traitor...."

She growled, her face crinkling into a visage of pure rage, one that made him cringe before her as she towered over him like a demon.  "I signed onto this for my own intentions and have only worked alongside you in order to get back at Spyro.  And thanks to your precious 'plans' that damned violet demon has robbed me of yet another friend.  If anything, you were the one betraying me this entire time by only using me as a tool."

"Dragons are...only good for that..." he growled, panting as he shakily forced himself to his feet, using his staff for support.  The ground beneath him suddenly lurched and he yelped, his cry cut short as a hand of stone shot up and grabbed him tight.  He wiggled his arm free with his staff, but Tephra flicked it out of his hand with her claw, caught it with her wing, then smashed it against the ground in a shower of gold and gem dust.  The dark cloud of Spyro's power dissipated into the air.

"If you don't appreciate the true power of dragons then you have no place resurrecting one."

Ripto's body flickered a few times before he gasped in pain.  "M-my teleport...how-"

"Oh looks like someone's too injured to escape.  Poor little Ripto.  Miscalculated a few things apparently."

"You'll...pay for this...TEPHRA!!!" he shouted.  She screamed as a strong electric current ran through her.  Growling, fighting against it, she charged up her Earth Shot breath.  With an almighty screaming roar she blasted him, the ground shaking and shards of the ground levitating around her as she focused all her anger on him.  Large spikes of rock started lifting up all around her and then shattering and disintegrating as Tephra's body glowed.  When Tephra's furious attack settled down and the mountain stopped shaking, there was nothing left of Ripto at all; the stone hand in fact was totally gone, with a large trail of dust and ash stretching on behind it from Tephra's breath.  Panting, she quickly caught her breath and shook herself off, a few of her muscles still twitching and achey from the electric jolt.  Looking over her shoulder she found the mass of spirits watching her, an air of apprehension and awe around them.

"The fool that violated your territory is gone.  I have liberated you and destroyed him.  I am going to liberate your master," she announced, echoing her voice from the very ground around them.  "You will serve me.  Return to the mountain.  The Eternal Night is almost here, and then you will be granted far more power to wreak your havoc across the land that sealed you.  You will serve me or be wiped out."

The cheers, if they could even remotely be called that, reverberated into the depths of the mountain, washing over the crystal war golems and causing the Rynoc, Gnorc and Ape factions to cower in fear.  Among them, Gaul cackled with his deep guttural voice echoing around the caverns.

"Long have we waited and suffered.  Soon a new age shall begin."  His staff glowed, the lines and runes along the inside of the chamber glowing brighter and brighter.  Outside the mountain, Tephra roared and slammed her paws down.  With an almighty lurch and thunderous din the entire top half of the mountain was displaced in all directions, huge boulders streaking from the rising dust cloud.

Back down in the plains Spyro and Cynder yelped as the ground shuddered and Mount Elamrof suddenly had half its structure flying everywhere overhead.  "Oh...no..." they both heaved in dismayed shock, watching the debris as if in slow-motion.  "Are those...are some of those gonna hit the Settlement?!" Cynder yipped.  

"Cyn we gotta do something!!" Spyro urged, struggling to stand up, but having his elements drained so suddenly had left his body in a state of shock.  "DAMNIT move already you stupid-" he shouted at his limbs.

"C'mon we gotta MOVE!!" Cynder screamed, lunging at him and catching his neck with her foreleg as she slipped into shadow, pulling him with her.  She sped like she was racing light itself, making a beeline straight for the Settlement and materializing on the ruinous outer walls, snapping the guards out of their stunned stares at the spectacle in the distance.

"HEY!!" they shouted, whipping around and aiming their arrows and spears at her.  "Don't you dare-"

"Don't YOU dare!" she shot back, tossing Spyro at them and knocking a few over.  "Treat him!  He's in elemental shock!"  With that she raced through the town, some of the guards chasing her.

"Don't think you can get away after what you just did to the Settlement!!"

"I haven't done ANYTHING!!  Get everyone evacuated, Elamrof's pieces are headed this way!!"  Looking up she saw some large chunks already falling swiftly right at her.  With a loud roar she breathed sharply, a lance of dark matter lunging from her jaws and disintegrating the boulder.  The guards immediately set about rousing and evacuating the citizens, leaving Cynder to deal with the threat.  Screams erupted all around her as huge tentacles of dark matter rose from her into the air, stretching hundreds of feet and waving into a sort of wriggling net.  She sat up on her haunches, paws in the air as she strained to move the net.  

Spyro watched hazily, marveling at how smoothly she manipulated her shadow power.  She had quite a few near misses, but after a frantic game of catch she managed to shield the city.  She never got a chance to celebrate her victory though, as the guards immediately closed in on her and she was forced to make her own evacuation through her shadow.  Spyro didn't see her for the rest of the day, as he was taken away to the triage tent for analysis.  When the nurse left though, Cynder popped up out of his shadow and curled up next to him.  Spyro smiled sleepily and wrapped his limbs around her, hugging her tightly.  "Good job..." was all he said, but the way he said those two words made her shed tears of happiness.  As they fell asleep though, the guards' words started to nag her.

What I just did to the Settlement...?  I wasn't here, what did I do?