Chapter 1:

A Cheater and the Chaos Reaver

Glacia sat and attempted to calm herself. She was rather panicky, due to the fact that earlier, she had been asked to participate in the Tournament. Since Warfang's restoration and the Purple dragon's return, the city had been trying to reinstate the sense of community that had once been there, and the Tournament was one idea the remaining Guardians had thought of. Glacia wished to participate, and she was able to extend a request to the Guardians, and they, after a claw-biting 3 days, allowed her in.

She had made it this far. The finals. She had never expected to be this successful, but she wasn't complaining. She had already taken down 3 opponents of ever-increasing difficulty. Sadly, however, they had all been pompous males who seemed to think they could take a strong female down. No matter her previous successes, this was the finals, and she could not lose here, or all those previous fights would have been for naught. She had applied the gems and was now fully healed and energized. They had provided gems for the tournament surprisingly, despite their current rarity. Now, she just waited until the Guardians were ready to continue with the final round.

Glacia steered into the mirror. She observed her blue scales, her strong horns, the frills on her ears, her light blue wings. She didn't care much for beauty, but any who saw her would call her that.

"Glacia," Glacia turned her head and saw two dragons, one male and one female. Both were blue, the male a darker and the female a lighter. They both had sharp, strong horns, but the female's looked thinner. The male had a snow-white scale that formed a sort of goatee.

"Mom?! Dad?!" She jumped up and rushed to her parents. She embraced both of them. "I thought you two didn't want to attend the Tournament. Why'd you change you minds?"

Her father spoke in a wise, passionate voice, "We decided to check out the Tournament because of two things. One; We didn't need to watch Detras as long as we thought, and two; We heard you made to the finals, so..." Her mother cut in. "I am very impressed with you. You have grown into a powerful young dragoness." That put a smile on Glacia's muzzle.

"Glacia" another red dragoness entered the room and asked. "Hmm?" Glacia responded. "We are ready to continue, if you are." Glacia stood up. "Okay. I gotta go, so I will see you two parental units when I come back with a crown of olive branches."

Her mother hugged her again. "Good luck!" The two adults strode out of the room and to the arena stands.

"Okay, let's start this!" Glacia said enthusiastically.

"All gems are away, right?" the red dragoness asked.

Glacia responded sarcastically, "No, I just decided to hide them in my scales." The red dragoness chuckled and said, "Well, I guess that explains your success! Alright, c'mon now! Let's show these dragons who they are messing with!" The dragoness, Scarlet, was an friend of Glacia, and had offered to help with Glacia in-between duels. She had checked the idea with the Guardians and was somehow able to speak with the purple dragon, which her friends went crazy about (except Glacia, who really didn't give a care) and the request was granted, but she would have to do the same with the other competitors. She was fine with it, and accepted. She would be able to hang out with her friend AND make sure no one was cheating, both of which were things Scarlet did on a daily basis. It also helped that Scarlet was a well-known event planner, so most dragons trusted her to do this, anyway.

Glacia stepped out into the arena. It had been recently rebuilt, due to the earth golem destroying the previous one when it got into the city, so the stones were smooth and clean. On the other side of her, she saw a male emerge from the other prep room. Her opponent stared at her, and she viciously stared back.

The Ice Guardian, Cyril, stepped down from the stands onto the arena floor, and began to speak in a loud-and-proud kind of voice. "For the finals, we have the ice dragoness, Glacia." He then looked up at Volteer and appeared to begin to call him down, but he turned away and finished, "Versus the lightning dragon, Ikcebus." He turned swiftly and walked back up the stands. Once he reached his seat next to the other Guardians, he declared, "Let the final match...BEGIN!"

Both of the competitors got low into position and began slowly creeping up to each other. Both watched for a slip or an error in each other's stances. Glacia moved slower, making sure she didn't slip up in her position. Ikcebus was unfaltering, and never showed any sign of losing concentration. As they circled each other, Glacia was struck with the greatest idea she could think of. It was late evening. She thought about angling him against the sun, and quickly began to execute the plan.

She got into position, and as Ikcebus's eyes dilated, she leapt at him, claws extended. He was unable to react fast enough, and was smote across the face. As Glacia landed gracefully, she turned and saw an angry dragon with blood dripping from a gash on his face. He charged at Glacia. She quickly leapt away, and then rushed back toward him, ready. She stabbed him near the shoulder with her tail, though only lightly, and, as he recoiled, she bit his neck. This had been too easy. She pushed him, up and then onto the ground, pinning him underneath her.

She stared into his eyes ferociously. She thought she saw a faint bit of understanding in his eyes, but it seemed to disappear with the appearance of a large, wicked grin. He tensed, and suddenly seemed to regain his strength. Before Glacia knew it, she had been tossed aside and into a bag of... building supplies, somehow at the edge of the arena. Ikcebus stood up, and she leaped into the air, landing on her paws and staring at her opponent. She saw that the scratch she had left on his face had disappeared.

She realized what the fiend had done. He had snuck gems into the duel! He was cheating! She opened her maw to denounce this scoundrel, but just as she began to speak, someone spoke the very words she was going to say.

"Cheater!"

They all looked around, searching for the source of the noise. Again, the same voice rang again.

"Cheater! You know darn well what the rules are, you asshat!" The voice cussed.

Glacia recognized where the sound came from as the supplies she had hit earlier, but who was saying these things, she knew not. However, her confusion quickly transformed into a flurry of more confusion and utter panic as she saw the "supplies" stand. As it rose, she began to believe it was an ape, at least until it finished standing. Then she saw it stood as high as an adult dragon, nearly one and a half times her size, and stood straighter than any ape stood, and even straighter than a cheetah. Instead of roof slates, she realized that it was actually a hide armor, and the sheet draped over it was a cloak. The cloak was long and colored navy blue on the inside and black on the outside. A hood draped over the creatures face, but it did not cover everything, and what Glacia did see caused her spine to crawl.

The creatures hands emerged from the cloak, and they were somewhat like an apes, but rather hairless, and the skin was a strange tan, while the fingers where longer than an apes. The hands moved for the hood, and the creature flicked it's hood off. Glacia and Ikcebus stared into dark ocean blue eyes on a face that they had never seen before. The best description Glacia could formulate for the creature was "alien".

The creature looked at Glacia, and then to Ikcebus.

"You know that gems are not allowed in competitions like this. Now, fork over the gems, and get back to the fight." The creature said in a rather gruff but not unfriendly tone.

"What are you trying to do, huh? You don't scare me, I can take you on! You have no friends, come on, ape!" Ikcebus pumped himself up. Glacia backed off, as she believed things could get violent. And they did.

The creature lifted a massive boot up, and, in less that a second, snapped a harsh kick in Ikcebus's muzzle. Glacia and a large amount of the audience, despite their panic, flinched at the sound of crunching cartilage. Ikcebus retreated, his nose bleeding profusely, while the creature showed some evident confusion. He shouted, "Get him, before he kills every last one of us!"

The creature responded, quick and harsh to halt the spread of panic, "I AM NOT going to kill ANY of you unless YOU try to kill ME! I only came here for one purpose, and that is to get away from my life! I left my world so that I could get away from the ordinary life in my home country. So that I might find a tiny bit of the life I want to live!" The creature appeared very stern and oppressive, but his his words were tinged with sadness and lead-heavy wisdom derived from some horrible, abusive situation.

The creature took a deep breath. He then spoke, much calmer but still heavy. "I kicked you because you threatened me. I meant no permanent harm to you or any dragon."

Another dragon asked, "Who do you work for, huh? You probably work for the Dark Master, you filthy ape!" The creature turned and glared at the dragon with the most hate any dragon had ever seen. The dragon quickly shut his trap, and the creature again spoke.

"I am a human. I come from another universe entirely, and actually, despite my appearance, don't have much connections to apes. Apes and humans are both primates, but the relationship is distant. I have never had anything to do with the "Dark Master" as you like to call him," the human flashed his fingers for emphasis in "Dark Master", "My personal name is... well, I don't really want to tell anyone. Just call me human until further notice.

Glacia began to relax, slowly, but surely, and asked a quick question, before she left her guard down entirely. However, she did not notice the Guardians had come down from the stands. "So you are not going to slaughter us all in our sleep, as an ape would do?"

The human chuckled. "Actually, there is a connection I have with dragons that I would like to explain in private that prevents me, on a moral level, from killing any dragons." The human responded. The human turned to the Guardians and began to speak.

The human smiled a bit and began to hum a tune, then he began to faintly whisper the lyrics. "I took a walk around the earth to ease my hardened mind. I left my body lying somewhere in time". He continued to sing, faintly and with an emotional cocktail of sorrow and happiness.

After a while of this, he halted midway through a song, cleared his throat, and said, "Okay. You three must be the Guardians, Cyril, Terrador, and Volteer, am I right?" He motioned to the three elder dragons with their respective names.

The Guardians appeared confused. "Yes, but how do you know all of our names?" Terrador asked in his deep voice. The human answered, "Various ways. I and my species know much about the multiverse, whether we realize it or not." The human then turned and looked at a purple dragon and a black dragon. "You two must be Spyro and Cynder."

The two dragons blinked at each other. Then they turned to the human. "Yes. But I'm not sure whether we should trust you." Spyro deadpanned. The human's expression shifted to a grimmer expression.

Cyril stepped forward and said, "I agree. The information you are giving us is rather inadequate and is highly questionable."

"Yes. On top of that, it appears you have has experience with very potent magic. I sense a trace of something opressive eminating from you." Terrador added.

Volteer stepped forward, eager to speak his mind. "Yes, I sense it as well. Did you have comtact with any gods? Are YOU a god? Where does your power come from? What kind of magi-"." He was cut of by both Terrador and the human, but the human spoke with more force and quieted Terrador as well.

"I have an oversion to magic. It is hard to explain, so I don't really want to bother trying to explain. Maybe over time, you will learn".

After what the human had implied, Terrador asked the human, though he could already guess a few possibilities, "What are you here for anyway, human?"

The human was rather annoyed by the way he addressed him as a simple creature, but replied with, "I want a place to stay, so that I have freedom to do want I have always wanted, and to provide your nation with information you may want to have".

Terrador was interested. "What information specifically would give us? And what would you want to do while you are staying here?" Glacia was surprised as to how quickly Terrador assumed a diplomatic air.

The human responded, "I can provide infromation about other universes and how they have evolved, so that your species may find it easier to advance. I want to just be somewhere other than my home."

"I think we should know exaclty what you are and why your here. Perhaps your a creature made by the Apes, or maybe Grublins?" Spyro said.

Terrador said, rather unsurely, "He may be lying, but I believe if we can learn mistakes made by other creatures it may be the best for the Dragons. The deal you offer is too precious to deny the slim chance you may have of being truthful. There is still the fact of your credibility, however, but I believe that will show itself as we go along". Silence is all that ensued.

Cynder then spoke for the first time, breaking the ice, and saying, "I'm sure we could offer you a place to stay, or at least until you can get back to your home." She looked at the Guardians and at Spyro

Spyro instantly submitted to Cynder, and Terrador caved in, "I guess he can stay in one of the rooms in the Temple, but I think we should talk to him about his past. We still have many questions, and think you should answer them at some point, so that we know just whom we are housing." The human looked happy and he nodded.

"I agree. Thank you for your hospitality, and yes, I think it's important for you to know how am here and why." The human stated. He turned and looked at Ikcebus. "Will you accept my apology? I shouldn't have kicked you." He held out a hand. Ikcebus simply turned and looked away, ignoring the hand, whether out of fear or hatred, he could not tell.

The human sighed and turned around, then looked at Terrador who was now at the entrance to the arena and motioning to him and Glacia. The human then picked up his cloak, and began the follow Terrador along side the blue dragoness.