…*sighs* Okay. I just read something on the Skylanders series… in the most recent game, Spyro and Cynder have been reduced to being mere 'missing' posters, sorta like Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying-Squirrel from the Sonic series in Generations.

I had just had some sort of a good idea for this fic… while it's another one-shot… I think I've got a good idea.

I do not own Spyro the Dragon or the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, or Skylanders, they all belong to their respective owners.

(Noire's POV)

I let out a heavy sigh as I walked throughout Lastation, tears dripping down from my eyes. The stores of Lastation were carrying all sorts of games, and my eyes had landed on one of them… I just tried my best to keep my cool upon seeing it.

Skylanders.

A series that had more or less killed someone who I had held close to me. Oh? There's somebody listening. Huh… I didn't expect that.

I'm Noire, the CPU of Lastation, and the head of Sony. Er… more the video game section, I should say. I'm also called Black Heart, but that's not what I'm going to tell you about. My real problem is just… that stupid series.

What 'stupid series' you must be asking yourself? The Skylanders series.

Well… this does require a bit of explaining… so… just relax, and listen to this story of sadness…

It was in 1997… the Playstation was a big hit, beating out my rival's Neptune and Blanc's systems by a long-shot. But… unlike them, I needed this big iconic character to help promote the system, like Neptune's mascot Sonic the Hedgehog or Blanc's mascot of Mario.

I held a big meeting to try and find someone who held that potential… we had some competition for the slot, one of them being a character named Crash… but it was then, we got that spark and someone stood out among everyone there.

He was a young purple dragon, named Spyro.

Unlike most other fantasy dragons, who were bipedal, Spyro was quadrupedal, he just seemed really cute. His owner/father, Ted Price, had asked me if Spyro would be a good series for the Playstation…

And boy oh boy… Spyro was indeed. He was one of the most popular characters ever, rivaling that of Sonic and Mario. I had big plans for my little dragon, to make him my mascot and go very far…

...notice how I said 'had', right? This next part… is something I'm not at all proud of… one night, me, Neptune, Blanc and some others had gone off to a restaurant… my memory blurred from there… and when I came back around… I saw some contracts or… something, which said that Spyro was no longer my property!

Well… technically, you could say Spyro was never 'my property' per say, but… he was gone. I don't even remember what had happened to him… next thing I knew, I saw a Spyro game on a Nintendo system. Blanc teased me mercilessly, saying that I had 'given up the only thing that gave me a chance to win the Console War'.

Was Blanc right, you may be wondering… hmm… well… yes and no, I supposed. After all, I'm still in the console business with her and Vert. But… it was after some time, I saw Crash was gone to… and I never saw either Spyro or Crash ever again.

I looked to games for months and months… bordering on years… I lost track of Crash, but when I had given up hope… it was October 10th, 2006, when I saw a game for the Playstation 2 with an all too familiar looking face on it… er… sorta, familiar, would be the better term.

It was Spyro. Some new spin-off/reboot series I think it is… the Legend of Spyro. When I found out the creator, I ran off to try and see my little boy again… but when I arrived to their studios… I never saw Spyro.

They said they had gotten my sister's approval to begin releasing the Legend of Spyro games for the Playstation family, well… I was happy Spyro was still getting games… but it was getting harder and harder to not see my little boy… and chance at a mascot be… something he isn't.

Two more of these 'Legend of Spyro' games had been made, being The Eternal Night and Dawn of the Dragon. I played the latter with Vert once… it was okay, I suppose. Not exactly the masterpiece of the PS1, but then again, it was no longer the days of the PS1, and for its time, the game was fine.

But… after Dawn of the Dragon… Spyro had vanished… I was so scared I lost my little boy forever… but… boy knowing what was next… I… I… don't know what to say anymore. It was at E3 of 2011, when I had heard rumors about there being a new Spyro game. When I asked Blanc and the others about it, they said they knew nothing. By the time I got the news… my heart had felt like it had sunk into the depths of my chest.

It was there…

It was there…

...a monster that wasn't my little boy was first shown.

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, due to be released October 2011, and for Microsoft Windows, Wii, Xbox 360, OS X, and worst for me… PS3.

I ran out of the E3, tears flooding from my eyes, as Uni tried to follow me, I just told her I wanted to be left to myself for a little while. People who knew of who Spyro once was, called me a giant idiot for letting him go… I lost a lot, and I mean, A LOT of Shares that year… and yet… that dumb series is still ongoing.

Swap Force, Giants and Trap Team.

Four games… that have left an irremovable smudge on Spyro's name and image forever. Naturally, I tried to hide this from everyone with how busy I acted, but… poor Spyro… he had been turn from this… adorable little dragon… to some sort of failed… mutated… monster…

Uni actually suffers nightmares from being attacked by the people who had changed Spyro into that monster… Not only that, but we've noticed he was shoved aside in the latest installment, along with a friend of his that came from the Legend of Spyro series.

They were once marquee value, which basically means face value or showing something just for the name, those Skylanders games are not Spyro games, no matter how you slice the ham. I looked at the game store, and walked on inside.

This store was just… filled, with those games, and those… uh… figurines, that you use to play with them. I walked over to one that was of Spyro and Cynder. I let out a heavy sigh. I am going to tell you all right now, three things I don't get about life. 1. Why First-Person Shooters are practically required in order to catch 'mainstream' audiences when I want to get the attention of true gamers. 2. Why horror games have gotten so stinkin' popular as of late. And 3. The appeal of Skylanders.

I walked over to see this sort of unicorn and dragon hybrid… it looked… interesting, I suppose. I remember seeing Peashy and Vert playing one of the games and I recall Peashy played this this character… Whirlwind, was it?

And that's something else… I will never understand what it was these people were THINKING, when they designed the Skylander characters… they look nothing like character from Spyro's game, and just… while there are some diamonds in the rough… namely some of the 'dragon' characters like the unicorn-dragon Whirlwind, the gem-dragon Flashwing, Echo the water dragon, the robo-dragon Drobot, the dragonfly… dragon High Five, and the phoenix dragon Sunburn. Aside from them, the rest were just weird or down-right dumb. They even made poor Spyro and Cynder ugly compared to their older selves…

I had left the game store, seeing some people in Lastation wearing some Spyro shirts and such… this was always where they called me out on this move of giving up Spyro that I don't even remember making. I tried to tell them, but they never listen.

After evading them for a little while, I arrived at a hidden area in Gamindustri, known as the 'Gamindustri Remembrance Yard'. It's a secret spot to us CPUs and the Candidates, and I think two of Neptune's friends (Compa and IF, if I recall correctly) and please, don't tell anyone I'm telling you about this place.

So… this place is a hidden area located around where the Gamindustri Graveyard used to be… somewhere further south I think. I'll admit, while Neptune is a total airhead from time-to-time (not to mention a bit of a slacker), her idea to make this place was pure genius. It's to remember characters we've sadly had to let go of, or had slipped away from us.

Among Neptune's section was Alex Kidd and the cast of Jet Set Radio, among Blanc's was Ness and Lucas from the Mother series, Captain Falcon from F-Zero, Roy from Fire Emblem, and the Ice Climbers, in Vert's section… and the only one there, Blinx from his namesake series Blinx the Time Sweeper.

Finally… in my section, Crash Bandicoot was there, Gunners Heaven, Klonoa, and Tomba/Tombi just to name a few. All of those names were among the titles of games from my early years with the PS1, and like the rest of us, there were many others that were forgotten from later consoles that ended up here, but our early-years franchises would be the ones we remembered the most fondly.

And last but not least… there was one statue that Neptune had reserved a very special spot for… Spyro. She made his statue the most prominent of my lost characters, seeing as I cared for him so much. I cried a little bit as I saw it, and I simply sighed and began to head back for home.

"Onee-chan… I've started some of the files to try and get Spyro back…" Uni told me upon my return.

"Thanks Uni-nee-chan…" I smiled over to her, before I looked at something I had put up in our Basilicom so many years ago… something I keep up to still remember…

You know those posters that people place when someone or something goes missing, sorta like in some of those movies when they want to find someone that was lost. Well… up in our Basilicom… there was one for my little boy…

'Missing: Spyro the Dragon. If found, please contact the Lastation Baslilicom'.

"I miss him too…" Uni sighed, going over to hug me.

My eyes teared up, as I looked up to the top section one more time…

'Missing: Spyro the Dragon'

My little boy… he was gone… would I ever see him again… as he should be? I'm honestly not sure. I mean, I had heard stories of fans of older games like Crash Bandicoot trying to revive the characters proper… I just personally wish that I could see my favorite little dragon come flying back up to me like old times and to promise something like what had happened would never happen again.

After Uni let go, I traced out the poster again, but only a single word.

Missing.

And that was this fic for you folks. I would personally like to thank KKD for some… minor help with this. It wasn't a collab, but more him making sure I was typing Noire accurately, and helping me with the scene at the Remembrance Yard, because I only know so much…

Also, I can personally say, I don't get first-person shooters, or horror at all. What's the appeal? I will never know, I guess.

*shrugs* Anyway, if I had to pick a favorite moment, it would be when Noire visited the Remembrance Yard, and saw those past characters who had been done by the various companies… but have sort of… faded away.

Just Live More.