(A/N: So this is the daemons AU nobody really needed I guess. It's sort of finished so I thought I might as well post. There's this and one or two other tiny chapters. I might expand and continue if there's interest.)
"If only it were that easy, little one." Her voice was distilled venom, dark and delicate. Her wings stretched as a serpentine neck reached forward to hiss at him.
Spyro's fear had little to do with the size of her. Little to do with how putrid and lost her eyes were, or how feral and animalistic her easy stalking, like a wildcat grown far too large.
No, for the first time he got up close to her in Concurrent Skies, without the lava or the chase to distract them, Beliria let out a broken hiss. She shifted, a small gold lizard ducking behind his spines, blending into the shining ivory. Sparx let out a hissed curse besides him, shoulders shaking as his firefly Daemon flew to his chest, where he clutched her to him.
She has no Daemon.
She has no Daemon.
It was different to see it than to hear it. Ignitus had murmured the fact in a voice that sounded like heartbreak, but being face to face with a shattered being was a different beast altogether.
"No." Gala muttered into Sparx's chest as the little black and orange insect tried to bury itself into his chiton, the glow from her tail fading. "Wrong. Wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong."
Cynder snorts, slinking in a way that forces Spyro's shaking steps to carry him backwards. His tail is quivering. He could feel Beliria's heartbeat trying to tear her little body apart, matching his quavering.
Cynder knows, clearly. There's a sort of sick amusement settled around her like a stormcloud. "So afraid of losing what tethers you, little one." And the whisper is the purr that heralds a lightning strike. "There are no tethers in death, little one-" And the thrum amplifies into a growl rumbling from her chest, a crescendo of loss and jealousy and wretchedness. "-Well, it's time you learned just how complicated life can be."
And then she's risen to her back legs and he's frozen by the ice in his veins and the curdling in his chest. Sparx manages to dodge the strike, still clutching Gala like a lifeline, but it barrels straight into Spyro. Beliria is thrown by the momentum with a broken sob as he careens along the checkered floor, gasping as patches of his scales are rubbed from his side in the friction of the motion.
When he finally stops, his heart has been torn away. Bel's been thrown clear off the tower, barely saving herself by shifting into a mockingbird, mournful cry ringing through the air as she darted back to his side.
"Flee, damnit!" Minorial's cry is shattering, more brazen than the other half of her, but no less broken. She's in a cage, yipping and screaming at them to run under Ignitus' prison. "You can't fight her! Get out of here!"
They had long wondered at the fox. Spyro had never seen such a misfit demon, shifting between raging and quiet while her partner remained sullen and shattered.
"Run, Spyro." Ignitus' voice sounds like sandpaper. "Save yourself."
But having half of himself almost ripped away had finally woken him from his horror. Beliria explodes besides him, brown fur covering her to leave a snarling wolverine behind. "No."
And they are unity incarnate when they see the shattered longing in their opponent's eyes.
"No." Spyro agreed, eyes fixed on the soulless monster ahead of them. "This time we fight."
Bell feels left out. Here, there are no enemy Daemons to attack or gems to absorb. Her soul goal becomes staying out of the way, and she eventually gets fed up trying to keep up with the dodging. It's detrimental to their fighting when an errant dodge pulls at their bond, and so she shifts into a serpent's skin and slides herself around his throat, keeping herself small and loose enough not to strain his breathing, but well out of harm's way. Finally a blast of green from Spyro seems to end it, but the twisted fire that engulfed the black dragoness' eyes is still curdling. Bell unwinds herself to land on gold paws, growing even to Spyro's size as she unleashes a curdling roar, lioness' bristling tail waving behind her. Cynder growls something, but flinches back at the sight of the two advancing as one. The dead fire in her eyes seems to splutter out for a moment. Spyro has to force himself not to flinch.
Because there's a child in those eyes. A lost, lonely broken child who's missing half of themselves.
The child flinches away from their anger, before the great dragon rises with a screech and grabs the power crystal, ricocheting into the sky and away from everything she can never have.
Spyro wants to collapse. Beliria does collapse, shifting into a dog as she flops to her belly and starts panting. Spyro's weary too, but he heard his mentor fall and so he struggles to Minorial's cage and tells the scolding fox to back away so he can break the bars. As soon as she's out she's at Ignitus' side, still scolding but inbetwixt broken wining. It sounds something like sobbing.
I think she was different once. Bell murmurs in the back of their shared mind.
I think they both were. Spyro agrees, feeling like they were seeing the aftermath of something that had once been glorious, but now lay in shambles.
"Now what?" Sparx looks lost and horrified as he hovers over, Gala climbing to his shoulder. The little insect was trembling, still, the will to fly on her her sapped.
"Ignitus…" Spyro trailed off for a moment, gathering his courage before he took the dive. "There was something familiar in her eyes…" Bell shudders into his side, the feeling of familiarity with half a monster hurting them both.
"There should be." Ignitus sounds impossibly old and sad. Minorial hops onto his shoulder by way of a offered paw, tail swishing as she made her way to the padded pouch that still hung around his neck and slips inside. "It's time you knew the truth."
"All of the truth." She snips, only her pointed ears and dark eyes visible over the rim.
"What truth?" Gala's little voice was angry.
Ignitus fell onto his haunches with a breathy sigh. His wings landed on the tiled floor. "When I returned from saving your egg, the temple was in chaos."
"The dark army killed them all." Minorial murmured. "All the egg's sleeping Daemons but one. The eggs were all grey and dead and rotting without them."
Spyro shuddered at the thought, pulling Bell to his side with his wing. Her fur tickled and irritated the patches where scales had been ripped from him, but the comfort of her presence outweighed the pain.
"The other guardians had been overrun, beaten down and their daemons caged or injured." Ignitus continued brokenly. Minorial let out a little whine.
"He needed a dragon. He took a egg and her Daemon. That blasted ape grabbed them both."
Spyro wanted to be sick. The idea of someone else grasping your daemon was repulsive enough- but the idea of touching a daemon before the child had even come into the world sent their blood freezing. "Cynder…"
"He killed all but her." Ignitus murmured. "In hopes of destroying the purple dragon before it could grow to oppose him. But he needed one born in the year of the dragon- only they can breach the Dust and open the portal that serves as his prison."
"But if she's like me… Where…"
"Where's her Daemon?" Sparx sounded the smallest he ever had.
"All we know is that the Dark Master twisted and broke her beyond recognition." Minorial said quietly. "Corrupted her and poisoned her. Maybe she's soulless now. Maybe forcing her into the form of an adult before they were settled destroyed him. Maybe the Dark Master holds him prisoner. We don't know how she can be without a Daemon."
"All we know is that she has become the Dark Master's monster." Ignitus agreed.
"What could he want so desperately as to do all this?" Bell asked quietly. "Killing children, destroying Daemons…"
"He wants his freedom." Minorial growls. "He wants freedom from the prison of Dust in Convexity. He wants to bring the havoc wrought by his army to its conclusion."
"And make a world that isn't worth living in." Ignitus finished. "And if Cynder gets there with my power, it will be."
A pulse seemed to pass through the sky. Dust flurried and leaked from the tree demons as the unseen force trampled silently through the air. They came to panting and quivering as a blast of light rocked the sky, swirling into a vortex of ice and fire.
"We might be too late." Minorial murmured, ears deflating as she rested her chin on the edge of her bag.
"Hell no." Bell's growl was out of character for either of them.
Spyro agreed. "We haven't come this far to lie down and give up now. I'll stop them both if I have to."
"We can't give up when people need us." Bell growled, the spotted fur of a ocelot bristling down her spine. "Not ever."
He beat his wings and slammed into the air. Turning his head to look at his mentors, hoping for their agreement.
"No, you're right." Minorial murmured. "At the very least we have to try. We can't just lie down and die. Ancestors know what happens if we fail."
"I would fly with you if I could." Ignitus lamented. "Go." The purple dragon nodded once, Beliria shifting to flutter by his side as a falcon.
"And may the ancestors watch over you." They could barely hear Minorial's whisper.