Obligatory Author's Note, GO! (and skip if you want the story, under that line, right there, you know, that grey one unless I'm colorblind, which I'm unsure of.
This project is special to me, after spending months from Hurricane Sandy to work on it when I had free time. Anyway, I was REALLY busy, dealing with stuff like homework and such things in daily life. But I think it paid off from extensive editing and learning from other creepypastas written to craft this. I'm also hoping it will give the Spyro fandom more notoriety if it becomes loved, but let fans decide whether this should sink or swim, bad or good.
Anyway, I'll shut up, so grab your popcorn, turn off the lights - if it's night, I don't know - and have fun.
Rated M for animated blood and gore, disturbing imagery, excessive violence, and the possibility of some viewers unable to sleep with a ruined childhood
Chapter 1: Echoes
A lone, brown hawk soared over the skies through clouds miles high from the ground. It veered over a lofty mountain, piercing the heavens with an eerie exterior of crumbling stone and the veil of darker clouds clustering at its peak. The skies were grey and black as clouds thundered and rain poured. Inside the mouth of the cave, it was hollow and dark as a marching echoed in rhythm with the booming clouds.
Deeper inside, a pack of tiny, mossy grublins clustered in a pack, trailing a gargantuan hero orc grublin leading through the darkness of the ruins. A smaller grublin carried a flaming torch, illuminating the damp passage as rain dipped and dripped in the silence of the rocky passages on the earthy grunts.
The group traveled for minutes, coming closer to a peculiar golden, scintillating crystal before them. It glimmered brightly as they stepped near the base of the cluster. Within the structure were two dragons, one a purple with two golden horns on him and yellow underbelly scales and the other a midnight blue with magenta underbelly scales and nine horns behind her head. Between them was a tiny, yellow dragonfly, barely noticeable.
The large grublin orc hissed a small order as one grassy soldier stepped in front. Its arms rose, wielding a club, and lowered at an instant, smashing the gem. The crystal shone brightly from its cracks, next vibrating violently, causing a shockwave where the grublins stood.
"Spyro, stop!" echoed a feminine voice as the chamber shook harder.
"I…I can't." commanded another voice. The crystal cracked with fissures scattering like rivers on the polished gem encapsulating them, the tremors beating the stone and ground like a drum. …Get close to me, now!"
Thunder roared during the vibration. Simultaneously, a crash of thunder reverberated within the rocky walls as the flashing lights of the crystal ceased and shattered into glassy shards on the ground. The grublins orc once again hissed an order towards the others. The grunts nodded in unison at the command, then opened a chest with an echoing clang, containing marble green snakes. They wrapped around Spyro's neck quick in a flash, glimmering as they bound to his neck.
Instead of binding the black dragoness yet, the greater grubin spoke again, except in a lower, grimmer pitch. It pointed directly towards the fallen purple dragon with its spiny mace. The grublins followed its direction, swarming the dragon. All the troops beside him separated into equal distance far apart from each other for several meters, similar to a ritual stance.
An ominous, dark mist filled the cold floor of the chamber. A clicking noise echoed in the walls of the chamber, stepping closer with an eerie rhythm in it's slowed pace. A black shadow crept close towards the purple dragon, eclipsing the unconscious dragon from light above him. At last, the leader of the grublins muffled one last time, lifting its mace the skies with an audible voice as a clap of thunder boomed: "Terror of the Skies."
"Ergh…ugh…" groaned a voice. The darkness of its closed eyes brightened from its slumber, shifting on her sides against the stony ground. The creature's several horns clicked against a tall slab of stone near the center of the platform, dizzily awakening her from a deep sleep. The dragoness's dark eyelids opened sluggishly, adjusting to the light of the area and examining her scaly forearms, legs, slender tail with a scythe-shaped tailblad, and then her pinkish wings with a black wing lining. Cynder proceeded to stretch her body and neck on the pebbly pillar she stood on. She was almost bare without any bondage from the metal bracers she once possessed, even the bracer on her tail gone, except the snake charm on her neck.
Licking her dry lips, she looked around curiously; back to the Catacombs where many grublins would watch and fight her, alongside with Spyro, she deduced at her familiar surroundings. Except the friendly purple dragon was nowhere in sight, but the dim torches dangling above and the silent crackling of fire and lava below her. A faint heartbeat vibrated from her chest through her veins in each step, beating in unison of each click of her claws on the ground. A pulsing palpitation throbbed in her head along with the beating of her heart, forcing a paw to grasp her head and shake it off. "My head...why does this pounding sound and even familiar?... Spyro?..." she muttered, clasping her head tightly as it continued to hurt.
The dragoness rambled around a few steps, her claws echoing inside the incongruous arena and stretched once more. Her eyes wandered around the room from the ceiling down to the floor until she spotted a peculiar substance on her claws; a crimson layer of a reddish liquid coated her talons. She placed the bloody paw right under her pointed snout, then tasted it the saline mixture of the solution. Beads of sweat mixed with the liquid, giving a salty and oddly metallic taste in her tongue. "What a familiar scent," she noted in a dark tone. Her heart pounded faster, but the pulsing in her head eased, yielding to the savory aroma. She paced faster in each step, the beatings being tremors in her head and chest of where to go now.
A green tether of energy connecting to Cynder's snake necklace turned less and less transparent the farther she traveled ahead. She craned her head towards the pedestal at the center at the base of the charm's tether, noticing it solidify more as she walked further. The mystic chain pulled the captive dragoness by the base of her neck, the dragoness emitting a small yelp as her windpipe shut for a brief second. She growled in mild irritation, digging her forepaws dug under the glowing slab attached to her neck. It flipped high, then disintegrated into nothing within the wind, releasing the dragoness. Her eyes wandered lower where the slab once concealed; a smudged rune faintly glistened as she stared, in draconic text she could read.
"Bound by fate…" she muttered softly. Flashbacks of Spyro flooded her mind – the purple hero saving her from the blast of Convexity reviving the Dark Master at first, how she was protected under the time crystal Spyro crafted as the Mountain of Malefor collapsed after Gaul's demise, and battling alongside him to the end after Malefor's imprisonment in crystal and their last minute in the volcano, ending in an abrupt flash.
"I'm sorry…" she said in a melancholy tone, then turned to another direction and flew around to exit the place. Deep inside, a feeling of despair pushed her to get out as the place reminded her of Spyro and the earlier years. The silence of the room crackling echoed and lost wind brushed the walls with an eerie silence as she meandered in the air aimlessly for a familiar exit inside the Catacombs. An arch came into view, but was blocked by a barrier of purple crystals. A dark aura flowed in between each jagged gem from the wall sticking like spears.
Cynder landed beside the arch as another flashback evoked into her mind, showing a picture of Hunter shooting an arrow towards where the fiery golem would have appeared and saved her and Spyro. The memory faded into black and back to reality, as the dragoness slumped to the ground, weaker by the second as the cluster of gems sapped her energy. They were dark gems.
Cynder groaned, attempting to get up and opening her eyes again. She raised her forearms, and began clawing at the gems, shattering the wall little by little into cut gems. The fragments shook and gleamed a purplish black, then skyrocketed towards her and dissolved like normal green mana and red health gems which heal. The aura brightened and faded from the wall, yet Cynder turned frailer; each swipe on the wall slowed and exhausted her as the dark mist from the wall encircled her more.
"It's not like I had a choice." she sniveled as her body weakened from each malevolent jewel seeped into her. The dragoness continued to grunt in pain tearing the wall down, rasping in each breath. Finally, the wall crumbled before her as chunks of crystal fell on her, wounding her more, ultimately rolling beside her and splashing into the magma behind and below her. Cynder's breathing steadied slowly, yet left her weak as she continued onwards the stony prison of her path.
The dragoness exited the magma chamber, listening to the tapping of her claws as she cautiously proceeded, alone and crippled in strength. Lone skyscrapers of stone stood tall in front of her as the path ended. A dark abyss waited below, the darkness preventing her to see how lofty the pillars were nor how low their bases were. Cynder brushed her paws on the ground to take flight, and wobbled in the air slightly with her frailty.
Utter silence filled the massive area, accompanied by the soft, beating of the dragoness's wings. Cynder remained silent, trying to listen to the whispers of the wind. Instead, an incomprehensive murmur sounded in her eardrums, difficult to pick up. In a mere minute, the indistinct voice stirred louder and easier to grasp, yet the trepidation in the air made her anxious. Multiple voices became audible, startling her with fear in her eyes.
Manipulation… Cynder's heart beat faster and louder. The echoing of more whispers reverberated in the ambience of the still air.
…Your fault… Her lungs thickened and stung by her lack lathurgic, breathing at uneven times.
…Terror of the Skies… The dragoness's eyes shut tightly, each word echoing again and again like minutes each passing second in her flight.
Cy…Cynder… a recognizable, sweet voice echoed in her head. Cynder's eyes finally opened as she was breathing heavily. The dragoness landed gently on the pads of her paws in a dark passage from the pillar behind. Looking above, the upper pathway was blocked with a familiar chunk of fired stone. She recalled Hunter travelling this area, yet never crossed this lower passage since the Destroyer caused some chaos before and divided their team.
The sole, dark dragoness descended deeper inside without Hunter nor Spyro or even his annoying gnat of a dragonfly, Sparx. The whispers stirred in the still darkness inside silently as a nervous grin formed on Cynder's face and a shaky laughter inside the cave. Her sanity started chipping away little by little as she became aware of more voices around, instead of her head into a distant, dark world.
The walls lined straight with pairs of dimly lit torches every few yards, giving a menacing ambience into the mysterious world she disappeared to. The pads of her paws pressed on the stone forward and her talons tapped echoes into the empty void. Chunks of rocks barricaded her path, so she scaled through the rubble. A silent breathing filled the room, not just hers as she carefully looked around, wondering if she wasn't alone as a few rocks were loose in each step.
A small, shriek of pain was cut out as the rock pressed on something. In closer examination, she noticed an ape her size, clad in metal armor, suffocate beneath her. The creature extended its arm outwards, a cry for help. Her head turned opposite from the ape, her face filled with deeper apprehension; even though they were foes, such a fate isn't excusable, she thought to herself. As she crossed onwards, the rubble rumbled at times, as mortally wounded apes were grunting to escape and other times were mere, inanimate corpses. Cynder eyed every one of them, with a look of melancholy and helplessness. They were all done for, even if she took pity and liberated each and every one from their stone tombs.
One figure in particular brightened the darkness, a blue dragoness with light, paler scales. She was nearly free, except her hind leg was stuck under the rock, purple and throbbing, frosted with ice as if numbed. She was full of scars from head to toe, ready to perish with the lost souls from Cynder's path. She turned with a depressing frown, as even her horns were chipped, long gashes of torn scales tricking streaks of blood, and her hind leg, trapped and half sliced off with a bone protruding from her limb. She should be dead, as she laid in a pool of her own life fluids, seeping a fountain of her own burial in the gloomy graveyard of darkness.
She stared at Cynder in tears with brilliant yellow eyes, begging to die with her whimpers and torture, holding a reddish, stained, rusty sword with her crooked teeth. The black dragoness gasped in shock and horror, previously thinking she, herself, was the last of her kind being a female, now in front of female ice dragon. Looking down, Cynder held her in discomfort, noticing she wasn't alone in her anguish in a heartwarming embrace, yet void of any hope for the near deceased dragoness. The silent, sweet whimpering filled the barren hall.
Cynder looked again at the dragoness's mangled body, considering her physical state. Her condition was fatal; the fate of death to take away her misery, she reluctantly thought. The black dragoness caught a glimpse of the ice dragon's sorrow in those orange eyes one last time. A depressed frown curved on Cynder's face. Her emerald eyes flashed from a lush green to a ruby red for a split second, staring at her very own bloody claws. The sparkle of light faded from her eyes back into the blackness of the hall. A quiet stab sounded through the darkness. It was hopeless for the dying blue dragoness, yearning before for an end with her whimpers. Cynder was crying in the background, as she ended the dragoness's misery.
Breaking the silence, a maniacal laugh echoed in the hall, along with a crimson glint in Cynder's eyes glowing faintly. The hysteric laughter continued for several seconds, followed by abrupt noises of slicing and mutilation sputtered and echoing from the walls. The black dragoness's eyes gleamed with a chilling stare, a frenzied enjoyment instead of the sincere sympathy she once felt for the innocent dragoness. A bloodied claw raised towards the victim, now with a deep wound at her chest. Dread filled her weakened eyes by the claw's lucent liquid reflected from the torch's light, completely defenseless at the black dragon's sight. The torch blew out by the wind, leaving the room in complete darkness as the victim was blinded from an untimely, savage fate.
After a few minutes, the torch ignited again by a loose ember and brightened the room once again. A brackish, red substance splattered all over Cynder's body, blending with her ebony scales and the splotches clashing with her light, magenta underbelly. Finally, she spoke again as she examined the bloody remains and she committed on the dragoness's miserable fate: "It's not like she had a choice, either," she grimly hissed, as a pool of blood expanded on the ground on her feet and gored talons. A twisted chuckle came from her lips of amusement, then a twisted laughter following.
The demented dragoness continued further down the hall, leaving the carnage alone behind her. Once she turned past a corridor, her mania died down, as if her bloodlust wasn't sated enough, or impatient to capture another victim in cold-blooded murder.
Soon, a burning sensation filled Cynder as she lurched forward, screaming in agony on the ground. Her body writhed as if she released something in her. She felt more exhausted much like after tearing the wall of dark crystals. The pain caused Cynder seemed to act more like old self, ending her crazed madness, except she was still frail trying to run ahead, limping a bit each and every step.
Through the hall, it was deserted except for a lone, pale white and shining figure sitting alone and illuminating the blackness with a dim light. It whimpered for what felt like years had passed, gasping at each breath in sadness. The dragoness's paw attempted to pat its shoulder, but her arm fazed right through the figure. It appeared as a ghostly dragoness, nearly identical to Cynder matching some or her body features of her horns and spiked wings, except younger. It turned its head, showing the same horns and eyes, except with light, scarlet blood as tears flowing from her eyes.
It paused in a stare for only a second, ceasing its cries, then hopped back very terrified. "Stay away from me!" It flew away, dipping into the cold nothingness ahead, leaving Cynder alone again.
"Wait," Cynder extended her paw forward. "Does my breath smell that bad?" she called, sounding more nonchalant without a trace of senile savagery anymore. A scraping noise boomed far back, the screeching pounding into the dark dragoness's eardrums, speeding her heart rate. At last the torches lit up the area brightly, lighting the way forward. Cynder narrowed her eyes to concentrate an image of what shook the walls and hall she stood in beyond the now brightening blackness. A spiked wall creaked in her sight, wooden needles partially coated with a dried red liquid, bent at odd angles of what were once straight and erect spikes. Leaking from the cracks of the wall was a shadowy mist, guiding the wall closer to the black dragoness. It came closer each second, slowly yet surely to give chase as a gruesome fate was in store for her without much escape.
The vibration of the spiked wall abrading the stony hall boomed from the distance. Cynder raced ahead of the spiked wall like a speeding bullet. She jumped to the air with the momentum built to soar fast and conserve energy. During Cynder's flight, the familiar noises echoed in the background again, except more distorted and a faint static crackled in her mind. Darkness…Sadistic…Torture them… Cynder's expression turned more frightened and hopeless, looking very unsure at a chance of survival. She suddenly began to choke in each crying whimper, now fearing death itself. Again her emotions flipped, initially starting alone and vulnerable to comforting and to from cruel malice to now trepidation.
Eventually, her pointed snout bumped into a wall, and then stared down the dark abyss of the hall from the wall's path collides to her side. Both the voices and noises turned even more contorted, followed by distant screams of agony and torture: metal clanging and whips cracking, along with the cries of the suffering clashing all at once. Cynder stopped panicking, erasing the shock in her face and eyes; she closed her eyes and stood petrified in place, accepting her fate. Sudden flashbacks of the violence flickered in her mind – "Help!", "Mercy!", "Just end me, please!", and more various voices, all pleading for rescue or a demise to cease their anguish.
Plenty of dragons were sprawled on the ground, brutally ravaged and weakly pushing themselves up. A large shadow of a dragon passed through the massacre, laughing and scorching many more in its path through fields of ashen grass, all targets screaming in the same suffering against the burner's might. Twisted laughter echoed as each flicker cut into stony cells of dragons, each abused by apes cutting and beating them, prolonging every captive dragons' misery. Finally, it flashed onto the dragon's face, gleaming with familiar red eyes. The crimson glint of the eyes reflected that of Cynder's from slaughtering the innocent ice dragoness earlier, except the black, sinister dragon overseeing the brutality.
As reality became clouded by Cynder's thoughts, the shadowy fog quickly enveloped the dragoness at an instant, succumbing to her own fatal fate easily. The wall came closer each passing second as she disappeared into the fog. The scales of her body tainted slowly into a swarthy tone. She lowered her head and bit her lower lip, suppressing the pain from the mist flowing into her.
"I'm not proud of the things I've done." she grimaced, as her eyes flipped open, being completely blank and white.
Snap.
The timber thorns of the wall splintered against the rock hard. Snaps echoed breaking the noises into a deathly silence. Everything turned black and empty at an instant. The ending sensation of bark barbs piercing her felt painless. The grim end felt as if she was sinking, falling down into a dark void, spiraling in circles and plummeting into nothingness forever. The dragoness descended even deeper in her own darkness, dimming by the passing second feeling like eternity down in despair. The sadness, the slaughter, the darkness she had, and the new world that changed before her from her past, haunting her until her demise.
Now wasn't that fun? :3 Anyway, Read and Review (R&R), favorite, and follow the story if you enjoyed Dread of the Dragon. And a new thing I'll do is by the last chapter, I'll give a short backstory of the story's inspiration and why I made a Fanfic or story here. So if you love it, keep your eyes peeled for the reasons why it came to be! ^-^
Give a review whether you love it, or want this story to burn like and all other bad creepypastas. Anyway, I'll see ya in the flipside, so Ride on! ...(something I'll say being a Mega Man Starforce nut, basically what Geo Stelar says before battling an EM-Wave being. xD )