Hi, guys! I'm back! :D Augh, you have no idea how badly I've fallen in love with this story - I haven't put it down for days. XDD Finally, I realized "you know, I should probably stop writing and actually post a new chapter", so here it is! Thanks to everyone who's been picking up the story - according to my traffic stats, this is my second most-visited (not counting some of my older stuff) - and an extra thanks to Flowerstar for my first review.
Just to get a few quick notes out of the way, since they were brought up in said review: yes, I want this to be a recreation of the Spyro games (at least, most of them up to the Legends trilogy), but it's still a fanfiction. I want to embrace my freedom of taking creative liberties, especially when it comes to filling in things the game didn't explain, like Spyro's backstory or the history and inner workings of the Dragon Realms. My job with this story is to patch things together, especially with everything falling apart after Year of the Dragon, and most of all, make something that you guys enjoy reading. Trust me, I know my Spyro canon, and for anything I don't know, I'm constantly consulting with the Spyro wikia to double-check things. This is my interpretation - roll with it like you would in any other story, okay? :)
...That being said, I DID make a mistake in the last chapter. :D; But I'll leave it up and see who catches it. And no, color-mistakes don't count, because my vision is horrendous, and color-blindness may or may not run in my family - I don't know any better, and I'm not hiring a beta-reader to proofread my knowledge of the color-wheel. XD
Alright, got all of that noise out of the way - let's get back to the action!
LAWYERBOT SAYS: "I really need to come up with more witty one-liners concerning dragons."
Spyro the Dragon, both the character and the video-game (c) Insomniac Games. Still not sure who's currently ruining the character, but I'm sure they know who they are. Point is, it's not me. If it actually becomes important, I might put effort into looking it up.
CHAPTER 2 - THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
"Delbin?" Spyro was hesitant in getting any closer to the statue than he already was - he wasn't exactly one to take the slow and careful route, but something told him that dealing with green light-beams shooting from the heavens wasn't the place to be reckless.
"Spyro, it's a statue," Sparx buzzed. "It's not gonna answer you or anything."
"I know, I know!" Spyro snorted, his stubborn attitude overtaking the feeling of shock. "Lay off, I was having a moment."
Frustrated, the purple Artisan took a blind swipe at the statue with his claws. At the touch of his paw, though, the statue flashed brightly, beginning to shake and crack. Caught off-guard once again, Spyro hopped a few steps backwards, Sparx hiding in the somewhat-safety behind one of his dragon-brother's ears.
After a second flash of light, Delbin reappeared, stretching his arms and wings with a groan. "Ugh, what happened?"
"Yer askin' the wrong dragon, Delbin," Spyro shrugged.
Once his bearings were regained, the red dragon looked around Artisan Square, seeing the small monsters and other statues scattered around. "...Gnasty's work," he said to himself quietly.
"Gnasty Gnorc did this?" Spyro exclaimed. "Alright, sounds like a party! Where's he-"
"Oh, no, Spyro," Delbin interrupted. "Not a chance. You're going to go find where the dragonlets are hiding and stay with them."
"Oh, you're KIDDING me," Spyro whined. "Delbin, Sparx and I have been waiting for something like this to happen forever! Come on, I can handle that gnorc! At LEAST let me go around and save the dragons or something!"
Delbin paused, looking back and forth between the statues and the young Artisan in front of him. "...Alright, Spyro, I'll give you that. Go to the different homes of the Artisans and find as many of the missing dragons as you can - I'll fly ahead to the other worlds and see if I can find out what's going on."
"If I find all the dragons, can I come with you?" Spyro asked excitedly.
Delbin sighed. "Alright, fine, I'll arrange for a balloonist to take you to the Peacekeepers world, but ONLY if you finish finding the dragons here in the Artisans first, understood?"
"You can count on me!" Spyro assured, sitting down to lift a paw in salute (a little thing he picked up during his past escapes to the Peacekeepers World.)
"Whatever you do, Spyro," Delbin warned as he stretched his wings and took off into the skies above, "BE CAREFUL."
Spyro sat back and watched his guardian float through the clouds. "Sparx, ol' pal, I think this is the beginning of the best adventure ever."
oo00oo00oo
Later that night, the dragon-duo found themselves running around the Dark Hollow - after finding all of the dragons in Artisan Square and the Stone Hills, this was the next home on their checklist. So far, the day had gone pretty well - the gnorcs Gnasty had created from the Dragon Treasure were complete pushovers; most of them were roughly Spyro's size, and ran away like wussies any time the young dragon even got CLOSE. Talk about an easy job - why was Delbin so worried about him getting hurt?
"Alright, gnorcs!" Spyro called out as he rushed into the Dark Hollow circle. "Time to-huh?"
As expected, their entrance was quickly met with Gnasty's underlings, but these ones, just as terrified as the ones in the Artisan homeworld, were cowering behind sheets of shiny, uncut metal.
"Wow, you guys are pathetic!" Sparx laughed.
"Seriously, this is sad," Spyro echoed, casually trotting up to the shaking shield. As he had done in the Artisan homeworld, the purple dragon took in a huge breath of air, found his inner dragon fire, and let loose a hot flash of flame, expecting the gnorc to simply feel the burn and fall over.
The metal heated up to a bright, glowing red, then quickly cooled down - the gnorc hiding behind it was untouched. Upon realizing his lucky save, the creature peeked its head out and laughed; they learned earlier in the day that they were incapable of speech, but they were quite cocky if you allowed them to live long enough to show it.
Frustrated, Spyro dug his claws into the ground and charged forward, ramming the metal with his unforgiving horns. The fire-proof shield quickly gave way, and the dragon's momentum carried the attack through, his horns digging into the shrieking gnorc, causing the magic to die out and turn it back into a sparkling five-piece gem.
Realizing the key to defeating their clever shield trick, Spyro repeated the process with the remaining two gnorcs. "Great, so now some of them have fire-proof shields," the dragon tsked frustratedly.
"NOW I get why Delbin had you breaking down so many of those metal chests," Sparx buzzed. "Good thing you're such a hard-head!" he added in with a laugh.
"Oh, hahaha, you're SO funny," Spyro scoffed (though with the slightest hint of a smile) as he continued rushing through Dark Hollow. He hopped up the stairs, which led you to the top platform, the essential Hollow gliding spot, and...
"Grah!" The purple dragon just barely stopped short of falling into the Hollow arena, which at the moment was crowded with an immense gnorc, one that stood almost as tall as the full-grown dragons. It growled and snarled, even after seeing Spyro up above him, angrily brandishing his club as if challenging the small dragon to battle him.
"Ooh, good luck with this one, Spyro," Sparx buzzed nervously. "I'll be up here, looking for fodder."
"Thanks for the confidence-boost, Sparx," Spyro said with a roll of his eyes. "Come on, this guy's probably just as push-over as the rest of them." Once again, the young Artisan dug in his claws, pushed off of the edge of the arena, and knelt his head, aiming his deadly horns straight at the opposing gnorc...
...Who simply sat there as Spyro's charge bounced off of his girth, laughed, then beat his club down on the young dragon's head while he was disoriented from the rebound.
Panicked, an electric-blue Sparx guided the dizzied Spyro away from the arena (one of the many ways a dragonfly protects his dragon). Once the Artisan was removed from his sight, the not-so-bright henchman forgot about his prey and went back to protecting the arena. "Yeah, here's an idea, let's NOT try that again."
"Shuddup, Sparx..." Spyro groaned slurredly, wavering from side to side as he tried to regain his footing. "I c'n take 'im down, he ain' that big...I jus' gotta aim better, that's all..."
"Well, shoving your horns into his fat isn't gonna do anything, so don't try that one again."
The purple dragon eventually regained his bearings, shaking off the dizzy feelings and returning his attention to the foe at hand. "Well, if charging won't work..."
It was worth a shot, right? Once again, Spyro charged after the massive gnorc (causing young Sparx to cover his eyes in fear), but rather than going in with the horns, he pulled up just short of the gnorc's stomach and let loose another burst of flame. The gnorc, unable to handle the heat, shrieked before falling flat on his back, disappearing in a poof of smoke and becoming a ten-piece gem.
"Alright, scaredy-fly, you can look now," Spyro laughed, returning to his dragonfly-brother.
"Who was scared?" Sparx buzzed snappily, quickly uncovering his eyes and putting his hands on his hips. "I wasn't scared!"
"Whatever you say, Sparx."
After clearing out the rest of the gnorcs and finding the other dragons, Darius mentioned that he saw Oswin heading down below the Hollow before Gnasty's attack, so down into the depths of the Hollow Underground they went in search of the last Dark Hollow dragon.
"Alright, best dragon-warrior ever," Sparx buzzed as the dragon-duo ducked behind a lamp-post (plenty convincing cover when dealing with gnorcs) to puzzle out their newest enemy. It was another massive gnorc patrolling the tunnels, similar in size to the one Spyro torched in the arena, but this one was wearing a suit completely made of that fire-proof metal. "How do we beat THAT?"
"Give me a second, I'm working on it," Spyro shot back, his navy eyes looking everywhere for something that would give him an edge. Torching that metal armor would be no good, and charging right at him would definitely lead to a repeat performance of the arena. There had to be something around - it was a gnorc, there had to be some kind of weak spot or something he could take advantage of, right?
"Hey, that'll do it," the dragon snickered as the patrolling gnorc turned around - while his front was covered head-to-toe in metal, his backside was completely exposed. Being careful to...actually, no, of course he wasn't being careful. The purple Artisan dug in his claws and rushed forward as fast as he could charge, then jumped up and unleashed a burst of flame. The gnorc, clearly caught off-guard, gave a pained groan as it fell to the ground, rewarding Spyro by reverting back to a five-piece gem.
"That's how the best dragon-warrior ever takes care of business," Spyro smirked, arrogantly whipping his tail.
"Oh, you got lucky - these things are dumb as rocks," Sparx pointed out, as one of his duties as Spyro's dragonfly was to constantly deflate the Artisan's fiery ego.
"Oh, whatever," Spyro laughed. "Come on, let's clean this place out and call it a day."
oo00oo00oo
The next day, Spyro and Sparx picked up their adventure in the Town Square, continuing their adventure of freeing dragons, collecting gems, and getting into charging matches against the local bulls, which appeared to have been enchanted by Gnasty...though they were doing a better job of harassing the gnorcs than being a threat to Spyro.
"Spyro! Spyro!" The purple dragon slowed to a stop, just about done with his adventures in the Square, and looked up to find Delbin's brother Alvar dropping from the skies, having just been freed a bit earlier. "Spyro, have you seen a man dressed in blue running around here?" he asked, panting heavily.
"No..." Spyro answered slowly, fairly certain he would've noticed one of those running around. "Why?"
"There's a thief in Town Square, Spyro!" Alvar shrieked. "And that miscreant's stolen one of our Dragon eggs! If you see him, PLEASE, get that egg back, whatever you do!" The red dragon coughed, still trying to catch his breath. "Ugh, I tried to catch him myself, but I'm not that fast anymore...ugh, I've gone and winded myself trying..."
"Whoa, whoa, back up," Spyro jumped, unable to believe what he just heard. "Someone stole a DRAGON EGG?"
"Unfortunately, that happens during times of chaos like this," Alvar sighed. "There's a pack of thieves that for one reason or another just LOVE swiping eggs from the fairy dens where they're hidden until the Year of the Dragon. I'm sure you're plenty familiar with being carted around by one of those rascals, right, Spyro?"
The purple Artisan fell quiet. "...Wait, what?"
Alvar paused, then bit his tongue upon realizing what had happened. "Uhm...no, nothing, not my place - talk to Delbin about it when you get back to the Artisans, I need to get back to finding that thief!" Before Spyro could question his guardian's brother any further, Alvar took to the skies once more, leaving one lonely purple dragon extremely confused.
"What in the world did that mean?" Sparx buzzed.
"I don't know - we can talk to Delbin when he gets back from the other worlds," Spyro shrugged. "Come on, we got us an egg-thief to find!"
It didn't take them long.
"Nyeh-nyeh-ne-nyeh-nyeh! Heehehehee!" No sooner had Spyro and Sparx climbed to the Town Castle, which lead to the Town Plateau, did he see a flash of blue rush past him - a smallish creature with beady little eyes, wrapped entirely in blue cloth, carrying a small, pink ball.
"That's the thief!" Sparx buzzed. "I'd recognize a dragon egg anywhere!"
"Then the game is on," Spyro smirked, digging his claws in and taking off.
The purple dragon, being the speedster that he was, quickly caught up to the blue-robed thief. The trickster heard the stampeding footsteps behind him, and with a panicked "oop!", took off in a blazing run to get away. The game of cat and mouse actually continued for a few laps - through the castle corridors, sharp left at the plateau, hop off of the ledges, rush through town, climb back up to the castle, rinse, repeat. Spyro had to give his newest enemy some credit - it had been a long time since anything could ever run him ragged, but even the almighty purple speedster was panting a bit after a few rounds with the elusive thief, who wasn't showing the slightest sign of fatigue.
Pulling in as close as he could get (before the trickster got wise and spun around on him, which already happened twice), Spyro was suddenly struck with an idea of how to slow down the runner once and for all. Though getting his breath was difficult after so much running, the dragon managed to swallow a lungful of air, then right at the perfect moment, right at that sharp left leading to the plateau, Spyro fired a blast of flame at his nemesis.
The thief took the blow with a "oof!", tripping over his cloths and dropping the dragon egg as he disappeared in a 'poof' ("Why doesn't anything die normally in this world?", Sparx couldn't help but wonder). The egg in question, light pink and spotted, floated down to the ground gently before disappearing - likely a fairy spell meant to return it to the dens if it were removed prematurely.
"Man, that was a workout," Spyro sighed, collapsing onto the ground to rest his legs and catch his breath.
"Wow, Spyro, you really are one of the fastest dragons in the realms!" Sparx couldn't help but fawn. "That was awesome!"
"Of course it was - I'm awesome, that means everything I do is just as awesome."
oo00oo00oo
After a brief siesta in the Town Square, Spyro and Sparx returned to the Artisan world...just in time to see Argus rushing by when they returned to the Artisan Circle. "Hey, Argus, what's up?" Spyro shouted, chasing after the blue elder.
"Not now, Spyro," Argus dismissed. "Gnasty Gnorc's found out about the dragons being released, and he's sent a small army into the Artisans to destroy whatever's working against him."
"Gnasty's goons?" Spyro scoffed. "No problem - where they hiding?"
"No, Spyro, you're not following - Gnasty's after YOU, none of us want to see you hurt. The other Artisan elders and I can handle it - stay back, whatever you do." The elder disappeared around a corner, leading to a small sheltered area in the Artisans, then disappeared into a portal decorated as a large dragon's mouth.
"These elders don't know us very well, do they?" Sparx buzzed with a roll of his eyes.
"Not at all," Spyro sighed with a shake of his head. "So, shall we not listen to a word Argus said and run in there?"
"Sounds like a plan to me!"
"Then come on, let's go!"
oo00oo00oo
This new home - likely not a home at all, just a false portal installed via Gnasty's magic to give his newest minions a base - was already filled with the sounds of battle the second Spyro and Sparx landed. The sun was now low in the sky, painting the clouds an eerie red color, and the full-grown Artisan dragons were hard at work pushing back Gnasty's minions. The deranged sheep-herders, like the ones Spyro found lurking in Stone Hill, were proving no challenge, but there was a new form of gnorc that was. Grey sheepdogs covered the battlefield - they left nasty bite-marks on any dragon who dared swipe or headbutt them, and they seemed to simply shake off flame-blasts (the first time, anyway).
"Geez, what a me-" Sparx began to buzz.
"Quiet!" Spyro hushed, lowering down as he quietly padded his way through the chaos. "We gotta find Gnasty - if the Dragon Elders catch us, they'll ship us right back home, so shut up."
Sneaking through the battlefields didn't prove to be difficult - Spyro's small size made him hard to spot as it was, so add in the sheepdogs keeping the elders distracted, and the purple dragon's rush through the war was fairly simple.
Eventually, the duo found their target - a large cloaked figure with a witch's hat and a pumpkin for a head, swinging around a scythe that was probably as big as one of the dragon statues.
"Alright...whatever your name is!" Spyro called out as he charged into the arena. "Prepare to be toast!"
The cloaked figure said nothing - instead, with a wave of his scythe, one of the vicious sheepdogs ran out from hiding, charging at Spyro with an angry, slobbery bark. Luckily, the purple dragon took note from watching the dragon elders outside - right before the sheepdog caught up, Spyro unleashed a breath of flame, and while the dog recoiled and shook soot out of its eyes, he torched again, putting the pup out for the count.
Panicked, the cloaked figure ran to another part of the arena and waved his scythe again, this time cueing a pair of sheepdogs as opposed to just one. The two dogs began charging right at the same time, which gave Spyro just the opening he needed to torch them at the same time. One dog recovered faster than the other, so it was a simple torch-and-roll to defeat that dog, then duck out of the way of the other's pounce and finish him off as well.
...However, that left him exposed to the third sheepdog hiding right behind them, which jumped in at the first chance it got and knocked the young dragon down, taking a huge bite into his leg. With a shriek of pain, Spyro panic-flamed, which pushed the sheepdog off for a moment, but before Spyro could get up to recover, it struck again, leaving a nasty set of scratches on Spyro's side to match.
Luckily, before the dog could strike a third time, Spyro barrel-rolled until he had space to breathe, then stumbled to his feet as he let loose another blast of dragon-fire, which got the dog out of his way for good.
"Okay, time to finish the job!" Spyro snapped, fighting past the pain in his leg and sides and charging towards Gnasty's chief henchman. Before the pumpkin-head could slip away to another arena, the Artisan dragon grabbed hold of his cloak with his teeth, pulled as hard as he could, and...
Baaa!
...was incredibly surprised to find, of all things, a sheep on stilts.
The so-called gnorc scurried off in a panic as its pumpkin, hat, and cloak fell away, clearly horrified of the fate that was fast approaching. After the moment of disbelief that Gnasty Gnorc ACTUALLY thought dressing up a sheep would be a good idea, Spyro took off charging as fast as his injured leg would run, easily catching up to the fodder in disguise and sending it tumbling to the ground, where it quickly met its match against Spyro's fire breath.
The purple Artisan breathed a heavy sigh of relief, the rush of adrenaline fading, causing his leg to collapse underneath him and force him into a laying-down position. "Man, that was rough," he panted tiredly.
Unfortunately, the battle wasn't over. But Spyro missed the rest of it - after closing his eyes for just a moment, his world went black with a heavy force on his back and one simple sound.
Ar-ruff-ruff!
To everyone who made it through that massive chapter, congrats. XD Sorry to pile a lot on you guys, but I'm trying to use a 'homeworld per chapter' method, at least for this game, since Spyro 1 doesn't give a whole lot of room for adventure apart from torching gnorcs and collecting gems, which are both fairly boring to read about. The next few chapters are looking to be a bit shorter, and the story will slow down when I start my adaptation for Spyro 2 and have a little more room to play.
You know what's a great way to celebrate pushing through a massive chapter? Leaving a fantastic review. :D Tune in next time for more Spyro action, and if you're looking for an extra kick of dragon action, head over to my profile and check out my Writing Challenges! (No, I am absolutely not above shameless plugs. :D) Later, loves!
§ Tucker's Mayflower, signing off! §