Hello, everyone! Okay, I'm going to try very hard to start cutting back on authors' notes, but I just wanted to chime in and thank you all for immediately latching onto the story. Getting faves and follows on Day 1 is such a huge relief! Here's hoping we can keep riding the hype train to the end. :)
Also, to answer people who have been asking about the GBA Spyro titles, I'm leaving them out. There's so little in those games to work with, even compared to the trilogy of games I AM trying to make something out of, it wasn't worth the extra fuss. Hopefully you guys won't miss them too badly!
Now, we've got a platforming puzzle to get to! (Look, for better or worse, the Platform Panic sections were probably the most memorable parts of ETD, at least for me.) So let's get on with the show!
CHAPTER TWO: War Effort
"I found one, I found one!"
Fighting to catch her breath, Elora rushed into the Stone Hill tower, careful not to let loose the buzzing captive caught between her cupped fingers. Nestor and Bianca looked up as she made her way inside. Once she was in front of them, the faun slowly opened her hands, allowing a frightened green dragonfly to peek its head out.
"I found a dragonfly," Elora continued between gasps. "Will this help? Can this little guy get Spyro on his feet?"
"Unfortunately not, but I'm sure Ba'ah will be glad to see that Toons is safe and sound," Nestor answered, taking the dragonfly from her.
Elora hung her head with a sigh. "Shoot. I thought bringing a new dragonfly would help."
"Sorry, Elora, but dragonflies don't work like that," Bianca explained, finally looking away from the hefty dragon tome in her lap. "Not just any dragonfly can do the job. That's why the Dragonfly Festival is so important. That's when dragons get paired with their dragonfly. It's the magical bond between them that's so potent. Spyro can't just pair up with any dragonfly; he needs Sparx."
Elora sat on the straw bed next to Spyro. Hours had passed since Ripto's attack on the Artisans, and the purple dragon had yet to stir. His trademark scales seemed lifeless and pale, and he felt cold - far from the protective warmth she remembered him to have.
She gently stroked one of his horns. "Yeah, I figured. I just wanted to help."
"You can start by not worrying so much, Miss Elora," Nestor said. "Everyone in the Realms is out searching for Ripto and the dragonflies, including Hunter and your friends from the Forgotten Worlds. They'll find Sparx eventually."
Elora bit her lip. They all saw the attack; what if they couldn't find Sparx? What if there simply wasn't a Sparx left to find? But she couldn't bring herself to ask. Spyro was always so confident; even in the face of certain destruction, he could assure everyone that there'd be a way out of it. And he always managed to find that way - it was the one type of promise he could keep.
She always had faith in Spyro, no matter what. How could she start doubting him now?
"You're right. I just need to stop psyching myself out." She gave a sharp sigh; if Spyro were awake, he could talk her down out of any tizzy.
"Deep breaths, Elora," Bianca said. "There's not much you can do except not work yourself up. The dragons won't let anything bad happen to Spyro; I know Hunter definitely won't if he has a say in it."
Elora bit back a groan. "Great, 'cause Hunter has the best track record for being reliable and saving the day."
ooOOooOOoo
"Alright, Hunter, time to save the day! Hunter, super-cool cheetah, off for adventure! Looking for dragonflies! And always, off to-YIKES!"
PEW! PEW! PEW!
Mere moments after charging heroically into the field, Hunter's expertly-written theme song was interrupted, as shot after shot of fiery plasma threatened to wreck his ship. It took quite a bit of careful maneuvering (plus a bit of crying and some pleading to the dragon gods), but the cheetah managed to weave his way around the oncoming fire and take off for the skies.
For too long, Hunter had tried to warn the others about the oncoming sheepocalypse. Every time, he was met with rolled eyes and scoffs: "there's no such thing as sheep UFOs, Hunter! Space cows aren't real!" He and Spyro were the only ones around to shoot down the first wave of sheep saucers back in Metropolis, and even the purple dragon seemed to shrug off the threat: "They're sheep that fly around in big, tin cans. How big of a deal could they be?"
And now here they were, taking advantage of the chaos in the Dragon Realms to wreak havoc in Crop Circle Country, attacking the dragons at their most valuable weak spots: the raceways of the Forgotten Worlds.
POW! "Hey! Watch where you're shootin'!"
"BAAAAA!"
"Oh, yeah? Well, BAAAAA to you, too!" With a growl, Hunter smashed on his controls, sending a plasma blast of his own to knock the mouthy sheep pilot to the ground.
Luckily for all of them, Farmer Dill had a prototype UFO on hand to deal with the sheep menace. (Though the rest of the farmers were more concerned that Farmer Dill "just happened" to have a highly-experimental anti-sheep-saucer device "sitting around" in his barn.) Regardless of the circumstances, Hunter took control of the prototype airship and decided to take on the sheep fleet. (He had Farmer Dill's blessing, so long as he made sure that no cows got abducted by the space cow mother-ship while he was on patrol. Apparently, it was an unpleasant experience to deal with last time it happened.)
PEW! PEW! PEW! BAM!
After a shudder and an intense BANG!, a cacophony of sirens went off in Hunter's cockpit. Just as he started to approach the mothership, one of the sheep saucers managed a direct hit. Smoke and flame began to pour off of his hull, and the prototype ship started losing altitude - fast.
Hunter scrambled across the controls, doing everything he could to maintain altitude. Being speedway country, (technically Country Speedway, but you get the point), there was very little land underneath of the galactic firefight. Any hope of a crash-landing was stuck down at the bottom of a draconic ocean - not exactly where Hunter wanted to be, especially without his scuba suit.
He closed in on the mother-ship, but realized far too late that the main ship itself was surrounded by scrap and debris, likely a side effect of their massive tractor beam. (And they were abducting a cow, too, what timing.) His ship was knocked around mercilessly, doing nothing to aid the fiery trauma he still had to deal with.
Hunter had to make a decision, and quick. And considering how uneasy the other farmers were about Dill's UFO license, he figured nobody would be mad at the one he decided on.
The prototype ship smashed into a piece of debris, lodged in place just long enough for Hunter to make his move. The cheetah threw open the hatch as wide as he could, giving himself just enough room to squeeze out of the ship and clamor onto the piece of debris. Thanks to the mother-ship's passive tractor-hold, he and the debris stayed in orbit. As the flames spread across his ship, the prototype eventually fell, crashing into the murky waters below.
With his new foothold (unsteady as it was), Hunter took a second to look around. Each of the chunks of...metal? Barn debris? Crashed sheep saucers? Whatever they were, each was suspended carefully around the center hub of the mother-ship, making a makeshift barrier around the large, flashing saucer. The space cows were sure to be inside, which meant Hunter had to get there, one way or another. (And with no prototype UFO to take him the rest of the way, he'd unfortunately have to settle for "or another.")
Using his incredible cat reflexes, he bounded over to the next stable-looking piece of debris. The space junk spun around the ship like rings of an asteroid field; while some rows spun faster or slower than others, there did seem to be a pattern to the madness. Careful to keep his cool, he chose his jumps wisely and slowly hopped from platform to platform.
(He prided himself on his jumping skills, often bragging that he had more raw jumping power than even Spyro, but every near-miss or heart-wrenching slip made him long for his purple partner in crime (namely, said partner's wings). Especially whenever he glanced down at the dark waters below - why did the dragons think it was a good idea to build their speedways over oceans?)
With only one jump standing between him and the mother-ship, Hunter dove for the saucer with everything he had. Unfortunately, the lack of wings finally came around to hurt him, and he slipped just shy of a smooth landing. "Aw, shoot! Every time!" Scraping and digging in his claws, Hunter just barely managed to avoid sliding right off the edge and into the water.
He stabilized, and for a moment, everything seemed fine. Deep breaths, Hunter. You can pull yourself up from here. Just don't slip, don't panic, and don't-
"So, if it isn't the Avalari pest that's been shooting down our saucers!"
"And don't get shot by space cows," Hunter finished under his breath. A space cow had stormed out of the mothership to confront him, and was now pointing its space laser down between Hunter's eyes. One glance at the cow's suit, which was lined with buttons and badges, told him this particular space cow was the pilot of the ship - the leader of the space cows and their sheep saucer fleet.
"Any last words, kitty cat?" the cow taunted, charging its blaster.
"Don't shoot?"
PEW! Without even bothering to retort, the space cow fired. Hunter threw himself to the side, barely avoiding the blast at the cost of leaving just one set of claws to keep him from sliding off the side of the ship. While the cow's blaster flickered down in order to recharge, Hunter went on the offensive. He worked up some momentum, then threw himself into a front-flip, giving him just enough of a push to jump back onto the mothership. He and the space cow exchanged a few frantic blows, each trying to push the other off the edge while not falling off themselves, then reached an equilibrium as they moved back towards the center.
The space cow leader fired another shot, but this time, Hunter was ready. He nimbly rolled out of the way of the attack, then unsheathed his claws and tore at the space cow's legs. The leader let out a yell of pain, and while he was stunned, Hunter turned his claws to the cow's blaster hoof. With a slosh of anti-gravity space blood, the cow leader dropped his only weapon.
While the leader scrambled to reclaim his gun, Hunter reached for his own weapon. He pulled out his bow and prepped an arrow, just in time for the leader to find his gun and drop to his cow knees to retrieve it. With the space cow down, Hunter moved in, tackling him and crushing the cow's collarbone under his foot.
With the leader pinned under his paws, Hunter pulled back an arrow, keeping it locked between the cow's beady eyes. "Your game ends now, space scum! What are you after?"
The space cow scowled up at him. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Yeah, duh, that's why I asked you! Come on, don't ruin my moment!"
"Funny how you say that," the space cow paused to cough, struggling to catch his breath, "when it's your friend the Master's currently after."
"Master who? And what does he want with Spyro?" (At least he assumed they were after Spyro. Most magical evil bad guys were, after all.)
With a bit of stretching, the space cow finally wrapped a hoof around his laser blaster. With a quick pull of the trigger, he fired a shot. It missed its target, but the flash and the bang was enough to send Hunter stumbling back, giving the space captain a chance to get to his feet. "Just tell your precious dragon elders that our Master is coming back to reclaim his lands! And once the mighty purple dragon has fallen, our sheep fleet will be free to conquer Avalar and take the Winter Palace as our own! The world will fall under our technological-"
Moo! While the space cow indulged in his evil monologue, Hunter righted his bow and fired his arrow. It hit the captain straight between the eyes, felling the mighty space leader with a poof! While most enemies broke into gems or spirit particles upon their defeat, the space cow captain broke into a pendant. Once the coast seemed clear, Hunter stepped forward and picked it up. It was a simple gold setting, strung on a leather cord. The gem at its center was unlike anything he had ever seen - while the dragon treasure was known for being vibrant and beautiful (if not a little hard to find in the lush landscapes of the Dragon Realms), this gem was a dark ruby, almost black depending on how it caught the light.
And on top of that, he had a message for the elders.
ooOOooOOoo
"...So wham! I shot the arrow at him, and down he went! But instead of going poof into a gem or something, I found this."
Nestor couldn't hide the worry on his face as he glanced over the mysterious artifact. "You couldn't get a name from him?"
"Nope, sorry," Hunter shrugged. "Did what I could, but no dice."
"It's just another piece of dragon treasure, right, Nestor?" Elora asked. "I mean, not saying it's a good thing, but you guys have dealt with these kind of riptocs before, haven't you?"
Nestor kept his eyes low, rolling the pendant in his claws, watching the different ways it shone and caught the candlelight. "Unfortunately, Elora, I don't think so. I think getting to the bottom of this mystery just became much, much more urgent."
He stepped outside, unfurling his wings and jumping into the skies, likely to gather the other dragons of the Artisans to share Hunter's find. With her typical look of concern, Elora looked back to the still-slumbering Spyro left in their care in the Stone Hill. "That means we need Spyro now more than ever."