Chapter 4: The Adventure Begins


I had to think fast, Cynder was gonna murder the crap out of Zane if I didn't, oddly she seemed even more pissed than anyone else was when they saw him. Granted, only Spyro and the guardians had seen him thus far, but the pure rage on Cynder's face was impossible to ignore.

Better talk now Kevin, before this escalates. "Cynder wait!" I said hastily, but Cynder completely ignored me.

She began circling Zane like a wolf. Not taking her eyes off him for a second. "Why?! Why can't you just stay DEAD?! After all you've done, all the lives you've taken, all the destruction you've wrought, why couldn't you just stay dead?" She spat at him.

Zane just cowered back, "Look, I know I look like him, but I swear I'm not-" Zane began but Cynder didn't let him finish. "SHUT UP! Just shut up!" Cynder yelled.

She backed Zane into a wall, he was trapped, cornered like an animal. "No way you live! No way! After all you did to me, to everyone, it'd be a crime not to kill you!" She snarled.

"CYNDER NO!"

Suddenly Spyro came running in. Cynder stopped and turned to Spyro, a confused look on her face. Spyro managed to get between her and Zane. "This isn't Malefor! Well, not entirely." Spyro explained.

This only added to her confusion, so I decided to help fill in the details. "This is that friend I was telling you about. The one that got possessed by an evil dragon? Well, that evil dragon was Malefor." I elaborated.

Cynder looked to Zane then to Spyro. "Is that true?" She asked him. Spyro nodded, Cynder grew a solemn look, it was clear she had no love for Malefor, and the idea of him trying to make a comeback was hitting her harder than a wrecking ball.

However, I noticed Zane was clutching his head, like he had a massive headache. "Zane? Dude you okay?" I asked him as I approached.

However Zane looked up at me, a sinister smirk upon his face. "Zane's not here Kevin..." He said to me, his voice completely different, it was deeper, and slightly distorted. "Zane" then looked to Spyro and Cynder. "Ah, Spyro, Cynder, it's been too long... three years in fact." "Zane" said coldly.

Spyro glared at "Zane". "Malefor..." He spat. Wh... what? Malefor? Oh no... oh god please tell me we aren't too late to save Zane!

Malefor laughed, "Aww... you remember me, I'm touched." Malefor mused. He then turned to me, "How does it feel Kevin? Knowing that you can't save your friend? It hurts doesn't it? I should thank you, without you none of this would have been possible." He taunted me.

I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. "You son of a BITCH!" I snarled as I did this. The only thing keeping me from kicking his ass was that he was in my friend's body right now.

However Malefor only seemed amused by my anger. "Ah... there it is, I can see it in your eyes human, you want to kill me don't you Mr. Naton? Make me pay for doing this to your dear friend... Do it then, kill me, I won't stop you." Malefor goaded me on.

It took me a minute to realize why, he knew I wouldn't do it, because if I killed him, I'd kill Zane too. I wanted to make Malefor pay! Make him suffer for doing this to Zane! But he and I both knew I couldn't do that without hurting Zane. Malefor let out a dry laugh when he saw I was relenting. "You see it now don't you Kevin? The futility of your efforts, you can't save him Kevin, not from me." Malefor taunted me.

I shot a glare at him. "You won't get away with this! I swear to god I'll kill you!" I said. But Malefor didn't seem the least bit intimidated. "Sure you will human... and when you do, I'll take Zane with me..." He said.

Zane then began to jerk his head around. "Get out! GET OUT OF ME!" Zane yelled in his usual voice. It seemed Malefor didn't have full control after all. Zane was fighting him.

I let him go and Spyro quickly rushed over to Zane who was struggling to fight Malefor off. "Come on Zane! Fight him! Don't let him get control!" Spyro said, god I could tell from here how hard this was for Zane. The way he was writhing on the temple floor was unsettling, I'd make Malefor pay for doing this to him, I swear I will!

Soon Zane's writing stopped, and he looked around at all of us. "I... I'm okay.." Zane said, letting us know he had won, for now anyway. I knelt down next to him. "You okay dude?" I asked him.

Zane looked up at me. "Y.. yeah... I'm okay, but I doubt that's going to be the last time Malefor plays puppet master with my body." Said Zane as he got back to his feet.

Spyro then approached Zane. "If Malefor can take control like that, then we need to find a way to get Malefor out and fast." Spyro explained.

Cynder moved in next to Spyro. "But how? I doubt Malefor's going to be willing to part with Zane, not when he has a chance to finish what he started." Cynder pointed out. We all hung our heads, it seemed so hopeless.

However then Spyro seemed to have had an idea. "The Chronicler!" He shouted excitedly.

I looked at Spyro. "You're saying words, and I think they're English, but yet I still don't understand them." I said to him, what the hell was a "Chronicler"? And how could he help get Malefor out of Zane?

Spyro looked to me. "The Chronicler is a powerful dragon who watches over time, if anyone knows how to get Malefor out of Zane, it's him." Spyro explained.

However Zane didn't seem to share Spyro's excitement. "Just one problem, how do we get to him? Do you even know where he is?" Zane asked Spyro, Spyro had no clue, I could tell by the look on his face.

But I shook it off. "It's the best plan we have, I'm sure we'll figure it out." I said, trying to cling onto any hope I could of getting Malefor out of Zane. Maybe I was being overly optimistic, or maybe I was just desperate for a solution. Either way Spyro's plan was the best shot we had, so we might as well take it.

So we all agreed to set out for The Chronicler, we had to clear it with the Guardians first, all of whom were thankfully willing to allow us to do it, Volteer even managed to get me a map of the dragon realms, that's useful, I suck at navigation, hell I can't even drive anywhere without using my GPS.


Later...


I had to focus a lot more now to keep Malefor from taking over again. I could feel his will trying to override my own. He wanted control and he wanted it bad I could tell. But I wouldn't let him get it, no way in hell is he coming back if I can stop it.

Kevin had decided we should stop by our hilariously misplaced apartment before going to the Chronicler, he said we'd need supplies and our apartment was the best place to get those, I just hope the wolf druids weren't still there waiting for us.

Soon enough we found it. I hadn't gotten a good look at it since when we left we were kinda in a hurry, but it just looked so ridiculous sitting there in the middle of the forest, it looked like it had literally been ripped right from the rest of the building with pieces of pipes and wiring hanging from it. "You guys came here in that?!" Cynder asked.

Kevin said nothing and slowly opened the door, Spyro nudged me. "Why's he being so cautious?" Spyro asked me.

Well we never did tell him about the druids. "When we first got here, these weird wolf guys in robes came in, they wanted me for something, god knows what." I explained to the purple dragon.

Spyro then looked to Cynder. "The order of Malefor?" He asked Cynder, who nodded. Uhh... what? I don't remember that from the games! Spyro saw how confused I was. "Sometime after we defeated Malefor, a cult formed around him, they thought Malefor was a deity who was sent to cleanse the world. They've been causing quite a bit of trouble around the realms." Spyro explained.

I saw Kevin stop what he was doing and look at Spyro, "Seriously? Some yahoos actually formed a religion around the guy who tried to annihilate all that is and ever will be?" Kevin asked, flabbergasted at the prospect of someone worshiping a dragon like Malefor.

Spyro grew a dry expression. "I know, I don't get it either." He said bluntly. Kevin then opened the apartment door, thankfully the wolves had long since bailed from the place, probably searching the forest for me.

Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx all seemed floored by what was inside our dinky apartment building, well to be fair, they lived in a semi-medieval fantasy world, so modern technology and architecture had to be at least a little amazing to them.

I happened to get a look at the TV and PS2 that had started this whole mess, I opened the lid and took the disk out, a task made a lot more difficult with my dragon claws. I stared at the disk that put Malefor in me in the first place, my face reflecting in the disk. I saw Spyro come up behind me in said reflection. "What's that?" He asked me.

I glared at the disk, "The thing Malefor used to possess me." I said coldly. I wanted to break it in two right there, but that was pointless, Malefor would still be in my brain, and we might need it if we need to put his spirit back into something.

Spyro motioned for me to hand him the disk, so I did. He looked it over for a while. "Why does it have my name on it?" He asked me. Oh boy, I'm gonna have to explain the concept of video games to him aren't I?

I guess I could just show him instead, "Follow me..." I told him, Spyro was confused but he complied. I lead him to my room, everything was as I had left it, I thought for sure the cult of morons would have riffled through my drawers to sniff my underwear or something.

I grabbed my box that I kept my Spyro collection in. I had no idea how he'd react to being a fictional character in my world, but it was better than going on for hours about the history of gaming. I took out several Spyro games, not really caring to look at which ones I had taken out.

Spyro looked at them with shock, unable to make sense of what he was seeing here. So I think it'd be best I explained. "In my world, you're a fictional video game character, that disk was pretending to be one of these games, I guess so we would play it." I explained to him.

Spyro took a minute to look the games over, I hope I hadn't broken the poor guy, this was heavy stuff he was dealing with here, the validity of his own existence. "Wow, I guess I'm famous even in other dimensions." Spyro said with a smile. It was relieving to see he had such a good sense of humor about it. I think I probably would have been curled up in a ball and asking if I was a real boy if I were in his shoes.

Sparx however, was less than enthused. "How come you get to be on the covers of all these game things?! Where am I?! Where's my game huh?!" Sparx whined. Me and Spyro both laughed.

Spyro then picked up one of the PS1 versions. "Wow, I look really... weird on this one." He said, it was Spyro 1, I guess Classic Spyro would look weird to him. "Why do you have all these?' Spyro then asked.

Oh man, should I tell him? I can't help but feel he'd be a bit creeped out if I told him I was a fan since I was little. But I needed to give him an answer. "I'm... I'm kind of a fan." I said sheepishly.

Spyro gave me a warm smile. "I guess I should be flattered." Spyro said with a small laugh. Man he took a lot of things well didn't he? But hey, I guess he was just a friendly guy.

"Seriously?! I'm not on any of these?! Come on! Where's the love people?" Sparx whined as he searched through my game collection trying to find a picture of himself.

Spyro ignored his foster brother and instead went to leave. "Come on, we don't have a lot of time to waste if we're going to get Malefor out of you." Spyro told me, I agreed, the sooner I got this bastard out of my brain the better.

I saw that Kevin and Cynder were packing food into a backpack. "You sure any of that is still good? I doubt this place still has power." I asked Kevin as we came in.

Kevin waved it off. "It's fine, it's only been what? A few hours? They should be fine." Kevin said as he continued to pack things in the bag.

Sparx flew in. "I can't believe it! I'm not on a single one of those video game things! Why?!" Sparx whined. He was still on this? Wow.

Cynder looked to Sparx. "Probably because your face would scare all the little human children away." Cynder teased Sparx. She probably had no clue what he was talking about, but was unwilling to let a chance to lay into Sparx pass her by.

Spyro then went back to the PS2 and picked up the Malefor disk in his mouth, he was probably damaging it with his teeth and dragon saliva, but since that disk contained nothing but bullsh** and demons I didn't care. "You're bringing that with us?" Kevin asked as he saw this.

Spyro walked over to the bag and dropped it in. "We might need it in case we need to put Malefor's spirit in something." Spyro explained. Kevin raised an eyebrow but went back to packing snacks. Including a bag of donuts.

I shook my head at this. "Donuts Kevin? Seriously?" I asked him. Kevin shrugged and closed the backpack up and put it on. "Alright we have food, blankets, and pillows, anything else?" Kevin asked. I couldn't really think of anything else we'd need really.

I saw a can of bug spray on the kitchen counter. "Insect repellent?" I asked Kevin. Kevin snatched the can off the counter.

Kevin went to put it away but Cynder stopped him. "let me see that." She asked. Kevin reluctantly gave it to her. She then looked in Sparx's direction, an evil grin on her face.

In one swift motion she sprayed it right at Sparx, who began to spaz out once the liquid hit it's mark. "AAAGH! What is this horrible stuff! It smells like evil and horror! I think my eyes are watering..." Sparx whined as he raced around the apartment.

Cynder laughed as she handed the can back to Kevin. "Just wanted to see if it worked." She lied. Wow, what an evil thing to do, thank god it wasn't a can of insecticide. So with all our supplies packed and Sparx recovering from his bad run in with bug spray we were ready to head out for The Chronicler.

I'd just have to remember to keep the bug spray away from Cynder, for Sparx's sake...


A/N- And thus our hero's journey begins! Will they reach the chronicler before Malefor takes control of Zane again? Will Cynder snipe Sparx with bug spray again? Stay tuned!