A/N: Back with the next chapter of the story. Leave a review if you wish. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own nor have I ever owned the Legend of Spyro series. I only own my OC, William Alexander.

Chapter 3 – Attack

The sun rose above the horizon, gleaming its bright, yellow light for all to see. The sky turned an orange, pink and bluish-grey as light took over from darkness. Within the forest, in a small clearing, was the still sleeping William; his belt as a pillow and his fire turned to ash. Waking up at dawn was not his favourite thing, but through his own body clock, he roused himself awake.

"Uh…" he moaned, "what time is it?"

His rhetorical question was soon answered as he looked up to see the sky. Realising it was dawn, William pulled out his watch to see the precise time; 5:42. Pleased with the earliness he had awoken, he proceeded to wind up the watch 'til it wouldn't budge any further. The amount of time before he must re-wind it ran through his head as he did so.

"In thirty-six hours from now," he thought to himself.

Standing up and stretching, William peered at his now extinguished fire, looking at the remains of ash and charcoal. There was no sign of any remaining embers that could potentially relight. Satisfied with this, William then spread the ash and charcoal so it was flatter. He was unsure why he made it flatter, he thought maybe it had something to do with its rate of decay. Shrugging it off, William knelt down to pick up his belt and secured it around his waist. He pulled out his bronze compass, checking where North was. Facing the right direction, William resumed his trek towards the grand city.

"I hope food won't be an issue for a while," he mused, "If I can't find any fruits or vegetables, I may need to hunt, much to my dismay. It could be messy."

The forest was no more awake than William himself; birds were few and chirped not often, and there weren't any animals larger than a hare to be seen. It mattered little to him, he was himself and he had his own affairs to attend to.

The camp was busy, apes rushing around to gather their weapons and armour, and to douse their fires. Since first light, the captain was writing. After he ordered his lieutenants to get the whole camp moving, he sat at his desk and began to write a report about the unknown creature and his plan of actions.

"Day seventeen, month one and year three since the death of King Gaul," he wrote, "Yesterday, one of my scouts reported he had seen an unknown creature, ape-like in some sense. Today, my troops and I are going to search for this creature and capture it. I have a good feeling that this creature would make a good tribute to the Dark Master. Ape-like creatures seem to possess talent among the Dark Master's ranks, so why should this creature be any different. For now, my troops and I depart in search. Getting too close to the city, or any dragon-life would be too compromising for the secrecy of ape-kind and our continuous involvement."

The captain put his quill down and re-read the report. Satisfied, he put it among other important papers inside a locked drawer in his special desk. The sun was still rising, more light was available, but more time had been lost. The captain stood up from his chair and began to arm himself. His great sword in its sheath upon his back, his armour, dark purple metal plates covering his arms, legs, shoulders and chest put on; it was time to leave the camp until the unknown creature was found.

Hours had passed, not many, but enough for hunger to settle in. William was now weak and tired, desperate to find any source of food. The forest around him was full of life, creatures great and small were out and about, but amongst all the trees and bushes was not one single trace of edible vegetation.

"Uhh," groaned William, "I think I should have taken some apples for later, when I found that tree."

William was far from starving to death, he still had enough energy to keep him going until the end of the day. After that… it was hard to say; unconsciousness maybe? But William wasn't thinking about this, rather he was thinking about whether he would have to hunt for food. Water was the next thing; dehydration was also slowly drawing near and water was more important. William decided to climb a tree again to see if there were any lakes, streams or rivers around. Above the great bed of green leaves was the entire world around, still as beautiful as it was yesterday. The advantage of height allowed William to see that there was an edge to the forest not too far ahead of him. It had a stream along it and many sorts of trees, plants and flowers. It was quite similar to the one he had seen the previous day, except for the lack of ruins.

"Perfect, a stream for water and plenty of plant-life. I'm bound to find at least some food there."

Climbing down as fast as his legs would let him, and jumping down earlier than he should have, William reached the ground, and began to jog towards the clearing he had seen. After a minute, the edge of the forest was in sight. William dawdled on the borders for a moment to look about and see what was there. Spotting a tall tree not too far away, an apple tree no less, he sprinted along the light-green grass, taking some aspect of care to not tread on many of the larger flowers. At the base of the tree were many apples at the stages of over-ripeness and some were in the stages of decay. Taking note not to step on the brown, decaying apples, William examined the branches above for some ripened ones. Spotting several, William made his way up the fairly thin trunk to reach the branches above. Taking four large, red apples, he jumped down and began to feast on them.

An hour had passed before William stood up and placed the remaining apple in the pouch that had the most amount of space available. Thirst setting in, he walked over to the stream at the centre of the field to take a drink. Other animals were drinking from the stream, but that didn't bother William; his survival was the more important than being picky. A rustle in the bushes ahead of him made him look up suddenly. The rustle was violent and sharp; he was surely not alone. The line of forest further beyond was empty… uncomfortably empty. Where were the animals, the birds?

"Something's not right," he said softly.

Anticipating a predator, William looked for some protection and picked up a long and relatively straight stick. It was about the length of a common longsword, but was still quite manoeuvrable. Stick in hand, he jogged over to a more open and clear space to reduce chance of being cornered, but a higher chance of being caught off-guard. From the bush, emerged a bipedal creature, wearing leather armour; it appeared to be some sort of ape. William prepared himself for it to attack, but instead, it ran to the dead-silent tree-line.

"An ape in armour? This doesn't look good. I need a better vantage point."

Making a bee-line for the tall apple tree, William then proceeded to climb it to the highest limb. What he saw was terrifying.

"What the–?"

Many apes came pouring out of the trees, weapons drawn, and heading towards the spot where William was before. Once all the apes were visible, he was able to get a better look at what he was in for. There were three sizes of apes all up; the smaller ones numbered thirty, the medium ones numbered ten and the large ones numbered four. Among the large apes was a well decorated one, its armour was dark purple covering his legs, arms, shoulders and chest and its sword was huge. The blade was a silver-grey colour, it looked like it was a meter and a half long and a quarter of a meter wide. The crossbar had a cutlass-like handguard that covered the ape's fingers almost completely. William could only guess this was the captain, and the other large apes were the lieutenants.

"Oh god," he thought in fear, "so many and so deadly. I wish that I could survive a sword fight."

"But you can," another voice in his head said, "Remember that you have great potential."

At that point the apes began to break up in different directions. The captain was one to leave too, leaving five small apes, three medium ones and one large one to scout the immediate area. Once the other apes were out of sight, William gulped and descended the tree, cautiously as to not let the apes be aware of his presence… yet. William hid behind the trunk of the tree, looking at the apes ahead; they were separated slightly, one or two in a group, and they were no less than eight meters apart.

"Perfect," smirked William, "Now to find the ape furthest away from the others."

The ape William sought just so happened to be the large ape, who was coincidentally also the closest. Taking a deep breath, he wielded the stick in his right hand and ran to the ape as swiftly and silently as possible. None of the other apes heard or saw him approach, so the element of surprise was on his side. The ape was about a meter taller than William and of a muscular build; killing this ape would not be easy. Spotting a dagger on the back right of the ape, William carefully lifted it by its hilt and gripped it in his hand, dropping the stick as he did so. Wasting no time at all, he thrust the dagger into the apes back causing it to yell in pain and drop to one knee. William then grabbed the ape's head, jerking it back and thrust the dagger into its neck. The other apes had heard the cry of their superior and rushed over to him, weapons drawn and high in the air.

"Ok then," said William, determined, "if this is how it's going to be."

Pulling the dagger out of the dead ape, William gritted his teeth and stood up, waiting for an ape to get closer. A small ape charged at him and slashed downwards at him. William dodged to the right and slashed at the ape's throat, killing it instantly. Two more apes attacked him stabbing and slicing all they could. William parried one of the ape's horizontal slashes and plunged his dagger into its chest. The other ape was met with an onslaught of attacks resulting in it being stabbed twice in the throat. Three apes now attacked him and were dispatched with relative ease. The final ape was an archer; he notched an arrow and drew his bow. William saw this and ducked as the arrow was fired, but the archer was quick to notch another arrow and fired again. William was lucky enough to dodge this arrow too, but only just did it miss. Wanting to end the fight, William then threw his dagger at the archer who had fired another arrow before the dagger hit and killed him.

The arrow that the archer fired before his demise found its way to William's right shoulder, knocking him backwards and making him fall over. The pain flowed through his shoulder as he struggled to pull the arrow out again. Giving up, William snapped the arrow shaft in half and lay his head down, cringing in pain. His vision blackened on the edges and his senses began to shut off. But before he lost consciousness, three blurred figures of unfamiliar shape loomed above him and tugged at the arrow, successfully pulling it out. But immediately after, William had become completely unconscious.

A/N: William's first battle! How exciting… though not so good for him *nervous laugh*. Anyway hoped you enjoyed the chapter. Until next time!