Disclaimer: Cynder is property of whoever the hell owns the Spyro Franchise at this moment.

OC Disclaimer: Alex, Mera, Ferrosa, and the storyline of A Newcomer: Book 1 belongs to The Constitutionalist.

OC Disclaimer: Silver belongs to slayerdemons1.

This chapter takes place in Chapter 26 of A Newcomer: Book 1 by The Constitutionalist.

Linkage: The Constitutionalist's story, A Newcomer: Book 1, is the original storyline, as Crushed Dreams is A Newcomer: Book 1, but from Rift's perspective. I'd recommend reading A Newcomer: Book 1 for the whole experience.

Thanks to The Constitutionalist for not only beta reading this story, but making sure it stays consistent with his.


City of Warfang, Night Time, Present Day, Rift's POV


The group and I were casually walking around the city, Alex smoking a cigar, and Mera making sure his new shirt wasn't damaged by the tobacco. I nearly did a double take, remembering a time when I supposedly was allergic to tobacco smoke. Most of my extended family smoked, but I never had any reactions to it, so long as it wasn't blown in my face. I cringed at the smell. No matter how much I was fine with others smoking, the smell was just putrid.

Cynder led, followed by Alex and Mera, and finally Ferossa and myself to a crowded plaza. 'Ugh, I hate large groups of people.' The plaza was filled with dragons, moles, and even cheetahs, to which I would ask Cynder about later. Above the street were streamers that looked very flammable. 'No! Rift, don't even think about it." Putting that thought out of my mind, we arrived at a restaurant. Mera, Ferrosa, and I found a table, while Cynder bought Alex dinner, of as he liked to call it, rations.

Cynder sat down, followed by Alex, holding a rather large box, it's contents alive and dangerous by the warnings on the side. Opening the box, Alex was quickly bitten by the contents; An orange, yellow, and red snake called the Fireblood Serpent, or as I prefer to call them; Fire Snakes. The last fire snake I encountered was several years ago, back when Kara and I had just begun our relationship…


Valley of Avalar, Morning, 5 Years Ago, Third-Person Perspective


It was an early morning, Kara had gone swimming, and I was sleeping in our den, reflecting on the past eventful few months. I had confessed my love to Kara 5 months ago, and we were helpless to stop the fall of Dragon's Claw that same day. I would avenge my family, but that would have to wait, the most important thing to me was Kara, and nothing else.

"Rift! Help!"

Hearing the scream of my love woke me up instantly, sprinting outside to my beloved. She was pinned against a nearby cliff-face, about five fire snakes in her way. She was terrified, her fear of snakes rivaling my fear of spiders, effectively frozen from fear. I snarled and with a few long bursts of fire, incinerated the legless reptiles. 'Note to self: it isn't easy to beat fire with fire.' With the snakes gone, I walked up to Kara, giving her a firm hug. "Are you okay?" She whimpered, beginning to calm down, her tail pointing to her flank. Looking over, I saw two puncture wounds, swollen from the venom. My face reddened when I realized what I had to do. We made eye contact, and I finally spoke up.

"The good news is that I can get rid of the venom." "What's the bad news?" "Because I destroyed all the snakes, I can't make any anti-venom…" My blush grew darker; "I will have to suck the venom out." Her eyes nearly popped out of her head and she blushed as well, sighing at the realization. "Fine, do it, just don't try anything." I nodded, slowly walking to her rear. My face was as red as a tomato while I admired her perfect rump, upset that a snake would screw with perfection. Remembering that the venom would soon enter her bloodstream and combust to flames, I took a deep breath, and my lips met her flank.

She gasped and for the next several minutes, I sucked every bit of venom out of her. Pulling away my lips from her ass, I spit the venom several feet away, combusting to flames as it made contact to the ground. Washing my mouth with some water, I looked back to Kara, relief in her eyes. "The venom and snakes are gone now, you're safe." She knocked me down in a hug; "Thank you!" She got up, and I moved to lay on my belly. "I'm gonna get us some venison, I won't be gone long."

I waved my paw as she ran off, a tingling sensation falling before me. I rolled on my back, and looked at myself, sighing. "Not the time right now."


City of Warfang, Night Time, Present Day, Rift's POV


Snapping out of my memory, I noticed that Alex had killed the snake, it's venom unable to damage his mutated arm, let alone the fangs. Using his knife to cut a piece, Alex ate it to the horror of us dragons. He offered some to all of us, with only Mera taking up his offer. Seeing her satisfaction with the snake, the rest of us tried some, the others more so just for the taste, myself for the fact that I've barely eaten in a few weeks. The females started getting closer to Alex's box, to which he essentially told them to get their own, stating that he needed to make some rations out of it.

Seeing the dragonesses standing up, I followed, remembering that I still needed to talk to Ferrosa. I walked up to her, and she agreed to follow me once she got her box. A few minutes passed until I found a fairly empty alleyway, after sharing half of her snake with me, she spoke; "So are you gonna take me now, seeing as this is the perfect setup?" "I would never take advantage of a dragoness." "So you swing the other way?" "Hell No! I was just always taught to treat dragoness with respect." "Hmm, damn shame, I had an image in my head and it was hot." "Damn it Ferrosa, this isn't the time for joking around!"

She became silent, as I regained my composure, sighing as I planned what I would say to her. "I need to know, how much do you remember of your childhood before meeting Mera?" She had a determined look on her face, as if trying to remember. "Nothing really, the most I remember is just waking up one day, in the middle of the forest, with Mera standing over me, though you still seem familiar."

And now the chicken is about to burn. "Sigh, You remember me as your little sister's best friend. Kara was 5 at the time, I was 6. You had gone out to catch a deer for your sister, and mother, Versa. You never came back." Ferrosa seemed to be remembering it, and I finally got a response. "I remember it! I had just bagged a nice 20 point (I can dream right?) and was ambushed by apes. There were too many to fight, so I ran. At some point, they stopped chasing me and I found that it was because of the waterfall I completely ignored. I didn't bother to use my wings, thinking the bottom was deep. It wasn't." She rubbed her head. "The last thing I remember was blacking out from the pain of landing on my head. Next thing I know, I meet Mera."

She paused for a moment, before blurting out; "What happened with everything?" I formulated my answer for a moment. 'She isn't gonna take this well.' I spoke softly, but firm enough that she would understand everything. "About five and a half years ago, Dragon's Claw fell to Malefor's forces. I just confessed my love to Kara and we got back too late to stop the apes from killing our mothers, and the other dragons. By the time we got there, only my father was left. I had begged him to let me fight, to stop the apes, but he knocked me out and had Kara take me to the Valley of Avalar." Tears began to fall from our faces, Ferrosa finding out what happened, myself for the painful memory.

"My father and I had a close bond, when he died, I felt everything. Kara was the only one I had left, us both working to get over our losses and to live as happily as we could." I sighed, Ferrosa looked like she wanted to know the rest, while I was getting into more recent history. "Together, we grew strong. Our bond grew, and it seemed like only happiness was ahead of us, but fate had other ideas."

Ferrosa looked at me, trying to connect why Kara wasn't with me. "A few weeks ago, I was about to propose, when apes attacked. They knocked me out, and with the help of a purple crystal…" I snarled, guilt flooding my heart. "The bastards raped and killed her. My life, my love, defiled and mutilated like some animal." I fell to the ground, the memory just as painful as when it first happened. Ferrosa was crying as well, but wrapped a wing around me in comfort. After a bit, I has gained control of my emotions and finished off the story.

"I left for Dante's Freezer, stopping at the remains of Dragon's Claw to learn a new move. I was out for ape blood, willing to commit suicide [martyrdom] if I had to. Thankfully the day I was going to do it, I met Alex, Cynder and Mera. I was furious at first, knowing I didn't have the heart to harm innocent people, but they talked me into helping them take out the fortress. I was really hostile at first, but I've been warming up to them. I would make a joke about being the only one not to try and kill Alex, but dropping him 200 feet kinda took me out of that club."

Ferrosa sighed; "Cynder told me about that, it wasn't your fault. Alex chose to drop in order to keep at least one of you guys intact." "I suppose you're right, but I wont just stop feeling guilty about that. So now that I have you updated, what should we do?" Ferrosa snickered evilly, and ran off.


City of Warfang, Night Time, Present Day, Rift's POV


Following the scent of the electric dragoness, I was led to a nightclub. I was about to enter when the earth dragon guard, about three times my size stopped me. "No fire dragons allowed." "I'm just trying to get my friend and…" "No fire dragons allowed." "I understand you are doing your job, but I'm not leaving until I find my friend." The earth dragon must have thought that as a threat, and lunged at me. His form was just sloppy, and I side-stepped him, my tail tripping him, and I spun around, forcing his head to the ground with my paw.

Dragons outside the club gasped and I couldn't help but make a snide remark before going inside. "The bigger they are, the harder they fail." Inside, the music was attempting to rupture my eardrums, nearly as loud as Alex's sniper rifle. A quick glance to the bar yielded some success. Walking to the Cheetah bartender, I questioned him. "Have you seen a yellow dragoness, a bit taller than me, answers to Ferrosa?" "Yes I have, she had about 20 shots of tequila, never seen anyone who could drink like that." "Did you see where she went?" "She's actually right behind you."

What I saw made my eyes pop out. Ferrosa was dancing and grinding against a stripper pole, drunk as a skunk. I just walked away, slamming my head against a wall until the current song ended and she finished her… display. I quickly grabbed one of her horns and dragged her out. "U sush a prtey popr, y ar yuo sush a prtey popr?" "Well, the first reason is because the others are probably waiting for us, the other is that you are so slammed that anyone could seduce you, and you wouldn't care. "Amit it, yuo likd wat yuo saw." "While I admit that you are an attractive dragoness, I am completely turned off by your lack of self-control."

I was amazed by how similar, yet different Ferrosa and Kara were. Both were very outgoing, yet Kara would never flaunt herself around. Ferrosa seemed ready to jump on anyone to go to pound town with at the moment. I never made it anywhere close to second base with Kara. 'Of course, there was that time when she was in heat when I teased her with my tail, but she slapped the shit out of me for that.'

I shook the thoughts out of my head. 'Not the time.' "We should go, the others might be worried." As we started walking, Ferrosa leaned on me for support. Along the way, she curled her tail around mine, causing me to tense. That was mine and Kara's thing, so I was getting a bit uncomfortable. "If we are gonna fight a war, Alex needs to know to keep the alcohol from you, but I'll keep your whole dance thing a secret, deal?" "Del"

We walked for several moments before seeing the group, Alex looking at me for an explanation, while Ferrosa puked in a sewer grate.


Dakoda: Phew, that was a bunch of info covered!

Rift: This chapter was written at the beginning of the month, but someone was cheap and decided to save it for Christmas.

Dakoda: I wanted to do something, but I knew that I would be short on time, so I did what good film makers do, and saved it for the right occasion.

Rift: If you guys want to see all the cool things Dakoda is doing, be sure to search "Into the Rift Films" on YouTube.

Dakoda: I almost forgot, Merry Christmas!

Rift: We hope you enjoyed this chapter.