Chapter 9: Temporal Displacement

EVERYONE in the room did not move or utter a word for at least five seconds. Crash was kneeling on the center table; he was stuck with fear and froze, for he did not know where he was or how dangerous this place was. He saw the Elder Dragons all around him, large, intimidating creatures with huge wings and imposing figures. Spyro and Cynder, who were well hidden on the support beams near the ceiling, were also in shock at what just happened. Who was this creature, they both thought, and how in the world did he manage to teleport into the Council of Elders meeting, and by extension bypass the magical barrier surrounding the Realm of the Dragons? It was Red who acted first. He lunged toward Crash with surprising speed for a Dragon of his age. Though Crash was not looking at him, he leaped remarkably high to avoid Red's claws and landed on the floor behind Red's seat at the table.

"Stop the intruder, at once!" Red snarled as repositioned himself on the table. Magnus, who had sat to the right of Red, began conjuring a spell to immobilize Crash. Magnus was considered the premier magic caster of all the Realms. He launched the magical entrapment spell at Crash, and then something unprecedented happened. A green sphere illuminated around Crash. Magnus, astonished at what just happened, was perceptive enough to realize that the talisman that hung around Crash's neck had begun to emanate light. He sensed the spirit that was entangled within the artifact that hung from this creature's neck. Magnus would not continue to fight this creature, for he had nothing to fear.

"Did that thing just deflect a spell from Magnus?" Spyro whispered to Cynder. She did not respond, for she was too focused on what was transpiring below. Astor, who was the next closest Dragon to Crash, unleashed a torrent of fire in Crash's direction, yet the green sphere around Crash's body insulated him from the sweltering blue flames. At this point Crash bolted for the windows on the west side of the building. He narrowly avoided Titan's grasp as he slid past him, recovered to his feet and vaulted through a window, shattering it.

"We need to append the intruder immediately" Red barked at Thomas. "Set of an alarm, nothing gets on or off Artisan Island." Thomas, the Elder Dragon of Artisans, raised his left arm in concentration, and within a few moments, all of Artisan's warriors were alerted of the threat told to them by their Elder.

"Red, I believe you had mentioned just moments ago about how unbreachable the barrier to the Dragon Realms was." Titan said sarcastically to a now fuming Red.

"This is no time for jokes, Titan! That thing could be a spy for the Gnorks, and he may have just heard the contents of our entire meeting! He needs to be captured now."

"Let's move, Elders!" Thomas said commandingly. "We're not going to do any good in here. Let's go outside and monitor the progress made to apprehend the intruder."

The Council of Elders vacated the Senate Building, giving Spyro and Cynder the opportunity to quickly leave in the opposite direction, through the same window that Crash had busted earlier.

"We need to capture that orange creature immediately." Cynder commanded once Spyro and Cynder were a good distance in the air.

"Why, shouldn't we leave that thing's capture to the Elders? If we apprehend and turn it over to the Elder's, wouldn't they suspect that we knew too much?"

"We're not going to hand it over once we capture him. We're going to interrogate it ourselves."

"You can't be serious?"

"Dead serious. Look Spyro, all signs are pointing to fact that Sorceress has finally found a way to enter the Dragon Realms and finish off her thousand year campaign to kill all Dragons. And it seems she is using the Gnork's to accomplish that goal. If that orange… thing has anything to do with the Gnorks, it may know crucial information about how the Sorceress entered the Gnork's Realm and how he himself got to our Realm."

"This sounds like information that the Elder's would need to know. Why would we keep this information to ourselves?"

"We're not going to withhold that information we get once we capture the intruder, we'll just know the information first. We can incapacitate the intruder and leave him somewhere the militia will find him once we know what we need to."

"This still sounds crazy. And how do you plan on finding him in the first place? We don't even know which way he went after escaping the Senate Building."

"He will head to the nearest forest to find cover, which is the direction we're currently flying towards. Once there, we'll hover over the tree line and find him. It's important that we locate him, so be vigilant."


If Crash's heart was beating any faster, he might pass out. This was unbelievable! He carefully replayed the events that led him to this current predicament. The Crystals and Gems were gathered at the Time Twister Machine, and N Tropy's device became unstable once he interrupted the power supply to the device. The destabilization of the Time Twisting Machine might have been a bad idea (although it was accidental), since the event horizon of the time warp had already materialized. Instead of the portal collapsing immediately; it spiraled and went into a state of flux. Beams of tunneling energy erratically flew out from the center of the wormhole, and Crash was struck by one. Before, he and Coco attempted to diffuse the rift, but to no avail. He told Coco to evacuate the Time Twisting machine, but she wouldn't listen. Crash had to force her to leave, and even pushed her out the way of one rogue bolt of energy from the wormhole. And then he ended up here. He must have been sent back in time. The machine did have the ability to move you to specific locations, but where was he? Too many questions raced through his mind, until it dawned on Crash just what the eviction from his time period meant. Even though he defeated Cortex once and for all (Crash wasn't even sure if he was still alive or not), he would never see Coco again. He was stuck here forever, with no way to get back. He stopped running. The gravity of what this meant started to hit him with full force. He collapsed to the ground, on the brink of tears. He slammed a fist into the ground in frustration. Though he had avenged the Budakan's and defeated Cortex, Cortex and N Tropy had the last laugh, for all his work to free his friends became essentially meaningless since he would never see them again. Just then, a smallish purple dragon landed in front of him. Crash stood up, and tensed up once he got a better look at the dragon; he… he recognized the young Dragon, but why?

"Hey you, orange… thing. I don't know what you are or why you are here, but you're trespassing in my home." Though Crash should have been considering on whether or not he should fight or flee, he was too fixated on the Dragon that stood before him. He… knew who he was, like they had known each other. He had one of those feelings again, similar to when Aku-Aku randomly decided to help Crash on his adventures in the past, or should Crash say, the future. Aku-Aku had definitely saved his life in that building earlier with his magical shield; Crash though for sure those Dragons would eat him alive. But this young Dragon was different, he recognized him like someone he had known before and he didn't know why.

"Silent type, are we? Maybe I should incentivize you to talk." Crash put his hands in the air, gesturing that that wouldn't be necessary. Crash was just as surprised that he could understand what this Dragon was saying; it wasn't like he was speaking English or Budakan. Probably Aku-Aku's work again (I really don't know how this trinket works, do I). He was about to say something using his SAD, when he heard a faint flapping noise from a distance away. Crash's ears pivoted to better locate the noise, and then he braced for impact once Cynder rapidly swooped in from the air and tackled him. She must have dragged him ten feet on the ground. Her right claw dug deeply into Crash's right shoulder as she grappled on top of him and pinned him to the ground.

Spyro was just as shocked as Crash that Cynder had shown up. They had split up to cover more of the forest, and he didn't think she would be able to find him so easily or know when he found the orange guy. The way she tackled him was so vicious and ferocious. He could see the creature recoiled in pain as he lay helplessly under Cynder. She meant business.

"Talk! Who are you and why were you spying on the Council of Elders!? Did Gnasty send you?" Crash, ignoring the pain in his right shoulder, got his left leg free from Cynder's right back leg, and kneed the Dragoness as hard as he could on her soft underbelly. She flinched at the sudden pain in her abdomen. Crash left hand then came free, and he thrust the palm of his hand into Cynder's snout in order to get her off of him. He then took both of his legs and pushed her away from him, then rolled backwards and got to his feet. He was bleeding badly, but the black Dragoness was incapacitated, and the other one seemed to be startled that he was able to break free from the Black Dragon's grip. He took this opportunity to retreat further into the woods and seek cover from his pursuers.

"Cynder, are you okay?" Spyro asked jogging toward Cynder.

"Why the hell are you still standing there!" she said angrily as she rubbed her nose. "Ugh, get out of my way, that thing is mine!" She took two steps forward before launching into the air.

"Fine, thanks for asking" Spyro said sarcastically to himself before he took off and followed Cynder.

Crash traversed his way through the forest, grasping his bleeding right shoulder and stopped at a river. He cupped both hands, grimacing as moving his right arm caused intense pain. He drank the water from his hands, then proceed to wash out his wound with the water from the stream. Glistening red blood and water made its way downstream. "What to do now?" Crash thought to himself. He was stuck in the past, he would never see Coco again, and was being hunted. He heard flapping noises again from a distance away. The Dragons had found him again. He stood up, still reeling in pain. He attempted to run away, but was quickly fatigued, as he had been running for almost thirty minutes and had lost a considerable amount of blood. He kept pressure on the wound, but the gash needed to be sealed soon, or he could bleed out. Cynder landed in front of Crash and Spyro behind him. They had him pinned, he had nowhere to go. Cynder lunged toward him, pounced on him again, and threw at a tree nearby. The impact knocked out any will Crash had left to run. He leaned against the tree, clutching his shoulder and breathed heavily. Crash was starting to lose consciences.

"Cynder, was that really necessary? He looks like he's in a lot of pain, and could bleed out soon."

Cynder just stared at him, and then looked at her prey. Just then, Sparx appeared from the treetops and hovered over Spyro's shoulder.

"Hey, Sparx, I can't believe that I almost forgot about you!"

Crash, with what little energy he had left, stared at the dragonfly, and was hit with the same flashback he had all those years ago during the burning of Budakan when he first held Aku-Aku. These were the two "winged creatures" he saw in the vision. Sparx then flew towards Crash and stared at him for a moment. Aku-Aku eyes started to glow dimly.

"Spyro" Crash said in his normal voice with as much effort as he could to make the words audible. He coughed violently; some blood came out and landed on the ground between him and the two Dragons.

"Please… help me… for… Sparx" Crash was struggling to concentrate enough to make his SAD work. He passed out and slumped over in the dirt midsentence.

"Wait, how did he know Sparx's and I's name?" Sparx landed on top of Crash's injured shoulder and began to change color. His golden yellow aura changed to blue, and suddenly Crash's injury started to heal itself, with the damaged area emanating the same golden aura that Sparx usually produced.

"Sparx, what happened to you?" Spyro said in confusion, he had never seen Sparx change color's before.

"It looks like he healed our captive," Cynder interjected, "but why?"

"It seems as if Sparx trusts him, so I do, too." Sparx returned to hovering over Spyro made a faint buzzing noise.

"You can't be serious, Spyro? We don't know anything about him."

"True, but he knows who Sparx and I are, and we've never even met. Plus we're the ones who almost killed him. Now I'm going to take our 'captive' somewhere safe where the other Dragons can't find him, and talk with him when he wakes up."

"Alright, but I'm coming with you, he's more dangerous than you think he is."

"Oh you don't have to remind me. How's your nose, by the way?"

"Shut up."

Spyro grabbed Crash's limp body and carried him off to a different location. He had never struggled to fly before, carrying this weight made the journey difficult, but he knew he could do it.