Just to clear up any possible confusion, this chapter is the battle between Spyro, Cynder and Mistress. It takes place DURING the battle in the last chapter.

I don't own any Spyro characters. Enjoy!

The Dark Mistress

Chapter 10: The second battle for Warfang (part two)

Synthie groaned as her head pounded. "What happened…?" she said as she slowly woke up from her slumber.

"Ah good, you're awake!" said a voice in the darkness.

"Who's there?!" Synthie said frantically. Her eyes shot open but she could see nothing but darkness, as if her eyes had never opened. She tried to move but found it impossible. Chains of darkness wrapped themselves around each of her legs and seemed to be attached to an invisible wall behind her. She struggled to break free but to no avail. "Where am I?! Who are you?!"

"Why Synthie… I'm hurt. Did you forget about me already?" Shadows swirled in front of the chained dragoness as they began to take form. Soon, a dragon stood in front of her and she gasped, recognizing who it was. "That's right! It's me! How have you been?" said Mistress.

Synthie growled in anger and fought even harder to break free. "You backstabbing bitch!! What have you done to me?!" The only reply she got was a smack to the face by Mistress' tail.

"Shut up!" Mistress roared. "I am in control now so you'd better show me some respect unless you want to disappear faster!" Synthie's cheek stung from the slap she had received but this did not deter her. She growled again and spat on Mistress' face, showing that she was not going to give her the respect she asked for. Mistress glared at her with her evil red eyes. She lifted a paw up, aimed at Synthie, and three tendrils shot out and pierced right into her flesh, two in the chest and one in the stomach. Synthie gagged and coughed up a bit of blood as Mistress pulled the tendrils back, causing more blood to flow freely from the three gaping wounds. "Now then, in case you haven't noticed, we are in your mind, or rather, MY mind. And though I'd love to stay here and torture physically, I have a battle to win. But don't worry, I'll make sure you have a front row seat to the show!" With that said, Mistress dispersed into thin air, leaving Synthie alone.

"Damn you," she cursed to herself. Suddenly, a portal seemed to open up where Mistress was standing just a second ago. Synthie could see Warfang being attacked by an army of dark dragons. She was seeing things through Mistress' eyes.

- - - - - - - -

Mistress took a quick glance above the heads of the warring dragons and saw what she had been waiting for: their reinforcements. Perfect! She thought, they've weakened their defenses! Now is the time for the real attack to begin! She jumped out of the crowd and flew up high. She tilted her head upwards and fired a black ball of fire that exploded in the air.

She laughed evilly as she saw the rest of her army approach the weakened walls of the city. Her laughter was interrupted however when two dragons shot into the air and flew towards her. It was Spyro and Cynder.

"Ah well look what we have here, the beloved saviors of this pathetic world," said Mistress. Spyro and Cynder just floated there. They did not attack right away, they wanted to try to get through to her first. They prayed to the ancestors that they would be able to avoid any kind of physical combat.

"Synthie!" began Spyro, "Stop this! This isn't you! I know you're in there baby girl!"

"Listen to your father!" Cynder continued, "You can fight this! Fight the darkness Synthie! Focus on us, on those you love! You can do it!"

Mistress looked at the two dragons, thinking they had lost their minds. Suddenly, her head began to throb and ache. She held her own head in her paws, trying to ease the pain. On the inside, Synthie was fighting back! Hearing her parents' words had given her much more strength and she was fighting against Mistress' control even harder than before.

Unfortunately, the pain disappeared as quickly as it had immerged and the darkness was still in control over Synthie. "Nice try!" Mistress bellowed, "But it's gonna take a lot more than that to get rid of me! You're pathetic daughter is already beginning to vanish, I can feel it! It won't be long now until I will forever remain in control!"

Without warning, the purple dragon charged at her, ramming his head against her gut, knocking the wind out of her and dazing her for a second. "Spyro!" Cynder said in shock.

"Cynder, we have no choice now," he said. "We have to fight her head on! It's the only way we have even a chance at saving our little girl!" Although Cynder didn't want to believe it, she knew he was right. She nodded and came up next to him, ready for anything.

By this time, Mistress had regained her breath and charged back at them, claws ready to get even more blood on them. Both Spyro and Cynder gave a strong flap of their wings and easily dodged her attack. Mistress turned her attention to her closest target, Cynder. She flew fast towards her, aiming to bite her neck and crush it to kill her instantly. However, before she could do so, Spyro came up from behind her and tackled her on her back, causing her to plummet towards the ground. Mistress was unable to regain her balance in time and crashed hard into the unforgiving ground, creating a crater in the ground. She struggled to get back to her feet, but she was blasted by an earth missile and rolled on the ground. She had been knocked out by the blast. Spyro and Cynder took advantage of this and flew down towards her, intending to weaken her as much as possible so that Synthie may break free. They were only a few meters away when the dark dragoness' eyes shot open and she roared loudly, sending a shockwave of darkness in all directions. Spyro and Cynder tumbled back into the air as Mistress flew back up, seemingly without a scratch.

"That's enough of this foolishness!" she roared. She faced her two enemies. "Two against one aren't really fair odds." Her form then dispersed into a shadowy mist that swirled around in a large sphere. After a few seconds, the sphere split into two. What happened next surprised Spyro and Cynder. The two halves of the sphere had taken shape and solidified. There were now two exact copies of Mistress right in front of them!

"That's much better, now the odds have been evened," said one.

"But only one of us is the real thing," said the other.

"Can you figure it out?!" they said in unison before lunging towards both dragons. Spyro was able to avoid his attacker, but Cynder was not so fortunate. Her attacker grabbed onto her shoulders, claws digging deep into her flesh, and pushed her down towards the ground.

"Cynder!" Spyro yelled, concerned about his mate. This brief distraction was enough for his enemy to launch a shadow ball at him. It struck him on his side and Spyro grunted from the burning pain.

The Mistress copy looked at him with an evil grin, "Are you always that easy to distract?" she asked rhetorically. Spyro growled angrily and launched a fireball at her. She easily dodged that attack. The purple dragon continued to launch more fireballs at her, but she constantly dodged each and every one of them. Finally, she had enough and, after dodging yet another attack, charged at Spyro before he could fire more. She slashed at his chest with her claws and blew a powerful black flame at point-blank range. The purple dragon howled from the pain. He tried to counter her attack, but she punched him in the face before he could. The punch knocked him out of her dark inferno and he managed to get some distance between them. The Mistress copy turned towards him and began to charge up a dark fireball. Before it was ready to fire, Spyro fired an arc of electricity at her. The arc hit her square in the chest and she roared in pain as the electrical charge threatened to tear her apart from the inside out. This also caused her to lose her focus, which in turn caused the ball of dark fire in her maw to explode prematurely in the back of her throat. She then fell to the ground, unconscious. She hit the ground headfirst and caused a cloud of dust and dirt to be lifted. The purple dragon flew down to where she landed and stepped cautiously. When the dust had cleared, there was nothing left of his enemy, no dropped scales, not even a trace of blood.

She must have been the fake, he thought to himself. With that in mind he quickly ran towards Cynder to give her backup.

- - - - - - - -

"Rah!!" Cynder roared as she swung her scythe-like tail blade at Mistress, slicing her arm. The dark dragoness retaliated by clawing at Cynder's face, leaving three gashes on her cheek. They then jumped back and away from their opponent, staring each other down. Both dragonesses had received multiple cuts and bruises on their bodies from their fight. They were both panting rather hard, but neither was about to give up just yet.

Cynder and Mistress circled each other for a few tense moments. Cynder then lunged herself at Mistress, catching her and pinning her to the ground. She held on to her shoulders with all of her strength to prevent her from breaking free. "Synthie stop this!" she said, trying one more time to talk to her daughter. "I know you're in there somewhere! I know you can hear me! Fight! Break free from your darkness! Your father and I can and I know you can too!"

Mistress growled at her, "I told you… THAT'S NOT GOING TO WORK!!" The evil dragoness then opened her maw wide and emitted an ear-shattering siren screech. The force behind the screech itself was enough to knock Cynder off of her. Mistress quickly rolled onto her paws as Cynder struggled to get up. Being a user of fear herself, Cynder did not succumb to the full effect of the attack, but it was enough to give Mistress a window of opportunity to attack. Without hesitation, the dark dragoness ran full speed at Cynder and landed a powerful blow across her face. Cynder stumbled back but did not fall. She refused to give up. Mistress approached her once again and grabbed her head, forcing her to look at her. "Now, look deep into my eyes!"

Cynder struggled to break free but her head was gripped tightly in Mistress' paws. She closed her eyes tight to avoid looking into her evil, soulless eyes. The evil dragoness had anticipated this. Four small tendrils branched out from her paws and they snaked their way to Cynder's eyelids, forcing them open. Once Mistress saw Cynder's sapphire-green orbs, her own eyes began to glow a brighter red and an evil smile spread across her lips. "Now experience what true fear feels like!"

- - - - - - - -

Cynder felt something pierce her mind. Her breathing quickened, not knowing what was going to happen. Just then, her world went dark, but just as quickly, her vision came back and she was standing alone. She was utterly confused about what had just happened. As she lifted her paw up to begin walking, she felt something underneath her. She looked down and her eyes widened as her heart dropped at what she saw. Lying on the ground beneath her, in a pool of blood, was Spyro. He had many serious wounds all over his body. Cynder felt sick to her stomach from the sight and quickly backed away from it. His blood was all over her paws. She turned to find a small lake and desperately tried to wash it off of her. No matter how hard she tried though, the blood would not wash off. "What the hell is going on?!" she asked in a panic.

She took a look at the pond, wondering why she couldn't wash the blood off. As the ripples on the pond began to calm, she could see herself clearly in the water's reflection. She gasped at the sight. Her horns were longer than she remembered. Her eyes looked almost evil. "It… can't be!" she exclaimed. One of her worst fears had come true, she had become the Terror of the Skies once again!

She heard sniffling from behind her and turned to see Synthie there, rivers of tears flowing from her cheeks. "Mommy… why?!" she said between sobs.

Before Cynder could answer, another dragon appeared behind Synthie. "Well done my general," it said. "You've eliminated the final obstacle in my path!" The dragon stepped closer to her and revealed himself to be Malefor!

Cynder shook her head, this couldn't be happening! Not only had she reverted back to her evil form, but she was the one responsible for her mate's death and Malefor had somehow come back to life. All of her worst fears had been coming true one after another. No! This can't be! It just can't! Cynder thought to herself. No. No! NOOOOOOO!!!

- - - - - - - -

Cynder roared in sheer agony. She was living through her worst fears one after another without rest. Her entire body shook violently as Mistress continued to hold her there, savoring the pain she was in. Finally, after some moments of nothing but pain, Cynder finally fell unconscious.

Mistress' smile widened when her opponent stopped moving. "That's one down!" she said in triumph. Still holding on to her, Mistress flew up into the air and began to spin in the air, building up momentum to throw Cynder to the ground as hard as possible. Once she felt she had enough, she used all of her might to hurl Cynder towards the ground, laughing as she saw her fall closer and closer to the ground.

Right as Cynder was about to hit the ground, Spyro appeared on the scene and managed to tackle her body, lessening the blow she would have taken. They both rolled on the ground and when they came to a halt, Spyro quickly came up to Cynder. "Cynder!" he called to her. "Cynder please! Get up!" His eyes were starting to fill with tears as her body remained motionless. "No! Cynder! Don't leave me!" Still no response from the dragoness he loved so dearly. He began to sob, his tears flowing down his muzzle and splashing onto her body. As he cried, he could hear the laughter of Mistress. It was slowly driving him into an uncontrollable state of rage. First I lose Synthie to the darkness… and now I've lost Cynder! This isn't fair!!! Spyro's purple scales were slowly becoming darker and darker until they were completely black. His chest, wings, and horns had become darker as well and his eyes became pupil-less white orbs. His anger had completely taken over him and he roared. "YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!!!"

Mistress stopped her laughing and looked at Dark Spyro. She was shocked at his transformation. What the hell is… Before she could even finish her thought, Spyro had disappeared before her eyes. He suddenly reappeared behind her and kicked her with unimaginable strength. She soared through the sky like a missile without any kind of control. As she zoomed in the air, Spyro moved with incredible speed, seemingly disappearing and reappearing a bit in front of her. When she reached him, he knocked her up into the air at an angle and repeated the process. He continuously knocked her around in the air, never easing up on his barrage. (A/N: If you've ever watched Naruto, remember when Rock Lee fought against Gaara for the very first time? Picture that. That is what Spyro is doing.) He had completely forgotten the fact that his daughter was still in there somewhere, but his darkness clouded his judgment, he no longer cared. She had taken away the two dragonesses he loved with all of his heart. He felt he had nothing left to lose and therefore, fought without restrictions.

Finally, Spyro ended his assault with one final blow that launched Mistress straight into the ground. But the possessed dragon still wasn't satisfied. "THIS IS THE END FOR YOU!!" he roared as he began to charge up a massive earth missile. He glared at the ground where Mistress had landed and was taking aim when suddenly…

"Spyro!!" someone called to him. The dragon looked around to see who was calling him. His eyes fell upon Cynder, she was alive and standing!

"C-Cynder?!" Spyro said in shock. The power that was growing in his maw slowly died down as his scales returned to their original purple. He floated down to her and wrapped his forelimbs around her neck. "Cynder! I thought I lost you!" The black dragoness returned the embrace. She had not seen what he did to Mistress, but she knew that if his darkness had taken over, it wasn't pretty. But she didn't care about that right now, she was just happy to have her mate back to his normal self.

There was a whistling in the air. Cynder looked up and saw a very large black fireball headed right for them. "Spyro watch out!" she warned, but it was too late. The attack hit Spyro on his back and the following explosion caused both of the to fall to the ground.

Mistress slowly got up from the crater she was in. One of her wings was broken along with her left hind leg. She had very large bruises all over her and her eyes showed her extreme anger. "Damn it. Damn it! Damn it!!" she yelled. Damn that dragon! He did more damage to me than I thought! I have to finish this now!

Spyro and Cynder slowly got up on their paws as well. They were in no better condition than Mistress. "Cynder…" said Spyro, "We have to end this now… neither of us can take much more of this…"

Cynder nodded in agreement, knowing what he meant. They had to use their powers of convexity on Mistress. Both dragons had come to terms with this decision in their hearts. They knew that if they could not save Synthie… then they would have to kill her. Sacrifice one to save many. They knew in their hearts that the real Synthie would have wanted the same thing.

The three dragons stared each other down for a tense moment. Finally, Spyro, Cynder, and Mistress began to charge up their most powerful attacks. Spyro and Cynder glowed purple while Mistress glowed black. Once their powers had reached their peaks, they all released the raw energy. Two beams of convexity collided with a beam of pure darkness. The situation was very similar to when Spyro and Cynder fought Malefor in the world's core. All three dragons continued to put more and more energy into their respective attacks. However, because not one of them gained any ground, the energy continued to build up in the middle of their attacks. At last they each gave one final push, putting the remainder of their energies into their beams. This final surge of power collided in the middle and resulted in a massive explosion that eradicated everything in its deadly path. The explosion seemed to hold enough power to rock the entire world. It was felt everywhere, from the city of Warfang, to the Tall Plains and even in the frozen wastes of Dante's Freezer. Afterwards, everything fell silent…

- - - - - - -

Inside of Synthie's mind, Synthie had almost completely vanished. All that remained of her was her head and the paws on her forelimbs. She had witnessed everything that had occurred, except for the final attack, and was crying softly. "It can't end like this…" she said to herself.

Out of nowhere, she felt something shake her as if something massive had just occurred. Then, she felt the chains that held her loosen up and the darkness around her was less threatening. She knew that now was her chance to finally rid herself of the darkness once and for all. She began to fight hard against the chains. She could feel them giving way. She also felt herself coming back into reality, her missing body parts reappearing.

"No! Stop!" Mistress yelled in her mind. "What are you doing?!"

"I'm reclaiming my body! It is not yours to control! Neither is my mind!" She pulled harder and the chain restricting her right forelimb broke off. "You are now welcome here!" Another chain snapped. "And there is no way in hell that I am letting you stay here!" The remaining two chains suddenly burst, freeing Synthie completely. Her body was fully restored as well. "Now… GET OUT!!!" she roared, pushing the weakened darkness out of her body.

"NOOOOOoooooo…!"

- - - - - - - -

On the outside, Spyro and Cynder had been completely knocked out cold, neither of them moving even a single muscle.

The darkness that surrounded Synthie's body lifted off of her and disappeared… forever. She groaned as her eyes opened. The first thing she saw was her parent, lying on the ground, their bodies completely battered. Tears formed in her eyes as regret and sorrow filled her heart. She tried to move closer to them, but her own body was hurt too bad to move. She could feel herself losing her grip on consciousness. A single tear ran down her cheek before she fell back into unconsciousness. "Mom… Dad… I'm so sorry…"

It would seem that the darkness had the last laugh, as it seemed to claim three more lives…

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Only one chapter remains…