Cynder stared up at the great mass of clouds that marked the edge of the storm. Without her shadow element, she had no idea how she would get back.
"Going back, eh?" Came a voice from behind her. Cynder turned around to see Telnog standing there.
"How… how did you know it was me?" She asked.
Telnog smiled. "Your appearance may have changed, but not your eyes."
Cynder smiled back. "My eyes give everything away?"
Chuckling, Telnog said "Something like that."
"Yes." Cynder said. "Someone a long time ago said the same thing, but he was referring to my past."
"I see." Telnog said. "Well I mean it in the best way. So anyways, how do you plan on going in?"
Cynder shook her head. "No idea. That's the problem."
After a moment, Telnog said "Well, of you can't go over, I could take you under it. I am an earth dragon after all."
"Really?" Cynder asked. "You'd do that for me?"
"Of course." Telnog said. "Anything for a friend."
Tears in her eyes, Cynder said "thank you so much. You don't know how much that means to me. I've had very few friends before."
"Don't sweat it." Telnog said. "I'm sure you'd do the same for me. Shall we go then?"
Cynder nodded. "How do you want to do this?"
"It's simple really." Telnog said. Then he folded his wings tightly at his sides, jumped into the air and upon coming down slammed his tail into the ground, creating a sizable crater which he climbed into. "Come on!" He said.
When Cynder had joined him, he opened his mouth and a scattershot of green energy shot out with a thunderous report and blasted a hole several yards into the ground. Turning back, he said "It'll be noisy in there, but we'll be able to move at a walking speed." Then he turned back and fired another earth shot.
It turned out the rock under them was rich in deposits of green crystals, so Telnog could regularly regain his strength. Eventually, Telnog said he could feel in the earth they had passed through the storm wall and began tunneling upwards.
Eventually he loosed a blast that let in blinding light and cool breeze.
Turning back, he smiled, "We made it." Suddenly Cynder watched as he soared through the hole into the sky above. She heard a scream, then nothing.
Jumping out of the hole, Cynder scanned the sky for Telnog but saw nothing. Suddenly she heard a thud behind her and turned to see the headless corpse of a green dragon on the ground.
Screaming she looked up to see Spyro hovering there, but not the Spyro she remembered from a year ago. His eyes had become dull yellow slits, his scales inky black.
00000
Spyro heard thuds in the earth and immediately went to investigate. Almost right after arriving at the source, a hole was blasted out of the ground and a green dragon popped his head out.
With a wave of fury, Spyro recognized him as the same dragon who had tried to assault Cynder a year ago. Before he could do anything else, an uncontrollable urge was unleashed inside him, something that had been forced into dormancy for a year and had built in intensity, an overwhelming, insatiable desire to kill.
Instantly he dove down, grabbed the dragons skull in his talons, and yanked him from the earth, all he had time for was a scream before Spyro sent a pulse of convexity down his legs and into the dragons head, exploding it.
"I warned you what would happen if I ever saw you again…" Spyro whispered. Just then another dragon popped out of the hole. She was the while of fresh snow, with ruby wings and chest. The urge came back, not sated at all by the death of the green dragon, She screamed as he prepared to bathe her in flames, when she locked eyes with him. Suddenly he cut the flow of fire as he saw those green eyes.
"Cynder?"
"Spyro! What did you do?" She screamed.
Eyes narrowing, he said "I told him I would kill him if I saw him again, so I did."
"Spyro, he saved my life!" She yelled.
"I don't care if he saved the world, he deserved to die, so I killed him. It's as simple as that."
Suddenly Cynder leapt at Spyro, she was far faster than he remembered, but not nearly fast enough. In a pulse of energy, he was behind her.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
Turing in midair, she said "Spyro, I'm taking that necklace of yours. It's the root of all this evil."
Spyro laughed. "What evil do you see here? I only see the order of the world, everything needs balance. Light and dark, hot and cold, and yes even good and evil. With Malefor gone there's too much good in the world, and if no one wants to maintain the balance, then I guess I'll have to.
"You used that same argument to justify killing Volteer." Cynder pointed out.
Snarling, Spyro said "You want my necklace so bad? Come and take it."