A/N

Just a small warning; this chapter got a little bit darker than what I expected; but I PROMISE it's a once-off thing.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter! I'll bother you again with the A/N at the bottom!

(Quick question, should I use the long line thingy to break parts of the chapter up, or the xXx one?)

"hOI! Oim txt!"

Really, Airchi? Copying Temmie's speech?

::He really has hit a new low.::

I hate all of you.

xXx

"Grrr…" Dark Spyro growled, taking weight off of one of his legs. The Convexity that covered his scales seem to offer no protection against whatever his enemy was doing. "How are you doing that?"

In reply, the Electric Elemental flashed out of existence for a split second before reappearing in a few steps to the left.

The dark Dragon was confused for a moment, before a deep gash opened in his other front leg, causing him to crash forwards. The realisation was none too good. He needed time to recover, or for help to arrive. But he was too weakened to face this enemy.

"So, the Ice Elementals have some long ranged attacks, and some numbing attacks, right?" When the Elemental didn't move, he took at as a sign that he might be able to stall this one. "The Earth Elementals are slow but hit hard and are just as hard to kill. By the looks of it, you can't hit very hard, but your speed more than makes up for it."

More silence. An idea struck him, one that may get him some extra time. "Well then, let's see how you like this!" Having gathered his energy, Dark Spyro unleashed hundreds of the detached draconic heads that he used against the Juggernaut. They were much smaller, but none of them were directly aiming at the Elemental.

"Die!" The word acted like a trigger, all of them unleashed their attacks at once. When the Elemental flickered out of sight again, Dark Spyro drew on the powers of his host.

Time slowed to a near standstill, and not a moment too soon. The dark dragon ducked a slicing attack that was aimed at the base of one of his horns. The plan worked perfectly, the Elemental was caught completely by surprise when his would-be target dodged his attack.

The dark Dragon wasted no time in slicing the Elemental with his darkness-covered claws. There was a screech, some sparks went flying and the electric enemy flew backwards, right into the path of several of the beams.

The Elemental managed to dodge, but overbalanced and fell to the ground. When it looked up, several larger versions of the beam it had just evaded hovered around the dragon. "Want some more?" Dark Spyro all but laughed.

The Elemental flickered again, but did not re-appear anywhere nearby. When the dragon was sure that he was nowhere nearby, he let the attacks go. The beams struck the ground, but barely even kicked up any dust. Idiot. If he stayed another moment he would have won.

With all of his energy spent, the darkness bled away from Spyro. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

Remember the deal.

::Retreat!:: ::Retreat!:: ::Retreat!::

::What's going on?!:: Glacia demanded. She had not given the order, most Elementals were not intelligent enough to make strategic decisions on their own.

::Mistress! The Juggernaut and the Bender have been defeated!:: An Earth Elemental said, obviously very panicked.

Glacia rolled her eyes. When a higher ranking Elemental gets defeated, those in their command tend to get a bit roudy. But she also heard her own Elementals shouting the order to retreat, including her own Commander. ::Report.::

::The Electrical Prime has successfully been released!::

Her confusion increased. By quite a few degrees. It still sounded panicked. Before she could question the Commander on this, he spoke again. ::The Prime has been defeated!::

"WHAT?!" She shouted. She got strange looks, but she couldn't care less as she left the area. She was both furious, and a bit scared. The Prime Elementals were the first of their kind, their powers aren't even comparable to the other Elementals. Each of the Prime Elementals had enough power to take on a Guardian and then some.

She remembered once how her own Ice Prime had once frozen nearly two hundred dragons before Malefor had betrayed them. The cold had been so intense that some of the lesser Ice Elementals got frozen right along with the dragons.

She never saw the Electrical Prime in action, but she knew it was at least as powerful. ::H-how?::

::The purple dragon!::

"Meadow, how are the wounded?" Prowlus asked, scanning the village. He felt a pang of pain and guilt when he realised that the amount of troops present was significantly less than what they started with.

"Not good, chief." the healer replied, trying his best to bandage the alarmingly purple area of a warrior's arm. "We have no way of dealing with frostbite right now. We are preparing a salve for it, but we still need some herbs to complete it."

"Do what you can."

"Yes, sir." Meadow replied before scampering off to fetch more medicine.

The exploding mountain had shocked everyone who had made it back, but they swiftly overcame their surprise and redoubled their efforts to fortify the village. They were getting as ready as they could for the unstoppable forces of the Elementals, as well as a certain dragon, if it came down to it. The moles were working swiftly to create sturdy barriers around the city, and within, should they need it.

As the old Cheetah looked at the wounded, he couldn't help but think about the one that had saved him and a large chunk of his soldiers.

What happened to you? The question had plagued the chief for quite some time, but he hadn't acted much on it. Before he met Spyro, Cynder and Sparx, Prowlus was was a bit too hot-headed and jumped to conclusions too much. Over time, he had changed. As little as a year ago, he would have blamed everything on the Dragons and Moles in his village. Yet now, he wondered what had caused Spyro to become such a monster. Please...have a good reason.

"Prowlus!" The chief turned to face the ones who addressed him. He knew the voice, so he excused the informality for now.

"Yes?" He asked. He recognised them, they were the dragons that had set off with Hunter earlier in the day to get food.

"Where's Meadow? We need his help!" The red one, Flame, I think… half asked, half demanded.

With his nerves already frayed, Prowlus was about to scold the dragon and tell him that the younger Cheetah was tending to the wounded, but the sight of the green dragon leaning against him forced him to stay his scalding speech. "He went to the medical tent."

Flame nodded in thanks and awkwardly ran to the medical structure. Prowlus had seen soldiers lose their limbs before, but not children. His heart went out to the one-winged Dragon. They never asked to be in this fight, they were supposed to learn about their culture and return home to study and play with their friends.

"Prowlus." The voice was deep, and came from one he knew well. "We need to talk."

The chief nodded sharply. "Privately, Tro. No need to start a panic."

"Spyro!" Cynder shouted in worry. She had been awoken by the sound of an explosion. When she woke up, she found some Spirit Gems lying next to her. They weren't much, but they were enough to get her back up.

The dragoness had followed the sounds of combat, slowly making her way towards the source of the noise. Eventually, she found Spyro fighting with a new kind of Elemental. She only saw the end of the battle. She was hit by a stray beam from one of those strange, dark heads, but it didn't even scratch her.

She wasn't exactly sure what happened, but one moment Spyro was standing, seemingly talking to the Elemental before it vanished.

"Wake up!" She tried again, standing over his injured body. There was a lot of blood, and she had used all of the Spirit Gems just to get moving. "No, no, no, no!"

She desperately tried to put pressure on his bigger wounds, determined to stop the bleeding. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, pressing the wounds closed with her own paws and tail, but eventually help came.

Hunter and Ember arrived, bringing proper medical aids with them. They asked her several questions, but she heard none of them. Cynder stayed by Spyro's side, even after he was taken being tended to by professional medics, who were forced to treat her as she stood next to Spyro.

It was there that she fell asleep, the adrenalin having finally worn off.

Not far away was Quake with Flame in the bed next to his. Both were fast asleep, but Michael sat next to the earth dragon's bed, using everything he knew about healing to re-attach the severed wing. The medical staff had told him that is was a hopeless cause. Not only were the muscles and some of the bone gone, but the nerves were completely severed.

"I'm sorry…" He sobbed as he sent another tiny glob of icy water into the wing to prevent it from putrefying. "I swear I'll find a way to fix this."

xXx

A/N

I...umm...I honestly didn't plan for this to get anywhere near this dark. It has the humor tag and everything. I suppose this was a little bit inevitable, since war isn't as fun as CoD would have you believe.

I actually planned on making the chapters longer from here on out. This one was originally meant to be around triple the length, but this seemed like the perfect place to leave off.

That, and I have a research paper I need to do. It's due next week. After that, I got one more test the week after that.

Though I promise I'll do my best to make the next chapter longer, quite a few people are complaining about the reduced length of the chapters. They're completely right, my chapters are only around a quarter the size of what the used to be. Forgive me reader-chamas!

Anyway, I hope this chapter lived up to your expectations!

So, guys. Wanna know something cool? Fire gets boned over by water, sand, dirt, wind, vacuums and even blankets!
Fire is a very pansy thing to use. Go with water instead! How will you kill water? Huh? You can't, can you? Sure, enough fire will eventually make the water turn into steam, but that'll turn into rain or settle on the area around it. Think you can drink it? Nuh-uh, you'll eventually expel it from your body. Even the NUCLEAR WEAPONS in Fallout couldn't get rid of it, it just made it even deadlier!

Don't even get me started on those steel-cutting water jets.

In short: Water is BAD-ASS!

As always, thanks to Spynder, Bill and Darman for all of their help. I wuv you guys 3

(no-homo)