Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.

Benjamin Spock

Brian's POV

"All right coward," I taunted, "Let's see what else you've got."

Furious, Malefor charged at me, the ground quaked under his claws tearing through the earth. I lept to the side and winced as the Dark Master crashed into a stone wall. His horns pierced the stone, in the process getting stuck. Malefor thrashed his head about trying to shake off the stone slab, I was safe for now.

"You think that your safe don't you?" Malefor growled as grublins started to form from the ground and surround me, "You forget that I have an army, your strength will give out, while mine grows stronger boy. Your defea-"

"Yeah yeah, you have a whole army to your bidding, I'm a fool, I get the picture." I interrupted, actions speak louder than words as the saying goes. I pounced a grublin, and another, and another. I just followed my instincts, and the battle became a flow of momentum and skill. a grublin commander swung his club at me from the side, in a powerful leap I cleared the weapon and pounced on his face. Falling over the commander flattened some of his fellow monsters. In the distance I could hear the roar of weapons fire.

"Brian!" Cynder called out as she and Spyro joined the fight, they no longer looked tired and weak, but fresh and strong. Soon I came back to back with Spyro as he was incinerating a dozen or so grublins.

"You know, I hope Malefor gets that brick off his head soon!" I yelled over the battle.

"Really?," Spyro yelled back, "Why do you hope that?"

"Because with your's and Cynder's help, I'm gonna run out of grublins to destroy!" I yelled back, I saw Spyro smile as he slashed at a grublin with his claw.

Cynder used her cloak of shadows technique to work her way to us. At that point I broke off, tackling every enemy in my path as climbed up a stone brick tower's wall. I bet there is something here that we could use to wipe out all the grublins in one blow. Something like a water tower or a stack of barrels or something. In the back of my head I imagined finding a Ma Deuce (50 Caliber machine gun) or a 20 MM cannon loaded and ready to fire on the top, of course even if I did find it, I wasn't going to be able to fire it anyway. I didn't have trigger fingers anymore.

All I found at the top of the tower was a rotten little wooden table and chair, That was disappointing. I heard grublins coming up through the tower and readied myself. The first grublin opened the wooden trapdoor and looked around, perfectly turning so my swinging tail smashed squarely into it's face. I smiled with a bit of impish glee as I heard the grublin tumble down the stairs within the tower, knocking into all the other grublins on the way.

I stand corrected, coming up this tower wasn't completely disappointing. At least I got to go bowling for grublins.

"Brian! Look out!" Cynder yelled over the fight. I ducked just in time to see what was left of the stone wall Malefor had stuck on his horns miss me by mere inches. That, was way too close.

Spyro's POV

The sky around us became filled with volcanic ashes as Cynder launched a powerful blade of wind at Malefor. The dark master roared in anger as he slammed into the ground. This time however, the resulting shockwave only destroyed all the grublins. Cynder and I nodded to each other and began charging up our Convexity. We combined our two beams into one, Malefor countered with his own. The three of us were in a stalemate, just like last time.

Cynder and I were trying to hold on, Thankfully I could tell that Malefor was equally tired. Unfortunately there was so many ashes in the sky that the only light came from our Convexity, the rest was pitch black.

Malefor's concentration broke suddenly, allowing our Convexity to hit him head on. I saw Brian's outline for a moment. Soon Brian. Cynder, and I put our unspoken plan to work. Cynder and I pressed on with our Convexity while Brian kept Malefor distracted, dividing his attacks between Brian, Cynder, and myself

Twice more Malefor flinched from Brian's fake pounces, allowing us a brief moment to push our Convexity further. Now our convexity was slowly pushing Malefor's back. Brian landed next to me and charged up an energy blast, I gave him a quick nod before he fired it. Impacting on his lower neck, the energy blast forced Malefor back as it knocked the air out of him. He had no choice but to cease his attack so he could catch his breath. With our enemy's guard down, Cynder and I forced what we had left into our Convexity, The crackling energy grew in size and power as it roared through the air, Malefor stood there making no move to counter or evade as our convexity overcame him. A blinding light consumed everything.

Seconds became minutes, minutes became hours, all this time I stood against the energy trying not to get blown away.

Suddenly, the blinding light stopped. I looked around to see that Brain and Cynder were still with me. They both looked tired, weak, hurt, exhausted, but very much alive. In the front of us however, it was a different story.

Malefor's body was limp on the ground. Singe marks covered his body accompanied by small, yet deadly cuts. The three of us slowly approached his body, careful not to fall for another trick. Cynder finally broke the eerie and creepy silence, "Spyro, is he dead?" she asked. Before I had a chance to respond, Malefor started to cough up blood. He was still alive.

However, he made no attempt to continue to fight, instead he did the last thing you could expect, He called us by name.