Spyro: Dawn of Light

Part 1, Chapter 25

A few days later Cynder and Shimmer were sunning themselves just outside the Settlement walls while Caelos, Plazyma, Spyro and Neves stayed in the library, studying that weird staff Shimmer had snatched from the ninja. "There's some sort of connection between this staff and that necklace..." Neves muttered to himself. "Is that what's causing..."

Spyro yawned and stretched. "Ai yai yai this is boring...the staff was a gnorcish weapon captured and modified by rhynocs, but the info we need is probably in the forbidden rooms..."

"The technology and make of this staff is derived from Concurrent Skies," Plazyma said as she flipped through a book. "Not much more than that."

"There's an anti-Non tool in Concurrent Skies too," Caelos added, glaring at Plazyma when she gave him a warning static shock.

Shimmer hurried in. "Guys, Ripto's at it again, he's sending more air golems to Concurrent Skies according to Ignitus. Something's up there...he's also sending monsters to Tall Plains and Dragon Shores."

"It seems we'll need to head to Concurrent Skies..." Neves said with a bit of a shiver.

"Isn't that where Malefor was sealed?"

"Yes. Actually, Concurrent Skies is the northern, taller half of Sky Kingdom. Wind dragons live there in the lower half, but they've blocked off the kingdom from access because of the corruption that filters from the higher towers." Caelos looked up at him in surprise. Wind dragons?

"When do we leave?" Spyro asked.

"We should leave today if possible, but we won't get there until nightfall and I'd rather explore by daylight. What we're gonna do, is take a nap now and fly by night so we get there by morning."

"Concurrent Skies is shrouded in storm clouds," Shimmer responded, "what's it matter then what time of day we get there?"

"There are clouds, yes, but light can still get through."

"One problem though," Plazyma said, flexing her wings. "None of us can fly very far still, how do we fly there?"

Neves fell silent, considering this problem. "There is no active transportation to that location, and charging the Temple's portal would take too long...is Flame here yet?"

"No, Ember had an epiphany last night and seems to have calmed down...at least we can hope she has. He's been with her all day at her house."

"Yeah right..." came Flame's voice as he walked into the room, his tail dragging on the floor. "I thought she'd returned to normal but apparently not..."

"Maybe she will when we're done with our next mission," Neves said as Cynder walked in. "Now that we're all here, listen up. Our next destination is Concurrent Skies. We've done all we can here for now, so everyone order a good lunch and meet back here in an hour. I'm gonna go tell the guardians our plans. In an hour we're all going to get some sleep, and then we'll head out by night so that by the time we get there, it'll be dawn and we'll have daylight to navigate by. Get yourselves some comfortable areas here, we've got the room reserved so I'd suggest getting some soft pillows and a warm lunch."

"What's the rush?" Flame asked.

"There's something at Concurrent Skies that Ripto sees a need to guard with air golems, and we're gonna find it and secure it before he does. You all have the plan right? Let's go."

"Wow this is AWESOME!" Cynder squealed, looping through the air around Spyro. "Lookit meeeee!" she shouted excitedly, making Spyro laugh.

"This is kinda peaceful," Shimmer said, looking around at the clouds below and the moon illuminating them from the horizon. "Neves, what did you do to that portal?"

His eyes widened and he shook his head. "Quiet about that; I had to...do some stuff to get it to work," he said anxiously. They weren't supposed to touch the Wing Portal but Ignitus had given them secret permission. "Just be glad we can be doing this, I'll explain later."

"Are there any directional marks?" Plazyma asked, looking around. "Clouds aren't good markers."

"Currently, Sky Kingdom's orbital path should put it above Toasty's Peak. We should be able to see the peak within the next hour or so."

"This is gonna take a while..." Flame groaned, earning a tail-slap from Shimmer as she passed overhead. The flight was fairly silent until Cynder spotted a gigantic stone formation on the ground that looked like a dragon head. "What's that?" Flame asked as they flew over it towards the approaching mountain peak jutting above the clouds.

"That's Toasty's lair. He's a shepherd that uses fire magic. We don't need to go there, at least I hope not. He's not nice." They reached the mountain and flew up to its peak, hovering to catch their breath while Neves looked around.

"Something's near," Shimmer said, feeling the air. "There's a disturbance right above us."

"I think I see it...we should be right under it. C'mon guys, around this anvilhead," he replied, indicating a tall thunderhead above them.

-

A pair of dark blue eyes glittered atop the archway leading into the castle in the morning gloom, watching seven young dragons arrive and rush into the foyer to escape two air golems. With a blur of ice-blue and navy-blue the owner of those eyes whisked away, crawling through the window and watching the small intruders from the rafters of the long hallway. They were too far away to hear the gentle clinking of silver chain links holding a deep-blue sapphire amulet around the observer's neck, or the grinding of claws against metal as paws clenched repeatedly in self-control. The newcomers disappeared beyond the main door, unaware of the long lithe form quickly creeping along the rafters and slipping through the tower in pursuit.

"It's awful quiet in here," Shimmer mused uncertainly. "Neves, does anything live up here?"

"Probably. We'll have to be very cautious. Spyro, can you feel anything? Cynder? Plazyma?"

Cynder lay her paws on Spyro and he closed his eyes as he searched the dark energy fields around them. "There are a lot of presences around us, that's all I know; I can't tell how far or where exactly they are."

"Something alive is nearby for sure," Plazyma growled, looking at the ceiling. "These halls look more like a playground with those rafters and platforms...I can feel an electrical disturbance consistent with a living form not too far away, maybe even in this room. But this place sits on a thunderhead, so I can't tell for sure amid the electrical fields here."

"The weather's pretty consistent here," Shimmer said, feeling the air. "Not much fluctuation in pressure or current, or even latent water...that's odd. There should be a lot of shifting around in a stormcloud."

The dark blue eyes studied them maliciously...what were these mere children doing here? No one was allowed here, not even most of the Sky Kingdom civilians.

Cynder growled to herself, shivering. "I hate this place...it feels really evil."

"It is," Neves admitted with a solemn nod. "When Malefor was sealed in the portal at the top of this castle, he unleashed a powerful blast of dark magic that has distorted this building. It gives off a faint evil radiation, which is why no one lives here and why we need to be extremely careful. It slowly, surely corrupts those nearby and submits them to the Dark Master's will. We should be fairly safe since those effects can take months to settle in, but nonetheless, be cautious. And swift."

"Who would make this place their home anyway? It's so lonely here," Flame said as he looked around.

"This is MY home," a voice growled almost inaudibly above them, the air around the speaker growing so cold a cloud of fog shrouded her from view and coated her light-blue scales in a delicate frost. The sapphire amulet hanging from her neck flashed with a faint light. Spyro looked up sharply when he felt a slight, cool breeze fall on him.

"Spyro?"

"There's fog up there..." he said, pointing. Fog was slowly drifting down and fading from one of the rafters, with a fading trail leading away and moving in its own direction from the air current of sudden motion. "Let's keep going and find a more open spot."

Half an hour later, after a stressful battle against fog-based miniature golems on a vertically moving elevator and several long hallways of electrically charged pillars forming a navigational puzzle, they reached the summit of one of the lower towers, squinting against the high winds whistling around their horns and shrieking against the tower. "This place is really creepy!" Shimmer shouted over the wind. Caelos closed his eyes and then opened them again, taking Plazyma by surprise when she saw his eyes were glowing slightly. The wind flowed over a protective dome of wind energy streaming from Caelos, allowing them to walk along a narrow bridge spanning the terrifying gap between their current location and the next tower over. Plazyma had to drag Flame by his tail; he wouldn't stop looking over the edge and freaking out when he saw nothing but clouds far below. The next tower had more electrical puzzles, but also some mysterious ice formations all over the place. Neves had to safeguard them from a storm of falling icicles as they ascended to the tower's summit.

"Where the heck is this item already?!" Shimmer shouted angrily.

"Shh," Cynder hissed, clapping her paw over the water dragoness's mouth. "Did you guys hear that?"

"Sure did," Flame growled, scanning the ceiling. They had heard a strange laugh above, followed by another falling cloud of fog. Unable to do anything except continue they slowly climbed the staircase, constantly eyeing their surroundings for any sign of whatever was chasing them. They finally reached the peak of the tower, and Flame cried out in exasperation when he saw that they were barely even close to the highest tower in the castle. "HOW BIG IS THIS DAMN PLACE?!" he shouted, dropping to the floor. "My joints are killing me already!"

"It's the air pressure up here," Neves said with a sigh. "We'll rest here for a while, take out the food you brought. Spyro, Cynder, can you keep an eye out for danger?"

"Danger's already keeping an eye out for us," Spyro said, pointing towards the edge of the huge flat floor they were standing on under the tower's pointed roof. There was a large air golem hovering around, looking at them but not entering. "Those things are freaky..." He stared at the golem, watching the fog and dust that made its body visible constantly whirl around at breakneck speed as if the creature was a living set of tornadoes. "Talk about a boss enemy in itself..."

"We're lucky the two guarding the gates let us through, they would have killed us had we attacked them," Shimmer groaned, flexing her tail. "Ow...I'm sore all over already..."

"We're really high up," Caelos remarked. "Much less air pressure." He yelped and glared at Plazyma when she shocked him.

Cynder froze and quickly crept over to the edge of the floor, looking down and bristling. "GET BACK HERE!" she shouted, but her voice was lost in the high wind. She dashed back to the others. "I think we've got company, we need to move."

"Caelos, save your wind energy," Neves ordered. "If we're caught out here in the open you'll need to save us if we end up getting tossed over an edge."

"Isn't that portal still active?" Flame asked as he chewed on a pear.

"Sadly, no. That's why we had to land at the gates. If it were still active we could fly straight to that tower instead of going through this maze. It only powers our flight for a certain distance and was energized to give us about a quarter of a mile of leeway in case the castle's position wasn't where it should have been."

With a collective groan of fatigue they trudged onwards, continuing to pass through more puzzle-filled hallways and enemy-infested elevators. As they rose higher and higher it began growing colder and they found more and more ice formations and ice-based traps. As they rested by a window to catch their breath, Spyro glanced out and froze when he saw a long, lithe dragon silhouette fly by at a distance before disappearing in a cloud of fog. "Guys, there's a dragon around here..."

"Really?" Neves asked, sitting up quickly. "What type?"

"Couldn't tell, it was too far off."

Neves' eyes narrowed. "That could be good or bad news..."

A short while later, that same pair of dark-blue eyes watched them crawl up a ridiculously wide and long flight of stairs to the expansive circular tiled courtyard area just before the main hall of the castle. The doors were locked tight and the windows they could see were well beyond jumping distance. Cynder eyed the tall towers and arches around the courtyard, studying the purple electric beams flowing between their spiky pinnacles like a fence. She suddenly hissed and they all whipped around just in time to see a large wing duck out of sight behind a tower. "Who's there?!" she shouted.

"Don't encourage it," Shimmer warned. Something flashed from the tower and they all shouted and dodged a hail of sharp bladed icicles. The air grew sharply colder around them, fog quickly forming and limiting their vision severely. Spyro let loose a wave of fire energy, pushing back the cloud. They all froze in fright when they saw a tall, slim full-grown dragoness grinning at them maliciously, frost covering her ice-blue scales and navy-blue underbelly and wings. The sapphire suspended from her necklace glittered madly as she slowly stepped forward to them with a cold, malicious intent in her deep-blue eyes.

"Who are you?" Spyro shouted over the wind as it swiftly picked up. The dragoness stared at him intently, considering him. Purple scales?

"Glacia," she replied with a hiss, spreading her wings and crouching in front of him in a challenging posture.

"What the heck?! What's everyone's problem with me?!" he shouted, backing away quickly.

Shimmer stepped forward cautiously. "Glacia? We're not here to fight, we're only here to find something before someone else does." Glacia turned her dark eyes to Shimmer and glared at her. "We're already tired from the flight and climbing up here, can we just find whatever it is and get it?" Glacia made no reply or movement, unnerving Shimmer with her cold, steady gaze. "Um...if...if we don't get it, someone else will, and he'll probably kill you for it...can we...pass through maybe?"

"You come into my territory unwelcomed and expect to pass through?" Glacia hissed. "My master will not have any of this."

Neves' eyes shot wide. "She's corrupted! She's one of Malefor's-" A snowball wrapped itself around his muzzle and silenced him as Glacia rolled to the side and leapt into the air, charging an Ice Fury.

"Get close to me!" Spyro shouted, his body ripping with fire. The others crowded around him and covered their eyes as Spyro gave a low roar and floated a bit above the ground, casting a bright shield of fire around them. Glacia threw her wings apart and the air snapped, everything coated in ice, the archways around the circular arena folding back quickly on hinges from the blast. Spyro yelled and cast a thick ice shield under the fire shield as a hailstorm of icicles fell from the sky aiming straight at them. Shimmer whimpered and covered her ears as the impacts made sharp screeching sounds, the icicles scratching the ice shield around them and cracking it. Spyro groaned under the strain as the storm continued; he couldn't keep this up for much longer. "Neves...help..." he grunted, already feeling drained from sustaining the shield. Neves breathed ice into the shield, wincing as the sounds from the impacts outside bit his ears. "Flame, charge your firebreath, Plazyma, shock her. Cynder, melt all this ice for Shimmer to use. Caelos, backup." They nodded and Spyro melted a quick hole in the side so he could escape and draw Glacia's fire away from the others. She had both paws pointing at the dome of ice, but she she saw Spyro leave she moved one paw to point at him. Spyro yelped and dodged from side to side around the falling spears of icy death, seeing that his distraction had only put him in danger and had no effect on her attacks on his friends. He shot a fireball at her but it exploded against an invisible barrier of ice energy surrounding her.

"Lord Malefor does not approve of your presence here," she remarked rather calmly, the rain of ice still continuing with no signs of slowing down. This power was insane! Where was she getting it all from?! Spyro roared and shot a powerful arc of electricity at her. Again it only rippled around the barrier protecting her, but her icy barrage had slowed. Spyro breathed harder and she yelled, breaking her focus as she maintained her shield. All at once Neves and the others sprang from the icy dome, Neves a bit dizzy, the others sliding on the ice covering the floor. Cynder helped Spyro and blasted Glacia with a shadowy beam. Glacia roared and sent icicles at them, falling below the courtyard level and flying out a short distance to circle the courtyard safely and spare her energy shield, choosing her next attack scheme. She saw Flame and Plazyma watching her, their bodies glowing slightly. Something tingled near her and she folded her wings and dropped quickly, avoiding a sharp blast of lightning. "Hmph," she grunted, not amused. "Impressive range, but nothing worth mentioning." She dodged several more strikes and then swooped over them, rolling to the side in midair to avoid fireballs from Spyro. She glanced back and her eyes widened a bit when the fireballs swung around and pursued her. "Weak," she said with a roll of her eyes, sending icicles and spearing the flying collections of fire energy.

"Nothing's hitting her," Flame groaned as he watched.

"Good," Spyro replied, his eyes glued to the flying ice dragoness and watching for a possible attack. "Make her think we're weak, she'll come in for a physical strike or two."

Glacia swung around in midair, looping under the floating courtyard arena to throw them off. She was right under Spyro. Spyro shouted and fell into a hole as the tiles under him quickly dropped and then closed up over him. "NO!" Cynder shouted in rage. Caelos jumped off the edge and swooped under the courtyard, snatching Spyro just before Glacia could blast him with ice. Catching an updraft Caelos flew back up and dropped Spyro off with the others, then looped around and came in for a landing himself as Glacia flew up and began circling again. "We need a way to hit her...we need to fly," Cynder growled. "She could circle us forever at this rate."

"Flame, is your breath charged for long-range?" Neves asked.

"No, I thought we were doing fireballs!"

"Charge it for long-range then! Now!" Glacia came in for another swoop. "Crap!" Neves shouted in surprise and fear as Glacia caught him by the tail and flew off with him.

"NEVES!" Shimmer shouted. Cynder's breath finally recovered and she quickly melted the ice around Shimmer, letting her gather the water to charge a watery blast.

"Glacia, stop!" Neves shouted as he hung by his tail from her grip. He shouted when he saw several large air golems approaching to check on the disturbance, but Glacia calmly swooped around their aerial blasts and froze them solid, using their cloudy composition against them and turning them into hail and snow. "I guess that's one way of doing it," he said to himself, watching the remains quickly fall beyond sight. She swooped back and spun around, flinging Neves at the clouds surrounding the courtyard. Shimmer leapt up and caught him, both of them landing in a thick bubble of water. Glacia doubled back for another sweep.

"Flame, now!" Spyro shouted. Flame let loose a sharp, straight laser beam that shot clean through Glacia's barrier, just barely grazing her underbelly and startling her badly enough to make her crash-land nearby. She quickly flipped up with an angry shriek and tossed up a cloud of fog around everything, shrouding herself from them. "Damn it, where is she?!" Spyro shouted. His question was swiftly answered when he was quickly hoisted into the air by his tail, cold teeth and breath against his scales. "Great, another Tephra," he groaned, then yelled as she swung him around and then flung him. In his mad aerial tumbling he saw the arena flash by under him and then a great expanse of clouds and dark landscape below. A string of curse words flew from his mouth as he flapped his wings like crazy, trying to straighten himself out and at least hover so Caelos could reach him. He finally straightened out and started gliding, flapping his wings desperately.

"Oh Spyro no..." Cynder whimpered, staring over the edge of the courtyard perimeter. Glacia was still circling beyond their range. "DAMN YOU!" she shouted, tears running down her face. "Caelos, please find him..." she pleaded. Caelos had immediately shot off, following Spyro's voice when Glacia tossed him.

"Cynder, you have poison in your claws, right?" Neves asked.

"Wha...yeah?"

"I'm gonna freeze her wings and bring her down here when she comes in again. You're in charge of melee. Flame has to recharge, so Plazyma's covering him."

"But...Spyro..."

"He'll be...okay," Neves said a bit lamely. "Come on, while she makes up her mind on how to attack us next, we'll strategize." He ushered her away from the edge and they waited for Glacia's next move. It came sooner than expected; as she circled she slowed down a bit, small glimmers around her catching the light from the morning sun. "What's she...CRAP!" They all dodged and ran around in near-panic as another storm of icicles rained down at them in a completely random stream from Glacia as she lazily flew around them. "PLAZYMA!"

Glacia suddenly shrieked and fell in the air several hundred feet after being struck by a small lightning bolt. She recovered quickly and swooped in, aiming right at the electric dragoness. Plazyma charged herself as a decoy, purposely not looking at the others as she waited for their attack. Flame cowered behind her. All at once Glacia let out a surprised cry as water suddenly splashed all over her wings and instantly froze, bringing her down hard and fast as her now-useless wings gave out. Plazyma and Flame flipped to the side, Flame yelling in pain as her rock-hard frozen wing clipped his hind leg hard enough to give him a sharp, crippling blast of pain. Cynder was instantly upon Glacia, sinking her claws deep into the ice dragoness's scales.

"Get off me!" Glacia shrieked, her long, lithe tail whipping around and flicking Cynder off with surprising ease. Cynder's job was done, though; Glacia was poisoned. It wouldn't last long but Cynder had tried to give just enough to let them score some damage before she could recover. Glacia spotted Flame charging another laser and turned her cold gaze to him. Plazyma positioned herself between them and growled, her whole body laced with electricity. Neves, Shimmer and Cynder took the chance and surrounded her. She looked around, her face barely changing when she realized her position. "What can five brats do against the power of the Dark Lord?" she asked with an amused laugh. The fog appeared again but Cynder cleared the area around herself with a steady stream of fire from her mouth. Shimmer spat a flurry of water streams which Neves quickly turned into a barrage of ice. Glacia grunted as they hit her, but they barely did anything to her except annoy her. Plazyma shot several arcs of electricity at her but she dodged them rather fluidly, twisting like a snake.

"We can't do anything to her without Spyro!" Shimmer complained, backing up to avoid Glacia's tail.

"Well I sure can!" Flame shouted, and shot at Glacia's neck. Glacia moved her head quickly to the side.

All at once there was a bright flash and several loud explosions behind them, followed by a sharp, ethereal scream as Flame's laser shot through the sapphire on Glacia's neck and split into five smaller beams. Glacia froze, her head flung back in a silent scream before she toppled over and went limp, much to everyone's confusion. Shimmer stepped forward cautiously. "...What just happened?"

"Damn...we missed all the...action...ow..." came Spyro's voice behind Cynder. She whipped around and squealed, tackling him out of Caelos' arms as the wind dragon came in for a landing.

"I thought you were gone..." she whimpered.

"What do we do now?" Plazyma asked, looking over the motionless dragoness lying in their midst. "Just keep going?"

Before Neves could answer, Glacia glowed and shrank in size, appearing maybe a year older than they were. "Wow...she's kinda pretty," Flame said as he walked closer. The girls just rolled their eyes. "What was all this then?"

"I don't know...transformation magic probably, I guess," Neves replied, studying the unconscious ice dragoness. "Flame got a lucky shot it seems, I don't think we could've lasted much longer."

Glacia moaned and her eyes fluttered open briefly before clenching shut with the pain of a headache. "wha..."

-

The hallway echoed with eight sets of claws clicking on the floors and the low murmur of voices. "Yeah...I've been here for what...about 3 years? I dunno...I came across that flight portal and came up here. I thought the wind dragons would know where my parents were, but I couldn't get in...and without anywhere else to go I came up here since the portal's power was wearing off."

"But how did you get so...big?" Cynder asked.

"I dunno. This really nice guy kept appearing in my dreams and when I woke up I'd be a bit more grown-up just like he said. I don't remember what he looked like but he kept offering me things like long life and such so I could find my family, and I accepted because I was stuck here..."

"That was Malefor," Neves growled.

"I guess so now that I think about it. He was so nice though..."

"Many use the guise of kindness for their selfish desires...Malefor was sealed in this castle's highest tower and his power is still here."

Glacia sighed and looked out one of the windows. "I know what you guys are seeking, but we can't get up there. The guardians long ago placed a strange gem here, guarded by multiple elemental powers. It lies in the highest tower's basement, down a really long vertical tunnel. I've gotten down there many times just to hide and be near it because it felt so calming, but I can't reach it."

"Can you take us there? Is there a faster way up?"

Glacia smirked and nodded, leading them to a balcony at the end of the hallway they were walking through. She breathed ice on a big gem-like dome in the floor, and the whole balcony shifted and began floating. "All the balconies here do this. I just don't use them because it was more fun to crawl around the rafters."

"Now we find this out," Flame moaned, flopping onto the floor. "My legs are gonna die when I get to sleep..."

"These only respond to ice, wind and electric energy."

They floated in silence, the platform humming lightly as it moved along a very faint path of purple electricity. Neves cleared his throat to catch Glacia's attention. "I think you should come back with us. The guardians might be able to find your parents."

"Would if I could, but you guys got here the same way I did and until we can fly on our own, there's no way back down."

The others all looked at Neves in alarm but he grinned. "I have my ways...but first we need to find that gem. It's probably the wind crystal."

"Wind crystal?"

"A gem infused with wind essence, like those gems we got in the Outer Realms. I thought the items might have been an ancient device or weapon, but Glacia's description means it's most likely the wind gem."

Plazyma shrieked and lightning cracked nearby. They all whipped around and saw several air golems flying towards the platform. Spyro sent a flurry of fireballs at them, but the fireballs only got tossed around by the wind whipping around the monsters' bodies. "No! Only ice works!" Glacia called over the growing wind. One of the golems shot forward and grabbed Caelos, but quickly turned into a flurry of snow and hail with a high shriek as Spyro shot ice at it. Another aimed for Glacia and she blasted it, but her power was only enough to remove its arm. "Wha-HELP!" she screamed as its other arm came around and grabbed her off the platform. Neves froze it solid and Caelos swooped in and grabbed her before she could fall.

"Can we make this thing move faster?" Plazyma asked.

"Thunder strikes make it move more quickly," Glacia explained as Caelos set her down. Plazyma crackled with electricity and the platform began to move at a much faster pace towards the highest tower of the complex. Glacia looked at them in awe. "What are you guys?!"

"It's a long story..." Spyro replied, rubbing his neck.

"We're some sort of foretold group with unimaginable elemental power," Cynder said. "We have to gather whatever powerful items we can before Ripto can get them. He's out to control the world it seems."

"Then why not go kick his ass?" Glacia asked.

"He's wicked-strong," Flame grunted. "Spyro's the strongest one here and even he can't stand up to Ripto yet."

"Strongest?" She turned to Spyro with a questioning glance. "You're stronger than the guardians?"

"Kinda-sorta but not quite yet I think...I have much stronger elemental powers but I can't use them like that yet, at least not on a regular basis."

"We're here," Shimmer said just before the platform sank into place with a deafening THUD that sent them all skidding into the wall. "OW!" Shimmer yelped as Neves fell onto her.

"Sorry..." Plazyma groaned, rubbing her head. "I stopped way back there but it wouldn't slow down..."

"I forgot about that..." Glacia grunted. "Another reason I don't like riding these..." Up ahead lay an insanely long staircase spiraling around the tower, but before Flame's legs could give out in dread of the climb, Glacia showed them a series of small elevators along the side, their tracks and protective cases making them look like incredibly tall stalks of crystal. The ride was fairly long but it gave them time to rest. As they reached the halfway point, Spyro suddenly realized they were heading to the top, not to the basement or wherever it was.

"Um...if it's down there, why are we going up?" Spyro asked.

"The only way down to the gem is the vertical shaft. This elevator stops at the stairway that leads to the summit portal, but not too far along the side of the stairs is the entrance. I can't open it now though because it needs intense ice power...which I don't have anymore..."

Eventually they reached the door and Neves opened it rather easily after filling the gems around the door with ice energy. There was a bit of debate, but they decided that if there were multiple elements protecting it, Spyro would be the best one to send down since he had control over all elements. Caelos would have to go down too since Spyro couldn't fly. Spyro and Caelos went down the thin tunnel, letting themselves free-fall for a while and then flapping their wings to slowly hover until Spyro could see a faint glow down below. It looked like they were going down into a pit of molten metal almost from the color of the light. Finally they reached it: a bright greenish-blue gem swirling with wind energy, several bright speheres of elemental power surrounding it. Small but deadly streams of electricity were feeding the elemental shields, flowing from the floor and pedestal the gem was sitting on. The floor at the bottom of the shaft was flat, with the gem's three-foot pedestal situated smack in the middle. There was room enough for only one grown dragon in here, which gave Spyro and Caelos some walking room but not much. Spyro nervously stood up and reached for the gem, his paws passing through the elemental shields with very little resistance until he touched the gem. Caelos shouted in fear when Spyro got flung back and pinned to the wall by a sharp blast of electricity. Spyro groaned and fell to the floor, his scales crackling slightly with small forks of electricity.

Up above there was a loud banging noise and Caelos and Spyro shouted as a spire of ice plunged down and a loud crack of thunder sounded around them. The spire had landed right next to the gem, siphoning the electricity back into the pedestal. Spyro jumped forward and snatched the gem off the pedestal just before the ice spire shattered and vaporized from the intense electrical field surging through it. The gem disappeared as soon as Spyro landed on the floor. Caelos grabbed him and carried him up on a sharp blast of air, using the air and his wide wingspan to carry them back up to the top. Glacia grinned and helped Spyro up as Caelos handed him up. "Did my ice spire help?" she asked. "There was a blast of electricity along the walls and I heard you two shout!"

"Yeah, the gem shocked me..." Spyro said, rubbing his numb paw. "The ice focused the electricity back into the stand though."

"That was a lucky shot," Cynder remarked. "She jumped against the wall and spat it down, then jumped back over here."

"Thanks for the help," Neves said. Glacia blushed slightly. There was a slight groan behind them and they turned to see Flame pass out. Neves dashed over to him and swore under his breath. "He didn't eat much for lunch or breakfast...we need to get him some food."

"I think I can help again," Glacia said a bit timidly. "There's a food portal in the castle, it's where I've gotten all my food so far."

"Did you say food?!" Spyro and Cynder asked simultaneously, their stomachs growling.

-

The next morning, after a large meal and a restful sleep, eight young dragons left Concurrent Skies' main gateway, narrowly missing several ambushes from air golems before making it back down to Toasty's Peak. Neves had charged several gems with energy from the flight portal, which was currently letting them fly. They had to be quick though, since the gems couldn't hold much of a charge. For the most part they were gliding quickly instead of expending their energy trying to fly. It took a few hours, but they finally reached the Settlement where Ignitus and Nightshade were waiting for them. "I guess this is goodbye," Spyro said as Glacia landed behind him.

"I guess...I'm sorry for throwing you off the edge like that. But how'd you get back?"

"He was flying," Caelos replied. Spyro blushed a bit when the others all looked at him in shock. "Not very well though, but he was gaining altitude."

Glacia sighed. "Well...thanks guys...maybe now I can find my family..."

"Thanks for helping us up there, especially with the food issue," Cynder said with a grin, glancing at Flame with a slight glare. "We'd probably be lost and starving up there."

The ice dragoness rubbed the sapphire amulet hanging around her neck, then looked up at Ignitus. "He said you could help me find my family...can you?"

Ignitus nodded. "Come back to the temple with us and I'll see what I can do."

Nightshade cleared his throat. "There's someone who wants to see you about armor, Neves. Hunter's been freaking out trying to find you all."

Glacia belongs to Newlegend. She was the first-place character in my contest.