Flippin' hell, why is this so damn short?! I didn't try to make this so short, I swear; it's shorter than the last chapter! I apologise so much. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna break my posting algorithm and post two chapters for you today. You guys kinda deserve it after last chapter, and especially after this disaster of a chapter. Kinda important, though, so again, I have to keep it.

Anyway, gonna respond to reviews now. To 'Fredrik the astral dragon', this fanfic most likely will not have a sequel. I've said this before, but there are many ways this story could continue, but I'm personally not sure it should. If this story gets lots of praise, I'll think about writing a sequel. But I think this fanfic will be better as a stand-alone, and I also want to focus more on the other Spyro fanfic I'm writing. That one will be a five-part series, so you'll see a lot of that series coming out soon. Also, I read Astral Legacy, your fanfiction, and I must say, it's pretty good. Not the best fanfic I've read, but it's certainly better than a lot of other stuff I've read (lots of stuff on FFnet is… pretty bullcrap to say the least). I'm gonna stick around, because I think it's kind of interesting.

And to 'LoNeWoLf', if you think a little bit of dragon throat flesh on the end of an arrowhead is gory, well there's a lot more where that came from. Broken Perceptions will get slightly gorier (that flesh thing was a last-minute addition to last chapter), but it will still be nothing compared to the other fanfiction (well, the entire series, really) that I'm writing. Pretty much all the entries will be M-rated for gore, which is saying something. Not romance, which is the main reason for most M-rated fanfictions, but for gore. So yeah, a little bit of dragon throat flesh is really nothing compared to what's in my other fanfiction. *cute anime smile*

Well, onto this tiny hellhole of a chapter…

"Wait, two of them?!" Aaron exclaimed.

"Yeah. Both of blood loss." Hunter said emotionlessly.

Aaron muttered a curse word and Schagorath spoke up. "He killed two more as well. A mother; died of blood loss." Schagorath said, hesitating.

"And the other one?" Archer asked.

"My friend's brother." Schagorath said. "Murdered in cold blood."

A voice from the crowd of apes piped up. "Wait! Wait, Schagorath?!" Norak called urging his way forward through the many apes walking around to help the wounded. "You don't mean my brother, do you? Because I haven't seen him return."

Then Norak caught sight of Ruby, his niece, on Aaron's back. No one needed to answer him once he saw Ruby. Aaron knelt down and allowed Ruby to get off his back, and she ran to Norak. Norak fell to his knees as he pulled Ruby in an embrace, sobbing openly, and trying to calm Ruby down, even though he was the one crying.

Aaron could not understand why this happened. The dragons were good creatures. If they saw the obvious change in demeanour in the apes, they should have stopped and tried to see what was going on. They didn't. They attacked, and attacked brutally. And Spyro killed four apes. Four independent, sentient apes. They could think for themselves now; they weren't influenced by Malefor's dark intentions any more, and yet the dragons still came, and four apes died. Murdered in cold blood.

And Aaron blamed himself.

Everything in the Dragon Realms was perfect before he came. The dragons lived peacefully. The cheetahs lived peacefully. The apes lived peacefully. They were in perfect hiding. Now the apes had to leave the home they had known and loved so much for the past two years.

Aaron turned away from them and walked back out towards Arriax, and sat down on the cold rocky ground underneath him, watching as the ape city burned to the ground. He was silent and alone for about a minute before a voice spoke up. "Hey, are you alright?" Schagorath asked, sitting down next to Aaron.

Aaron mouthed wordlessly for a few seconds, and then replied, "Y-y-yeah. Yeah, I guess so…"

"What's going on?" Schagorath questioned.

Aaron lowered his head and sighed, closing his eyes. He took a moment to compose himself and clear his mind, and then he spoke, lifting up his head and looking at Schagorath, his eyes red and glistening with moisture, tears threatening to leave them. "I feel like… like I'm the cause of this. Like it's all my fault." Aaron explained, his voice breaking and shaky.

Schagorath's expression changed immediately from one of concern to that of confusion, however evident hints of concern were still in his facial expression. "Why?" Schagorath asked. "None of this was your fault. You didn't ask for the dragons to attack us."

"Yeah, but everything was perfect before I came to this world." Aaron spat angrily, swinging his head violently away from Schagorath's direction, looking back out towards Arriax. "I should have been killed. Not them! None of the apes deserved that. It should have been me instead of them."

"And neither do you!" Schagorath argued. "You saved us! You deserve every right to stay alive!"

"I don't feel like it." Aaron deadpanned, picking up a rock and throwing it in the direction of Arriax with a violent curse.

The fire roared and licked viciously around the buildings, the smoke bellowing up to the roof of the cave and escaping out of the holes the dragons had dug through the ground to access Arriax. For a while, the distant roaring of the inferno was the only sound Aaron and Schagorath could hear, followed by the occasional cough or pained shout from the apes in the cavern behind them.

Schagorath spoke again. "It wasn't your fault. These things happen. I bet the dragons had these sorts of talks after our devastating attacks. Those attacks were our fault. We were the ones that attacked. It's just like that. They were the ones that attacked. Not you. You didn't bring them here just to betray us. They just somehow found us. Found you coming down here. It was their choice to attack. You shouldn't blame yourself. I don't. I'm sure the other apes don't."

"The dragons do." Aaron replied gravely, not looking at Schagorath.

Schagorath looked at Aaron sadly, not knowing what else to do. After a minute of silence, Schagorath stood up. "I'm going to go check on the cheetahs and the other apes." he said.

With that, Schagorath left, and Aaron was left alone to his thoughts.

Yeah, I'm gonna be posting another chapter. Probably around the next few minutes since I have to go to bed soon (it's currently 9:30 at night for me so yay). So I guess I'm going straight onto editing the next chapter then. See you then.