Oh gods, it's been nearly two years. I'm so sorry and will do my absolute best to finish this story.
"Cole, Cole, Cole are you listening?" Spyro asked impatiently, tapping my head softly with his wing. I had been daydreaming in a war conference—well, it was not so much war as it was skirmishing now. Weeks had passed without any major conflict.
"Nope. Sorry, Spyro," I said, shrugging. I had been more and more focused on my slowly waning control over all but my power of Sound. Fire had gone, as well as my control over basic Fear and Shadow. My gems were dimming one by one until they were clear. The only one that shone strong was the one in my chest. I had the power to heal and the power to cripple. Great.
"Please try harder, we're kinda trying to figure out how to win this war."
We had given up on the search for Flame and Ember. The sad but inevitable truth was that they were probably dead—or something worse than that at the hands of Malefor, or whoever came to replace the old bastard.
"I know, Spyro, so what have we up for today?" I asked, knowing the MIA list was getting longer with each week. Depressingly, we had been disallowing females to fight, as they seemed to be prime targets. Our population was dropping at an unacceptable rate from ambushes and traps.
"Two dozen moles and their families...What's left of them were notified. We lost three fire dragoness Healers and two Lightning Inventors," he said sadly.
I winced. The Healers were a blow we could barely stand.
"And some of us are wondering if...if we should flee this Realm," Spyro ended.
"Not a goddamn chance in hell!" Tremor growled. "We will either win or die, but we will not run."
I was inclined to agree, but doubted many others were. And I had to think of Rumbler' and Specter's little boy.
"We... We will scale back the Recon. Send smaller teams and less Healers with each," I said aloud. Inside, my stomach felt like it was tied in a knot.
"Orders will be sent, Commander," Spyro said solemnly. He was taking it hard. He had, with his mate Cynder, saved this world once before. But now…now we were just fighting to survive and, with Cynder bearing eggs, he couldn't risk himself, either. It was nerve-wracking.
"What's next?" Tremor asked, looking at the Guardians and members of each race who had been elected to the War Council. There weren't many of us left.
"Special training to as many members as possible. Advanced elemental abilities to whoever can control them," Spyro said, reading off the card. That was followed by a soft, stunned silence.
"W...What?" Cynder asked, amazed and slightly worried. So was I—as well, it seemed, as most of the council who had comprehended what was said.
"We need to pack more punch per dragon, per squad if we want to do real damage," Spyro said. "The risk is...hopefully worth the reward in the long run."
He didn't sound sure of it himself, but no one could blame him for that.
"Spyro..." Cynder began, but didn't seem to know what to say.
"It's a good idea, but one that could do irreparable harm if we screw up," I finished for her. "Not to mention... Not to mention that we assembled are the only ones who can teach them, and we're stuck here running a war."
"We would leave that to the cheetah clans and the moles for the duration of the training," Spyro said, sounding more confident. He would take Plasma training. It was a scary thought.
"Guess I'll teach Sound..." I said, wondering just what kind of monster we were unleashing upon the world with this. "Cynder, you teach Invisibility. We will need better assassins if we are to win." Another reason for me to burn. "Tremor, enhanced Earth."
They all agreed. Of course they would. I was worried. We all were.
"Well. Off to destroy the world," Tremor said. Cynder and I gave him a look.
"You were all thinking it," he said simply.
