A bit of a shorter chapter this time around, but this one focuses entirely on Icebreath. I'm proud of this one, too. Last chapter was way better, but this chapter's still really good.

To 'BirmanDragon', I listened to Forsaken Pygmy as you suggested, and I am in love with it. It's beautiful. You're right, it does work a lot with last chapter. Also, Dark Spyro's unrelenting violent nature gets much worse than what you saw last chapter. So what he did to Cynder is not the worst of the characters' worries.

And to 'Derick Lindsey', I'm glad you're looking forward to the next few chapters. They're really good, but my 'darker fic' is much better. And much worse. I think you'll like it. But it is much gorier, much darker, and much more violent. There's more action sequences in it than Broken Perceptions, and it'll be much longer. I'm almost about to write Chapter 34, and I'm barely half-way through what I have planned for the story. So it's going to be much longer than this one.

Anyway, hope you all enjoy the chapter!


"Are you alright?" Volteer asked.

General Icebreath just nodded, sighing with relief as he felt his leg readjust and the bone reform as the red gems were absorbed into his body. Blood stopped pouring from his wounded paw, and the wounds closed. He was still too scared to speak, however. In all his years, he had never seen anything like the horrors he had just witnessed. He had never seen dark magic before, and it frightened him. Sure, he had fought and dealt with the dark army many times before, but he had never experienced the magic of the dark side. He hadn't had anything to do with Malefor or Gaul directly, unlike the guardians. And he'd always assumed that Cynder was a being composed completely of darkness, not a being tainted by dark magic. He only believed the guardians because they were higher than him, even though it was only half-heartedly. Now, after witnessing dark magic just now, after fuelling the darkness to take control of Spyro, he believed otherwise about Cynder. She was pure, and had a good heart. And he hated himself. For the things he'd said to Cynder, and for influencing the horrors that were occurring.

"Have I… Have I been a bad influence?" General Icebreath asked with a stammer.

"No!" Cyril quickly jumped to General Icebreath's defence. "Why?"

"Have I been a bad influence on Spyro? I know he's not normally this violent and angry, and I personally feel like I fuelled the darkness inside him to bubble to the surface." General Icebreath clarified.

"No. That was the ape's fault." Cyril replied with a scowl. "How dare you blame yourself for that primate's actions?

"Don't you see, brother?! That 'ape' might not be what we thought it was! It could be a… a 'human'. Like Cynder was trying to tell us. What if we were wrong, and we were worrying over nothing?"

General Icebreath looked around. Volteer had a shocked expression on his face, and Cyril's face bore a look of betrayal. Blazrak was expressionless. "What in the…? What the hell makes you say that?!" Cyril exclaimed.

"What Dark Spyro said earlier." General Icebreath said, but before he could continue, he was interrupted by Blazrak.

"Dark Spyro is a creature of pure darkness. He speaks lies. You shouldn't trust him." Blazrak said darkly.

"But he said he knew!" General Icebreath retorted. "He said he knew about the… the human. What if he's right? And what if we were as dumb as he said Spyro was? That we were too blind to see the truth, and we let our fear control us? And it's my fault for only showing Spyro violence and anger, and his fear turned into rage and aggression, before it turned into pure evil."

"It's not your fault." Volteer said.

"It is!" General Icebreath felt tears slipping down his cheeks, his flanks convulsing with every shaking breath. He couldn't care less about how pitiful he looked now. He felt as if his world was ending. "It is entirely my fault! I fuelled all of this! I fuelled this madness! And now Dark Spyro's on the loose, and everyone's in danger!"

General Icebreath burst into tears for the first time in two hundred years. It was an ugly sight as he sobbed pitifully, whimpering uncontrollably and struggling to breathe. Cyril was flustered, unsure what to do, having not seen his brother cry in two centuries. General Icebreath heard footsteps, and looked up with teary eyes as Blazrak walked towards him, an unreadable expression on his face. "The blood Dark Spyro shed and will shed is not on your paws, Icebreath. But you have played a role in bringing Dark Spyro to the surface. We all learn our lessons at some points in our lives, sometimes the hard way, and this has been no different for you. For everyone here. I think it's time we treat this… Aaron… like an ally. After all, Dark Spyro poses a danger not to just him, but to all of Warfang. Even if we decide to continue to hate on him later, we need to put our differences aside now or someone will get hurt. Killed even." Blazrak said.

General Icebreath nodded, sniffling and wiping his wet eyes. "Let's go find him." he said, standing up.

"What?! Are you seriously listening to this old fraud who thinks he knows that this ape isn't really an ape?! You're as dense as Cynder and Volteer!" Cyril scowled with a shocked chuckle, only to be stricken with lightning fast claws from Blazrak.

"Have you not learned from your foolish brother's lesson, Cyril Isendrag?! I expect better from you! You're a guardian, and you'd better start acting like one. You're acting like a child. No better, a bully. To think that after everything you've fought for in your younger brother's life, that you would start insulting him in a fashion similar to those who put him down in his childhood." Blazrak scolded menacingly. "You're a disgrace to the title of 'guardian', Cyril."

A scream tore through the air. High pitched, and a voice that was familiar to General Icebreath's ears. He had heard the same scream before. But where? He searched his memories. He suddenly heard voices from several years ago tear through his mind, and he realised with shock who the scream belonged to.

Help me, Icebreath! She'll kill me! The Terror will kill me!

I won't let her, Voette! You'll be safe with me!

Voette. His mate, his beloved.

She was in trouble. And chances were, his daughter Frost was as well.

General Icebreath ran off towards the sound, fear gripping his chest. "Where are you going?!" Cyril cried.

"That was Voette's scream!" he shouted before he ran out of earshot.

He heard Cyril gasp and run off after him. He was sure Volteer was following as well. He wasn't sure about Blazrak. He was old and wasn't too suited to this thing as much as he once was. He turned his head and saw Blazrak behind him, and he frowned. He had assumed wrong again. Stop assuming! he scolded himself mentally. Look where that got you with Aaron!

There was another scream from Voette, followed by Dark Spyro's roaring. A more masculine cry came, weaker than the others. A weaker set of lungs. Aaron, possibly? No. I'm not assuming. I'm not assuming anymore. he thought with a snarl.

He came to a stop when he saw a fox hunched over Voette, with Frost standing next to them, clueless to what was happening, but sobbing uncontrollably with fear. General Icebreath took one look at his mate, and his heart tore in two as he realised she was dead. Murdered. Her mouth was open in an unfinished scream, and blood rolled down her neck and stomach in excessive amounts. Voette's wings were torn in two, and her left foreleg had been bitten off, by the looks of the ragged marks in her flesh. The foreleg lay on the ground several metres to General Icebreath's left, blood pouring like a flood out of the disembodied limb. His eyes wandered back to Voette, and he stared into her eyes.

Her eyes stared sightlessly back at him.

A tear slipped down his cheek. Then another. Dark Spyro had done it. He had murdered someone. And he had murdered her. His beloved. Voette.

"Daddy?" his daughter's fearful voice cut through the air. "Is Mummy alright?"

He heard Cyril gasp behind him. General Icebreath didn't know what to say. His heart broke as his mate lay lifeless in front of him, murdered by Dark Spyro, and his daughter stood metres away from the corpse, horrified, but clueless as to what had happened. "She's…" he murmured, not wanting to scare Frost any more than she was. "She's not coming back. She's dead."

"What does that mean?" Frost asked.

General Icebreath blinked tears from his eyes and swallowed a lump in his throat, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. "She's gone. She's left this world to join the ancestors."

"Didn't she love me? She said she'd protect me. She said she'd be here for me! Why isn't she coming back?!"

"Your mother loved you very much." General Icebreath walked towards his daughter, sitting down in front of her and nuzzling her. "It was just her time to leave."

"Where's Dark Spyro?" Blazrak asked the fox.

"He ran off that way after Aaron." the fox replied, pointing down a street.

"Thank you. Icebreath? Do you want to go?" Blazrak asked.

General Icebreath turned towards the fox. The fox's paws were covered with Voette's blood. Trying to save her. he realised.

"Can I trust you to protect my daughter?" General Icebreath asked the fox.

"With my life." the fox replied with a nod, walking towards Frost.

Like Voette. General Icebreath thought, and his heart skipped a beat.

"Thanks." he said, standing up. "Let's go."


And someone's dead already. Icebreath's mate, to make it worse. His family weren't in the story just for a bit of extra stuff; I've had Voette's death planned since the start. Anyway see you later with the next chapter, where things get much worse.