For this chapter a piece of music which has been in the back of my mind for years now, just waiting for this moment. It's been a long time since I played Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness. And that one fight at the end of the game, against the villain who had been built up as a terrifying threat for the entire game.

The battle itself was fiendishly difficult. Dialga has it's Roar of Time move, which in Mystery Dungeon hits every pokemon on the battlefield. At my level it was hitting me and my partner for half of our healthbar each, and we had to move 4 spaces up to even start hitting Dialga to do damage back to it, meaning at least 2 roars. That boss was one of the biggest challenges I'd ever encountered in a game up until that point, and even now I still consider it incredibly tricky.

But while that kind of experience, coupled with the unique haunting chiptune style boss music, wouldn't be enough to win it a place in this deciding battle, the battle closest to Cynder and Spyro's hearts, if it weren't for the fact that the Dialga fight is a 2v1 fight, you and your partner facing down the transformed ruler of time itself. And no matter which side wins you feel that only one will leave this battle alive.

The name of the track?

'Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Dialga's Fight to The Finish' (not the fanmade lyrics version)

And I'll follow it up with Cynder's song that I gave her right at the start of the story: 'Bleeding Out, by Imagine Dragons'

Enjoy.

Spyro dove downwards into the calm and endless ocean of his dream, reaching out with his wings and grabbing, dragging the water back past his body as it pushed him deeper under. His tail beat and twisted, directing his movement, angling himself downwards towards where he saw the dark shape of Hope floating under him.

The water was chilly and unpleasant, and didn't even feel exactly like water to swim in. It seemed thinner, easier to sink in, like it was dragging him down. He didn't risk trying to breathe.

At first he could feel Cynder's presence above him, like she was a beacon of energy, granting him strength. He brought his wings up, then dragged them back again, scooping water out of the way and arrowing down towards Hope. Hope was barely moving, and Spyro realised quickly that he must be focusing on the real Cynder and trying to break her concentration.

Even as he had the thought Spyro felt the word seem to grow darker around him, the feeling of Cynder vanished into the distance until she was nothing more than a faint current. The ocean suddenly felt cold and dangerous around him.

Hope moved up to meet him, when Spyro tried to go for a punch he found the water slowed his movement and it felt weak and ineffectual. Hope grabbed his paw, and his grip felt like steel. He was too strong to fight.

"Now that she's gone you cannot win. I have all the power here."

Hope said with a malicious smirk. He could breathe just fine in the water.

Spyro opened his mouth to reply, but water rushed in and he started to cough. His eyes widened in horror, and Hope kept a tight grip on his wrist so he couldn't swim back to the surface.

Could he drown in a dream? In his own mind? The water felt real enough as he grabbed his nose with his spare paw and retched up as much as he could, a massive load of bubbles escaping with the water. Normally he could have happily held his breath for a minute or two, but he didn't have long before he would lose consciousness now.

He had to do something quickly.

His body was starved of air and physically outmatched, but he had mana to spare. When one side was running on empty the other side had to pick up the slack.

Faint red flames started to flicker over his scales, the energy building up in his chest. Just like Flare had taught him, let it grow hotter and hotter, spin the heat back in and use it to fan even hotter flames. Then let the flame burn.

He shone with a brilliant white light, almost like the starlight which Cynder, Hope and Malefor were having to deal with outside of the dream. He was a blazing hot sun, burning in the depths of this ocean.

The massive weight of the water crushed back against him, trying to put out the heat, but it was rapidly rising to a boil in his immediate area.

Hope let go with a howl of pain, he hadn't expected Spyro to get that hot that fast, mentally running back through memories of Spyro training with Flare until he found memory of the trick, cursing the fire dragoness for having taught it to him.

The water continued to heat up, bubbling and boiling around him, but Spyro was protected by the sheer amount of heat he was radiating outwards, overwhelming everything around him and pushing it out into the water. And what happens to water when it heats up? It rises.

Spyro found himself being pushed upwards and he allowed it to happen, his lungs aching for air as the boiling spout of water shot him up to the surface.

He broke out, taking wing and dropping his heat shield to conserve mana, mouth wide as he gasped for breath, feeling air rush into his lungs and ease the pounding sensation which had been heralding his loss of consciousness.

The weather had changed from calm to the beginnings of a storm. The sky was tinted red and he could feel the presence of Cynder. He had to reach out and try to bring her in. While he had a second to think he reviewed his situation.

His elements still worked on Hope, although not as well as they should have. But he knew he was outmatched for the moment. Hope was just too strong while Cynder wasn't here, his only choice was to stay alive and keep making trouble, doing whatever he could to make sure Cynder and Malefor were winning the battle in the outside world.

"Come on Cynder." He whispered to himself, then he tucked his wings and dived, starting to breathe huge volleys of electricity down onto the surface of the ocean to try and flush Hope out.

Cynder melted into the shadows, paws clutching her head. Instead of pain all she felt was an overwhelming heat radiating through her skull, like she was resting it against an extremely hot surface. She tried to refocus, but it wasn't working. She needed Malefor to heal her before she developed a concussion from where Hope had caught her with a swipe of his paw, if she didn't have one already.

The pool of darkness raced across the ground, spreading like ink and melting into the cracks on the mountainside.

Hope knew what he'd done, he saw Cynder was dazed and stayed on her, tracking the shadow along the ground as they raced towards Malefor.

Malefor created spiked walls of rock in his path to give Cynder some cover, he hadn't seen her take a hit, but he saw that she was on the run and he knew he had to provide cover.

Hope crashed through the walls, the sounds of exploding stone were deafening to Cynder, making her head ring even more. She turned and lashed out wildly, knives of shadow shooting upwards and raking across Hope's face. He didn't expect the turn and was caught by the full brunt of her strike. She heard a howl of pain as his scales were cut deep, but she was in no state to press the advantage.

She burst out of the shadow beside Malefor, panting and clutching her head in her paws. Malefor's eyes widened as he saw blood pouring out of a deep gash that went nearly down to the bone.

"Cynder, you're hurt!"

"Heal!" She yelled desperately, hearing an explosive blast from behind her. She turned and shot a wave of darkness at Spyro, a storm of thick sticky tar which clung to his legs and started to harden. Already he was heating up his body to create a fire nova.

Malefor glanced between Cynder and Hope rapidly. He wouldn't have enough time to heal her before the blast. He reached out with his wind magic, gathering it in and firing a powerful cannon blast at Hope which hurled him backwards. He shrugged off the injury easily enough, but before he could close any distance Malefor had grabbed Cynder and launched her with a second wind cannon straight towards the wall of the bubble, then turned and raced after her.

Cynder closed her eyes as she saw the bubble approaching, remembering how Hope had crunched straight into it. She realised she hadn't tested if she could safely pass through the bubble yet. Malefor had better be right about this, because her head was pounding and she felt like she was spinning so fast the world was a blur. She wouldn't be able to catch herself before-

She passed straight through the barrier harmlessly. It took her several more seconds to realise that unless she physically stopped herself she was just going to keep hurtling away from the bubble and get lost in the depths of space. She flapped her wings, catching herself and beginning to make her way back towards the action, just in time to see the bubble light up with a fiery explosion.

Hope knew she was out of range for now, and he wasn't holding anything back. He had closed the distance on Malefor and locked him down with chains of stone, then thrown a massive fireball at him. Before he'd even seen the result he opened his jaws wide, feeling a massive surge of power coming from deep in his throat, and then he fired a broad cone of pure convexity, obliterating everything within it's radius.

Malefor heard the intake of breath and realised just in time what was about to go on. He raised a wall of stone, then another and another, turning and sprinting for the side of the bubble and the approaching shape of Cynder.

He was fast, wind magic boosting his speed, but not quite fast enough, and he felt the convexity beam hit him in the back, burning through his scales like acid but giving him just enough of a boost for his body to escape the bubble, but unfortunately his tail was not so lucky and he screamed in pain as the back half of his tail was vaporised.

His momentum carried him out of the dome and sent him crashing painfully into Cynder while Hope roared and blasted the wall inside.

The dome was nearly obscured in rainbow light, and seemed to subtly bulge and swell, increasing in size as Hope fired a tightly focused and intense laser of convexity straight towards them.

"FINE! I'LL JUST BE KILLING SPYRO UNTIL YOU COWARDS COME BACK AND FACE ME!"

He screamed after them, finally giving up on breaking through the bubble with sheer force.

"I need to get back in there!" Cynder shouted to Malefor, the way he'd crashed into her sent them both into a spin. She saw his purple healing sparks were already active and racing towards his back and tail, but then she saw him grit his teeth in effort and forcefully redirect them, sending them shooting towards Cynder's head instead.

She gasped as they sank into her skull, feeling rather squeamish as she felt her flesh seem to shift and flow of it's own accord, but within a few seconds her vision had refocused, she was no longer dizzy, all her blood which had been coating her scales had dried, and her wound had closed over.

She gave him a simple nod in gratitude, then raced past him as he started to heal his own wounds. There was no time to waste.

Spyro had just stopped breathing lightning down into the water, it didn't seem to be working and he wanted to conserve his mana. He took several deep breaths, flooding his lungs with air in preparation for diving back down there, foolish though it surely would be.

Then the ocean exploded.

Hope erupted from the depths amid a hurricane of ice, as far as the eye could see the surface of the water turned to deadly spikes and razor edged snowflakes and lifted into the air.

Spyro heard the roar, as a vast amount of water started to flow into the empty space which had been caused by Hope lifting out enough water to bury the entire city of Warfang. His muscles were bulging, teeth gritted with so much effort that blood was trickling out of his mouth. Spyro couldn't help but face the oncoming sight with a slight laugh as he realised just how completely doomed he was.

Then the storm hit him.

Daggers of sleet, howling wind, rock hard chunks of ice. He was struck from all directions, feeling his scales being slashed open. He tucked to protect himself as best he could, and then summoned a shell of earth around him to try and withstand the brutal punishment. He felt his earth sphere getting bounced around like a marble in an empty bottle, shaken this way and that and pummelled by the relentless attack. His ball was bounced progressively higher and higher.

Spyro controlled his earth sphere to try and get to the centre of the ice storm, claws crossed and desperately hoping that water worked the same way in this world as it did in reality. When the water rushed in to fill the gap that Hope had carved out it should, should, splash back together and shoot upwards into the air.

He heard the massive crack as the water converged on the point directly below him. A displacement of water this big should lead to an absolutely massive…

The splashback hit him directly from below with a force greater than anything else in the storm so far, sending him rocketing upwards. He wrapped wind magic around the sphere and shot upwards even faster. He could almost imagine Hope's roar of confusion and fury as his victim was snatched away from him.

Finally Spyro could feel that all the attacks were coming from below, he had been pushed up to the top of this storm. He could sense that his pursuer was closing in so he broke out of the earth ball, just in time to dodge Hope's claws as the dark purple dragon tore a hole in his defences and grabbed for him. Spyro winged his way upwards, wind magic giving him a head start over Hope. They were above the clouds now, and the sky was empty in every direction. There was no hint of land, they were above everything, alone together at the top of a pure white mushroom cloud which was easily two miles high and a mile wide.

The ice seethed below him, a meat grinder waiting for him to fall back into it, he would have to quickly steal control over the parts immediately around him if he wanted to use it to hide. Facing Hope in open combat was suicide at this point. Hiding was his only choice.

He closed his wings and dived down, dodging around Hope and reaching out. The ice felt colder and more powerful than it should have, but he forced his will over it, shooting as much of the storm as he could get back towards Hope, creating fog and hail to cover his escape.

He heard an explosion behind him, and Hope's roaring. He remembered running from The Terror of The Skies long ago. He hated running. As he dived downwards through the storm he created sheets and spikes of ice, hearing them shatter mere moments behind him as Hope crashed through them. Getting closer and closer with every moment.

The clouds were closing in, starting to feel more like bars in a cell. Spyro didn't know how much longer he had until Hope had asserted full command over this mental space, or what it would mean when he did.

He was distracted, a look of frustration on his face, eyes unfocused and claws gripping the stone so hard it cracked.

Cynder slinked through shadows, trying to get closer to Hope while undetected for now.

He was focusing on fighting Spyro at the moment; that much was obvious.

She had to get ready, she had to mentally prepare herself for keeping up the connection no matter what both versions of Hope did to try and throw her off. She had to get into the right frame of mind, a state in which she'd be able to keep up with everything coming at her and wrap her head around being in two places at once.

And she only had a few seconds to get all of this done, because Hope was right in front of her.

Her shadow slinked under him, melding with his real shadow and then gathering to reform her. She rose up out of the darkness, seeing him begin to turn.

Screw it. She was as ready as she was going to get.

She reached out with her emotion element and buried it straight into his head.

The world split around her and she was looking at a massive white cloud.

The real Hope leapt, twisting in the air as his claws came down, but Cynder deflected him with a wind shield. Perhaps melee range was the way to do this. Going claw to claw with a dragon so hypercharged on dark magic that he could rip her limb from limb.

Hope's eyes widened in surprise as instead of backing off Cynder moved in, slamming an uppercut into his jaw and then moving, darting and whirling around him while shooting orb after orb of red magic. She was under him, behind him, tail blade slammed into his leg, drawing blood. His claws were always a moment behind her.

In the dream Spyro felt the storm change, suddenly it was no longer completely outside his scope of control. His elements were once again on a nearly comparable level to Hope, and the presence of Cynder was so overwhelmingly strong that he could tell where she was without even looking. He let out a roar of triumph and raised a paw, clenching his fist. Hope, who was just about to catch him, was suddenly pummelled with blocks of ice, trapping him in a ball of the stuff. Then Spyro lashed his paw downwards aggressively and Hope plummeted, the entire storm beginning to follow him down like water down a plughole as Spyro bellowed in effort, grabbing the entire massive storm, all the thousands upon thousands of tons of it, and dropping it all straight down towards the sea far below with Hope at the point of impact.

Cynder saw the white cloud begin to fold in on itself, and a tiny speck of purple. Spyro!

She flew, racing to his side, seeing that the white cloud was made of ice and snow and that he was pushing it down as hard as he could. Cynder beat her wings from above, bringing down gust after gust of wind, each one bigger than the last, pushing it down faster and faster.

The real Hope's claws found purchase on her scales, but Cynder turned to shadow the moment before he was able to squeeze and crush her bones. She reformed on his other side, slashing, up down up, with her tail leaving three deep wounds.

Dream Hope lashed out in rage, breathing in, his mouth glowing with dark light as he charged up a beam of convexity.

Hope yowled in pain from the slices to his chest, and then Cynder drew her claws across his throat and the sound turned into a sickening gurgle. He could heal that, no need to feel guilty. She brought her knee up under his jaw, wind magic reinforcing the blow and sending his head snapping back, then she reversed her momentum and brought that same knee down on his head from above. Tail stabbing through his paw, pinning it to the floor. Other hand was coming up, so she grabbed it, moving, twisting, legs bracing against Hope's chest as she hyperextended the limb.

Dream Hope's jaw snapped shut and agony raced through him, making him lose his focus. He breathed in again, roaring and firing convexity wildly, but it was too late. He hit the water and it felt as hard as rock. Then the ice started to fall.

Spyro heard a sound like a thunderclap, and saw perhaps for the first time in history, that a large enough quantity of ice was in fact sufficient to punch through a beam of pure convexity. Steam exploded up from the point of impact, followed by a vast splash sounding more like an explosion and sending a visible shockwave out through the entire storm tossed ocean.

Real Hope's eyes went unfocused as the sheer amount of pressure and impact he was experiencing in the dream world filled his entire mind with a sensation too painful and overwhelming to ignore. She wrapped a leg around his arm, locking it into place such that all it would take was a twist of her hips to pop and break the joint. Her tail still spearing through his other forepaw, nailing it to the floor and, if she was lucky, leaving him incapacitated.

This was good. This was the way to do it. And she saw Malefor returning as well, flying back towards the dome and approaching them. They were doing it! She just had to keep the pressure ramping up higher and higher.

"Dive! Dive! Don't let him rest!" Cynder shouted to Spyro, and together they tucked their wings and chased the massive bulk of ice as it fell.

Cynder realised that they were below what should have been the water level, the impact of the ice had pushed the entire surface of the sea downwards and there would be massive pressure back upwards just waiting to be unleashed. They were playing with forces sufficient to level mountains and obliterate cities, and she had no qualms about throwing Hope into the middle of it over and over again until he went down.

There! Lightning was crackling as Hope's fury rose higher and higher. He was preparing to explode. Spyro was racing to catch him before it happened. Cynder wrapped wind around him and boosted him even faster, sending Spyro down into the mess of ice and water like a dart.

Spyro reached Hope, feeling the lightning blaze around him. He reached in, through the blinding sphere and grabbed. Hope no longer felt impossibly strong, still supernaturally strong, but not to the level where Spyro was completely unable to affect him. Cynder being here gave him strength and took strength away from Hope. She was waiting above, no doubt with a plan. He just had to serve the ball back to her side of the field. The ball in this case being Hope.

In the real world Cynder saw Hope's eyes starting to refocus, she bent her hips and Hope let out a howl in pain, as best he could manage with his slashed throat only halfway healed, as she took his arm to the brink of overextending.

"Hold him! I'll draw the symbols to split them!" Malefor shouted. His claw burned white hot with heat and he applied it to Hope's forehead, his slackened expression seemed to refocus slightly as he felt the burning pain of Malefor scratching a magical rune into his scales.

Spyro moved around, his claws digging into Hope's horn and wrapping around it, yanking hard until Spyro was underneath, all that ice and water above him, Cynder above that. Spyro drew in wind, water, ice, fire, lightning, as much power as he could muster. Everything that could push Hope upwards, and then he blasted.

Dream Hope, who had been about to cast his lightning Fury, was suddenly hit from below by a random desperate jumble of elements, Spyro was putting all of his power into shoving him upwards. Hope tried to resist, but suddenly he was seeing Malefor right in front of him instead. He snapped at the old purple dragon, but he was too slow and then he was shooting up into the air.

Dream Cynder's eyes picked out the sturdiest looking piece of ice she could find, getting into a ready stance as she watched the battered and dazed Hope rapidly approaching. Then she turned, getting as much momentum as she could, and swatted him straight back down again, directly towards that ice.

The water and ice came rushing in, slamming together with a deafening crack. Cynder watched coldly, seeing in the real world how Hope jolted and his body sagged slightly from the impact. It gave her a wicked sense of satisfaction. She watched as Malefor finished scratching the mark into his forehead, and she watched real Hope's eyes turning from slitted yellow to white with power, his horns straightening, his scales almost seeming to writhe on his body, caught in a shift between complete control and the rage state which Spyro had sometimes entered. The rage state which had indicated Hope having only a tiny bit of control over his mind.

The darkish purple figure of Dream Hope did not seem to change back, but it was difficult to tell as the entire area was swamped by ice, a massive explosion of water still falling back to the sea and creating even more splashes, ice bubbling up all around until Cynder could only see the faintest hint of purple down there. She felt a pang of concern for Spyro, although if he was underneath that whole mess he should have been fine.

There was a comparatively small bang from among the chaos and Cynder saw two purple dragons locked together, trading strikes rapidly as they tumbled, knocked this way and that. Spyro must have dived in there the moment the initial impact had faded. He really was taking Cynder's shout of keeping as much pressure on Hope as possible and giving it his all. Cynder dived towards the melee.

Dream Hope was not looking good, he was battered and bleeding, slow and clumsy. Even with his superior strength he was still coming out worse in the fight.

Cynder landed, seeing that the mark which Malefor had been drawing had also appeared on Hope's forehead within the dream. Hope managed to kick Spyro away for a few seconds, a paw reaching up and clutching his head, then his eyes narrowed in fury.

"NO! YOU WON'T GET RID OF ME!"

He screamed in both the dream and the real world. Real Cynder leaned back and Hope's arm let out a painful crack as it dislocated, but nothing was going to stop him at this point. In the real world he exploded in a nova of ice, while in the dream he exploded in a nova of fire. Cynder was caught in the immediate blast radius of both.

The fire she shrugged off without too much trouble, but the cold was more worrying. Cynder felt her real body resisting it, her adrenaline was running high, her heart was beating hard from the exertion of the fight so far, she was able to keep herself warm for now, but Hope knew it was her weakness, and judging by the way those two glowing white pits where his eyes should have been were fixing on her and the air temperature was continuing to drop she could tell that he had remembered this.

This was his final push. This time he would hold nothing back and fight for his life.

Hope erupted in blasts of convexity, the dark energy which gathered around him turned blinding as he radiated pure power in every direction. Cynder looked around as the shadows which were her safety were quickly disappearing in the glow and darted behind Malefor for protection.

Malefor raised a wall of stone in front of them, then reached down and opened a cave leading down into the mountain and ducked down into it, which Cynder gladly followed him into.

Hope blasted through the wall Malefor had raised, then his eyes widened in fury and confusion as he saw Malefor and Cynder had both disappeared. The ground was cracking and glowing with heat from his convexity blasting. He rested a paw on the ground, hearing vibration. They had to be underneath.

He started to rip and tear, pulling massive boulders out of the ground and throwing them aside. Malefor reached down, comparatively gentle as he parted the rock and moved in deeper.

"I hope that you're doing good work with your fear magic Cynder." Malefor muttered. "That seal I put on him will only grow stronger as it turns his magic against itself, but it's not designed to do the entire job. We need to do more."

Cynder grunted, emerging from the shadows behind him, very uncomfortable with being so cramped close to Malefor, but with much more urgent matters on her mind.

In the dream Hope was surrounded by flames, but Spyro and Cynder refused to let up in their assault. Cynder protected her paws with wind and charged in, aiming for Hope's jaw over and over as she darted around him. Spyro was hanging back slightly to avoid getting in Cynder's way, reaching out with his own magic and countering Hope's attempts to blast Cynder away from him.

The two of them worked together skilfully, Cynder on the attack, Spyro taking a more supportive role. Hope was backpedalling quickly, forced into constant retreat and barely holding his defences up, struggling to get enough space to throw a powerful attack.

Hope managed to wreathe himself in lightning, fire spitting wildly around and deflecting off Cynder's scales. She hissed in frustration, forced to drop back, but Spyro moved in and replaced her. He was more tired than she was, and he didn't have the same strength that she did, but he had enough skill to keep Hope on the defensive. Meanwhile Cynder flew upwards, shooting blasts of wind down on the fight.

Something was changing in Dream Hope, Cynder could sense it, the storm was growing stronger and more desperate, rain starting to fall and quickly turning into a heavy downpour. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed around them.

Malefor stood still, waiting and listening, a paw raised and prepared to strike as Hope dug closer and closer. Cracks started to show in the stone above them, and then Malefor blasted Hope away with a pillar of stone, bursting up through the rock and sending Hope tumbling. Hope was still radiating convexity wildly in every direction, and tried to simply leap at Malefor, daring him to use his own convexity and create a massive explosion like last time. If he didn't then Hope would eventually just burn through everything in his way, grab Malefor, and kill him through simple proximity.

Cynder took cover, feeling the convexity beating down on her black scales, but Hope was distracted by Malefor hitting him with a hailstorm of small rocks and sparks of lightning, and moved away from Cynder to pursue the older purple dragon without realising she was still down there.

Freed from the distraction of needing to constantly run away from Hope for the moment Cynder's dream version increased her assault on Hope. She saw the symbol on his forehead was beginning to glow, like it was gathering together all of whatever power was keeping Hope in control. She couldn't see it through the radiating light in the real world, but the same process was happening there too. All of the darkness which made up Hope's power was starting to consolidate in a single point.

The two purple dragons darted back and forth, Malefor using wind magic to skim the edge of the dome, ducking in and out of Hope's range to keep him enraged and focused, knowing that Hope was burning through huge amounts of his mana. No matter how fast it regenerated he was going to be suffering from overusing it and would eventually wear himself out. Purple sparks were flickering around Hope already, keeping him in fighting shape as his body was beginning to scream for relief.

They just had to hold on for now while he burned himself out.

Hope knew that just as well as they did. Even if he won he would be trapped here in convexity in this miserable little bubble. In a way he knew he had already lost. Fighting in two places at once, being constantly beaten and battered in both worlds by Cynder, the dragoness who was supposed to love him. It was taking it's toll on him and he knew it. But he would fight until the bitter end. They wouldn't get him to crack. Not after all the harm they had done to him.

Cynder he could… not exactly forgive… but he knew he wouldn't be able to kill her in time and he had made peace with that. But Spyro and Malefor… Their lives were still in his grasp if he could just push a little bit harder… Vengeance could still be his, even if Cynder killed him for it in the end.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! This (plus the chapters before and after) makes the longest fight scene I've written, and I think it might be the best. Let me know what you thought about it!

Next time the fight will end.

-4Dragons