You found a disclaimer!
Spyro the Dragon, both the game and all related characters (c) Insomniac. They own the Spyro that's in this story, so nyeh.
Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon, as well as all related characters (c) blah-blah, same copyright.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: Hot 'N Cold
"What's the matter, Hunter? The lake not being so ice right now?"
"Don't even start, Spyro!"
"Come on, Avalar's most agile cat can't handle a little skating?"
"Do I LOOK like a Colossus monk to you?"
Spyro and Sparx couldn't help but laugh as they watched Hunter flail on the Icy Peak lakes like a clumsy rhynoc. Growing up in the Ice Caves of the Peacekeeper lands, Spyro took to the ice like a fish took to the water. Hunter, growing up in the sunny fields of Summer Forest, wasn't nearly so inclined.
And it seemed as good a time as any for some ice-skating lessons - sure, this area had as many rhynocs as the rest of the Midday Gardens, but the locals didn't seem to mind so much. Bob mentioned being late to an ice-fishing date with Doug because of the rhynoc ice-blockades, but seemed more than content to drill his own icehole and fish on the southern outcropping.
"Come on, Hunter, one foot in front of the other," Spyro tried to instruct, helping Hunter to cross another lake they found deeper into the Peaks.
The usually-dextrous cheetah struggled to follow those simple instructions, arms flailing in a panicked attempt to keep from falling over. His claws tensed in an attempt to grip the ground, but the ice was far too slick for him to find that kind of stability.
Eventually, Hunter made a bit of movement, clumsily trying to mimic Spyro's natural glides across the ice. Using his arms and tail for a clunky sort of balance, he eventually mastered a slow and shaky forward movement. "Left...right...left...right...Hey, look, Spyro, I got it!"
Muahahahaha! So focused on his feet, Hunter had no time to notice the rabid rat on a TNT crate until it smashed into him and sent him sliding across the cavern. Spyro, for the first time that night, finally lost his balance on the slick ice, but only because a fit of laughter caused his legs to buckle. "You okay, Hunter?"
"No. I hate ice-skating."
oo00oo00oo
Unfortunately for Hunter, the icy madness kept up throughout their trip through the Peak, up until they ran across their old "friend", who was standing guard by a door. "Morning, boys! Enjoying a bit of ice fishing before all the good spots are taken?"
"Moneybags, what're you doing here?" Spyro asked, keeping a sharp eye out for animals in gold cages.
"Taking tickets, what does it look like?" Moneybags shrugged. (Alright, not his most glamorous job, but the trip to the Forgotten Realms was expensive, and he needed to turn a profit somewhere.) "Are you boys interested? It's the annual ice-dancing spectacular!"
Hunter and Spyro both broke into a quick laugh. "Ice-dancing? Us?" Hunter scoffed.
"Yeah, what kind of girls do you take us for, Moneybags? Come on!"
The old bear stretched slightly, fanning himself with the pair of tickets. "There's a hockey game after the show."
Easiest five-hundred gems ever.
oo00oo00oo
Despite the promises of hockey, the boys were highly disappointed to find not a Colossus arena, but a lonely ice-skating rink, taken up only by a small bear in a pink dress. Hunter refused to touch the ice anymore, so it was Spyro's duty to go out and meet her. "Uhm...excuse me, miss. Is something wrong?"
"Yes, something is mos' definitely wrong!" the young dancer, Nancy, huffed. "Tonight is MY ice-dancing performance, and they double-booked me with a hockey game! Those nasty hockeynocs keep comin' in and tryin' ta bash me off'a the stage with their big ol' hockey-sticks!"
Spyro, much more interested in the hockey game, tried to interrupt, but Nancy continued her rant. "I's jus' not fair, ya know? I put all this work inta makin' my routine perfect, 'n now I'm gettin' pushed around by some dumb rhynocs with sticks!"
Suddenly, the bear's dark eyes lit up. "Y'know what I need? A PARTNER. Yeah, someone who could keep those rhynocs offa my back while I dance my routine! Someone courageous...and strong...handsome...purple...who breathes fire..."
The Artisan dodged every obvious hint, so Nancy put on her scary face and grabbed Spyro by the horn. "Okay, listen, dragon, this hockey game's going to be postponed forever until I finish my dance, GOT IT?!"
Once thrown loose, the purple dragon skated around, offering his tail to escort Nancy to center stage. "Right? Of course, where are my manners? Shall we dance?"
oo00oo00oo
One embarrassing dance routine Spyro would never live down, a brutal slug of a hockey game, and an oddly-thrown egg later, they caught up with Bob's friend, Doug. After all of their work blasting down ice walls and fighting off rhynocs, it turned out that Doug was the one who booby-trapped the path all along. All in defense of a single fishing spot.
While Doug preserved his precious spot, though, Hunter and Spyro had their own ice-fishing to do. As they wound their way up the Icy Peaks, they eventually came across the most puzzling conundrum - a stack of shimmering gems, trapped beneath a sheet of ice.
Of course, the two heroes were of opposite minds. Spyro, well aware with how dangerous gemcrafting magic could be, didn't want to leave a loose gem ANYWHERE where the Sorceress could get it and cause trouble. Hunter, on the other hand, didn't want to get his fur wet.
"Come on, Hunter, we've got to figure something out," Spyro tsked.
"Spyro, forget it," Hunter argued. "Even if you COULD break through all that ice, are you REALLY going to swim through that freezing water for a few gems?"
"The Sorceress could flatten Icy Peak with those 'few gems'," the dragon pointed out. "I've seen dumber warlocks than her pull it off."
"Still, how are you going to get down there?"
Spyro looked over the sheet of ice in front of them. Most of the ponds in Icy Peak were frozen solid, allowing for all of the ice escapades that had gone on during their visit. This one, however, seemed a little different. The rest of the ponds were frozen opaque, keeping anyone from seeing how far down they went. In this pond, you could clearly see the gems below the surface. They shimmered in the reflected light as they rolled around, the picture only slightly jolted when you looked towards...
Artisan reasoning strikes again; there was a crack in the ice.
"Alright, I see it!" Without bothering to explain the plan, Spyro jumped out into the ring, hovering with his wings to give him enough boost for a quick front-flip; just enough force to smash the ice at its weakest point with his mighty horns.
"AUGH, COLD!" And then drop him into the exposed water.
Spyro quickly scrambled out of the opening, catching his breath on the first solid piece of ice he could find. "Told you that was a dumb idea!" he heard Hunter call from the sidelines.
The Artisan didn't bother with a response, instead turning to face his eternal nemesis. He and water were on good terms now. He and COLD water still had some issues from time to time. Normally, the dragon wasn't afraid of anything, but looking down at the sparkling pond below him loosened some nerves.
"Spyro, relax," Sparx buzzed, trying to calm his dragon-brother down. If anyone could notice the few signs of Spyro having a panic attack, it was Sparx. "We get in, I grab the gems, we get out. Simple."
Spyro nodded - better they get these gems now and not come back when the Sorceress turns them into metal ice-sharks or something ridiculous - then took a long, deep breath to prepare for the chilling dive. "Alright, let's just get this over with."
The duo dove into the icy depths, and Spyro immediately froze with a wrenching writhe as the cold water washed over him. It sank in wherever it could, filling his lungs and seeping in under every loose scale he had. His paws tensed and his tail whipped around in a frenzy, all of his muscles painfully contracting in the harsh climate change.
Sparx held up his end of the deal, rushing to snatch up the gems as quickly as he could, so Spyro was left to wait, struggling to kick his legs and keep off the bottom of the lake. In a panic, he tried to spit a few flames, but instead of a warming fire, his mouth filled with even more icy water, giving him nothing more than a few bubbles to work with.
The ice in his chest was the most discomforting; he felt it twice before, once in the Spires and once back on Colossus. It brought back memories of the black spirit, the one that took the fire right out of him, always teasing him about how he wasn't ready, how he wasn't good enough to save the world, how he should've just gone home.
He just had to remember that he had to keep proving that spirit wrong.
Spyro's brief nightmare was ended by a flash of gold buzzing around his head until he was dizzy - Sparx's favorite way of getting his attention. "Yo, Spyro, I got 'em, let's go!"
Ready for an excuse to return to dry land, Spyro pedaled his legs until they shook off the chill and responded normally, then charged back up to the surface, shaking as much of the cold water off as he could before Hunter came over to meet them. "See, told ya it was no big deal!" Sparx buzzed.
"Maybe not for you. Come on, let's go. I like being on top of the ice a lot more than I like being under it."
oo00oo00oo
Spyro was a different dragon than when his adventure began two years ago. Things that gave him nightmares were a childish thing of the past, but things that never bothered him suddenly became nightmare fuel.
One such thing? A simple laugh. Nyeh-nyeh-ne-nyeh-nyeh! Heehehehee!
Hunter, ever the problem solver, was attempting to pelt the pesky thieves with snowballs to scare them off of their safe, little platform. "You two get down from there! We need those eggs back!"
The red thief gave a wicked cackle. "I don't think so, Avalari! Dragon eggs sell for a FORTUNE on the forgotten markets! No one would be dumb enough to pass by one, much less two!"
While Hunter and the thieves argued, Spyro took a different route. The old Spyro would've ran after them. The old Spyro that didn't have that grinding laugh drilled into his brain would've played with his prey, ran a few laps. The old Spyro didn't realize that these hooded thieves stole unhatched dragons and sold to the dark sorcerer (or sorceress) with the highest bid.
New Spyro, on the other hand, ran out of patience for the egg thieves long ago. As the red thief noticed when Spyro jumped down from the peaks, findings his horns in its overwrapped head.
The yellow thief, however, managed to avoid the dragon's advance, jumping onto the supercharge tracks that wrapped and looped around the mountaintops. "You'll never catch me alive, heroes! Heehehehee!"
"Spyro, you get the egg back somewhere safe!" Hunter called, taking a few steps back. "I call dibs on this one!" And before the Artisan could argue, the race was on.
One thing people easily forgot about Hunter was his speed. Because the raceways were all designed for dragons and other creatures with wings, the flightless cheetah needed to get creative, which led to his unrivaled technical skills. With the proper amount of scrap metal, Hunter could make anything from a supersonic skateboard to a biplane with machine guns.
But mechanical genius was just one of Hunter's surprising strong suits. Cheetah was another, and supercharge tracks worked for all creatures, dragonlet and Avalari alike. (Bravery was slowly becoming another; the old Hunter Spyro had met in Avalar the year prior would never have given chase to an egg thief.)
With the supercharge powering his paws, Hunter took to all fours and pounced after the yellow-wrapped thief, leaving a wake of smoke in his trail. The supercharge tracks in the Icy Peak were some of the most difficult in the Forgotten Worlds; certainly more difficult than any Hunter had ever traversed, having never visited the realm of the Beast Makers. The thief was quick to duck and dodge through the multiple forks, trying every trick it could to shake its pursuer.
It took a grand leap to clear the gap that separated the entryway from the platforms where the thieves were hiding. Hunter followed close behind. With the proper kick of power in his cat-like legs, Hunter's namesake instincts kicked in and the cheetah pounced. His claws made contact with the thief's robes in mid-air, and by the time they tumbled to the ground, he had enough of a grab to toss the yellow-clothed demon off of the tracks and send it tumbling down the side of the mountain.
Still sparing their fifty-first egg, of course.
"Admit it, Spyro," Hunter laughed, brushing himself off before cradling the egg. "I'm getting pretty fast."
"Alright, I can admit it. Keep up the good work, and MAYBE you'll learn to keep up with the master."
oo00oo00oo
Bianca drank in every last word of the Sorceress' tome. She had never SEEN a Crafter's book up close, much less thought she'd ever be able to read one. The dragon spells were such a rarity, the legends said that the dragons burned them all in a firestorm of spite before they abandoned this half of the world.
...Not that it was a legend the young rabbit believed. She preferred the children's stories of the dragons, the wistful fairy tales her grandmother taught her under the stars of Midnight Mountain. They were stories of the old days, when the Forgotten Worlds exploded with magic from every corner, and the dragons maintained peace and harmony amongst the four worlds.
Studying with the Sorceress is a dream come true for any Crystal Islands magician, but it was far from the dragon's age of peace and harmony that she hoped it would be when the eggs returned.
Bianca, what are you doing? Focus! You've got to master fodder-crafting before you run into the dragon! A third of the eggs are gone, you HAVE to bring the dragons back!
Filled with a new determination, Bianca threw her bookmark aside and turned to the first "victim" she could find, an innocent blossom in the Midday Circle. "Fhyi, fhre-heem, fhy-ro fhium!" With a powerful gesture, she launched her magic at the flower, confident that she had cast the perfect killer monster spell.
...Killer flower? Close enough? No, that's not going to scare the dragon at all, she thought with a groan. "Shoot. Fhyfrum, ghroa!" In another flash of light, the towering plantzilla returned to being a harmless blossom.
A small bunny bounced by her feet, and she immediately went for a new spell - something with bulk, that could physically overwhelm the dragon...and maybe less teeth than the blossom-beast. "Ghlyin, glaf-throa, glahntrhyth!"
A desperate hand-wave, and the bunny exploded into a hungry beast, with beefy arms and thundering feet. Much more terrifying than her Buzz-Bunny from the other day.
Spyro and Hunter, fresh from their icy adventures in the Peak, arrived just in time to find their favorite apprentice being chased down and stomped by a gargantuan mutant bunny. The Artisan struggled not to laugh at the patheticness of the scene. "Gotta admit, I kind of like dealing with a sorceress that doesn't know what they're doing."
Hunter, surprisingly, didn't chime in. "Don't you think we should help her?"
Spyro stumbled in his confusion. "You're...kidding, right? This IS the girl who tried to toast you in the Sunrise Springs, remember?"
"Yeah," Hunter smirked, "but she was aiming at you."
Spyro went to retort when a high-pitched scream interrupted. The golden Crafter's tome flew past them as the beastly bunny devoured its creator, swallowing the Sorceress' apprentice in one swift bite. "Bianca!" Activating his hero-mode, Hunter sprung into action. (Not feeling particularly kind towards the girl who led the kidnapping of his people, Spyro sat this fight out.)
The cheetah pounced on the ferocious beast, tackling it to the ground and engaging in a fierce grapple. Hunter and the bunny went back and forth in a hungry struggle, one trying to wrestle the other to the ground in a gripping battle of strength versus dexterity.
For a moment, the bunny won the upper hand. He tossed the attacking cheetah aside, then made a mighty leap to squash and swallow him as he did Bianca. Hunter, however, was quick to react. He readied his mighty legs, and with a Sheila-worthy kick, smashed the bunny in the stomach, forcing the once-gentle beast to spit his creator out.
Bianca struggled to her feet, trying to ignore the layers of mutant rabbit saliva that now soaked her robe, and looked up just in time to find her unholy creation ready to finish the attack on Hunter. "Fhyfrum, ghroa!"
Hunter could only shut his eyes and brace himself as the impending doom drew near...then smacked the fodder away when it returned to proper bunny size. "Stupid rabbit."
Once her robe was wrung dry as it would get, Bianca shyly approached her savior. "Uhm...thanks."
Hunter, seeing the young apprentice, stood up to meet her. "Hey, no problem. That's what heroes are for, right?"
Before the two could draw closer, Spyro and Sparx stepped into the scene. "You're sure lucky Hunter was around, Bianca. You were ten minutes from being mutant rabbit chow," the Artisan pointed out with a smarmy smirk.
Bianca scowled, refusing to give the dragon the same pleasantries she gave his friend. "I can look after myself, dragon."
"Su~ure you can," Spyro snickered.
The rabbit apprentice fumed. "Here, let me show you!" she snapped.
...Only for her summon spell to fail, summoning little more than a pink butterfly that was immediately chewed up by the dragonfly. "Looks like someone's out of magic," Spyro continued to tease, familiar with the limitations of magical energies (thanks to a few lectures he was glad to see actually DID come in handy). "Need a jump-start?"
Not eager to have her robe singed again, Bianca grabbed her book and rushed off. "Forget it! I'll deal with you later, dragon!"
Spyro laughed at the apprentice's misfortune, but was stopped when Hunter gave him a swift kick to the underside: "Spyro, why'd you have to scare her off?!"
It's okay, Spyro, we still love you. XD Thanks for reading, guys, hope you enjoyed! Make sure to tune in next week for another thrilling chapter!
§ Tucker's Mayflower, signing off! §