The guardian wandered slowly through the clouds looking left and right. Becoming a guardian had taken away some of her abilities but her ability to travel between dimensions was not one of them, praise the Gods and Spirits, so she was able to summon the right soul to this dimension with the help of the Chronicler. She had summoned the soul in question before, thrice to be exact. They initially dismissed the boy and even scoffed at the fate he had been given. It wasn't until he started to win battles against seemingly overwhelming forces that the soul started to take an interest in the young man. Soon they began to see a potential in him that they had not seen since the 500s. And so, the soul agreed to do their part in fulfilling Brandon's destiny on one condition.

"Potential is one thing, but does the boy know how to use it? Guide him when necessary, but do not hold his hand. Let him prove himself. This title should not be passed down so carelessly as before. If I see him fit, then I will agree."

And so, the deal was made. The boy would be given the opportunity, the space, and the time to hone his skills, but nothing beyond that. The guardian approached the soul, their back turned with their hands behind them.

"Well?" She asked.

The soul clad in a white and purple robe shook their head. "No, it's still too soon. The boy has proven himself to be a capable military leader, even at his age, but is that the extent of his capability? As I said before, the title should not be passed down so carelessly. That was one of the many faults that plagued her."

The spirit nodded before turning back to the empty skies. She spread her wings and let them guide her through the air.

Speaking of Brandon, let's check up on him, shall we?

I was about to open the doors, but I stopped myself. Gaul and his right hand definitely heard all of the fighting and likely had the door heavily guarded. I looked for anything to use as an ambush point. A catwalk, an opening, anything that could lead into the next room and get us behind the enemy.

"There." I thought.

I pointed to the catwalk and whispered to Spyro. "Get us up there. We're about to ninja these bastards."

Spyro cocked his head. "We're about to what?"

"Just get us up there."

"Alright… Jeez, you're heavy." He grunted as he lifted me up.

"...Ow. You didn't have to lay it on me like that." I frowned.

When we were just above the catwalk, I swung back and forth a few times before launching myself forward, doing a flip in mid-air, doing a superhero landing, and posing dramatically. Spyro floated down, his lips formed a horizontal line.

"Was that really necessary?"

"Completely."

Spyro let out an annoyed sigh. I shushed him before leading him through the path. Our steps, though quiet, still echoed off the cave walls. Soon, we heard voices.

"It won't be long before they break down our door. When they do, we will be ready."

"Even if they do kill us, the only way they can stop his return is if they have enough explosives to level this mountain."

"Oh, you have no idea." I muttered. "We'll make the Tsar Bomba look like a firecracker."

"Alright, Brandon. We're right behind them. Now what?"

"Now, we hope that this isn't one of the rare occasions where my arrows miss their targets."

I pulled out my bow slowly and inch by inch, I drew back the string. I inhaled, held my breath, And…

"Argh!" Gaul and Bartu yelled out in pain as one arrow each pierced their left shoulders.

"Got 'em!" I whispered.

Gaul was the first to recover, pulling out the arrow and shaking off the pain as if it were nothing. "Guards!" He bellowed. In an instant, five heavily armed apes were at their side. "Find the ones who did this and bring me their heads! NOW!"

"Understood!"

I suppressed a laugh. "You can certainly try. Hey, Spyro, check this out."

I pulled out a blowgun and a few darts covered in a thick red paste. I loaded and fired the darts one by one. Once they pierced the skin, the guards' fates were sealed.

"What did you just do?" Spyro asked.

"Just wait…"

It started at first with auditory hallucinations. They called out to the voices in their heads and continued to display more signs of slight paranoia which only worsened as the poison ran its course. They started looking over their shoulders, jumping at every noise they caught onto, and they eyed each other with ever-increasing suspicion. After some time, their paranoia became so severe, their grasp on reality began to slip through the cracks in their mind. This only made the auditory hallucinations progress to visual ones. Whatever those hallucinations were, they terrified the apes to the point of insanity, their eyes became soulless and empty as the dying spark of reason and higher brain function was finally snuffed out. They all snarled like the savage, mindless beasts the poison had turned them into before tearing at each other, the king, and the commander. In the end, though, the two who still had their minds intact simply stepped back and watched the carnage with great amusement. Not before the rabid apes tore most of their armor off, however. Spyro turned away in disgust.

"Ancestors…"

I simply shrugged. "Eh, I've seen worse online. You good, man?"

"Yeah… I just," he let out a sickly belch, "need a minute." He vomited.

I walked over to him and started patting him on the back with a look of sympathy. After a while, he stopped puking. "There you go. Better?"

Spyro inhaled, then exhaled. "Better."

"You need to turn back?"

"No, I'm fine now."

"Alright. That didn't work, but…" I pulled out one last dart and a vial of lethal poison, dipped the dart into the vial, and loaded it.

"Bartu or Gaul?" I asked.

"Gaul, definitely." Spyro responded without hesitation.

I fired the dart, it pierced the skin, but Gaul felt the dart's sting. He pulled it out, took a quick look at it, took out a small vial, and downed the contents.

I grunted in frustration. "Are you serious? Actually, never mind. I had to come across some plot armor eventually."

I took out my bow again. "If this doesn't kill 'em, I'm just going down there."

I loaded the bow, drew back, let the arrows fly, and sure enough, they missed.

"Screw this." I muttered before jumping down. Despite the seemingly lethal height, I landed on my feet unharmed.

"Hello there!" I greeted in my best Obi-Wan Kenobi impression.

"Captain Brandon!" Bartu laughed sinisterly. "You are a bold one. You should have gone into exile when you had the chance." He laughed again. "You fool."

Just then, a large stone crashed through the walls, nearly killing all of us.

"Huh? I thought I ordered the engineers to abandon the trebuchet." My thoughts were interrupted by a loud cheer accompanied by the distant sound of bagpipes. "Oh… Well, better late than never."

"FOR AVALAR!" Came a distant shout.

"FOR THE FALLEN!" Came another.

"FOR THE PURPLE DRAGON!" The last declared.

"SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM!" The whole army yelled.

Bartu let out a low, menacing growl. "Army or not, you must realize you are doomed."

"Oh, I don't think so."

I made the first move by thrusting my sword into his left shoulder and cutting downwards. This ended up severing the axillary nerve, making the arm useless. I kicked him back. Once he was stable again, he charged. I rolled out of the way. I stabbed him in the back, but he did a back kick, sending me flying backward. I slammed into the wall, dropping my sword and shield. When I opened my eyes, I saw Gaul charging me. He rammed his fist into my chest, knocking the wind out of me. Bartu sprinted towards me and jumped into the air, prepared to bring the full might of his sword down upon me.

I let out an unusually high-pitched scream of terror before preparing for the blow, my eyes clenched tight and my hands raised in a defensive position. But it never came.

"Brandon, get up and help me!" Spyro shouted.

"... Oh… Alright, let's see… Wide-open space and multiple enemies. This calls for the guandao."

I picked up my weapons and charged into battle. I jumped, spun, and struck Gaul, but he blocked. I waited for him to make the first move, he swung, I displaced his sword, he tried to swing with the other, but I anticipated this, ducked, and managed to slip the displaced sword out of his hand. I kicked it away and backed off to recover. My recovery was quick enough to prevent him from getting his weapon back. I kept up my assault, doing an almost figure eight type move as I struck from all sides. However, he blocked these with relative ease. Once I was out of breath, he went on the attack. I barely blocked some of these, but the ones I didn't were still blocked by my armor. Little did he know, with each strike, he was putting another nail in his coffin. I was learning his attack pattern: a cut here, a thrust there, an overhead slash here, a flourishing strike there. When he tried to go for the cut, I pushed his weapon back with my own and cut across his stomach. He reeled back and sneered but then…smirked. I looked behind me and I will never forget what I saw.

Spyro was on the ground, thoroughly beaten with a black eye and many cuts across his body. But what shook me to my core, what stopped time itself, was Bartu holding that same staff he put to my face, the purple lightning that once crept slowly towards me in an attempt to twist me was now running up and down Spyro's body, doing its work on my brother. The bolts, crackling and popping, caused him agonizing pain as they crawled up his body like spiders with dagger-sharp legs. He screamed and pleaded for help that wouldn't come. The torture only stopped when the screams did. I rushed to his side, feeling for a pulse. I found one, a very, very faint one. If the intent was to corrupt him, Bartu must have pushed him too hard 'cause he was dying. Fast. I stood up slowly, a stoic expression on my face.

"This mustn't register on an emotional level…"

I planned my strategy slowly as we walked in a circle. First, I kicked Bartu away, separating him from his ally, I then did a quick 180 and struck Gaul, he blocked. I did a back kick and turned my attention to Bartu. A downward diagonal strike resulted in a deep gash across the chest. I kicked to keep the opponent off balance, then followed up with a strike using the opposite end of the weapon, poking him in the eye. I turned back to Gaul. He attempted a downwards chop. I Backstepped, then thrusted. I quickly turned to catch the other opponent and push back a strike with enough force to send him stumbling back. I blocked the swing coming from my flank. Using my weapon's length to my advantage, I was able to deliver a few strikes while staying a safe distance away from the king. I wasn't paying attention to my rear, so Bartu stabbed me in the back. I kicked him away, his weapon remained lodged in my back. After pushing back the king, I turned to the commander. I jumped as I did this, which made my strike more powerful. He had to move his entire body just to block, sacrificing balance. I kicked him down and stomped on his skull, fracturing it. I did a spinning back kick to catch Gaul, then sliced both cheeks open in one strike. He recoiled back in pain. I parried a blind right slash, did a heel kick to the diaphragm, thrusted, and drove the weapon into his abdomen. I backed away to create space. Low on options, he charged. I sidestepped, then used the weapon to strangle him from behind. To finish him off, I kicked him in the back to make him fall down, then stomped on and fractured his ribs. In summary: eye poked out, asphyxiated, skull fractured, ribs fractured, mouth shaped like that one Japanese urban legend, deep, long gash across one's stomach, big hole in another's stomach. Full physical recovery for both: likely at the author's convenience. Full psychological recovery for both: impossible. Ally and brother: avenged.

I heard the sound of wings flapping above. It was Cynder.

"Get Spyro out of here! He's dying!" I shouted. "I'll handle these two."

As I suspected, the two stood up, though Bartu, having a fractured skull and likely a cerebral hemorrhage, stumbled, fell back down, and died. An inglorious death for an even more inglorious person. The ape king held his ribs, wheezing painfully.

"Weakling!... You've been the ruin of me! Look at…" He coughed, "what you have done! I've been betrayed by you and the rest of the commanders and general staff!" He coughed again, spitting out blood. He was dying too. He looked at me with pure hatred. "You…! I'll dr…drown you…in your own blood!" He fell to his hands and knees, still coughing up blood.

I unsheathed my sword and walked over to him, shaking my head.

"...Do it. I don't care anymore… Just do it." He murmured depressedly before falling on his back.

I crouched down. Now knowing that the story of Esugei was true, I had one question regarding the leaders and how they went from good to bad. "How did this happen? How did your kind make the transition from having benevolent leaders to tyrants? You were a proud people. Why did you throw that away?"

"So you know about…what was his name? Yesugei? Esugei?... I got caught up in the power. The control. Like my father. I had no choice, I had to do it. I just saw the opportunity and took it. I didn't care then, still don't… Look where that got me! But I'm perfectly fine with this. I like it hot, anyway!"

He started to laugh, but the laughs got weaker and weaker until all he was able to produce was a few short breaths. They got fewer and farther between until, at last, there was nothing left but the shell of a man who wanted nothing more than to hold onto his power. His attempts at doing so, ironically, being the very things that left him with none. I looked around. Was that it? Had we stopped Malefor?

"Where's the collapse of the mountain? Wait, I take that back."

I decided that before I jinxed myself and ended up killing everyone still inside, I would leave. The explosives should have been planted by now. I stood up slowly, the blade in my back cutting even deeper as it shifted. I winced and hissed painfully.

"Owww…"

I stumbled out of the door, my entire army was waiting for me along with tens of thousands of ape prisoners. Women, men and children.

"Someone help him!" A random cheetah shouted.

"Easy, there, friend. We got you. Hey, bring hot wine, bandages, herbs, honey, everything!" A red dragon shouted.

"On it… Here. Hey, you're the human the guardians have been talking about?" An icy blue dragon asked.

"What gave it away?" I asked before laughing, then being hit with sharp pain. "Ah!"

"Pfff, I dunno." He shrugged. "Name's Frost, that there's Flame. Also, try not to laugh."

"Frost and Flame, huh? You brothers?"

"Ancestors, no! This guy gets on my nerves!" They said in unison.

"Riiiight…"

"Oh, shut up before I pull out this sword and leave you there." Flame joked.

He was a fire dragon somewhere in the late teen, possibly young adult stage, a humorous type, though he didn't wear the snarky expression of one. His yellow horns were straight and had a metallic look to them. His upper fangs stuck out and extended down to his chin, and his snout was slightly rounded. He had spikes running down his back all the way to the end of his tail, the blade of which looked almost like an arrowhead. His tough-looking underbelly was a yellow-tinted white with a few scars on it. Frost was around the same age range as me, he was also the type to crack a joke here and there. If he were born on earth, there is no doubt in my mind he would love the "randomly generated humor" of the 21st century. Despite this, he was stern and serious whenever the need arose. Unlike Flame, his white horns were bent slightly backward and none of his teeth were exposed. His blue underbelly was also covered in scars. There were spikes running down his back, but they stopped at his tail, and the end of his tail looked like a spiked club.

"Oh NoOoOoO! I'm SoOoOoO ScArEd!" I put my hands up in a fake sense of terror, knowing Flame wouldn't really do such a thing.

Frost burst out in a fit of laughter at my tone of mockery.

"Alright, alright. Be still and let me tend to this wound." Flame ordered. "Oof, he got you good. Grit your teeth, I'm gonna pull this sword out. Better yet," he handed me a piece of wood, "put this in your mouth."

I did as instructed.

"Alright. One. Two. Three!" He yanked the blade out of my back.

I released a loud drawn-out grunt as I bit down on the wood piece. Blood poured out from the now open wound. I briefly passed out from shock but came back to shortly.

"Hey, stay with me. Brandon, stay with me… Talk to me, tell me about yourself, how you came to meet the guardians, what you like to do, what your home is like."

I gave him a quick rundown of how I came here. I told him about myself and humans in general, the achievements of great people, though this was limited to the ancient and medieval periods. I told him about the achievements of the Greeks, how they influenced Rome and how her people built for her a great empire spanning the Mediterranean. He learned about medieval Europe, things like Poland-Lithuania, the Habsburgs, the disgrace of an empire that the HRE was, despite being so powerful early on, and the true successors to Rome who, with their last breath, were able to spread her light across Europe one final time and ignite the Renaissance. He learned about the Chinese, the golden civilization of Asia, the Mongols, the conquerors of both Asia and Europe, the Japanese, the honorable warriors, but also future unpunished war criminals, of Asia.(Seriously no one talks about their war crimes in WW2. I mean they targeted medics, parachutists, and downed airmen, stabbed injured soldiers recovering in medical tents, and to top that all off, in China, they would not just kill civilians indiscriminately, but they would also play a game where they'd take an infant, throw it up in the air, and catch the baby with their bayonets as it fell back down. And yet, weebs are renouncing their own culture to "become Japanese" and people are like "oh, I wanna go to Japan! Japan is so cool!" No! These guys are war criminals! They're even trying to deny it! They have a shrine DEDICATED to those who invaded China! Anyways, I should stop ranting, you're not here for that.) Well, I guess they didn't go unpunished because, you know, a fat man and a little boy came over and the locals had an EXPLOSIVELY good time hanging out with them.

"There, I've stopped the bleeding. You were lucky, bro. Barely missed any organs or bones." Flame said. "Here, on my back. The engineers are waiting for you at the siege weapon."

"Right. Everyone fall back to the trebuchet!"

The moles greeted me and handed me my bag. I pulled out my box of matches. It was empty except for a single match. I examined it for a moment.

"Well, looks like this is it. You served me well. Godspeed." I whispered to the match before lighting it and igniting the fuse. "Ready, everyone? Three!… Two!... ONE!"

The mountain lit up like a patriot's backyard on July 4th. Just, BOOM! Straight out of a Michael Bay movie. Everyone let out a cheer that quaked the heavens. The Dark Master was defeated. And though there would be some resistance from Gaul's men in the coming years, they posed no real threat. The war was won and they would either realize this and surrender or would be flushed out of the darkness by the light of the CTUA.

"Chief Prowlus!" A cheetah called.

We all stood in line formation to make way for the chief. He saluted us, we saluted back, he then called me forward.

"Captain Brandon. You have earned the respect of the men. You have proven time and again that you are more than capable of leading a small army. So, take this and put it on."

He pulled out a small silver pin with a single gold stripe on it. This was the pin that displayed the rank of commander. I looked down at it, then looked him in the eye to ask without words if he was sure. He nodded once as if to say "go on". I took the pin, pinching it between my fingers, then put it on.

"Soldiers! Salute your new commander!" Chief Prowlus ordered. Some saluted, most cheered and chanted my name.

"Alright. Alright, settle down!... Settle down, boys. How many did we capture?" He asked.

"100,000, sir." One of us answered. "50,000 men, 25,000 women, 25,000 children."

"How many did we lose?"

"Close to 2,000, sir."

"Good… Good… Line up 2,000 of them. Women, children, men, it matters not."

"Right away."

We lined up the prisoners, among them were women and children. Additionally, I recognized the old man and Altan in the line. I greeted them with joy, but this joy was not returned. They knew what was coming, I did not. It shocked me, the infamous order to turn the prisoners around and execute them. With no choice, I followed. You know, sometimes when I close my eyes, I find myself back in front of the rubble that was the Well of Souls. Back with a dagger in my hand after being given the order. Our order was simple, for most of us, at least: kill them all and take our revenge. Though, it wasn't revenge. It was a slaughter for our chief's amusement. A slaughter for our dictator's amusement. Children, women, men, it didn't matter to Prowlus. To him, an enemy casualty was an enemy casualty. Sometimes, I see the flashes of women and children, cut down by those who should have liberated them. Like the Soviets advancing into Poland after pushing back the Germans. I plunged the knife into the old man's chest, and dropped him, shaking in terror at what I had done. I had killed so many apes before, but…this was different. This one wasn't fighting back, couldn't fight back. This was murder. Cold-blooded murder. I dropped the murder weapon after just being frozen there for God knows how long. I fell to my knees, looking down at the dying ape. With his dying breath, the old man gripped my hand as tight as he could and made me promise to take care of his grandson. Little did he know, the baby was already dead.

A/N:...Wow… I'm debating if I should even put that last part in because I feel like that's really testing the rating. The next chapter is almost ready, it just needs a few tweaks. Expect it in the coming days.