The next day was the funeral for the guardians. Cynder had prepared a speech for the funeral before Terrador and Cyril's burial. She had barely made it through the first sentence before she had burst into tears, but she kept going, saying what she wanted to say, before leaving the attenders' attention and weeping uncontrollably. She watched the burial from a distance, weeping harder than she ever had in her life. These guardians had loved her and cared for her, more than anyone else had, and helped her through her grieving when Spyro left her. And now they were gone. The part that made it worse was that Volteer's body had just… disappeared. The electric guardian would not be able to get buried. If someone found his body and had the heart to bury him, they might, but as long as there was the potential that Spyro was using Volteer's body for something, that would not be possible, and that disheartened Cynder the most.
Cynder didn't sleep a wink that night. She prayed to the ancestors that she would get enough sleep to start her first official day on her new job (Logron was to be taking over the leadership position of Warfang temporarily until new guardians were chosen by the ancestors – they were usually chosen by the previous guardians and very rarely by the ancestors, but the first had no chance of happening), and that she would be able to get over her depression. The ancestors didn't seem to reply to her. If they did, she couldn't hear them. She spent all night crying, whimpering, staring out into the night sky through the window in her room. Adrano was beginning to wane, the eerie green light of Zella becoming the dominant colour of the sky. She shivered as a cold breeze made its way through the window, curling up tightly to warm herself up. She looked beside her to look for someone to cuddle up against, for Spyro. Until she remembered why she was alone, bringing tears of longing and hatred to her eyes. Spyro had left her, and Forzen had been stolen, either corrupted or dead, Cynder didn't know.
Personally, she hoped Forzen was dead. She didn't want him to live through what she did as a child. The many times she had fought through her corruption for a few mere seconds during her time as the Terror of the Skies, she would always wish she had been killed in the raid against the Dragon Temple like all the others. She had even attempted to slit her own throat twice during that time, but the corruption had fought back quickly, and she never got the chance. Her childhood had been stolen from her, and she would never wish that on Forzen, or any other hatchling in that case.
Morning came, and Cynder was tired as hell. She groaned as the first rays of sunshine beamed through her window, lifting herself groggily to her paws with a wide yawn. She swallowed, and the action hurt. Her throat had been killing her all night as she cried, wailed, whimpered, pleaded to the ancestors, and repeated the cycle many times, with no answer from the ancestors. She wasn't sure if they had forsaken her, or if they couldn't hear her. Everything seemed hopeless, and it seemed like the ancestors either couldn't help, or didn't want to help. Maybe relying on the ancestors did nothing except grant dragons false hope… Cynder decided from then on that she didn't need them. She hadn't eaten all day yesterday, either. Her stomach rumbled loudly as her saliva slid down her throat, the action telling her body that there should be food going down her gullet too. Cynder groaned with annoyance, yawned again, stretching her throat muscles painfully, before walking off and leaving the house.
Warfang was still quite empty. Dragons had stayed inside for fear of another siege, only coming outside when necessary, like if they needed to buy food or see other dragons. Children were forced to play inside, and teenagers were forced to spend more hours inside for school. The teens were generally kept inside a classroom or in the training arena during school hours, learning about fighting techniques and different types of elemental combinations and dragon types, as well as history and the boring stuff. The only reason the teens enjoyed themselves was because the history lessons weren't being taught by Cyril, who used to always drag on and on about his own ancestry and species (which was fairly insensitive due to him just dying two days before, but the avid, careless teens didn't seem to care), and also because they were all learning about interesting war history now, instead of all the boring stuff Cynder had to sit through when she was in school. Now, dragons specialising in each different learning area took the lessons temporarily. Logron had organised all this yesterday, and it had been fairly stressful getting the positions filled, but Logron, as well as all the new teachers, decided that life needed to continue as normal and they couldn't make themselves look weak to Spyro.
Blood still stained the streets of Warfang in vast amounts. The streets were scattered with several dragons, moles, and the occasional panther, a race that Cynder had found in hiding about two years after the war, before bringing them out into the real world. (Spyro was there too, but why does he need to be credited?) Most of the panthers stayed in dragon cities like Warfang or Jorgarath, but some of them went to the cheetah village or returned to the abandoned panther residence in a dense rainforest south of Warfang called Panthesol. These dragons, moles and panthers were still cleaning up blood stains and the occasional corpse that still scattered Warfang. Cynder was rattled out of her sleepy state as she tripped over a corpse, and it slumped further to the ground, its head rolling off its neck with a snap as it had only remained attached by a few clumps of flesh and dried, crusted blood. Cynder let out a scream as she leapt backwards, before recomposing herself and looking around with embarrassment, hoping no one heard her.
"You alright?" a voice asked from behind her, and she whirled around in fright, suddenly jumpy, before composing herself again. A pantheress stood in front of her, crusted blood all inside her matted fur, an awkward smile on her face.
"Y-y-yeah… yeah, I'm fine…" Cynder murmured with embarrassment.
"Don't be worried, Cynder. I've scared myself several times with all these corpses. My mate decided to jump out at me yesterday given how jumpy I was." the pantheress replied. "He didn't escape without a clawed nose, and a pretty bad one at that."
Cynder let out a small chuckle, before she murmured a quiet thank you and goodbye, walking off towards a restaurant. She didn't normally buy her food, but she was too tired to go out hunting or go to the food storage building. Ironically, she had turned up in the restaurant that she had been in two days earlier when the venomfangs first attacked Warfang, but she didn't seem to notice.
Cynder still wasn't up for eating much, despite not having eaten at all yesterday. She got a small serving of goat flank with a few herbs and berries, but even then, she couldn't finish it. Well, the meat, at least; she finished the herbs and berries fine. Just the thought of tearing into flesh made her violently sick. She had done enough of that two days ago. She had drawn immense amounts of blood from her enemies, a fair bit of it with her teeth as well, and she hated the taste of blood. Normally she was quite strong in the face of gore, given her past experiences, but the recent siege on Warfang had been too gory, even for her. It scared her, something that normally was a feat to do, and she had also lost the guardians because of the siege. The amount of blood and gore that the guardians' corpses had spilled was terrifying. That was the main thing that put her off the bright pink goat flank, and she was thinking of asking to have it cooked so it wouldn't taste as raw and bloody for her, but that only made her heart sink deeper as she thought of Cyril. His face had been mutilated a few days before the siege, burned to a crisp savagely by Shorok, the shadowclaw general, when Jorgarath was attacked.
So, she stood and left with half her goat flank still on the plate. She paid for her food in full, despite the insisting cashier who said that since she didn't feel up to eating most of her meat, she only had to pay half of the amount. Then she turned and left to the barracks, where she would begin her first day supervising and leading the warriors in the Warfang Army.
She walked in and greeted some of the dragons working out and training, before she was greeted by a heavily built electric dragon named Sectal. "Cynder, you have two new applications." Sectal reported. "The papers are sitting on your desk."
"I'm sorry, my… my desk?" Cynder asked.
"Logron didn't show you the offices?"
Cynder shook her head. Sectal sighed. "Alright, come with me. I'll take you to your office." he said, walking out towards the large split room in the middle of the building, walking down the corridor that split off into about four different rooms. "Your office is the one on the first left, opposite Logron's. The two applications will be there."
Cynder nodded her thanks and walked into the dark room. She walked up to her desk and saw a candle sitting on it and breathed a light stream of shadow fire at it. The candle began to burn with a small black flame, which gave off the purple-orange light that shadow fire produced, faintly lighting up her surroundings. She sat down at the desk, feeling slightly awkward, and looked down at the two pieces of parchment. They needed new recruits after Oren, Kravel and Parlin's death, but it was surprising how quick they had come in, especially after the siege on Warfang. The applicants must be really ready to serve and protect Warfang.
The memories shocked her for a moment. She never witnessed Kravel's death, but the sight of his corpse was bad enough. She had been there for Oren and Parlin's deaths, however. She was glad that Parlin's was quick and painless. Oren had lain on the ground in utter pain as poison ate through his body. She remembered that agonising minute, that felt like hours, just watching Oren squirm and splutter, chocking on blood. Cynder felt tears prick her eyes as the memories filled her head, blotting out the task in front of her.
She shook her head, and the memories faded, and she remembered what she was doing. What she had to do. She tilted her head down towards the first piece of parchment. She looked at the name scribbled at the top of the page under the name section. "Kryton Thrundel…" she muttered the dragon's full name out loud. She looked down further and saw that he was an ice dragon, and was twenty-three years of age. Same as her. She continued to read down the page. Kryton seemed promising. He'd done volunteer work in the past, and previously had worked as a guard at a small dragon town called Narcesh for two years. "Accepted, I guess… We'll check him out tomorrow to see if he really is ready." Cynder muttered, picking up the quill out of the ink vial on her desk and signing the page, before shifting the page over to the side, going onto the next. She gasped with shock as she saw the identity of the dragon that had filled out the page.
Electrika Schollen, female, electric dragoness, age nineteen.
Cynder swallowed the lump in her throat and read on. Electrika wanted to prove her worth to the city, and to serve it. She had been an orphan for pretty much all her life, and the elderly ice dragon that had adopted her had served Warfang when he was younger. Cynder supposed that Electrika wanted to be like him, and to let his legacy live on. Despite the fighting she and Electrika had had recently, she couldn't bring herself to refuse. To refuse based off personal opinions wouldn't be fair or proper etiquette, and she felt it would be a good thing to do to accept the application.
So, she grabbed the quill again and signed the page.
Cynder put the quill down and stood, walking out of the office, after blowing out the candle gently. She noticed that Sectal had stood waiting for her. "You done?" he asked.
"Yeah. Signed the both of them." Cynder said with a nod. "What do I do with them now?"
"We'll get someone to deliver them." Sectal replied. "We'll get them in tomorrow for extra testing and training in person."
"Alright, thank you." Cynder said, and Sectal turned and walked away.
She looked up and let out a sigh. She didn't have time to ponder on her thoughts as loud, muffled yelling came from beside her, and she looked towards where it was coming. The elemental training room. She was about to dismiss the sound as training, but the yelling didn't sound competitive. It sounded like a serious fight. She padded towards the door and opened it, ducking almost instantly as an earth missile shot over her head. Loud shouts exploded around her, and she looked at one of the rings as two earth dragons wrestled and clawed at each other, yelling savage insults at each other. "Hey, hey! What in the ancestors' names is going on here?!" Cynder yelled, running into the room.
No one answered her. The yelling seemed to get louder. The two dragons' insults were slurred into noise, blended together by many cheers from the spectators of the brawl. One of the earth dragons had blood streaming down his left foreleg from what looked like a very bad bite wound on his shoulder. The other one had blood streaming down his face, deep claw marks flashing down across his right eyelid. His eye was untouched, luckily, but the eyelid was swollen, and had closed up over the eye.
With some of her fear element embedded into her shout to increase the volume of her voice, Cynder let out another angry yell. "Answer me! What is going on here?!" Cynder shouted.
Some of the dragons froze at her voice, but the dragons continued to fight. The one with the bloodied face let out a loud roar as he pinned the other earth dragon to the ground, jaws digging into his opponent's neck, drawing quite a lot of blood. Cynder scowled, storming up into the ring, before shoving the dragon off the top of the other with her horns, and another shout. "Break it up now, you two!"
The dragons scrambled to their feet, and looked at Cynder with shock on their faces, and the room went dreadfully quiet. Cynder stared at the dragons, bleeding and broken, for a moment, before she took a breath and began to scold them. "My first day and things are already falling apart! This is despicable behaviour for dragons like you! You should be training and serving the city in its time of darkness, not fooling around and getting into childish fights!" Cynder scolded, pausing briefly before she continued. "I expect better than this from you! You can't afford to be breaking apart and breaking into personal fights like this! What will those in the outside world think of you?! Those who are meant to protect them?!"
"But Rokem said I was 'a wimp like my brother'. My brother died two days ago!" the earth dragon with the bloodied eye protested, turning to the other dragon, Rokem, with a resentful gleam in his eyes. "And then he goes and says that about him, and starts calling me names and disrespecting me and my brother?!"
Rokem scoffed, sneering. "You were too scared to…!"
"Silence!" Cynder bellowed, and the two dragons shut up, surprised at the power behind her voice. "Never in all my years, even as the Terror of the Skies, have I ever seen members of the Warfang Army act like this! Disrespecting others, getting into physical fights over silly things?!"
"My brother is not a 'silly thing', Cynder!" the earth dragon growled.
"I'm not finished yet!" Cynder snapped.
Rokem started laughing. "Nice job, Krakor." he chuckled.
"Rokem, enough!" Cynder said, turning to Rokem, who immediately stopped laughing and looked at his paws, unable to continue his hold on Cynder's gaze. "That was uncalled for, picking on Krakor like that."
"It was meant to be a joke." Rokem croaked.
"Well think before you say these things! His brother died two days ago! The same day the guardians and hundreds of others died!" Cynder scowled. "That was a grim day for lots of people."
"I didn't know Krakor's brother had died."
"Then why did you fight?"
"I was defending myself! Krakor was the one who attacked me, the little b…!"
"And he shouldn't have! But will continuing the fight do any better? Did you even apologise?"
"No." Krakor answered for Rokem.
"I wasn't asking you." Cynder deadpanned, glaring at Krakor before returning her gaze to Rokem. "Tell me, did you apologise?"
"No." Rokem replied.
"So?" Cynder asked.
Rokem looked up at Cynder, confusion in his eyes. Cynder huffed. "Well?" she asked, nodding her head in Krakor's direction.
Rokem sighed, lowering his head again before he looked up to Krakor. "Sorry, Krakor. I didn't realise what I said did to you."
Krakor didn't reply. Cynder turned to him. "And?" she asked him.
With a groan, Krakor turned to Rokem. "Thank you. And I'm sorry for attacking you."
There was silence for a while. "Good." Cynder said. "Now I want you two to stay away from each other for the rest of the day. Rest up a little bit before you begin training. And this better not happen again."
"Understood." Krakor and Rokem said in unison.
With that, Cynder turned and left. Unbelievable… she thought as she left the silenced room. It was her first day on the job, and things were already going wrong. Am I just a curse to everything I touch?
Okay, back with another chapter of Demonised, and things are still going badly for Cynder. Electrika's coming into the Warfang Army, and Cynder's accepted the registration documents, meaning she's in. What are your thoughts on that? But with Electrika coming into a place where Cynder will work every day doesn't mean much good at the moment.
Also, I want to say this. Last chapter was pretty brutal. It always was going to be, with the guardians dying, but I think Oren's death was the most brutal one to be honest, and was explained in a lot of detail. Last chapter especially brought out the M rating of the story. I've had one person (don't want to say any names) bail out due to how brutal it was getting, and if you're in the same boat where you feel you want to leave, by all means, please do. I'd much rather you remain in a healthy mindset rather than be affected negatively by this. If you are enjoying it, then keep on reading, but if at any point you need to leave, please do.
Demonised will be as dark and brutal as it gets. Part 3 is fairly close in terms of dark themes, but the others are all slightly stepped down somewhat. Part 4 contains some supernatural themes, and Part 5 utilises a few more suggestive themes (implicit, so don't worry too much if the explicit stuff isn't up your alley, 'coz it's not up mine either). Part 2 is a mix of all of them. The Purple Legacy series as a whole will remain M for dark themes, violence and gore. In my opinion, the way I would sort the Purple Legacy series in terms of intensity, from most intense to least intense, would be Part 1, 3, 2, 4, 5. Again, that's just my opinion, so yours may vary in this sense.
So if you all made it through last chapter, congratulations, but there's more coming, especially by the time the climax rolls by. It's a big one as well, taking up five chapters, one of which is about 11K words. It's going to be a big feat for anyone who gets past Demonised, so I congratulate all of you for getting past the first decent hurdle of the story, even if it didn't seem like much to you, because I know it will be for some people.
…
Derick Lindsey: Yeah, I killed off the guardians pretty quickly. I was kind of annoyed after writing the first draft of last chapter though, because the next day, about two fanfics I read killed off at least one of the guardians in a big battle. But I think it was pretty good nonetheless.
And yes, the voices Cynder had been hearing had been because of the Sound Gem. I noticed that the theme is kind of lost for a bit in Demonised (planning mistake, my fault), but it is important in Part 2.
As for Sparx and Hunter, I'm just going to be evil and say, 'you'll have to wait and see…'
…
Okay, big A/N over. Back to 3D modelling and YouTube and attempting to beat 4/20 on FNAF 1 after this (had five attempts today of 4/20 and got 5 AM every time), so I will see you all next chapter.