Upon getting back to the barracks, Cynder had been approached by Jupal, who she had assigned to be the personal trainer for Kryton, the new recruit who had signed up with Electrika. Over the past ten days of training, Jupal had deemed him fit enough to head into regular training without him, as had Cynder. For a final test before they allowed him to do his own training, they decided to put him in a duel against Molron and Tyrax, before they would take him over to fight a shadowclaw or two. At this point for him, a venomfang was too risky.
So, they had gotten Molron in the ring with Kryton first. Cynder started the match and immediately they sprang into action. Molron aimed several swipes at Kryton, but the ice dragon sidestepped nimbly, dodging all the attacks. A few fireballs were spat out of Molron's maw, and Kryton dodged them too, but only just. Kryton made the next move of charging at Molron, head turned downwards so the horns were pointing dangerously at Molron's body. Molron lowered his head, catching Kryton's horns with his own as they tried to push down on each other with horns interlocked. Molron won that battle as he thrust his head forward, catching Kryton off guard as he stumbled backwards, then threw his head down causing Kryton to crash to the ground. Molron raised his head up and inhaled to breathe fire over the ice dragon's face, but he scrambled up to his paws and leapt out of the way quickly. Molron took a while to register what had happened, and when he did, he ceased his inferno and looked up at Kryton, ready to counter his next move.
Kryton was quick to breathe a few rapid beams of ice at Molron. The red dragon, however, was too slow to step away, causing his forepaws to become encased in ice, frozen to the ground. Molron raised his tailblade to cut through the ice, but Kryton shot two more ice beams at his tail, the first knocking it out of the air, causing it to land on the ground with a thud, and the second freezing it to the ground as well. Molron turned to breathe fire at his paws to melt them out, only to have Kryton run around him to punch him in the back of the head, ceasing the stream of fire. Kryton leapt back, before preparing to use another beam of ice, but Molron was quicker, turning and letting out a stream of fire at Kryton. He stumbled back with a groan, flapping his wings frantically at the fire. Now Molron turned back to his paws, in which he had melted enough of the ice now that he could break through the ice with brute force.
He was still grounded by the tail, and Kryton used this to his advantage. Kryton ran back around and leapt on top of Molron from behind where his frozen tail couldn't protect him, and began to claw Molron's back. Molron thrashed his upper body about, and Kryton began to lose his balance, before Molron eventually bucked Kryton off him. Molron quickly shot a hot fireball at the ice on his tail. It didn't do much, but now he could crack the ice around his tail by trying to move it.
Molron paused to stand up, wiggling his tail back and forth once he was on all four paws to try and break through the ice. Kryton lunged at him to distract him once more, but Molron raised a claw and scratched Kryton across the snout, causing a thin stream of blood to start rolling down his cyan scales, and for him to step backwards. Molron finally got the chance to break his tail free, allowing him to move freely once more.
Molron tackled Kryton to the ground, and bit down on his neck, drawing blood, but Kryton raised his icicle-like tailblade and sliced it across Molron's hind leg. Molron groaned and hissed in pain, letting go of Kryton and stumbling off him, before raising the wounded leg off the ground. It wasn't badly wounded – the wound Molron had left on Kryton's snout was actually worse (only just by a little bit) – but it hurt a lot, mainly because Kryton had sliced across a muscle rather than a more structured part of the body.
Kryton stood and released two heavy ice missiles, hitting Molron in the side of the head with them, causing Molron to fall to the ground, his head bleeding where the ice missiles had hit. Molron's nose was bleeding as well due to the brute force of the ice missiles causing his head to whip back. Kryton placed a paw on Molron's head, pinning him to the ground, before swinging his tailblade around and holding it in front of Molron's throat.
Cynder gave it three seconds before she pronounced Kryton as the winner and ended the match. "Good job, Kryton. You did well." Molron said as Kryton helped him to his paws.
"Thanks." Kryton panted, wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his left forepaw.
"Alright, Kryton, you won." Cynder said with a smile.
Tyrax scoffed next to her. "He won't do so well against me. I'm sure I can win!" he exclaimed.
Cynder turned to Tyrax with a glum face. "Don't get cocky, Tyrax. Remember what cockiness did to you last time you were in the ring?" she deadpanned.
Tyrax's eyes widened. Last time he was in the ring was with her, and that did not go well once he was brought down by her siren scream. He averted his gaze on her with embarrassment, before nodding and muttering an acknowledgement.
Cynder turned back to Kryton. "Go and heal up if you feel you need to, and we'll start your match with Tyrax when you're…"
"General Cynder!" a voice exclaimed, and a young she-cheetah barged her way into the room.
"Whoa, whoa! Who allowed you to get in?!" Cynder replied.
"I barged my way in, I'm sorry, but these three letters just came in addressed to the military of Warfang, urgent." the she-cheetah panted, holding out three small letters. "Extremely urgent!"
Cynder looked at Jupal and Tyrax with concern. Vetar, who had been doing some training with a few other guys in the same room, had walked over and caught the last two sentences of the she-cheetah's, and gave Cynder a concerned look of his own, which she then returned, before walking over to the she-cheetah. "Alright, let me see those." Cynder said.
Cynder took the pieces of parchment from the she-cheetah, who now seemed to shrink in on herself. She unfolded them, and her face fell as she read the first one. As she read the second and third, her expression became more and more worried. The second one was pretty badly blood-spattered too, as if it had been written by a dying dragon.
Larentine under attack by strange dragons that spit poison. Black dragon by the name of Drachen leading them. Send help; they're after the children.
Kyrondyke under siege. Black-scaled dragons with purple markings on them are attacking, and it seems they're after the younglings. There's a big version of them too that can talk. Send reinforcements; about fifty dead.
Urgussen currently under assault. Please send help. Big purple dragon is leading the siege. He claims he's the Saviour. Poison dragons are there, too. They want the young ones.
"All three of them?!" Cynder exclaimed. "What in the ancestors' names is Spyro up to?!"
Everyone just stared in silence at the notes, before Cynder started barking orders. "Jupal, go grab everyone from the physical training room. Vetar, fetch everyone in the magical training room. Bring them all here, okay?" Cynder ordered, before she quickly raised her voice to address everyone in the room. "EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING! Something's just come up; briefing will commence shortly!"
Soon the room became filled with dragons, and Cynder began the briefing. "Okay everyone, I've just received three letters saying that three of the minor dragon cities, Larentine, Kyrondyke and Urgussen, are all under attack by Spyro's forces. Apparently Spyro himself is leading the siege on Urgussen." she announced. "We need to go over there and help now."
"But… that's three of them!" a dragon cried out. "Shouldn't we just focus on the one in the most trouble right now? Say Urgussen, where Spyro is?"
"Yes, Yammeth, but they're all after the children."
Gasps echoed around the room, and it was unanimously decided then and there due to the mention of children being the target that all three cities needed immediate attention. Cynder inhaled to get things set up. "Attack parties of about fifteen should suffice. You've all had enough practice with the shadowclaws and venomfangs, although I now realise that I probably should have spent more time with training for the venomfangs; two of the three cities are under siege by venomfangs; I can't be in both at once. I will be heading to Urgussen, where Spyro is. I want answers from him. I will put Vetar in charge of one of the patrols, and Apata in charge of the other. You can choose where you all go, and I want you to pick fifteen to twenty dragons to go with you." she ordered.
"I'll go to where the venomfangs are; I've had slightly more experience with them having fought them in actual battle." Vetar volunteered.
"Alright, you'll be going to Larentine, and Apata will be going to Kyrondyke. Just be warned, Vetar, that Drachen will be there. Is that alright with you?"
"Yes." Vetar and Apata replied in unison.
"Take who you want, but I'd prefer it if Vetar took some of the dragons who were in the siege who battled the venomfangs, as with me. Blitz fought them, so he can go with you. The other dragons who fought in the siege with Logron, who were they?"
"Marnix, Trevor, Schugarh, Prekia, and Ujuron." a dragon replied. "Ujuron didn't make it."
"Alright. Since there's four, and I need some dragons who know venomfangs, I'll take two and Vetar can take the other two. I'll take Marnix and Prekia; they seem strong and up to the task. We'll have Drachen on our tails, too, so that's another one to look out for, but if I can, I'll take him on. I'll take Tyrax, too; he also knows venomfangs. I also want to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, like he going to Dark Peak and forcing me to use my siren scream on him."
"I'm never going to live those ones down…" Tyrax murmured under his breath. Cynder scoffed.
They spent another five minutes organising attack parties; Cynder's contained eighteen dragons, Vetar's contained seventeen, and Apata's contained twenty. They all turned to leave to their respective destinations, before Cynder turned to the dragons still remaining. "Stay on alert. If any attackers come to Warfang, we need you to be ready." Cynder said, receiving nods and murmurs of acknowledgement.
Then she left with her party.
About forty minutes later, they arrived at Urgussen, the little dragon city of art and beauty, brought to a hideous wreck as rubble and broken, bloodied dragons ran around frantically, trying to protect their friends and family, themselves, or just trying to get out. The sounds of screaming hit her ears, but no sound was more prominent that the hideous, grating sound of children wailing and screaming, a sound she was all too familiar with after Forzen was stolen from her. She couldn't see any corpses scattering the ground yet, to Cynder's relief. But she didn't think it would be that case for much longer.
And the children were the target. What did Spyro even want with them?
They descended and were attacked almost immediately by dozens of venomfangs. There were even a few shadowclaws there, too. Blood was drawn almost immediately, as Cynder tried to defend herself and the dragons with her from the evil dragons. Cynder and Tyrax fought side by side, slashing viciously at the venomfangs that attacked them relentlessly. Two venomfangs leapt at them, and Cynder thrust her head forward, skewering one of the venomfangs on her horns, before she threw her head sideways, slamming the skewered venomfang into the other that had landed on Tyrax, throwing them both to the ground. Dark green blood streamed from the chest of the venomfang she had skewered, but it rose, unfazed by the hideous amount of blood that dripped from its wounds.
Marnix, a burly earth dragon, leapt on top of them and hacked his way into the head of one of the venomfangs, killing it, until the other one clamped its jaws around Marnix's leg, drawing a gushing stream of blood. Marnix kicked out savagely, trying to shake the venomfang off him, but it didn't work. The venomfang pulled Marnix down to the ground as they both wrestled, the venomfang still holding onto Marnix's leg, now mauled and bloody, with all its might as Marnix thrashed about on the floor trying to get the venomfang's jaws off his leg. Cynder lunged at the tangled mess of Marnix and the venomfang, before she plunged her tailblade cleanly into the venomfang's head between its eyes. There was a shattering sound as the light in the dragon's eyes faded, and it lay dead. Marnix pried open the venomfang's maw and wrenched his leg free, groaning as it suddenly began to twitch spasmodically. "The thing's damn fangs were coated with venom! It managed to inject me with a bit of it!" he cried.
Cynder shoved her hind paw into Marnix's ugly wound and called on her poison element to remove it right as a shadowclaw lunged at her. With only her jaws, front claws, and next to no room to manoeuvre, she struggled to fight it. Eventually, she managed to get her jaws around the shadowclaw's neck, before throwing it to the ground. At that moment, the poison ceased to enter her body from Marnix's, and she knew she had gotten it all. She pulled her hind paw free with a spray of blood and leapt on top of the shadowclaw, which was attempting to stand, before she quickly ran her tailblade through its neck, separating its head from its body. Marnix muttered his gratitude before he was downed by a shadowclaw, and he fought fiercely, despite his weak, bloodied leg. "Are you alright, Cynder?" she heard Tyrax ask her.
"I'm fine!" she cried, turning around to look at him, before adding, "Tyrax, behind you!"
Tyrax looked behind him just in time to dodge a set of jaws that were aimed at his throat. The shadowclaw snarled with annoyance as it turned and slashed at Tyrax's left flank, drawing blood. Cynder lunged at it, before she was tackled to the ground by another venomfang, venom spilling down from its jaws. Cynder let out a siren scream, and the venomfang fell down on top of her with a screech. She threw the dragon off her, before bringing her tailblade down on its neck forcefully, slicing off its head, sending dark green blood splattering everywhere.
She turned to Tyrax and the shadowclaw and paused for a moment. Tyrax was on the ground, both forepaws in the air, each paw holding a firm grasp on the shadowclaw's jaws as it tried to bite down around his neck. Tyrax groaned as he tried to throw the shadowclaw off him, but it lashed out with its own claws, slashing them across both his shoulders and leaving an ugly, bloody wound on them. He let go of the shadowclaw as his arms numbed and fell to his side, shouting in pain, and the shadowclaw quickly bit down on Tyrax's neck with a spurt of dark blood. Cynder lunged at them, grabbing the shadowclaw and hauling it off Tyrax. The shadowclaw took a huge chunk of Tyrax's flesh and scales with it, causing a huge amount of blood to squirt from the bite wound and filling her ears with the terrible sound of tearing, ripping flesh. The shadowclaw growled in protest, before Cynder quickly shoved her tailblade into the shadowclaw's chest, shattering the crystal inside it, and it went still, black gore swelling from the wound.
Three venomfangs then lunged at Cynder and Tyrax. Cynder let out a siren scream at one of them, and it staggered backwards, screeching. One of the soldiers Cynder had taken with her named Ibrim, a lean, speedy ice dragon covered in indigo spikes all over his body, crept up behind it, slashing at the back of its neck savagely, green blood spurting everywhere. The venomfang turned around with a roar, before Ibrim cut out both of its eyes with a heavy swing of his claws. He then began hacking his way in between the empty sockets, killing the venomfang as the energy crystal inside its head was clawed apart.
Ibrim called out a warning as a fourth venomfang leapt behind Cynder, and she dodged it. The venomfang that had leapt out at her slammed into the venomfang she was fighting with a loud clunk, and they fell to the ground, groaning and roaring in pain. Cynder quickly cut off the head of one of them. The other venomfang spat venom at Ibrim, who ducked as the glob of poison flew over his head. The venomfang leapt to its paws, but Cynder tackled it to the ground again, closing her jaws around the venomfang's neck. Placing both her forepaws down forcefully on the venomfang's flank, she yanked her head upwards, taking the venomfang's head with her with a massive spurt of gore.
She remembered Spyro had killed her mother the same way. She groaned as she shook her head, shoving the thought away.
Tyrax let out a scream from beside her.
She and Ibrim looked towards Tyrax, who was on the ground again, pinned underneath the venomfang that he had been fighting. Cynder was too slow to react as the venomfang spewed up a large amount of venom, which splattered all over Tyrax's chest, and the terrible sizzling began. She screamed in protest, running to Tyrax's aid, before the venomfang lunged at her, as did a shadowclaw. Scowling, she swung her claws and tailblade about viciously, dealing lots of vicious, savage wounds on the dark dragons she was fighting, but none of the wounds were fatal to the dragons. She'd even split a lung of the shadowclaw in half, black blood streaming from its chest, but it was unfazed. The venomfang lunged at her, jaws open wide, showing off a mouth of dark green flesh, spit and venom, completed with large fangs, some of which had been torn out from the roots with Cynder's relentless attacks. Ibrim leapt at it, pinning it to the ground. It thrashed wildly underneath him, before it shook Ibrim off it. It quickly got to all fours, before lunging at Ibrim in a similar fashion that it had just charged Cynder. Ibrim thrusted his tailblade forward, shoving it into the depths of the venomfang's maw, and it let out a pained gurgle. Ibrim withdrew his weapon, bringing large amounts of saliva and thick green blood with it, and the venomfang squealed in pain before Ibrim cut its head off. The disembodied head flew towards Cynder and the shadowfang she was fighting, and she ducked, letting the venomfang's head soar over her and into the face of the shadowfang. It groaned in confusion, the dark green blood splattering on its face. The dragon looked at the head that landed on the ground in front of its paws, and it let out a blood-curdling yowl of anger, before Cynder cut off its head.
She heard a mix between a gurgle and a scream from beside her, and she remembered Tyrax with a shocked gasp. She ran to his side, but at the state he was in, she knew she was too late. He convulsed wildly, foaming at the mouth, and blood streamed from his rotten chest where the poison had eaten through scale and flesh, already working on his heart. The sound and smell of sizzling flesh was disgusting, and she almost threw up at the smell. The poison had spread throughout his body so much that his left arm was bending out of shape, the joints in the bones cracking as the sinews melted away. "You're going to be fine." Cynder said. "I'm too late, but you're going to be fine. You're going to be safe with the ancestors."
"I know. Thanks for… everything you've… done for me." Tyrax croaked between breaths that he had to fight for, spitting up blood as he spoke. Even on the verge of death, he wore a small smile on his face. "How ironic… that I would die by the very element… you refused to use on me. Now I know… what all your elements are like. It hurts. I'm glad… you didn't use this… on me earlier."
The light faded from his eyes, and Tyrax's head slumped sideways, and he went still. Cynder felt tears prick her eyes. "Damn it, Tyrax! Even in death you try to make some sort of a joke!" she sobbed. "Damn you, you fool!"
Pain suddenly flared through Cynder's right flank as a shadowclaw raked its claws down her side. She let out a deafening scream as she turned to it, attacking it ferociously, sending black blood flying everywhere as she clawed, cut and sliced it relentlessly, and before long, the shadowclaw's entire body was sticky with its own blood. It fought back, letting out howls of determination and of pain. Tears streamed from Cynder's eyes as she flashed her claws across every bit of flesh she could find on the shadowclaw's body. "You leave Tyrax alone!" she wailed, mourning hard for Tyrax.
Finally, she flashed her tailblade across the shadowclaw's neck, cutting its head clean off its neck and showering Cynder in black gore. She stood, glaring daggers at the corpse and breathing heavily through gritted teeth, low, furious growls emanating from her throat. Cynder was aware of Ibrim behind her, but he was smart not to get close to her while he was in her rage. She slowly began to calm down, and that was when Ibrim began to ask if she was alright. She snapped back at him to shut up, before she took a deep breath, recomposed herself, and finally answered the question, her voice still filled with somewhat suppressed fury. "Yeah, I think I'm fine." she mumbled.
"Well, well. What do we have here?"
Cynder recognised that voice. "On second thought, I think I'm not." she spat, turning around to see Spyro stalking up behind Ibrim.
She tried to call out to Ibrim, but Spyro was quicker. He raised his left forepaw and thrust it into the back of Ibrim's skull. The force behind the attack shattered the skull with a snap, followed by a sickening wet squelch as Spyro penetrated Ibrim's brain. Ibrim let out a shrill scream, before it faded and turned into a sickening wheeze. Ibrim finally went silent, and collapsed to the ground dead as Spyro yanked his bloody paw free, sending entrails spilling out of Ibrim's head and onto the ground.
Cynder cursed, lunging at Spyro, who raised his bloody paw and hit her sideways. She landed on the ground with such force that she was winded. She clutched her chest, groaning in pain. She coughed twice, spitting up phlegm the second time, before she stood and lunged at Spyro again. Spyro once more knocked her to the ground effortlessly, grabbing her by the neck in mid-air and throwing her to the ground at his feet.
Before Cynder could stand once more, Spyro began clawing at her. She tried to stand but every time she did so, Spyro would slug her in the face, causing her to fall back to the ground, before he'd continue to claw at her. After a few minutes, she was a bloody mess, her left eyelids swelling up over her eye and her left eyebrow spilling blood all over them, her shoulders streaming so much blood that it spilled out over the entirety of her arms. Blood filled her mouth from a tooth that had been smashed further up her gums, and her flanks were bloody and broken as well. She coughed, spitting up the blood that was in her mouth.
Spyro then leaned over her and grabbed her right wing, digging his claw-tips into the wing membranes, creating large, bloody holes in them, before he yanked the wing forcefully out of position, forcing a yowl from Cynder's throat. Spyro then picked her up by her throat and threw her sideways, causing her to land forcefully on her side, winding her again as more pain spread through her chest, before more pain suddenly flared up in her back leg. Damn it, it was broken; she must have landed on it funny. Spyro walked up towards her, and her heart froze when she realised how much blood was on him. All of her blood made his paws dark red, the thick coat of blood glistening in the sunlight, but there was plenty of extra blood splattered all over him that was not her own. There was a fair bit of it on his chest and shoulders, but most of it covered his lips and muzzle. He parted his red lips in a smile, showing off his teeth, which were also red with blood.
Cynder felt angry at Spyro. More than angry. Furious.
No. More than that. She didn't know what word described more than furious, but that was exactly how she felt. She felt her rage bubbling up inside her with such force that she couldn't contain it, and it burst out of her in a savage roar. "WHY?! WHY HAVE YOU BECOME THIS MONSTER, SPYRO?!" she roared.
"Come on, Cynder? Trying to make me doubt myself? Pitiful." Spyro scoffed.
"I DON'T CARE! TELL ME NOW! WHY DID YOU TURN YOUR BACK ON ME?! WHAT JUSTIFICATION DO YOU HAVE FOR ALL OF THIS?!"
"Are you so blind, Cynder? Have you not noticed it yourself? Our kind is so… self-centred. They think they're so good, so much higher than anyone else, including some of our own. I saw it in Warfang. Dragons treating moles and felines like slaves, and ignoring young orphans and dragons with disorders as if they belonged in the dirt. Treating the dragoness I loved… like a cancer that us as dragonkind needs to be rid of immediately to save us from dying! Treating me like I was a fake, and that I didn't truly save the world, because how can a fifteen-year-old save the world but they can't write their own name?! What type of saviour of the world needs to be taught how to read and write when it should have been taught at the age of five?! They ridiculed me, and called me a fraud! Nobody believed me, and all thought that Ignitus killed Malefor and saved the world, and that I stole his glory, calling me insensitive because Ignitus didn't come back with us!
"The dragon race needs some serious fixing, and the only way to do that is to start killing it off! I need to eradicate everyone who ever thought themselves better than anybody else, and maybe fear and throwing them into slave work is the way to do it! So they know what it feels like to be low and thought nothing of! And the dragon race must be kept in line as well, or otherwise it'll happen again! No one else has tried to step up to the role of fixing this problem, so I should be the ancestor-damned first! Giving into my dark side was just something that was inevitable for me to get to this point! Something that I had to do!
"And now I'm helping the dragon race become equal once more. It's just a shame that you've gone among the dragons who think high of themselves. You think yourself higher than me. We vowed, during our soulmate ceremony, that in our state of mateship, we would be equals. You broke that vow!"
"You dare to speak of vows, Spyro?!" Cynder scowled. "You broke that vow first by thinking you could become a god, to control the dragon race!"
"I don't want to become a god! All I want is equality, and I have to do this to bring it upon the dragon race! This has gone on for too long and nothing has been done about it! It's so bad that drastic measures have to be taken!"
"You could have at least talked to me about it, Spyro! We could have done this together, without having to go down the dark path! You just up and left me, and broke another vow we made, that we would never forsake each other!"
"I didn't forsake you. I tried to get you to come with me!"
"I can't follow you down that path! You know that! The biggest vow I ever made was the night you saved me, back when we were twelve, that I would never return to the darkness. Ever. If I was given the freedom to break all my vows, that would be the one that I would never break. The darkness sickens me, and I never want to return!"
"What a pity. It actually feels good."
"SHUT UP!" Cynder screamed, not wanting to hear Spyro talk about darkness and evil in such a positive way. "IF YOU WANTED EQUALITY, WE COULD HAVE TALKED TO THE GUARDIANS ABOUT IT, AND DONE IT TOGETHER, BRINGING PEACE TO THE REALM INSTEAD OF WAR!"
"I AM BRINGING PEACE!" Spyro roared.
"YOU CALL THIS PEACE?!" Cynder exclaimed, motioning with her head to the corpses of Tyrax and Ibrim. "THIS IS WAR! MURDER!"
"TO GET PEACE, THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH! IT WAS INEVITABLE, AND IT WILL CONTINUE UNTIL WE GET PEACE! SHOULD THE PEACE BE BROKEN, I WILL PERSONALLY KILL WHOEVER BREAKS IT!"
"Then kill yourself." Cynder growled, her throat tired from screaming. "Your violent acts were what caused the peace to be broken."
"It's a matter of perspective." Spyro replied darkly. "You won't believe how many children I've saved from abusive parents. You can't count how many dragonesses I've saved from being molested."
"And how did you save them? By killing the ones hurting them? Spyro, you've scarred them!"
"Must everything be about killing? I know what was in the letter that was sent to you. You know we're after the children here. We're taking them to Dark Peak to nurse them, so they don't have to deal with abuse and bullying."
"Nurse them? Nurse them in your ways, you mean! Nurse them in the ways of blood and violence and murder, just like I was nursed! You'll get them to do all the killing for you! You're no better than Malefor!"
"I won't nurse them like that. I will treat them well, but at the same time, they will also be aiding me. We will rise in a revolution to save the world, where all the oppressed children will come to help free the world of its oppression and inequality!"
"You're using children in your sick little game. You are just like Malefor." Cynder said in a small voice as her worst fears came true. She had hoped Spyro wouldn't ever go as far as to use children in this sick game of murder he'd begun. And it wasn't just one, like her. It was hundreds, possibly thousands. A thought entered her head that then made her sick. "What about Forzen? He's not involved in this too, is he?"
Spyro's eyes widened and he seemed to flinch at the mention of Forzen potentially being involved in this process too. He stammered, before swallowing and looking away from Cynder. Cynder swore she saw a lone tear build in his left eye, but he blinked quickly and looked back at Cynder with a low snarl. Forzen was obviously still a sensitive topic to him, but she wondered why. Was… Was Forzen his weak spot?
"He's perfectly fine. I'm taking good care of him." Spyro scoffed quickly, seemingly trying to avoid the topic as he then continued on a completely different train of thought. "You're lucky I haven't lost my hope in the dragon race completely, or otherwise everyone will be treated a lot worse, and I would've eradicated the whole dragon race. I've already lost all my hope in you, however, you sorry excuse for a dragon. It's time I end this!"
With that, Spyro grabbed Cynder and took off into the skies. She cried out, thrashing about and clawing at Spyro, but he held on firm as he ascended high into the sky. She felt the wind pelting against her body, which stung profusely as the cold wind slammed down on her open and bloody wounds, even hitting her broken wing with so much force that it bent downwards, causing her to cry out in pain. Soon, Urgussen was nothing but a few small miniscule buildings, and the trees in the forests surrounding it small green dots. Black dots representing venomfangs started to swarm out of Urgussen towards the direction of Dark Peak, and she could faintly hear the sound of young, youthful wailing as children were carried away.
Suddenly, she began to feel weak and dizzy, and had the urge to vomit. She retched, and swallowed what she had almost brought up, and she tried to let out a plea for Spyro to stop, but she was too weak to do even that. Suddenly, she realised what Spyro was doing. He was sucking out all of her energy from her elemental spark, which numbed her mind and made her woozy. Her vision went blurry, all the colours mixing together into one hazy mess. Her brain ceased to register the pain that overcame her body, and it eventually got to the point where she couldn't even feel the blood spilling down her body to know how bad the wounds were.
Then, Spyro let go of her – no, threw her – and she fell down. Down, down, down she went, plummeting to her death. She was too weak to try and fight it, to get back in the air again. Then she realised what his plan was as she realised she couldn't get back in the air. Her wing was broken and bloodied, rendering it useless, and she was out of mana, so she couldn't use her wind element to help her fly.
Spyro really wanted her dead. Her 'three chances' to join him had been used up, and she was nothing to Spyro. Just as Spyro was nothing to her. She was intent on his death, to resume the peace that she had fought so hard to achieve; the peace that Spyro had turned his back on. The peace they had that Spyro didn't believe in, before he went to start a war to achieve his own definition of peace.
But she would never be able to enact her revenge on Spyro, feeling her plummet get faster and faster.
Her vision went black.
Okay, big RIP… things are taking ages to work through, but this chapter's been ready for a while. I wanted to post this once the next few chapters were essentially ready but because it's been another two months I don't want to leave you guys hanging for too long so here's Chapter 27. Hope you all liked it!
Hopefully the next chapter doesn't take as long, but knowing my luck, it probably will. Also I finally posted a new chapter of Bitten (after five months oof) a few days ago, so I'm really happy about that.
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Derick Lindsey: Yeah, thanks for your ongoing support and reviews, it really does mean a lot, especially when I don't get to update this story as much as I really want to. I'm hoping the next chapter doesn't take too long, so sorry for the wait.
As for the Legend of Korra thing, I've never seen it, so no, Spyro's lava element is not inspired by it at all. It's basically just a mutation of the fire element as Freeze said in the last chapter, like most of the sinister elements are mutations of others. Also, the sinister dragons didn't actually cause any of this darkness/sadism in Spyro. The sinister dragons just so happened to be a sadistic species, but they did have the ability to turn their back on sadism and actually care about other dragons. There is something at play though in Spyro's darkness and sadism; not going to say what it is yet.
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Thank you all for your support, especially the new reviewers who have just started reading the story (Wiener Blut, even though I can't read German lol, and AquillaPrime). All the reviews have been really helpful and really special, and I do enjoy reading your thoughts on the story. Please leave a review on this chapter if you haven't already, because it really does help. I hope this chapter was good enough for you, and I guess I'll see you in the next chapter.