"Wake up, Cynder."
She opened her eyes slowly, groaning groggily. Muras stood next to her, shaking her awake. "What? What time is it?" she asked. She felt she had been asleep for ages.
"Just after midday." Muras replied.
"What? I've never slept in for that long before!" Cynder exclaimed groggily, trying to put her head around the fact that she was sleeping for longer than she normally would.
"Your core is still healing, so I'm not surprised you were asleep for a very long time. I gave it another dose of spirit gem energy this morning; it sucked another gem clean of its energy, and took about half of another one, so it's made a miraculous recovery over the past night. But your body needs rest for your core to heal. I'm guessing that's why you slept for so long. You were that in need of rest that you actually slept through me poking another hole in your flank to help with the spirit gem stuff."
Cynder was confused at how her body was reacting to everything, but nodded nonetheless, hiding her confusion. "So how is my core? Will I be able to return to Warfang today?"
"Unfortunately, no. Remember I said last night it'd take about three days to recover fully? But the good news is that you're probably strong enough to stand and walk, and it'd probably do you good to do a bit of exercise after lying about for about nine days. I need to grab a few more herochis flowers, so maybe you could come with me. They're pretty good for aiding healing wounds, due to the healing properties of their sap, and I'm running low on them. I used a fair few on you instead of red gems and that worked somewhat because of the more natural healing they provided when crushed into a paste, and I need some more before I run out, because you never know what might happen." Muras invited.
"Sure, why not? I've been wanting to get out of this place for a while now." Cynder groaned, standing up to her paws and stretching.
Muras chuckled, mumbling under his breath, but Cynder didn't catch what he said. She then realised she had insulted his home again, although not as directly as last night; he was probably muttering about that. She was too lazy to apologise anyway, so she didn't, but Muras didn't seem to care about the fact that she didn't apologise.
He turned and walked off, and Cynder followed. As they walked out of the cave and into the dense rainforest, she took in a deep breath and sighed as the smells of the rainforest reached her nose. Water dripped from the foliage, and every leaf and blade of grass was a dark, saturated green. Bright coloured plants and flowers scattered the rainforest, and the rainforest ambience was filled with the chittering of bugs and small creatures that inhabited the forest. The sun filtered down through the heavy foliage above their heads in thin, beautiful rays that lit up the forest floor in small spotlights. Cynder smiled. She hadn't seen a place of this beauty since…
She blinked, not wanting to remember the moment. She was with him then. He had taken her out to spend the night out in the woods a few kilometres away from Warfang, in a place he had come across a few months earlier when he was doing some fun exploring with Pyron, which was a place that literally defined beauty. That was when they'd… when they'd shared their first kiss at the age of eighteen. It had actually been her eighteenth hatch-day, and while he had also given her a pretty opal necklace (she'd thrown it away after Spyro's betrayal), he had been the one to initiate their first kiss, which she (as much as she hated to admit it now) had gladly returned at the time. It hurt that she remembered vividly the feel of his soft, luscious lips on hers and the irresistible taste of his breath. How she wanted to tear his lips apart now, after all the things he'd said to her and about her.
Cynder groaned, shaking her head and forcing her mind out of the painful thoughts of the past. The dragon she loved was gone, and her love gone with it, lost to the deepest, darkest depths of abhorrence.
They walked around in the rainforest for a few moments until Muras let out a cry, pointing towards a bright yellow flower, petals bursting around the top of the stem in a sphere. The stem was green but decorated with thin yellow stripes matching the colour of the petals. Muras smiled as he bent down and slowly picked the flower out of the ground. He put it in a satchel that he was carrying around his shoulder and turned to Cynder. "That was herochis." he said with a smile. "I'm surprised we found one that quickly; they're quite rare."
"Just our lucky day, I guess." Cynder said, shrugging.
They walked about for about half an hour longer, and they found about five more herochis flowers. "I think six is enough for now; they last for a while. We've been out for long enough as well. I don't like to be out for any longer than about forty minutes. This rainforest can be dangerous."
As if on cue, a snarl echoed up from around them, and Cynder froze. "Great, I just had to open my damn mouth. Look, we need to be careful. The creatures that live in this rainforest are smart and tricky. I've escaped them with many a wound before, and I'd say I'm pretty good with my self-defence." Muras said with a groan.
"Creatures? What type of creatures?"
"Wolves. Big wolves, with lots of brains, and a lot more teeth than the wolves we're used to. Big snouts, long claws and fangs, and a lot of strength. They're also feral, which means they're dangerous. Very dangerous. They may be small, compared to us at least, but they could do a great deal of damage to us. They're big for a wolf."
"How big are we talking? Like… height-wise?"
"On all fours, about two and a half metres tall, sometimes three."
"That's bigger than a sentient cheetah, nearing two!" Cynder exclaimed. "That's pretty big for a wolf! They'd be about half-way up to our shoulders, with dragons being about seven metres tall!"
"Yeah, the damn canines are big. They're called titan wolves, named for their massive size; they're almost our height when standing on their hind legs. They've adapted to this environment; the thick foliage covers them well so they can hide and they can manoeuvre quite easily, despite their size. Alright, enough talking. We need to go. Now."
And with that Muras turned and walked off the way they came, Cynder following with a nervous glance behind her. It wasn't long before more snarls sounded around them. Cynder whirled around, trying to sense where they were. Muras spoke quietly to her. "Ignore them. They sense fear." he murmured emotionlessly. "And you'll never see them until it's too late. Their coats are dark, almost black, and blend in well with the foliage and the light levels here."
Cynder murmured in acknowledgement, and tried to ignore the snarls that slowly became more and more frequent as they walked. Was it a large pack, or was it just a small group following them? Or were they walking around in circles? Surely not. Muras had lived here for many, many years. He'd know the rainforest like the back of his paw, surely.
A long howl from the canines stalking them cut through the air, and Cynder jumped at the sound. Would they attack? She prepared herself in case a titan wolf leapt at her. But she kept her gaze on Muras, to make sure she didn't get lost, and to distract herself from the titan wolves. The howling began to rise from more throats, as if they were communicating. Or trying to distract them. Confuse them. Scare them.
Then the howling went silent. The snarls and growls, too. There was no sound except the pawsteps of the two dragons. It was honestly very disconcerting. Cynder's ears hurt from the silence, and her heart was racing, expecting something to leap out at her. They walked for a little longer, and Cynder began to let her guard down. She opened her mouth to ask Muras if they were gone, until massive wolves suddenly leapt at them from all directions with loud, threatening snarls. Cynder fell to the ground as the force from five speedy canines shocked her, but Muras braced himself, leaping backwards and swiping at two of the canines, sending them flying sideways. One of them was hit by the palm of Muras' paw, and it was unharmed, but the other was hit by Muras' claws, leaving behind three vicious claw marks across its face, bleeding profusely. The wolves snarled and leapt at Muras again. He released three fireballs, one at each of the two wolves, and the third at another wolf that had leapt out from behind him.
Muras ran to Cynder, letting out a savage roar, turning the wolves' attention on him, as they climbed off Cynder and leapt at Muras. With the weight off her, Cynder slowly stood, before spitting poison at two titan wolves that now leapt at her. They fell to the ground, convulsing vigorously as froth began to form around their lips. She then felt searing pain in her hind left leg as two more wolves bit down around it, and she shouted with pain. Their fangs were long and incredibly sharp; Muras wasn't kidding. Cynder flailed her leg about, but the wolves held on, prepared for the movement, digging their claws into her leg to increase the strength of their hold, as well as the severity of the pain in her leg as blood streamed from it.
She turned and spat large globs poison at them, and they let go of her leg, convulsing and clawing at their faces, before her chest suddenly flared with unbearable pain. She fell to the ground, shouting in agony. She looked down. There was no blood on her chest, and no wolf attached to her. Just pain. It spread out through her body, and her stomach heaved as it throbbed painfully. She cried out to Muras, before she retched. "Don't use your elements!" Muras instructed, pausing to breathe a small fireball at a wolf's chest; he didn't want to set the forest on fire, only get rid of the wolves that clawed him and bit him. "Your core isn't strong enough to handle strong bursts of elemental usage in a battle yet! You're going to have to fight physically for this one!"
Cynder groaned. Was Muras actually serious? She was going to have to fight without her elements, like a null. Sure, shadowclaws were immune to all the dark elements, but she still had wind, and her shadow element did help her to dodge attackers. But now she couldn't use either of them. Wind was a pretty stressful element, and to shadow dash meant having to encase her body into her shadow, which would cause even more stress upon her core than she wanted.
A wolf lunged at her, jaws wide open and claws outstretched. She let out a growl and caught the massive creature in her own jaws, feeling its blood spill down her mouth and into her throat, and she almost gagged at the putrid taste of the wolf's life force. She bit down harder, nonetheless, causing a loud crack to come from the body and more blood to squirt out of it, before she threw her head sideways, opening her jaws and sending the wolf flying into a large tree. It landed on the ground with a loud thump, before it lay still, its body covered in sticky red blood and head twisted at an awkward angle, a sickening kink in the wolf's bloody neck.
Three more wolves leapt at her, from the direction of Muras, who had been downed by about five or six wolves, but he still fought strongly. The satchel around his shoulder was crushed between Muras' bulk and the ground, crushing the herochis flowers they had just collected, rendering this outing completely useless. Cynder swung her tail around in an arc, slapping one of the wolves with the thick scales of her tail, sending it slamming into the ground, and another one was cut clean in half by her tailblade as it swung around, blood spraying everywhere as the two halves of the massive wolf landed on the ground with a thud. The third wolf was untouched by her, and it latched onto her face, clawing at her snout. She closed her eyes and let out a loud roar, shaking her head about savagely to try and throw off the wolf, but it held on tightly with its strong, sharp claws.
Pain flared through her right forepaw as the wolf she had hit with her tail recovered and slashed it with its sharp claws, snarling and growling viciously as it took heaps of flesh off her paw. She lashed out with her remaining forepaw, raking her claws down the three-metre-tall wolf's flank, and it let go of her with a howl. Cynder thrashed her head about much more violently, as the wolf on her face finally lost its grip and flew into the air, before landing on all fours next to the wolf that had attacked her paw, as well as yet another titan wolf that had stepped up, growling and ready to leap at her. "They don't stop coming!" Cynder cried.
"Follow me!" Muras shouted, standing up. With one quick swipe, he batted four of the wolves attacking him to the side as they let out small yelps. "We're bigger and faster than them! We can outrun them!"
Cynder nodded, and Muras turned to run off, with Cynder on his tail. They barely made it a hundred metres before about ten wolves leapt out at them from the bushes. They had obviously been waiting there for them. Another five wolves jumped out of the bushes beside them, and another three behind them. The other seven wolves they had been fighting howled and barked angrily at them, and the dragons screeched to a halt. "I knew they were clever and smart, but I've never seen this many of them before! This is probably the whole damn pack, if not, ninety percent of it!" Muras exclaimed, stepping backwards only to be bitten in the hind right leg by a wolf, before he shook his hind paw savagely, throwing the wolf off him.
"There's almost thirty of them in the pack!" Cynder shouted back.
"Yeah, and we've only killed about six or seven of them!" Muras replied, before breathing three quick fireballs at the ten wolves in front of them, and they scattered. Well, eight of them did. One of them was badly wounded, its leg fried and unusable, and the other lay dead, its chest a smouldering mess of smoke, burned fur, peeled flesh, and lots of blood.
Cynder roared as she turned and swung her gleaming tailblade in a long, sweeping circle around her, cutting off the heads of about three wolves, and cut out the heart of another as it leapt up into the air towards her, raising its chest into the range of her tailblade. The other wolves ducked or leapt out of the way, and let out a few yelps as blood showered on them.
The wolves snarled and ran towards Cynder in a sprint, before half of them split off towards Muras. Her gaze turned to the wolves that ran towards Muras, and she shouted a warning to him, distracting her from the wolves in front of her. She was tackled to the ground by four of the massive three-metre-tall beasts, and she groaned with pain. These things really were smart, weren't they? Cynder was surprised at how easily they were able to distract her.
With a groan, she threw the wolves into the air, as they landed a few metres away from her. She attempted to stand, before a wolf latched onto her chest, biting hard and dangling in the air, suspended by its jaws as it clung to the scales and flesh. Cynder let out a shout as pain seared through her chest again and she fell to the ground, blood streaming down the wound and splattering onto the green grass below her, as well as squirting all over the wolf's face.
Muras ran towards her before he swung his tailblade down, severing the massive wolf's head from its body, and its jaws opened slightly, letting go of her chest. Once again, she tried to stand, but the four wolves she had thrown off her leapt at her, latching onto all four of her legs with their long jaws and sharp claws, and she lost all feeling in them as she fell to the ground again, crying out with pain. Immense amounts of blood streamed down all four of her legs, and the wolves' muzzles and claws were stained red with her blood, and all her legs seemed to have gone completely red with blood. The amount of blood that streamed from them was shocking; the wolves must have punctured quite a few major arteries.
Cynder could only watch as Muras fought off the wolves; she was useless now. Muras slaughtered the four wolves on her legs, and they all let her go as they fell to the ground with dying yowls and whimpers, blood spilling from the fatal wounds on their bodies that Muras dealt to them. Muras clawed viciously at the wolves, killing another two or three of them.
A loud bark alerted Cynder as she looked in front of her, seeing a wolf closing in on her menacingly, saliva dribbling down its jaws. She let out a cry of help to Muras, and suddenly, with a loud resounding crack, the wolf fell to the ground, dead, its chest skewered on an earth missile.
An earth missile?!
Cynder stared at the impaled wolf with shock. A long, bloodied earth missile was embedded into its chest. Its heart had been destroyed, and blood flooded from its broken heart, spilling on the ground rapidly in front of Cynder's face. The question that resounded in Cynder's head was where the earth missile could have come from. She couldn't use earth, and Muras was a fire dragon. Her original thought was that since he was a mage, he could have replicated the use of the element. But last night, Muras himself had said that physical elements couldn't be replicated at all by mages. And he explicitly used earth as an example.
Cynder turned to look at Muras with confusion, which suddenly turned into shock as another earth missile flew into the chest of a wolf attacking him. The earth missile came from Muras' own maw. Now Cynder was growing suspicious of him. What was the so called 'fire' dragon hiding?
Muras let out a loud roar, and spread out his wings threateningly, saliva dripping from his jaws. It was a terrifying sight, and it seemed to Cynder that the wolves decided that it was not worth wasting more precious pack members on this vicious dragon. Over half their pack was dead already, and they didn't want to risk losing any more of their fellow packmates, so they turned and ran, barking and howling as they sprinted through the bushes, and they were gone.
Muras turned and rushed to Cynder's aid, but she flinched and slapped him in the face with an open wing when he was in slapping range. Muras staggered backwards and stared at Cynder in shock. "What was that for, Cynder?!" Muras exclaimed, rubbing his stinging cheek.
"What the hell was that?!" Cynder screamed.
"What the hell was what?" Muras asked angrily, believing that he had been slapped for no reason.
"There is an earth missile in the chest of that wolf in front of me." Cynder growled, and Muras' face immediately fell. "And I saw you release another earth missile at one of the wolves attacking you. That wolf has an earth missile in its chest, too. An earth missile! You're a fire drake. You shouldn't be able to shoot earth missiles!"
"I… I'm a mage. I can replicate elements. I replicated phantasm."
"Enough of your crap, Muras! You yourself said last night that mages were unable to replicate physical elements; always have, always will! And I quote you, 'Physical elements like fire and earth.' Earth! You said it yourself! And here you are, a fire dragon mage, using a physical element like earth!"
"Alright, look. I'm going to come clean with you, Cynder." Muras murmured, his voice filled with remorse. "I… I… I can shape-shift. Another… element… that I can replicate. Truly replicate. My real element isn't fire. I'm… I'm an earth dragon. I-I-I didn't mean to use my earth element, I swear. It just… slipped out. It was a complete accident, I swear."
To prove his point, he closed his eyes and, slowly, scale by scale by scale, his bright red scales went dark green. "I've always wanted to be a fire dragon, though. My parents wanted a fire dragon, always have. I-I-I was their only child. They loved me, being an earth dragon, but I… well, I wanted to make it up to them. So I learned to shape-shift by reading and studying, as Father didn't know how to. I spent so long learning. And eventually, I became a fire dragon in appearance, in hope to please my parents. But by that time, Father was already dead, and Mother didn't care about me at all, too overwhelmed by her grief, before she died the next day."
"Lies!" Cynder scowled, and Muras flinched, his face falling even furhter. "Last night, you breathed fire to keep the campfire going when it began to dwindle! Hell, you were bloody breathing fire in the fight with those titan wolves just now! 'Physical elements like fire and earth, for example, cannot be replicated.' You're a hypocrite, Muras! Remove the façade!"
Muras lowered his head in shame, letting out a sob as tears began to fall from his eyes. "No, don't cry on me, you wimp! Scaredy-ape!" Cynder growled savagely. "Get a hold of yourself and remove the ancestor-damned façade!"
"Can I ask you not to freak out?" he asked, his voice small and pitiful.
"I'm not promising you anything."
Muras sighed and opened his wet violet eyes. Slowly, ominously, his now green scales began to change colour. But the colour that they were changing into struck unadulterated fear into Cynder's heart.
Purple. Rich, royal purple that rivalled Spyro's once bright scales.
Then, Muras was completely purple, and all the pieces came together. She suddenly realised how familiar his facial structure was, and especially the three crown-like horns on his head. She knew why he recognised him, where she got this sense of familiarity from. She knew who this dragon was now, and rage bubbled up with in her, and she let out a savage scream. "MALEFOR?! YOU DECEITFUL, MURDERING, SCHEMING LIZARD!" she howled.
The purple dragon let out a scream as Cynder let out three strong siren screams at him, narrowly dodging each one. "Listen! Listen to me please, Cynder!" he pleaded.
Cynder ignored his words and struggled to her paws, howling bloody murder and violent curses, before falling back to the ground again, her bloody legs too weak to hold her weight. She let out two thick globs of poison. The purple dragon dodged them both, causing Cynder to growl in frustration and fury.
Cynder inhaled to scream at him again, but her eyes rolled back in her head as her essence core screamed for mercy, and she landed on the ground, unconscious, left to the purple dragon's will.
Hey guys, again I'm very sorry for the slow updates but here's another chapter that was beta-read six months ago. I've made an update on my profile about it, but long story short, haven't heard anything from my beta-reader for four months and I kinda need to take the reigns up myself again if I want to keep posting this story. Still searching for a beta-reader so if you're up-to-date with the story, have beta-reading experience and are interested, please send me a PM. I've realised I do need a beta-reader, but so far it hasn't been working out recently, which is very unfortunate to hear, but I really hope my beta's doing well.
[EDIT] Literally 20 minutes after posting this chapter I got a PM from my beta-reader lol. Not sure what the schedule for beta-reading will be like for him but hopefully it should be good now. Still interested in a second beta as a just in case.
Also once more I've been making changes to the future of the story to make it flow nicer and Book 2's looking pretty good at the moment. Still got some things to work on with Demonised first, but hopefully it should be finished by 2021 (just because next year seems like a stretch for me). I wanted to get it finished this year but unfortunately it didn't happen, so 2021's my goal. We're halfway through the story so hopefully I can get the chapters out nicely.
...
Derick Lindsey: Yes, Electrika was listed because throughout the entire time Cynder had known Electrika, she had thought she was her friend and didn't suspect anything else, so back then, when she started getting other friends, Electrika was still her friend, even if Cynder wasn't Electrika's friend. Even after the whole ordeal of the friendship being forced and fake, Electrika had tried to make up for it in the end, as did Cynder, but Electrika ended up killing herself before the proper friendship could even begin being developed.
lord typhlosion: Well, if this chapter is anything to go by, Muras is not have any relations to Ripto haha. But incorporating Classic Spyro elements into Purple Legacy hasn't really been an idea I have thought of before. Kinda had a few thoughts and ideas here and there regarding Classic Spyro elements in future books in the series, but not too much thought has been put into it yet. I might have to do that if it fits the overall story.
Atlas FF: Thanks for the words man! Really glad to hear you enjoyed it! Honestly didn't think you were gonna like it and I have no clue why I thought that but anyway, it's good to hear. And with the slow pacing at the start etc., blame 2017 me for that lol. I've come a long way in two years, but even still I'm learning new things with writing all the time and still trying to improve.
AquillaPrime: Glad you like the idea of the essence core. It was fun to come up with; took a bit of thought but it was fun nonetheless. Hope you liked this chapter!
...
Anyway, don't know when I'll get around to posting the next chapter, but oh well. Also keep watch for a new standalone Spyro fanfiction coming from me too. I came up with another idea recently and I had to get it down, then got straight into planning. More info about it on my profile if you're interested.