Spyro: A.C.I.D Reign
Chapter 8: The Transfiguration of Aqua Monkey
Inspired by Eternal Silence's "Angel Wings" and "The Last Vampire: 4"
Puri © Purp1e Dragon or herself.
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Finally after three weeks, Spyro and his friends made it out of the Forest Subliminal. It was an interesting experience for Spyro: sleeping under the stars and the strange unrecognizable Philamonian constellations, being perused by walking blue clawed walking fire hydrants, slaying slugs the size of the Chrysler Building and encountering the different odd residents that made up the strange realm of Philamon. Spyro was surprised; they didn't encounter as many dangers as Bea said that they would have had. He was quite shocked at her answer from this also.
"Guess the spirits must be quiet these days," she told him. Spyro didn't understand what she meant.
Finally one night, when the purple sky was studded with gleaming stars, the they made it to the fortress-like structure Bea had pointed out. It was quite large and appeared to be made out of mud brick, and had intricate patterns and ancient spells laid upon it long ago. A large rotting wooden door that was the only barrier between the fortress and the rest of the world.
"That's it," Bea proclaimed.
"Don't they close up the fortress at night, though?" Mica asked.
"You'll see," Bea said with an air of mystery about her words.
Bea walked up to the rotting fortress door. Looking over her shoulder to make sure nobody was watching, she whispered something to herself. Her friends looked onward as they marveled at what she was doing. Bea hadn't had to enter this fortress since her brother's trial……
The door opened with a loud creak. Bea smiled slightly, pleased at her efforts. Slowly, she shuffled into the doorway, a chilling, silencing air filled the air around them. Quietly ushering the others in, she recited the same words she said previously, only backwards. The door silently closed.
"That's creepy," Melvin whispered. "So anyways, don't people live here?"
Bea replied, "Only a few Cherubs who still insist that they are the ultimate species live here. My brother was one of them…" her voice trailed off.
At once they got a good look around the place. It looked like a sort of village and looked a lot bigger than it did from the outside. Spyro had no idea that behind this fortress' walls were elegant buildings carved out of white marble, streets paved with platinum, and a peaceful fountain of a Cherub reaching toward the sky, the quiet gurgling of the fountain breaking the silence of the night. Aqua Monkey sighed. He remember the exact where Bea's brother was executed, and they have to go through it in order to get the transmogrifier. The last of the Cherubs who thought that they were superior beings to the rest of the Philamonians were asleep in their beds, unaware of what was going on outside.
"Hurry up, now," Aqua Monkey whispered.
With heavy steps, he led the way. Aqua Monkey knew how Bea could hardly take walking through the very halls her brother spent her last hours in; he could tell that she was ready to break down any second. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes were misty and she didn't walk with the normal spring in her step as she always did. They all wondered if she was emotionally okay. Even if Bea was the most sane of the Aqua Armada, Bea kept a lot of secrets behind her normally cheery attitude.
They tiptoed down the creepy halls of the fortress. Eerie portraits whose eyes seemed to shift as they walked along decked the maroon painted walls. Dark creatures seemed to lurk in every forbidding corner. Melvin bit his lip out of apprehension and a drop of red blood shone on his lips and dripped on the marble floor. Shadows played across their faces and azure moonlight poured in through the open windows. Spyro was bathed in the neon blue glow, making his normal scales turn purple. His claws clacked on the stones inlaid with Cherubic magic and secret spells.
"Where exactly are we going?" He asked.
Aqua Monkey replied, "Just a little bit farther."
The hallway came to an abrupt halt. All of a sudden, just like that, it ended. There was just a bare wall with maroon and black wallpaper in a pattern of lace. Melvin put a paw up to the wall and loudly proclaimed, "It stopped, man."
Aqua Monkey, annoyed by Melvin's stupidity, laid one of his large hands with long fingers on the wall. The wall seemed to dissolve away before them. They slowly stepped over the now black and scorched liquefied wall.
"How did you do that?" Mica asked.
"Lucky guess," Aqua Monkey shrugged his shoulders and gingerly walked through the wreckage. The others followed.
They ended up in a dark room. An eerie glow from an unknown source seemed to hover in the air and illuminate the darkness. The room looked like a sort of library; except the shelves weren't lined with books, they were filed with jars of different sizes and shapes. That was where the glow came from.
"What is this place?" Melvin asked nobody in particular. Nobody answered his question anyway; the mysterious air about the room perplexed them. He walked up to one of the jars and picked it up. It looked like an ordinary jar, except instead it appeared to be carved out of a single diamond. A rainbow of colors swirled around in the center of the jar like a multihued hurricane, and turned black as a star night when Melvin touched it. Two pinpricks of red fire appeared in the center of the black center.
Bea's beady black eyes almost popped out of her head when she saw Melvin with the jar. She ran (if you can say that a Cherub can run with such short legs) quickly over to him and snatched the jar out of his hands and with great reverence delicately placed it back on the shelf.
"What's the deal?" Melvin asked.
Bea breathed slowly and silently. "Those jars are sacred. They contain the souls of all the evil Cherubs since the beginning of time. If one of there jars is broken, all of Philamon would be shrouded in the dark spirit of that specific Cherub. Havoc would be spread throughout the entire realm." The small pink Cherub had a bleak look on her face.
"That's what you meant about 'The spirits are quiet tonight'," Spyro said
"Bea…" Aqua Monkey's voice trailed off for a second. "Is your brother in here?"
Bea shot a small look of despair toward her friends and beckoned with her claw-like fingers. They followed her down a row of shelves until she made an abrupt halt and stared at one of the jars. It was labeled in the language of Cherubs, which Bea understood. She closed her eyes and seemed to hold back some great emotion as she thought about her brother's soul, trapped forever in that jar before her. It was a swirl of black and white, the colors of Beakiss. In her mind, she could almost reach out and touch all of the childhood memories they shared together. She almost could hear his chilling voice beckon to her, but it might've been one of the illusions of the night…
Bea swallowed back her tears and the lump in her throat. "Enough of that, c'mon." she said as she blinked back huge, pearly Cherub tears.
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After that little episode, they left. Aqua Monkey found out how to get out of the Jar Room the exact way that they came, he laid a hand on the wall opposite to where they entered and it melted away. Bea didn't understand how he was able to do that, when only angelic creatures could. Aqua Monkey couldn't explain it; when Spyro asked him about it, he said he didn't want to talk about it.
Silently they tiptoed through the corridors. There were numerous doors behind which the transmogrifier. Spyro wanted to explore them all, but they didn't have time. Dawn was approaching fast and soon the Chreubs of the fortress would awaken soon and they needed a transmogrifier. So they hurried along toward the end of the vast, airy halls until they came to another large mahogany door, one that was carved intricately with an ancient Cherubic battle scene which depicted a rather large Cherub fighting a humanoid creature with many different types of wings: fairy wings, feathery angel wings, bat wings, rainbow parrot-like wings and many other different types. Spyro stared in awe at it.
"Earth Angels," Aqua Monkey stated plainly. "One of the species that the Cherubs have killed off because of their 'superiority to them'. he had a tone of apprehension to his voice.
"Well, don't just stand there," Mica broke the silence. "Open it, already."
Sweating, Spyro reached out an unsteady claw to the diamond-encrusted doorknob and turned it. It abruptly swung open with a loud creak. Aqua Monkey ushered the group in and looking out the door to make sure nobody was watching. Something in the darkness stirred. He closed it with a heavy sigh and wandering eyes.
It was dark in the Transmogrifier Room. The entire room had a sort of air about it; it made you want to be completely silent because of all the magic present there. They were expecting a sort of science lab similar to the Professor's lab, but instead, it was a place where great magic took place. This was truly the oldest section of the fortress; the yellowing mud-brick walls around them were crumbling and there were dirt floors. There were several tables against them, holding magic relics of great power: diamond-like crystals set into clay tablets that had long lost languages inscribed on them, great orbs of glass with swirls of rainbow colors in the very center, two skulls that no one could identify had candles that burned out purple flames were placed upon their bleached white heads. There were several other objects that Spyro couldn't recognize. But at the very center of the room, was a large, gold, octagonal pedestal with writing inscribed on its sides. A single beam of green light shone upon a glass container which held a ray gun like object -the transmogrifier.
"I SEE IT, I SEE IT, GUYS!!" Melvin screamed aloud. Mica clamped a large hand over the anxious mouse's mouth.
"Holy crap, Mel. Do you just want to get us all killed?" Mica hissed.
"It would make Phaydees's job a lot easier," Aqua Monkey added.
"Whose side are you on, anyways?" Sparx replied loudly with an enraged buzz.
Bea rolled her eyes and whispered to Spyro, "Reach out and get it. This is what we came for! Go and get it, Spyro!" she pushed him with her twig-like clawed hands.
Spyro inched toward the monument. Slowly and carefully, he reached out a claw to lift up the glass and retrieve his prize. Suddenly, a jolt of electricity surged through his entire body. Every scale was on fire. He reared back, and fell to the floor with a bang.
"Ten thousand volts, give or take," Aqua Monkey stated plainly. "I'll get it." He announced. And with great ease he lifted up the glass, penetrated the green light and retrieved the transmogrifier.
"How'd he do…" Bea managed to stutter. "Only angelic creatures can do that."
"Mica's not the only one with skeletons in her closet, guys. I think it's time I started a long story…" his voice wavered off for a minute as he handed Spyro the transmogrifier. It did indeed look like a ray guy, except crafted by Cherubs. It appeared to be cut out of a single emerald and glowed with powerful magic.
Aqua Monkey sighed to himself and muttered under his breath. He started to glow with radiant light from an unknown source. He continued speaking in an unknown tongue, and his feet were no longer touching the ground. Glowing brighter and brighter, he let out a yell of anguish as something burst forth from his back: all different types of wings. Bat wings, fairy wings of the Prise, angel wings like Bea's, Dragon wings, hawk wings, and others. No longer was clothed in nothing but the pants-like scales that adorned his legs, but he wore a long white robe with gold trim. But there was something wrong with the robe, it was stained with blood on the edges. There was a sword in a belt around his chest. He was breathing heavily as he just hovered there, his finned glowing head hung in shame.
The others were flabbergasted. Spyro's eyes were large and disbelieving, and Bea's mouth hung open in shock. Mica managed to whisper, "Aqua Monkey, you're drop dead gorgeous," before she fell into Spyro's open arms. Melvin, on the other hand, was kneeling. Tears were streaming down his face; the little mouse felt he was unworthy of being in the presence of such a divine perpetual being.
"No Mel, not to me. Never to me. Get up you moron," Aqua Monkey stretched out a hand.
"Aqua Monkey-" but Spyro was cut off.
"Naramon, please." Aqua Monkey inquired.
"Naramon," Bea seemed to test the word out on her tongue, curious about the way it sounded. "That means 'Living in sin' in Cherubic."
"Before you start, where's your halo?" Mica asked.
Aqua Monkey took his halo out of a pocket in his robe and placed it upon his head, where it hovered.
"Naramon, your halo. It's dim." Sparx pointed out.
"That's why your robe is bloodstained and your halo is dim. You're living in sin," Melvin shook with surprise.
"Yeah guys. I'm an Earth Angel. Or at least part of one. But don't start calling me Naramon, people might get the wrong impression." he shrugged. "So I guess I better start my story."
"From what I've heard, my mother Mariah was an aguuamonkian Star Priestess, which I guess are female aguamonkies that watch the stars, plot the maps of the heavens, and see the future. Well, my mom was about to be ordained one, but before she did, she had to spend a month in the desert as a Purification Process. So one of the last nights she was walking in the desert alone away from the rest of her group. And she was getting really tired, so she decided to rest for the night. But when she woke up in the morning, she had an awkward feeling, like her clothes were tighter than they normally were. A few weeks later, she found out she was pregnant, but she hadn't…"Aqua Monkey searched for the right word. "…done the unthinkable."
He shrugged and spoke on. "So she quit that, much to the surprise to everyone around her and moved out. A few months later, she gave birth to me. That night, in the hospital, the ACID goats struck our realm. Nearly all of the rest of my species perished in the uprising, including my mother. But they didn't kill me and I don't know why. Maybe because I was so young that they thought they could bring me up as one of their own. So they brought me to Blade Runner Labs. That's where I met you, Mica, or Project MICA (Monkey In Complex Appearance). As the years went on, we became friends (or maybe even more than that) while the goats at the labs ran tests on us and kept record of our activity. We occasionally recieved a visit from Phaydees herself, who monitored and loved her two little "experiments" dearly. She treated us sort of like a mother, to be honest," He glanced at Mica. "Until you decided to run away. You were the one that realized the true evil of ACID and wanted to help put a stop to it. That's when you joined the Aqua Armada in Philamon, and I eventually followed your example."
"But how did you find out about this?" Bea asked.
He sighed. "Remember a few weeks before all of this started, you wanted me to go out into the desert during the night to collect rock samples and how pissed I was about having to do it? Well, I got some, as you instructed, and stopped to rest. Without knowing, I fell asleep. That night, I had a dream. I saw my mom. She was beautiful; she had hair the color of chestnuts and a fin that spilled down her head like a mane. And it was then that I finally found out who my father was: an Earth Angel. His name was Ivan and like all angels he was cast down from heaven to live upon the land in order to pay for his sin. They told me the story that I just told you guys and said that they wanted me to be happy. Then my father told me something that completely shocked me: Beakiss had killed him. It was one of the many murders that he was charged with." They heard Bea silently weeping, shocked that her brother had killed one of her best friend's father.
"They also gave me a spell to use in the time of my most dire need. But they never said what it was for. But I memorized it anyways. Then I woke up," Aqua Monkey stopped hovering and returned to his earthly, humble form and shrugged.
"That was amazing." Melvin said. "I just can't believe it. So this Ivan character apparently raped your mother in the desert while she was asleep? "
Aqua Monkey's eyes shifted to one side and then the other in sarcasm. "If you want to say that."
"As much as I'd like to hear more, look guys," Spyro pointed a claw out the window. Dawn was almost on the horizons and the clouds shone pink and gold in the early morning sun.
"You guys are right. Let's hurry up," Aqua Monkey hurried the group along out of the room. He took one last look at the room before silently closing the door.
Briskly, with new confidence, Spyro and Sparx led the group down the halls of the fortress until Bea showed them to a room. She opened the door. Behind it were dozens of portals. She walked around a bit until she found the one she was looking for.
"This should lead us back to the Professor's Lab," she stated. "Let's go." And with that she walked though the portal.
"I have a bad feeling about this, guys." Melvin said uneasily.
"Aw, c'mon, Mel. Having the extreme feelings of impending doom is DSI's job. Don't stress it." Mica said reassuringly as Aqua Monkey, herself, and Spyro and Sparx followed Bea.
Within the space between both worlds, Spyro always felt a slight tingling feeling, as did the others. But this time, it was different. Spyro felt like his very soul was being wrenched from his mortal body. Pain seared across every scale and he heard Mica scream, and someone's maniacal laughter, much worse than Ripto's laugh; it sounded like sandpaper on a cheese grater or pebbles in a blender. Spyro felt a chill go up his spine. He saw something white and black, with great, bat-like demon wings. Then, he saw Aqua Monkey's faint angelic form, and he slashed at the creature with his sword. The thing faded into darkness, and Spyro suddenly found himself in the Professor's Lab, along with his other friends. He breathed a great sigh of relief as he saw their smiling faces. The he heard three large thumps coming from overhead and a small creature fell out of a ceiling vent above them and onto the cold linoleum floor.
"Puri!" everyone except Spyro and Sparx yelled. Puri was another purple dragon, but wasn't from the Dragon Realms like Spyro was, and she didn't have a dragonfly. The horns that adorned her head were green and thick and the ruby-red crest on top of her head looked bristly, along with the spikes along her back and tail. Her wings had neon green webbing. She gave a stupid smile and a wave to the people around her.
"It's you!" Aqua Monkey said hysterically as he pointed one of his long, spindly fingers in her round face. "You're the one that was watching me back in the fortress! You were the one that almost destroyed the portal just a minute ago! Why are you doing this? Are you working for Phaydees or Ripto or something?"
The small Dragon got off of the floor and dusted herself off. "No. I did all of those things because I came here to warn you guys, duh. You have any idea what kind of trouble you guys'll get into back at HQ? If they find out you've been helping out the Dragon Realms, you'll suffer a fate worse than Beakiss!" she exclaimed. Bea gave her a teary-eyed look and Puri said "Sorry."
"Wait a minute," Sparx said. "You guys aren't supposed to be helping us? Then why are you here?"
Mica searched her mind for a reasonable explaination. "Well, back before the time of the Crystallization, the Aqua Armada was summoned to the Dragon Realms to help in making peace between the Gnorcs and the Dragons. Unfortunately, we failed miserably and the Dragons no longer wished for us to help them any more. So, we haven't, and there are special laws in the Aqua Armada code that prevent us from communicating with this realm. That's why there are no portals to here except in the Cherubic District. But when we heard of your plight, we had to do something to help out. Well, here we are."
Spyro rolled his eyes. "Well, we really can't worry about that now. We have to stop Phaydees! Let's go, guys!" He led them toward an exit. Puri loped up next to him and winked at him. Spyro raised an eyebrow, did Puri like him or something? He shrugged off as he remembered how he was going to save Elora by transforming into dozens of different creatures to defeat that goat tyrant. He opened the exit door with a firm claw and they walked out.
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Back at Chateau Ripto, Phaydees was with Zola, leading her to the dungeon. Zola was miserable, as was Phaydees for just being in an out of two bodies. With gritted teeth she led Zola through the grimy halls and her rage fueled her to stagger onward. She thought about Ripto, his smirking expressing fresh in her mind, haunting her to no end. That riptoc…the creature that killed her beloved Corky. In the midst of all the pain and rage, the she-goat had a vision in her mind. She saw that purple scaled rat and his moronic friends of the Aqua Armada, ready to go challenge her. She saw that Spyro was talking about her, how she was going to be defeated the minute they reached her. He laughed at her, how that she had really done nothing to harm him or his friends. And she hated it. She thought about what she could do about it. Suddenly, she had an evil idea. She had a spell she could use, a spell that could summon unspeakable evil. The words of a dead language of Black Magic flowed out of her mouth. Zola stopped and stared as Phaydees zealously continued her spell. Abruptly, she stopped, brushed herself off and said, "Now that's done, I feel much better about myself. But I'm sure that demonic dragon's opinion of me is going to change…" There was an evil smirk on her face that gave Zola a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
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It was raining when they got outside, Spyro felt something cold and wet drip onto his head. He looked heavenward. Red rain? Since when was that normal in the Dragon Realms? He quickly came to his senses and realized what the rain was.
"Rain of blood…summons a creature of unfathomable power. Lifeblood fuel…" Aqua Monkey caught the drops of ruby blood in his hands and stared at the sky with disbelief.
"What's up with this?" Melvin's raspy voice wavered off.
Aqua Monkey said with great urgency. "Spyro, all of your friends are dead."
Spyro fel back and fainted into velvety blackness.
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"Spyro…Spyro…" a distant, watery sounding voice called. It was Puri, awakening him from his fainting spell.
He groaned and sat up. He had fainted for about thirty minutes, anf the last thing he remembered was Aqua Monkey saying something about all of his friends dying. The bloody rain was still falling around him. "Are all of my friends really dead?" he asked weakly.
Aqua Monkey thought a moment. "Yes. In a way. I just discovered something, a spell that Phaydees has just cast. She has drained the blood of all the creatures in this realm, dragons, fauns it doesn't matter. As the ground soaks up their blood that falls from the sky, a creature awakens. Their blood is going to keep that creature of death alive. But I have no idea what it could be." He sighed.
"That is sick." Sparx plainly stated.
With a queasy stomach and a heavy heart, Spyro said, "We are going to kill Phaydees. We have to."
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SO GOOD! The long awaited Chapter 8 of A.C.I.D. Reign is finally completed. Keep a look out for the next chapter! I hope the length of this one makes up for me not updating in a while…Yeah.
-DSI
