Chapter two! I'm finally getting somewhere! Forgot to put a disclaimer on the first chapter, so I'll do it here. Akiro and Sabina are © to me. All other characters, (Spyro, Hunter, Ember, etc.) and other Spyro-related characters are © to VU games, or whoever it is that owns them now.

I own nothing that is copyrighted to people who are not me, basically.

"Well, I guess we should see what he wrote." Akiro suggested. "But first, let's go someplace private." He took another glance at Ember, who was still hiding behind the tree. The pink dragon saw them looking at her and ducked out of view.

"Let's go in that store we saw earlier!" Sabina suggested. "It looked pretty vacant!"

She led the way as they hurried back through the tunnel and into the open grassy area. "There's the store!" she pointed. The far bear was still standing in front of it. He seemed pleased to see them as they approached.

"Hello! What can I sell to you today?" the bear asked them in a funny accent.

"Nice fez!" Sabina said. "We're just gonna go look around, okay?"

"By all means, go right ahead! I'll be waiting right here when you're ready to buy!"

Akiro and Sabina hurried into the store. It was a small place, with lots of shelves and boxes lining the wall. "Okay, what did he write?" Akiro whispered, opening their books.

In Sabina's book, Spyro had written:

Nice to meet you, and me and all in here, in the dragon worlds. Swamp is fun this year.

It is also very important to have fun!

---Spyro the Dragon

In Akiro's book, he had written

So what's up? When I fight, it helps to think of happy things. So I'm gonna go and be on the skate park 'till to. You can come or something.

--- Spyro the Dragon

"Dang, that's a weird signature." Sabina said. "So is this 'every three words' thing a code."

"Shh!" Akiro hushed her. "Start counting words." They sat in silence for a moment, counting out every third or fifth word.

"Mine reads ' Meet me in the swamp this is important." Sabina finally said.

"I think you mean "Meet me in the swamp! This is important!" Akiro said. "Two sentences. This one here reads 'I think I'm on to something." The siblings considered this message for a while. "So, Spyro needs to tell Hunter something that's very important. Wonder what it is." Sabina stood up.

"We'd better tell Hunter then." Akiro said.

Sabina started for the door and then stopped. "Shoot! That bear will be expecting us to buy something." Akiro looked around the room.

"Look! There's a window back there." he pointed at an open window in the back of the store. "We'll just slip through that!"

"But won't the bear notice?"

"He looks pretty dumb. I give him three hours to realize we're gone."

"You're on!"

They went to the back of the store, and Akiro cupped his hands to make a small step. After helping Sabina out, he jumped and grabbed the windowsill and pulled himself up. Sabina peered around the corner of the building to see the bear still standing there. "Loser." she giggled.

"Why don't we go to that bridge again?" she asked Akiro. "Maybe we'll think of something there." They hurried through the tunnel and found themselves standing at the edge of the chasm.

"Now, if I were Hunter, where would I be?" Akiro thought aloud. He then saw a gate in the wall off to the side of the bridge. "Let's try there." he said, pulling Sabina along. They ran over and just stared at the gate.

"How do we open it?" wondered Akiro.

"Maybe this does something!" Sabina exclaimed, jumping onto a button in the ground. The iron bars sank into the ground. "That works." said Akiro.

They walked though the opening, the gate popping up behind them, and into a cave. "Well, hello there!" came a voice. The twins turned to see an old, green scaled dragon standing in the middle of the cave-like room. "What brings two young folks like yourself here?"

"We're..." Akiro began.

"...lost." finished Sabina.

"Are you a Dragon Elder?" Akiro asked. The dragon nodded. Akiro was disappointed. Dragon Elders were supposed to be strong and tough! Not skinny and old!

"Maybe I can help you find where you're going." the dragon suggested. Akiro started pulling Sabina to the door. "Oh, we were just leaving!" he said.

"I'm afraid that door doesn't open from the inside. But you can go through there." the Elder pointed at a large hole in the wall, just above several high steps. With a brief series of pushing and pulling each other up, the twosome made it to the top. "Well, it was nice talking to you. Bye!" called Sabina as they started out the hole.

"Careful! There aren't any stairs..."

"Yaaahhhh!"

"...on that side."

Fortunately, Akiro broke Sabina's fall. Unfortunately, the ground broke Akiro's fall. "Get off me!" he yelped, pushing his sister aside.

"Dudes! You guys okay?" came a voice. They looked up to see Hunter hurrying towards them.

"Guess he found us." Sabina muttered. "Hey, Hunter! We've got something to tell you!"

A red dragon walked out of a doorway beside them. "You know Hunter?" he asked suspiciously. Hunter shrugged. "Hey, they probably heard of my awesome moves. Dudes, this is Flame. Flame...dudes." he said, introducing them.

"Yeah, how ya doin'?" Flame said hastily. "Haven't seen you guys around before. Where ya from?"

"The place with all the snow!" Sabina blurted. Akiro rolled his eyes. Flame looked both of them over. "I don't think you..."

Suddenly, they all heard a loud boom. Flame closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and said, "I'm gonna go see what the Professor's messing up. Later." The dragon went back through the doorway and was gone.

Hunter, still maintaining his pose, whispered "So what do you need to tell me?"

Akiro, following the cheetah's example, said, "A message from Spyro. He says to meet him in the swamp."

"Yeah. It's something important."

Hunter looked around, to see if they were being watched. "Thanks. Hey, where are you guys really from?"

"'Nother world." Sabina stated.

"Hmm." Hunter fiddled with his bowstring expertly. "As in, not from here?" The two creatures nodded. "In that case, why don't you meet us there too? You guys might be useful..."

Hunter turned and walked away. Akiro and Sabina started following him, but he stopped. "Don't follow me. We can't be seen arriving together. Oh, and if anyone asks, I was giving you guys pointers on skateboarding."

With that, he left. Sabina looked at her brother. "So now we've gotta find something else!"

"Geeze, talk about a vacation." Akiro muttered. "Say, do you get the feeling that something's going on around here?"

"What was your first clue?" Sabina replied sarcastically as they started walking.

Another chapter down! Now, before you read any of the upcoming chapters, I have to tell you that there WILL be spoilers for 'A Hero's Tail', so if you don't like surprises being ruined you'd better finish that game before you read. Also, this story only deals with the settings in all the PS1 and PS2 games only. So anything that happened in the Gameboy games won't be mentioned. I'm telling you this because it'll be an important thing to consider later on.