Chapter 2-Shifting Sands
Rating: High PG for blood and gore.
Author's Notes: Da Dark One doesn't scare me. As for this chapter, well, it took a much shorter time to write than the first chapter because, unlike the first chapter, the computer didn't decide to crash and take all the data with it.
Both Scorch the desert (From Ripto's Rage) and Scorch the wyvern (From Year of the Dragon) are mentioned in this chapter. Why Insomniac reused the name of a world on a monster is beyond me, but try not to mix them up.
It wasn't very easy, but before long, the children of the captured families managed to sneak out of the party without being noticed. The entire crowd of partygoers still focused their attention on either the big gaping hole in the middle of the ceiling or to the two remaining organizers for the party, Crush and Gulp. As the two dinosaurian Riptocs tried to explain to around three hundred representatives of several different species that Spyro and Ripto were not going to come back anytime soon, the offspring of the captives snuck past them and into the night.
The six children of the captured families were crouched in the shrubbery near Chateau Ripto. As Torin and Glacier watched for the telltale signs of guards, Pyran broke the silence with a rather rude question.
"Why are we sticking around here for, Shorty Junior? We should be going after the scumbag that took our parents!" Pyran asked Torin, using the one nickname the little Riptgon hated. The dragon/faun hybrid looked rather silly with his faun-like ears flattened against his purple head in irritation, but nevertheless, when the son of a hero asked a question, he demanded an answer.
"We're going to get some supplies, Pyran." Harmony said sternly, trying to quench the argument before it started. At those words, Pyran threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.
"What do we need supplies for? My dad certainly never took any supplies with him while he was kicking the butts of people like Gnasty Gnorc and Red! What makes us so special?" He demanded.
"Gnasty Gnorc and Red never held the parents of Spyro hostage. They never took the main power source of Avalar and fled to who-knows-where. They never slaughtered a palace full of guards just to get what they desired. We're not dealing with anybody like Gnasty Gnorc, Red, or even Ripto and the Sorceress. We're dealing with a sick and twisted fiend that has no inkling of sanity at all. Mortigon doesn't want the world or immortality; he wants revenge. He's going to kill our parents, and if we don't stop him, we'll all be orphans." Torin's voice was rather patient. Tears brimmed in his green eyes, but the look he gave Pyran was enough to cut off any future protests from him. Only a moment of silence passed by as Pyran and Torin locked eyes with one another, but it seemed like an eternity before Pyran sighed in defeat.
"Fine, fine, fine. Let's waste our time and get supplies. It's not like a few more minutes of lingering at Chateau Ripto is going to cost our parents' lives..."
One by one, they crept through the shadows and entered Ripto and Snowflake's mansion. Since most of the guards were either at the party or taking a nap, Calub took the time to put his feelings into words as he walked down the hallways with Torin leading the way.
"Lupine Gods above, this is frustrating." Calub muttered to himself loud enough for the others to hear. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and sulked as he walked next to his friends and sister. When nothing but the sounds of six pairs of feet walking on marble greeted his ears, he then added, "The one night I can pull the ultimate pranks and not get punished, Mom and Dad manage to get themselves captured by some bloodthirsty serpent."
"Not get punished, eh?" Harmony replied. She playfully punched Calub's shoulder as she walked beside him. Before Calub could react, she wrapped her arm around his neck and began to give him a noogie.
"Hey, no fair! I wasn't looking!" The younger sibling shouted as he struggled to free himself from Harmony's grip. Their plan of secrecy and keeping their voices down shatter, Calub began to chase Harmony in circles around the other four in their group, much to the annoyance of Pyran. The two Woltocs' laughter reverberated through the hallways so loudly that it sounded like there was five Harmonys and five Calubs causing a commotion. Pyran made an irritated growl, but when he opened his mouth to protest, Karydor had wrapped her hand around his snout.
"Honestly, Pyran. Your father had a little fun during his adventures. Lighten up." She replied lightheartedly, speaking for the first time since her parents got captured. She exchanged glances with Pyran, noted his surprised expression, and then released her grip so as to hear whatever the son of Spyro had to say.
"Lighten up? Lighten up? Our parents are in the captivity of some murdering psycho and his insane flying lackey, and you're telling me to lighten up. You do realize that you're making no sense just now. You realize that, don't you? What if the two Wolf Weirdoes decide to goof around while we're sneaking around in Mortigon's Lair? The guards would kill us faster than you can say 'I have no idea how serious this quest is'!" Pyran yelled.
He didn't realize that he was shouting until nothing but the sounds of six children walking over smooth marbled tile and the echoes of his own voice greeted his ears. Everyone had slowed down, and now they were all staring at him.
"Wolf weirdoes." Harmony repeated. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave Pyran a glare that chilled him to the bone.
"Look, just because someone is trying to have a little fun on this mission doesn't give you the right to criticize and complain, Mr. Hot Shot. We're going to spend the next few months of our lives in some unfamiliar territory, so it's best to grin and smile every chance we get until we have to keep our mouths shut in fear that something with huge fangs is going to rip us apart! Don't like it, Faun Freak? Then you can go on this adventure by yourself without any help or provisions!"
She judged his reaction and when she saw that the dragon youth was close to tears she eased her anger. "Pyran, I know that you miss your parents terribly, but you don't have to take it out on us. How are we going to fight Mortigon if we're wasting our time fighting each other?"
"We'll be too tired to fight him because we're going at each other's throats, that's why." Glacier commented. She glanced at her brother Torin and then at Pyran. She smiled, and as if she was predicting all the quarrels that were to happen in the future, added, "But that doesn't mean we have to be all 'lets-hold-hands-and-sing-songs-around-the-campfire' all the time."
"Yeah, I certainly can't handle being nice to this jerk here for a month or so!" Torin said jokingly as he punched Pyran in the arm. The tension eased amongst all the children, and by the time they reached the storage room, they were laughing and giggling as if today was the first day of summer.
Glacier pushed open the door to reveal a rather cramped room filled to the brim with adventuring gear. She pulled the string that lit up the only source of light in the room; a single light bulb suspended by a wire hanging from the ceiling. Immediately, the six children ran to different areas of the room and admired all the equipment that would make anybody successful in a long journey. Pyran made a cry of joy when he saw all the swords and shields stacked in one corner, all of them sharp and polished. Just as he reached for a practically impressive sword, he was hit in the head by a knapsack.
"Hey, what the he-"
"You don't expect us to carry our provisions in our hands, do you?" Karydor replied. She placed her hands on her hips and mocked a stern expression as her five friends examined their new forms of clothing in various different ways. "There's six of us, so carrying food, water, first aid, and sleeping bags is going to be easy. I say we split up our provisions so that each of us carries one thing. How's that?"
Quickly, Calub's hand shot up in the air.
"Ooh! Let me carry the food!"
"You're not carrying the food, squirrel cheeks." Glacier argued. "You'd eat all of it before we even got out of the mansion!" The daughter of Snowflake and Ripto then stuck her tongue out at Calub for good measure as she filled her backpack with easily compressed sleeping bags and soft pillows.
"I won't eat any of the food!" Calub promised. He held up one of the cans he stuffed in his backpack for her to see. "Besides, they're all canned. I'd break my teeth trying to eat this stuff without a can opener."
"Not all of them are canned, Cal. I see you stuffing bags of chips and trail mix in there..." Harmony said as she regarded her brother. She was stuffing canteens of water and pots to boil it in inside her knapsack. They didn't need to bring any lighters or flints, as Glacier and Pyran were gifted with the draconic talent of breathing fire. All the better for them, as they all remembered when Glacier was fooling around with a lighter and she ended up setting Calub's tail on fire. That was one of the few moments in her life in which Harmony dearly wished that she had a camera at hand.
"Pyran, how in Aurora's name are you going to carry all those weapons?" Karydor asked. She had already finished packing her provisions of maps and magic books when she noticed Pyran. The hybrid had tossed his backpack off to the side and was instead donning all the armor and weapons he was planning on taking with him. With six knives, four swords, two slingshots, one spear, a quiver of arrows, a suit of chain mail, and two shields on each arm, Pyran looked like he was a walking pile of stainless steel. He skittered uneasily against the weight, but he wore a grin on his face nonetheless.
"Boy, if Dad ever saw me in this armor, his heart would burst with pride! I'm ready to fight that scum-sucking Mortigon and his dragon pet! I'll fight him to the ends of the universe! I'll fight him-" Pyran was cut off when he collapsed underneath the weight of all his provisions and went crashing to the floor.
"-Until you trip over your own armor. Really, if anything, your father would be roaring in laughter if he saw you in that getup." Torin snidely commented as he stuffed his backpack full of first aid tools. He also packed a scepter that, while modeled after his father's trademark weapon, it contained a jewel that was both red and green.
"At least I know how to fight!" Pyran retorted. He stiffly patted one of the weapons hanging from his body as he said those words, but even that small gesture made him lose his balance and he crashed on the floor again.
"How are you going to fight with four swords at the same time? I suppose you can sprout extra arms as well!" Torin snidely remarked. "And while you're at it, can you-"
Torin was cut off when someone pushed the door open and entered the storage room. All the children immediately stopped what they were doing and glanced up at the person that entered in fright.
'Great,' most of them thought in their heads. 'Now they know that we plan on running away. We're probably going to sent to the guest rooms to be babysat by Crush and Gulp, and we are never going to see our parents again...'
"I knew I'd catch you six in the storage room. I'm glad you didn't decide to run after Mortigon without any preparations first, or else it wouldn't be a pretty picture." Blink the mole jokingly replied to break the silence that had descended on them when he entered. Time had been relatively kind to him, and for the most part, he still resembled the same adventurous mole that Spyro had met during his adventures against Red. However, instead of wearing all the gadgets that his uncle had built for him to try out, Blink was now wearing a rather modest lab coat that marked his new status that named him The Professor in memory of his dead uncle.
"Professor Blink, sir? Are you going to snitch on us?" Glacier shakingly asked. As she said this, Blink shut the door behind him and placed his hands on his hips. He pretended to be extremely disappointed in all six of them by mocking a stern glare.
"Why shouldn't I? Six children like you are traveling off into the big unknown to save your parents! You could be killed!" Blink shouted. The six children all lowered their heads in shame; they all knew that that tone of voice meant a week of being grounded. Quickly their moods changed when Blink later added, "But I might decide to let a few children slip by if they bother to bring with them a decent navigator and a decent mode of transportation."
At those words, Blink pulled out a strange device that resembled a crossbreed between a handheld computer and a magnifying glass. The lens displayed a very detailed map of the world around them, and when Blink pressed a few buttons, six dots, all in different colors, appeared on the screen. The mole puffed out his chest dramatically and then handed the very familiar device to Glacier.
"Twenty years ago, my uncle handed your mother a Gigas Crystal Tracker. Now, I must do the same for you, Glacier. The device you hold in your hands is a GCT, much like the one that was destroyed in the Mystic Mountains. With a few exceptions, of course." Blink explained. He pointed to the screen and noted the immense detail the device went into to perfectly plot the distance between them and the six Gigas Crystals. If they were to zoom in, the GCT showed them every secret path in the jungle that surrounded Chateau Ripto.
"Unlike the device my uncle, bless his soul, designed, this one has detailed maps and exact distances with only a margin of error so small that it's off, if anything, by only a single centimeter. If you notice, Mortigon and your parents are very far away, thanks to that horrible lizard's power of teleportation. Almost a month away if you were to walk on foot." Blink said. Since their plan was to indeed walk on foot, the six hybrid children all talked among themselves as to how foolish they were not to get some help.
"However, I think I have someone that will take you to where Mortigon is in less than a day." Blink added. He motioned for them to follow, but they had to wait for Pyran to remove most of the stuff that was hanging on his body before they could leave the storage room. When they were finished, Pyran was carrying the GCT in his backpack alongside more cans full of food, and around his waist hung a knife and a sword.
Blink led them to the backyard of Chateau Ripto, which was really more of a place for Ripto to build various luxuries like bushes shaped to look like him, statues of himself, and tennis courts. Sitting on one of the tennis courts was a hot air balloon and a pile of rocks. Just as Torin was going to ask how a hot air balloon was going to catch up to their parents, the pile of rocks next to the balloon shifted to reveal a dragon head. The dragon let out a large yawn and shifted its body to reveal a pair of transparent yellow wings.
"Marco the balloonist let me borrow his hot air balloon, and Fissure is going to be the main thrust." Blink explained as the Yellow Gigas Guardian turned his head to regard his six passengers and began to prepare himself for flight. "And since Scorch is the only Gigas Holder not to be captured by that striped fiend, Fissure is available to take you there."
"Come to think of it, our parents aren't Gigas Holders..." Calub began to say. Suddenly, he pointed at Fissure in anger and yelled, "If Scorch was at the party, he would've got captured instead of our parents!"
"And just how much good would that do, little one?" Fissure answered in a voice that sounded like the rumbles of a distant earthquake. Since Fissure was a snake dragon and had only a pair of wings for limbs, he gently poked Calub with the tip of his wing as he said so. "If Scorch was captured, you'd still end up going with your friends. If Pyran, Torin, Karydor, and Glacier went on any sort of a quest, you'd follow them and be there to help them, whether or not your parents were also captives."
No other conversation was said. Blink the mole helped the six children climb into the sturdy basket underneath the hot air balloon. Most of them started to pale at the thought of being tugged in a small basket through the air at high speeds with only a dragon made of rock and a balloon full of hot air to guide them, but Glacier and Calub were eagerly pressed against one of the sides of the basket and ready for take off.
"Farewell and Godspeed to all of you!" Blink shouted up to them just as Fissure began to beat his wings. Glacier and Calub were the only ones to call back to Blink, as the other four were busy sitting on the bottom of the basket clutching the sides of the basket for dear life.
"Thank you, Professor Blink!" Calub and Glacier shouted just as the basket lurched underneath them and they started to leave the ground. Fissure let out a joyous roar as he spread his wings and took off for their destination. Calub and Glacier were pulled into a sitting position by the high velocity of the ride, but they were still grinning happily at the thrill. However, their passengers were not so joyous about this ride. Torin and Pyran were both so pale that their scales were almost white. Harmony clutched her mouth in hopes that she didn't throw up, and Karydor kept a secure hold on the wall in front of her.
It wasn't long before they got used to the steady beating of Fissure's wings, and soon, the six eager heroes fell asleep, rocked into a state of slumber by the clouds themselves.
Spyro woke up in a daze. His head pounded, his wings and legs were asleep, and his eyes couldn't focus in the darkness his room was cloaked in. He remembered vaguely that he was at a party last night, so maybe he was just suffering from an overload on party favors.
"Man, that party was strange. Ripto had a really weird taste in terms of enter-" Spyro cut himself off when he found that he couldn't move his arm. He tried turning his head to look at what was binding his arm to his side when he found that he couldn't move his head either. Suddenly, the memory of Mortigon and Muugara crashing the party came tumbling back into his mind with enough velocity to cause the hero to cry out in wordless agony.
"Hee hee hee. I see the hero is the first to awaken." A voice came from the darkness in front of Spyro's eyes. Immediately, the pitch-black darkness fell away from Spyro's eyes when Muugara removed the blindfold from him. Spyro narrowed his eyes when he saw where he was; he was bound to the wall of some kind of wooden caravan big enough to haul twenty people without loss of legroom. The only source of light was an outdated lantern that was placed on the floor.
And bound to the walls almost in sadistic webs of chains were Ripto, Snowflake, Nazza, Mell, Eledor, Airazor, and Elora. Judging from the way most of them were struggling vainly against their bonds, Spyro was not the first to wake up. The dragon couldn't help but smile as Ripto shouted death threats and insults at no one in particular as he tugged futilely at his chains and fought to free himself from his blindfold. Airazor, on the other hand, was hanging limp in his bonds. If it weren't for the sound of his breath whistling through his nose, Spyro would've guessed that he was dead.
"As you can see, the King of Desolation took the time to make sure none of you can escape. These chains, made from the rare elements mined from the deepest caves, are so strong that not even the flames of the mightiest dragon hero can harm them." Muugara gloated.
"How very kind of him to keep me in mind." Spyro sarcastically replied. He kept his eyes on Muugara as the dragon walked near him and began to undo some of the locks that were suspended above Spyro's reach. With a click, Spyro fell to the floor underneath a heap of chains. The sudden fall winded the hero, but he was otherwise okay. Immediately he sprung to his feet, but his spirit fell when the dragon saw that the bonds were locked in a way so that while he could walk, he had to be lead in front of Muugara like a poodle.
"Aren't you lucky? The King asked me to bring you and only you to take a gander of what is to come. It's all the better, since that weakling I managed to defeat at your party won't be walking anytime soon." Muugara said to Spyro as they walked out of the caravan. Spyro had to squint his eyes in order to block out the harsh light of the desert sun.
"This is Scorch. Why did you take us to Scorch?" Spyro asked as Muugara led him through sand. The hero was surprised when Muugara smacked the back of his head as if the question had insulted his mother.
"Any idiot knows that Scorch contains the portal to my realm. You people of Avalar grow fat and lazy underneath these fertile lands, but the realms I come from know only gloom and desolation!" Muugara hissed. "After all, your kind and happy realms can't certainly breed any monsters such as these!"
He immediately brought Spyro to view what was dragging the caravan, and even the experienced fighter was frightened at the sight. Ten monsters were chained to the caravan. They resembled gnorcs, with the way their faces bore crude snouts with sharp lower fangs poking out of their lips, but the resemblance ended there. Large ears rose from their heads, bat-like and able to swerve so as to detect sounds from all around. Instead of hands, the gnorc-like monsters' fingers extended into a structure of leathery wings, leaving only an opposable thumb. The membrane of the wings was almost see-through, and seemed to coordinate with the color of the creature that owned the pair. Most of the monsters were green with yellow wings, but one of them was a shade of blue and had dark purple wings and another one was pink with dark green wings. They were lithe in form, and their feet had curled claws that were caked with dried blood.
When the bat-like gnorc monsters saw Spyro, some of them leaped at him with their teeth bared. The chains restricted their movement, but Spyro had the pleasure of staring deeply into their beady yellow eyes and their bloodstained fangs. The smell of rotting meat made his stomach churn sickingly.
"What are those things?" The purple dragon asked as Muugara led him away from the caravan and into the camp that Mortigon had set up for his minions.
"Those are what my people call gnorcs." Muugara answered bluntly.
"Those aren't gnorcs! Those look like some mad scientist bred a gnorc with a bat and then added a bunch of raw savagery for good measure!" Spyro argued. Muugara grinned at the dragon's reaction.
"That is what survives in my realm. No peace and happiness in the desolate realms of my birth. The gnorcs you're familiar with wouldn't last two days, so naturally, one has to adapt. The King of Desolation calls them the Desolation Gnorcs, a worthy title for them. I certainly don't want to compare them to the bumbling idiots that you defeat." Muugara explained. The sand scorched Spyro's feet, but he refused to cry out in pain as his captor led him through rows of crude makeshift tents.
And standing at the far right of the camp was Mortigon.
Unlike Changeling, who spent her time in her horde's camp preening in her own tent, Mortigon practiced his newly acquired magic on targets. Muugara lead Spyro to a good spot for him to view him as Mortigon took out his double-bladed scimitar and instructed a lizardman to release the targets. The horde member was much obliged to take the order, and he opened a box and sent a cloud of doves flying into the air. Mortigon grinned savagely and aimed his scimitar at the large flock of birds.
A large flurry of electricity and fire lit up the air. Spyro make a choking sound as every last dove was vaporized by the blast of magic. Nothing landed on the ground save for a few specks of ash.
"I suppose that anyone who wants to save you will have to face that. Total elimination! Nothing can survive the wrath of the King of Desolation!" Muugara cackled eagerly, much to the delight of his master Mortigon. The draconic hero felt his blood turn to ice when he pictured anyone coming to save him. Hunter, Sheila, Pyran-
'Pyran.'
Spyro's heart began to thud loudly against his chest. Everyone in that caravan had at least one son or daughter. If Pyran had got it in his mind to gather up a group of heroes out of the children of the missing parents, then that meant that he was going to deal with the likes of Mortigon. A speck of ash, blown by the wind, landed on Spyro's nose, and immediately Spyro pictured that wasted dove to be Pyran instead. Tears began to burn in his eyes.
Spyro didn't even notice that Muugara was leading him until he was being hooked up to the wall once again. The other captives watched him as tears flowed down his face. He kept imagining those doves and that explosion of magic that Mortigon had sent to waste them all. What if his next target was his son? From the looks on Elora's face, she could tell what he was thinking, as she suddenly went limp in her chains and sighed deeply.
"And that concludes our little tour, Spyro." Muugara chuckled. "Or maybe you want to see my gadgets, yes?"
"You can stick your gadgets up your-"
"I suppose that's a yes, then?" Muugara was oblivious to the utter hatred the purple dragon felt for both Mortigon and Muugara right now. His purple eyes glimmered with a hidden fire that burned with the desire to see both of them meet their match. Everyone who was also a captive, even Ripto, smiled at the look on Spyro's face.
Muugara pulled out his glove with the metallic claw attachments and held it up for all the captives to see. "You may think that something this powerful runs on batteries, but you'd be wrong. All of my gadgets are powered with the same power source, and said power source is so powerful that none of my inventions ever run out of power!"
He then pulled out something that was embedded in the glove. Pinched between two of his claws was a purple crystal. Spyro and Nazza gaped at the gem, as they knew exactly what it was. With its shell brimming with dark energy, the crystal could be nothing but the shard of a Dark Gem.
"Beautiful, isn't it? With these babies powering up all of my inventions, nothing can stop me!" Muugara joyfully said. The captives all imagined the dragon putting Dark Gems in tons of dangerous equipment like the glove that injured Airazor. The idea was almost too horrible to bear.
"...Where did you get those Dark Gems?" Snowflake asked. She had recognized those gems all too well. A good week of Spyro's life was spent smashing them to bits to rid the Dragon Realms of their tainted evil. She remembered the stories Spyro had told to her, and when she snatched a glance with Ripto, she now dreaded the idea of more than one of the foes Spyro fought in the past joining this dire situation.
"It was simple really. About two weeks ago, The Queen had discovered an army of your gnorcs venturing around in her territory. I decided to investigate along with a good-sized squadron of Desolation Gnorcs. Sure enough, a good-sized army was being led by some red-scaled buffoon with a staff and a gnorc that was able to speak the normal tongue." Muugara was pleased at the way all the passengers paled in color at the description of two very familiar people.
"Boy, it ended shortly after it even started. The Desolation Gnorcs darkened the sky with their wings and then they descended on the army before they could shout for help. I still revel in the memory of all the gnorcs' dying screams as the gnorcs of desolation ripped them to shreds. We lost only ten of our troops, and only to the leaders; all those weak land gnorcs had been stripped to the bone."
"Stripped to the bone? You mean those things eat gnorcs?" Spyro blurted out. He strained to look again out the open door to catch another glimpse of the winged beasts of burden, but he remembered the savage aura they bore. Those sharp teeth, those sharp claws...
"Why, yes they do. It's a very tasty treat to them." Muugara quickly jumped back into his story, twirling the Dark Gem shard with one of his claws as he did so.
"All that was left on that bloodstained ground was the gnorc leader and the dragon mage. The gnorc had armor that practically glistened with the blood of his fallen troops and he looked about ready to faint. The dragon, such a weak-stomached worm, was vomiting on the ground before him like a weak little child! He couldn't even stand the sight of blood, that little wuss! Weaklings, the both of them!"
Ripto shook his head at the mental images he received from the story Muugara was telling. He could practically imagine the trauma the two of them had suffered that day. Weakly, he tried to picture what he would do if he saw his entire riptocian army slain before his feet, their blood smearing the ground at his feet, but it was almost too frightening to bear. He never liked those two, but they certainly didn't deserve the treatment they got. With a sigh, he lowered his head almost in respect and quietly muttered,
"Poor Red and Gnasty Gnorc."
"Red and Gnasty Gnorc are their names, eh? Could've fooled me! I would've guessed that their names were 'Vomiting Weakling With Staff' and 'Armored Wuss'. Anyways, it doesn't matter now. The Red dragon you know so much about has been stripped of everything worth of value and has been enslaved by the Muu Dragon tribes that border near the Valley of Skelos."
Nazza and Spyro's ears perked up at the sound of a familiar name, but otherwise, none of them said a word. Spyro tried to say to himself that Red deserved what he got, but the resulting thought seemed bitter and venomous. Seeing his entire army ripped to shreds and then being enslaved by some cruel dragons was not the treatment that Red needed.
"Hopefully, the tribe members will value him as a slave. If not, well, he's either property of The Queen or he's just another ration of meat for the Muu Dragons."
"Ration of meat?" Snowflake said with horror. "But...they're dragons! They can't eat one another..."
"Your dragons waste meat when the dead fall, but my kind doesn't. If Red is of no use to them, they will kill him and eat his flesh. A meal is worth more than a slave is in the desolate realms." Muugara explained rather darkly to them. Spyro felt bile rise to his throat at the idea. The thought of Red get torn to pieces by hungry dragons and then eaten flashed through his head.
"As for this Gnasty Gnorc you talk about, he too is a slave. But he's a much feistier one than the Red dragon. The Red dragon was little more than a pampered wuss that couldn't bear a little bloodshed, but the armored Gnorc that can speak the normal tongues is more seasoned. Course, I would expect it, since he does come from a race born to kill. According to the gargoyle messagers we receive, he's already killed two Muu Dragon tribe members and has attempted escape five times."
"And I suppose Red doesn't try to escape either?" Mell asked. The way Muugara prattled on, it made Gnasty Gnorc and Red sound like anything but what they were. Red probably couldn't get used to the treatment he was getting from dragons that worked alongside ravenous monsters, but Gnasty Gnorc probably could. The leader of the gnorcs had developed a distrust for dragons a long time ago, so being enslaved by them probably didn't surprise him one bit.
"He tried once, but Brandimuu beat him so badly that he has trouble walking now. Serves the little wuss right. And since he's a slave with a limp, well, it's only a matter of time before-" Muugara paused, smiled at his audience, and then dragged his finger against his throat.
"They wouldn't dare..." Eledor tried to speak, but her throat was too tight from the fear she felt. If Muugara was busy fooling around with the Dark Gems he stole from Red's staff, then she knew that the story was real. Airazor groaned in pain right next to her, but at least he wasn't getting beaten with the threat of death hovering over his head. Not anymore.
"The Queen might find him useful, but that's the only hope that red wuss has. The Gnasty Gnorc fellow has a lot of use to the Muu dragons. He can speak in the gnorc language, therefore, he can send messages to The Queen without having anything lost in translation. There have been several occasions where he purposely messed up the message he was delivering, but a few good beatings from Muu-ray made him stop. He has a rather unbreakable spirit, that gnorc. Why he chose to work for that weak little dragon is beyond me."
"Who is this 'The Queen' person you keep talking about?" But Mell's question went unheeded. Muugara then began to walk out the caravan without speaking another word. He blew out the lantern behind him, so that when he shut the door, complete darkness cloaked Spyro, Elora, Eledor, Airazor, Snowflake, Ripto, Mell, and Nazza and they had nothing to do except to think about what was happening to their children and the two villains trapped in the realms of desolation.
An hour after Muugara had left the slave caravan, Mortigon instructed that every horde member was to break camp and head back to their homelands in the desolate realms of their birth. Horrible monsters roared in glee as they flung everything they owned on their backs and began to hike towards the portal that would carry them away from this land of peace and tranquility. No one in the camp save for the captives liked Avalar at all, and they were more than happy to leave it. With the slave caravan carried by the Desolation Gnorcs being among the last to enter, nothing in the camp remained in the sunburnt sands of Scorch and no indications could be made that they were ever there.
That is, except for five cannons and Muugara.
"Foolish weaklings..." Muugara hissed to himself as he placed a Dark Gem shard into an energy cannon he designed. Mortigon had told him that leaving anything that could help them in the desolate realms was a waste, but this was one of the few times that Muugara went his own way. With a snicker, he pressed a few buttons and delighted in the mechanical howl the cannon made when he booted it up. With the Dark Gems' power controlling them, they were able to fire blasts of energy able to put a hole into the strongest of materials, and they were now able to seek out any living thing flying above them.
"They underestimate the power of the King of Desolation. Everyone in Avalar underestimates his power! Well, we'll see how much they underestimate his power when these babies blast anybody who flies near the portal right out of the sky!"
He glanced lovingly back at his babies, his prized inventions. Had he been obsessed with anything other than the destruction of others, he would've been one of the best scientists seen this decade. With the scorching hot winds searing his wings, he walked into the portal.
All the better, as no one was around to hear him laugh.
They must've been exhausted from the party and the preparations, for the sun was setting just as Harmony, Glacier, Calub, Torin, Pyran, and Karydor stirred from their sleep. As soon as they were all awake, Calub broke open one of the sealed bags of trail mix and began to share it with all of his friends. As everyone ate their small meal in sitting positions, Glacier saw that Calub was taking the biggest of the handfuls.
"You pig! You're supposed to save some for the rest of us!" Glacier whined when she compared her share to Calub's. The Woltoc was already stuffing his face full of oats and raisins.
"Well, I'm the most hungry, therefore, I get a bigger share." Calub argued with his face covered in crumbs. Harmony couldn't help but laugh as Glacier and Calub soon got into a fist fight as they tried to even out the shares but while at the same time trying to get more trail mix than the other. The fight was futile, the way they constantly threw trail mix at each other, and soon, more food went over the side of the basket than in their stomachs. Pyran irritably brushed the food particles out of his hair as he ate his food, but he snickered when Torin and Harmony both chastised their siblings for wasting supplies.
Just as they settled down, Fissure made a gleeful trumpet. "We're almost there! Scorch is right below us!"
Pyran pulled the GCT out of his backpack and looked into the monitor. Six differently colored dots were much closer than they used to be before they rose on "The Fissure Express", but according to the GCT, they weren't in Avalar anymore. Pyran scratched his furry faun-like mane. "Strange...How can they be close and yet not be in-"
BOOM!
A hideous screech tore itself from Fissure's throat and the basket shook underneath his pained throes. Everyone clutched the side to keep him or herself from falling out. Torin signaled them to put everything away in their backpacks to keep any precious supplies from falling out.
"What's happening?" Karydor asked Fissure, but her voice was quickly drowned out by the sound of a magical ball of energy colliding into Fissure again. Fragments of rock flew in the air and the smell of smoke rose to their nostrils. Karydor rose to her feet and saw that a smoking hole had been implanted in Fissure's side.
"...Dark energy...Mortigon set up a trap...Can't..." Fissure's voice was full of pain and his wing beats were getting steadily weaker. He was a Gigas Guardian, but he had used up most of his strength flying nonstop for almost twenty-four hours. When two more blasts hit him, he started to dip.
"FISSURE! DON'T GIVE UP!" Six different voices cried out when the rock dragon began to aim towards the ground. With a low rumble, Fissure folded his wings to his damaged sides and went limp. The balloon's basket was ripped from its tethers that held it to the balloon and soon they were all falling to the ground from a great altitude.
The six children screamed as they held on for the basket for dear life. In the face of danger, suddenly Torin reacted. Without a moment's notice, he wrapped his backpack around one of his arms tightly, wrapped his arms around Harmony's waist, and then jumped.
"TORIN!" Glacier shouted when she saw him and Harmony fall from the basket. But then she saw him open the small wings that grew from his back and immediately knew what he was doing. Since all the energy cannons were focusing on the Yellow Gigas Guardian's limp body, they were not being targeted. Torin couldn't fly, but his wings were able to slow his descent. A grin lit up her face.
"Hey, what are you-" Calub's voice was cut off by a terrified scream when Glacier copied her brother and leaped out of the basket with her wings open wide and with Calub in her arms. Just then, Pyran and Karydor decided to take their chances and soon they too were jumping out of the basket and into the desert air. Behind them, they heard Fissure crash on the cannons that had shot him down, destroying them all in the process. Karydor couldn't help but sneak a glance behind her shoulder to look at the injured Guardian.
"He's fine, Kary. He's a Guardian; no cannon could destroy him." Pyran replied. He was the only one among them who could actually fly with his wings, so he was zipping around them and doing back flips while the other children with dragon blood running through their veins had to make do with flapping futilely in hopes that their landing will be soft. Torin and Glacier were starting to grow tired with their passengers in hand, and on more than one occasion, Harmony and Calub were frightened that they were going to slip right out of their grips.
Suddenly, the scenery around them changed as they unknowingly flew through the portal into the desolate realms that Mortigon entered.
The rosy tendrils of the falling sun that blended in to the clear blue sky of Scorch suddenly changed into a hazy atmosphere cloaked with oranges and yellows. The structures of Scorch suddenly changed from well-maintained buildings to crumbling ruins. The rather cheery atmosphere of mountains off to the distance became desolate peaks that were covered with battles still burning.
As the children watched these changes, the ones doing all the flying were jolted from their daze when their feet hit the blood red sand and they went tumbling. Karydor hit the sand face first, while Torin and Glacier tumbled on the ground and later landed on top of the people they were carrying. Pyran was the only one with a soft landing, as his skill in flight made him able to land gracefully on the sand while Harmony and Calub rubbed the bruises that the two Riptgon children apologized profusely.
"Where are we?" Karydor stated when she pulled herself out of the sand.
As they stared off into the distance and into the dangerous land in front of them, each of them clutching their knapsacks full of supplies to their chests, Pyran answered Karydor's question with a voice that was lacking any emotion. His voice sounded like it was being spoken by another person as it echoed through the barren wasteland.
"The Realms of Desolation."
End of Chapter 2
No, this isn't an April Fools joke. I posted it!
Fissure is not dead, and the references to Red and Gnasty Gnorc are not there just to waste space, let me tell you. As for the person Muugara calls The Queen, she's to appear in upcoming chapters...
You might think their entrance into The Realms of Desolation seemed just a bit sudden, but you'll see...