New Friends Among Old Enemies
Rating: High PG
Author's Notes: Tons of Gnasty and Red in this chapter.
No co-actors were harmed in the making of this chapter. A few Muu Dragons, but no co-actors.
As the sun was sinking into the horizon dotted with raided villages and endless desert, Torin marked the position of his group. So ended the first day of traveling on foot, he mused to himself. He sat next to the burning flames with his wings folded against his back as he examined the map. They were heading northwest, but that's all he knew. The problem with this place was that there were no natural landmarks. Just Scorch's portal a day southwest, mountains in front of them, and endless desert surrounding them. There was no way to tell whether or not they were going to walk into a deathtrap not marked in the map. It made Torin's blood burn.
"Hey Shorty Junior! Your beans are getting cold."
Torin crumpled the map in his hands when he heard Pyran's voice behind him. Petty insults were not doing any miracles for the endless frustration burning in Torin's body.
"Dragon, you are really starting to get on my nerves!"
"Oho, you're quoting your father. I guess I should too. Bring it on, Shorty!" Pyran snorted as he tossed Torin his bowl of food. Torin threw the map to the ground and grabbed his scepter as he rose to his feet. The Son of Spyro saw this as an opportune time for fencing practice, as he pulled his sword from his sharpening rock and assumed a stance. Glacier rolled her eyes at this familiar scene as Harmony dashed in front of both of them.
"Come on, it's our second day of being in Lavara and already you want to kill each other. Save your weapons for the enemy, you two!" she shouted. Pyran smiled a smug smile as he shrugged his shoulders.
"Come on, Harmony. I'm just joking around. If he thinks that he can take me on, then bring him on, I think I smell a barbecue!" Pyran again quoted his father to prove his nonexistent point. The cerulean furred wolf/riptoc hybrid sighed as she brushed her fiery red hair out her face.
"...Do you even have anything remotely resembling a brain in that head of yours, Pyran? Unless there's nothing but hot air in there, which probably is the case, what with you wanting to pick a fight over the lamest of things." Harmony shouted.
Pyran threw up his arms above his head in mock defeat. "Lamest of things? Well, excuse me, Ms. Calm-and-Collected! It's not my fault that I'm suffering from hero anxiety right now!"
Torin raised an eyebrow at the strange phrase. "Hero anxiety?"
"Yes. I'm on an adventure and I haven't engaged in any combat! Not once! I heard of the tales of my father back in the days of fighting Ripto or destroying Dark Gems. He couldn't walk five feet without running into an enemy. Where's the enemies here? Where are the bad guys? Mortigon sent us NOTHING!" The final word of Pyran's half-crazed speech echoed off the very silent landscape, adding emphasis to his words. Everyone stared at the purple-scaled swordsman; they didn't even notice the tiny winged shadow land on the ground just inches away from the light cast by the roaring campfire.
"What? Are you saying that you WANT us to be in danger?"
"It's in my blood to fight against danger! There won't be any danger if I fight against some danger!"
"You're not making any sense, you moron!"
"Do I have to make sense? Do I?"
"Yes, you do. Right now it sounds like you want to slay someone just to fulfill whatever's floating in your blood, as you put it. That's a bloodlust, and I don't really think your father had that."
"IT'S NOT BLOODLUST, IT'S BOREDOM FROM LACK OF PERFORMING HERO-Y DEEDS IN THIS GODFORSAKEN DESERT!"
Torin, Karydor, Calub, and Glacier watched as Harmony and Pyran both exchanged shouts and insults. Torin made a show by rolling his eyes at every comment Pyran said and then letting loose a heart-filled cheer for Harmony. Glacier and Karydor both seemed to take more interest in the fire as they both cuffed her hands against her ears.
Calub, however, was watching the small shape scurrying across the ground towards Pyran. Blood tinted light glinted off two pairs of sharp claws. A savage grin appeared on the shadow's face as a membraned claw reached for the arguing youth.
"MONSTER!"
Immediately Harmony and Pyran ceased their argument at the sound of the woltoc's voice. The furry brown sibling of Harmony whipped out his slingshot and aimed a rock at the enemy he spotted. The rock whizzed through the air and bounced off the ground near Kannica's hand.
"Hey, what's the big idea, you big furry jackass!" Kannica cursed as she snatched Pyran's unsheathed sword. She flitted a few steps away from the fire, still clutching the sword in one of her winged claws. "Can't a gargoyle steal a shiiiny sword without having some poor excuse of a hairball aiming rocks at her?"
"No, you can't! That's MY sword from MY mom and you can't have it." Pyran shouted at Kannica. He dove for her, but landed facedown in the sand as Kannica took into the air, the sword held with both clawed feet. A round of high-pitched giggles floated above the draun's head as he pulled himself out of the dirt.
"Aw, really? That's so sweet for your mommy to give you a sharp weapon." Kannica called out. When she heard the little hothead shout an insult that sounded extremely dirty, she blew a raspberry at his direction and then flitted towards the direction of the Muu Dragon camp. As she did so, she kept an ear open for the kids. Sure enough, they were packing up camp and following her at the orders of Pyran.
'Excellent. Right on cue.'
For the next three days, Kannica led the kids towards the Muu Dragon camp that contained the provider of shinies. It normally took a gargoyle less than a day to fly that kind of distance, but she knew the limits of the children she was leading and had to adjust her speed accordingly. It irritated her to be flitting back and forth in random directions at a very slow speed, resting when the children rested and sleeping when the children slept, but she would do anything to have those statues in her possession.
Plus it was quite fun to annoy the spiral-horned hothead, as she liked to call him. Throughout those three days of trudging through the desert, Pyran was in a very bad mood. He would barely touch his meals as he sat and glared at the creature that held his sword just out of reach. He would start to charge at her, but then he would usually be held back by what seemed to be a squirrel and a white winged lizard.
'They may be children, but surely with six of them, at least one of them will survive long enough to undo Gnasty's bonds.' Kannica thought to herself throughout those three travelling days. When at last the camp was in sight, Kannica darted towards some rock formations that would hide the six children from the guards, dropped the sword, and took off with her regular speed. To the six hybrid travelers, it seemed that she had vanished in a puff of stirred up dust.
But Pyran didn't mind. All he saw was his sword sitting on a rock and away from taunting claws for the first time in three days.
"YES! MY SWORD!" Pyran shouted when he saw the weapon that his mom gave him for his sixteenth birthday just sitting there on a rock. He ignored his friends' questions like why did the gargoyle suddenly drop the sword and fly off when it was leading them through the desert for days, for his mind was addled with sheer glee.
"Pyran, take a look at this..."
Pyran stopped his cheering when his gaze hit the object his friends were looking at. The sword dropped from his fingers forgotten as he stood up and saw the Muu Dragon Camp that was sitting behind the rocks he and his friends were seated behind. The loud noises of Muu Dragons and their slaves working, the smell of sweat and dirt, and the sight of open acts of cruelty made all of them gape. The camp was simple, about sixty individual tents surrounding a center, but the hostility in the air made them all shiver.
"Look!" Glacier shouted as she extended a claw to the direction of the camp's center. From their vantage point, squinting through the dust and sun, they could only make out a green muscular creature getting lashed by a Muu Dragon. The children could hear the leader of the camp shouting profanities at his captive before walking away in a huff.
"We got to save him." Karydor stated. Torin looked from Karydor to the camp. He noted all the Muu Dragons within the camp and how many carried weapons, and then he gave a defeated look at the winged rhynoc.
"You're right. It is a Muu Dragon camp, as Fishtail said, and that slave is pretty strange looking..." Torin inquired, remembering what the lion serpent had said when she had visited their camp. "But how are we going to go in there? It's riddled with guards, they're all carrying weapons, and we have no hope of helping that person."
"Oh yes we do." Pyran said, puffing out his chest as he did so. "I shall go in there and rescue that slave!"
"By yourself? Pyran, that's-"
"Not a bad idea, actually. I think we can work this out to our advantage. It is riddled with guards, Muu Dragon guards to be precise." Karydor replied, cutting Torin's protest off. She reached into her satchel and pulled out her silver wand. The air started to crackle with magic energy as she walked towards Pyran. The draun smiled weakly when he saw the look on the magic user's face. Magic tendrils traced the contour of his body as Karydor held her wand to his face.
"How would you like to be a Muu Dragon, Pyran?"
Pyran couldn't help but feel nervous as he walked through the camp underneath the guise of a Muu Dragon, armed with nothing but his own wits.
'I got to admit, Karydor did a good job.' Pyran thought admirably to himself as he examined his new looks in a pail of water. With his body decorated with strange brown, green, and yellow stripes, his wings being in a dark shade of purple, and his eyes as big and as dewy as the magic could manage, he looked almost like one of them. Of course, since Karydor was only a beginner, she could only create an illusion and not actually change his shape. Pyran felt very uncomfortable when he went through the camp as nonchalantly as possible, as he was the only "Muu Dragon" with toes, more than two fingers on each hand, and without a nose horn.
As Pyran neared the prisoner, a sense of self-accomplishment filled the son of Spyro's heart. Here he was, the offspring of the dragon realms' greatest hero, ready to pull off a mission even his dad had never pulled off. Sneaking through a camp underneath an enemy disguise, keeping undercover, freeing a gnorc-
'GNORC?'
Pyran stopped in his tracks when he finally caught sight of who he was saving for the first time. From his viewpoint on the rocks, he thought he was seeing some sort of lizardman or crocodile anthro. Some of his happiness drained from his body when he realized that he was saving a gnorc. He kicked the rough dirt in front of him in frustration, his hoof-like claws making a distinct sound when dragging through the packed soil.
"Nice costume." the slave softly said when he regarded him. The gnorc was forced into a sitting position by the chains that bound him, but he couldn't help but smile when he saw his supposed rescuer come up through the caravan camp. Even with the brutal afternoon sun beating down on his back and scorching his skin, Gnasty felt happier about his situation.
"Costume? You mean you can tell that this is a fake?" Pyran whispered. His purple eyes darted from tent to tent in worry as if Muu Dragons were going to spring in alarm at his very words.
"I can cast magic, kid. I know a magic disguise when I see one." Gnasty Gnorc replied dryly. He gave his chains an experimental tug to alert the little dragon hybrid back to his attended task. Immediately, Pyran bent down next to the post and started undoing the locks with his claw. The chain links hit the ground with a dull thud beside him as he whittled away at the restraints.
"So, you're one of the slaves Fishtail mentioned." Pyran said, his eyes riveted on the final locks. His mind clicked as he was, for the first time, doing what his father would do. Saving people. Happiness filled his body and deluded his senses enough that he didn't see the shadow grow over him. "I mean, if you have magic to kill a Desolation Riptoc, or whatever, why are you-"
Pyran was cut off when a chain whizzed just over his head and connected into the face of the Muu Dragon poised behind him. The dragon jolted when a loud crack sounded in his ears. When Pyran turned around. He screamed at the sight of the Muu Dragon slumped facedown in the dirt with a fountain of blood spurting from a giant cut in his forehead.
"I sure hope you brought companions with you, because I don't think we're going to get out of this place without a fight." Gnasty informed him. Almost on cue, several dragons slithered out of their crude tents made of hide and began to inch towards the freed slave and Pyran. Pyran cursed himself for not bringing his sword when he saw Brandimuu appear in the front of the crowd with two curved blades and a bloodlust glimmering in his eyes.
CRACKLE!
Immediately, the entire area around Pyran and Gnasty burst into a fury of red light. Several of the Muu Dragons fell back screaming as white flames consumed their bodies and reduced them to ash. Gnasty turned to face the direction of the incoming new threat, but Pyran smiled when he saw Glacier running in front of his four friends, grinning insanely as she unleashed her gift upon her enemies.
"Pyran! Catch!" Torin shouted as he tossed his friend his sword.
"Ah, great. I'm being saved by children." Gnasty muttered to himself as he ducked and weaved among the ranks of confused Muu Dragons. Even through the chaos, it was loud enough for Pyran, who was right beside him, to overhear it. The dragon/faun crossbreed scowled as he parried incoming attacks with his sword.
"My dad kicked Gnasty Gnorc's ass when he was eleven, so we can kick these wimps' asses in our teens." Pyran said to the slave he rescued as they blocked a good portion of the incoming attacks with sword and chains. The attacks were starting to thin, what with the addition of five new adversaries armed with magic, slings, and swords, but they were still struggling. Gnasty froze when he heard his name being mentioned.
"Spyro's your fath-" Gnasty was cut off when a Muu Dragon behind him stabbed him in the shoulder with its claws. Immediately the gnorc flipped the dragon onto the ground and trampled it underneath him. As Gnasty Gnorc made a beeline for the tent that held his armor and club, he couldn't help but feel the sheer irony of the fact that Spyro's son was unknowingly helping him escape. With a defeated sigh that this was not the way he wanted things to turn out, the gnorc entered a tent and left Pyran with a few precious seconds of fighting an entire squad of Muu Dragons alone.
As the rescued slave properly equipped himself for battle, the entire group of Muu Dragons leapt at Pyran en masse. This would've been the end of Pyran's young but eventful life had Karydor not rushed in with a magic spell of her own.
"Transmogi Columbidae!"
A blast of white light consumed the front row of attacking dragons. Pyran gaped as fourteen of his attackers became a flurry of pigeons that floated into the sky like an angry storm cloud made of feathers. The little winged rhynoc grinned to herself as the other Muu Dragons either stared blankly into the group of their former companions or slashed at the birds at the glee of choosing a new and much easier target.
"DIE!"
Pyran pivoted on his left foot only to view a Muu Dragon pouncing at him, its wrist claws aiming at his jugular vein. Time seemed to slow down at a snail's pace as adrenaline pounded through the son of Spyro's body. Immediately, he jumped at the creature and met him in midair, horns first.
He was immediately brought into reality when he felt a dead weight on his head and his vision was clouded by a shower of something red. With a yelp, the dragon tossed the body onto the ground and stared at his handiwork in horror. Two deep holes inflicted in the neck and chest flowed with a strange red liquid. Pyran quivered as he examined just how torn the neck muscles in the Muu Dragon's neck muscles were torn.
As tears welled up in his eyes when he realized just how big of a price heroes had to pay for their work, a wooden club slammed into the back of his head.
Pyran yelped in pain as his vision became a maelstrom of colors and his hearing became a void of unrecognizable rancor. Stars fluttered in front of his eyes as he struggled to keep balance. The Muu Dragon that struck him grinned as he neared his faltering target and aimed for another blow.
ZAP!
Pyran didn't see the Muu Dragon behind him transform into an emerald statue as he struggled to fight unconsciousness. His attacker, now frozen in the poised stance he had, fell to the hard ground and shattered. A large shard of emerald drove itself into Pyran's leg, broke the bone within, and he lost control of his legs. Pyran whimpered in pain as fell against a steel-coated wall that was gray, brown, and green in coloration. The wall seemed to sprout arms to the dazed dragon and it tried to hold him steady on his uninjured foot. When Pyran looked up at whoever had saved him, five blurred images of a gnorc in armor floated over his eyes.
"Wow, kid. I leave you alone for a few moments. Well, all the Muu Dragons are either dead, statues, or have run away. You might want to..." He trailed off when he saw that Pyran had to bend over to vomit some of the blood that was pooling in his mouth. When the dragon/faun hybrid fought to right himself up again, Gnasty Gnorc lifted him up in his arms and started to walk away from the scene of carnage and destruction he left behind.
"This is more serious than I thought. Don't worry, your friend Gnasty Gnorc will help you feel better." he said as he started to walk to where Pyran's friends were resting their wounds. A strange jolt of fear raced through Pyran's scrambled mind. He lifted his head, sending more stars and strange colors to cloud his vision anew.
"Gnasty...Gnor..." the sudden exertion was too much for the dragon. He didn't even finish the word he was saying before he went limp against Gnasty's armored shoulder and his world went black.
Pyran's world was dark and filled with pain as he returned to consciousness. He moaned in pain as he found himself so weak that he couldn't open his eyes. The battle with the Muu Dragons was a blur. He remembered freeing a slave, and that slave turns out to be one of his father's enemies. He winced as a shiver drove itself up his spine. Was he going to die here, lying on his back in a land ruled by a monstrous lizard? Pyran couldn't help but let tears flow from his shut eyes.
'I'm sorry Dad. I can't believe I failed.'
Suddenly, large callused fingers pried the young dragon hybrid's mouth open. Pyran was too weak to make any movements against this sudden act of penetrating his body. Then, a very bitter thick broth was poured in Pyran's mouth. The metallic taste made him gag, almost like it was made of...
"Drink it all, sport. I'm sure your father wouldn't want you to die out here." A gruff voice replied, silencing all thoughts completely. Pyran found no reason to disobey, so he let the bad-tasting broth slither down his throat and fill his stomach. Immediately, warmth filled his limbs and strength returned to his bruised and battered body. He could feel the scratches the Muu Dragons had raked upon his body stitch up by themselves. Pyran sat up in happiness, only to wince when the leg that was hit with the statue shard sent waves of fire through his body. His flesh had been mended when he drank the broth, but his bones sure weren't.
Now that he had strength to open his eyes, Pyran surveyed his surroundings. He was in a cave, probably one just a few miles from where he attacked the Muu Dragon camp, and from the looks of it, he was knocked out for the rest of the day. Earthy smells and the fact that the rocks were able to absorb some of the sunlight made the cave a pretty cozy shelter. His friends were all awake, and from the looks of it, they had received some of the flesh-mending potion as well. Only Karydor and Torin were suffering from broken bones, and both cases involved bones broken in the wings. When Pyran looked to where the source of light was coming from, a strangled cry rose from his throat.
"Don't worry. The potion just takes longer to fix broken bones. By next morning, you'll be as good as new." Gnasty Gnorc replied as he stirred a spoon into the pot over the fire. He was now no longer covered in a slave's rag, but rather the armor that had become a recognizable symbol for him over the years. When Pyran saw who fed him the remedy, he skittered backwards, his fear blocking out all feelings of pain.
"Y-y-you're Gnasty Gnorc." Pyran stuttered, his purple eyes wide in shock. Something in the back of his mind kicked himself for sounding like such a wimp when he knew that his father would most likely challenge the gnorc, with or without broken limbs.
'Ah, geez. I'm stuttering like a coward! If I had both of my legs fully healed...'
Gnasty seemed to detect the uneasiness from the little dragon hybrid. "Relax, kid. If my intention was to hurt you, I wouldn't have fed you dragon blood."
"DRAGON BLOOD?" Pyran's face paled as bile rose to his throat.
"Yep, from one of the Muu Dragons we killed." Gnasty Gnorc replied as if the subject was for common everyday conversation. The memory of the dead Muu Dragon floated back to Pyran's mind and his stomach churned sickingly.
"But...but...That's wrong!" The draun shouted.
"No. To let you kids die of blood loss and broken limbs would be wrong. Believe me, your other five friends also gave the same reaction, but once they accepted the fact that I was saving them instead of poisoning them, they took the medicine. And since I can't force medicine down an unconscious kid's throat, well, I had to wait longer to heal you." Gnasty Gnorc explained.
"But how does dragon blood heal anything?" Pyran yelled. The thought of life-giving medicine pumping through his father's body, just ready to be taken away by some coldhearted potions master to bottle it up and sell it to ailing people, filled his mind and made him shudder.
"Ever hear of the myths that say how useful all the parts of a dragon is? Like eating a dragon's heart will grant you the ability to talk to all the animals of nature, wearing dragon scales will protect you from any mortal weapon, and drinking dragon's blood will make you invulnerable? They're partially true."
"Do you mean that we'll never get hurt?" Calub called from the foot of the cave.
"No. It turns out that drinking dragon blood only heals you in terms of body. The magic in dragons flows through their blood, so drinking it has healing qualities." Gnasty Gnorc explained. When he noticed the weird looks he was getting from Pyran, he then added, "Course, because you are all residents of Avalar, which has close ties to The Dragon Realms, there's a law against killing a dragon and harvesting it for its blood. Plus it doesn't work if more than three days have passed since you harvested the blood, so you can't exactly bottle the stuff and sell it."
No other questions were asked on the subject, but the children muttered amongst themselves about the legends of different parts of creatures and how they were supposed to be useful. Hours passed, and soon the children fell asleep among the warmth of the campfire, their exhausted bodies snuggled against the rocks in the cave. Everyone wanted to be awake by morning to better save their parents.
All except for Pyran. The little draun didn't move from his seat from the campfire as he sat and regarded Gnasty with an acknowledging look as he polished his club. For a long moment, the only sounds came from the fire and the scraping of wood. Finally, Pyran summoned up the courage to ask the question that was plaguing his mind.
"Why are you helping us?"
It took a while for the gnorc to reply.
"Do I need a reason to help others, especially those in need?" he said, giving Pyran a cold stare with his dark brown eyes. For a moment, Pyran felt hesitant. Just a few days ago, he was talking about slaying people to get rid of his "hero anxiety". Now he felt incredibly stupid at the fact that everyone that seemed like an enemy, be it Fishtail or Gnasty, wanted to help him.
"No, no...I mean...We're the children of your worst enemies...and..." Pyran didn't finish his sentence when he saw the look of the gnorc's eyes. Gnasty Gnorc scowled at the child as he set his weapon down and then returned his attention to repairing some of the cracked leather in his armor.
"You never did anything to earn me any hatred, and I never hold the reason of existence against anybody. From what I see, you're a bunch of confused children that have lost something very dear in this godforsaken place. After seeing thousands of innocents die before my eyes, I promised myself not to let anyone else die while I'm around."
"But my father-"
"Just because your father was a literal pain in the ass doesn't mean I hold you any grudge, kid." Gnasty cut in, with a mild chuckle. Pyran forced out a hesitant laugh, partly because he knew about the story of his father's second encounter with the gnorc and he knew very well what had happened in that battle.
"It's Pyran, if you must know. Not 'kid'. And I'm...sort of sorry for being such a jerk when I mentioned you on the battlefield. I guess my friends are right about me being a hothead." Pyran said with a sigh. It seemed that lately he was picking fights with everybody. Was this really how a hero should act?
"You probably got that from your father, but no need to worry. I have nothing against you. But right now I think it's way past your bedtime, Pyran. Do you want that leg to heal or not?" Gnasty informed. When Pyran heard this, he sheepishly grinned and then scuttled with his one good leg to an unoccupied spot in the cave where his sleeping bag lay. Using his pack as a pillow, his pulled himself in bed and heard the campfire fizz out behind him.
"I suppose asking you for a kiss goodnight would be too much, eh Gnasty Gnorc?" Pyran called to the dark shape hidden near the back of the cave. When no answer came from the strange companion he saved, the draun snuggled into his makeshift bed.
'Boy, I'm going to have quite a story when I save dad.'
Pyran fell asleep immediately, his mind drifting off into dreams of fighting monsters in caves and saving damsels in distress. How ironic it was, for the son of Spyro to befriend one of his father's most hated enemies...
Red the Fallen Dragon Elder slowly woke from his slumber to the smell of rotten meat. He groaned as it felt like his brain was trying to burst out of his skull. His last memory was of his slave drivers feeding him some bitter-tasting stew. It was either drink it or be beaten senseless, so he had no choice but to drink.
'Craven little lizards! I'll show the-'
Red didn't complete his thought when he found that his arm was stuck to the wall. In fact, as he wiggled his toes and tried to move his legs without success, he found that he was suspended to the wall by some very sticky and foul-smelling substance. Red emitted an irritated growl and he put all of his energy into pulling one of his arms out of the goop. With the help of some well-placed fireballs, Red was able to free his right arm. With a gasp, he saw what was holding him on the cave wall.
It was a very sticky webbing made out of blood, saliva, and the flesh pulled off some unfortunate creature.
A horrified cry rose from his throat and reflexively turned his head away from his arm to no longer view the sticky mess that he was stuck in. It was a bad mistake on his part, as he found himself staring into the empty eyes of a half-eaten gnorc. Pink skin, rotten flesh, and broken bones seemed to protrude out of the decaying shell of the once proud gnorc warrior. The partly skeletal remains of the corpse seemed to grin at his misfortune.
'What kind of place did the Muu Dragons take me?'
Immediately his question was answered when a growl emerged from the darkness in front of him. The pile of bloody skulls stirred as a claw caked with dried blood emerged from the darkness and slammed itself onto the ground. Red found himself staring into a glowing red eye of a very savage-looking creature. It was a monster that was covered from the tip of its bloody muzzle to the ends of its rat-like tail with dark green fur. Spiders, fleas, and various other vermin seemed to swarm over its forest of messy hair.
Red couldn't help but shudder as the creature pressed its muzzle against Red's chest and took in the dragon's scent. The snout of the beast was still wet with blood, and he could hear the squishy sounds of entrails still being chewed within. Judging from the fact that the monster had giant leathery wings and huge bat ears, he was currently be analyzed by the monstrous leader of the Desolation Gnorcs that was known only as The Queen. Standing before him on a nest of wet skulls was the very creature that had ordered the assassination of all his troops.
"How dare you treat the Fallen Dragon Elder Red in such a manner? I insist that you unpin me from this wall and away from this rotting corpse this instant!" Red chanced that maybe The Queen was a stupid monster that could be easily persuaded by a commanding voice. What he got was a savage roar from the creature, a roar that echoed through the entire cave and rattled Red's bones so much that he was afraid that his joints were going to burst.
"Quiet, fool."
The voice came from a rather disheveled looking gargoyle nestled in the fur on the monster's nose. It was rather small, about the size of Red's head minus the horns, and it looked exactly like the stone statues that spew water from human cathedrals. It's face was draconic in nature, and it had paws like a cat and a forked tail. Cracks littered its body, and its voice sounded like an middle-aged woman shouting to a bunch of rowdy children.
"Since you're too much of an idiot to understand The Queen's language, old Vendea'll have to translate for you!" the gargoyle replied. She licked a black forked tongue against her lips as she said so, revealing that she was completely toothless. Vendea gauged Red's reaction as he retorted her statement.
"An idiot? Just because I can't understand the gnorcian language-"
"Yes, you are a complete imbecile." Vendea hissed. "A thickheaded dunce who has more ego than grey matter lodged in that skull of his. A weak and cowardly little worm that still mews for his egg's yolk. You're lucky The Queen is still full and has a special plan involving you, or else she'd jam her claws into your stomach and rip your slimy innards out. Because otherwise, you're a completely worthless piece of gnorc crap!"
In normal circumstances, if Red heard a gargoyle shout that to him, he would've blasted the flying creature into cinders with his magic. However, being plastered to the wall with a giant monster underneath the gargoyle flinging the insults, Red had to keep his temper restrained in fear of whatever The Queen could do.
"I'm not in the best of moods, gargoyle. I'm stuck to the wall next to a dead gnorc, my brain feels like it's going to burst from my skull, I'm completely helpless, and all of my troops have been slaughtered not too long ago. Why do you need me anyways?" Red groaned. Vendea rolled her eyes as if he was asking the stupidest question in the world; the fallen dragon elder grumbled to himself when he realized just how much his pride was taking a beating from this creature.
"To get the talking gnorc, genius. You had a gnorc that could speak in the Universal Language with you, right?" Vendea waited for Red to nod, and then she continued. "Well, if you were smart enough to realize how much The Queen despises your weak brand of gnorcs, you would also know that the only thing she hates more than your gnorcs is the gnorc of yours that can talk."
Red let that register into his mind. He could tell that The Queen hated the gnorcs from his realms, what with the immediate order to execute every last one of them, but the fact that she hated Gnasty Gnorc even worse didn't make any sense. If he was a better target than the troops he bought into Lavara, surely he would've been slaughtered as well during the fight...
"The Queen doesn't want to give her men the satisfaction of draining that gnorc of his blood. I'm sure you can guess your use, Mr. Superior." Vendea replied as if reading Red's mind. The fallen dragon elder shivered when he realized that The Queen was staring straight at him with a large glowing red eyeball; maybe the monster could read his mind. With a realm full of flying gnorcs, anything was possible.
"I'm the bait. Must admit, The Queen is quite clever. Course, you do realize that Gnasty Gnorc is with the Muu Dragons and the chances of him escaping from the leader Brandimuu's clutches are pretty slim? Why do you even have me hung up here as bait when you can always go to the camp yourself and slay him there?" Red asked, trying to assume the most friendly posture as he could. Which was pretty hard to do when one was stuck to the wall with a web of rotting flesh and saliva.
The Queen made a hurt gurgling noise, realizing that the dragon had asked a very intelligent question besides the usual that she normally heard from her victims. Vendea shrugged her shoulders. "We specifically ordered for Gnasty Gnorc to be transferred to Brandimuu's camp for the very reason for him to escape. Brandimuu's a total idiot that would only beat him instead of securing him tightly. Most likely the gnorc has already escaped from the camp and is on his way here."
Red raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think that he'll come all the way over here?"
"Why, it's simple really. It's in his gnorc blood to challenge a rematch to anything that dares threaten his power. We destroyed his entire race of magic-born monsters, and now we're supposed to pay for the damages in our blood. Course, looks like the tables will turn for him."
Vendea then launched herself off The Queen's nose and floated towards Red. The dragon tried to swipe at her with his right arm, but the gargoyle succeeded in pinning his arm back into the goop of rotting flesh. She flapped right in front of his nose, and was completely unaffected to any streams of fire blown in her direction.
"That, and from the way you'll be screaming in pain, he'll have no choice but to run in this direction and be ripped limb from limb by The Queen. Sweet delicious revenge." Vendea hissed. Red said nothing, but instead watched as Vendea flitted to a place in the cave obscured by shadows. Sweat started to bead on his forehead as Vendea flew back with two strange objects in her arms. One of them resembled a drill, and the other object resembled a taser. Red tried to keep a stern look on his face when the gargoyle pressed a button the drill and admired the way the gears made a high-pitched whirling sound.
"Be sure to scream extra loud for The Queen, okay?"
End of Chapter 4.
Author's Notes: Some references to AHT in terms of what Vendea called Red, and why Gnasty Gnorc called Spyro a literal pain in the ass.