Reviewer response

Hunter of City: Glad to see see a review from you again. For your concerns, next chapter will explain more on the things related to the Destroyer and Quillum. The Year of the Forest will remain the same and will likely not get a rewrite.

Chapter 1: Peaceful days

The city of Warfang had changed a lot in the three years between the defeat of Malefor and current times. Fortunately for the city during the World's Fracturing, the entire city itself was lifted out of the ground, along with other chunks of the earth both large and small, and as a result did not experience much damage from that event in particular. However, when the Earth was restored, the the fragmented pieces joined back together at somewhat random degrees of forcefulness. That said, the primary concern of the city's architects was that the foundations had been damaged to the point where, given enough time, it would cause an epidemic of structural collapses.

It took many hard hours over the course of months to do all the necessary repairs to the city. For the buildings that could not be saved or salvaged, they were demolished and rebuilt to exact or even more grandiose in scale. Among these buildings was the Temple of Warfang, which had been utterly destroyed beyond repair in the siege of the Dragon City. After three years of rebuilding, the temple was restored to its former glory, in fact, more than that actually, with the complex being much larger than the one previous. And it was in this new temple that the Elemental Guardians, and Spyro and Cynder lived in.

After the defeat of Malefor by the paws of the two young dragons, their lives had simmered down. There was not much conflict in the world since their main adversary had been vanquished. Soon after the world's restoration, they were offered an honorary position along with the guardians, allowing them to have a word on the decisions that had to be made. They turned down the offer however, and continued to live in the city without much difficulty. Anywhere they went, they would always get special treatment thanks to their actions. Meals for free, reduced prices on anything that they wanted to purchase, gifts given to them by adoring fans, and those who idolize them. By now, the attention they had gained when they went out in public had declined to where their presence was acknowledged but wasn't given much attention. Things were becoming enjoyable for them now.

Together they walked within the temple's halls, walking for the sake of walking, going from one open room to the other without a destination in mind. In their ambeling journey, the two had stumbled into the training room. It was very similar to the one in the temple in the swamp, albeit much bigger, and instead of the statue in the middle that resembled Malefor, a statue of themselves was constructed in its place. The statue had been left lowered, leaving a large open space for training. This would have been another passby on their destinationless journey had Cynder not stopped in the center of the room.

"You know, Spyro. It has been a long while since we last fought a battle," Cynder said, her smooth voice echoing off the walls. Spyro stopped and turned to face her.

"It has." He responded right to the point. His amethyst eyes meeting her teal-colored ones. "There really hasn't been a need for it, don't you think?"

She shook her head. "Don't you think that it is time that we get back to doing what we did best together?"

"If that is what you want to do, sure. But the question is, what? We don't have an adversary to fight against, and even if we do, it's nothing that would bring back the old days."

"You might be right..." She sauntered towards him in an intimidating fashion. "But you forget that there is one that you've never thought of..." Spyro eyed her nervously, the dots in his mind had just begun to connect.

"And who is that?" She continued to walk up to him until both of them were face to face with one another. Her eyes peering right into his soul, he was starting to get frightened at her sudden change in demeanor. She broke eye contact with him, moving her head to the side of his and whispered,

"Me…!"

Spyro's heart skipped a beat when she slammed into him, knocking him flat on his back and laying on top of him. It hit him like a ton of bricks about what she meant and what she was intending. A broad grin formed on his face as his excitement built for the challenge that she had issued him.

"Oh, so that's how it's gonna be?" he said playfully. The purple dragon reacted quickly and knocked her off the top of him. She recovered quickly and landed gracefully on the ground without as much as a single scratch. "Then show me what you got!"

Both dragons proceeded to engage in mock combat with one another, exchanging physical and magical blows. Spyro was a bit slower, but had more force behind his hits while Cynder delivered fast, successive blows that in their combined effect would equal that of Spyro's attacks. Magically speaking, both had their advantages and disadvantages that gave neither an advantage or disadvantage. This continued for as long as either could go until both collapsed on the floor a few feet apart. Still panting, they laughed together.

"T-that was fun…" Spyro breathed, his chest rising and falling in a quick interval and a large grin still on his face.

"Y-yeah it was…" the black dragoness replied in similar fashion. "I've not felt my heart race like that in a long time…"

"Makes me feel a little younger," he said with his tongue out.

Cynder giggled at his joking remark. "Makes you feel like a child, huh?" she teased back. "So you wanna be rocked in a cradle and rocked in a cradle?"

His cheeks turned a shade of rosy red in embarrassment. "N-not like that!" he stammered. His lover laughed at him.

They laid there on the floor for a couple minutes longer in the mostly silent room, still recovering from their tiny tussle. As they rested, Cynder began to lose herself in thought and was becoming increasingly distant. It was only when she hummed lowly that Spyro was alerted to her state of mind. That said, he was intrigued, and asked. "So, whatcha thinking?"

His mate looked back at him and hesitated a bit before replying, "I've been thinking a lot lately about the prospect of moving out of the temple and the city."

Spyro's eyes widened a little at the answer. "Oh," he said in surprise. "Where were you thinking about going?"

"Not entirely sure yet. I'm thinking about somewhere near or like Twilight Falls. Plenty of fresh water to drink and forests to frolic in. Though I kinda want to go somewhere a little far away, away from society and drama; a hermit kind of life."

He could agree with her statement. "I think something like Twilight Falls would be nice too. But I probably wouldn't want to go as far as to live the life of a hermit." While he could appreciate the privacy and freedom that the wilderness offered him, he also enjoyed the conveniences of civilization. "When would you like to go looking for it?"

"Sooner rather than later preferably."

The purple dragon hummed in thought. "We could go this weekend." It was a Monday, and they already had a plan made for the rest of the weekdays, but their weekends were available.

"I'll hold you to it then. Don't disappoint me," she chuckled and lifted herself off of the floor. Before he could get up off the ground, she padded over to him and kissed him on the cheek, inciting a blush and a smile from him. "I love you."

He kissed her back. "I love you too, Cynder." Spyro got up onto his feet and joined her side. They returned to their carefree trek through the temple, forgetting to take the time to repair some of the damage that the stonework had received.

It wasn't long after they left that three of the guardians entered the training room only to see that the walls and floor displayed obvious evidence of a sparring match which had not been cleaned up afterwards: cracks, scorch marks, erosion and damage from all kinds of weathering forces. There was no denying from the many types of damage done that it was none other than the heroes of the realm that were responsible.

Cyril and Volteer chuckled a little at the visible frustration that was expressed by Terrador's scowl and scoff. They all had an unofficial meeting that was to take place here, and the least that they could do was to clean it up afterwards, the scorch marks at least.

Activating his element, Terrador's paws began to glow as a green aura spread across the surfaces of the room and worked its way into the various cracks and crevices, from which he willed his power to restore the stone to its original status and quality. The glow faded, and with it, the repair work was completed. The Earth Guardian smiled and marveled at his work; he might have been a mighty warrior, but he was by no meals a bull in a china shop.

By then, a new hooded figure strolled into the training room from the opposite door the guardians used to enter themselves. Once inside and when the doors closed, they were magically locked and the figure removed its hood to reveal a cheetah, one of the closest friends to the dragons in the room. It was Hunter of Avalar.

"Welcome, Hunter," Terrador called out, his baritone voice reverberating in the chamber. "I'm glad that you were able to make it."

"I am too, old friend. I am too." After the restoration phase of the realms, Hunter took up the role of being the envoy of the cheetahs in the wider area of Avalar. It would be him that would bring their concerns and grievances to Warfang, and it would also be him that represented should anything arise. "The cheetahs over Avalar as well as sister tribes elsewhere have reported sightings of strange creatures flying high in the air over and around our villages. They are too small to be a dragon, but too big to be an ordinary bird. Quite frankly, my people worry because they do not know what it is that they are seeing."

All of the guardians exchanged puzzled looks. Bigger than a dragon but smaller than a bird. It wasn't that good of a description to work off of, even to the point where Volteer, the most knowledgeable of them, was at a loss. But that didn't stop him from asking questions in his usual fashion.

"I have to inquire, on how many occasions were these ambiguous aerial creatures been seen? What are the patterns of their flight? In what angle of arrival and departure do they fly in? All of the answers to these questions can help paint us a more lucid picture of what these odd creatures might be."

Hunter blinked and stood in silence for a bit as his mind had to process the dictionary that had been thrown at him in verbal form. "It has been an increasingly frequent occurrence, and we are unsure if it is one creature of many of them. Their flight is another thing — it's methodical. They fly in, circle over, and leave in a few minutes."

Volteer hummed in thought, then chimed, "Well, I am absolutely sure that there is no animalia that matches your size and flight pattern description."

"Don't be so quick to conclusions, Volteer," Cyril abruptly interrupted. "You cannot tell me with that encyclopedia of a mind of yours that you have forgotten about those dreaded deadwings that those barbaric apes rode upon the many times they assailed us?"

Volteer let out a low, annoyed growl. Cyril was smart, but he knew that he was much smarter, being the most knowledgeable of the group. Cyril's arrogance was not helping. "Well if you can get over your hubris, you would have observed that even those deadwings went away just like the apes did once Malefor had his way with them."

"So what are they then, a figment of some feline's imagination? A phantom in the night?"

"We have clearly heard the testimony of the observation of a new species! One which has avoided our observations before now, perhaps brought forth into light of observation in part to the world's shattering and subsequent restoration."

"What other evidence do we have other than eye-witness conversation, which mind you, is the lowest form of evidence, or that —"

The squabbling between the ice and electric guardian continued on, leaving a bemused Terrador to look on and shug at the cheetah in their presence.

This went on for some time, Cyril not wanting to be proven wrong due to pride, and Volteer not backing down due to his great intellect called out as fraudulent when he put in the work to achieve such great levels of knowledge. Had it not been for the door opening rather loudly, the argument would have perhaps gone on for much longer.

"Now what are you two arguing about this time?" a higher pitched voice asked, gaining the attention of the others in the room. All eyes fell on the origin of the voice, and the source was a younger appearing red dragoness.

Pyra was her name, and she was the new fire guardian that would take the place of the late Ignitus. Her character showed great promise: compassion, empathy, and open-mindedness. While she was not as physically imposing as the other guardians, she showed an apt ability for magic. It was those traits that made her a great candidate.

Before either blue or yellow dragons could interject from their argument, Hunter swooped in and gave the dragoness a run-down of what he was here for and why the two had been butting heads.

"Cyril, now how would you know what they are? You're already assuming these creatures are something bad that has to be contained without knowing anything more than an eye-witness account. And you, Volteer, while I appreciate the enthusiasm in discovery, and especially since this could be a new species that you are so excited about, you aren't really showing caution either," she scolded, calling out both of them and their trains of thought.

Terridor and Hunter both chuckled as she had managed to put both of them in their place with her comment, and the awkward moments of silence that followed showed that it was effective.

"Pyra, my dear, the world is not all sunshine and rainbows," Cyril retorted back at her. "Remember those barbaric apes? They were considered peaceful before they began to unjustly murder out kind without a hint of hesitation."

A smirk grew on her face as she had the knowledge to know better than to fall for one of Cyril's 'logic traps' which he liked to use to sway people towards his light on thinking or to dismiss their own. "Yes, I know about the history of the apes. But are these creatures apes? Are apes riding upon them? We don't yet know that. So I'm not convinced on how you see them as a threat already when you only know that they fly." Meanwhile, Volteer smirked with a large grin as it was his position that she was supporting.

"Don't think that you know more than I do, young lady. You still have a lot to learn," the Ice Guardian replied on the defensive. "And you still have a lot of experience to gain."

"Well maybe if you were to go to a library once and awhile, maybe you'll learn how to make a convincing defense." Finally, the older dragon shied away with a red face, Terridor, Volteer, and Hunter all laughing at his defeat by the younger lady.

After the echoes of laughter faded, Hunter got them back onto their topic at hand. "I think we have to err on the side of caution here. We do not know of their intentions or what they are, but should we be approached by them peacefully, then we will follow the route of open-relations."

"Thank you, Hunter," the dragoness replied, thankful that her position had been considered in the cheetah's compromise. The male dragons all exchanged looks among themselves and nodded; the compromise would work for them just as well as it would work with Pyra.

"Is there anything else you would like to add, Hunter?" Volteer asked. The cheetah shook his head. "Then shall we call this little meeting adjourned?"

Everyone was in agreeance.

"Then it has been settled. Hunter and his tribesmen will attempt to make contact with these creatures should they be sociable enough to seek it. On our side of the bargain, we will keep a vigilant eye out for them and intercept when we can so that we may acquire similar information."

"The terms are acceptable. We will do everything we can on our part of the deal." He began to slowly walk to the door whence he came from. "Good luck and take care, all."

"You too," the guardians replied in almost perfect unison.