Chapter 35

The Fall
Part I: Ember
~

Well here we are. I've been planning for this since the beginning, and the moment has finally arrived. The parts of this 'chapter' will be posted over the course of one week.

The parts have been divided according to song. I can't recommend enough that you listen to each song as you read.

The song for this chapter is Skyfall, by Adele. It is the opening theme of the James Bond movie called Skyfall. This song is from the author as much as from the story.

So overdue I owe them,

Swept away I'm stolen.

Cynder and Ember moved stealthily through the fortress. It was eerily quiet; all of the pleasant decorated rooms and large tasteful spaces were empty. They encountered nothing to stop them.

Malefor was the biggest danger; even with the Dragonslayer and with Ember's help Cynder was not confident about taking him on. She could have a chance of winning, but if she lost then Malefor might take the spear from her and use it against them later; which would be a disaster.

The odds of them running into Malefor were lower than the chances of them setting off some magical alarm or force field, so despite the lack of encounters with living things the two girls remained fully on guard. They also kept a wary eye out for orcs, and any other creatures that Malefor might have set to watch over his stronghold.

Orcs had brought them their food earlier that day, which meant that at least a few of them had to be hanging around somewhere. There could be worse things too.

They were going down, looking for the dungeons that Cynder recalled being under the fortress. After almost twenty minutes of searching they found what they were looking for.

Cynder hadn't recalled exactly what the prison cells had looked like, but she'd been expecting something miserable and sinister.

Certainly the architecture was sinister, as it had been throughout the whole castle, and this place was sparsely decorated, but it wasn't nearly as bad as Cynder had thought it would be. The two girls walked down a grand set of stairs until they reached the bottom level of the fortress. The dungeon was made up of four paths in a huge square, there were doors evenly spaced along the outside walls and huge barred cage cells off the inside wall of the square, with the stairs down on one corner of the square.

They did a full loop of the area, just to make sure there was nothing else. All of the doors to the rooms were open, and while the rooms were smaller and sparser then the one Cynder and Ember had been locked in they were all still nice, clean and fairly comfortable. They peeked inside each door as they passed. The doors had no handles on the insides.

Ember was no longer looking nearly so tense, she walked with her head held high, her tail was down and it slid over the dark stone of the floor. The pink dragoness gave Cynder a smile.

"You match the floor and walls." She kept her voice low, but that she'd spoken at all said a great deal about how much calmer she was feeling.

Cynder looked down at her jet black scales, and then nodded. "I guess I do. I wonder if that was part of the design plans for this place."

Ember shrugged. "Maybe." She smiled as she thought of something new to talk about. "Do you think that you technically own this fortress? It is Cynder's fortress after all. It's bigger than any of the homes in Warfang, and if you did then you'd be rich. It's really-" Ember's mouth snapped shut as the girls reached a corner and heard a sound from beyond it.

Cynder gestured for Ember to stay still, and then she inched forwards. Ember pressed herself up against the wall, scared, but ready to leap out and help Cynder if she needed to. Cynder prowled around the corner, and then stopped, tilting her head. She used her tail blade to beckon Ember over to her, and the pink dragoness cautiously slinked out of hiding.

"It's just a troll." Cynder sounded relieved.

Ember looked at the creature, it was securely held in an enormous barred cell, she wasn't too worried by it either, but she still wasn't happy about its presence.

The troll was orange, huge, hairy, and looked as if it was made of stone and dry moss. It looked at them quietly, not seeming to care much about its visitors.

Ember's head was just slightly lower than the beast's eye level. Cynder was slightly shorter, had she stood with ladylike posture, she would have measured up to about the troll's chin. Ember glanced at Cynder's catlike ready stance and resolved to ask the black dragoness about the way that she comported herself sometime in the near future.

Considering their wings and tails both of the girls were bigger than the creature, but its massive bulky body would have far outweighed either of them. Dragons were built to fly, while the troll certainly was not. It was intimidating to Ember, but far from terrifying.

"It's in a cage." Ember said, reluctantly stating the obvious. "So we're safe."

"If it roars it could attract guards, or even Malefor. However… it's not hurting anyone and it doesn't look aggressive; we might as well just leave it here." Cynder looked at Ember and the pink dragoness nodded agreement.

"Let's move on quickly, though." She completed Cynder's thought.

The two of them briskly checked the cells opposite the troll's cage, and then they gladly walked out of the creature's line of sight.

"Whew…" Ember sighed with relief. "That was the third scariest thing that I've ever seen."

"Really?" Cynder looked curious. Trolls were big and often quite violent, but hardly threatening to a grown dragon, even if that dragon was still relatively young like Cynder and Ember were. "What were the two other things?"

Ember looked at the black dragoness, about to answer, and then paused, mouth slightly open, for a few moments. "Actually I think I'll need to count again. I forgot to put you on the list."

Cynder glanced away in embarrassment. "Me?"

Ember giggled at Cynder's reaction. "Well… yes. At the moment the list goes: Magmar, Cynder, Malefor. Oh yes, then there was this one crazy grublin that flew into my face while we were at Shattershelf. Then there's the Golem, which I only glimpsed, but it was still really scary, and it had the whole orc army around it at the time."

"Sounds like you can make a decent list." Cynder said. She felt unsure if she should be flattered or upset at being so high on the list. She'd hoped that she and Ember were beginning to become close friends, and that they could trust each other. "You know… I don't want to scare you, Ember."

"Oh you're not always scary. But a few times you've been totally terrifying." Ember smiled and nudged Cynder with her wing. "I'm not scared of you anymore."

"That's not too bad then. I like being scary when I want to be." Cynder returned the nudge with one of her own.

Ember nodded enthusiastically. "The troll is way down the list, now that I think about it. In fact I'm hardly scared of it at all. Especially not when you're here with me."

Cynder smiled. "Thanks."

They walked in silence for a few seconds before Cynder continued speaking.

"I never had nice memories of this place before, but looking at it now I am rather tempted to own it. It'd be satisfying to be the queen of my very own castle."

Ember nodded. "It's a bit isolated, but that just means you'd get lots of privacy and few unwanted guests."

The two of them stopped at a room that seemed as if it had been occupied recently. The furniture had all been wrecked, and a lot of it had been burned.

"Do you think someone was attacked here?" Ember asked fearfully.

Cynder nudged the door open; it had been scratched from the inside. There were a series of long deep grooves at about Cynder's shoulder height. "On the contrary I think that someone didn't like living in a cell. A fire dragon, by the looks of it. She indicated the smashed and burned table, bed and bookshelves." She traced one of the claw marks. "Maybe a dragoness, but I'm just guessing about that."

Ember nosed around the cell for a few moments, and then she shook her head. "I'm not seeing anything of importance." She sniffed the air. "And I don't smell anything either, just smoke."

"I think that they're gone, whoever they are. We should move on."

Ember nodded and re-joined her companion back out in the corridor. They kept on walking.

Ember looked at Cynder, again noticing that she had to look down at the black dragoness. "Cynder?"

"Yes?"

"Have you thought much about the way you walk?"

Cynder blinked at her, raising her head slightly as she replied. "The way I'm walking now? No, not really. It's just what feels natural, it's comfortable and it keeps me alert."

"You have your head down really low and your wings are slightly open. It's really cool that you walk so gracefully and quietly, but it also makes you look like you're about to attack someone."

"Maybe I am about to attack someone." Cynder smiled.

Ember laughed. "You certainly look ready to fight. It's just an unusual way of walking."

Cynder shrugged. "I do have other ways of walking."

"What do you mean?"

"I know how to walk like Imperia does. You know, with the hip swish and tail swaying and all of the slinky movements."

"You can actually do that?" Ember looked at her, quite impressed. "It takes so much practice! And it's way too embarrassing to practice sexy walking while there's anyone around who could see you doing it."

Cynder laughed. "That's true. It does make you feel a bit self-conscious when you first try it in front of someone."

"Can I see?"

Cynder blushed. "Sure." She raised her head and tail, folded her wings, and sashayed as she walked for a few metres, involving her whole body in the familiar sinuous movements. She placed her feet gracefully and deliberately, swaying with each step.

Ember watched her with admiration. "That walk looks so good on you!"

Cynder smiled proudly. "Thanks Ember. Imperia taught me, but I never really saw a point to this sort of walking before."

"What about with Spyro?" Ember asked.

"Well yes. I accidently did it in front of him a few days after we left Warfang, and he said it looked really good, so then I decided that I'd practice a bit more."

"That recently?"

"Yes."

"But you're so good at it. How can you have only had a few days practice?"

"I'd practiced it before, I just never showed it to anyone but Imperia until Spyro saw me."

Ember smiled. "And he liked it?"

"He called me sexy."

"That's good. You deserve it."

"Thanks…" Cynder was surprised by how easily Ember had given that compliment; she hadn't expected it and it made her blush slightly with something other than mere awkwardness. Ember didn't seem to notice her reaction.

The two girls finished their lap of the bottom floor and looked at each other. In their chatting they'd almost forgotten that they were searching for Spyro. Not finding him down below the fortress was worrying.

"I guess we start to work our way up?" Ember asked.

"We have to. But if we do then we'll find Malefor eventually. He might be reading or asleep or something, but if we search every room then we'd end up running straight into him."

"Got it. We avoid Malefor's bedchamber, and the library, and we go to where Spyro is. All we need now is to know where Spyro is."

"I wish there were signs. 'Spyro upstairs, third door on the left.' Or something like that."

"I bet that the signs that we followed would lead us outside and right into the middle of a pack of ape ghosts. Also the signs saying 'Danger, fighting troll cages' would actually direct us to Spyro."

"For someone who looks all sweet and kind you sometimes come up with very wicked ideas." Cynder said, smiling. "Have you ever considered being an evil genius? If you and Imperia had designed this place together then I wouldn't stand a chance. I'd just be wandering around a lovely palace and accidently running into crazy death-traps every few steps."

"But because I didn't design this place… that means that we do stand a chance!" This logic didn't quite satisfy Cynder, but Ember seemed happy with it. "Let's go. I vote that we try some of the most scary places you could have a prisoner, y'know, if you wanted to impress them with being dramatic."

"Like the tower?" Cynder asked.

"Exactly. It was your second guess, after all."

"It's worth a try." Cynder agreed. "That's a good idea Ember."

The two of them began to work their way up the tower, Ember noticed that Cynder had slightly altered her walk. She wasn't quite doing Imperia's sashay, but she was doing a mixture between that and her usual prowl. She looked nice.

Cynder and Ember went up several staircases before they encountered another living thing. At least, it was probably living; it was hard to tell for sure.

Standing on the stairs above them was a skeletal bipedal creature with large draconic wings. Its posture and body looked unnatural and unsettling.

The creature was staring at one of the walls, but the moment the two dragonesses came into view its gaze locked onto them. It took a step down, its wings scraping on the stairs, or perhaps its joints were scraping together, it was hard to tell.

Cynder hissed softly and stepped forwards, Ember stayed by her side.

"Cynder." The creature rasped at them.

Cynder jumped, she hadn't been expecting that the thing would be able to speak. It resembled an orc with its hunched shoulders and long limbs, and the orcs had no mouths. Grublins and great orcs spoke only in their own weird language, while this creature had said her name. She hissed again, taking a ready stance.

"I know you, Cynder. I saw what you were capable of at Shattershelf."

The black dragoness blinked. The orc creature was talking to her. She'd never talked to an orc creature before. "Do I know you?" She asked cautiously.

"I am called General. And I am the only one of my rank or kind, therefore I am the General. Now you know me, as I know you."

The way that the skeletal creature spoke was strange, it sounded mechanical. Cynder wasn't sure how to respond. She was having trouble detecting emotion in its voice, was it being aggressive?

Ember spoke up, her voice trembling ever so slightly. "We're looking for our… friend." She hesitated for a moment to decide what word to use to describe Spyro. Ember looked at the creature with a hopeful expression.

Cynder very much doubted that this tactic would work, but she kept quiet.

"You seek Spyro. I have no means by which to persuade you to return to your cell, but be advised that there are multiple reasons for why the both of you returning to your cell immediately is the best course of action you can take."

Cynder frowned. "Was that a threat?"

"That was not a threat, it is what I recommend you do."

Cynder snorted. "Not likely."

Ember looked at the General. "Please, you seem like a reasonable creature, certainly more than the grublins and other nasty things. Can't we go to Spyro?"

"I do not wish to fight you, but I will not allow you to do that."

"But he is up these stairs?" Cynder asked, a threatening grin forming on her muzzle, she took a step forwards, expecting the creature to back down. If it had the ability to reason then she could intimidate it.

The general looked at her with little emotion. "Yes."

Cynder stalked straight up the stairs, ignoring that the creature was in her way. It stood its ground, until Cynder's body started to glow with red energy. Then the creature began to look a lot more wary.

"Nothing is going to stop me for getting to Spyro, least of all you. Go away before I kill you."

The General paused. "You can't use the attack you used before, it would kill Ember as well as killing me." It took a step back anyway, and Cynder decided that it was weaker than its unsettling manner and appearance had led her to first believe.

"Firstly, it would only hurt her a lot. Secondly, I have more controlled attacks that are equally deadly, and can be targeted."

The General seemed to consider this for a moment, but Cynder saw the moment it changed its stance and predicted its next move.

The creature lunged at her and Cynder hit it dead on with an orb of red energy.

The General screamed, a sound as disturbing as its appearance, and crashed to the ground. Cynder stepped over it carelessly. It contorted and writhed on the steps, red energy clung to its body and left it almost paralysed.

Ember watched, she looked at Cynder nervously and the black dragoness shrugged.

"I don't want to kill it. It can think. In a while it'll be ok again, and maybe it'll have learned a lesson about getting between me and what I want."

"You certainly sounded like you wanted to kill it." Ember said. "You sounded very nasty." She admitted.

"Sorry. I just wanted to scare it into letting us go." She smiled reassuringly to relax the pink dragoness. "And then I hit it with a fear attack, meaning that it has to let us go past. That's rather neat of me."

Ember smiled hesitantly in return. "So what do we do about this General thing?"

"I don't know. Leave it here?"

"Is that a good idea?"

"I don't want to kill it, and there is no way whatsoever that I am letting that thing come with us, so we don't really have much choice. It'll be unable to walk for at least fifteen minutes, and it'll probably be a day before it's at full power again."

"I don't like this." Ember said reluctantly. She didn't want to be a problem to Cynder, but something about walking away from the General felt deeply wrong to her. It was too cold hearted.

Cynder sighed. "Ok… how about we take it somewhere and lock it in a room?"

Ember nodded. "It's because of me that we can't leave it lying here, so I'll do it. You keep going to Spyro, ok?"

Cynder hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Of course. Like you said it won't be at full strength for a while. I can handle it with fire if I have to, and I can run away from orcs if they try to swarm me in numbers I can't defeat. Plus if I meet Malefor then I can keep him busy. You go and free Spyro, I'll deal with this."

Cynder nodded and continued up the stairs. The General was probably the most dangerous thing in the castle, aside from Malefor, but she didn't relax. She arrived at the top of the stairs and found that they led to nothing. There was an opening where Cynder instinctively knew that a platform ought to be, but the platform itself was far above her. She looked up at its underside and growled in annoyance. Apparently the platform had already gone up.

She went down the stairs until she found a narrow window. It was raining and stormy outside, she saw water pouring past the window. Hopefully it wasn't too cold. She turned to smoke and slipped out the window, her scales were rapidly covered by drops of rain.

The temperature was tolerable and she began to fly upwards to the top of the fortress tower. She was going to find Spyro.

Ember looked at the General, it had stopped thrashing around, which was a relief. She approached it cautiously and shook its shoulder gently. The General groaned and looked at her, its gaze was resigned.

"Why are you still here? Kill me, or damage me so I can't follow you."

"I don't want to kill you. I'm going to take you to a cell and lock you up. Malefor will let you out, but if I get the chance then I'll come back and let you out myself."

"Kindness?" The General looked at her doubtfully.

"I'm just trying to be nice. Can you get up?" Ember stepped back slightly.

The General tried to rise, it growled to itself as it used all of its strength, but it wasn't able to stand.

Ember looked at it with sympathy, she took a deep breath to give herself confidence, and then she stretched out her wing towards it. The General stared.

"Lean on my wing." Ember said, the creature looked at her with confusion, and then it did as Ember suggested, grasping Ember's wing and using it to support itself.

Ember shuddered slightly; the General's skin was rough and felt like stone. Her wing was quite sensitive, and she didn't like having the creature leaning on it. The general noticed that she was reluctant, but didn't say anything.

Ember helped the General to limp down the stairs. It was clearly weakened by the fear attack Cynder had hit it with. She reached a corridor, she could go left, right, or continue down the stairs. The pink dragoness hesitated and the General pointed down the stairs.

"Cells are that way."

Ember frowned. "Why should I trust you?"

"You have no reason to. But if you wish to lock me up then you would be best off to go down the stairs."

Ember reluctantly went down the stairs. She had been planning to go that way anyway.

The stairs ended with another two way corridor, the General pointed left and Ember went that way. They'd walked partway down the corridor before a small group of orcs walked out in front of them, Ember froze, the orcs turned and saw her.

Some of them just stood there, while others moved forwards as if to attack her. Ember bared her teeth, ready to fight. She could take down a few orcs.

"Halt!" The General raised a hand, it spoke aloud, but the real command was given telepathically through its mind. The orcs obediently stopped. The General used its mind to give them further commands. 'I will speak, acknowledge me when I am done speaking then stand by for further commands.'

It looked at Ember. The pink dragoness looked back at it and spoke bravely. "Make them go away, tell them I'll fight them if I have to!" Her voice trembled very slightly.

"Orcs, do not attack the pink dragoness under any circumstances. Tell all others of this order, but do not tell Malefor anything for an hour." The orcs all bowed in acknowledgement. The General glanced back at Ember. "I can't keep a secret from him for long, but I can give you some time."

"Umm… thankyou." Ember said, made uncertain by what she thought was a generous action. The General nodded and looked back at the orcs, giving them slightly different commands to the ones it had said aloud.

'Keep a distance, but keep watch. Do not interfere unless my life is in danger. Inform Malefor that I have Ember under control and she shall not present a problem.' It returned to speaking aloud, giving commands mentally that matched up with its words. "Now leave and do as I have commanded."

The orcs dispersed, leaving Ember and the General alone in the corridor. Ember looked at the creature with surprise, but there was also gratitude in her eyes.

"Thanks for that."

"You are welcome. I thank you in turn for your civility."

The General indicated a room for them to go through, directing Ember through the fortress.

Ember watched the General, no longer quite so fearful of it.

"Are we enemies?" She asked.

"I have no ill will towards you." It told her.

"And I don't think I have any for you either."

The two of them arrived at a smaller room, the General pointed at the door.

"You may lock me in here."

Ember nodded. "Sure." She walked them into the room and looked around.

The General had one of its hands below her wing and it began to charge up an orb of dark magic. Ember didn't notice what was going on; she looked at the General with a slight smile.

"Can you walk now?"

It took a step towards her, cautiously taking its weight off her wing. "I think so…"

"That's good. I'd better go and find Cynder and Spyro. They're probably fine, but I'd hate to cause a disaster by having them need to come looking for me."

"Wait…" The General needed a few more moments to gather its energy. "I would like to tell you something…"

Ember cocked her head to the side in curiosity. "What is it?"

"I've only been alive for a single week."

The dragonesses eyes widened. "Really? But you're not like a baby."

The General chuckled slightly, the sound was creepy but Ember didn't really notice. "Malefor's mental processes and memories have become mine. I am a subsection of his personality."

"That's… I'm not sure what to say."

"What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm not blindly following Malefor's orders. I have only memories of Imperia, I have never met her or talked to her, and she may not even know I exist. But I know what Malefor thinks of her and I have reached my own decisions. Imperia is a voice of reason, of kindness and warmth. I am an unnatural thing, perhaps even an abomination, yet I still admire what Imperia is to Malefor. I am trying to help her."

Ember thought over the General's words with fascination. "Does Malefor fancy Imperia?"

The General blinked at her, caught slightly off guard by the question. This pink dragoness was very odd if that was the most important question on her mind, or perhaps that was normal for dragons that weren't Malefor. "That's not something that I'm willing to tell you, I apologise. Now, you should lock me in and go to Spyro and Cynder."

"You're right."

Ember tucked up her wing; she turned to go towards the door, taking her eyes of the General as she did so. The skeletal creature staggered forwards, still weak, and pressed its hands against the back of her head.

Ember let out a yelp, her body jerked, and then she collapsed.

The General stood over her, using that magic had taken a lot of its energy. The pink dragoness was knocked out; the General checked her to make sure that she was still fine.

It limped to the door and locked it, trapping Ember inside. It felt bad about tricking her like that. Ember was naïve and incautious, she was far too trusting.

The General sighed. That was Ember out of the way. Hopefully she would be safe now from whatever disaster was going to happen on the top of the tower.

It was what Imperia would have done… probably.

One thing was certain, there was going to be a disaster.

The world around Spyro turned purple; the rain paused in the air around the tower. He gritted his teeth, he'd used dragon time more in these past few hours then he ever had before in his life and it was taking a lot of effort.

Malefor had reluctantly left, there was a fire dragoness who he had captured during the siege of Shattershelf and who he needed to release. He'd claimed that he would return immediately, but he had been gone for quite some time.

Spyro's practice was having an effect; he could tell that it was. He could see that the rain was slower now than it ever had been before. It was barely moving at all. He was getting better at using his power.

He couldn't tell how long he was lasting, but it felt like he was able to maintain the effect for longer.

After a time he couldn't keep it up any more and he allowed the world to return to its normal speed. He was panting slightly from the exertion, even though it hadn't taken any of his mana or his physical stamina.

Spyro knew that he still had to do better. He was using this time to reflect and reconsider. There was no point in just wasting the hours that he had while imprisoned here.

Malefor was central in his thoughts. Spyro looked back over the previous days, trying to find where he and Cynder had made mistakes that allowed Malefor to defeat them so effectively. It was difficult, everything that they had done had been exactly what Malefor wanted, but it had also always been the right thing to do when they had done it.

They'd done everything as well as they could have done, and Malefor had still outmanoeuvred them. There was nothing that could be done about that now, and in the future Malefor would probably be capable of doing it again. He was simply too clever, all of his moves up until now had been bold but incredibly effective, there seemed to be no way to take him down.

Outwitting Malefor and thwarting his plans was practically hopeless, he was just too good at making them. It reminded Spyro of playing chess against Seizo, the young earth dragon was similarly cunning and he had only twice lost to Spyro. Once when they had been playing a joke match and Spyro had started with a massive advantage, and once when Seizo had actually tried but still ended up losing. Seizo only ever made one plan to win a chess match, but it was always so adaptable that it could be seriously damaged and still be enough to bring him to victory. Like Malefor Seizo tended to guide his opponent into position and then sweep them away in a decisive finishing move.

The only time Spyro had ever won was when he had been fortunate enough to block Seizo's final moves, he hadn't really seen it coming, but once it had come Spyro had managed to defend himself for long enough to survive the next few turns. Seizo had then been without a plan and had lost several of his best pieces. Spyro had managed to counterattack and win the game.

That was now the essence of Spyro's plan for any other time he found himself up against Malefor. He had to play defensively, wait for Malefor to commit to an attack, and then survive the attack for long enough to turn the tables.

If he and Cynder had been able to survive Malefor's final move, if they had have escaped him when he came after them during the siege of Shattershelf, then they could have gained momentum and totally changed the dynamic of their game against Malefor. They could have united the Warfang dragons with the Shattershelf dragons and used their combined force to smash Malefor's plan into splinters and force him to start again with fewer resources.

But they hadn't been able to cope with the end of Malefor's plan, Spyro had been captured, Cynder had been seriously weakened, and everything had fallen apart.

Next time would be different. Malefor was treating his plans like they were games of chess, and he was his own best piece. If Spyro was strong enough to beat Malefor, or if he was at least strong enough to not lose, then he would have a chance at being the one in control, not the helpless prisoner.

It was for this reason that Spyro was practicing his dragon time repeatedly. Dragon time was perhaps not Malefor's greatest weapon, but it was certainly the one that he relied on the most. If Spyro and Cynder together could maintain dragon time for as long as Malefor did then they would have a much better chance of being able to escape him if they needed to. Malefor arranged fights that he was certain of winning, but if he had to keep on arranging more and more fights then eventually he'd make a mistake and end up in a fight where he could lose.

Spyro breathed deeply and concentrated, feeling the world slow down around him. He glanced around, smiling. This felt like progress, and it was satisfying.

As he looked out at the horizon he saw a glow starting. It was purple, and extremely bright. Spyro frowned, watching it, then realised that he was looking at lightning.

The lightning, tinted purple by Spyro's dragon time, traced a jagged path down towards the ground. It wasn't a full lightning strike, just the electricity trying to find a grounded connection. Spyro was fascinated, he knew from Volteer how lightning worked, about how it needed to find a connected path to whatever it was going to strike, but he'd never seen it moving this slowly. Even with Volteer's control the electricity guardian couldn't fully recreate this.

The forerunning electricity reached the ground somewhere, and Spyro watched as a blazing streak of purple lightning leapt between the clouds and the ground. He watched the lightning hang there in the sky for what felt like long minutes, before it gradually faded away. Spyro grinned at the sight; he was glad that he'd chosen that moment to use his power. He relaxed his control of dragon time, sighing.

Eventually he'd be able to survive a fight against Malefor, even if he wasn't likely to win.

Spyro looked around the clouds, the sky was a swirling mass of chaos and rain; there wasn't much visibility. But he did spot something out there, a dark figure moving quickly.

Spyro watched it circle, it was very fast. At first he thought it was Malefor, but Malefor had never bothered to circle the tower before landing in the past. He felt a faint twinge of hope, maybe it was Cynder. He tracked the shape as it looked rapidly around the tower, and the moment he saw it arc upwards in a graceful movement and sweep towards him he knew that it had to be her. Only a wind dragon moved like that.

The dragon vanished above the tower for a moment, Spyro waited for them to come down and hardly a second later one of the large sheets of glass was shattered as Cynder dove through it.

She landed with catlike grace, teeth bared in a snarl of challenge. Her wings were half spread and her tail was slashing the air threateningly. Her eyes flicked around, and when she spotted no danger Spyro clearly saw her release a breath she'd been holding, for a moment she showed just how exhausted she was, but as her eyes met Spyro's the weariness was overcome by excitement.

Spyro stared as the black dragoness uncoiled from her pose on the platform in front of him, a smile of pure relief growing on his face. She ran towards him, he moved as far towards her as his chains allowed him to.

"Spyro!"

"Cynder!"

Cynder laughed in gladness. "I found you!" She exclaimed, she was only a few metres from him when she hit an invisible force field. The force field was created by symbols on the ground and formed a bubble around Spyro. The impact made her grunt and stagger back. Spyro watched her with concern.

"Malefor left defences, just be careful."

Cynder laughed derisively. "His magic can't stand up to the Dragonslayer." She demonstrated her point by drawing the spear out of nowhere and, with one smooth sweep, slashing a massive gap in the force field.

Cynder flicked the spear tip out at the two symbols nearest to her, disrupting them and causing the bubble of energy to vanish. She controlled herself enough to not immediately keep running to Spyro, instead she reached out with the spear towards him, testing for any other defences.

When she found nothing Cynder threw the Dragonslayer aside and flung herself towards Spyro. The spear vanished the moment it left her paws, and there was nothing else to stop Cynder from wrapping Spyro in the tightest embrace that she could manage, which was exactly what she did.

Spyro grunted at the impact when Cynder grabbed him, then he wrapped his head and foreleg around her, returning the hug. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you." He said, burying his face in her wings and holding her close.

"About as glad as I am to see you." Cynder responded softly.

"Point taken. I really should have thought of that before speaking." Spyro chuckled slightly, he stepped back and gently dragged Cynder with him; this gave him a little bit more room to move in his chains and allowed him to hug her more firmly.

Cynder purred in contentment as she felt Spyro's warm scales against her body. "I've really missed you."

Spyro didn't respond; he just squeezed Cynder slightly.

"So what's been going on?" Cynder detached from him slightly so she could look at him, admiring him. She'd hadn't forgotten how handsome he was but seeing him in person again was far better than memory, and she could see the wonderful light of warmth and love in his bright purple eyes. Spyro arched his neck so that their gazes met, he gave her a smile.

"Not much, I've been hanging around up here for a few days. I've talked to Malefor and to the General, which is a winged orc creature that you might have met. It's more friendly then it looks, and it was interesting to talk to. It told me about how orcs are made, which is really quite fascinating, I should try making some, non aggressive ones of course. Oh, and seriously, do you ever use doors?"

Cynder blinked at that. She hadn't ever thought about Spyro creating orcs, she wondered if they'd be different to the ones Malefor made. There were more important questions for right now, but she filed the idea away for later. She glanced around the tower. "What doors?"

"This is the second time you've smashed the roof of this tower. If I didn't mention that then Sparx would never forgive me." Spyro informed her.

"But I still don't see any doors." Cynder said innocently.

"The sides of the tower are open, you could have flown in."

"How boring." Cynder laughed. Then her face grew more serious as she again felt worry about whether Spyro was alright. "What did Malefor talk to you about? He replied 'Philosophy', which didn't really satisfy me."

"Wait, you talked to Malefor too?"

"Barely. He just said we were his guests, that you were ok and he wouldn't harm us. Then he locked us in a room."

"Us?" Spyro tilted his head, then his eyes widened. "Oh! Right! Ember! What happened? Is she ok?"

"She was ok the last time I saw her, actually she was great."

"Great?"

"She's taking the General to a cell, I took it down and we didn't know what to do with it, so she volunteered to deal with it. She's been really brave." Cynder smiled, thinking about Ember and feeling a surge of gratitude.

"She has?" Spyro looked puzzled. "I've certainly missed a lot; I thought that you and Ember couldn't stand each other."

"She saved my life, and I think that she'll be more confident in the future."

"She's always been confident." Spyro pointed out. "But her type of confidence is not a nice trait."

"She was childish." Cynder said, feeling slightly protective of Ember now and not wanting Spyro to think badly of the pink dragoness. "She didn't understand why what she did wasn't working. So she kept trying to be persistent. I don't think she'll be like that in the future."

Spyro looked at her in surprise. "Wow. I wanted the two of you to make up and not fight anymore, but it's kind of startling that it's happened so quickly."

"It feels like it's been forever." Cynder told him. "A lot of stuff has happened."

"I want to hear all about it." Spyro said. "But maybe now's a bad time."

"I think you're right. Ok, I'll get you out of these chains." The Dragonslayer appeared in her paw.

"Wait, Malefor said that doing that might be dangerous."

Cynder paused, the spear tip wavered. "What exactly did he say to you? This is a bad time to talk, but I think it's urgent that I know everything he said. Why shouldn't I let you out?"

"Malefor said that the dark crystal band was keeping my dark side contained, but if it's broken then I'd almost certainly become dark."

"But you don't become dark automatically." Cynder argued. "So why should you this time?"

"My feelings for others, and especially my love for you, have kept me from going dark." Spyro blushed slightly as he said that.

"And I'm here, and I love you too." Cynder smiled. "So it'll be fine to free you, right?"

Spyro didn't respond; he just looked at her, still blushing. He was about to reply, but the words caught in his throat.

"I'm going to… Spyro, what's wrong?" Cynder looked at Spyro as she felt his body go tense, instinctively she knew that he was seeing something bad. She glanced back over her shoulder, and there he was.

Malefor hung in the air above them, the purple dragon looked like he was standing on an invisible platform, but his wings were still spread wide. He looked back and forth between Spyro and Cynder, frowning slightly.

"It seems that I'm just in time."

"In time for what?" Cynder hissed, she unwound her body from Spyro's and took a ready position, the Dragonslayer appeared in her paws; she wasn't going to forget about her weapon this time.

"In time to talk with you." Malefor said cautiously.

"Now you want to talk? Sure, the three of us can talk." Cynder pressed the Dragonslayer against Spyro's neck, the blade rested against the snake charm on his throat. She gave Spyro a slight reassuring smile. "I won't stab you, I promise."

Spyro nodded, but he decided to remain very still, just to be safe.

Cynder began to drag the spear tip over the dark crystal, the snake charm vibrated slightly as if it was about to shatter.

"Wait!" Malefor raised a paw in a placating gesture. "You break that and he'll become Dark Spyro."

Cynder snorted. "As if I'd trust you. I lower the spear and before I know it I'll be caught in another energy shield and you will be pointing it at me!"

"Ok Cynder, you win." Malefor spoke calmly, giving no hints about how worried he actually was. "What do you want me to do? I can keep my distance if that would make you feel safer, or I could stand somewhere and let you threaten me with the Dragonslayer."

Cynder shook her head. "Not good enough."

"Ok, I'll leave entirely and Imperia can talk to you, I brought her here in case something like this happened. Imperia?" Malefor looked behind him, and then with growing concern he looked up, left, right, and down. "Imperia?" He looked back at Spyro and Cynder, chuckling slightly. "She was here just a minute ago…"

"You look like you'd rather be somewhere else." Spyro commented.

Malefor nodded. "Admittedly yes, this is hardly going as I had hoped. Cynder, please, just lower the spear and I'll explain everything. Spyro is too dangerous to be released right now."

"Oh so you don't plan to free him? What was the actual plan, again? Right, you plan to destroy his dark side, possibly killing him to do so." Cynder glared at Malefor.

"You're being contrary." Malefor sighed. "I understand, you're still angry about what happened to you; but Cynder, think about it. I'm offering you terms, and as soon as Imperia shows up-" He growled slightly in annoyance that the silver dragoness had chosen this moment to disappear on him. "she'll explain everything. Dark Spyro will not make deals, he will not try to negotiate, he wants the destruction of every single living thing in this world."

"Contrary? Is that what I'm being?" Cynder's voice took on a scornful tone. "All because I'm angry at you? Because I still haven't forgiven you for making me your glorified slave for most of my childhood? Well you're right, I am angry about that, and I am going to free Spyro, just because I can!"

"It's a bad move Cynder, think it through!" Malefor let desperation creep into his voice, hoping that pleading would work were logic had failed.

"I just did, and this is what I decided: I trust Spyro more then I trust you!"

And Cynder swiped the Dragonslayer down, shattering the dark crystal band that had been draining Spyro's magic.

Malefor moved with incredible speed, shooting a fireball directly at Cynder to try to stop her from breaking the crystal, but he was too late. The explosion threw both Cynder and Spyro off their feet, but the crystal was already broken.

Cynder was knocked off balance and fell, but turned the movement into a roll back to her four paws in an instant. She snarled at Malefor, about to spit poison, but a clanging sound caught her attention.

The Dragonslayer had not disappeared as it was knocked out of her grip; the golden spear had hit the floor and skidded away from her, sliding straight towards where Spyro was lying. Cynder could almost see the weapon being drawn towards him as if magnetised. It came to rest as it bumped against his paw, and instinctively the young purple dragon grabbed hold of it.

And then Dark Spyro opened his blazing white eyes.

Expect the next updates soon, very soon.

It's finally time for Dark Spyro to get his song.

-4Dragons