It felt incredible to finally have a purpose again. Cynder was his purpose, but Hope did not intend to seek her out. She would come to him when it was time. She had to.

Before then, however, Hope had a few things to do.

There were things he wanted to do, such as testing each of his elements out to determine his current powers. He hoped to arrange fights with each of the guardians, so that he could fight them using their own elements to see if he had surpassed them. If he hadn't then he would undoubtedly need to train, raw power was only ever useful to a certain degree. Skill was what he truly needed now. If he had surpassed them… perhaps he would kill them. Hope wasn't entirely sure what he ought to do if he was indeed better than the Guardians.

That was a decision to be made later, though. He could practice on other dragons first to decide if he was ready to fight the guardians. He recalled an electric dragon from Warfang who might make a useful opponent, but couldn't remember his name exactly. There was also Gracious, killing him would certainly be an interesting challenge, Gracious was comparable to Cyril in terms of power, and worthwhile in that it would also annoy Malefor.

However those were the things that he wanted to do, there was first something which he felt that he needed to do.

Hope flew low over the ground, using the wind to speed his journey. It was a wonderful element, and he looked forwards to mastering it. He was almost sad that Imperia was dead and could not teach him, but no doubt Cynder would help him once they were reunited at last. He missed Cynder a lot already.

Spyro's body was still fundamentally the same, Hope had only altered it slightly by turning his horns outwards to make them more suitable for slashing, as well as lengthening them and toughening them. His tail blade was sharper and more lethal; and his crest was too, not that he planned to kill anyone with the back of his head.

He didn't know how to change his scale colours, meaning that he was constantly a bloodied purple colour that was almost pink, with streaks of wispy darkness occasionally tracing his scales. He had no shadow magic, sadly, so Hope wasn't sure what the purpose of the darkness around him was. It was simply there and not going away.

His eyes had unsettled him at first too; they were yellow and snakelike with slitted pupils. They were bestial eyes, which Hope didn't entirely like. He was scared that they might upset Cynder too, and that would be awful. He was nervous about how she'd react to his appearance, which was one of the reasons why he felt that he had to do what he was going to do. It would reassure her that his feelings hadn't changed. It was odd having yellow slitted eyes, but as far as he could tell they had no effect on his sight. He didn't see everything tinted in shades of yellow; he still had normal clarity and a normal visual field.

He'd alter his eyes once he figured out how to do it, and he also wanted to figure out how to heal himself with purple light and prevent himself from feeling pain. As he flew Hope idly swiped his left foreleg with his right paw, repeatedly cutting his scales and watching them heal. It was taking far too long, Malefor could heal in seconds. It also stung him annoyingly, unless he cut too deep in which case it hurt a lot more; and he kept on cutting too deeply due to his new strength. Before his change he would have needed a great deal of effort to pierce his own scales, but now it was pitifully easy.

Hope was startled when a voice called out to him; he had been lost in his thoughts and hardly even noticed where he was flying. He left the voice behind due to his speed before it could intercept him, but he halted once he noticed it, and then he had to turn and wait for it to catch up.

The voice belonged to a young dragoness of about his age; she had pale blue scales with eye catching patterns of swirling red. The dragoness flapped hard to catch up with him, and was panting slightly when she arrived. Hope smiled at her politely, but noticed disturbed look on her face when she caught sight of his eyes.

"Spyro?" She asked doubtfully.

So she knew him. That was good; she might be able to get him into Shattershelf without him needing to make a fuss. It was gratifying to be identified too, after all the Warfang dragons had saved those of Shattershelf from what might otherwise have been a long and dangerous siege. They deserved a bit of respect in his opinion.

The fire dragon city of Shattershelf was Hope's destination; he had been drawn here by a strange sense of purpose and had flown through the night to arrive as soon as possible. Now he'd flown through the mountain pass, the same route that Spyro and Cynder had taken to get here on their previous visit.

It was irritating that the blue dragoness had called him Spyro; but at least she hadn't mistaken him for Malefor. Hope wouldn't get annoyed with her, as there was no reason for her to have known what his name was now. He merely nodded. "Yes it's me."

The blue dragon regarded him with caution. "You look… different…"

Hope nodded, a plausible lie easily coming to him. "Malefor captured me and exposed me to dark magic. I'll change back to normal eventually I think, but for now I'm like this."

"Oh." The dragoness thought about that for a moment. "But… how are you here?"

"I escaped. I'll spare you the details, but it was painful." This was technically true. "I fled because I was weakened. I wasn't ready to try to fight him then, but next time I'll kill him. And why come here? I'm not sure; I just felt that I needed to. Besides it's closer to where I was than Warfang is."

This was also technically true, aside from the detail about Shattershelf being closer to Cynder's fortress. That part was a lie, but the blue dragoness had no way of knowing where he had been held and therefore had no reason to disbelieve.

She still didn't seem quite convinced, though. These Shattershelf fire dragons were a suspicious group, and the way that she looked at him did not give him much hope that Cynder would like his current appearance. She opened her mouth to speak again, but Hope quickly tried a simple trick of deception: If someone suspects you then talk about them instead.

"Hang on… I think I've seen you before in Shattershelf. Cynder and I were only there for a day, but… you were hanging around with Ember, weren't you?"

"Ember is my friend, yes." The dragoness admitted. "I'm surprised that you remembered that, I don't think we ever talked."

"We didn't." Spyro confirmed. "But I still remembered your scale colour. Not many blue dragons in Shattershelf."

"That's true. We're still fire dragons, but I was born in a city further to the south, deeper in the desert, out at a place called Dry Canyon."

Hope had never heard of this place, and he didn't care, but it had allowed him to stop talking about himself and his appearance. "So what's your name?" he asked.

The dragoness blushed slightly that he'd asked. Spyro was a hero after all, and she hadn't expected him to remember her or even take notice of her now. "My name is Ceara."

"It's nice to finally make your acquaintance. But what are you doing out here?"

Where actually were they? Hope glanced around to remind himself. He was midway through the mountain pass that led from the north towards Shattershelf. The guard towers were on the mountainsides around them.

Ceara glanced around too. "Guard duty. This pass needs to be watched so that the city isn't surprised by dragons arriving. There are a few other dragons up there, but we're still repairing the gates and walls so most of the guards are busy. I'm old enough to do shifts of guard duty, and also I don't know how to help the rebuilding teams, so this is what I'm stuck with. I've only got another two hours before I can go back into the city; it feels like forever. I've been out here for ages now."

Hope nodded. "I see. I take it you don't like guard duty?"

"No, it takes me away from my class and my friends."

"Ahh, that makes sense." Hope said. "I'd love to talk, but can we talk on our way into the city?"

"Right." Ceara nodded and began to lead Hope towards Shattershelf.

The two of them flew over the great plains of Shattershelf, passing by at least fifty dragons that were busy clearing rubble and dead orcs away from what remained of the dividing walls. The huge gate had been repaired, it was impressive that they'd managed to get that done so quickly; then again they would have had plenty enough motivation to do so; given that without it the city was open to anyone.

The dragons all seemed stressed; many of them glanced up at Hope warily as he flew, although because of Ceara's presence he was not bothered by them.

Hope had a sudden interesting thought, one that he would have probably been too polite to ask aloud if he had still been just Spyro. "Aren't the Apes allies of Shattershelf? Where are they? I noticed not seeing them on my last visit."

"The apes fled the city many years ago. Didn't you know?" Ceara looked at him. "Malefor cursed them all, even those that never allied with him and never had anything to do with him."

Now that was interesting. He had known that the Dark Master had cursed the apes to living death, but he'd never learned the magic that the Dark Master had used. Hope had not yet encountered any powers that would allow him to curse even creatures he had never met. "How did he curse them?"

Ceara shivered. "It was the most horrific thing I'd ever seen… I… I had friends who were apes, you know, everyone in Shattershelf did."

"I noticed Magmar seemed pretty keen to kill Malefor. I take it he was mad that the purple dragon cursed half of his citizens?"

"Oh yes. His anger might have been the most awful thing I'd ever seen, aside from that I had to watch my friends rot while they were still alive."

"And nobody thought to mention this to Warfang!?" For a moment Hope forgot who he now was, Spyro would have been empathetic for the apes and the dragons of Shattershelf; and some of that emotion cut through into the conscious mind of the darker dragon.

"You're outsiders." Ceara muttered. "We were not supposed to tell any of the dragons Flare came with."

"But I'm not technically a dragon who came with Flare, and the dragon who ordered that is dead." Hope said, amused.

"Asha ordered it, not Magmar." Ceara responded. "But the order doesn't count anymore. You asked, and I've lied about it enough."

Hope titled his head curiously; unaware that it was a very Spyro-ish thing to do. What he was actually interested in was the curse that the Dark Master had used, but he felt compelled to ask other questions first. "What do you mean you've lied about it enough?"

"Ember could tell. As I said she became my friend, and she knew there was something I was hiding from her, something that upset me. She can be very very persistent when she tries to be, but I didn't dare tell her because I'd get in trouble."

"That sounds like her." Hope mused.

The two of them landed at a side door, perhaps the same one that Spyro and Cynder had entered the city through. Ceara walked inside and Hope followed. Ceara briefly explained to another guard dragon why 'Spyro' had arrived, and said she was taking him to see Asha immediately. The guard accepted this, and Hope followed Ceara into the main part of Shattershelf.

"Now what do you know about this curse?"

Ceara looked back at him, not impressed by his demand for information. Hope waited, idly deciding if he should just quickly kill her now. Nobody was around to see.

Fortunately for Ceara, she decided to just answer him. "I don't know much. According to the dragons who did research the curse is called a 'Blood Curse' and it is designed to affect every single member of a family. One family member is sacrificed, and depending on how the ritual is done all of the other members of the family will suffer some fate. The way to make someone rot while they're still alive is to bury the sacrifice alive, after you're done with the magic. We tried for a year to cure it and the whole city stank of rotten meat, but nothing worked. Eventually all the apes went insane with pain and fear. That's all I know and I'd rather not talk about it anymore…"

"I understand. That must have been awful. Can we visit the training field before we go to Asha?"

Ceara blinked at him uncomprehendingly. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The training field." Hope repeated. "Can we go there?"

"I… I suppose… it's not really on the way, though."

Hope only shrugged.

Ceara was getting more and more unsettled by the dragon wearing Spyro's face and speaking in his voice. Both physically and mentally he seemed to be affected by wrongness… twisted and darkened somehow. But they were inside the city now, so there wasn't much she could do anymore. If she'd made a mistake letting him in then the mistake was already made. "Sure, let's go to the training fields."

Hope and Ceara walked for a few minutes, and Ceara had decided she was ditching him as soon as possible and calling the guards. There was something very wrong with Spyro. Hope walked silently, he glanced at her briefly and noticed she seemed to be getting nervous, but he no longer cared. He wasn't really trying to hide anymore. "I hope that I like what I find at the training fields. If not, well… things could get messy."

Oh yes, now she was definitely worried, but too scared to say anything. Hope didn't care to watch her squirm in fear, just the knowledge that she was doing it was enough.

Ceara was panicking on the inside, and her walking was unsteady. He knew she knew, of course he knew. He'd told her that he… well... she wasn't entirely sure what he'd been telling her. Was he threatening her? Threatening everyone? Was it a joke, was it bragging, or trying to tell her to run away? All she knew was that it had been scary.

The two of them walked into the training field. At first Ceara thought it was empty and panicked, ready to run for it rather then find out how things would get messy, then she realised one dragon was there. The same dragon that spent practically all of his spare time there. The dragon who, probably for that reason, was the most skilled young adult fire dragon in the city.

Something told Ceara that this dark version of Spyro was satisfied with what he'd found at the training fields.

"Suna, you and I need to have a chat about Cynder."

A savage grin crossed Hope's features.

Malefor finally stepped away from Imperia's still form; the wound on the silver dragoness' chest was gone. However Malefor had obviously expended a considerable amount of effort on healing that. The spear had damaged Imperia in a manner that went beyond physical harm.

"We wouldn't want her to die again the moment she came back." Malefor muttered.

"Could that actually happen?" Cynder asked, trying to imagine what it would look like. She paced around the room, feeling somewhat restless. She sashayed slightly to try to relax, but only because Malefor wasn't looking in her direction.

"No, it couldn't. If her body wasn't able to live then she wouldn't come back at all, she'd just have to wait for it to heal properly. Which eventually it would. I couldn't come back to life immediately because my body was far too damaged, and it took months to heal."

Cynder frowned. Malefor had taken years to come back, not months. "So… was there something else you had to wait for?"

"Indeed." Malefor said with wry amusement. "Three things are needed. We have Imperia's remains, and we have the crystal. But the last thing we need is her manifestation."

"I have no idea what that is." Cynder admitted. She stopped and looked back at the purple dragon over her shoulder. Malefor turned to face her. Neither of them wanted to look at Imperia's body, it didn't feel right to see her lying still and lifeless.

"Think of it like a ghost. It will be drawn towards the crystal, and hopefully it will arrive here quickly. Once we have it, it should be a simple matter to bring her back to life. My manifestation took years because the crystal and my body were far apart; and both were distantly separated from my place of death in the centre of the planet."

"So we just have to wait?"

"Yes. But I don't think we shall be waiting for long."

Cynder was silent for a moment, but then her curiosity compelled her to keep on asking questions. "So… I pretty much understand how you came back and how the crystal works, now; but how did you actually die? Spyro and I didn't kill you. It looked like the spirits of the Ancestors took you inside the core of the planet."

Malefor nodded. "I myself am not entirely sure. Certainly I was killed, but according to Imperia my remains were eventually found on the surface. Had the Dark Master not been in control, and most of my energy spent on the fight that had taken place, I might have been able to learn more of what transpired then."

"So you don't know?" Cynder asked.

"Well… no." Malefor admitted. "But I'd like to find out."

"Hmm…" Cynder responded neutrally, wondering if Malefor had an actual plan to find out what had happened in the centre of the world. He probably did, and it was probably something to worry about.

There was a sound from behind the door, as if something had bumped against it. Malefor and Cynder glanced at each other, and both of them started to walk towards the door at the same moment. Cynder was closer, so she stretched out her tail and tugged the door open.

A… thing… stood outside.

It was a dragon, certainly, but it seemed to have no defining features at all. It was grey, plain and unmemorable. It just… was.

It didn't seem threatening at all, but even just to look at it was unsettling. Cynder stepped back, watching the dragon, to see what it would do. For a brief moment it looked at her, but then it seemed to forget all about her.

The dragon glanced around the room, seeming hesitant, then it walked straight across to where Imperia's remains lay. It reached her, and then its tail stretched out and touched the crystal.

There was a flash of silver light, and the figure melded into Imperia's body.

The silver dragoness made a slight sigh, breathing out what little air was in her lungs, and then she twitched. For a moment she seemed lifeless again, but soon she began to breathe shallowly, her chest rising and falling.

"Is that… it?" Cynder asked.

"I think so, yes." Malefor said, his eyes now fixed on Imperia.

"Oh. It just seemed a bit… uneventful."

"The more eventful something is; the greater the risk it will go wrong." Malefor told her. "I for one am glad that nothing surprising happened. I've had enough surprises for one day."

"Is it still the same day?" Cynder asked, and then answered her own question. "No, it's been hours. It must be really early morning by now."

"I've lost track of time." Malefor admitted. "But let's not let a little thing like reality get in the way of saying a clichéd phrase."

"That sounds like something Imperia would say."

"I agree."

"Fair enough. I think I've had enough surprises for one day too." Cynder said with a faint smile.

Malefor took a breath to relax before speaking again. "Then I ought to warn you, I might shout at Imperia when she regains consciousness. I've never lost my temper with another dragon before, and I'm not entirely sure what sort of action I may take in order to vent my frustration."

Malefor looked at Cynder to gauge her reaction to that, but the black dragoness wasn't really giving him much that he could use to figure her out.

"I can restrain myself from lashing out at anything or anyone, I assure you. I don't lose control in that manner." Malefor sighed. "I'm too emotional; it's interfering with my intelligence."

"Don't worry." Cynder said. "I'm not exactly happy with Imperia either."

There was a sound of response to Cynder's words, and it wasn't Malefor who made it. The two dragons both turned and looked, seeing Imperia's eyes open and slowly focus on them.

The silver dragoness didn't shift her position at all, but her eyes were keen and alert. She managed to twitch her lips upwards slightly in a smile. "It's good to be back."

Cynder was the first one to reply, feeling concern for Imperia first and leaving all other emotions to be dealt with later. "Are you alright?" She asked gently. Imperia's voice was weak and she certainly didn't look healthy.

Imperia tried to laugh, but the only thing she could manage was a heavy sigh; still at least it was an amused sound. "I feel awful, but at least I'm not dead anymore." Her smile grew slightly. "Although… Malefor and Cynder in one room, both taking care of me, and not trying to kill each other. I may not be back in the world I left after all."

Cynder and Malefor glanced at each other, and Cynder shrugged.

"Things worked out well." Imperia said hopefully, her tone making the statement sound like a question.

Malefor narrowed his eyes. "No, things did not work out well. Perhaps you were able to salvage something from this fiasco, but it was not a success."

"I got the two of you together." Imperia offered, trying to defend herself from Malefor's glare. She looked too dazed to hold a serious conversation.

"At the cost of letting Spyro escape; and almost getting yourself, him, Cynder, and or myself killed."

"Well…" Imperia hesitated, not really sure what to say.

"Not to mention that if you had simply come with me and been ready to talk to Cynder when I needed you then this entire situation could have been avoided."

"I wanted to make sure we had a backup plan…" Imperia mumbled.

"We both know that isn't true. You wanted a brilliant success. My plan wasn't good enough for you, you had to set everything up so that Cynder and I would befriend one another, and of course so that you could have your grand moment."

Imperia didn't reply, but she looked away from Malefor guiltily; she knew that he was speaking the truth.

"Did you even stop to think about the risk you were taking? You gained a chance at resurrection by going behind my back. Spyro could have killed me permanently, and if he'd known he could do that then he almost certainly would have. Don't mistake my anger for ingratitude, I know that you saved my life, but you also caused my life to be in much greater danger than it needed to be. Was it worth it?"

Malefor paused for a split second, but then continued.

"Don't answer that. Either you'd get it wrong or right, and either way your reply would annoy me even more. The answer is no, the risk you took was not worth the gains you made."

"You two needed to stop fighting." Imperia countered. "Sadness would make you trust each other more than anything else would. At least my plan worked for that, so it wasn't totally awful; right?"

"If a stupid plan works it is still a stupid plan. All it means is that you were lucky. Imperia please, please just don't do anything like this ever again."

Imperia nodded, chastened. "I'll try not to."

Malefor sighed heavily. "I'm glad I was able to say all of that without shouting. Believe me I am angry, but I'm mostly glad that you're alright."

"Umm… me too…" Cynder said awkwardly.

Malefor looked back at her, having almost forgotten she was in the room. "I'll give you two some privacy." He said, walking away. He went to spiral stairs, ascending them and leaving the other two alone.

Cynder looked at Imperia. Imperia looked back at Cynder. The silver dragoness spoke first.

"Can I have a hug?"

Cynder flicked her tail. "I guess so." She stepped over Imperia and wrapped a wing around her.

Imperia purred slightly, leaning against Cynder's side. Her voice, however, was sad. "I never heard weather you forgave me or not. And even if you did then it would probably be wise of me to ask your forgiveness again for all the pain that it caused you to think I was dead."

Cynder raised an eyebrow. "What makes you assume that you being dead caused me any pain at all?"

Imperia was, once again, unsure what to say until she caught sight of Cynder's smile. "Oh didn't it? Those tears of yours must have been fake then." She responded playfully. "Still this is good for me, because it means I have one less thing to be forgiven for."

Cynder laughed. "It's ok. You're forgiven for everything. Well, at least until I need to claim the moral high ground over you for any reason."

"Tough but fair." Imperia said. "Although I am still sorry, and I hope that nothing like this ever happens again."

"Too much drama for you?" Cynder asked with a smile.

Imperia shook her head. "No. I love drama. I don't want to do this again because it was scary and dangerous and it really hurt. I wouldn't take back what I did, but I certainly didn't enjoy it."

"So what was it like? Being dead?" Cynder asked.

Imperia shrugged. "It wasn't really like anything. The only things that really happened were me dying and me coming back. And let me tell you that death by being speared is horribly painful, but it still feels slightly better than being resurrected."

"I'll keep that in mind. Can you lift your head?" Cynder asked.

"Nope. I'd shake my head now if I could, but I can't. I don't think I could get up either, although maybe I could lift myself around using wind magic until I regain some strength. I want to go and find Volteer and Flare as soon as I can."

"How long do you think it'll be before you heal?"

Imperia shrugged. "A few days, maybe? I don't know but I'm sure I'll be fine. But what about you? Are you alright, Cynder?"

The black dragoness sighed slightly. "I guess I'm not feeling awful. But… Spyro is gone."

"It'll be ok, Cynder. We'll figure out a way to help him."

"Of course we will." Cynder said confidently. "I just wish we could do it right away…"

"I know how you feel." Imperia agreed. "You don't want to waste time. Still there isn't much point in rushing off to find Spyro at the moment, we'll need a plan."

"A better plan than yours, I hope." Cynder said with a smirk.

"Hey, my plan was brilliant. I even got Malefor to show genuine emotion only a few moments ago. That was all part of the plan."

"You wanted him to be mad at you?" Cynder asked, sceptical.

"Well no, but I wanted him to show he cared."

"I see. Well, I guess that you got what you wanted."

"I often do." Imperia said with a smile. "So while we've got some time together I'd simply love to hear everything about what you've been up to since you left Warfang."

"Okay." Cynder said. "And I want to know how you finally managed to become a guardian, and what happened to you after I left, and also I want the whole story about you and why you support Malefor. I think you and I have a lot to talk about."

"Yes we do." Imperia agreed.

Often I'll sit on a chapter after I finish it for a while, just brooding, like Smaug on his treasure horde. Or perhaps that's a bad example, after all Smaug essentially spent sixty years being lazy and not doing a whole lot, after he finally made enough gold by stealing from hapless dwarves. Yeah, that's definitely a bad example.

Still I usually wait for a while before posting a chapter. This time, however, I finished writing the chapter on a Thursday before posting it on Friday. Woohoo! Now I can be shot by a black arrow and go down in a literal blaze of glory.

Smaug is not a good analogy for being a writer. If you take away nothing else from this (bad) author's note then take away that.
Maybe just forget this end bit entirely and think about the chapter instead.

Until next time!

-4Dragons