How long it's been since last chapter! Nearly a year. Almost exactly a year, in fact. I hope everyone remembers where we left off.

The good news is that there are two more chapters done after this one, and the delay has been necessary as I had to give this chapter pretty significant rewrites in order to make it work with the later ones.

It's been difficult to write the whole way through, not content with fighting our heroes Darkmire has been fighting me bitterly over every plot point, breaking out of the story to make my writing harder at every opportunity, every time she's being written about. Perhaps it's no coincidence I've been in something of a depressive slump for the past few years. Don't worry, I'm mostly out of it, I've been on a creative tear lately doing art and other things I want to do, and I think the story has improved a whole lot due to the wait giving me tons of time to think.

Apologies for the wait, but I hope you'll enjoy the chapter!

We got a glimpse inside Darkmire's mind during her mental battle with Cynder, and in this chapter we'll see it again. Things may get gory, I'll mark the start and end of that section with a double line so if it gets too much you can skip it.

Thanks everyone for your patience, now for the chapter!

In a sphere of oily black material, floating in vibrant pink skies, orbiting around a blazing white star. Spyro and Cynder flew, wings beating just slightly out of time as they hovered, keeping a wary distance from their opposition.

And what an opposition it was; the first, the biggest, and yet the least threatening was the bulky winged golem of black stone, stationary and just waiting for them, guarding it's creator against any threat.

Next was the white eyed silhouette, radiating black light out in every direction, the heavy panting of an animal the only sounds it made as it slowly closed in on them both like a predator stalking it's prey. The thing which had until moments ago been Malefor and which was now filled with darkness. The thing which was, for now at least, once again The Dark Master.

And finally was the architect of it all.

Frail and skeletal, black scaled, with horns too large for her head, trimmed claws that were still so long and poorly maintained that even just thinking about walking on them was enough to make a dragon wince, and ragged tattered wings. Darkmire was laughing uncontrollably from her seat in the hand of her golem, watching with malicious glee as her newest playthings fought and suffered and perhaps died for her amusement.

Red mist filled the sky around them, pouring from Darkmire's laughing maw and spreading out. Lightning flickered and the muffled cracks of thunder responded. It reminded Spyro and Cynder more than ever of their fight against The Dark Master so long ago, and even as the thought occurred to them The Dark Master roared and spat a fireball at them both.

They each separated, darting around it before coming back together.

"What do we do!?" Cynder shouted over the roar of the fire. Her heart was beating fast now. As if it hadn't been bad enough before.

Something has to snap him out of it!" Spyro yelled back. "Defend and see if we can talk to him!"

He dived low as The Dark Master blasted the spot he'd been flying moments ago with a tornado of ice, then turned to Cynder and comet dashed straight at her.

Cynder darted to the side, sliding through the flames and letting them deflect off her scales.

"Malefor! Think about Imperia!"

The Dark Master swung his head back towards her.

"YOU ARE NOTHING!"

A bolt of lightning sliced the world between them in two, but Cynder moved in and with a hard beat of her wings she propelled herself over him, hissing in frustration.

Darkmire looked on, her laughter relaxing to mere chuckles as she watched the duo fighting for their lives.

"I have a story to tell you. A story about a little girl who lived long, long long ago…"

"Shut up! We're kind of busy!" Spyro shouted, reaching out and deflecting a fireball before it could get too close to Cynder. He dived in front of The Dark Master. "You know us! You're giving Darkmire what she wants!"

"You have chosen death!" The Dark Master said, leering at Spyro and snapping his jaws. Spyro hurriedly jumped back out of his reach.

Darkmire grinned.

"Oh I'm sure you'll manage to listen, clever little dragons that you are. Now, this little girl was a dragon. The very first dragon! An intrepid spirit of indomitable will. A little girl who wanted to see the whole world! And so… sure enough… she did exactly that! She had her wings, she had her magic, and she had bravery. And so she crissed and crossed and ambled and wandered. She saw everything and met everyone."

Cynder had an idea, she created a ring of shadow, just like those she had created when sparring with Malefor. She used wind to flick Spyro aside and swapped places with him, getting the main focus of The Dark Master's attention, then she pointed at the ring she'd created.

"Come on, Malefor. Show me what you've learned."

It had an effect for a moment, the movements of The Dark Master hesitated slightly as he glanced at the ring, but it wasn't enough. She ducked out of the way of a huge fireball.

"Maybe we should just attack Darkmire!" She yelled.

"And miss the story!?"

Darkmire laughed.

"Oh, no no no! I must tell you about what happened when the girl died. You see she had circled the whole world a dozen times. Everyone knew stories about her. Was it magic, the power of stories, or a simple quirk of fate?"

Here she chuckled knowingly.

"Whatever it was, and how could I possibly know? She became one with the magic of the world. An embodiment of ideals. She was wilderness, adventure, exploration. The first of The Ancestors."

"The Wanderer is the first of the ancestors?" Spyro asked, eyebrow raised.

He was far from an expert on the roles and tales of the dragon gods, aside from knowing that each one was an embodiment of some fundamental aspect of the world around them. If he'd had to guess he would have said that the first of the ancestors would have been The Devourer, who dealt with hunters and decomposition, or The Challenger, who was the embodiment of pride, courage, and the will to live. The moment of curiosity made him pause for a moment, his attention turned to Darkmire to listen.

Cynder had to jump in and catch a wind blade before it hit Spyro from behind. The Dark Master had not given up in his assault.

"Unless I'm lying."

Darkmire said, smirking.

"Time passed, dragons fucked, as is the way of the world. And soon the girl had new companions. The spirit of invention, the spirit of death and rot. The spirit of lore keeping. The spirit of parental love and care. So on and so forth. And as the number of dragons grew the old domains began to suffer. How can one wander when there is no wilderness to wander? And so a plan forms. A plan which is meant to keep things as they are now. No new ancestors. No risk of falling away and being forgotten."

"A reset button for the world."

Cynder said softly.

"Exactly."

Darkmire agreed.

"Something easy, like this."

The emaciated black dragoness clicked her fingers, an echoing sound which caused The Dark Master to stagger and fall still for a few moments, before he growled and shrugged off the effect to resume his chase after Cynder.

"For them at least. They didn't need to get their paws bloody. There were protests from some, but the motion passed the vote. A weapon to reset the world would be created. And so they created. And they created… me."

She gave an almost dreamy sigh.

"Time immeasurable had passed since the world began. The first empire of dragons was vast and beautiful. Dream Weavers, Beast Makers, Peacekeepers… All so very… destroyable… I began the deed. A difficult task, back in those days when I was so young and tender and vulnerable. Back when a single misplaced spear or a lucky fireball could mean months of time needed to heal. But I did it."

Her eyes gleamed with malicious pride.

"City by city, country by country, I swept through them all like a plague and left fearful superstitious wrecks in my wake. But doing it by hand left unwanted rumours and fear. Emotions that could lead to a new Ancestor being born, and so a new gift was given, a mechanism by which I could enwreathe the world in flames without needing to show myself. But I didn't want that, I wanted to do it myself! And so they grew angry and fearful towards me, and then at last, after thousands of years, I finally realised how I was being used. And… well… The rest, I suppose, is history."

Cynder ducked under a swung paw and used wind to shoot The Dark Master past her, towards the edge of the bubble.

"Maybe if we can push him out!" She shouted to Spyro. He nodded and flew up beside her, shielding himself in a ball of rock and flying into The Dark Master like a battering ram.

But Darkmire held up a paw, and as she did so the Dark Master mirrored the movement, and a wall of fire and shadow caught the boulder, bringing Spyro to a dead stop inches from the elder purple dragon's face. The Dark Master slammed his paw into the boulder and Spyro was flung out of the stone ball, grunting from the impact, coughing and spitting dirt out of his mouth.

"I was not done."

Darkmire said, sneering.

"I did not tell you about the plot against me. How my own miserable traitorous other self allied with those few remaining dragons, hiding away in the land of the artisans and the peacekeepers."

She said the words heavy with false horror. As if she was pretending to be shocked and upset that such a thing could have occurred.

"And then they allied with the other ancestors! The new ones, those beloved cities and inventions gave them the secret knowledge to construct this mountain prison and this repulsive bubble in which we find ourselves now. Even the Chronicler betrayed me in the end! They had to go. The peacekeepers came to battle me, and so I blew them away like so much dust, and blasted down their castles. I seem to remember a young black dragon back then, some boy, still a child, who thought he was destined to save the world from me. Hmph, maybe I'm just insane, right? The Artisans got even less mercy. I ended them and their whole land. Burned it down to the bedrock so that nothing remained but water for daring to create this place! And the Chronicler I sought out and killed. And then I realised how easy it was, the ancestors were not greater than us. They were weaker! They have been all this time. They depend on us. I would have done them all in, every single one. But then, unfortunately, I had control taken from me for just long enough that they could lock me away in here."

She sighed heavily.

"And the fact is that no matter how hard I try to entertain myself it's all just so boring in here. Until you came along! Now the story is almost over."

"Thankfully." Spyro muttered.

The Dark Master rose up before him, horns like a crown giving him a menacing look. He gathered ice in one paw, fire in the other and then slammed them together, shooting out a blast of power towards Spyro.

He ducked it, and Cynder who had been moving in to help barely managed to do the same.

"You're lucky we don't want to hurt you." Cynder growled. "Imagine how pathetic it would be to die here while mind controlled fighting against everything you were working for."

Her words had no impact on The Dark Master, gaining only an angry growl. "You made your choice. Your fate will be the same. This is the beginning of the end of the world!"

He looked back towards Darkmire, roaring in triumph.

"Looks like my new toy wasn't listening."

Darkmire said, rolling her eyes.

"Not that I care. He's nothing more than my enslaved bodyguard now. I want to see you kill him. Now go ahead, do it! Fight for your little lives!"

And then Cynder realised what might work. She pushed Spyro aside even as The Dark Master roared a challenge to her, opening his jaws.

But she didn't move. She just beat her wings calmly and slowly, facing him as fire built up in his mouth.

Her every instinct was screaming at her that this was a bad idea. He was The Dark Master, Malefor only imprisoned inside. He was the thing she hated most in this world, or at least he had been far and away the thing she hated most in the world until Darkmire had recently become a competitor for that spot.

Spyro shouted a warning and tried to rush in to protect her, but Cynder used her wind magic to hold him back. He stopped, eyes wide with confusion and fear for her safety, but he trusted her.

Cynder wished she was as confident as she looked, but it was too late to back down now. She just stared directly into the glowing white eyes, knowing that Malefor had to be behind them somewhere.

"You're no murderer. I know that." She said calmly and quietly. Just loud enough for him to hear.

The Dark Master roared, and the fire started to surge.

"Prove me wrong." She dared him, not moving in the slightest.

And the darkness collapsed back in on itself to reveal Malefor, his head turning aside just in time and blasting a devastating ball of fire harmlessly off to Cynder's left. He looked at her, panting slightly and then nodded.

"You were right." He said. "In cold blood like that… I couldn't do it. I'm weak."

Cynder shrugged. "Well I never said it was a weakness. Welcome back."

Malefor smiled thinly. "Good to be back."

Darkmire growled in irritation.

"Now it's three against one again. No fair! You can't just talk your way out of the tortures which I've devised for you."

Cynder smirked. "Yes we can."

Darkmire narrowed her eyes.

"Before I am done you will give up everything you thought you knew of yourselves. Your morals, your pride, your honour… your love. Your very identities will become so shattered that when I tell you of your former lives you will spit in disgust and swear that you were never so! You will be left with nothing!"

She smirked, and her Golem opened it's hand, releasing her to float up into the air in the middle of the three of them.

"You haven't even fought me yet. If I have truly exhausted all options by which my words might turn you against each other and make you suffer… then I suppose I will have to return to doing things the old fashioned way. Torturing you by talking alone was sweet while it lasted, but now it's time you all learned your place."

Spyro, Cynder and Malefor all glanced at each other, then back at Darkmire, none of them wanting to be the first one to throw an attack.

Darkmire tapped the glowing symbol on her forehead, still quietly doing it's job of turning her magic against itself, preparing her to be split.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock. Better keep me entertained so that I don't wipe this adorable little thing off like it were a drop of blood on my scales. Come and get me. Nobody?"

She leered at them.

"I'll start things off then."

She raised her wings, and a wave of wind magic like nothing any of them had ever felt before erupted out of her.

Malefor had been ready, protecting himself with a shield of rock, but it wasn't nearly enough. The flat stone surface he created acted like a sail, catching the wind and rocketing backwards, straight into the surprised purple dragon. The rock hit him with bone crushing force, but his howl of pain was inaudible over the massive roaring sound.

Spyro was flung away instantly, sent hurtling back as the wind caught his wings and body and launched him out of the bubble, further and further, with such an immense velocity that even after he left the bubble he was still going and going and going until he had vanished into a tiny purple speck hidden within the pink skies.

The bubble itself absorbed the energy, and it grew, swelling in size hugely and glowing every colour of the rainbow as it fed off the sheer amount of power which Darkmire had poured into it.

Cynder leaned into the wind, ducking and carving through it, still blown back slightly, but deflecting the worst of the impact. It seemed to last hours even though she knew it had been no more than a single mighty pulse.

She only realised her mistake when she realised that she was now alone. Malefor and Spyro had both been flung away, miles and miles away. Spyro she knew would be unharmed, perhaps a bit bruised and shaken up. But Malefor might be badly injured. And neither of them were close enough to help her. A fact which Darkmire took full advantage of.

Before Cynder could even blink, let alone properly recover the dark black dragoness had darted in front of her and grabbed her head in those horrible long talons, squeezing so hard that Cynder screamed in pure horror, fearing her skull might crack.

She was fast. She was so fast.

She saw the runes which had been burned onto Darkmire's body, and the glowing seal on her forehead, doing it's work. But the only thing she could think of was the feeling of being trapped, claws squeezing her head.

Cynder jerked back into shadows, but Darkmire followed her, paw turning into shadow as well and tearing Cynder straight out of her only safety. In that moment Cynder felt her heart almost seem to stop with terror. She had never been grabbed and unable to rely on her shadows before except in her nightmares.

"Well now Cynder! While we're alone I think we ought to have a little heart to heart, us black dragonesses! Or more like a dream to dream! Now step into my parlour, said the spider to the flyyyyyyy…."

And then Cynder was dragged, kicking and screaming, into Pleasure and Darkmire's mind.

The place that, in her fight with Hope, he had been desperate to keep her out of. Where even in her earlier confrontation with Darkmire in the cell she had entered and it had panicked the ancient dragoness into kicking her out immediately.

Now, in her 'fight' with Darkmire, if this could even be called a fight so far, she had been pulled straight to where she wanted to be, and she couldn't even see the real world.

Every time she tried to open her eyes to something other than the hellscape before her all she saw was red, and all she felt was Darkmire's hate, surrounding her, drowning her.

And a hellscape indeed it was.

Yellow sun high in the sky, but it was not a sun. It was an eye, yellow, slitted, and gigantic. It filled half the sky, the remainder was clouds of stormy black, orange and poisonous yellow.

Lightning flashed in that awful sky, and the gigantic eye blinked, a sound which was wet and ghastly and so loud that Cynder created a bubble of wind around herself to muffle it. Thousands,maybe billions, of tons of wet eyelid moving and sliding over the surface of the gigantic eyeball.

Rain was falling too, and it was yellow, sticky, and it smelled like salt and vomit. Horrible bitter scents, like tears and sickness and pure concentrated misery were falling in a stormy deluge over the landscape.

And the landscape, if possible, was even worse.

The first time Cynder had been here only for the tiniest of moments. She had seen the eye, and she had seen what she thought were mountains. Rivers of poisonous yellow running through the valleys. Ugly black rock and white jagged spikes lending the landscape an unforgiving and miserable appearance.

Now she wished that it had only been that, because the truth was so much more horrible.

It was flesh.

Heaving, shuddering, crying. Black scaled skin. White shattered horns and bones laying splintered, or still attached to twisted limbs and split skulls.

It was bits and pieces of Pleasure, thousands of copies of Pleasure. Some were huge, their ribs and limbs making up entire mountain ranges, but there were many many more who were normally sized.

And every single one of them was moving, twisting, broken paws and burst eyeballs reaching and staring at Cynder, some begging for help, some begging for death, and some which were too far gone to be anything other than insane.

"Now you see the mind of her whom you wish to save."

Darkmire's voice spoke from the heavens, rumbling the entire world, and hearing that voice caused the twisted and ruined… things… to scream and writhe in torment, the voice of their tormentor returned once again to make them suffer.

"And you see why there can be no bringing it back. The filth piled up, the minds upon minds upon minds which I have snapped and snapped and snapped."

There was a click of fingers, booming even louder than anything else which had happened so far, and Cynder felt pain lancing through her head as if burning hot claws had been stabbed into her ears. She grabbed her head and when she pulled her paws away she saw blood.

The voice was still rumbling, she could feel it vibrating through the air, but her ears were only ringing over and over and throbbing in blinding pain.

But there was still no escape. Darkmire's voice spoke directly in her mind, a driving spike of ice which seemed to punch straight through her forehead.

"What you think is your friend is nothing but the surface of my work. The work which I shall perform upon The Ancestors, Malefor, Spyro, and then eventually you too."

Cynder heard the rumble of a terrible laugh.

"But! I don't think you yet appreciate the scale of what I have done here. Come, let me show you."

A claw of wind wrapped around Cynder, tightly enough that she couldn't breathe. A claw which was the size of the mountains, crushing her wind magic into her and trapping her. There were no shadows, no surfaces she could reach, the yellow light seemed to reach all around her as she was caught in the gaze of a god.

And then she was being tugged, faster and faster down into one of those poisonous disgusting rivers which flowed between those tortured mountains.

And then she hit the water with a deafening splash and was grabbed from every side by desperate paws, clawing, dragging, trying to pull themselves out of the fetid liquid.

Pleasures were under the water, and it was no shallow stream like it should have been. No. Cynder realised that Pleasure's mindscape had once been the same as Sypros.

This was an ocean.

"That's right!"

Darkmire laughed in her mind.

"I hope you took a big gulp of air, because you're going aaaaaaaaaall the way down!"

Cynder began to thrash and struggle, kicking the desperate pleading paws off her and trying to return to the surface, but the surface was already receding away.

She saw it above her, the light fading, as she was dragged down into a mess of tortured desperate limbs. She beat her wings until they were grabbed, lashed her tail, feeling it cut through bones as fragile as toothpicks, but there were always more to take their places.

She was sinking, and she couldn't stop herself.

Her lungs were already burning, she didn't know if she could get to the surface on this amount of air even if she got free.

She blasted wildly around herself with wind magic, shooting it out and around, but her powers were being sapped away by the presence of Darkmire. That horrible feeling seemed to dampen and crush her powers with every second that she was here.

With her last bit of breath Cynder screamed, a mixture of fear and fury and defiance. This was still a dream, she couldn't die here no matter how much it felt like she would.

It seemed to go on and on forever, her scream at the brink of running out, bubbles flying up from her mouth, more than she could have possibly actually had inside her. Darkmire was keeping her in this moment, drawing it out further and further. They had advanced to physical torture now, and the knowledge that this was a dream was both distant and hollow comfort.

Had it been a minute? Her throat was raw with pain.

Had it been an hour? A day?

And then a touch! A real touch! Firm, but gentle. Urgent, but not the grasping pitiful claws of a broken black dragoness.

She felt her real body getting yanked in a direction, the paw grasping her shoulder like a vice, tight with worry. And then she was ejected from Darkmire's mind and snapped back to reality.

"Cynder! Cynder!? Are you alright!?" Spyro shouted, slapping the black dragoness across the face somewhat harder than he had intended to, and yet it barely even registered.

Cynder had been standing mere inches from Darkmire, frozen in place it seemed, and as Spyro had approached her face had contorted and she had begun to let out a horrible scream. He had darted in and grabbed her, throwing her away from Darkmire and desperately checking on her.

He heard mocking laughter from behind, but didn't even look.

"Cynder! Speak to me!"

She looked up at his words, and he felt a surge of relief as he saw her emerald eyes were as bright and intelligent as ever, but his sense of relief was short lived when Cynder bent over and started to retch, coughing and clawing at her throat. She grabbed him with her other paw for support, pressing against his chest for comfort while she frantically shook her wings and tail as if trying to get something off her body.

"Cynder!" He gripped her by the horns and tried to get her to face him, then hurriedly dodged to the side as she vomited up several half eaten fish.

"Fuck… that…" Cynder panted, gagging and spitting as she started to get control of herself. "Fuck that and fuck her!"

She looked to Spyro helplessly, shaking her head.

"I can't beat her. I can't even scratch her. She just pulled me down into-"

She gagged again and spat. Then she noticed mess of what had once been fish which was floating in a cloud nearby. With a frustrated snarl she blasted it towards the star, making it quickly vanish out of sight.

"The smell! The touches." She shuddered. "It's worse than the end of the world in there! It's just poison and torn bodies as far as the eye can see. And- and then they started grabbing at me and dragged me down into the ocean. It was horrible."

Tears were welling up in her eyes, and she angrily dashed them away, forcing her body to obey her when all it wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry.

Spyro held her firmly to his chest, giving her the most protective and comforting squeeze he could manage. He felt Darkmire's yellow and white eyes focused on him and he turned his body to shield every bit of Cynder from that horrible gaze. "Are you hurt? Do we need to retreat?"

"Retreat!?" Darkmire laughed mockingly. "So soon!? I have so much more to show you…"

Cynder shook her head. "I'm fine now. No retreat. It was just a stupid dream. I'm not leaving until we give her a proper fight."

Spyro hesitated, making sure she really meant what she said. She did seem to be unharmed, and so he nodded. "I'm with you until the end." He gave her a smile.

She nodded, giving him a smile in return, then stepping out from behind Spyro to glare at Darkmire.

As she did so she saw Malefor was winging towards them as well from the other side. This time they would just attack. She would just attack and attack until they won. The beginnings of a plan were starting to form in her mind, it wasn't a good one, but it was something.

She darted forwards, sending a wave of shadow, concealing blades of wind straight at Darkmire.

The golem which Darkmire had created leapt in front of the blow to deflect it, while the dark dragoness laughed.

"Finally some fun! Come on then Cynder! Show me what you- oof!"

Malefor hit her from behind with a massive fireball in his paws. Even from behind the golem Cynder and Spyro were blown back slightly. Darkmire was hurled downwards, trailing smoke and coughing blood.

Spyro didn't hesitate, he dived after her, grabbed her by the tail and trapped her in a ball of stone, then hurled her back up. Cynder waited for just the right moment, and then kicked the ball with all her strength straight into the golem's chest.

The stone hit it like a cannonball and punched deep into it, making the thing bellow in pain.

It swung it's heavy fist out at Cynder, but Spyro was there with a shield of ice, stopping it until Cynder swung a blade of wind at it's elbow and sheared off it's arm.

Darkmire was clawing her way out of the golem's chest, cracking the stone as she emerged, a mixture of a roar and a laugh twisting her face into a feral grin. Her eyes locked on Cynder and she pushed off, shooting towards them with incredible speed, as fast as any flying that Cynder could do.

Cynder barely had time to jolt out of the way, making her crash painfully into Spyro, but at least they dodged the impact of Darkmire.

The dark dragon hit the opposite wall of the bubble and spun around to face them, her spine twisting unnaturally as she grinned, seeing all three of them now together. She opened her jaws and white light started to fill her throat.

"Convexity!" Malefor yelled. He turned and started to dash for the outside of the bubble, but Spyro and Cynder were too close to the centre.

And so they both opened their own maws and fired beams of convexity straight back.

The three lights hit and fought against each other, and for a moment it seemed Spyro and Cynder had the advantage, but then Darkmire's beam grew hotter and darker and started to push forwards.

A fourth beam shot over Spyro and Cynder's heads as Malefor swooped down beside them and added his convexity beam to theirs.

Darkmire screeched in anger as the sheer force of their attack began to push her backwards.

"Fly… backwards!" He hissed to them around the energy, and the three of them all began to beat their wings carefully.

Cynder didn't know how big the bubble was, she didn't know when they would be safe. But one thing she did know was that even with Malefor's help they were going to lose this fight. Darkmire was beginning to laugh, her single beam slowly gaining ground over all three of theirs. Her confidence growing as she started to press forwards.

Malefor watched the beams fight, measuring wingbeats, then he yelled.

"Run now!"

The three of them cut off their convexity beams instantly and flew for the edge of the bubble, reaching it just in time as a blinding white sphere of light erupted outwards from where their beams had met.

The bubble spread outwards, only a faint whooshing sound heralding the spread of pure radiating convexity energy. Deceptively quiet. The light hit the edges of the protective sphere, and they continued running as it began to grow rapidly, the rainbow greying bubble was the only thing keeping them out of the burning white light inside. By the time it stopped it was easily three times bigger than it had been when they started due to the sheer amount of energy it had absorbed.

A bubble even bigger and brighter than the one which had been enough to take down both Hope and Malefor, leaving them charred and barely alive and destroying a sizeable amount of solid stone, retracted to reveal now what it had done to Darkmire.

The Golem was visible first, large portions of the creature had simply vanished in the blast, it was cold and inanimate. Killed by the blast.

But as the light faded Darkmire was nowhere to be seen.

Her body was destroyed. An intriguing feeling.

Not her first time dying like this.

Darkmire felt time seem to stretch outwards, further and further. Moments lasting forever. She had been obliterated down to the last atom, how remarkable.

Pleasure's soul was untethered from the real world, and Darkmire existed through it. Keeping it alive without a body was something which she simply couldn't do or she would risk her mind fading away. But fortunately creating a new body was hardly an effort for her.

In the empty space where Darkmire had once stood a purple spark sputtered to life, and then with a horrible screeching sound it exploded into a surge of purple lightning. The ash and dust that had comprised her body clumped together as the lightning drew it back in like a magnet, while new matter burst into existence to complete the missing pieces. Pleasure's body formed, at first burned away, then rapidly restoring, black scales covering her limbs, horns and claws sprouting and growing until they were back to their previous long state, but even keeping the trimming which Imperia had given them, as well as the irritating little thorn of magic that Imperia had pierced her with.

There would be no drifting away into nothingness for her this time, or any other time.

Darkmire's eyes opened and she gasped in a new breath, feeling air refill her new lungs, her grin stretching back across her face as her body returned to normal.

She spread her wings and raised a paw, beckoning to the three figures still waiting outside the bubble.

"Good! Good hit! In my prime I wouldn't have even felt that, but nonetheless I respect it."

Darkmire chuckled.

"I'm rusty. But don't worry, my raw power has only been growing these millions of years, and eventually my skills will recover enough to utilise it properly. I appreciate taking an injury here and now, as I feel worried this might be the last time in my life that I ever face a challenge."

She shrugged.

"Not that I really worry about that. Bringing suffering is it's own reward, no matter how easy it is. Now come, come back in! I'm not done with you yet."

"Did… did she just come back from death?" Spyro asked in shock.

"That's bullshit." Cynder growled. "How did she do that?" She looked to Malefor for explanation, but the purple dragon looked just as shocked as them.

"I knew it was possible… but…" Malefor shook his head, then turned to them both. "Her body was dead, but she did not come back from a complete death. There are three parts to a dragon, the first is their physical body which exists in our world, the second is the infinite source of their magic which exists outside of our world, and the third is the bridge between the two, a dragon is a living portal between this world and their source of energy, and in the moments after the destruction of their physical body a dragon could still use a small scrap of their power for a moment before they faded away, in Darkmire's case it would appear that tiny scrap was not so tiny after all, she had enough power to entirely heal herself."

"What do we do now?" Spyro asked them. "The more we learn about her the more hopeless this is looking. Ideas, anyone?"

"I've got one." Cynder said reluctantly. "We push her into the star."

"That would kill them both!" Spyro said.

"I know…" Cynder said quietly. "But what choice do we have?"

"I can do that, but we had better make sure we've tried everything else first." Malefor said confidently.

"We can't even scratch her!" Cynder hissed. "You saw that! She wasn't hiding in shadows, she was dead! She was literally dust and she just tugged herself back together like she was doing a jigsaw puzzle."

"She still has limits, over time the power of even the weakest of dragons is infinite, but drawing upon that power will become more and more difficult the more pressure we put on her. If we can exhaust her sufficiently and then destroy her physical form I believe that her mind and magic will radiate away before she can recreate her body, thus killing her." Malefor said.

"We have to try to save her first." Spyro insisted. "The symbol which Imperia created is still on her forehead, she's still being split. Any hit could be the lucky one which shatters her."

"The star could be a long way away still. We have until we get close to it to save her, then if we still fail we jump out and leave her to burn, deal?" Malefor said. "The bubble is solid to her, so when we hit her into the bubble the force of our hit is transferred to it when it stops her."

"Equal and opposite reaction." Spyro said, realising the logic behind what Malefor proposed. "We use her to move the bubble for us."

"That's our next step then. Are you ready?" Cynder asked them. They both nodded back to her.

The three of them dived down towards the sphere with some nervousness, but Cynder was leading the way with aggression on her mind.

She breathed deeply as she entered the bubble again, half expecting invisible poison. But fortunately there was none. So what if Darkmire was better at controlling dreams than Cynder was? She might be better with the more advanced aspects of the emotion element. But Cynder was not opposed to falling back on just using it as fear and blasting her with it until something cracked.

After all, back in the cell in Darkmire's Tomb it had given her some pause.

Red energy gathered around Cynder, a sphere appearing just in front of her forehead and growing, then shooting towards Darkmire.

The evil black dragoness watched it coming, then jolted her head to one side, evading the fear ball.

But fear magic had homing properties, and it whirled around and caught Darkmire on the back of the head.

"Don't let up!" Cynder shouted to the others.

Darkmire's body stiffened, and her laugher turned into a strangled bark of annoyance as the fear magic dug into her mind and body, flooding her with adrenaline that made her limbs not respond properly, all while her vision went blurry and her mind was squeezed and hammered by the attack.

Before she could shrug it off she was grabbed by a fist of stone, Spyro throwing her downwards. For a few seconds she flew, the bubble now much bigger than it had been, giving her some time to fall before she impacted against the unyielding surface. It felt like it was pressing against her very identity, rather than her body. Keeping her trapped.

She didn't even deign to notice the fireball which was dropped on top of her. Ice and cold radiated from her body to protect her from the heat, while she turned and dug a claw into the bubble.

If she could just break it then she would be free, and more importantly Spyro, Cynder and Malefor would be consumed in a fresh wave of realisation of just how hopeless their situation truly was. Freedom was a distant secondary priority, making them suffer came first.

Her claw scraped and pushed, and the bubble seemed to distort slightly, light of every colour bursting out from every point of contact between her and the surface. And yet it was only growing stronger from being exposed to her power.

Annoying.

Before she could dwell on the matter any further she felt her protective shield of cold being ripped away from her by Malefor, just in time for Spyro to hit her with an even stronger fireball. Meanwhile Cynder dropped a hammer of wind on her head, crushing her against the bubble even harder. For a moment she felt her scales burning and smoking, but then she blasted lances of wind at both purple dragons and healed her injuries before they could even form.

Spyro dodged the attack against him, but Malefor got hit and sent spinning, letting out a silent roar in pain as the wind was knocked out of him.

Cynder dived down into close range with Darkmire and asserted herself with a flurry of punches and kicks, each one bouncing Darkmire's head off the wall of the bubble and rattling her brain, depriving her of the ability to think straight.

Darkmire went to duck into shadows, but Cynder was a fast learner, and this time to her surprise Darkmire found herself on the wrong end of a grab as Cynder dived into the shadows with her and fastened sharp claws around her throat. Darkmire laughed, but it came out as a strangled gurgle as Cynder ripped them both out of the shadow and sent Darkmire spinning with a brutal uppercut to the jaw. She was slammed back against the bubble and then Cynder rammed her shoulder with full force into her cheekbone.

Darkmire felt the lights in her brain wink out as her body was knocked unconscious.

She couldn't allow that. A pulse of magic sparked her brain back to action, the swelling of her grey matter halting and reversing, and she gasped in a breath again as she

snapped back to some level of mental control.

"Very impressive! So quickly you've picked up a new ability! But lets see if you're able to perform so well in the dream shall we!? Oh! Do you think you have anything left in your belly? Let's see you spew spew spewwwwwww!"

With a maniacal laugh her claws reached out for Cynder's skull, but the black dragoness swatted her paw away and fired a dozen punches in between Darkmire's eyes in the span of a second, every single one of them sending out a sonic boom from their sheer speed, splattering Darkmire's blood against the dome.

Darkmire healed her cracked bones and brain once again, and then disengaged, wind wrapping around her as she blurred, her speed was incredible. She simply reappeared on the far side of the bubble so fast it looked like she had teleported, pristine and unharmed, but panting just ever so slightly. Despite all her healing abilities the runes which Imperia had created were still on her, but their chances of taking advantage of that fact seemed to be growing slimmer by the moment.

And then Darkmire clapped her hands together and a wave of red light exploded outwards, filling the entire world and catching all three of her opponents in the blast.

Spyro, Cynder and Malefor all stopped dead, their minds dragged into Darkmire's dream.

Everything was silent, but for Darkmire's growing laughter.

The sphere moved closer to the hungry star.

The pool of visions sat in a rarely used chamber of the Dragon Temple in Warfang. A basin of cloudy water set into the floor, perhaps two meters across, it's depth was difficult to gauge due to the ripples which constantly moved across it, but Ignitus knew it to be only ankle deep.

Few dragons were able to use a pool of visions, and those that did preferred quiet and calm in order to make the most of the sight that it granted them. It was rare that this room saw visitors, and yet now there were four.

Ignitus was standing over the pool, gazing down into it, while Terrador watched on, his stoic silence hiding the worry he felt, as he struggled not to ask questions. Also present was Cyril's trainee ice guardian, Cyria, one of the few dragons who had proven to have a natural talent with the pool of visions and thus had come along to watch Ignitus, one of the greatest masters of the ability, at work, and lastly was Cyril himself, who claimed he was staying to monitor his apprentice, but they all knew that he was just as concerned as the rest of them.

The others stood and watched as the pool showed images of a frozen mountain, and the fortress dug stubbornly into the upper slopes. From there Ignitus looked down the dark crevice into the depths of the mountains. The pool showed only blackness for so long that Cyria was sure it had broken, but eventually the image settled on a soft orange glow illuminating a dark cave.

Ignitus, brow furrowed in concentration, pulled them in closer, and his expression softened into a look of sad tenderness as he finally brought the image of Flare into sharp focus. The fire dragoness who had once been his apprentice was sitting in the darkness, glowing, and beside her was Imperia, reading a book by the light and talking, or perhaps singing.

Ignitus forced himself to look away from the sweet moment, the pool turned black again as he looked through rock and stone, but he found nothing else.

"Spyro, Cynder and Malefor are missing. They must have taken Hope to convexity and be doing something to him there. But I can't reach that far."

Ignitus shook his head regretfully and walked away.

"I'm sorry."

Cyria immediately took his place, reaching her paws around the pool and focusing, but struggling even to capture images of the mountain.

Terrador followed Ignitus as his former fellow guardian paced the outside of the room dejectedly.

"I feel like something terrible is happening."

"We're doing what we can." Terrador reassured him. "We're sending supplies and reinforcements. I'm going to head out with the next group, we're just waiting on Volteer to gather the devices and equipment he thinks he'll need, which had better be as useful as he says it will be."

Ignitus looked around the room with an unfocused gaze, then he nodded, turning and looking at Terrador. "You're right. We just have to-"

The world seemed to sway around Ignitus, his vision going hazy as he felt a great pressure on his head. He grunted and put a paw to his forehead, barely able to hear Terrador asking if he was okay. It felt like taking a blast from Cynder's fear magic, like it had reached into his head and was trying to drag him east, towards where he knew Darkmire's Tomb lay. He gritted his teeth in pain and slowly lowered himself to the floor as the others came over to see if he was alright, but before he could even answer his head throbbed with pain and his vision went black.

As tempting as it was for me to write a long drawn out fight against an evil-ified Malefor, to see how he would have held up against a much older and stronger Spyro and Cynder, I'm happier with how it's turned out. I'd like to think this is the payoff for Cynder having taken active steps to lay her demons to rest. I'm proud of her. It's always worth it.

I'd like to give a quick message of support to the LGBT+ community, most especially trans people who need it right now. Human rights are like a country: an attack on any area of the country is an attack on the whole thing, and if the attack is not thrown back then more pieces will be taken until its gone. You're all valid, you're all needed, and it's in both the personal and moral interests of all humans everywhere (except the richest 0.1%) to support you.

Thanks, as ever, for reading. Reviews and comments are always very much appreciated!

Look after yourselves. Try not to do anything Spyro wouldn't do.

Until next time (which will be sooner than a year from now I promise!)

-4Dragons