Cynder jumped back through the air, dodging the arcing lightning coming for her. Whenever her feet touched the ground she'd have to jump backwards or the bolt that hit the ground where she was would remove her from the fight. The black dragon moved back into Shadow for the umpteenth time that fight, hoping to gain a slight advantage over her opponent. Yet Spyro knew where she was. He always did.
Spyro knew the tells for her shadow form, the faint whispers of smoke and the feeling of cold caused by Cynder being nearby, from both being in Shadow himself and from Cynder herself telling him. As Cynder moved behind her opponent, Spyro's amethysts followed her.
"You gonna come out? Or are you done?" Spyro asked.
Cynder answered quickly, leaping out of the shadow's and charging Spyro with her metallic claws. Spyro flexed his wing and entered the air, forcing Cynder to give chase or lose her close quarters. Green smoke poured from Cynder's maw, sending shivers down Spyro's back.
'Doesn't matter how many times I see it, acid is terrifying.'
As if reading his mind, Cynder smirked and released a ball of acid right at Spyro. Spyro swerved to the right, to where Cynder had released a gust of wind. The sudden wind force knocked Spyro off-balance. Cynder took full use of this, smacking Spyro in the head with the blunt side of her tail blade. The force of the strike sent Spyro into the floor of the training hall, Cynder close behind. Cynder was forced to swerve however due to the large amount of ice spikes entering her vision. Each spike barely missed her as she ducked and dodged over each spike. The ice gave way to a wall of flame from Spyro's open mouth. Desperate to get away, Cynder dived to the ground underneath the cloud of flame.
As Cynder landed, Spyro crashed into her using his earth magic to create a boulder around him. Cynder slammed to the ground, wind knocked from her lungs. As she lay gasping, Spyro shoved his foot on top of her, stopping her from moving.
"I win!" Spyro exclaimed gleefully, now out of what Cynder called 'Battle Mode'.
"Yes, Yes Spyro you did win," Terrador called. Terrador was watching over the fight this time, as Flare had her own classes to teach. "Just like you did near every spar. Don't gloat, it is beneath you."
"Spyro, get your foot off me now." Cynder growled, now recovered from her shock.
Spyro quickly took his foot off of Cynder, apologising sheepishly. Cynder shook herself.
"What do you think then Terrador?" Cynder asked. "Am I good to go? I'm going nuts being kept here with nothing to do except fight a losing battle with Spyro."
Over the past month, Cynder had been sparring with Spyro, who had certainly not been taking his training for granted since she was gone. Cynder learned a bit more each fight, but that bit was one pebble against the mountain that was defeating Spyro. At the very least, she had started to get used to her new size and found the added reach very useful. This allowed to at least catch Spyro off-guard sometimes. Cynder also had gained quite the power boost with her magic as she had grown. Her shadow form could last a lot longer than before and her acid nearly burnt away a full wall of stone on accident. She was now definitely the fastest dragon in Warfang, discounting Calemvir because his wings were twice the size of him.
One thing was certain, Cynder was back and better than ever. And needed to get out of the city.
"I think you are ready to get out there," Terrador smiled. "I'll see what I can find for the both of you. Be warned, it won't be anything near challenging."
The guardians had updated Cynder on the whereabouts of any leftover forces from Malefor. Namely, how they had vanished overnight. Somehow, the legion of minions the powerful dragon had accumulated had just vanished. No-one had any explanation on where they went and had hoped that Cynder might have had some idea, being a part of those forces for some time could have given her some idea of where they could be hiding. Of course, Cynder had no clue. He couldn't remember much of the time in corruption.
So, it remained a mystery, until Spyro brought up how worried he was about it with Calemvir.
"It's just that somehow a massive army disappears in the blink of an eye, no-one knows where and we can't find them in three years of searching. Not even corpses! It makes no sense."
"Oh, they're gone. Don't worry about them" Calemvir said casually. He was sitting on a chair in his room, in human form as no-one was around.
Spyro stopped for a second, turning to Calemvir.
"What do you mean 'Don't worry about them'? There could be a massive army out there waiting to tear the wall open and kill us all at any moment!"
Calemvir rolled his eyes.
"For the love of Magic, you dragons know nothing about it." He shook his head before asking Spyro a question. "How much do you know about Thralls?"
Spyro blinked twice before asking back. "What's a Thrall?"
"Oh boy, no wonder you've been worried." Calemvir rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Thralls are a creature of magic summoned from what you call 'Convexity'. What Convexity really is, is a plane of pure magic, where the most extraordinary creatures are made. Leviathans of stone and living flames, or maybe even a massive Golem?"
"Okay, so Malefor summoned those things from Convexity." Spyro said. "But what does that have to do with where they've gone?"
"The fun thing about Thralls is that when you summon them, they use you're magic to stay in this realm. If you say, run out of magic they are forced back into their home. The same thing happens of you are taken to a new dimension, have you're spells and magic sealed, and are being horribly tortured with magical light."
Spyro was shocked. The entire army that was amassed was just a huge number of creatures from another dimension.
"Alright but what about the apes! They're still around!"
"And you know nothing about necromancy either. Brilliant!" Calemvir groaned. "I need to educate you all on magic sometime. If a body is dead, no soul, so flesh, what do you think keeps it moving? Attacking?"
"Magic?" Spyro questioned.
"Yes, but without a soul, magic can't be produced from a body. So, who is powering the skeletons? Keeping them from disintegrating? Or more accurately, was?"
"Malefor…" Spyro said slowly. "So, I've been worrying about a long dead army attacking from somewhere they couldn't come from."
"Now you understand why I didn't get you're worry." Calemvir nodded sagely. "But you're forgetting something very important. Something Malefor also forgot about I think."
Spyro cocked his head to the side, confused. What could he be forgetting about?
"I'm going to take a guess and say you're thinking about summoning your own now yeah? Thralls I mean?" Calemvir asked.
"Well, yeah, imagine how they could help us! We could use them to fix up Warfang more, defend from anyone else!"
"Remember when I said Thralls use your magic to stay here?" Calemvir asked. "That means for each thrall you summon, you are effectively draining your own magic to keep that one thrall here. If you summoned say, a million Thralls, you are cutting off a large portion of your magic for an army."
"So, what does that mean for-" Spyro started, before cutting himself off, realisation dawning on him. "Malefor was busy feeding his army fighting us. At the centre of the world he was fighting with a claw behind his back without even realising it."
"Now you get it." Calemvir said darkly. "It's why you were thrashed in the canyon. He wasn't tired, or fighting without two legs, if the amount of Thralls was any indication. You never stood a chance as you were, especially when chained together with those necklaces. That is the trap that is Summoning."
After that horrifying thought, Spyro reported back to the Guardians. It was a comforting thought, that they had nothing to worry about from the undead apes and the newly named Thralls. Volteer was still going to him for new information on magic. Although most of the time he came back somewhat haunted. It was sometimes hard to remember how old the young-looking half dragon really was. That age came with many, many magical discoveries, some of which should likely never have been found.
A/N Don't think there was any new favourites so nothing here now.
I may have been neglecting this story a little bit. So here we are.