Author's notes:

First of all, I would like to apologize for taking so long to write this next chapter. I came across a writer's block and stuff just kept on happening to me that I just had a hard time finding time to commit to this. I am not trying to make excuses just trying to explain what the reason was for me taking so long.

On another note, I got in touch with another writer, MysticOTDH, he is a new writer just like me, but I highly recommend reading his stuff, it is really good. He gave me a few pointers on how to write and I am trying to take some of what he said to heart, trying to improve.

I am also going to be sticking to one perspective like I did last time, unless otherwise noted.

Without further ado,

Enjoy the show

Chapter 8: So, what now?

Sparx's POV:

I wish I could just stop time and let this moment with Spyro last forever. The laughter the light-hearted feelings in me, the sun rising. It just felt so picture perfect that I wanted it to last forever. Although, now that I am looking at Spyro in the light of dawn, I get to really see Spyro. I knew that he looked different before, but it wasn't until now that I got a chance to really apricate them. His scales are still purple, but they look to be shaded a little different then before, perhaps a lighter shade. Looking down I saw that Spyro's talons are slightly larger then before still being the same grey white, but they don't look as sharp. His scales are also slightly different then before, they look larger in some areas, and smaller in others. His horns and spins are also different in the sense that they are angled differently, making it look more like a bull, in that regard.

"Ahem!" Spyro clearly was making the motion of clearing his throat, only that he was actually trying to get my attention. I guess that I had been staring without realizing.

"Is there something on my face or something?" Spyro asks while giving me a look of curiosity with his big red eyes, 'huh I guess that is different too'.

"No, no nothing like that." I said while waving my hands to make the gesture sincerer. "I was just noticing the differences between the two of you."

Spyro starts to look at me in a rather weird way like he was trying to see through me. This made me feel rather uncomfortable and I wondered if this is what I was doing earlier. 'I really ought to go out more often if that is what I look like'.

Spyro started to circle around me taking in my form from all sides. I was wondering what he was up to until Stealth Elf spoke up. "Hey, wait a minute, we should head back to the rest of the team and tell them what happened." She then vanished into thin air a moment latter only to reappear again moving her hands and saying, "hurry up".

As the little elf quickly disappeared, I looked to Spyro, silently asking if it was necessary. He looked me straight in the eye, but he didn't say anything. He simply just looked forward and started flying in the direction of the academy. I really didn't want to have to face the other Skylanders right now, as I know it would be very awkward, to say the least. I sighed as a started to fly up myself, using my own shadow magic to create a grey lick mist emerging from my feet to propel me forward. As I was following Spyro I quietly said to myself, "I just know this is going to be so awkward."

I was pacing in front of the front doors to the academy, silently waiting for Spyro to reemerge from the other side. I managed to catchup with him before we made it back to the academy and I asked if he could, 'Soften the blow' so to speak. I have been inside before and personally I can't really say that I feel nervous or anything, but rather I was preparing myself for the tension in the air that was about to come. It's kind of like when some one makes an accidental noise after the room goes silent and all of a sudden, the entire room just puts pressure on the guy that made the noise. Despite how little of the things that I can feel, emotion wise that is, I can still feel other things, like the tension in the air.

Time seemed to move to a crawl as I was pacing frantically in front of the door, honestly it feels as though the ground should be disappearing under my feet right about now. As I was doing this, I failed to notice another figure approach me.

"Uhm can I help you?" Startled I turned to see who the mystery person was. What I saw, I was not prepared for as the one who spoke was someone I haven't met before, I think. She, at least I think it was a she from her voice, wore a long black gown and had a weird matching black hood that had two long but thin spike coming up from either side of her head. Her skin a blueish pale that had almost no complexity to it and her eyes were completely white.

"Ahh, just leave him be. Can't you see this guy is waiting on the Skylanders or something." I suddenly noticed a skull in an orb float from behind the mystery figure suddenly talk in a deep gruffy voice. The skull continued, "Besides we have to talk to Kassondra about your spells and magic training stuff, we really cannot afford to spend time helping others when we need to help ourselves."

"I know, Skull, but I just figured I offer since we are right here." The young, presumably, sorceress said with a tone that said that she was in charge here, although it was rather gentle all things considered. I then noticed that the sorceress was caring a couple books in her hands.

It took me a moment to be able to recognize it, mind you it was on its side and I was not, but once I did, I noticed that they were books on basic necromancy spells and incantations. Clearing my throat, trying to get their attention, I said, "Uhm, you probably can't really help me, but maybe there is something that I can do for you, I have done a little necromantic magic in the past, and I read those books that you are carrying."

I don't know why I offered help in the first place. Normally I keep an arm's length distance between me and everyone, as it just makes things easier for me in the long run. Despite this, I found myself wanting to help her. Maybe it was because this is where Spyro stays and I was just trying to get in with everyone's good side, or that I wanted to make it seem like I wasn't all bad. Though I think the truth is that I really just wanted to be helpful again.

The young sorceress responded with mix feelings, at least that is what her face was telling me. "Uh sure if you think you can help. I was having a hard time with this incantation here." She says after opening one of her books to a certain page revealing the contents inside to me.

I recognized it after a quick skim of its contents, I also noticed some notes that was written on the side and could see the questions and certain parts that she was having trouble with. "Ah, yeah that one can be tricky. You see, you have to start with…"

Spyro's POV:

"And that is basically everything's that's happened."

I waited to see how everyone else in the room reacts to this, keeping my talons crossed that things go well. I lowered my head and thought about everything that I said. There are so many things that I feel about this whole situation. Part of me feels happy that I managed to stop the 'bad guy' but, another part of me is angry. If you told me a week ago that I would be willingly defending Jester in front of my teammates, I would have called you a liar, but now that I know the inside truth about things, I feel different. Looking up and around the room I see surprised faces. This was expected considering that the guy that we were literally fighting is now waiting patiently outside the door, awaiting whatever is to come of him. What's even more shocking is the fact that the Stealth Elf of the past week was actually a fake. It took them all a while to process everything, but it was Jet-Vac who spoke.

"Spyro. We can understand that you have some fake feelings about Jester since we already figured there would be a connection between the two of you. But we cannot just say that all forgiven and let all of his crimes go unanswered. We couldn't call ourselves the defenders of Skylands if we let the people who hurt the Skylands get away with it."

I was shocked to say the least. I knew that they weren't going to be all for it, but I never expected someone like J-V to be this much against it. What really stung was the word 'fake'. I know that the past me isn't who I am now but that doesn't make MY feelings any less real. I wanted to shout at J-V for evening thinking that! I quickly shook my head trying to push aside my feelings for now, right now I had to try to convince them. "Look I get that you guys don't want to just forgive and forget, but he really isn't that bad of a guy. I mean yeah sure he did cream us all multiple times but that doesn't necessarily make him a bad guy, right?"

"Actually, Spyro it does." It was E the next to speak, one of my best friends for the longest time. "No matter how you try to look at it he fought us, the good guys which makes him at the very least, against us." Despite the fact that E is a walking volcano, his words were cold and ruthless. "I say we should take him to Cloud Breaker Prison, so that he can do his time there. Besides now that we know that another villain is locked up, we can rest that much easier especially since we now have the whole team back together."

'Lock him up in Cloud Breaker Prison!?' It took every ounce of my will to hold in those words. But I know that If I let out an outburst now, I would lose any hope of gaining the teams trust. I couldn't believe how strongly they were against this. I looked to Pop to see if he could take my side, but the only thing I got was more rejection instead as he looked around to everyone, E, J-V, and Kassondra silently nodding his head. Stealth Elf was the only one to not agree with everyone, but when I looked to her for support, I saw that she was deep in thought. I was on my own here. I lowered my head trying desperately to hold back my outburst. There were many things I wanted to say but I was afraid to say them, it's how I feel but I don't want to hurt my friends.

"Cheer up lad." J-V said while putting his hand on my head trying to give me assurance. "It's not like you cannot ever see him again, we just wanted to make sure that we put the bad guys where they deserve to be."

That when I blew up. All of the anger and frustration that I have been holding back was released in a tidal wave. I felt my emotions move through me and down to my feet, it was then that I realized that I was releasing a tremendous amount of magic into the ground shaking the whole room. The books from the shelves were falling down towards the floor and other items around the room started to follow, but I couldn't care less. I am not sure what angered me more, the fact that J-V mistakenly thought that I was hurt when he tried to comfort me, or the sentence that he said afterwards. "What about Kaos then, huh, are we going to put him back in jail too!? What about Kassondra she still has years' worth of evil that she hasn't made up for but we all willing accepted her!"

It wasn't until after I said this that I noticed that my voice was booming as If it was next to a microphone set on high, and it was scarring everyone in the room. I tried to calm down a bit and quickly realized what I just said about Kassondra and Kaos. I knew that Kassondra didn't want to be evil, but she changed after channeling so much dark magic to keep Strykore away and Kaos grew up around that version of Kassondra not even knowing about his real dad until the very end. Those facts really did sink in and made me realize that the world really isn't all black and white as I once thought it was.

Thinking back on this made me recall about myself, my words no longer riddled with anger but with sadness. "What about me? I did terrible things to you guys and even went as far as betray all of you when I was, not myself." It hurt more than anything to say those words because I knew how hard they worked to try to bring the old me back. But I felt like what happened to Sparx was a lot like what happened to me, about trying to learn about my ancestors. He only had good intentions, but his methods were too far off course for others to accept. If Sparx deserved punishment, then so did I. "So, if you are going to lock Sparx away, lock me away as well. I can't stand being the only 'bad guy' who gets away with things. I don't think I will ever be able to forgive myself if you don't."

The room grew silent with my final words, allowing my guilt and sorrow to grow. "Spyro, we aren't going to lock you away, you know that." It was Stealth Elf who was speaking now. Her voice sounded calm but surprisingly sad and hurt by what Spyro had just said. "We had no idea that you were still troubled by that and I guess you really would like him to stay here, huh?" It was a question, but it sounded more like a confirmation than anything else.

I nodded my head and she responded, "Okay then, despite what the rest of you guys say I am with Spyro on this."

"You can't be serious about this Stealth Elf. I mean he latterly kidnapped you and the rest of us didn't even know about it." J-V said.

"Yeah he did, but while I was 'kidnapped' he treated me like a guest the entire time. I literally had a TV that would let me keep an eye on all of you and Sparx as well. He also gave me an unlimited amount of room service and free Wi-Fi. I may have been bound to a room, but I had everything I could ever need and want, it was more or less like a stay at a hotel than anything else." Stealth Elf said with a bit more enthusiasm in her voice, no wonder Sparx looked apprehensive around her.

Stealth Elf was walking around the room looking determined. "Besides I think he could be helpful to us if anything else."

"And how do you expect that is happen?" E said with his usual skepticism, but he seemed intrigued by the idea.

Stealth Elf thought about this for a second and then quickly responded, "Maybe he can teach a few things about Spyro here and help him better control his new powers? Or maybe he can do something helpful here at the Academy?" The things Stealth Elf were suggesting sounded a little farfetched but at the same time it didn't sound unbelievable. "Like remember how he came up with that truth serum potion thing? Maybe he can teach Pop how to brew a few extra potions or help him come up with new ones?"

"This all sounds good and all but what about his crimes and everything, Stealth Elf." Leave it to J-V to be a mood killer, even though he did bring up a good point. "We cannot just let him off the hook altogether, that would be setting a bad example to villains everywhere."

"What about community service?" Stealth Elf quickly responded. "It can be the same thing, but we can keep an eye on him at all times and it's a lot easier to do so while he is right by our side. Besides Spyro did bring up a good point about Kaos, we are kind of doing that with him right now."

"Alright that all sounds good and everything Stealth Elf." This time it was Kassondra who spoke up, but what she said sounded like a 'but' was coming in. "But how do we know that we can trust him or that he can even really do these things. Unless you can tell me that he is some kind of magical professor of sorts I wouldn't trust him to be teaching the students anything useful at all."

"Well that hurts Kassy."

It was at this moment that everyone in the room turned to the open door, and saw Jester, now Sparx, standing there with a look of mock hurt on his face.

Sparx POV

I was finishing up helping out Hex, with her undead rituals and such when I felt a tremendous surge of magic coming from the inside of the building behind me. Out of instinct I acted and immediately sensed what type of magic it was and assessed its threating level. I quickly identified it as Spyro and tried to go inside to asses the situation. But the moment that I opened the door the magic started to fade away just as rapidly as it appeared.

I looked around the room and I saw that everyone had their backs towards me as they were currently facing Stealth Elf who couldn't see me because Kassy was in the way of her and the door. I guess due to the noise from the falling items no one heard me opening the door.

I just stood there in the door listening to what Stealth Elf was saying about what to do with me, and needless to say I was impressed. Despite the fact that I had already helped out with one of the cadets before entering the room, I was surprised to see how much one person managed to analyze me so well. I am now glad that I decided not to share everything that I can do during that moment, otherwise I might be doing so really complicated and tedious work.

I decided to remain quiet until Kassy made her commit about me. "Well that hurts Kassy".

It took a fraction of a second for me to regret my action in doing so. Stupid, doing that practically announces that you were eavesdropping on them. I put up my hands in a sign to mean that I come in peace and mean no harm. Trying to salvage the situation that I put myself into.

"What are you doing here? We didn't invite you inside." The bird guy said with a clear upset and unfriendly tone towards me.

In situations like this, I know from firsthand experience that one should handle things elegantly and with a precise usage of words. "Uh, the entire building was shaking so I thought I would see what's up." Yep elegance and precision, nailed it.

This seemed to excuse me for eavesdropping, but not from facing Kassy's wrath. "Well excuse me for not trusting someone I don't know."

I sighed and decided that I better come clean with this now otherwise it will just get messier latter on. I started to focus my power on myself, causing a grey like vortex to swirl around me. This caused others to jump back and ready themselves for what ever happens next. Only by the time that the vortex faded, I looked like a completely different man. I now had grey silver hair and stood about 4 inches shorter then I was before. I was carrying a large wooden staff with the elements of Skylands engraved on them and wore a long blue robe that went down to my feet. My skin was the same white color but a bit brighter and paler at the same time. My eyes opened and I knew that they were seeing the emerald eyes staring back, instead of my usual gold color.

The Skylanders didn't even flinch until Kassy gasped in shock, causing their heads to turn to her to see what the matter was. Kassy then pointed a finger at me in realization, it seems she hasn't forgot me after all.

"Grand Master?" Kassy says in disbelief. "How can this be?"

"Easy, my dear student." My voice sounds a lot older and weak as I walk forward using my cane as a walking stick. It is so easy to get into the role of an old sage, all you have to do is get an old voice and a cane and you can pretty much fool anyone. "I was your teacher from the beginning. How else do you think I would get my hands-on little E's journal?" As I said this, I pulled a book out of my robe revealing to everyone that it was the book that I showed to everyone when we first met.

After getting over the shock of things Kassy looked at me quizzingly, trying to assert whether or not I was real. "What was the first lesson that the Grand Master taught me?"

I smiled and responded in my 'Grand Master' voice, "that you don't call me Grand Master and instead call me G. Though you never did."

Kassy then realized that I was telling the truth and that I really was the Grand Master, that had taught her, little E, and Sky magic when they were young. This seemed to really impress the Skylanders a big deal as most of their mouths seemed to have all but dropped to the floor.

After telling them that I really could do all of those things mentioned by the elf and a bit more, with Kassy as my witness, Spyro approached me with a worried look on his face. "I have been meaning to ask you this," he says like he is not really sure how to put the words together, "but do you think you can go back to yourself when your around us, you don't really need to be in disguise anymore?"

I was confused by what he meant but then I realized that me being an old man might be a bit creepy all of a sudden. I nodded my head and transformed myself back to the way I was. Tall, brown hair, gold eyes, good fashion sense, and incredibly handsome. I looked down at Spyro to see if this made him feel better, but I got something else instead. "No not that. I mean you, like the REAL you."

I thought hard on what Spyro was trying to say, until it dawned on me. How could it take me this long to figure it out? I then thought about how long it was since appeared as the REAL me. It dawned on me that I haven't been myself since I left our world.

I put up my hands and let the grey vortex surround me. I felt myself undergo the change and this time it felt a bit more awkward then the rest, like I was wearing some really old shoes that didn't feel like they quite fit. When the vortex went down the Skylanders could see me for the first time. On my back was these insect-like wings that were rapidly moving to keep me in air. I stood, if I was at the floor, a solid 3.5 inches, a solid height for my kind. I had no legs and instead had a very small and straight yellow body. My face consist of a clear mouth and two large eyes, looking almost too large for the rest of my body. Instead of hair I had two antennae bending backwards in motion with the up and down movement of my wings.

I felt so vulnerable as a dragonfly in front of everyone, but as I opened my gold-yellow eyes, the one thing I kept about myself as Jester, I saw the look on Spyro's face. It told me everything that I could have ever hoped for, because what I saw was the look of someone who sees an old friend.

I looked around the room and I see that everyone else is rubbing their eyes in disbelief. I smirked at them and said, "What? Expecting someone else?"

Third person POV

Unknown location

A hooded figure stood looking out at the sunset on the horizon. If his face was revealed, you could see that this person was not happy or even moved by the normally touching seen. Instead the figure frowns at the light, despite the fact that it has been so long since he has last seen it.

The figure turns away from the view and walks deeper into the forest behind him, slowly covering the figure in shadows to eventual darkness. The figure walks with a purpose and if one can see his eyes you can see that there is a fiery desire burning deep in his blood red eyes.

Chapter 9: Two Shadows

Author's Footnotes:

This took longer then expected but I am glad that I managed to do it. I was caught up with work and I was having trouble on where and how to take the story from here, but I got it mapped out for the most part and I will be continuing on with this story as promised.

I am not sure when I will be getting the next chapter out as work and school are killing me this semester, but I will try to get out the next chapter by next month, and I will try to update at least a chapter per month. I am sorry to all of those who have been waiting for so long, but real life has a way with catching up with you.

As usual I would love to hear any commits or reviews about my work and please PM me if you have any questions on anything.

Yours Truly,

DJester