Deep within the Ancient Grove, there are many things that have never seen the light of day.

One such creature is the hydra, a horrific multiheaded creature with acidic spittle and the ability to breathe underwater. What made the hydra truly terrifying, however, was its incredible regenerative powers. Any injury to the hydra that wasn't immediately cauterized would heal in seconds, and injury to its serpentine necks caused them to split and grow another head. Removing a head from the hydra would only result in it growing two more in its place. The hydra was a creature that personified strength in numbers, despite being solitary in lifestyle.

Another creature that had never been seen outside of the Ancient Grove was the elusive gorgon. As far as anyone knew, the gorgon was the only one of its kind, for which everyone was thankful. The horrific monster acted normal enough, and even welcomed travelers kindly, but it failed to realize that its gaze was lethal. Anything that met the gorgon's eyes turned to stone, to be left in the Ancient Grove for eternity.

But the greatest example of unique inhabitants of the Grove was Arborick. The great treant had an almost impossible seeming resistance to fire, with the ability to break off parts of its own body to use as attack, healing back the damage the flames had done in instants. Its body was the epitome of symbiosis, with sentient vines composing its limbs after it had lost its original ones. Many creatures had used the treant as a home, from grove worms and mites to more mundane insects and rodents. Arborick had been a particularly territorial creature, however, especially when it came to anything that was not part of the Grove.

Which was why it had attacked Spyro, and then died.

But a dead treant was even more beneficial to the environment than a living one, as odd as that may seem. They no longer photosynthesized, created caves and burrows, or grew, but they served as a home for any creatures that would need one. Their bodies fertilized the soil far better than ordinary plants, and their magical natures made them the perfect place for mosses and lichens to grow.

This, though…

This was absurd.

An entire grove of dead treants, all killed by frost damage. Null hadn't imagined that the Boread's influence could even spread this far from that clearing where it meditated, but perhaps it had been a wanderer. In any case, dozens of the sapient trees dotted the area, each one as immobile as an ordinary tree. None of them retained their leaves or luminous flowers, and each and every one had their roots blackened by ice.

Null carefully padded over to one of the treants, looking at its roots. What he saw made him gasp. "Apex, come look at this."

The wind dragon loped over. He still hadn't quite gotten used to his longer legs, but he was getting there. "What're we looking at?"

In response, Null dug away at the dirt around the tree. It didn't take long for him to reveal the object hidden under the treant: a luminous blue gem. "Blue spirit gem."

"By the Ancestors…" Apex whispered reverentially, gazing at the spirit gem. He glanced around the grove. "Do you think all of them have blue spirit gems under them?"

"I don't know." Null answered, his red eyes sweeping across the dead treants. "If there are, this place would be worth a fortune to treasure hunters. Blue gems take months to grow back even a little."

"And if there are all these treants here, then that means that nobody has ever found this place," Apex muttered. "Which also means that there are tons of blue gems here. This could make life so much easier!"

Apex began to dig away at the dirt around the tree, unearthing more and more of the blue spirit gems. Before long, he had revealed a cluster that was massive. The gems were easily twice the wind dragon's size, and three times Null's. Apex reached out towards the gem. "Ah-hah!"

"Wait!" Null interjected, causing Apex to freeze. "Don't do that!"

Apex glanced over at Null in confusion. "Why not? It would make life so much easier to have this sort of power boost when we fight another elemental."

"Do you know what blue gems do?" Null asked, his eyes wide.

"Um… they provide a boost in elemental power." Apex said it like it was obvious, which it was.

"Okay, now let me illustrate why that's not something you want unless you have no choice." Null sighed, shaking his head. "They infuse you with so much magical energy that it surpasses your normal boundaries, to the point where your body either adapts or shuts down. If your body doesn't react properly, it'll cripple you for life or even kill you. Even if it does work right, it'll push your boundaries to the point where the slightest mistake could cause your elemental powers to shut down entirely."

"Oh. Uhm." Apex drew his paw back. "Gotcha. Blue crystals are volatile."

Apex took a step back, but misplaced one of his front paws. With a cry of surprise, the wind dragon went tumbling forwards into the cluster of crystals. Blue spirit gem fragments went everywhere as the fragile crystals shattered, scattering across the treant above and landing in the soil. Apex froze, as if staying stationary would make it so that the crystals didn't find him.

It was to no avail, as once the blue crystals settled on the ground they went back into motion. Every single blue shard hovered through the air and hung there, only to zip towards Apex and sink into his scales. In a matter of seconds, every remnant of the blue crystal had been absorbed by the white dragon.

"Oops…" Apex said, his voice small.

"Apex, are you all right?! Do you feel strange? Can you use your element?" Null asked in concern, panic in his voice.

"Um. Yes, no, and-," A gust of wind swirled around the area. "Yes."

"You're not experiencing any effects of the blue gems? None at all?" Null prodded, looking over the edge into the pit Apex had fallen into. The wind dragon seemed fine.

"Nope. I feel perfectly normal. More like I absorbed green gems than blue." Apex stretched, then climbed out of the pit. "But, uh, I'll take your advice about them next time. No blue spirit gems."

"No kidding." Null circled Apex, giving him a thorough examination. Apex's body was fine; physically, at least. Of course, that was ignoring the scar that marred his belly, but that didn't seem to be giving the wind dragon any trouble. "Well… physically there are no effects. You can still use your element, so I doubt that it's been crippled by an overexertion of your magical reservoir. You say you don't feel any stronger?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Hmm…" Null stopped his pacing, lost in thought. "Well, you've somehow managed to defy one of the most fundamental laws of magic. Good job."

"Er, thanks?" Apex asked.

Null shook his head in astonishment. "I swear, you're getting stranger by the day. Healing from near death, growing half a foot in the course of a week, and now immunity to blue gems. I thought I was supposed to be the weird one."

"You are the weird one, killing spirit gems and flinging body parts around," Apex teased, grinning. "Not to mention the unnatural memory you have."

"I concede to your point." Null nodded, a mischievous grin appearing on his face. "But I would like to, once again, point to your consumption of a food source that should have fed four."

A rumbling retort originated from Apex's stomach at that, causing both young dragons to burst out into laughter. "Speaking of, when're we getting something to eat?"

"Well, we would've eaten back at the cave, but you were too antsy about getting on the move." Null sighed. "Stay here, I'll be back with something for you to eat."

"Alright, you're the hunter here." Apex shrugged and lay down, folding his forelegs in front of him. "I'd probably just wind up tripping over my legs and alerting the prey."

"Valid point." Null chuckled. "I'll be back soon."

With that, Null walked off. He waited until he was a fair distance from Apex before making his movements silent, not because he didn't want Apex to know, but because there was no point in doing it before then. Apex would've already scared off any prey nearby. It was a waste of effort.

Null was glad for the fact that it was summer in the Dragon Realms, because it reduced the amount of dry objects that would cause him to inadvertently make a noise. Not that noise was a problem, actually. Being completely silent wasn't useful for moving stealth. Sure, sitting silently in a corner could give you the ability to evade notice, but a moving patch of silence just begged for attention to be drawn to it. No, for true stealth you needed to blend into the ambient noise.

Visibility was also a major factor. Many thought that the pitch-black shadow dragons blended the best with darkness, but in reality they didn't. Dark greens or greys served far better, and worked during the day just as well as during the night.

But the biggest factor was olfactory senses. The sense of smell. Most prey species had a far better sense of smell than your average dragon. But Null wasn't an average dragon, not when it came to his observatory powers. His sense of smell rivalled that of the prey creatures. This gave him a huge advantage when it came to stealth. If he could smell his prey, he was downwind, and his prey couldn't smell him.

Speaking of…

Null quickly located the scent of a rabbit, making sure to position himself downwind so that it couldn't smell him. Raising his tail above him like a scorpion, Null slowly stalked towards where he could smell the rabbit. It didn't take long for him to spot the small creature, nibbling at a fern.

One quick flick of his tail later, and Null had embedded his tailblade in the creature's skull. It wasn't a perfect hit; he had only barely hit the rabbit at all. Fortunately, the week spent hunting for both himself and Apex had honed his aim enough to allow him to hit most of his throws.

The dark green dragon padded over to the downed rabbit and placed a paw on it, using it for leverage so that he could pull his tailblade out. He quickly wiped the bloodied blade on the grass, then picked up the rabbit. It wasn't much, but it should suffice.

Satisfied with his handiwork, Null picked up the rabbit in his jaws. He made his way back to Apex with the rabbit in tow, quickly getting back to the wind dragon.

"Alright, I know it's not much, but it'll have to tide you over for now," Null announced, dropping the rabbit on the ground in front of Apex and laying down opposite the wind dragon.

Apex jumped in surprise. "Ancestors, Null! You scared me!"

"Well, stop napping," Null replied dryly.

The wind dragon opened his mouth to retort, then paused. "Fair point."

Apex then began to tear at the rabbit's flesh with his teeth, scarfing down the meat as quickly as he could. Clearly he was starving, and likely could've downed a whole deer on his own. The reason Null hadn't sought prey like that, though, was because it would've taken him too long to drag it back.

After he was about halfway through the rabbit, Apex froze. He swallowed the meat in his mouth and pushed the rabbit over to Null. "Sorry, you can have some."

"Nah, I'm not hungry." Null shook his head, pushing the rabbit back. "You need it more than I do anyways, seeing as you inhaled half of it already."

"Alright then. Thanks." Apex resumed his consumption of the rabbit, now going slower.

Null looked around the treant grove. Something was nagging at him, but he couldn't tell what it was. Not a smell, as the scent of blood was still clogging his nostrils. It wasn't something he could hear, either. The only sounds were the gentle rustling of leaves in the breeze and the occasional chirping of insects. Everything he could see was fine, if one classified dozens of dead treants as fine. Really, there shouldn't have been anything for him to worry about.

But his instincts were telling him something was off. Null called some of his knowledge of the Ancient Grove into his mind, trying to think of why this would be a dangerous area. Since the freeze, all of the insects had been mundane, no grove mites. There weren't even any luminous plants growing in this area, like everywhere else the Boread had affected.

So natural Grove threats were out of the question, what about unnatural? There wasn't the odd, acidic scent of an elemental nearby: he had memorized that after encountering two of the things. But then, it could just be downwind. That would represent an issue, but if there was an elemental it would either be making a lot of noise or be causing an elemental disturbance of some sort. There wasn't an elemental here, unless it was one that knew better than to draw attention to itself.

Null sniffed the air, trying to catch a scent of something other than rabbit blood. There was the smell of rotting wood, water – lots of water – and earthy soil. Wait. Not soil. Similar to soil and insects, but not quite the same. What was that scent? It vaguely resembled grublins, but was far more… fresh? Less decaying, that was for sure.

His mouth dry, Null rose to his feet. He tried his best to ignore the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, but it was to no avail. "Um, Apex…?"

"Hmm?" Apex looked up from his meal.

"We might be surrounded…"

"What?!" Apex scrambled to his feet, looking about frantically.

Almost immediately weighted ropes shot out of nowhere, crossing over the two dragons. Dozens of the ropes shot over the dragons, seeming to appear out of thin air as they continually weighed them down. In moments there was an inescapable net covering both Apex and Null. Null couldn't tell what or who had thrown the ropes, as they seemed to simply disappear into the wood of the dead treants.

Then, like an optical illusion can change from being one thing to being another, the creatures appeared.

At first Null thought they were some sort of plant creature, but he quickly amended that thought when he saw that the 'bark' was a corrugated shell of wooden armor. The creatures themselves were covered in a smooth exoskeleton that was a dull green in color. With the ripping of bark, the creatures stepped away from their tree hiding places. Each one of the insectoid creatures had four arms, one larger and one smaller. All of them were holding onto the weighted ropes that held Apex and Null to the ground.

"Get these off me!" Apex snarled, releasing a pulse of wind outwards. The ropes rose off of the two dragons, giving both of them enough space to slip through them.

One of the insect creatures, the largest one by far, chittered something to its allies. In nearly synchronized motions, the insect creatures all reached towards the nearest treants. By some magic that Null couldn't understand, the insects reached through the bark of the treant without breaking it, then withdrew their clawed hands with wooden spears. The towering insects twirled their spears, pointing them at Null and Apex.

Everything went still for a few moments as Null assessed the situation. They had been ambushed by creatures that could become entirely imperceptible, create weapons out of trees, and were resourceful enough to easily incapacitate two dragons.

In other words, there was no way out of this situation. Apex could unleash another fury, but that had every chance of flat out causing his heart to explode from the exertion. Null was as typically helpless as ever, and if he tried to use his tailblade in any function it would only result in a quick and probably painful death.

So, as any intelligent individual would do, Null used his only available action.

"We surrender."

"What?!" Apex hissed, glancing at Null. "We can't surrender!"

"We're surrounded by creatures that could easily kill both of us, and there are probably even more that we can't see," Null calmly explained. "I'd say our best course of action is to hope that they don't want us dead, otherwise they'd have stabbed us by now."

Apex let out a heavy sigh and relaxed his stance. "Fine. We surrender."

The leading insect creature chittered an order, and five of the creatures stepped forwards, their spears lowered. The insects grabbed the ropes off of the ground and quickly tied the dragons up, specifically binding their wings and Null's tailblade.

As soon as the two dragons were bound, the insects set off. Null followed willingly, but Apex pulled back against the ropes that were tied around him. The insect leader snarled, jabbing Apex in the flank with its spear.

"Fine, fine," Apex grumbled, following. "I'm going."

The group of insect creatures escorted the dragons through the trees, occasionally chittering to one another in their odd language. They seemed to understand the common language, at the very least, but they didn't speak it. Likely they couldn't, due to the way their vocal cords were constructed.

Null couldn't help but examine the environment as the insects brought him and Apex through. There were none of the typical luminescent plants, instead replaced by the more mundane counterparts. It was as though the toxic waters of the Grove had never reached here at all. The only thing that made this forest at all even notable was the abundance of mushrooms.

That in and of itself was odd. There were far more mushrooms than there should be after the frost, and even more than there would have been elsewhere. They were everywhere; on trees, covering rocks, even blanketing the ground. The insects seemed to love them, constantly plucking and consuming the fungi as they walked. Not a single mushroom glowed with the taint of the Grove here, yet there were so many strange varieties that Null couldn't help but wonder if it was natural.

Yet even the odd mushrooms weren't the strangest sight. Instead it was the well-constructed huts that had Null wondering if he was hallucinating. Right here, in the depths of the Grove, there was a fully functioning village. The inhabitants may have all been of an insect race, but that didn't lessen the fact that they had to be incredibly resourceful to make this work.

The escort brought the young dragons through the village to a hole in the ground, one that looked vaguely similar to the tunnels that treants dug, only much larger.

With a start, Null realized that the insects had cut the binding ropes. Before he could do anything about it, however, both he and Apex had been shoved into the hole. There was the low rumble of a heavy boulder rolling, and all light in the cave vanished.

"Well," Null muttered. "It could be worse."

Null expected Apex to make some comment or joke at that moment, so wasn't surprised when Apex's voice rang out through the darkness. What did surprise him, however, was the odd quality that the wind dragon's voice held. It sounded like someone else speaking with Apex's voice.

Even more surprising was what exactly was said.

"It could indeed, young dragon."

A/N:

Well this can't be good. Captured by a tribe of bug people and thrown into a hole in the ground? Definitely not a good thing. Apex's voice being different, and sounding like someone else using it? Probably worse.

Still, it's not like it could get worse, right?

...Right?

Anyways, please leave a review to let me know what you think!

Now read on!