Yeah that would make sense.
Apex had said that the dragons who had rescued them had arrived right after the grenade went off. He hadn't been able to see them, thanks to the acid in his eyes, but he had been able to tell that they'd used an advanced wind magic technique to arrive near instantly. They'd also talked about discussing things with the council. Well, Cynder was a wind dragon, who lived in Warfang, and both she and Spyro were on the council. If anyone were to get the distress signal, it might as well be the two most famous heroes… ever.
"I don't think there is any way to truly make it up to you," Cynder continued remorsefully, "It's a miracle in its own right that the opportunity to apologize exists at all. I… didn't think it was possible to fall from that height and survive."
"Wait, wait," Null interrupted, swallowing, "It wasn't your fault."
Cynder almost recoiled, blinking in shock. "I dropped your unconscious body from above the clouds, how is it not my fault?"
"Could someone please explain to me what is going on?" Teneris asked, clearly worried, "Because it's not making sense and I'm extremely concerned."
"Dude, you don't even know the half of it. These two leave for several hours and when they get back they're bawling their eyes out. Took all day to finally get them to tell me what happened," The dragonfly said.
"Sparx, you're being a bit insensitive," Spyro admonished.
Sparx - the dragonfly's name, apparently - crossed his arms, but didn't say anything.
"Let's all take a seat and see if we can't figure a few things out, because I was just about to ask Null and Apex why they made the journey here to Warfang, and I'm getting the feeling it's a lot more complicated than I thought," Teneris suggested.
"Null?" Spyro tilted his head, then looked at Null. "You're Teneris' son?"
"I'm surprised he said anything about me." Null glared at his father for a moment.
Teneris winced. "Please, take a seat, everyone. There's enough cushions to go around."
Null disentangled himself from Apex and sighed. Might as well sit if he was going to be here a while. He padded over to one cushion and sat down. A moment later Apex sat down beside him. Everyone took seats around the living area, and Teneris nodded to Null to signal to begin.
"It's been… I think a month. Since the incident that started our journey. When…" Null trailed off, swallowing to avoid letting himself start sobbing again. Not here. Not in front of his heroes.
"A goliath attacked our village. It was like… a rock troll, but twice as large," Apex picked up, "But it shouldn't have existed in the first place. We lived so far from any places where elementals existed, and avoided the war with Malefor. So Null and I were sent ahead of everyone else to warn the council. Uh. There are elementals where there shouldn't be, by the way."
"What is an elemental, and why is it a problem?" Sparx asked.
"An elemental is a creature made of magic and inanimate matter, powered by a purple crystal. Sometimes those crystals seem to just be spirit gems, but more often the crystals drain energy from everything around them to power the elemental. Dark crystals that absorb magic," Null explained listlessly, "The latter type is… extremely aggressive."
"What happened to the goliath?" Cynder tilted her head, leaning forward. "I take it that things didn't… go well."
"I killed it." Null looked away. "Got into its heart and killed it."
"You? You're, like, the scrawniest dragon I've ever seen!" Sparx laughed.
"Sparx, I should probably remind you that you're still bite-sized to the smallest dragon," Cynder warned, leaning close to the dragonfly.
"Spyro! She's threatening to eat me again!" Sparx flew over to Spyro, tugging on one of his horns to fruitlessly try and drag him away. "Your crazy, evil girlfriend is going to swallow me whole!"
"Cynder, I'm afraid Sparx has memory loss. He's forgotten about the wedding again," Spyro said with a sigh, "We may have to put him in an old folk's home."
Null slowly looked over at his father, who was wearing the most carefully blank expression possible. Null caught his eye, then mouthed 'is this normal'. Teneris gave the most subtle of nods, but it was there.
"Anyways." Apex cleared his throat, clearly unsure how to handle the current back and forth. "We went through the Ancient Grove because it was supposed to be faster than going around and going over was suicide. We ran into trouble immediately, because of course we did. It was a…"
"Boread," Null supplied.
"Boread. An ice elemental. Like an angry snowflake made out of razor blades. I tried to take it out with a fury -" Both Spyro and Cynder winced "- But it managed to slice me open."
"I killed that one too. Got super lucky it was already damaged and managed to pull out its heart crystal," Null muttered, "After that I took care of Apex for… a while. More than a week. He recovered, somehow."
"Then we ran into the beetle tribe. They have a section of the grove that was purified by a friendly elemental called the Mycego. Some kind of mushroom mind-element powers. I don't really know." Apex shrugged. "One of the beetles made me a little statuette full of life magic, and then we set off into the grove again."
"We ran into the gorgon," Null said.
"Yuri was nice to us." Apex sighed.
"And then the hydra, which as it turns out is a giant plant."
"It almost killed us."
"You almost got killed by a plant?" Sparx snorted.
"Remember the frogweeds, Sparx?" Spyro raised one brow.
Sparx opened his mouth, then went silent.
"Since the hydra's part of the river was our only good crossing spot, we went down to the ocean to go around the toxic fumes," Apex continued.
"Which is where we got captured by Skavengers."
"That sounds familiar." Sparx elbowed Spyro in the shoulder. "Doesn't it, big guy?"
"Unfortunately, yes." Spyro took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He shared a glance with Cynder, then looked back at Null and Apex. "I'm guessing they put you in the arena?"
"They put me in the arena," Apex answered, "Null was made a slave."
"Because I'm scrawny and weak." Null looked at Sparx with narrowed eyes. "So I didn't get thrown into mortal peril."
"Eh, they put Cynder in there. You should've seen her. Not quite as intimidating when all you can see from the front is her forehead." Sparx jabbed his thumb at Cynder.
"Don't worry, the buzzing goes away eventually. Then all you have to deal with is the annoying glow on the edge of your vision." Cynder glared at Sparx for a moment, then looked back at Apex and Null. "Carry on."
"Yeah, so I was thrown into the arena. That's where I met Arachne, the giant spider who you saw when you came by the Skavenger ship. It was pretty routine after a while. Just fight, win, eat, sleep, talk to anyone who wants to talk, and repeat. Up until the end, where I got acid in my eyes." Apex shrugged. "Null had the more interesting experience."
"The captain of the ship, Krawl, was… is? Was a centipede. Really creepy guy who smelled like rotting meat and had a hundred arms. He had a whole bunch of guns and knives on him at all times-"
"You could call him - heh - well-armed." Sparx smirked as both Spyro and Cynder groaned.
"Null got to that one over a week ago, but nice try," Apex said.
"If we can stop talking about an awful pun. Please. Krawl wanted me to motivate Apex to perform better, so he made sure I was kept away from anything that could be dangerous. Up until a tidestrider arrived. If you've ever seen the wreckage of a ship, and it looks like it's been cut in half, that's probably because a tidestrider did, in fact, cut it in half. It's a water elemental."
"Wow, it sounds like you two are just magnets for these elemental things," Sparx commented.
"If the peanut gallery could be silent for five minutes while I retell the most traumatic period of my life, that would be great, thanks," Null said venomously, glaring at the dragonfly. When Sparx finally shut his mouth instead of adding more commentary, Null continued, "Tidestriders are fast, but it turns out if you throw tar into a creature made mostly of water, it really messes with its cohesion. Managed to kill that one, too. It was close, though. Krawl decided after that point to 'promote' me, which meant giving me a cursed scroll and having me build the device that was on it. Joke's on him, though. It was the blueprints for the distress beacon and the mana bomb. Used one and then the other. I got knocked unconscious in the shockwave, but then I woke up in the middle of a forest so I think it worked."
"A mana bomb…" Spyro furrowed his brow. "As in -"
"An explosive device that ignites the magical energy of anyone in range, yes."
"That must be why you didn't - wait. You still don't have magic. Are… are you okay?" Spyro's eyes widened with growing concern.
"I've never had magic," Null replied.
"That… that doesn't make sense. Everything has…" Spyro fell silent, furrowing his brow and looking at the floor.
"I just… don't." Null sighed. "I guess that's where our part of the story stops for the moment."
"Right. Well." Spyro took a deep breath before continuing. "We were in the old ruins under Warfang when one of the old machines started beeping. We hadn't known until that point that it was a sort of world atlas, but your distress beacon must have activated it and unlocked that function. Cynder and I sent a message to the rest of the council, but…"
"One of the problems with a democratic system of governance is that it tends to be slower than an individual's decision-making," Teneris mentioned, the first time he'd said anything since Null and Apex had begun telling their story.
"Yes." Spyro nodded. "We didn't have time to present it to the council and make a decision, especially since the machine was making it clear that it was a distress beacon."
"I used a complex wind magic technique to get us to the ocean as quickly as possible. When we arrived, we saw a giant spider on one of the masts holding a wind dragon. That turned out to be Arachne and Apex." Cynder nodded at Apex. "Apex was insisting that we find Null as well, and it took us a bit to find him. He's not visible to any magical senses - or I suppose it'd be more accurate to say that he's extremely hard to notice with magical senses. We were carrying the two of you away from the skyship and… my claws… slipped."
Cynder swallowed, looking away.
"Apex pulled himself from my grip a moment after that," Spyro said, "We searched for you two for hours, in the vain hope… but, well. You survived. And now you're here."
"It wasn't your fault," Null assured, "Really, you couldn't have known."
"I should have taken a break at any point instead of risking your life. It was horribly irresponsible of me." Cynder shook her head. "I've gotten complacent and it could have killed you."
"No, I mean you couldn't have known that I negate magic."
That drew the attention of all three adult dragons and the dragonfly, who buzzed over to squint at Null.
"You can what?" Teneris asked.
"Saying can implies it's a choice. It's involuntary. I think. I only found out about it just before we wound up on the skyship. Any magical effect that comes into contact with me is negated almost instantly. Don't know why, don't know how - well, I have a few theories. If you were using your wind spell to go faster, holding me probably continually negated the spell. Like trying to lift something that gets heavier the longer you're touching it," Null explained, "I negate magical effects by touching them. It's how I killed the elementals, how I survived several magical attacks including a boread's freezing beam and the acid of the hydra, and it's the reason Krawl had me read a cursed scroll. Purely magical effects don't do anything to me, and ongoing magical effects end once I touch them."
Spyro and Cynder shared an indecipherable look, but Sparx just reached out and poked Null in the side of the head. His glow immediately dimmed for a brief moment, and the dragonfly recoiled. "Nope. That felt awful."
"Then don't do it." Null scowled. This bug was really getting on his nerves.
"So…" Cynder began, only to stop. "If you negate magic, that explains why I was so exhausted. But it does not excuse my failure to maintain my grip. My apology still stands."
"I forgive you." Null bowed his head. "It was unforeseeable and unintentional."
"The question remains: how did you survive?" Spyro asked.
"That was me, actually. Or, well, the statuette that the beetles gave me," Apex said, straightening, "It turns out it was a protective talisman. Every injury I suffered while holding it would be inflicted on the statuette instead. So when I pulled myself out of your grip, I broke the wing braces and caught Null, then hit the ground. Instead of splattering, the statuette exploded."
"So that's what you were carrying…" Spyro nodded slowly.
"I woke up first to see that Apex had broken his wings and gotten his eyes melted," Null added, "And had a paw full of splinters. I also saw that he had started growing another set of wings."
Apex grinned sheepishly and spread all four of his wings, waggling the bottom pair to draw attention to them.
"After tending to him and going to sleep for the night, we got attacked by a revenant."
There were three sharp intakes of breath, one from each of the council members present.
Null ignored it and continued, "It was slow and clumsy but also pretty much invincible. Apex woke up in the middle of its attack and started blasting it with wind, which didn't do much but stopped it from throwing bone shards at us. I blocked its fear magic, because I'm immune to magic, and we had a stalemate. Then Apex started shooting purple lightning at it -" Spyro and Cynder shared a worried look this time, which Null took note of. Interesting. "- which blew open its chest, and I was able to get ahold of its heart crystal to kill it. Yeah, it was an elemental. Not an undead. After that, we got to Warfang in only a couple of days."
"...Wait, that timeline makes no sense," Sparx muttered.
"No, it doesn't." Spyro frowned.
"It's what happened." Null sighed.
"I believe you." Spyro stood up, then looked at Cynder for a moment. "Can you take us to where the revenant was? We need to take a look at it to confirm some suspicions."
"Actually, could I have some time with Null?" Teneris requested, "I… need to talk to him."
Null scowled and looked at Teneris. He was about to say something, probably sarcastic, when Teneris added to his request.
"About his mother."
And now he couldn't keep himself from accepting.
"Apex, do you remember where it was?" Null looked at the wind dragon, who nodded.
"Yeah it was only a couple days ago." Apex stood, shuffling his wings. "I could lead you to it."
"Yes that's… probably going to work better," Cynder said bitterly, "I should actually be able to use my wind tunnel without risking anyone."
"Everything turned out fine in the end," Spyro soothed, putting one wing over Cynder's back and leaning into her. After a moment he disengaged and stood. "Sparx and I are going to go and find the guard that came back from the incident so that he can verify that it's the same creature. Should we meet at the plaza?"
"That should work. If it's too busy to take off there we can always reconvene at the temple's landing pad," Cynder said, also standing, "Apex, come with me. We might be waiting for a bit."
"What, do you doubt my searching skills?" Sparx taunted, buzzing over to hover next to Spyro's head, "I found these kids, after all."
"Hmm, one incident does not a pattern make." Cynder grimaced.
"Ugh, now you're sounding like Cyril." Sparx rolled his eyes. "You gonna lecture me on draconic fine dining next?"
"Don't tempt me."
"Ugh. Spyro, let's blow this joint."
"Sure thing." Spyro chuckled, then started heading out the front door.
As Cynder started moving, she paused to glance back at Apex. He gave her a nervous smile, then turned towards Null.
"Are you going to be okay?" Apex asked worriedly.
"I'm not going to hurt my son," Teneris protested.
"I didn't ask you," Apex said with a frown.
"I'll be fine, Apex. Go," Null insisted.
"...If you're sure." Apex nodded hesitantly, then looked back at Cynder. "Okay, let's go."
The wind dragon walked out the front door, alongside one of the most famous dragons to ever exist. Null watched them go, until the doorframe was empty and the sounds of the street were pouring in. Teneris walked over and closed the door gently, then turned back towards Null. He swallowed, clearly nervous, and gave a weak smile.
"Do you want anything? I still have some food in the fridge."
Null just stared at him blankly for a little bit, then sighed. He wasn't going to get anywhere like this. Just stonewalling his father was only going to make things harder in the long run. He could figure that one out easily. That didn't make actually reconciling any less of a trial. Any less painful.
"Sure," Null said eventually, "What are my options?"
A/N:
This chapter is mostly recap, which I understand is kind of boring and repetitive, but it's both for my own benefit and for any readers who've forgotten what happened in earlier chapters. Having it all in one place helps with keeping the story straight.
As for the actual contents of this chapter - it's mostly character establishment and exposition. I want to write the canon characters well, and establishing who they are is an important part of that for me.