Enemy of my Enemy
"I know what you are thinking, Spyro, but we cannot risk being spotted. If we were, they would most likely alert Warfang of our presence. The cheetahs of my village are strong and can hold their own. We must continue back to the temple," Hunter warned. He held his gaze towards the purple dragon, who returned it with pleading eyes.
"But we can't just leave them." He curled up his talon and raised it off the ground. "They need our help!" Spyro argued, slamming his talon back into the ground.
"Spyro, dude, I understand you wanna be a hero again and all that, but you heard the man. If we get spotted, it's over for us." Sparx hovered a couple of feet in front of the dragon. Even though he wasn't barring the way - even if he could - it was clear enough he was trying to prevent Spyro from acting on instinct.
"No, Sparx, this isn't about being a hero; it never was. It's about helping those out in need. I cannot stand by idly while Malefor's army continues to ravage the lands," Spyro hotly shot back.
Hunter could see the fiery determination in Spyro's eye. It was the same look as the night he rescued Spyro and Cynder from the Catacombs. He sighed. "I see there is no talking you out of it… Very well, I shall go and assist my people, but you two must remain here and await my signal."
Hunter equipped his bow and notched his first red-fletched arrow. He then pulled his crimson silk hood backwards - he needed full vision for archery. He leapt into action, taking long strides down the river bank and across the valley at quick pace.
By then, the three cheetahs that had spotted the approaching skirmish had dropped their tools and ran back into the village to alert the rest. The village was in panic, as cheetahs ran to get their bows and fighting staves. An orange cheetah was waving his sword around and yelling orders, pointing his warriors to their posts, getting ready for the battle to ensue.
Hunter made quick work of the distance between him and the village. He bounded up the village walls and up onto the roof of one of the homes. He waited patiently like a wisp, nothing but anticipative eyes lurking over the edge of the roof, biding his time and waiting for the first enemy to come into view.
Sparx sat casually atop the purple dragon's head, not interested in the battle. Spyro stared anxiously; it was always nerve-racking watching someone else fight. He could see the enemy get closer to the village, completely oblivious to the fact they were being watched by the purple dragon…
They only focused on one job - the complete annihilation of the village and its people.
Out of the horde, one small detail caught Spyro's eye. One of the grublins had an unusual object on his face. It was bright green and gave off an unsettling glow. But it wasn't simply light given off by a torch that reflected off its ugly face; it was too irregularly shaped to be that. Then it struck Spyro what it was... an elite grublin. An earth one at that.
Spyro narrowed his eyes and got off his haunches.
"Err, dude, what are you doing?" Sparx asked nervously, realising his scaly seat was moving.
"I'm going to help," he replied bluntly, stepping forward into the beautiful valley, soon to be bathed in blood unless he stepped in.
"Hold on there, buddy. I'm sure Hunter and the others can take care of themselves. They're not afraid of anything," Sparx tried dissuading the purple dragon. He flew in front of his brother and spread his tiny arms.
"Not against an elite. Sparx, they need me over there. They will die if I don't help them!" Spyro defiantly dipped his head underneath his brother, taking one invasive step after another into the valley.
"Bro, joking aside, I have no doubt after they deal with the ugly buggers that they won't give a second hesitation in killing you," Sparx said seriously, trying to halt the dragon.
"Maybe they will kill me... But it's better than dying in some forgotten corner, where I did nothing to stop Malefor's armies. We need to stop running for a moment and fight!"
Sparx groaned in frustration, and dragged a hand down his own face. "Fine, if that's how you really feel, then I won't try and stop you...It's not like I could anyway… considering you're an underweight dragon with a tendency to breathe weirdness."
"Thank you, now let's go."
Spyro sprinted down the bank, followed by his buzzing companion. He leapt into the open, crisp air and spread his wings. To Spyro's annoyance, they had been bickering longer than Spyro had intended for. The enemy had already breached the gateway. There were simply too many for the few cheetahs to hold back. The elite, who was obviously the one leading the assault, waited around the gate and hissed orders at his underlings.
Hunter was doing his best - he had already shot down two of the orcs and several more grublins on top of that - but he was running low on arrows. He had been unable to resupply for a while and was using his remaining ones sparingly. This was but another reason why he originally was against the idea of coming here. But Spyro was right. Hunter couldn't just stand by while his home was pillaged; it would only come back to haunt him.
Each arrow he let fly found their mark, appearing from seemingly nowhere and striking their targets cleanly in their vital organs. Many of them either died instantly or were left paralyzed on the floor, leaving his fellow cheetahs to come along and finish them off.
Spyro and Sparx hovered at the village edge, surveying the situation. The cheetahs had managed to rally together and form an impressive defence, keeping the majority of the enemy force at bay and restricting them within the main entrance. They prevented them from reaching the women and children residing deeper in the village. However, a few managed to slip by, sneaking behind the frail wooden shelters and into the alleyways naturally formed by said structures.
"I think I'll stay here, you got this…" Sparx murmured.
Spyro spied an Orc which had cornered a family. A frightened, crimson mother huddled her two cubs, who had their petrified faces buried in her fur.
The orc limped forward; it was clear that it had been battered and bruised, as it had a pronounced limp in its leg from the initial fighting. But still it walked, thirsty for cheetah blood. Slowly, it dragged its damaged leg across the soft grass, brandishing its devilish axe high over his head.
It was now mere meters away. It tried moulding its face into a smile of pure malice. It limped forward once more, steadying itself as it got ready to swing the axe. The cheetah mother gave the orc one more haunted look before lowering her head and tightening her grasp on her cubs, for her sake and theirs.
The orc let out a low growl in victory, taking one more limp forward and stretching its rocky arms as far back as they could go, almost falling backwards from the weight of the axe. It wanted a bloody mess, and it would've have gotten one if a rogue piece of lightning didn't spear into its back and ripple throughout its entire body. It tensed up and growled in pain, its axe slipping out of its hands and landing with a blunt thud on the cold dirt behind. The lightning ceased, but the effects remained. The paralyzed orc barely managed to turn its head as Spyro's jaw gripped the orc's throat, and with one crunch the spine of the orc snapped like a twig. It fell to the ground, refusing to get up again as Spyro stood upon its still twitching body.
All the mother heard was the lightning, a clang, and the sound of a collapsing body. Unusual sounds coming from what she expected to be her death. She slowly raised her head and dared to open her eyes. Only to see a sight even worse than that of an orc... The sight of the purple dragon with his brow lowered standing over the deceased corpse was enough to spike her heart rate up a notch. Fearing the worst, she went to huddle her children back into oblivion again.
"Go! Get to safety!" Spyro yelled.
The mother sharply pulled her head up upon hearing his words.
"Go, now! Get you family to somewhere safer," Spyro ordered again.
The mother just stared at him in disbelief, unable to process anything he was saying.
"Move it before more come!" Spyro cried; he was almost in hysterics.
The mother's breathing intensified, but with a sharp inclination of her head, she pulled her children to their feet and began sprinting in the opposite direction. She had no idea what was going on, but she listened.
Spyro was about to join the main battle when the sound of whistling shrieked over his head and a clump of stone coated in fiery fluid hurtled over the wall, smashing through the roof of one of the houses. He turned his head, following the destruction which was now a blazing inferno. He was then about to investigate what threw the stone, until a grublin blade shallowly pierced his hide and retracted immediately. He winced in pain and leapt forward, putting distance between himself and his adversaries.
Two grublins were hollering in delight, one carrying a now bloodied sword, and the other a thick blunt club. Thankfully, dragon scales were thick, and thus resilient to such attacks, so the blade only dug in a little. Still, it was painful, and blood had begun trickling down his back leg. Four more grublins were also approaching, but instead of coming to him, they turned the corner and were prepared to flank the cheetahs.
"If they manage to get behind the cheetahs, they won't be able to hold off both sides," Spyro thought to himself. The flaming rocks would have to wait.
The grublin with the club advanced, swinging its stick with all its tiny might. When it got close enough, Spyro grabbed the club in his maw, swung it and the grublin around once, and then flung it back into the other grublin. He followed this up with a torrent of ice, encasing them in a thick layer of frost. Spyro didn't bother breaking it.
He charged the other unsuspected cluster of grublins and ripped through them with a comet dash. Blazing limbs flew, coating the dirt in a deep shade of shamrock. Only one managed to evade the attack; it now looked upon its fallen comrades in silenced horror.
It shook its head before shrieking, raising its club and charging at Spyro like a raving lunatic. Spyro only raised a single sharp piece of stone from the ground, staking the grublin.
If there was one thing that amused him about the grublins, it was their tendencies to be brave, audacious, and stupid, all at the same time. His train of thought though was interrupted, as another flaming stone hurled overhead and quickly burrowed into the dirt nearby. Spyro was about to react, but he saw Hunter leap over his head from the roofs, and over the village wall. Spyro guessed the cheetah had the situation under control.
Hunter had also seen the shots being fired. From his rooftop perch he could see a wooden, wheeled catapult perched at the river's edge, hurling large, flaming projectiles over the wall. Wooden blocks placed under the back wheels prevented it from rolling backwards into the river. It was currently in the stage of reloading, giving Hunter some estimation of how long he had before it would fire again. Three orcs controlled the contraption, hurrying about and preparing the throwing arm of the catapult once more. Two of them were lifting another heavy stone towards the throwing arm, while the last one waited to cover it in flammable liquid and ignite it before pulling the lever to fire once more.
Hunter sprinted down the valley, brandishing his bow and arrow. He fired at one of the orcs carrying the stone, but a sudden jolt on the orc's end caused the arrow to miss its mark and instead embed into its shoulder. Regardless, it still had the desired effect. The orc dropped his end of the large stone, causing the hefty stone to drop onto their feet with some comedic effect. The two orcs cried out in pain simultaneously, but didn't get a chance to do anything else as a sequence of two arrows pierced either of their skulls. Hunter had run out of arrows, so he sheathed his bow and drew his gleaming blade. The last orc stumbled behind the catapult and went to grab its axe on the other side of the catapult. That was a fatal mistake.
Hunter slipped to the side of the catapult and knocked out one of the blocks jammed behind the wheels; it was enough to force the catapult to start rolling backwards. The orc turned just in time to see the contraption slam into it. The poor orc was run over before the catapult crashed into the river in a series of satisfying crunches and splashes.
Hunter purred in satisfaction, that was a major threat taken out. He nabbed the three arrows out of the other dead orcs and continued back towards the village. The battle was far from over.
Spyro was in the heat of the battle taking place at the entrance of the village. Half of the enemy had met their demise, but there were similar casualties on the cheetah's side as well. Five of them and Prowlus were now holding off approximately twenty Grublins and ten Orcs, and even though the catapult had been destroyed, the advantage belonged to their adversaries. However, that was before Spyro joined the fray; in around twenty seconds, he'd already shredded through a couple of grublins and an orc. The cheetahs backed off in utter fear upon realising the purple dragon had joined in on the skirmish. But they were quickly reminded of the battle when the enemy didn't halt their advance.
Spyro then met eyes with the elite grublin. It screeched in what Spyro was unsure was either frustration, or eagerness to face him, followed by it pointing its blade at him. Green lightning arced towards Spyro, barely streaking past his head.
Nothing else mattered at this point; this was now a fight between him and it. Spyro ducked and rolled to the side as two more streams of lightning arced past him.
"I need to get closer so I can knock its helmet off," Spyro thought, using his rolling and strafing to get closer to his target. Although, as Spyro got closer, the bolts were more difficult to evade. One even manage to singe Spyro's purple scales, leaving a rather painful burn mark. However, Spyro had to shrug it off.
Spyro made a mad dash for the elite, leaping over one final beam of swamp green lightning crackling underneath him before ramming his horns into either side of the croaking elite. He lifted it clean into the air before summoning a pillar of earth to pierce the ground below and plunge into the back of the aerial grublin. The hideous beast flew straight up, wheeling in the air, before colliding with the solid floor in what sure looked like a spine-snapping smash. Spyro was sure this would be enough to break the mask; it would now simply be a case of flinging the grublin around until it died.
However, to his shock, the grublin simply rose from the ground. It was unharmed, and he could tell it was smiling mockingly underneath the mask.
Spyro carefully examined the mask again, and to add insult to the many injuries he had taken, he noticed the bright green emanating from the mask…was poisonous green.
"Crap! Where is Cynder when I really need her?!" Spyro swore to himself. His moment of self-reflection had cost him, as another streak of green lightning struck him dead between the eyes, sending him rolling backwards into the dirt and leaving him dazed.
Spyro got back to his feet and shook the fatigue off. The elite was laughing in its twisted, wheezing noise and pointed its blade at him again. The purple dragon was now officially pissed off. He narrowed his eyes, and began charging up his convexity breath. The laughing of the grublin died down quickly at the realisation that he had seriously irritated the purple dragon. It outright shrieked in pain as the beam evaporated his other hand. The beam continued its path of destruction, punching an almost perfect hole in the wall behind it, and only stopping when scorching the mountains on the other side of the valley.
Spyro's breathing quickened upon discovering the huge damage his attack had caused. His anger swiftly subsided.
"I need to control myself. That attack could've hurt somebody. Or killed someone…But I need it to finish off the grublin off now," Spyro eyed the grublin like a hawk while he tried finding his way out of the stalemate. He then turned his gaze his to the sky slightly. "That's it! There's nothing I can damage in the sky."
Content that this was the only way, Spyro charged the howling grublin. In a panic, it began firing a barrage of inaccurate shots, all missing their mark. Spyro grabbed the grublin by its other arm and pried the blade from its grip with his talons, rendering the grublin harmless. He then discarded the blade and jumped into the air, the grublin's scrawny arm clamped firmly between his teeth.
Spyro used the momentum to throw the grublin away from himself and even higher into the air. It released a short squeal as a beam of aether engulfed it and tore the skin away from the bone, grinding it into nothing but dust. The beam lit the sky up like a beacon, tearing a hole in the clouds, revealing the bright skies above for a moment, before being blotted back out.
Upon discovering their leader had been spread to the four winds, the remaining grublins panicked and quickly dove into the ground in a disorganised mess. The cheetahs then overwhelmed the remaining orcs that were too slow to get away.
Spyro's breathing only became heavier as he floated back towards the ground. Using this power always took its toll on him. But recently, it seemed to of have a bigger strain than usual. In fact, Spyro felt he had been nothing but permanently tired the last month. The time spent in wild, away from a warm, safe bed where he could lay his weary head, away from properly prepared meals and everything else he had missed back at the swamp, had certainly worn him down. To the point he always felt the need to rest, and never at his full power. He was tired - he had been for a long time...
Hunter also returned to the village, using one of the undamaged buildings as his perch where he could surveillance the situation once more. A couple of the cheetahs had began checking the corpses to make sure they were, in fact, dead, whilst several more had grabbed buckets to fill with water, trying to help douse the flames caused by the catapult. Lastly, he saw Spyro near the village entrance, panting and obviously strained.
Spyro ignored everything else around him as he focused on controlling his breathing. But a hilt belonging to a silver, glorious blade stained in green blood struck him on the back of the head, knocking him unconscious. The blade belonged to no other than Prowlus.
"Chain him up!" Prowlus growled to the two cheetah warriors prodding the corpses.
"That would be unwise, Chief Prowlus," Hunter warned, sliding down the roof and landing softly onto the ground. The two warriors carefully pointed their weapons at Hunter.
"Hunter…I should have guessed you would be close by," Prowlus hissed, directing his sword at the purple dragon.
"Prowlus, allow me to take Spyro and we will be away from here." Hunter knew this would be a far-shot, but he hoped otherwise.
"The dragon? You would expect me to release the dragon who is behind all our attacks?"
"Attacks? You know the dragons and Malefor are natural enemies. Spyro certainly wouldn't work with such creatures." Hunter placed the bow back over his head and onto his shoulder, clearly indicating his peaceful intentions.
"Most days the grublins would besiege our village. This one has been the biggest yet by far, but now that we have their leader,they will stop. We have been told that he was the one personally planning these attacks on our village and several others around. To me, it looks like your purple dragon, the one you had such faith in, has turned to the dark like the one before him."
"If you think Spyro is the one behind the attacks then you will find that you are wrong. More than likely, the elite grublin is the one illustrating the attacks; which Spyro took out," Hunter countered, crossing his arms and challenging the claims of his chief.
The other cheetahs gathered around, watching the argument unfold. Some fearfully watched the purple dragon in muteness.
Sparx zipped into the fray in his usual, unintentional annoyance and grabbed the attention of the cheetahs.
"I have been watching my bro the entire time, and he has been near no grublins…well apart from the ones he burnt, froze, shocked…" he blabbered on.
"If what the gnat is saying is true, which I doubt, then I suppose it might explain some of his actions. But that does not mean he is innocent. The purple one has unleashed a never-ending storm upon us. How do you explain that, Hunter?"
"Malefor. He is the one to blame for all this. If not for Spyro and Cynder, we would not be here. Do not forget that."
"I haven't, but the fact doesn't change. He is still a wanted dragon, and I will personally make it so the dragon is given to Umbrafor. While he remains, he is a threat to the village and must be dealt with appropriately. You may forever be one of us, Hunter, but you are not getting this dragon again. Now, I have the dead to bury..."
He then turned to his two warriors. "Chain this dragon to the post and make sure to keep him there, then send word to Warfang that we have him. He is their problem now," Prowlus firmly replied, stomping by Hunter.
Hunter growled in frustration; the stubbornness of his chief did annoy him on a regular basis.
"Prowlus. You know you owe the dragon. He saved our village not once, but twice now. Does that not mean anything?"
"Just because he killed the grublin does not mean he saved us, and I'm still not entirely convinced he isn't behind our attacks."
They were just going in circles. Hunter, as calm as he was, was beginning to show his anger.
"Why is it you must be blinded by hatred for the purple dragon? You know what hatred does to a warrior. Spyro has once more helped the village on his own, against my word, and in doing so slain the leader of this army."
Prowlus turned around and stared Hunter in the eye. "I know what hatred does, Hunter. And I don't hate the purple dragon. I am keeping my people safe as a chief should do. Which means trusting only those of the village, and eradicating the problems that threaten the wellbeing of my people. This includes the dragon… Why is it, Hunter, that you have strayed away from our ways? The ways that have kept us safe and thriving for generations?"
"Now we are turning from the subject. Last time you captured us, you held the same distrust in him, and he proved you wrong. Why is it different now? You know I have never lied to you, Prowlus," Hunter said, driving his point in further.
Prowlus remained quiet, reevaluating Hunter in a new light. It was true that Hunter had never lied to him, and they had known each other for a long time, even though their relationship has been a bit strained at times due to their different mindsets. But Hunter had always been faithful, regardless of the situation.
Prowlus was about to speak, when a cheetah patrolling the entrance way yelled over.
"Chief Prowlus! Four dragons are approaching from the direction of Warfang. They will be here shortly!"
Prowlus smiled. It wasn't a friendly smile or anything soothing. It was cunning.
"Very well, Hunter, I will give you your chance. While I am bound as ally to Warfang to return him, I may give you a head start, but only if you can prove one thing. Prove Spyro helped defend our village once again. But I want more than just your word - I want the village to decide his fate," Prowlus said, crossing his arms.
These were the cards dealt to Hunter. Prowlus had given him a chance, but only if he could convince his fellow brethren to step forward to support Hunter's claims. Hunter was lucky, though. He was highly regarded amongst his people, almost as respected as Chief Prowlus himself. But all of them had heard the same rumours and lies surrounding Spyro; that he was the monster meant to be feared and loathed. So, to challenge those rumours meant challenging Prowlus, and risking having to face his wrath. Who would dare help Hunter now?
With dragons approaching, Spyro unconscious, and Hunter seemingly unable to convince Prowlus of Spyro's innocence, how will get out of there with Spyro?
Until the next chapter!
DEMISE IS THE WORST BETA.