Nathan Charles and Luna Fang: Into the Dragon Realms
By Mutitoon90
Chapter Three
The blue-purple vortex was the only thing that the trio saw as they fell into whereever the portal ended. This was all that the three friends could see until they fell out of the wormhole.
First, Nathan landed on his feet and hands and did a roll before stopping his body from continuing. As the dark-haired young man stood up and started dusting himself off, Luna was the next being to exit the portal's vortex and did a few aerial flips before landing next to Nathan. The last one, Crash, just fell out and landed on his face.
"Oh!" Luna groaned as she watched the impact that Crash was involved with, "That's gotta hurt!"
"You can say that again, Luna." Nathan winced as he spoke and watched his best friend stand up after his painful landing.
Then, Nathan and Luna went to Crash, who slowly rose to his feet, and the orange Bandicoo nearly fell down again, but Nathan and Luna grabbed him to keep him from landing on his face.
"Thanks, guys..." Crash moaned out in pain as he grabbed at his injuried face, "Ow..."
"Take it easy, Crash." Nathan advised his marsupial friend as he led Crash to a nearby boulder with Luna's help.
Once on the rock, Crash took a few moments to collect his senses before he looked up at the sky and saw that it had a purple hue in the blue sky.
"Whoa..." The mammal grabbed the humans' attentions, and the two looked up and saw the same thing.
"What's going on?" The human male asked as he continued to look at the sky, while the werewolf commented, "It's not even noon yet."
The sky's odd coloration was not the only thing that caused the trio to be dumbfounded by its sight; the chasm was seemingly gleaming with the grass glowed in the sunlight and small, shiny objects laid on the ground and were sereval feet away from the trio.
"What's with this place?" Crash asked his friends, who only gave him a shrug of their shoulders, and then, the threesome heard something beeping.
"It's Coco." Nathan announced as he rose his arm, which had the watch-like communication device, and pressed a button on the device and said, "This is Nathan, come in."
"It's Coco." The voice of the youngest Bandicoot echoed throughout the high rock walls of the chasm, "Is everything okay there?"
"It is." Nathan replied as he looked at his surroundings, "However, that Ripto guy's not nearby from where I'm standing."
"I don't know if I should call that a good thing or a bad thing." Coco sounded confused about the information before changing the subject slightly, "You three have to had him and his over-sized dum-dums and quick!"
"Why?" Asked Crash, who was still recovering from his fall.
Nathan smiled, and spoke back to Coco via the device, "Sorry about that, Coco. Crash had a slight accident when he fell out of the portal.
"That's not news to me." Coco's voice echoed out, causing the red-head, orange-furred Bandicoot blush a little.
"She can say that again." Luna muttered under her breath upon hearing the comment made by Crash's sister.
"I heard that, Luna." Nathan's voice reached the werewolf's ears, which changed from human to wolf at that moment, and the sudden change grabbed the males' attentation.
After staring at Luna for a few moments, Nathan pulled himself back to reality and spoke to Coco, "We'll call you, if anything comes up."
"Will do." The voice of the girl Bandicoot announced before Nathan pressed the button to stop the communication between him and Coco.
Then, Nathan confronted Luna about the sudden change in her appearance, and Crash was at Nathan's side in that matter.
"Luna," Nathan started to asked, "didn't you notice something weird with-"
"My ears?" The she-wolf interrupted before answering, "I've noticed."
Crash backed a few feet from Nathan, whose face became red with a heated annoyance as his fury grew in his voice.
"Why didn't you say something earlier?"
"You were busy," Luna answered bluntfully, "and I didn't want to disturb you while you were talking with Coco."
Harshly placing the palm of his hand to his face, the apparent leader of the trio nearly breathed steam through his teeth as he heard this, and then he took a deep breath of cool air to make an attempt to calm himself, knowing that the female werewolf was being truthful.
Soon, the young male was calm enough to talk to Luna without yelling at her, saying, "Okay, I can understand that, but why didn't you freak out?"
"I was surprised when it happened," confessed the female of the group, "but I knew that I needed to stay calm."
A heated sigh slipped from Nathan's lips as he inquiried again: "Do you know why you've transformed?"
Luna closed her eyes in thought for a moment before she spoke her reply to Nathan.
"I don't have an definite answer, however a couple of theories do come to mind."
"A couple of theories?" Crash took his turn to asked a question as he looked at the werewolf, who continued to explain.
"Yeah, but it could be one, the other or, if it's possible, both."
"You're saying that it could be a combination of some of the theories?" Nathan managed to ask while in shock of Luna's announcement.
"That's right." Luna looked seldom as she spoke in her response, "It's eith-"
The werewolf stopping in mid-sentence caused a sense of alarm in the two males, who went to Luna's side, and asked in an unpected and odd unison, "What's wrong?"
Luna's blushing face grew red as the werewolf announced in a sheepish voice, "Something... embarrassing..."
"Embarrassing?" Nathan asked, thinking about what could have cause Luna to became shy all of a sudden.
Crash, however, was amazed, since he rarely saw Luna in such a delicate state, and he could not help himself from freeing a few laughs from his mouth.
Luna's embarrassment was more expressive as her ears folded back against her brunette hair. Freeing a sigh from her lips, Luna smiled a little, showing how withdrawn she was becoming and knowing that Crash and the other residents of the three Wumpa Islands rarely, if not at all, see Luna as an embarrassed person.
Nathan examined the werewolf with his dark eyes, starting with the ears and looked down at her hands, which had claws in place of her fingernails and a noticeable amount of fur on the back of her hands. The human was confused and thought for a moment before he remembered something about Luna.
Pulling out a sharp knife, Nathan looked at Luna with an expression of seriousness and said, "Luna, you better turn around."
If Luna lacked the empathic ability, she would have though that Nathan was going to do something naughty, however Luna knew why Nathan told her to turn her back to Nathan. She pulled the black backpack from her back and sat it close to her side. With a deep sigh, Luna said after a moment of hesitation, "Do your worst, Nathan."
"I promise that I'll try to be gentle." Nathan said as a mild blush appeared on his face. Turning his attention to Crash, Nathan asked, "Can you please turn the other way?"
"Why?" The male marsupial asked, looking a little confused about Nathan request.
"It's for Luna." Nathan summarized how Crash, who was still confused about the situation without the sleeping curse. The dark-haired human was slightly more aggressive as he half-shouted out, "Just turn around."
"Alright! Alright!" Crash obeyed the order and faced away from Luna and Nathan.
Thankful that Crash was out of the way in a sense, Nathan turned to Luna and blushed again, nervous about what he was about to do. Inhaling deeply, the male human composed himself and approched Luna with knife in hand.
Upon reaching the wolfgirl, Nathan gluped loudly as he looked at and lowered himself to the level of his target.
"Nathan," Luna said with a shy tone of voice, "get it over with; the sooner it's done, the sooner we don't have to deal with it anymore."
"Okay." Nathan nodded before gulping again and preceded to the task at hand.
Then, the sound of cloth being ripped was heard by all three members of the group, and it lasted for a few seconds.
"It's over." Nathan announced as he rose to his full height, and he looked at the hole he had in the seat of Luna's pants.
"Thanks, Nathan." The blushing brunette grinned sheepishly as she spoke, and then she said to the human male, "You might wanna look away." The grin changed from sheepish to wolf as Luna teasingly added, "Of course, if you wanna look, I've got no problems with that."
Hearing the comment made Nathan's blush glow neon-red before he quickly turned his eyes away from Luna, who used her hand to manipulate her tail out of the hole.
Once she was done, Luna spoke to Nathan, saying, "You look now."
Looking at the werewolf, whose long, somewhat-fluffy tail was wagging, Nathan sighed out as he noticed Crash looking at Luna.
"Wow, Luna!" The male Bandicoot exclaimed upon seeing the wolfgirl's tail, "I didn't know that your werewolves can have tails in their human forms!" Then, he turned to Nathan and asked him, "Did you know that werewolves can grow tails while as humans?"
Nathan was a little surprised by the question before remembering that Luna was careful in exposing her beastly form to others, even if they were beings that have to hide themselves from the world, like herself.
Nathan looked to Luna, who was also looking at him, and the both of them shared a silent joke and a giggle. That confused Crash even more.
"What's so funny?" Asked the confused Bandicoot, and he got his answer, even though it was not what he wanted.
"We'll tell you later." Luna freed another giggle before clearing her throat and said, "We better get going; we've wasted enough time."
"Hey!" Crash looked at Luna, who picked up the pack with their food in it, "What about why you're changing!?"
"I'll explain as we walk." Luna declared as she walked to the opening the chasm.
The males looked at each other and sighed in defeat, knowing that Luna was right, before going after the she-wolf. They got the explaination once they had caught up with Luna.
"Now, explain." Nathan demanded the werewolf, who was about to say something before the dark-haired man give the command.
"As I was about to say, Nathan," Luna eyed the man, who withdrew for a moment, before resuming the explaination, "I only know two things that could cause werewolves to change against their will, that is if they have that ability. One is a special kind of jewelery, but I don't wanna talk about that. Ugh! The other thing is the realm itself, if it's magical."
"If it's magical?" The males asked as they looked at each other in their confusion.
"That's right." Luna announced with a nod as her speed nearly quicken in pace, "And since I'm not wearing anything around my neck, the realm's the only thing left."
"Makes sense, but there's something that causing me to think that something more to the realm than it just being a magical realm." Nathan announced his doubt.
"How can a realm be magical?" Crash flatly asked Luna, who was quick to anwser.
"It would be the residents, but I don't know of any kind of being that would be able to enchant a land."
Nathan fell silent for a few moments to think about the events that had transpired within that day. When he was done thinking, he voiced out his thoughts.
"Have you ever since a creature like Ripto before today, Luna?"
Luna took a turn at being deep in thought before saying in response, "Never, according to my memories, and it's possible for other creatures that I've never encountered before to exist."
"Right." Nathan nodded in confirmed the werewolf's thoughts, "Now, have you ever heard of a creature like Ripto?"
"Not in my lifetime." Luna answered after a few moments of thought.
"So, what are we going to expect to face?" Crash asked Luna, who gave the Bandicoot a harsh look before responding to the question.
"I don't know, Crash."
The trio talked and walked about their situation, when a small dragonfly saw them. It became curious about the three and flew after them, only buzzing quietly as it followed them.
Its eyes were like a human's, and it had a mouth that could speak. It looked at the three friends carefully, making sure that it wasn't seen by the trio.
However, the glowing dragonfly's attempts at being unseen was nearly became in vain, since Luna's sensitive ears picked up the sound of the insect's buzzing. The werewolf stopped and turned to the creature's direction, and the dragonfly flew into some tall grass that was nearby.
"Luna," Crash asked the she-wolf, as he stopped with Nathan, "what is it? Is something wrong?"
"I don't know." Luna answered without look at at the Bandicoot or the human male, "However, I think we're being followed."
"Are you sure?" Nathan expressed his doubt to Luna, who glared that the young man before giving a response that was almost a yell of a person that was insulted.
"See the ears? They aren't up there for cuteness; they're as real as the tail and plenty sensitive to noises and sounds. So, yes; I'm positive about hearing something."
"Yeesh!" Nathan backed from the she-wolf as he spoke, "Sorry about doubting you."
"You better be." Growled an annoyed Luna, who soften her expression as she smiled sweetly at Nathan before saying in a tone that matched the grin, "Sorry about getting mad; I've never liked it when people doubt me, especially if they're someone I like."
"Uh," Nathan was a little surprised by Luna's sudden change in attitude, "apology accepted?"
"Thanks!" Luna was gleeful as her smile widened before she embraced him and spun him in a circle before letting him go, leaving Nathan a little dizzy and dazed by the action.
"Luna's happy once more." Chuckled Crash, who had the good sense to step away from the werewolf as she hugged Nathan.
As the three were distracted by each other, the glowing dragonfly flew from its hiding place and away from the three friends. However, its departure failed to escape the notice of Luna, who saw its bright, yellow glow in the sky.
"So, something was following us." The werewolf mused herself at the thought of the small creature following her and her friends.
The other two also saw the retreating insect, and Nathan smiled weakly as he sincerely apologized for doubting Luna: "I'm really sorry, Luna."
"Nathan," Luna grinned at the dark-haired boy, "you're cute when you apologized."
The human male blushed as Luna made that statement, causing Crash to laugh loudly.
As the trio resumed their journey, the yellow dragonfly flew and rode the wind as fast as it could until it reached its destination, which was sitting nearby a crystal-clear pond.
"Hey, Sparx!" A voice caused the dragonfly to see a purple dragon with yellow and orange horns and wings that was speaking to it, "Where've you be, buddy?"
The insect buzzed out its report, explaining and describing the trio's appearances to the dragon, who listened intensely, and when the dragonfly finished talking about the trio, the dragon spoke again.
"Really? They sound weird, espeically the girl with the animal ears and tail."
Sparx buzzed in agreement about the female and moved its body in a nodding fashion.
"Let's check them out, Sparx!" The dragon flipped his wings excitingly, "We better make sure they're not gonna cause too much trouble around here!"
Sparx looked at the dragon with a doubting look in his eyes and on his face; he knew the dragon better than most others do.
"Aw, come on, Sparx!" The purple creature noticed the dragonfly's expression, "It's true, and it's been a little boring after our last adventure.
Still glaring at the dragon, the yellow creature let out a buzzing sigh as its body moved like a head facing downward in defeat; the dragon was right.
"No more complaints?" The dragon asked before saying, "Good! Let's go!"
The two creatures, the dragon and the dragonfly, ran off to see and meet up with the three beings that Sparx had seen a short time ago. They dodged ponds and the streams, and the dragon jumped over many of the bodies of water before finding the three beings.
As the duo found the trio, they saw that the two males and the female were aguring with a bear that was dressed in a gentleman's black jacket with a dress shirt underneath it and wore a monoicle over its right eye, and it was over the right to pass an old bridge. The duo shook their heads, knowing the bear's true intentions.
"Will Moneybags ever learn?" The dragon whispered to the smaller dragonfly, who buzzed negatively in its agreeing reply.
The two knew the bear named Moneybags for a few years and were familiar the bear's attempts at obtaining large amounts of the world's currency to his love of it. They were some of his finanical victims.
"We have to pass!" Nathan repeated himself to the bear for the tenth time since the bear made its first and only offer, and once again, the human said to the blocking bear, "We just don't have the fee to pay you."
"I'm sorry, sir." The bear politely and greedily refused before explaining, "It's merely business, since its my bridge."
Nathan growled loudly, but the only thing that calmed his fury was the artful smile of Luna, who could tell that the humanoid bear was lying, and Nathan smiled back at Luna.
Nathan knew that Luna had a personal rule about liars; she would allow the person producing the falsehoods to fib three times before making that person feel her fury. Nathan grinned, thankful that the werewolf was an empathic being.
Luna was pleased to see Nathan's grin, but was a little disappointed that the greedy bear had only lied one time. However, she was a paitent creature and knew that the bear would make the two mistakes of lying to her and her friends.
Then, a female voice filled the air as a single word reached the ears of all of those at or near the old bridge.
"MONEYBAGS!"
Then, a flying rainbow-colored ray flew in the purple-hued sky and headed towards the trio and the bear, and the four individuals ran from where the rainbow was going to land. On the impact to the ground, the beam took the form of a butterscotch-shaded rabbit with some human features wearing a toga-inspired beige dress with matching boots and a purple-red cape that draped down to her ankles.
"Moneybags!" The female rabbit growled at the bear, who was cowering at that point, as she scolded him, "Don't you dare con them out of their gems, like you've been doing for the last couple of days! You know very well that this bridge is too worn out to be crossed on!"
"No one's fallen through yet!" Moneybags defended himself from the rabbit's accussations, "Besides that, I honestly didn't know that the bridge was not functioning as a proper pathway." Then, he turned to the trio and started begging, saying, "You three have to believe me!"
Hearing that, Nathan and Crash, who knew that Luna's low tolerance for people who would lie to obtain their selfish needs as well as learned that the hard way, turned the female werewolf and saw two fingers on the female's hand. That told them that Moneybags had one more lie to tell before Luna would punish him from making falsehoods to the three of them.
"What are you three grinning about?" Moneybags demanded the three friends, who were smiling at their shared joke and did not reveal it to the bear.
"They're the least of your problems right now, Moneybags!" The stern rabbit announced to the avaricious ursine, who returned his attention to her.
"What could be more troubling than being cheated by these three vagabonds?" Inquiried the fine-dressed bear, earning the annoyance of Nathan and Crash.
Luna, however, was not affected by the insult; to the werewolf, it was the attempt of a wealth-driven creature that did not liked beiing denied the gems he desired.
"There have been sightings of Ripto and his lackeys around here, and they've been causing trouble around here!" The she-rabbit responded strongly to the question, "And I know for a fact that you don't need a reminder of the trouble Ripto can cause, when given enough time."
"It's still not my problem." Moneybags crossed his arms and shook his head, refusing to accept the rabbit's words.
"This is getting more ridiculous by the minute..." Nathan moaned upon hearing the bear's response to the rabbit's warnings.
"No kidding..." Muttered Crash, who agreed with the human male about the bear's greed.
Luna, who was willing to harmfully punish the bear for lying, was thinking of a way to get back at Moneybags for calling her and the guys 'vagabonds' earlier. Looking at the aged and rotting bridge, the werewolf flashed a toothy grin, which told everyone that saw it that she was up to something.
"Hey, Sparx." The dragon whispered to his insect friend, "Do you think she's up to something?"
Sparx buzzed in agreement and said something about the situation that was unfolding itself in front of them.
"Yeah, let's just hope that whatever she's up to is going towards old Moneybags." The purple creature spoke to the dragonfly as the duo returned their attention to the trio, the bear and the rabbit.
Luna, the werewolf, quietly and smoothly went to Moneybags, who was still in the middle of the arguement with the female rabbit, and Nathan and Crash saw this. The males carefully went into the cape-wearing female's sights.
"You still don't understand the seriousness of this situation, Moneybags!" The she-rabbit shouted at the slightly taller bear, who started a long, drawn-out retrot.
The female that was arguing with Moneybags failed to hear the ursine's words, and she saw the males mouthing, 'Back off,' to her and moving their hands in a pushing motion. She got the message and nodded to them, and it was before the bear, who was not paying attention to her and the trio, finished his lengthy speech of why he was not worried about the dinosaur wizard, Ripto.
"Do you understand me, Miss Bianca?"
"Completely." Bianca, the rabbit girl, answered with a cunning gleam in each of her blue eyes.
"Well," a pleasantly surprised Moneybags spoke before beaming with a prideful glow, "I'm glad that you're able to see that I'm not just sitting around on my duff, making things more difficult for everyone."
Then, a growling roar caused both the bear and the rabbit to whip their heads to a huge, wolf-like creature with sharp fangs and claws. This creature's sudden appearance caused Moneybags to ran away, using the old bridge as a path of escape.
Once at the other side, the ursine looked back at the other side of the bridge and saw the creature snickering at him as it changed into its real form: Luna!
"Why, youuuuu!" Growled an enraged Moneybags as he saw Luna's smug expression and the other three laughing at him for fleeing from the female girl.
The furious bear stepped onto the bridge, trying to reach Luna to get after her. However, the bridge collapsed almost instantly, and Moneybags nearly went down with the bridge. This caused more laughter from the other side of the bridge as Luna joined the laughter as well as two others.
"I was wondering when you two were going to show yourselves." Luna giggled as she looked at the dragon and the dragonfly rolling in the grass.
"Spyro! Sparx!" Bianca gasped upon seeing the duo, "What are you two doing here?"
Spyro, the dragon, managed to stop laughing to speak with her, saying, "Sparx told me about these three, and I wanted to see if they were trobule or not."
"Really?" Luna asked in a thoughtful tone in her voice, "That's very interesting."
Nathan and Crash quietly agreed with the werewolf upon seeing the yellow dragonfly again.
Then, the she-wolf looked at her friends and asked them about the changes in the current situation of being in that world.
"So, that explains the magic that caused my ears to change and my tail to appear. So, what do you guys think about the dragon?"
"Dragon!?" Nathan exclaimed loudly, but Crash was confused and felt compled to ask, "What's a dragon?"
Luna smiled as she said, turning the Bandicoot's attention to the creature that was called Spyro, "That purple, scaly creature is a dragon. Although, I'd expected my first encounter with one would be a little different."
"What do you mean, Luna?" Asked Crash, who was looking at Spyro to see what was wrong with the purple and yellow creature.
"Well, I was expecting the first dragon I've ever might to be larger, but I guess the size might be something involving evolution." Luna confessed to her male companions, "Also, it could be that this dragon's young, but to what extent is something I could learn while being here."
"Hey!" Spyro's voice caused the trio's heads turn towards the dragon, "I can hear you three over here!"
"Sorry about that." Nathan stepped towards the purple creature, "We're still debating whether or not that we can trust you."
"Really?" Spyro said, looking surprised, "So are we!"
"Looks like we're starting off a misplaced foot." Nathan spoke thoughtfully as he examined the purple and yellow creature with his eyes.
"Nathan," the wolfgirl nuged the human with her elbow, tickling him a little, "don't be so serious about things."
"Luna," Nathan glared at the female werewolf after recovering from the brush of the female's furry forearm, "you're the one who should be serious; after all, you're the one that got cursed by Ripto."
"WHAT!?" Spyro, Sparx and Binaca shouted in unison, expressing their combined shock, and then Spyro recovered himself and asked, "You guys fought Ripto?!"
"In a sense." Crash smiled shyly, unsure how to react to the dragon's question.
"Crash," Luna smiled at him as she spoke, "I believe introductions are in order."
"That's sounds reasonable." Bianca agreed with the werewolf before starting the introductions by saying, "I'm Binaca."
Then, the dragon followed the example of the rabbit's action.
"I'm Spyro, and this is Sprax."
The dragonfly buzzed as it moved in a nodding action.
Luna smiled sweetly and responsed to the introductions, "The name's Luna Fang, but I go by 'Luna.'"
"I'm called Crash Bandicoot or Crash." The orange marsupial smiled sincerely as he spoke.
"I'm Nathan Charles." The human spoke before asking, "What do you about Ripto?"
"We've dealt with him before." Spyro's voice was caked with arrogant tone, "I've torched him a couple of times."
"Good to hear." Nathan stated to the dragon, apparently annoyed with the cockiness of the dragon, "Can you help us with him?"
"We can." Binaca voiced in agreement, and then she asked, "Why are you after him?"
"It's a bit of a long story." Nathan stated before Crash chimed in, saying, "But we don't mind telling it."
Nathan was upset at Crash's sudden acceptance of the dragon, and Luna only giggle upon hearing Crash interjecting the promise to inform Spyro, Sparx and Bianca about their current situation. The two humans knew for a fact that they needed help.
"We can tell you what happened." Nathan announced to the three that had encountered Ripto before he had.