Nathan Charles and Luna Fang: Into the Dragon Realms
By Mutitoon90
Chapter Five
At the portal that led to the Acrtic Cliffs, Sergeant Byrd was thanking the five allies for their help in taking down Crush, who was magically-enhanced by Ripto. With Byrd was the private hummingbird as well as several other hummingbirds.
"We're all grateful for your efforts, and now that Crush is defeated, we can see what we can get from him about Ripto's whereabouts." Byrd spoke for his entire troop.
Then, the each of the five friends reacted in their own way; Nathan smiled sincerely, Crash let a laugh fly out of his mouth, Luna grinned widely, Sparx buzzed gleefully, and Spyro spoke to Byrd, "Anytime you need someone to torch someone, you know who to call."
"Duly noted, Spyro." The sergeant nodded to the purple reptile, and then he turned to his troop and announced, "Back to the Arctic Cliffs; we still have work to do there."
With that, the penguin and the hummingbirds went off to secure Crush and keep him from retreating to Ripto.
Once the troop of birds were gone, Luna asked in a blunt manner to her allies, "Now what?"
"I don't know, honestly." Nathan shrugged his shoulders in response, "The best I can guess is wait until we get more information about Ripto."
"Sounds like a plan to me." Crash was making no attempt to suggest any other idea, but Luna was not one to sit still for a long period of time.
"No way!" Luna protested to the Bandicoot, "There's got to be something else to do besides twiddling our thumbs!"
"Yeah!" Agreed Spyro, who nearly hopped up, "Waiting's boring!"
"Hey, guys!" A voice called out to the group, causing them to turn their attentions to an oncoming form.
The being was a humaniod cheetah wearing an archer's back quiver and wrist guard and had a bow in his hand. He had tattoos on his arms that looked like armbands, and the cat's appearance surprised Crash greatly.
"Who's the spotted tiger?" Crash asked to the dragon, and the question was heard by Nathan and Luna, who could hardly keep themselves from brusting out with hard laughter.
The humans knew that Crash was not trying to be insulting, but he was unfamiliar with cheetahs, since the closest thing to the cheetah was Tiny Tiger, who was not the most intelligent creature on the Wumpa Islands. Both of them, Nathan and Luna, told Crash as soon as one of them was able to control their snickering long enough.
"Crash," Luna tried to speak, but she was not able to control her giggling, and Nathan had to finish her sentence, saying, "That guy's a cheetah."
"A cheater?" The Bandicoot raised his eyebrow and ears at the same time, apparently confused by his friend's words.
"Not someone that cheats." Luna chuckled as she tried to speak again, "A 'chee-ta', not 'chee-ter, is a cat with spots that can run really fast."
"Really?" Crash asked, still confused about the topic of the approaching being, who managed to reach the group of friends.
"Hey, Spyro!" The cheetah greeted the small dragon, "Binaca told me about you guys going to Arctic Cliffs, and I came to help!"
"Should one of us tell the guy the bad news?" Luna snickered to her allies, who joined in the mild laughter.
The two males that had accompanied her to the magical realm looked at Spyro and Sparx, and the two natives looked at the cheetah, who asked in his own confusion, "What's going on?"
With a sigh, Spyro spoke, "I'll explain, Hunter."
"Well," Luna chuckled with a sad tone in her voice, "at least, he'll have something to do."
"Luna!" Nathan scolded at the wolf-earred woman, who knew better than to complain out loud.
"What?" Luna 'asked' in a falsey innocent tone, which Nathan heard right away and said quickly, "You know what."
"Maybe..." Luna said sweetly, annoying Nathan even more.
Crash could not help himself from laughing, even if it was a little bit; after all, the Bandicoot knew what was going on; Luna was irritating Nathan out of the fact that she liked the attention she got from him, but it seemed that he oblivious about Luna's intentions.
Then, the werewolf wavered in her movements and held the side of her head with one hand, as if she was dizzy, and this caused great concern for her companions. Luna would have fallen to the ground, but Nathan was close enough to catch her.
"Thanks for the catch, Nathan." Luna blushed a little as she found herself in the young man's arms, which made a close embrace.
"Uh, not a problem." Nathan's face was a brighter red than the half-changed she-wolf as he gently placed her on the ground.
"Luna," Crash went to the werewolf's side with the dragon, the dragonfly and the cheetah, "what happened?"
"Got dizzy for a moment." Luna shook her head to repel the dizzyness that caused her to almost fall, "It's nothing too serious."
"The curse is serious enough!" Nathan yelled at Luna, who heard the concern in his voice and responded to the statment.
"I know. However, worrying about it doesn't help us get rid of it."
Nathan was taken aback by the comment; what Luna had said was correct, and then he recalled that Luna said that by worrying about it might allow the curse to become faster in compelely consuming the werewolf.
"I'm sorry, Luna." Nathan said sincerely, "You're right; worrying about the curse might make it even worse."
"That's right." Luna smiled sweetly at the dark-haired male, "So, calm down for a bit, 'kay?"
"Right." Nathan smiled at the semi-hairy female, earning a scornful look from Spyro.
"I don't believe it, Sparx!" Whispered the purple dragon to the yellow insect, "Nathan's trapped in love with the girl!"
"Ya know, Spyro." Hunter, the cheetah, spoke to dragon, "I'm in love with Binaca, and I'm still the same guy that rescue your tail from Red."
"Well, you're different." Spyro tried to argue his case, but Hunter was not going to hear of it.
"Back off of them, Spyro; those two are close, and they have a friend to help them out, if their relationship gets in the way of their mission."
Spyro wanted to continue to argue his case, but he knew that he could not win, so he fell silent, not knowing what else to say. However, the dragon's silence did not last long.
"Hey, Spyro! Hunter!"
"Elora?" Spyro sounded confused as he and the cheetah looked at the direction of the woman's voice.
In the distance, there was a creature that was half-goat and half-human wearing a green shirt running towards the six member group. The creature's appearance and cry grabbed the attention of the three foreigners as well of Spyro, Sparx and Hunter.
"Guys!" The goat-woman addressed the dragon and the cheetah, "There's big trouble in Avalar!"
"Avalar?" Crash expressed his confusion verbally, while his friends expressed theirs silently, and this grabbed Elora's attention.
"You guys are the ones that Binaca was telling me about." The red-headed woman spoke to the trio before turning her sights towards Luna and saying, "And you're the one that got cursed by Ripto."
"Don't worry about it." Luna smiled artfully as she spoke to the being, "Between me and the whole island, it was obvious which one was the lesser of the two evils."
"I see." Elora processed the information in her head before remembering why she went after Hunter and Spyro.
"Right! Gulp's at the Fire Mountains, trying to eat up all of the fairies there!"
"Fairies?" Nathan asked, and he was about to say that fairies were not real, but Luna stopped him. The male looked at the she-wolf, whose face said that it was not wise to say something that was rang true in their native world, yet it wasn't in the world that their were in; that would cause trouble. Yielding to Luna's unspoken words, Nathan turned to Elora and said, "Maybe we can help save the fairies."
"You guys want to help?" The female being was shocked and pleased as she asked, "Good, because Gulp works for Ripto."
"So, we're not going to the Fire Mountains for nothin' after all." Crash laughed a little, having noticed that Luna had stopped his friend from something dumb.
"Right." Luna smiled back at Crash before she spoke to Nathan, saying, "Let's save the fae!"
Nathan groaned under his breath upon hearing the werewolf's announcement, causing those that heard it to laugh a little. Then, he turned to Elora and asked, "Can you led us to the Fire Mountains?"
"Of course." The goat-woman nodded her head, before adding, "Follow me."
Elora went off, followed by Nathan, Crash and Luna, who was followed by Hunter, Sparx and Spyro. Passing by many portals, the seven found themselves at a platform portal that was unusual from the other portals.
At that moment, Elora turned the others of the group and spoke to them in a clear and loud tone of voice in her explaination.
"This is the portal that connects Avalar to the 'Lost' Dragon Realms; something that the Professor put in after Spyro rescued these realms from the Sorceress that once ruled here. This will get us to Avalar faster than anything else I can think of."
"That's good news!" Crash said, not truly caring about arriving at the place where Gulp was at that time, but he did not want to insult the faun and her efforts in helping him and his friends.
"Elora," Spyro spoke out to the female faun, "I don't remember ever going there before."
"That's because there's no need for you to go there, until now." Elora explained it to Spyro, "It doesn't have a talisman, and no one lives there as a home."
"That does make sense." Nathan voiced out, "However, why would Gulp go there?"
"Well," the faun thoughtfully spoke in response to the question, "no one lives there, but some of the local hot springs are rumored to have healing properties, and the fairies are strong believers of that."
"That makes sense too." Luna stated, much to the annoyance of Nathan, who glared at her harshly.
"Let's go through!" Hunter shouted out to the group, "Gulp likes fairies and isn't shy about eating them at all!"
"That's not good!" Crash gasped upon hearing this information, "We've got to get going!"
"Right!" Elora said in agreement, "Let's go!"
Elora hopped onto the portal and vanished from sight. Crash was quick to follow the faun to the realm of Alavar. Mildly confused, Nathan and Hunter were next, followed by Spyro, Sparx and Luna.
A flash of light came and went, and the seven found themselves in a different land. It seemingly was in the season of fall with its rustic colors and the leaves were falling out of the trees, and in a distance stood a huge castle.
"Welcome to Alavar!" Elora announced to the three foreigners, "This area is the Autumn Plains, a place that stay like this all of the time!"
"Cool." Luna's tail wagged at the thought of a place that was one season all of the time, since she never was a fan of the cold of winter.
"So, where's the Fire Mountains?" Nathan inquiried the female faun, who was quick to answer.
"Right this way! Follow me!"
"Isn't that what we've been doing?" Luna muttered the comment under her breath as she and her friends obeyed the faun.
A small amount of time passed before the seven found themselves at the portal that led to the Fire Mountians, where Gulp was rumored to be at, trying to devour fairies.
"Here we are." Elora spoke to the group and stepped out of the area between the six allies and the hideout of the green quadruped thug of Ripto.
"Elora," Hunter, who had known the red-headed faun longer than the other, asked his friend, "you don't look so happy about us going in there. Is something wrong?"
"It's..." the faun was hestiant to explain, but she managed to finish her statement, "I've never liked going to the Fire Mountains since I was very young."
"Well, you don't have go in there." Luna smiled artfully as she spoke, "Just tell us next time a place makes ya uneasy."
Elora's face brighten up as she heard Luna's words, and the faun was quick to say, "Thanks for that, friend."
"The name's Luna, girl." The werewolf grinned wiley as she spoke to the faun, who responded by saying, "My name's Elora."
"Good to know." Luna smiled before leaping into the portal, causing Nathan to panic for the werewolf's well-being.
"Luna, get back here!" The human male yelled out as he went after Luna.
"We better get after them!" Spyro was quick to pursue after the humans of the group, thinking that their love was not going to be helpful at all.
"Spyro!" Hunter called out ot the stubborn dragon, but it was too late; the dragon and his life-long friend, Sprax, were long gone.
"We better get going too!" Crash spoke to the cheetah, "Looks like Spyro's going to try to do something about Luna and Nathan!"
"You're not kidding, either!" Hunter agreed with the Bandicoot before the two leapt into the portal to help their allies and the fairies from becoming Gulp's food.
Elora looked a little worried about what the cheetah and the Bandicoot had said before going after their friends. Then, she remembered that Spyro did not like people that were in love, since the dragon bellieved that those who were in love were not able to do their jobs effectively.
At that moment, the rainbow beam flew in the air and landed near Elora, who was pulled out of her thoughts, and changed into its true form, Binaca.
"Binaca!" The faun gasped upon seeing the she-rabbit, "What are you doing here!?"
"I came to see how our new friends were doing." Binaca replied, truly meaning what she had said to the faun. Then, she asked, "What are they?"
"They going after Gulp, who's been trying to eat the fairies there," Elora announced her answer to the magical creature, and then she added, "and I starting to worry about Spyro."
"Why?" Binaca was preplexed by Elora's words of concern.
"Spyro's thinking that Nathan and Luna are distracting each other, and he's one dragon that isn't so quick to change his mind once it's made up."
"Oh, boy..." The she-rabbit moaned as she realized that Spyro was going to try to break those two up, just like he tried to do so to her and Hunter's relationship. Then, she added, "Let's hope those two are quicker to change Spyro's mind than Hunter and I were."