I made a quick bow. "Greetings! I come on the behalf of the guardians of Warfang, Your name's Flame, right?"

He nodded. "It is."

"Hello, mine is James. I have something important to discus with you, may I come in?"

He nodded again and walked back in, motioning me to follow with his wing.

The inside was conservative to put it nicely, to be frank they were in the midst of lower class. Wow, I thought This is not how I pictured Flame living, he's a frikkin' main character!

Flame went to the entrance to a side passage, "Honey, We have a visitor!" He called. He turned to me. "So, want to sit down?" I obliged.

I could tell he was curious but before either of us could say anything another dragon walked out to join us, my jaw hit the floor. If Flame living in squalor was surprising it had nothing on this.

A pink dragoness strode into the room. I could sense something coming off her, like… healing. But strangely fire? She had a lavender fin shaped crest on her head and bovine horns. Her gold necklace matched her heart shaped tail blade. She sat down next to Flame. "Hi, my names Ember."

"I…uh…frug…uh, my names James." I stammered, completely shocked at this. Knowing what I did of the Spyro games, I had spent an entire month pondering Ember and how to keep her off Spyro if she ever showed up. Not a problem now I guess.

Flame noticed my awkwardness and gave me a funny look. My face felt hot "It's a very long story, but that's not why I'm here. Flame, you know about Ignitus, right?"

"Of course. He died saving Spyro, right? What's that have to do with anything?"

"Well, he… left instructions about who was to succeed him as the next fire guardian. He thought you were the best choice."

Flame and Embers faces were unreadable as they thought this over, then Flame finally said. "You're serious?"

I nodded. "Dead serious. I've been sent to ask you if your interested, and if you are to test you to see if your up to snuff."

Flame looked hard in thought while Ember asked "What about me?"

"The two of you and any children you may have would be given free room and board in Warfang. You would be welcomed with open arms."Ember nodded her understanding, then Flame asked a question.

"What's the test?"

Meanwhile, in Warfang

Zoulu strode from the training room. Her ever growing electrical powers now far exceeded her fathers, though Spyro was still able to wipe the floor with her through the use of other elements and pure experience. In her latest match she had created a lightning bomb that shattered the floor, ceiling and walls except for the patches directly above and below Spyro, her father untouched. Then his eyes glowed and an invisible force threw her into a boulder which flowed over her legs, tail and torso and solidified, trapping her. Spyro landed.

"Good job Zoulu, anyone else and they would have lost - or worse."

As Spyro was about to break her free, she channeled her energy into chest and released. The stone encasing her cracked, beams of light shined from underneath, and her prison shattered, pummeling Spyro with pebbles. "I'm still going, Dad!" She said and leapt at him.

She should have left it there. now she had a collection of bruises and minor burns that she refused to get healed. They were a testament to her foolishness at refusing to admit defeat. She hoped this would drill a bit of wisdom into her to go with her strength.

She stopped in a garden and looked up at the night sky, the twin moons, one full, the other ¾ full. Off to the left was the dragon cluster, a galaxy of stars shaped like a dragon that appeared the day Malefor was sealed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement against the velvet backdrop, black on black. She turned to face it and saw a dragon streaking towards the forest.

Curiosity overtook her and she leapt into the sky, her wings unfolding and beating the wind until it submitted to her will and carried her up. She angled her wings and shot off after the dragon.

She'd gotten faster lately, her father had showed her how to use electricity to accelerate, the ground was a dark blur below her. She followed the dragon for a ways before it dropped into the forest, it didn't even dive or slow down, one second it was rocketing forward, then it took a 90 degree turn straight down at the same speed, but there was no crash. Zoulu knew that shouldn't be physically possible. She back flapped like mad but still over shot him. As she passed she felt pure energy, like when you're standing exactly where lightning's about to strike a second later.

She turned around and circled the clearing where he, she could definitely tell it was male now, was sitting by some kind of stone marker. He looked up and drilled into her with intense, but sad eyes the most vivid purple Zoulu'd ever seen before turning back to the marker. Zoulu went into a shallow dive and alighted next to him.

He didn't even turn to her. "Vergaro."

"Zoulu. Beside the name, who are you? I've never seen you."

"A nomad. I have no home. I need no home."

Zoulu tried to make him out, but he sat in shade. She could only make out two things, he was extremely fit, and his eyes that seemed to be able to annihilate anything that crossed their pat from the intensity of his gaze. She turned to the stone, which had glowing runes of a foreign language.

"What is it?"

Again he stared at the marker. "We can learn from the past. In particular the mistakes made. If we but looked back and saw what went wrong we can prevent history from repeating itself. This reminds me of a mistake once made by someone, that way I can succeed where he failed."

"What are you trying to do?"

For the second time he looked at me, his eyes full of determination and some infinite sadness and a hint of blind fury. "I'm trying to survive." And he looked back.

For the first time I noticed a small cross at the top of the marker and two dates underneath.

Back at Stonefield

"Alright Flame, you ready?"

I had found that when he gets exited, you can see tiny sparks of flame trickle from his mouth as he speaks, like now. "Heck yeah."

"Alright. " I said "Just to recap, I've hidden something somewhere in a fifty mile radius either in or around Stonefeild. Find it."

He let loose two jets of flame from his nostrils and touched his wings overhead, reared back and leapt high into the sky, at the apex he thrust down, carrying him off into the sky. Ember walked up beside me. "You never said what he's looking for." I nodded.

"It adds to the challenge. Besides, it's such unique object he'll know it as soon as he sees it."

"But fifty square miles is a large area to cover by himself."

Again I nodded. "Exactly. In fact, I had my sister cast a spell on the object so it'll warp away from him if he gets too close. The point is to test leadership. He'll have to convince enough people to go on a wild goose chase or he'll fail. I've told him this in private… I hope he succeeds. I can sense power about him." I turned to ember "And you."

She met my gaze with a confused expression.

"Ember, what are your elements?"

"Healing and fire. Why do you ask?"

"Do you realize how rare dual elements are?"

She shook her head. "Not counting Spyro and Cynder," I told her "There are only three that I know of including you. The others are a friend and myself. I'm freakish enough to be able to sense this, but enough to know what this means, but I do know that the dragons with multiple elements have always been involved in the shaping of the world. I also know that when you reach Warfang, all of us will know each other. I don't believe in coincidence."

She stood silent for a while, then : "What are your elements?"

"Two rare ones, Light and shadow. Together they form a third ability that can't be called an element on it's own called Chaos. Like it sounds, it's unpredictable and I don't like using it."

Ember closed her eyes like she was focusing on remembering this conversation. "And your friend?"

"Fire and wind. But I'm not surprised by that, For instance his body's like a fusion of dragon and human, but he's an amazing fighter."

Ember snorted "Humans don't exist, they're stories made to scare little children." Just then there was a flash of light and when she turned to me she looked down at my human form, almost half her height.

Her eyes grew wide. "You were saying?" I asked. While she tried to stammer out a response, I transformed back to my dragon form. "Enough idle chatter though, lets get you packed."

"But we don't know if Flame will succeed or not."

"True, but I've been many places, places you'll never see if you traverse the entire earth. I've never seen such poor living conditions. I'll make sure that whatever happens you can stay in Warfang." As we were walking back to their cave, we looked up to see what looked like a squadron of dragons flying to the exit. At the tip of the triangle formation was Flame.

Avalar forest

Zoulu was fascinated by this mysterious dragon. He didn't say much and she felt a desire to ease the sadness that seemed to roll off him. Whenever she tried to start a conversation, he answered in as few words as possible. This continued until the sun started to break through the horizon. The markings on the stone faded and Vergaro seemed to snap out of a trance, suddenly he was a completely different person.

He looked up at Zoulu, the sadness gone, replaced by a vivid energy. "I'm sorry for being so rude to you. I just get emotional sometimes, could I fly you back to the city to make up for it?"

Zoulu hardly knew Vergaro but felt at ease with him. "Sure."

Vergaro crouched, then leapt high into the air in the leaving a shockwave of electricity and trailing an arc of lightning. Zoulu stood there for a moment. He's electricity too! But his colorings so dark! She took off after him, using her own powers to catch up in a heartbeat. In the morning light she could see him clearer. His wings were a vivid blue that almost hurt her eyes, his crests, lightning shaped horns that rimmed his face like a lions mane, wing spikes and tail/elbow blades also bolt shaped were a goldenrod color, he was extremely muscular, she betted he could crush stone with his bare claws. But that wasn't what caught her attention. His scales sent a ripple of adrenaline through her and she wouldn't have believed it had she not seen it herself.

He was purple.

It was the dark purple in the evening sky that appears directly overhead just before full night. They glittered like a thousand polished stones and made his gold horns, etc. jump out to the eye.

She caught up with him. "You're a purple dragon?"

He laughed, a deep, lilting laugh that eased her tension. "No. My scales are purple but that's it. I'm purely electric."

"Oh."

They flew on, occasionally asking one another questions and taking their time getting back. Eventually they reached the city walls and the sight jogger Zoulus memory.

"Aw man! I have school today! I've gotta go!"

Valcor chuckled. "Alright, I guess this is where we part ways then. Maybe we'll see each other again?"

Zoulu smiled "Maybe." Then in a blast of electricity shot off like a charge from a cannon.

Stonefield

"3…2…1…time." I called, watching as the sun broke the horizon. Time was up and Flame was nowhere to be seen. He had failed. I glanced over at Ember, she looked on the verge of tears. "Hey it's OK." I said, trying to comfort her. "Your still coming to Warfang."

"I know." She said. "But I saw how important this was to him. You know he went his entire life being told he was worthless? He was bullied as a child and his parents died in the war. When I flew the flight of bonding with him people told me it was the stupidest thing I'd ever done. He thought of this as a chance to prove them all wrong, that his life is worth something. And now he looks even more foolish to them…"

Just then a green dragon flew toward us as fast as he could. He stopped midair in front of us "Sorry I'm late Ember, Sir. Flame found the object ten minutes ago, before the sunrise. He 's quite a ways off and as he was returning he saw an elderly dragoon that had dropped in flight and broken a wing. He told me to go ahead of him while he helped him back. He did accomplish the goal."

With that he opened his claw and revealed a card, It was yellow with seven stars near the top and a picture of a skinny black dragon with crimson eyes. I reached out and took the card. Ember leaned over to look at it, but English was foreign to her. "The Red eyes black dragon." I told her. "I memento from my old life, I keep it as it reminds me of my human mother, who bought it for me as a child, and my biological mother, Cynder."

Ember jumped at that. "Spyro and Cynder are your parents?"

I just nodded and focused on the spell Selena taught me, in a whistling sound the card vanished, back to my room in Warfang, Though not to be my room much longer. I was a year older than Spyros other children and to their dismay was placed in the class above them. I was set to graduate this summer.

A half hour later I looked at the sun, using a veil of shadow energy to shield my eyes, out of the center of the dazzling disk came the silhouette of a dragon, As he drew closer Ember squinted and looked at him. "It's Flame!" She shouted. Her wings and tail twitched as if it took an effort just to keep from flying to him. As soon as he touched down she let go and in a single bound covered the forty feet to him, wrapping her neck around his and embracing him in her wings. "Flame, you did it! you passed!"

Flame looked over his mates wings at me, waiting for the final verdict, I couldn't help it, I was grinning like an idiot. He laughed and Hugged Ember back. After a few minutes they let go and Flame came over to me. "So, what now?"

"Now, it's time for the second and final test."

He looked confident, "Which is?"

"A duel." His confidence was replaced by a moment of shock, then he regained his composure.

"I'm ready." He said "Come, I'll take you to an arena." As the three of us made our way to the ruins of the castle, people stopped and stared at Flame, people who had told him his entire life he wouldn't amount to anything. A large part of me wanted to let him win and show them they were wrong, but I couldn't. Otherwise neither of us would deserve the jobs assigned to us.

Eventually we got inside the ruins and I beheld an awesome sight, in the true meaning of the word, fearful wonder.

The arena was a pit dug into the ground, about sixty feet deep with a steel grid over the top. Around the lip were racks of armor and various weapons. The walls of the pit were stained black, most likely from ages old blood; the floor looked like the sand was churned after each fight. It was a dark rust color. It reminded me too much of the Coliseum in Rome. It probably witnessed the same barbarism. The engraving outside the entrance, "Chaos is punished, Order reigns" Seemed ironic at first, now it seemed hypocritical.

Flame looked at me and saw the look of disgust on my face and said "You know, I don't come here, everyone else gets a jolly out of these… fights, I went once as a child, snuck in. When I saw the two brothers enter the cage, and kill each other, all over a girl, I decided I would never come back and would one day put a stop to this.

I swallowed my bile. "Well, if you win as a guardian it'll be your job to stop things like this. Why do we have to be here?"

"Because," He said "in Stonefield, arguments that can't be negotiated must be settled in the cage. These people won't accept my position unless I earn it here."

As we were let into the cage, I noticed there was some ward that prevented flying. I explained the rules. "OK Flame, it looks like there's no flying… and obviously it would be bad for you to kill me, and vise-versa. Don't worry about injuries, I've arranged for my wife to come this afternoon, she's a healing dragon and a nurse. And Ember can probably heal all but the most severe injuries. And I have a contingency for that too. Since you cant ring out, try and put me down for ten seconds and you win.

Warfang

Zoulu mad it to class just before the bell for second class pealed. She got some curious looks as she came in, panting and sparking occasionally from her speed burst. As she took her place the professor came up. "Are you OK Zoulu? You look like you were in a fight."

"No of course not." She replied "I was late so I used my element to get here faster. That's all. You see any bruises?"

Another student who was in her training class said "Even if Zoulu got in a fight she wouldn't have bruises, trust me. I know." This got a few laughs and Zoulu felt proud and at the same time remembered the defeat she suffered at her fathers claws. I'll get him one of these days, then I can prove I deserve to be called his successor. Selena and James've already earned that right and Fever chose love, though I don't blame him. I wonder if I'll meet anyone like Spyder for me. As she thought this her mind wandered to that dragon she met the other night. She shook her head to clear it but could only do so for a few minutes at a time before she found herself thinking of him again. As a result she didn't even understand the days lesson.

After the days classes were over She left to go home. She was flying and not really paying attention to where she was going and suddenly realized she had drifted off course. In fact, she was headed strait for where she first met Valcor! "Ok! That's enough!" She said aloud and wheeled around to the city, annoyed with herself. She got home and went into her room, she slung the side bag off her shoulder and realized she hadn't the slightest idea what her assignment was. Crud. Then the door opened and Cynder walked in.

Her mother walked in and sat down. "Zoulu, where were you last night?"

Double crud.

"I…um, got lost." She lied.

"Uh-huh. You forgot how to get to your house when it's in sight of the temple?"

"Umm…"

Cynder sighed "Zoulu, Me and Spyro have done some pretty stupid things in the past, So whatever it is you can tell me."

"Well, there's this boy… but I don't know if I like him or not."

Cynder said nothing for a moment, then "You're probably lucky you told me and not your father, he's very protective over you all. So you're not sure about him yet you spent the night with him?"

"Not like that! I saw him flying to the forest and followed him, when I caught up with him he was staring at some memorial or grave or something like that and hardly said a word until sunrise. Then he almost turned into another person, he was so much cheerier after. He accompanied me back to the city then we parted ways."

Cynder sat that entire time saying nothing, just listening. After Zoulu was done, she said "Be careful, if you decide you like this boy, be careful who you give your heart to." Cynder got up and walked to the door, but before she left she turned her neck to face Zoulu "Not everyone is who they seem."

Stonefield

Ember stood on the cages ceiling, ready to announce the winner. I was prepared to evade, to examine Flames fighting style and force him to fight differently, We had been circling each other for a full five minutes, just waiting for an opening. I chanced a glance up, the rim of the cage had grown crowded, there must have been two hundred dragons and moles of all ages and walks of life crowded around the lip.

Flame must have seen my eyes as He opened his mouth and launched a torrent of fire at me, I delved into my energy and summoned a shield of shadowy mist in front of me, which caused the fire to radiate outward in all directions in streams. Veiled by the fire, He pounced at me; jumping through the fire and flames, and dissipating the shadow mist. I barely had time to jump out of the way as he landed where I had been. He touched ground and immediately leapt at me again, I focused my power inward and he phased through me, my body turning to mist where his claws ripped through me, reforming into solid flesh a moment later.

As soon as he passed me he whipped his tail, connecting with my neck and sending me sprawling, he then turned and loosed another blast of fire in a left to right arc. Then, anticipating me getting up, he jumped into the air and launched four balls of fire around me which exploded on contact with the sand, trapping me as the wave of fire rushed at me and Flame dove at me, his wings folded in front of him, transforming him into a lace cloaked in fire.

I focused on the space above and behind him and instantly was there, looking down at him in the wake of a whistle. I focused energy into my mouth, charged a ball of white energy, and fired, driving Flame into his own attack. I couldn't fly within the ward, but I backflapped to land behind the wave of fire. As the wave passed around flame, it spiraled inward, I saw Flame; his head pointed up and mouth open, all the fire around him getting sucked in a vortex, gathering into a large ball above his mouth. As he gathered the last of it, He brought his head down and launched the colossal ball at me.

I focused another mass of energy and this time released it all at once. A small ball of light, about the size of a baseball flew out and hit the mass of fire, it caused the ball of fire to sag, then they both exploded with enormous force, Me and Flame shielded ourselves with our wings, suffering minor burns. Ember got off the cage in time as a column of fire the width of the pit shot up and dissipated on the ceiling hundreds of feet above us.

The next thing I noticed was pain. I looked down; the sand floor was glowing cherry red. So was the cage ceiling for that matter. I howled and stated hopping like a jackrabbit, Flame was less than bothered, and the sand under his feet was the dull rust it normally was. He was smirking. I focused my shadow abilities and turned my feet into blobs of shadow. I could now stand without burning myself.

Flame launched into another attack, shooting a storm of fireballs at me. I turned and ran to the right; he turned to follow me, hundreds of small explosions sounding behind me. Suddenly I stopped and generated a multitude of shadowy disks that shot here and there, intercepting any fireball I could track with my eyes. When Flame stopped the attack, I mimicked it with balls of light. Without moving, he repeated the attack, every light blast hitting a fireball ant exploding.

I then noticed He hadn't moved, He had stopped the sand he stood on from growing hot and an ever bigger area around him was cooling. Soon he would be able to reach me. I jumped to the wall to give myself the most time. When the flares of explosions faded, I looked to the center of the cage. Flame stood there. I charged a beam of light and launched it at him. It hit, and he exploded. His body turned to a dark, oily smoked and drifted up, out of the cage. I stared at where he had been in disbelief, then heard a sound behind me.

I turned and saw a flaming tail whip at me, it hit soundly in the chest, and was followed by a wing spike, and then I felt claws rake across my face, then the other side. I felt a great force hit me broadside and send me to the ground in the circle of cool sand. I tried to get up but a tail to the head stopped that, dazed I could only wonder what just happened as I felt jaws clamp on my neck, not breaking the skin, and his legs pin mine, his tail wrapping mine tightly. I faintly heard Ember saying something, probably counting to ten. However, at that point there was really nothing I could do. Eventually Flame let go of my neck and got off.

I shakily got to my feet, my vision dimming at the edges and my hearing filled with a ringing. Ember jumped down and came to me. I said, "Get Flame first." But I couldn't hear my own voice, or Embers response. There was pink light, I could see nothing. For a full minute I could see only pink, I could even taste pink is was so vibrant. The ringing faded and I could hear pink. Eventually the blood cleared from my nose and I could even smell pink! Eventually the pink void faded and I could see again. "I hate pink." I said.

Ember smiled. "You'll get over it, they all do." She then went to flame and after looking him over breathed mist (it was horribly pink) on flame, which covered the few bruises and burns he had and quickly dissipated.

After we were healed, we got out of the cage and the three of us slugged back to their cave, followed the whole way by cheers and praise for Flame. Even though he looked ready to drop, he wore a huge smile on his face.

I woke up to the smell of meat. How long I slept I had no idea, Flame and Ember were up, preparing a small feast. I stood up, still fatigued. Ember spoke to me "Your injuries were more severe than you think, I had to use your energy to heal you, that's why your so tired.

I nodded. "What's all this then?" I said, motioning to the food.

Flame laughed, "We cant' take food with us, so were celebrating with what have available. Some friends are coming over.

An hour later, the food was done and the guests had arrived. Among them was the dragon Flam had sent ahead to tell us he had passes the test. After a delicious meal and much congratulations and conversation, the party was over and the guests walked us to the entrance to Stonefield. We walked out into the sunlight and turned as Flame and Ember said their final farewells. Then we turned and leapt into the sky, Ember the last to take off. Then we set our sights to the west. Towards Warfang. Towards home.