Legend of Spyro
Prophecy of Blood
Chapter VI
Act II: Moonlight
***Dragon Army camp***
Spyro looked out in the direction of Warfang and sighed. It was only four days until the Blood Moons festival and he wanted to be there, trying to work up the nerve to tell Cynder how he felt, not here, stuck chasing down dragon lookalikes with smelly apes. Even if he had originally wanted to be out here with his squads and Issan, it was getting rather dull.
Tykron had insisted that he (Spyro) lead the relief army to backup Issan, but Issan hardly needed two-hundred more troops. The Grand General was winning victories left and right, even after the Wyverns started using armor. It was almost to easy. Spyro sighed once more and made his way down to the heart of the camp. Dragons, cheetah-men, and apes surged around him, going about there business preparing for the next engagement.
"Spyro!" He turned to see Caveriansia approaching him, "Just the dragon I was looking for."
"What's going o-"
"No time to explain," The young fire-dragoness general said, "Quickly round up six of your best warriors and meet me and Issan at the Southern Pass."
"Okay, but-"
"As I said, no time to explain." Caveriansia interrupted and turned, flying away.
"How odd." Spyro muttered as he too flew off to find the seven he thought were the best in his squads.
***Southern Pass, Mountain of Malefor***
Issan scanned the fourteen dragons assembled, and nodded in approval. "As you know we have been chasing the wyverns for quite some time now," Issan began, making eye contact with each one of them as he spoke, "Yet they flee whenever we engage them. So the question is where do they flee to. That is why I've gathered you all here, to find where these halflings nest."
As Issan paused the assembled dragons nodded. Issan took a deep breath and continued. "I'm sending you into the badlands north of here to track them down and then report back to me so we may annihilate the wyverns in one massive attack. You have been selected becuase you are the best, and I expect nothing less. Generals Spyro Chaplion and Caveriansia Leon will be in charge of the mission. Am I understood."
The dragons let out a chorus of "Aye Sir!"s and Issan nodded to Spyro and Caveriansia as they began to explain their plan. Issan turned and walked away, confident in his team's ability and probable success.
***Old Temple***
"No no no, you must feel the electricity, not just exert your will on it." Volteer scolded Watts as the young Guardian-to-be failed to sustain an electric attack. The two electric dragons had been at the Old Temple for three weeks now, and Volteer had trained Watts virtually nonstop. During that time, the others who had accompanied them had been busy restoring the Temple and had transferred three-fourths of the eggs back to the here to the Old Temple, "the electricity must become an extension of you consciousness, not simply an alien force to be manipulated."
"But how do I "feel" it?" Watts asked, aggravated with himself and his uncle's vague instruction as he attempted to control the electricity emitted by a small thunder crystal. Slowly and tentatively the electricity began to concentrate into a small ball at the tip of the crystal.
"Yes, yes! Now, let it come to you." Volteer encouraged as the ball of electrical energy slowly started to drift toward Watts, but then it wavered and dissipated into the air.
"Gaahh!" Watts yelled, slamming his tail into the ground, "This is impossible!"
"No, it's not," Volteer corrected, "It's just hard. Most dragons never come this far, but it is just the beginning of your training to be a Guardian."
"I'll never be good enough," Watts muttered, hanging his head down in disgrace.
"With that attitude certainly not." Volteer chastised, "Besides, your doing well, it took me almost eight weeks to manipulate electricity like you just did."
"Really?" Watts asked.
"Yes, it will take you at least ten years to be ready for the Trial of Thunder by my estimate," Volteer said, "It took me twelve years of training to be ready, and there was a war going on. Of course at that point everyone thought it was winding down since Malefor's first insurrection was put down and he was banished from this realm. It was just mopping up the rest of the ape forces and rebel dragons that was left. I was just twenty at the time. Extraordinary, it feels like ages ago yet it happened only about 150 years ago, a mer blink in the eye of history. The 150th year of the Age of Tribulation, Malefor defeated and a new group of Guardians. I was the youngest of the group-"
"Uncle," Watts interrupted, "Not that it's not interesting, it's just I've head this at least fifty times before."
"Hmm...oh, yes, well it doesn't hurt to hear it again," Volteer sighed, slightly offended, "but nevertheless, you're right, we must continue. Now, slowly this time, stretch out with your mind and call to the electricity."
Watts nodded and began to try again.
***Badlands***
Spyro and his team of six flew over the desolated landscape in silence. The Badlands had been destroyed during the Great War between the dragons and the wyverns and used to be lush and green when it was the wyvern homeland, but now hardly anything made its home here. It was nearly one-hundred miles of wasteland.
"So, General," one of his dragons, a red and black fire drake named Ereon, started, "How exactly did you get your last name?"
Spyro laughed, thinking about the anti-climatic ceremony, "Well, about a year after Cynder and I saved the world, Cyril brought up the fact that neither of us had house names. He insisted that we have one, since we were such great heros and all. Actually I just think he couldn't stand the blank space beside our names in the Book of Records."
"Most likely." A icy-blue ice dragoness, named Ienia, commented, "My uncle is a stickler about such things."
"Anyway," Spyro said, continuing is tale, "I was "invited" to the City Council Chambers along with Cynder and sat there while they argued over what my last name should be."
"Bet it was boring," A green and mud-orange colored earth dragon, named Vergor, commented.
"Extremely," Spyro laughed, looking down to check their position and sighed as he saw nothing of interest, "After about an hour of that they finally christened me the first member of the house of Chaplion and Cynder the first (and last, as she would take the house of the drake she joins) member of the house of Heren."
"Oh, I get it," Ienia cut-in, "Chaplion means champion in the Ancient language..."
"And Heren means Heroin." A grey and blue wind dragoness, called Werena, finished.
"Yep," Spyro confirmed, "Now if the Council would spend as much time fixing the city as they did handing out names..."
"Hey," Vermous, a yellow and tan electric dragon, shouted, pointing down, "Is it me or are those rocks moving?"
"Moving rocks?" Spyro questioned as he looked were his squadmate had pointed. Sure enough, it appeared that two rocks where moving quickly across the desert floor, "Werena, what are those things."
"Look to be Rock Wraiths," The wind dragoness stated, "Though it's rare to see one above ground."
"I would even go to say they're running from something." Vergor commented. Right as the words left his maw a rumbling noise came from the ground and a huge worm-like creature covered in armor-like scales with a mouth nearly fifty yards long filled with teeth spewed forth from the ground and devoured the wraiths.
"Holy Ancestors!" Ienia gasped, "What was that!"
"A Sandworm," Spyro said as started to veer left, away from where the monster had emerged, "We need to move. Those things can jump high enough to-"
"Dragonssss!" Spyro turned his head to see five grey wyverns flying towards them on an intercept course coming in from the left.
"Deltan formation!" The legendary purple general ordered as he and his company formed into a spear shaped flight pattern with Spyro as the spear point. The company then ascended to a higher altitude. "Stay well above the ground and keep one another in sight at all times!" Spyro commanded and his team the broke formation and engaged the wyverns.
The wyverns, to their credit, had the clear advantage of speed, but not power or numbers. Spyro easily took down the first wyvern with a ferocious fire blast. The second wyvern was killed by Vermous' lightning and a ice shard to the heart from Ienia. The third wyvern had longer to live as he and Ereon fought claw-to-claw until Vergor impaled the wyvern with his tailspike.
The next two wyverns engaged Werena and the final member of the group, an ice dragon named Cien. One wyvern hit Cien hard with a wind blast and quickly dug its claws into the ice dragon, killing him instantly. "Cien!" Werena screamed and launched an air blast of her own, shedding its wings and sending the now flightless lizard to the ground. Werena's victory was short lived, though, as she too was sent tumbling to the ground with the last wyvern on top of her, clawing at her armor.
"Werena!" Ereon yelled as he and Vergor dived towards her as she pushed way from the wyvern. As they approached, a rumbling was heard and the Sandworm leaped from the ground and devoured wyvern.
"Holy Ancestors!" Vergor yelled as he and Ereon caught Werena just before she hit the ground, "That thing just ate it in one gulp!"
"Werena, are you alright?" Ereon asked as he gently laid her down.
"I can't move my wings." She replied meekly as her wings hung uselessly at her sides.
"Whats the situation?" Spyro asked as he landed next to his troops.
"I can't fly sir and-!" Werena was cut off by another rumbling as the Sandworm rose up from the ground.
"Take Werena, I'll cover you!" The general commanded his remaining troops as he took flight towards the advancing Sandworm. As the two closed the gap between them, Spyro launched a fire ball. The Sandworm twisted its body and allowed the fire ball to harmlessly hit its armored hide.
"Well, th-" Spyro muttered as his velocity and the monster's movement caused them to collide, doing more damage to the young dragon than the giant worm. Spyro fell to the ground, roaring in pain and holding his right foreleg. The Sandworm descended into the ground to prepare for its next strike. Spyro pushed the pain out of his mind and concentrated, focusing on his earth element, feeling out the ground.
As the trembling began the legendary purple dragon leaped into the sky (using his wind element to give him an extra boost) moments before the Sandworm erupted from the surface. Spyro then built up his electrical energy and unleash them into the mouth of the beast. The Sandworm collapsed back down, its insides cooked by Spyro's electric blast. The victorious dragon flew back to his troops, painting and holding his foreleg, but otherwise uninjured.
"That was amazing!" Ereon commented, still helping Werena walk.
Spyro remained silent for a bit, counting his troops, "Cien didn't make it, did he?"
"No sir," Werena said, looking down, "It's my fault sir, he was my wing man. I-"
"Werena!" Spyro interrupted, chasing her to shrink a bit, "This is war, Cien was ready to give his life. Honor his memory, do not diminish his sacrifice by placing the blame on yourself!"
"...Aye sir."
"Besides, he was my responsibility," Spyro stated in a less severe tone, "You all are, and that is why we must pull back. Werena, I'm going to use my wind element to carry you, but I'll need your help to stabilize it, understood?"
"Aye." The injured wind dragoness answered, this time more confidentiality.
"Everyone else, keep a look put for more wyverns."
***A distance away from Spyro's scouting troop, hidden within a cliff face***
"That was too close." The sand colored wyvern muttered to the dark green wyvern. Both were dressed in plate armor made from the hide of the Sandworm, marking them as elites. "They were basically on top of our base. If we where discovered!"
"It would have made little difference," The green wyvern stated, his eyes locked on the retreating dragons, "Soon we will reveal ourselves, and dragon blood will run like a river!"
"But what about Tykron, don't we have a deal with him?"
"His blood will join his fellows," The green wyvern sneered, "Just like the rest."