The Potion

This is the fourth part! :D

The next morning, Spyro and Elora were sick and tired of Ripto's sudden change in attitude. Even though the happy Riptoc had taken the liberty of making everybody ice cream sundaes (that includes the servants too), and, since Spyro and Elora were watching Ripto's every move, just to make sure that he didn't do anything that he, (or them) would regret when he got turned back to normal, saw Ripto alphabetizing his sock drawer. Ripto had also changed his outfit to go with his attitude. Now, instead of his normal purple cape, white shirt and black shiny shoes, he wore blue jeans, and a brown shirt that said something about MTV on it. And he also wore sneakers instead of those really ugly black things he used to call shoes.

Elora had spent all of Monday morning going through the spell books in Ripto's library, and only found things like, "How To Cure (And Cause) Your Own Nosebleeds", " How To Kill A Dragon: 101 Ways To Put A Winged Reptile In Pain", and one called "My Pretty Pony."

"I swear, I must have looked through this whole library by now, and I haven't found anything!" Elora complained. She was holding up one book in particular called "Common Counter curses." The book looked about at least a trillion years old, and it smelled like cheddar cheese. Spyro took the book that the Faun was holding, just as Elora said…

"I have looked at every single page in that book at least three times if not more each, so I wouldn't waste my time if I were you."

Spyro took the book and opened it up to a random page: "The Smafton Mystiria Counter curse." He read aloud, as Elora's eyes bugged out.

"WHAT! I SPENT MY WHOLE DAY LOOKING THROUGH THAT BOOK AND DON'T FIND A THING, AND NOW, YOU OPEN IT UP AND THERE IT IS! MY SECOND GRADE TEACHER WAS RIGHT! I AM A FALIER! I'M NEVER GONNA GET A JOB AND I'LL WIND UP MARRIED WITH FOURTEEN KIDS AND LIVING IN A CARDBOARD BOX! MY LIFE IS RUINED!" Then she started with the water works.

"Elora, Elora, settle down! You're not going to live in a cardboard box! And we're definitely not gonna have fourteen children!"

"We're? Aww, Spyro!" said Elora, her self-pity forgotten.

"Yeah…now it says here that we have to make a potion. It'll only take as long as we need to gather up the objects, soooo…" Spyro cut in. "We just have to do what it says in the book and then say some silly words and he'll be back to normal? Not that he was normal to start with, but…"

"Yep! Now it says here the list of items. We're gonna need the eye of a Dragon, the tusk of a boar, the thing that, when he was normal, he hated most, and the thing when he was normal that he liked most. Then we just put them into a cauldron together, and voila! The old Ripto is back!"

"OK! But why do we really want the old Ripto back anyways?"

"Yes, because if we just left him that way, this story would end here, and everyone, including the author would be disappointed!

"I wouldn't" came a voice from some random reader.

"You be quiet or I'll set Ripto and his scepter on you! Now…where were we? Oh, yes."

"So what do you think are Ripto's most hated and most beloved things?" asked Spyro. "Oh, yeah, and you'll have to look somewhere else for the Dragon eye, because I have to be able to read maps if I ever go on anymore quests."

"Well, don't worry about that, because we can get all of the animal stuff from Ripto's Scepter and just conjure them up, but for his most prized possession… maybe his Scepter?" said Elora.

"Yeah! But what about the thing that he hates the most?" Spyro just sat in his chair that he had, and was scanning his brain. Elora was just staring at him,

"Elora? Why are you looking at me like that?" Elora just continued to stare at the purple Dragon.

"Oh! Now I know what you mean, but I'm not purposely jumping into a pot of unknown chemicals!"

"No, no, no! We'll just take a piece of you and put it in." said the Faun.

"Ummmm… no, I'd like to keep all of me just the way it is right now, thank you very much." stated Spyro.

"No! I mean like… like… a scale or something!"

"Oh. Cool! Here…" Spyro painfully pulled out a scale from the end of his tail. He dropped it in a pot, which had so conveniently been setting there all this time.

Spyro and Elora had no trouble finding the other ingredients that they needed for the concoction in the store cabinets of his kitchen, so all that they had left now, was Ripto's Scepter.

"Well…first we're gonna need to find Shorty and politely ask him if we can borrow his Scepter for just a few minutes." said Elora.

"Whatdaya mean politely ask him? We're going to take the wand right out from under his nose whether he sees us or not! Now where do you think he would be?"

"Well," said Elora, "He did mention something about taking a nap when we passed him in the hallway…so this will be easier than I thought!"

Spyro and Elora walked down the dark hallways that led them from the library to the Grand Bedroom. Even though they were lit with small torches that hung upon the walls, they were still black and mysterious. As they neared Ripto's room, they opened the door just a crack, and, sure enough, there were snores issuing from a bed which was bathed in shadow.

"Now, if you were Ripto, where would you keep a Scepter?

"Well…" Spyro put on a voice that was so close to Ripto's, it was scary. "I keep my Scepter in a locked cage, which has many more pad locks than is necessary on it, only opens to my voice saying a secret code word, and is guarded by rabid Australian attack goldfish! But when I don't want to go through all that, I just leave it on the end of the bed and hope it will still be there in the morning!"

"Come on! I'm not kidding. Let's turn on the light, so we can maybe see the Scepter, or the Scepter's, "Goldfish guarded cage" as you put it." Elora felt around on the wall next to the door way in the chances of maybe finding a light switch. She did, and she flipped it to the "On" position. With the light on, they could see the room just fine. There was Ripto, in a dark purple nightcap, with the covers pulled up to his chin, and snoozing away in a huge, royal bed, that looked like ten Ripto's could lay in it side by side and fit comfortably. In a slightly shorter and smaller bed right next to his, was the Scepter, with a blanket on, and a matching purple nightcap!

When the little Dragon saw this, he started laughing, but stopped immediately, when Elora grabbed his snout and held it shut tight. Spyro then silently crept up to the Scepter's bed, and grabbed the wand, nightcap and all! They then started back towards the doorway, finally taken their last ingredient for the potion. But just as Spyro went to turn the light off, he paused. He turned around to face the sleeping Riptoc, and started to make silly faces!

"Uggghhh…come on, Spyro." Said Elora, as she dragged him out of the room, turning off the light in the process.

When they got back to that one particular hallway that was scarier than the others, they both held hands and started creeping down it walking very close together out of fright. All of a sudden, Elora screamed, ducked, and hid behind her Dragon friend.

"Elora, it-it's just a spider!" said Spyro, trying to calm his girlfriend down.

"A-a sp-spider?" said Elora. She screamed even louder.

"I thought it was only a dust ball!" she cried.

"Then why did you scream the first time?"

"Well, what would you do if you saw a dust ball the exact shape and size of Ripto?"

Sure enough, Spyro turned and saw a short figure standing in the shadow of the wall, half of its face illuminated by the moonlight that was filtering in through a window. (Lightning flashes through window in background.)

"Ahhh, I see you've found my Scepter for me." said Ripto. He was still in his pajamas. He didn't look all that threatening in purple pants and a purple pinstriped shirt.

"Now…give me my Scepter so I can blast you into little bite-sized pieces."

"Wha…? said Spyro.

"Why are you evil again? We haven't made the potion yet, and we need your Scepter to make it! I mean, what else could be more important to you?" said Elora, rolling her eyes. "And" Elora added, "how, when you were still super nice, did you want all of a sudden to become evil again? Huh?"

"One, my Ruby necklace. And B, the spell was wearing off very quickly for some reason. I'll have you know, that before I took my nap, I put this medallion in when you were out getting stuff from my store cabinets!" replied Ripto. "Now give me the Scepter, and nobody gets hurt - except you."

"Oh, that sounds like a fair bargain!" said Spyro sarcastically.

"And, why would that necklace mean soooo much to you anyway?" asked Elora.

"I'll have you know, that that medallion was given to me by some one named Mandie… Not that you would have the slightest chance to know who she was!"

"Oh, yeah we do! It all started on July third when you were fourteen!" said Spyro, forgetting that they had kept the reading of the diary pretty well hidden from Ripto. Or so they thought.

"Oops!" said Spyro as he covered his mouth.

"I-I-I mean…the raccoon told me?" Spyro said stupidly.

"You stupid idiots! I knew that you read the dairy, but what I didn't know was that you READ THAT ENTRY!"

"Uhhh…yeah…we sorta…did."

Ripto, who was as mad as a bear that had just been robbed, lunged at Spyro, Scepter glowing like mad. But, instead of using his Scepter for magic, held it like a bat in front of him. Without warning, Ripto swung his Scepter at the confused Dragon and missed – missed the Dragon at least. He did manage to hit Elora though, with a sickening thwack!

"Oops. Missed."

Spyro just mouthed wordlessly and stared at the injured Faun. Spyro looked at the Riptoc and started to run at him; Ripto just started freaking out, and he just ran as fast as he could. But the problem was, Ripto was never the best in his Gym class when he was at school, as a matter of fact, he was horrible! Spyro caught up to him in no time, and flamed him!

Meanwhile, Elora had just woken up. She was a little shaken, but all in all, she was ok. She dashed after Spyro and Ripto, and soon caught up with them. Ripto was running so fast after that wave of heat, that he just happened to run through a hallway, and ducked down a different one. After taking several sharp turns, and darting down staircases and more hallways still, he finally lost that purple pest. He was leaning against a wall, trying to catch his breath, when Spyro took a sharp turn right down Ripto's hallway.

They wound up crashing into each other, and, since Ripto had his Scepter, he decided to turn the tables, and started chasing Spyro around. But, unfortunately, Spyro was a bit worn out from all of that running earlier, so he wasn't as fast as usual. Spyro wasn't paying attention to where he was going, and soon wound up in a room that he had never seen before. He stopped so fast that he made Ripto slam into him, and fell to the ground. Elora, still behind them, tripped over Ripto and landed on Spyro.

After everybody untangled themselves, they looked around at where they were.

"Oh my gosh!" said Ripto.

"I never even knew this room was here!"

They were in a room full of portals, several of which looked like they worked. Then Spyro spoke.

"Guys, this might just be our ticket out of here!"