Where do all of these portals lead to?" Spyro thought aloud.
"I didn't even know this room was here!" Ripto said again.
"Uhhhh…you already said that in the last chapter, Shorty."
"Yeah, well I didn't know this room was here!"
"Again."
"Grrr…I'll shut up now."
"Hooray!" yelled Elora.
"WHY, YOU LITTLE…!" Ripto yelled at the faun. He was just so angry and tired from all of the events that had taken place in the last chapter, that he shot a beam of magic fire at Elora. She was blasted off of her feet, and flew who knows how many feet into the air. She was then knocked into a nearby portal that just happened to be turned on. She vanished with a small 'ZAP.'
"We've gotta follow her!" Spyro yelled at Ripto's face.
"What do you mean by we, Dragon?"
"Well…I only have my flame breath, and if there's bigger trouble in wherever world Elora is right now, then we'll need your magic to get rid of it! You know what I mean?" Spyro finished.
"Sooo…you're admitting that my magic is more powerful than your flame breath?"
"In a way…kind of. Sort of – ish."
"Well, I don't want to go! I'm hungry! I'll go find my way back to the kitchen now! Bye!"
"Wait! Here's a cookie!"
Spyro handed Ripto a sugar cookie.
"Where did you get this cookie?"
"Found it."
"Found it where?"
"On the floor over there."
Spyro pointed to a dark corner.
"Oh! That's ok, then!" Ripto held the cookie up to his nose and sniffed it. When he did, though, a spider went up his nose!
"Wilbur! What are you doing in Ripto's nose?" Spyro said, taking the arachnid that had just exited the Riptoc's nostril.
"Well…" started Wilbur, "I was minding my own business, eating said cookie, when he –" Wilbur turned to look at Ripto. " – decided that his nose would be a better home for me! And…why are you wearing pajamas?" said Wilbur in a high, squeaky voice.
"Why you idiotic, stupid, imbecile." yelled Ripto.
"Running out of insults, now aren't we?" said the purple hero with a smirk.
Meanwhile, Ripto was consulting his "101 Ways To Insult A Spider" book.
"Yeah…there's tons of better ones in here! Eight legged freak, web-spinning weirdo…"
Spyro put the spider back down on the ground.
"Here's yer cookie!" said Spyro, dropping the cookie on top of the spider, and squishing him in the process.
"But…but...but I'm still hungry!" Ripto whined.
Spyro and Ripto then jumped into the portal that Elora had fallen into just a short while ago.
Ripto landed spread-eagled on soft green grass. Spyro came out after from the portal, and landed right on top of him.
"Mamgh grrrsh mvvvthpt! Grrrsh mmmmvvvvtttt mttttvt!" Ripto said from underneath the pile of purple and yellow scales.
"Could you please repeat that?" Spyro said once he had gotten up from his orange, and slightly squashed pillow.
"I said, you're fat! And then, you're crushing me!"
"Did it cause you extreme pain and agony?"
"No, not really."
"Well…dreams can't always come true." Spyro said to himself.
"I still hate you." Ripto said in an emotionless voice.
"Where's Elora?"
"Well…" said Ripto, "there's a faun over there, with a green tank top, and brown hair, but I'm not COMPLETELY sure-"
"Come on!"
Spyro grabbed Ripto by the collar of his pajama shirt, and started dragging him towards Elora. Ripto dug his nails into the soft brown earth, and left claw marks.
"No! I don't wanna go! I'm still hungry! I WANT A COOKIE!" Ripto yelled.
A familiar voice filled Elora's ears, and, as she turned, she saw a Dragon dragging a very angry and confused Riptoc.
"Spyro!" she cried, and she started running towards him.
"Elora? Why didn't you go back through the portal?"
"The portal vanished as soon as I was out! And now it's… gone… again."
"This has happened to me before!" said Spyro. "I think…"
"I go into a portal, and then it closes up behind me. Usually it's just a glitch in the magical barrier around the realm. It should open if you go into a portal, and come back…out…again…" Spyro trailed off.
Spyro looked around in amazement. They could tell that they were in the Forgotten Worlds, (Midnight Mountain to be exact), and it all looked rundown, and it looked like no one had cut the grass, trimmed the weeds, or kept up any of the stone buildings in a bazillion years! It looked like the whole world had been simply deserted, and by the scorch marks in the grass, and footprints here and there, everybody had left in a rush, but aside from those few scorch marks, it looked like no damage had been really done to the place. The grey castles with their gaping opening for small dragons to run through were scarred and slightly crumbling. The bridges were intact but none of the three would have wanted to stand for very long on them, in fear of cracking them and falling into the midnight sky below. Ripto wasn't really paying attention to all this, though. He was off in his own little world.
"Is it just me or does this grass look a little too appetizing?" asked Ripto.
He was holding a handful of grass and looking at it hungrily.
"Go ahead, Shorty, eat it! I'll get my camera." joked Elora.
"Well…" said Spyro, continuing on more important subjects.
"Guys…look at this..."
Everybody looked and noticed what was wrong right away.
"Who DID this!" yelled Elora.
"…she wouldn't…would she?…" Ripto said more to himself then his companions, studying something on the ground closely.
"Who wouldn't do what?" Spyro asked.
"…look at this!" Ripto then picked something up from on a blade of grass. It was some sort of silvery liquid. It was pink-ish blue-ish, and looked magical.
"What IS this stuff?" asked Elora examining the watery substance closer.
"It's discarded magic! See, whenever you use large quantities of magic all in one place, it gives off a certain liquid like this, depending on the type of magic you used for it all. This here, is the Sorceress' magic. I only told Gnasty Gnorc and the Sorceress this spell and so this has got to be The Sorceress's doing!" said Ripto. "She was here, alright."
"Do you think she could have done all this?" asked Spyro, looking around again at all the damage and wreckage done to Midnight Mountain Home.
"There's only one way to find out!" said Elora.
"On to the LAIR!" yelled Spyro.
When the three had gotten to the lair, they found it completely deserted, but it seemed much larger, and had several different doorways leading off into who knows where. The four doorways were connected to the center arena by four long narrow bridges over the boiling lava. All of a sudden, four columns of fire shot up from the lava, right under the four bridges, instantly causing each one in turn to be engulfed by flames, disintegrating them on contact. Then, to everyone's surprise, the four doors, slowly started closing, and ended with a thud that shook the floor of the inner circle.
"This didn't happen last time I was here!" yelled Spyro over the four, still shooting columns of flame.
All of a sudden, from the same door that the three had come in from, three other figures arrived, one was the Sorceress, the other Buzz, and the last one was Scorch.
"Gosh…I expected you three to get out of that Chateau sooner than this…oh well, MORE worlds for me to conquer!" said the Sorceress.
Just then, Spyro started running towards her, flames at the ready, just as the lava in the room started to sink, and get shallower. It was almost like the floor that was under the lava was sinking lower into the ground. The three found out soon that they were now standing atop a pedestal, and then IT started sinking to, but stopped so that it looked like the walls of the lair simply got higher. The Sorceress and her two minions were on a different chunk of rock that was connected to the entrance doorway, (which had sealed itself long ago.) The Sorceress looked down on her victims.
"Well…great job, Ripto! I didn't know you knew how to obey orders!"
"You failed to mention that when you asked a favor of me it would be to LOCK me in my own MANSION!"
"I wouldn't raise my voice if I were you, Ripto!" said the Sorceress.
"Back to business," Ripto continued, "I did what you asked me to, you have Spyro here AND Elora! Now can I PLEASE leave to go clear those rocks away from my front doors! …remind me again why I agreed to this craziness?" said Ripto with a roll of his eyes.
"You agreed because you know that I found a spell more powerful that all of your magic put together, and…if you didn't do what I asked…I would have killed you. Since now I have the ability to do so." The Sorceress said with a smirk.
Spyro and Elora were confused. A lot.
"What do you mean? Can you PLEASE tell us WHAT is going ON here?"
"Why should I tell you?." Said Ripto.
"Umm…because I asked politely?"
"Okay. Well…Sor happened to have stumbled upon a spell that she never even knew existed…
-CUE FLASHBACK-
The Sorceress was sitting at a desk in her lair, reading a book she stole from a Rhynoc on the street that morning.
"Whoa! Look at all these cool spells!" said the Sorceress.
Reading; "Caution: do not combine any two spells. Serious penalty. And a 50,000 gem fine."
But the Sorceress was just way too curious. She combined three spells: one that gave her a limited time of invincibility, one that would allow her spells to become five times more powerful than usual, and a spell that would let any spell she cast from now on, be able to travel extremely long distances, and to where ever she wanted the magic to go. All of these spells, when used singularly only lasted for a few hours at a time.
She later learned from another passage in the book, that combining only two spells has fatal effects, but combining three spells had never been done before, so not even the book knew what would happen with them. What DID happen, though, was this: The three spells worked, but she now had them permanently…
"With all this invincibility and fancy new magic, I could easily take over any world or realm that I want! Gee…I've always liked Avalar. But wait! I'm willing to bet a bazillion gems that that purple pest will try to defeat me again! And what about Ripto? He'll probably just try to compete with me over control of Avalar! …no matter…I'll make him my second in command, because he has almost as much knowledge of magic right now as I did before the three spells! Perfect! But I'll have to get rid of Spyro first…I also should stop randomly speaking my mind about my evil plans to take over the world…I should do something about that. Maybe Ripto knows a good therapist.
-END FLASHBACK-
"So then, she told me that if I didn't follow her orders, she'd kill me, so she told me to buy a custom made peanut butter and jelly machine – " "
Then Elora interrupted him.
"But how did Spyro know that you had an automatic peanut butter and jelly machine at your house?" she said through mouth fulls of popcorn. Her and Spyro were eating popcorn and listening intently to Ripto's story telling.
"Well…"
-QUE FLASHBACK-
-INTERRUPT FLASHBACK-
"Oh greeeeat. Another flashback"
"Shut up dragon!"
-QUE FLASHBACK AGAIN-
"Do you want another sandwich?"
"No thanks"
"What about you, Gnasty?"
"Sure"
Ripto, The Sorceress, Gnasty Gnorc, Red the Fallen Dragon Elder and Grendor were all sitting on the front steps of Chateau Ripto next to Ripto's new automatic peanut butter and jelly sandwich machine, and were taking a lunch break from discussing the Spyro problem and whatnot. All of a sudden, Spyro, Elora, Hunter, Bianca, Sparx and Zoe came walking up a path that ran from the inner village of the Fairy Realms, to Avalar. And apparently through Ripto's neighborhood.
Now, Hunter was walking along, talking to Bianca minding his own business, and not paying attention to anything to where he was going in the least.
Then it happened.
Out of nowhere, flying through the air, came a sandwich. It hit Hunter square in the forehead, and he went falling to the ground.
"MAN DOWN!" yelled Elora. Everybody rushed to his aid, everyone, that its, except for Spyro. He was more interested to see where the destructive snack came from. Then he saw all of his least favorite people sitting together on the stairs of Ripto's mansion, laughing their butts off.
Spyro and Sparx ran up to the steps.
"ALRIGHT! Which one of you meanies threw that sandwich?" Sparx demanded, although childishly.
"Like we're gonna listen to a stupid bug!" said Ripto.
"Sparx…let me handle this…" Spyro said, turning to his winged buddy.
"WHICH ONE OF YOU MEANIES THREW THAT SANDWICH?" the little dragon yelled at the top of his lungs in a manly voice.
"RED!" everybody said, and pointed at the fallen dragon elder.
Then Spyro had fun beating up Red.
Then he beat up Ripto just because he didn't like him. Spyro started walking away, but then turned around.
"Oh, and one more thing. Can Hunter borrow a band aid?"
"You don't mean to tell me that a sandwich cut him?" said Gnasty rudely.
"Yeah…those crusts are SOOO sharp, aren't they!" joked Grendor.
"No! He hurt his knee!" said Spyro, very ticked off about this, and grabbed a sandwich, thanked Ripto for said sandwich, and left.
-END FLASHBACK-
"Does that answer your question?"
"Yes."
"So…but what I did NOT KNOW, " he said and turned to look at the Sorceress,
"was that she would lock me in my own Chateau when you came over! With you guys!"
"You mean YOU created the earthquake?" asked Elora.
"Yeah. It all apparently worked, though, didn't it?" said the Sorceress.
"I now own Avalar, and the Forgotten Worlds, and now I'm going to kill you all! MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!"
"ALL?" screamed Ripto,
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL, HUH? YOU PROMISED MY FREEDOM AND CONTROL OF WINTER TUNDRA IF I BROUGHT SPYRO HERE! AND I DID! NOW LET ME GO!"
"NO! I DON'T HAVE TO! HAH!"
"…but…that's not fair…"
"You ARE stupid, aren't you! You're an evil villain. You of all people should know that we don't play fair!" she said to Ripto.
"…figures…" muttered Spyro.
Just then, the Sorceress jumped down from her seat up top of the lair, and landed a few feet from Ripto, and immediately started laughing.
"…what's so funny?" asked Ripto.
"Why are you wearing pajamas?"
"Oh. I forgot." He said, looking down at the clothes.
Ripto then used his Scepter to start to transform his clothes, but when he was all done transforming, except for his bunny slippers, the Sorceress yelled,
"THINK FAST!" and shot a beam of green magic at the Riptoc. Ripto's scepter flew out of his hand and landed at Spyro's feet. Spyro picked up the Scepter for the second time in the story, and pointed it at Ripto. But then, Buzz and Scorch, who haven't really been saying or doing anything for the last few paragraphs, started to attack Elora and Spyro.
Spyro then started to shoot the Scepter at Scorch, but it had no effect on him. He dropped the Scepter, and it went falling to the side, since Spyro had already cast a spell on himself to make his wings more powerful, they were both fighting in the air.
Meanwhile, Buzz was trying to knock Elora off the platform into the boiling lava. She was pretty good at dodging his attacks, but not anything else. Elora now was standing on the very edge of the platform. If someone pushed her just a little bit, she would most certainly fall.
"…uh…that's a good boy, Buzz…sit! Stay!"
Buzz sat down on the ground like a dog would.
"Whoa. This is easy…" whispered Elora.
"…um…let's see…roll over, Buzz."
Buzz did. But the spikes on his back grew sharper and started to stick out, and he started chasing Elora, just like in the game when he pops out of the lava. All Elora could do was out run the green monster.
"Uh…Buzz…play dead! PLAY DEAD!"
But he didn't listen this time.
Then, she did something very stupid. She stopped. But Buzz didn't. He kept rolling, and Elora simply stepped out of the way, just enough for Buzz to go rolling right over the edge of the platform.
Scorch was defeated by now too. He was laying on the side of the arena with flame marks all over him.
Spyro, it turned out, had broken his leg, his arm, and had several wounds already. Elora was so tired out from the running, that she could barely move, and Ripto and the Sorceress were still battling.
The Sorceress was just fine, but Ripto was another story. He had several cuts that were bleeding freely and looked worse for the wear. And then, to add insult to injury, he was still wearing his Bunny slippers that he hadn't changed yet when his Scepter got knocked out of his hands.
"Gosh, whatever book you got those spells from must have been pretty powerful, huh? …what was the name of that book, anyway?"
"I guess there's no harm in telling you, but it was called 'Maps and Guides to Magic and Spells: Special Edition.'…why?"
"Oh my Gods!" said Ripto, as he dodged another blast, but only narrowly missed it.
"And you say you stole it from a Rhynoc in the streets, huh?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Did you happen to know that just a few weeks ago, I had a Rhynoc, claiming to have been a friend of Grendor's, come to my house, and she wanted to borrow a book with the SAME title! Coincidence? I think not!"
"Woah! So that was your book? Weird! But oh well."
And with that, she conjured up enough magic to make Ripto fly into the air when the spell hit, and make him fall back down again with a loud thump.
He landed on his right leg and crushed it.
He just lay there for a while, not moving much, until he said,
"And I know what happens after the three spells are combined…"
"Yeah! so do I! THIS!" and then the Sorceress fired her wand again, and nicked Ripto in the arm this time, but instead of the blast of magic being neon green, it was more of a grayish-dark green, and it wasn't as powerful.
"No…" said Ripto, getting into a sitting position.
"One spell, when cast on yourself, gives you the power - but for a limited time, two spell mixed together will kill you, but three spells mixed together…have much worse consequences…"