A/N: sorry for the delay. I had a slow writing week.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Spyro, only my OC's

Chapter 3: Defending the Temple

Gneiss' POV

It seemed that once again, trouble had found us. The temple, which we'd worked so hard to make a safe haven, was once again under assault by the dark armies. We ran forwards and came to a courtyard, where the Apes were waiting for us.

"The Purple dragon and the Three!" said the Ape leader.

"Hey ugly ape guy!" taunted Sparx, "Ooh ooh ooh! Now that we've exchanged pleasantries, can we fight?"

The Ape leader ordered his underlings to charge us.

"Or at least you guys can fight and I'll watch," added Sparx.

We defeated the initial pair of Apes quickly, but they soon were reinforced by more Apes and War Hounds. After several waves the Ape commander leapt down to join the fray, throwing ice bombs at us, which we dodged. We took out the rest of the enemies soon after. Once the battle had concluded, we examined the area and found that the door had sealed itself to protect against intruders, and that the statues were now out of place. We pushed the two ground level statues back to where they belonged, and then climbed up to the ledge with the door, only to find that the third statue was completely absent. However, by standing on the pressure plate, we could get the door to open, but it would close a few seconds after the pressure plate was released.

"You guys go on ahead," said Spyro, "I'll hold the switch, and follow you through".

We ran through the open doorway, and then watched as Spyro bent time to slip through behind us, to the amazement of Tempest and Jolt.

"How in ancestor's name did you do that?" asked Tempest.

"I learned it from that weird dream we had," replied Spyro.

Inside, Spyro and I lit the braziers to open the next door, then we all ran down the hall and watched as a group of apes intending to ambush us fell through a weakened section of floor.

"Whoops! Didn't see that coming!" said Sparx.

After we carefully avoided the gaping hole in the floor, we came to a room were several Apes ran in, and blew out the braziers. We fought through the Apes and relit the braziers, opening the path forwards.

We passed through the next hall, which was entirely uneventful, and soon emerged outside where we saw a group of Apes get dropped it, only to be eaten by giant spiders. The spiders the turned to us, spitting a web orb. We quickly scattered to avoid it, and then surrounded the spider, and knocked onto its back, at which point we squashed it. We then repeated the method for the remaining spiders.

Next we came to an area with another set of braziers and a beautiful cascading waterfall. When we opened the door we were greeted by an… Ape riding an enormous snail? We dashed over to this snail rider and blasted the snail with our elements, causing it to retreat into its shell, and then leapt up and defeated the Ape, which for some reason defeated the snail as well. We went into the next hall, and relit then next set of braziers, which opened another door, and let in a pair of War Hounds, who we fought our way past.

Jolt's POV

The new power that had been given to me by the Chronicler had already more than proven it's worth, allowing us to avoid several surprise attacks.

As we continued, I received an image in my mind of the floor around the next bend crumbling beneath our feet. As we stepped on the floor in question, my vision came true.

"Everyone, jump back!" I shouted, "The floor's collapsing!"

We leapt back just in time, as the floor tumbled away into the abyss below.

"Why does the temple have an abyss beneath its floors anyway?" wondered Gneiss, "It's not exactly a very safe design".

"Good question, but we've got more pressing matters right now, wouldn't you agree?" Replied Tempest.

Luckily, there were just enough stable floor sections left for us to glide across.

On the far side, we fought our way past yet more Apes, then broke through a wall of vines blocking this disused part of the temple before emerging into another courtyard. As we entered the courtyard, another group of Dreadwings flew over, followed by the doors on the far side of the courtyard opening admitting one Ape and two War Hounds. They didn't last long. I then noticed that this area had a mirror array like the one from my dream and, with the aid of the others, I got it aligned properly, and then spat a beam of light into the mirrors, opening the door. As we progressed, I noticed that the part of the temple we were traveling through was rapidly getting more and more overgrown. We bashed through another set of vines and then carefully maneuvered through a hall were most of the floor had crumbled away. Next we came the end of this hall, where vine had grown covering a hole in the floor.

We smashed through the vines and then fought our way out through a quartet of giant spiders. We moved down the passageway, which looked to be more of a natural cavern than purposefully carved, fighting through some Toadweeds and more spiders along the way. As we continued we came upon another snail rider, this time guarded by Toadweeds. We used the same method from before, the mopped up the stragglers. As the last Toadweed fell, the wall of vine that had been blocking our path burst apart on its own, allowing us to continue. We moved forwards jumping up a series of ledges, and then leapt to the sides of the next tunnel as an Ape rolled a lit powder keg at us. We took him out soon after.

Tempest's POV

We continued into the next room, which was dominated by a large, naturally formed stone pillar that made a convenient ledge for crossing the room. Once we crossed, we found that the door on this side was sealed. We looked around the area attempting to find a way to open it, when I noticed a series of small ledges on the sides of the main one, and saw some fans on them. I quickly hopped over to these fans and used my Wind to get them spinning, which opened the door.

As we moved up the tunnel towards the door, we were assaulted by yet another group on enemies in the seemingly endless supply our foes had to throw at us. After getting past them, we finally found ourselves outside again, where we came upon ANOTHER group of Apes.

"This is certainly getting repetitive," said Spyro, Unleashing his Fire fury.

Of course, as soon as this group fell, another appeared, and once those were gone we had to contend with Giant Spiders!

After finally clearing that area, we climbed up the ledges to the exit, which the spiders had unintentionally opened for us. As we entered the next area, we came upon a scene we'd seen before: Ape getting dropped in by Dreadwing, only to be eaten by the Giant Spiders. One of the Dreadwings dropped a bomb onto one of the spiders, blowing it away. I noticed that Spyro and the others were shielding their eyes at this sight.

We hopped across the ledges to the main part of this area, and defeated the spiders that seemed determined to hinder up. We crossed the next series of ledges, but Gneiss didn't get quite enough altitude on his jump, and I had to use Wind to keep him from falling.

"Thanks Tempest," said Gneiss, "good catch".

"Your welcome," I replied.

We advanced to the next section where we came across a Snail Rider, along with a catapult. We defeated the Ape and its rather unorthodox mount, and then located the ammo for the catapult under a mass of roots. We bashed through the roots and collected the stone orb, which triggered the appearance of a small army of Toadweeds. We shoved out was through them and loaded the catapult, then fired it, smashing down the vine wall that was blocking our path. We continued on, and came to yet another courtyard-like space, overgrown with thorny plants and infested with Apes. We fought our way past them, and the Jolt and I watched as Spyro and Gneiss lit the braziers, opening the nearby door.

We hurried down the new path only to find ourselves on a ledge overlooking the balcony where we started this misadventure. Down below we saw Ignitus facing off against about ten Apes at a time… and he was winning.

Gneiss' POV

As we arrived and saw Ignitus squaring off against so many apes at once and winning, I started to wonder if our haste had been unnecessary, until the Ape began to overrun Ingnitus.

"Ignitus!" we shouted together.

"Get down here young dragons!" said Ignitus ducking under a leaping Ape, "We need your help!"

As we glided down to assist him, a thickly armored Ape riding a Dreadwing flew by.

"Focus your attention on the purple dragons and its companions," said the Ape, its voice muffled by the mask it was wearing.

As we came into land the Ape who had tackled Ignitus turned to face us. It was the last mistake they ever made, as Ignitus took this opportunity to unleash his Fury, blowing the entire group of apes away.

Of course, we weren't given a respite since another group of ape was dropped it behind us. After we fought them off, the commander of this assault flew his Dreadwing over to confront us directly.

"You're on your own with this one guys," stuttered Sparx, who was obviously terrified.

"This one?" said Spyro, "How is that different than then last one?"

"Or the one before that?" I added.

"Prepare to die!" Mumbled the Ape commander, who seemed to be annoyed we weren't paying attention to him.

"Huh?" said Spyro.

"Something about preparing to die," said Sparx, "Either that, or he wants us to repair a pie. Yeah… no…yeah".

We flew up and began to strafe the Ape, blasting him with our elements. He was tougher than any other foe we'd fought recently, but with our combined might; he soon fled, along with the remaining Apes.

"You haven't seen the last of me!" the Ape shouted incomprehensively.

"I'm just gonna assume you said 'it was great meeting you and have a nice day'," said Sparx.

As we returned to the balcony, we saw Ignitus emerging from the temple once again looking, luckily, no worse of wear.

"Is everyone alright?" Ignitus asked.

"I think so, Ignitus," I responded.

He then looked over our group, and posed us another question: "Where's Cynder?"

We went to walk alongside him, and told him what had happened as we headed back inside.

A/N: Next time: Spyro and the others learn more of the Chronicler from the Guardians, and prepare to set out once again.

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