-1Disclaimer: I don't own Spyro the Dragon.

Chapter 5

Falling Down Part 2

Spyro sighed as he glanced around the shadowed jungle. He was about to suggest they give up, like Sparx had been suggesting for the last half hour.

"Can we go home now?" The dragonfly whined.

Spyro nodded in defeat. "Yeah, let's go."

Cynder glanced at him as he turned to leave. She glanced back down the path they had been following. With a sigh, she also turned back.

The trio walked in silence before Sparx who had been darting about as usual suddenly stopped. Spyro who had been looking at the ground didn't notice this until the last moment and ended up walking into the dragonfly and knocking him to the ground. Spyro also stopped and Cynder walked right into him, knocking the two over and onto Sparx.

Sparx groaned as he pulled himself out from under Spyro. "Uh! Can you get off me?"

The two dragons stood up and Sparx again took to the air glancing around as though looking for something.

"Why'd you stop anyway?" Spyro asked.

"That's why!" Sparx said pointing into the woods. The two looked in the direction he was pointing and spotted a dragonfly hovering through the forest several feet away.

The dragonfly was pitch black, even its wings. The three ducked down as the dragonfly turned its red eyes on them. Cynder shivered as she was pretty sure she felt a dark presence emanating from the insect.

"That's not natural," Spyro said.

"No duh, Sherlock," Sparx remarked.

"Let's get out of here," Cynder suggested.

The two males nodded and they crept through the underbrush away from the strange dragonfly.

Once they were far enough away from the dragonfly they stood back up and looked around.

"Let's fly the rest of the way back," Sparx suggested.

"But if we fly back we might miss Ignitus!" Cynder protested.

"She's right," Spyro said. He led the way forward and Cynder followed. Sparx stuck his tongue out at the she-dragon's back and then followed.

With a yell, several baboons came flying out of the jungle and surrounded the dragons.

Spyro glanced around at the animals and realized that he couldn't take this many without his breath powers. The baboons leapt and flew over Spyro's head. Spyro spun around as they leapt at Cynder and pinned her down. She bent her neck around and managed to bite one of them in the shoulder.

He started forward to help her, but one of the larger monkeys jumped in front of him and punched Spyro in the head. The purple dragon yelled as he was sent tumbling head over tail backwards. He cried out as he crashed into a tree.

Spyro shook his head and his blurred vision recovered. He growled as he realized that the primates were trying to abduct Cynder and weren't interested in fighting him.

Sparx flew up next to him. "Spyro, maybe we should-."

Spyro leapt at the baboon that had punched him. The monkey had turned its back on him. Spyro flapped his wings and spun around, striking the monkey with his tail. The ape howled and spun around hitting Spyro's side with his weapon and sending the youngster flying. He groaned as he once again impacted with a tree.

"Spyro, help!" Cynder cried as the monkey's started to haul their capture away.

The dragon tried to stand, but groaned and fell back to the ground as the injury in his side flashed in pain.

Sparx glanced around helplessly. He charged toward the group of mammals, yelling a battle cry, or perhaps a scream of terror (it was hard to tell) as he approached them. One of the apes turned and opened its mouth and the hapless Sparx flew right into it. Fortunately, the ape didn't like the taste of dragonfly and spit the dragonfly out in a spray of saliva. The insect slammed into a rock, groaned, and fell unconscious.

"Sparx!" Spyro cried out. He tried to stand again, but his side would not let him and he fell back to the dirt. He looked up and saw that Cynder was losing her struggle to escape. "No!"

"Gee, that's too bad," Spyro looked up and saw the black dragonfly from before resting on a tree branch above him. "You know, I bet if you had even one of your breath attacks you could have beaten them." The dragonfly beat his wings and flew down in front of Spyro.

The dragonfly smirked. "Hey, here's an idea. You let me give you some more power, I bet you could save the girl then."

Spyro glanced past the dragonfly and saw that the baboons had knocked Cynder unconscious and were escaping. He glanced back the dragonfly. Every instinct he had was telling him to say no, but then the apes would escape.

"All right, yes," Spyro said, nodding quickly.

The dragonfly smirked wickedly. "Oh, goody, I just won ten gems! Here we go!" He raised his arms and an orb of purple darkness shot from them and forced itself down Spyro's throat.

Spyro stood up, the pain in his side forgotten as the dragonfly's magic gave him new strength. He looked up and charged at the group of primates. The largest one charged to meet him. Spyro stopped and opened his mouth as the baboon near him. The darkness of the night seemed to bend and form a vortex leading to Spyro's mouth. The ape cried out as it stumbled into this vortex. A glowing white orb flew from the monkey's body toward Spyro. The dragon greedily swallowed it.

As Spyro ate the orb, the monkey's eye took on a horrified look and its eyes seemed sunken when moments before they fiery with the spark of battle. A trickle of blood leaked from its nostrils. The warrior turned and fled.

Spyro smirked as he turned to the rest of the soldiers. The monkeys growled and threw Cynder's unconscious form to the ground. Spyro opened his mouth and the dark vortex returned, sucking the vitality from the charging creatures. As the white orbs were swallowed the monkeys howled in fear and they looked as though they had aged two years in two seconds. The wound in Spyro's side quickly closed.

The monkeys fled as Spyro calmly walked toward the unconscious Cynder. Several of the monkeys were too drained to flee and had collapsed.

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Cynder groaned as she was prodded awake. She opened her eyes and gasped. Cynder rolled to her feet and hissed as Spyro stepped back in surprise.

"What's wrong with you?" Spyro demanded, sounding more harsh then he had intended.

Cynder stopped growling and panted. "Spyro, what did you do to yourself?"

"What are you talking about?" Spyro asked annoyed as she looked at him with wide and frightened eyes.

Cynder glanced around and spotted a puddle of water nearby. She stood next to it. "Look."

Spyro scoffed, but walked over to the puddle and stared at his reflection. His eyes widened at the sight that meant him.

His scales were a much darker hue of purple and his horns, spines, and wings were now silver. But the thing that startled and scared him the most was that his eyes were now glowing red. "What's happening to me?"

Cynder sighed. "It's the Dark Master. It's his magic, I can feel it inside you."

"No, no. No!" Spyro jumped away from the puddle and charged away into the jungle.

"Spyro, wait!" Cynder called after him. She glanced down at the unconscious Sparx and scooped him up in her mouth and then followed Spyro.