Chapter 7: A Hole in the Earth, Part 1

At long last, Charlie and Spyro found the front porch of the old curio shop. Stepping up to the doors, the Shepherd took a deep breath, and gave one last gulp, before slamming his paws against them.

The doors flew wide open, as they had been left unlocked. When Charlie entered, his eyes quickly scanned around the room. To his surprise, however, it appeared that Killer was nowhere to be seen...

Instead, he noticed the black chair, right in the centre of the floor. On it, was sat a grim sight, which made his pupils narrow almost to a point. There it was - the cadaver of the suited simian himself, sat upright in the seat, as though he had been posed for a piece of post-mortem photography.

"No!" came the dragon's voice, yelling from behind the Shepherd. "A-9, no!"

Running over to the monkey's lifeless body, Spyro could only stare, just as Charlie was doing, with his mouth hanging widely agape.

It was not until a whole minute later, that Charlie finally knelt down to the floor, tilting his head straight up towards the ceiling. At the top of his lungs, he howled Killer's name, with a feeling of pure hate in every drawn-out letter.

Then, he looked back down, and that was when he noticed the pair of spectacles, lying at his side on the rug.

"Oh, no..." he said, raising them up to take a closer look. "You know what this means, Spyro?"

The purple dragon turned back toward him, and when he saw the glasses as well, he took in a great gasp, his mouth gaping even wider than before.

"This is it," the Shepherd continued. "We've got to find Killer now, or else there'll be..."

But, just as he was about to finish his sentence, Charlie could feel a sudden vibration in the ground beneath him. Only the very next second, however, it was followed up by an earth-shaking tremor, and as the whole building shook from top to bottom, Spyro could feel it as well.

"Uhh..." the dragon said, "what was that?"

"It came from over there," Charlie replied, pointing in the direction from which he had sensed the rumble. "Come on. We've gotta move!"

Making their way across town, the pursuit of the tremor had brought the dog and the dragon to the same street as the Flea Bite Café. As they stepped along the pavement, the heroic duo were met with a most horrific sight - right in the middle of the road, a great, red, gaping crater had opened, bringing the traffic to a complete standstill. In addition, a great billow of crimson smoke, as well as the distinctive smell of sulfur, were rising from the edges.

Before long, Spyro and Charlie had made their way to the edge of the crater. As they both laid prone on their fronts to peer down into the hole, the great abyss of red and black filled them with dread.

"All right..." said Charlie. "There's no turning back now. You ready?"

"Born ready," the purple dragon replied. "As always."

With that, they both stood up, and, with loud simultaneous cries of 'Geronimo!', jumped down into the crater below.

For the next minute or so, all that Charlie could feel was that he was falling. All around him, it was completely blank, and silent, until the light at the end of this vertical tunnel finally came into view...

At the bottom, the Shepherd crashed down on the deck of a wooden ship, the timbers cracking loudly as they broke his fall. The ship was aground, rather than afloat, with heaps of rock surrounding its broken hull.

"Ugh..." Charlie groaned, climbing up out of the recess that he had made in the deck. "Spyro? You there?"

After shaking himself to relieve the tension in his joints, he looked up towards the bow of the vessel.

Huh? he thought. What's that?

As he began to walk along the deck, his eyes focused on the lone figure who was standing on the bow. Moving closer, Charlie could see that she was a dog clad in a glowing white dress, embroidered with intricate patterns of lace, as well as a veil obscuring her head and face.

It did not take long before the Shepherd was stood next to her. Leaning forward, he could see that her paws were clasped tightly in front of her chest, and he slowly reached up to try and lift the veil. However, his paw passed straight through it, and instead, he had to move his head inside in order to view her face.

"Sasha?" he said, seeing that she appeared to be asleep. "What the..."

Reaching down, he tried to take her by the arm, and to his relief, it appeared to be solid. Though he pulled with considerable effort, the arm barely budged. It took another, more forceful pull from Charlie to take the arm away from her chest.

However, as he did so, the female Setter's elbow suddenly gave way. As the forearm separated from the upper arm, the Shepherd fell back on to the deck. Looking up, he gasped as he saw the exposed flesh of the remaining stump, before turning his attention back towards the forearm, which he held in his hands.

Then, in the corner of his eye, he could see that the body was now beginning to collapse. Looking up once more, he could only watch as the mirage gradually dissolved, to reveal another dog meditating beneath it. There the brown Dachshund was, balancing, completely still, on the hilt of his sword, which was itself balanced vertically on the deck.

Getting back up, Charlie approached his friend cautiously, but not without raising what he held in his hand back up to his face. Surely enough, it was no longer a foreleg, with a wrist and paw attached, but rather, the second wakizashi of the pair.

Hopping down from his perch, Itchy took up his sword, and turned towards the Shepherd.

"Let us make this a fair fight," he began. "One sword against one."

But, Charlie was reluctant to accept this challenge.

"I don't want to fight you, Itch," he said. "Not if it means harming my best friend."

"Enough! You have already taken up your weapon - therefore, you have no choice but to fight. Besides, you should not consider me your friend - consider me... your rival. You may not be trained in the art of the sword, but I promise that I shall not take that for granted... En garde!"

With that, the two males assumed their fighting stances, standing with a distance of about three paces between them.

"Allez!"

When he opened his eyes again, Spyro found himself surrounded by a sea of yellow. Climbing up out of the dip in the spot where he had landed, he allowed his vision to focus, upon which he could now see a mass of edges in the golden sea.

Rather than being a pool of liquid, such as honey, this was a large hoard of gems. Looking further, the dragon could see that it was speckled with gems of smaller values - red, green, blue, and the occasional purple gem here and there.

"Wow," Spyro whispered, as he began to climb his way to the top. At the very crest of the mound, there sat a gigantic purple gem - many times the mass of a regular one. The young dragon, completely mesmerised by this awesome sight, used the coloured gems as footholds as he, slowly but surely, made his way up the heap.

Meanwhile, back in the ship's chamber, Charlie and Itchy were fighting their fateful duel. However, the match was mostly one-sided towards the Dachshund - whenever Charlie tried to go in for an attack, Itchy would effortlessly parry the blow, before replying with a quick jab. At any time that the wiener-dog attempted a more powerful strike, Charlie would only parry it; on the few occasions where he tried to reply or counter, Itchy would only parry that.

After what must have been two-and-a-half minutes of this, the Dachshund finally managed to land a decisive blow. Striking Charlie in the shoulder, he sent the Shepherd tumbling down to the deck.

Charlie tried to recover from this, but just as he was about to get back up, he found that Itchy's sword was now pointed directly at his chest.

"That scar..." he remarked. "Was it from CyberSasha, perhaps?"

Charlie did not answer this. In response, the Dachshund moved the tip of his blade to the end of the scar, and began to slowly drag it through the stitches.

"Aaarrgh!" Charlie groaned as he recoiled in pain, interrupting the cut after the second stitch.

After this, Itchy raised the wakizashi high above his head, and prepared to perform a downward stab. But, then...

"Ugh... Ohhh..."

All of a sudden, the wiener-dog began to feel weak at the knees. Dropping the sword at his side, he knelt down on the wooden deck, as his head was filled with a nauseous feeling.

"Itch?" said Charlie. "What's wrong, buddy?"

The Dachshund said nothing at first; he only continued to groan in pain.

"Itch, no..." the Shepherd continued, raising his friend's head. But, only a second later, Itchy's chest gave a sudden jump, and Charlie had to roll him over to allow a stream of vomit to spew forth from his mouth.

"Ohh..." he groaned again, as he watched the spring-green puddle seeping into the timbers. "Wh-... Where am I?"

"You don't know?" his Shepherd friend replied. "You were having a swordfight with me. Do you not remember that?"

"Err... no. All I can remember is... being in this chair, and... urrrgh..."

"Okay... How are you feeling, buddy?"

"Not good..."

Charlie hesitated for a moment, before continuing:

"All right. Do you remember being in Killer's Curios last night?"

"Uhh... yeah?"

"Bess told me you'd been shot at. Is that true?"

"... Yeah."

"Okay, okay. Can you remember what sort of gun it was?"

"Huh..." the Dachshund panted. "I think it was... yeah, that's it. It was a sawed-off shotgun."

"That's it!" said Charlie. "It's most likely lead poisoning, Itch. Come on, let's get you out of here."

The Shepherd then re-sheathed both of the wakizashi, removing one of the scabbards from Itchy's back and strapping it to his own. Next, he lifted his friend up off the deck, before carrying him off the ship and on to the rocks below. After that, they made their way to the outside wall, where Charlie noticed one section which appeared to be slightly indented, and with a smoother surface than what lay around it.

"Umm..." he said. "Open, sesame? Nah, that's not gonna work..."

He then thought hard for a moment, before trying another password:

"Kibble!"

That did the trick. The section of wall slid back another inch, before retracting downward into the ground.

"Whoa..." said Itchy, who was now stumbling along closely behind Charlie. "How did you figure that out?"

"I have no idea," came the reply. "I just guessed something Belladonna-related, and... well, it worked."

With that, the two males made their way through the opening, and into the next room.

In there, they found themselves at the bottom of a giant heap of rocks, which sloped upwards toward the back of the room. Looking up, Charlie saw that the peak of the mound was crowned by an enormous boulder, and at its foot, there stood...

"Spyro, no!"

"Huh?"

But, it was too late - the dragon had already laid paws on the large, spherical stone; in the mirage which he had envisioned, the boulder - as well as all the other rocks - had appeared to him as gems.

Then, to the horror of the three of them, the ground began to rumble violently. The rocks in the heap shook and jumped about, and, within seconds, a gaping fissure had begun to open in the floor...

"Oh, snap..." Charlie sighed. He tried to run back to the opening in the wall, but it had now closed back up, leaving the party trapped inside.

Then, the fissure continued to widen, and by the end of it, the floor had completely receded into the walls. Now, the dragon and the two dogs were left to fall down the long, vertical chamber, among the great cascade of rocks and boulders.

"Aaaaahhhhh..."