Chapter 7½: A Hole in the Earth, Part 2
At the bottom of the shaft, the fall of rocks crashed down on a floor of hard, black basalt, producing a cacophony of smashing and crumbling. This continued on for what must have been at least a whole minute, until each and every rock and stone had assumed a state of rest.
"Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" came a loud cackle from the centre of the room, its owner having found that the three heroes had, seemingly, all been crushed under the rubble. "You fell for the mirage, you twerpish dragon! Couldn't you have told that it was too good to be true?" Of course, this rhetorical question would have meant little to Spyro - after all, discovering large hoards of treasure was nothing new to him.
Next, the cackler stepped over to a mound of rocks at the side of the room. Using his new-found strength, he shoved them all to the side, revealing the barely-alive Dachshund laying underneath.
"What the hell was that all about?"
As he woke upon hearing this, it took a great effort for Itchy to even open his eyes, and point them upwards to see the face of the dog who was now standing over him. Of course, it was none other than Killer, the dastardly Schnoodle himself, though his appearance was not quite the same as before: his fur had now changed in colour, from a sandy brown to a blueish violet, and his back was now adorned with a pair of black wings. On his face, the Mask of Belladonna had taken the place of his spectacles, which he no longer required, as the Essence had granted him the same level of vision as the Arch-Demon herself. In addition, the back of his head was now adorned with the evil Whippet's distinctive ponytail, and he held his weapon of choice, the KEW 5000, in his paws, though his bionic legs still remained.
"A trained sword-wielder such as yourself," he continued, "losing to a complete novice? To describe that as a disappointment, would be an understatement!"
The Dachshund had to pant several times before he could answer.
"Don't kid yourself, Kill," he rasped. "You only have yourself to blame for that. You're the one who pumped me full of lead, and you know it!"
"Haaahhh!" Killer gasped. "You remembered! My mind control device should have wiped your short-term memory clean..."
"... Well, it didn't. Looks like it's back to the drawing board for that, then..."
In response to this, the possessed Schnoodle raised the gun, and pointed it directly at Itchy's cap-clad forehead.
"No," he said. "Rather than that, why shouldn't I use this to not just destroy your short-term memories... but all of them!"
Kreeeeeeeeeeeeeeng!
As the coils began to flow with current, the helpless Dachshund could not bear to look. His eyelids screwed up tightly, as the bright red dot illuminated the gap above the fastening band of his cap...
SMASH!
"What!?"
Suddenly, a great crack had split the largest of the boulders straight down the middle. As its two halves fell to the side, a column of dazzling pink light shone out from the hole it had left in the centre of the mound.
As the possessed Killer turned to observe this sight, the red laser-sight traced away from Itchy's head. The two of them watched in awe, as a single body rose up from the heap of stone.
The head, to begin with, had the muzzle, left eye, and left ear of Charlie, and on the other side, the eye and horn of Spyro. The front of the neck was plated by rows of off-white scales, which reached all the way down to the pelvis. As for the arms and wings, they were vice-versa from the parts of the head - the right side had the front leg of a dog and the wing of an Angel, whereas the right had the corresponding parts of a dragon. To finish, the legs and tail were dragonic towards their beginnings, but canine at their ends.
"Huhhh..." Killer panted, almost dropping the Gaussbuster to the ground as the feeling of bewilderment loosened his grip. "Impossible..."
"No. It's not impossible," came the reply. "It's a Miracle!"
"Ah?"
With that, the figure formed a ball of light between its hands, before throwing it forcefully towards his adversary. However, Killer reacted quickly, and made a jump to the side to avoid this.
"Ha!" he continued. "You're going to have to try harder than that if you wish to defeat me, Charlie Barkin!"
"Of course," the half-Angel-dog, half-dragon commented. "Just as Belladonna herself would say. Besides, it's not simple old Charlie you're dealing with now - this time, it's Sparlie Barkin!"
"Hmph. Well, then, Sparkly Bark-nuts... Let's see how you fare against THIS!"
On the last word, the possessed Schnoodle slammed his metallic foot down against the warm basalt, which triggered another tremor to spread through the floor.
"Mwa-ha-ha!" he continued to cackle, spreading out his new wings as an opening appeared in the surface of igneous rock, revealing a mass of hot, orange lava underneath. "Let the raising of Hell, begin!"
As Killer flew up and away, still cackling as he went, the lava began to rise, spilling up and over the edges of the hole. Seeing that it was now spreading out towards the walls of the room at an alarming rate, Sparlie ran over to retrieve his friend, taking him up in his arms, before lifting off in pursuit of the Schnoodle.
After about ten seconds of flying up through the chamber, Sparlie took a quick look back down. Now, the flow of lava had become a shooting geyser of flame, which was rising rapidly behind him. Looking ahead again, he could see that Killer had used his acquired demonic powers to open a large portal, which matched the appearance of the external crater, and reached from wall to wall.
Bracing himself, the dragon-dog followed the devious one through the hole, and on the other side, the lava geyser spewed out from the crater in a gigantic plume.
High up in the sky, Sparlie slowed until he was hovering in place. Observing the ground below, he witnessed as the deadly, orange flow continued to spread, ravaging everything in its path - this included the cars (and other such vehicles) on the road, as well as the buildings in the immediate vicinity. One of those, being...
"No! Not the Flea Bite Café!"
Resuming his flight, the dragon-dog descended rapidly towards the diner, leaving his Dachshund friend rather shaken by the whole experience.
"This isn't good for my stomach, you know!" he yelled. "Oohhh... uh, oh... bleeuurrgh!"
"Waiter? Waiter! This steak is under-cooked!"
"Oh, is it? We're terribly sorry about that, sir. May I have your plate back, please?"
Mildly annoyed by this unsatisfactory service, the customer did as requested. However, there was now another, rather messier problem coming his way... well, two of them, to be precise.
Splurge!
"Euuurrrgh!" the man groaned. Not only was he drenched in the green stuff, but so were his server, and the table at which he had been sat.
"Oh, dear..." the waiter commented, in a rather deadpan manner. However, when he saw what was coming up behind his client, he had more to say in his monotone voice.
"Excuse me, sir, but it seems that we are faced with quite a formidable flow, of what appears to be... lava."
"Well... excuse me."
"A-a-hem. Behind you."
When the man finally turned, he found that the waiter had, in fact, been speaking truthfully.
"Aaaarrrrgh!"
Meanwhile, as Sparlie and Itchy entered the diner, they were met with quite a dire sight. The tremor from earlier in the day had caused the shelves behind the bar to collapse, leaving the floor there littered with shards of glass, and the deadly flow was now eating its way into the side of the building.
Frantically looking about the place, it at first appeared to Sparlie that no one else was in. However, only a second later, his ears could sense a muffled voice from behind the bar...
"Help..."
"Gerta!"
Rushing over, Sparlie used his strength to part the broken planks of wood, discovering the white dog underneath. The pieces of rubble had dug painfully into her skin, leaving it riddled with bleeding wounds.
With a grunt and a heave, the dragon-dog pulled Gerta out from the spot where she was trapped, before saying, "Come on! I've gotta get you two to safety."
Carrying one dog under each arm, Sparlie used his powerful wings to fly up and away, finding a suitable rooftop at a safe distance from the epicentre.
"Now," he said to his companions, laying them down on the hard surface. "I'd like the two of you to stay here until it's over. I'm going to have to finish this myself."
"Uhh... Sparlie?"
"What is it, Itch?"
"F-fly... err, uhh... behind you!"
Turning towards that direction, Sparlie was greeted by a squad of Fire Imps. However, unlike the regular members of their species, these Imps possessed wings, enabling them to fly, and each of them was wielding a miniature crossbow in its tiny hands.
"Yaaah!" the leading Imp yelled, all of them firing on his signal. Faced with this salvo of bolts, Sparlie reacted by shielding himself with his Angel-wing.
The crossbow bolts all made a plinking sound as they bounced off the feathers of the wing, leaving the dragon-dog completely unharmed. In response to the attack, he shot out a volley of glowing orbs from his paws, which homed in on the Imps to send them falling out of the sky.
"Gosh..." Sparlie panted. "When Killy-boy said he was going to raise Hell, he sure wasn't kidding. Wish me luck, friends!"
With that, he spread his wings once more. He was just about to take off and fly back down, when...
"Hey, dingus! Over here!"
When Sparlie turned to face his adversary, he was surprised to see that the possessed Schnoodle was now stood in the centre of the rooftop. As he slowly approached on his metallic, prosthetic legs, he raised the sight of the Gaussbuster up to his eye.
"There, there," he continued. "Now just hold it steady, so I can shoot your sorry ass."
"Heh! As if I'm going to let you," Sparlie retorted.
But, no sooner had he finished his sentence, than a burst of electromagnetically-propelled rounds had begun careering towards him. In defence, the dragon-dog shielded himself quickly - this time, with both wings.
Where they had overlapped, the stretched-out skin of the dragon-wing, combined with the feathers of the Angel-wing, had been just enough to block some of the shots. However, where the bullets had deviated from the centre of the aim, they had passed by only one of the wings - this had slowed them somewhat, but not enough so as to prevent the opening of several small gashes in Sparlie's skin.
"Urrrgh!" he groaned. "Hthhh!"
"Ho-ho!" Killer laughed. "That was but a warning, Barkin. Now, unless you're wishing to learn what full-auto feels like, then you'll hand over those twerps immediately."
Sparlie said nothing in response; he simply stood rooted to the spot, as he and Killer stared each other down.
"Three... Two... One-and-a-half... One-and-a-quarter...!"
After waiting for as long as he dared to, Sparlie squatted down slightly, before jumping up into an arc. Reacting to this, Killer turned the mode switch on the gun, and fired while raising it in an attempt to trace his adversary. However, the dragon-dog had been too fast for him, and once he had landed on the other side, he threw a glowing white fireball towards the Schnoodle.
After having reached a straight vertical angle with his aim, Killer lowered the Gaussbuster back to the horizontal as he pivoted around. He tried to open fire again, but fortunately, the fireball had prevented that.
As the burst of heavenly flame exploded against the metal of the electromagnetic weapon, the Gaussbuster was sent flying out of Killer's paw. At the end of its trajectory, it landed stock-first at the edge of the roof, before tipping over and sliding off.
"Argh!" Killer yelled, before attempting to run after his weapon. However, Sparlie acted quickly, creating a wall of white flames to prevent his adversary's advance.
"Let us make this a fair fight," the dragon-dog said, laying down his sword as he repeated the prior words of his friend. "Mano, a mano."
"Hmph," the possessed Schnoodle replied. "If it's a fistfight that you want, then it's a fistfight you shall have!"
With that, the two males dashed towards each other, until their fists collided powerfully where they met.
"Come on," said Sparlie. "Let's fly!"
With that, the two of them took off into the sky above the rooftop. The holes which had been made in the dragon-dog's wings meant that it took more effort for him to fly, but not so much as to leave him grounded.
As they fought this airborne battle, both Sparlie and Killer exchanged blows at a blinding rate. However, it was near-impossible to tell who had the upper hand - no punch was left unreplied to, and whenever either of the dogs used an attack involving their teeth or claws, the other would do the same, but with more force.
It took several minutes until the first truly decisive attack was made: Killer had managed to strike the side of Sparlie's head, leaving him momentarily dazed, before pushing his opponent away, with cupped paws opposed wrist-to-wrist.
Tumbling back down to the roof, Sparlie landed with a loud thud, causing him to seethe again as his wounds were grated by the hard surface.
"Ha, ha, ha!" the Schnoodle cackled, hovering back down to land. "You are no match for me, feeble Angel. Once I'm finished with you, me and my army of hellspawn will be free to create Hell on Earth!"
"... No. You're wrong," Sparlie replied. "If you defeat me, the Essence of Belladonna will devour you from the inside. Besides, what makes you think that the forces of Heaven couldn't stand up to you?"
"Hah! What do you know about the Essence?"
"You remember Davey Chance, don't you, Belladonna?"
"What are you talking about?"
"No, Killer. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to what's inside of you."
With that, Killer dropped to his metallic knees, before a wide, devilish grin spread across his face.
"Yesss!" came the voice of the Essence from his mouth. "Chance, of course!"
"Belladonna..." said Sparlie.
"Perhaps if my current host were to completely annihilate you," the Essence continued, "then I could make just one tiny exception... and let him live!"
"You wouldn't. You can't!"
"Nothing says that I can't!"
"Then why did you kill Chance!?"
Without answering this, Killer stood up again. Cupping his paws together, he began to form between them a ball of red-and-green flames.
"Go on!" the Essence said to Killer. "Destroy that Chucky-boy!"
"Oh, no, you don't!" the dragon-dog retorted, forming a ball of white between his own paws.
Then, some ten seconds later, the two dogs simultaneously released great blasts of flame from their hands. Halfway between them, the heavenly white and the hellish red and green collided, flaring out in a circular plane.
The two of them roared at the tops of their lungs, as they both pushed to shift the point of equilibrium. After less than thirty seconds, however, it was slowly, but surely, progressing towards Sparlie, with him panting furiously as he struggled to push back.
"Erraaaagh!" he yelled, once the plane of collision was within three feet of himself. At this point, his eyes closed tightly, and he could hear a soft voice inside his head:
"You have the power to do this, Charles. Believe in yourself..."
... Huh? Sparlie thought. Annabelle... is that you?
"Listen to me, Charles. Focus your mind and your soul, and you will pull through victorious."
By this time, the end of his beam had shrunken to within eighteen inches.
"Believe in yourselves..." the Archangel's telepathic voice continued, referring to Spyro and Charlie as a pair. "... And focus..."
As eighteen now became twelve, Sparlie did as instructed. His mind's eye now faded to a pure white, and within himself, he found the strength he so desperately needed.
"This is it, Killer!" he spoke. "Now... we... BELIIIIEEEEVE!"
With that, the horizontal column of white began to grow again. The meeting-point of the two beams was now accelerating towards the other side, such that, by the time it had passed the centre, it was progressing at such a rate that Killer's pupils were narrowed in shock.
"Wha... Nooooo!"
FRASSSHHH!
Once the flames had cleared away, Killer was left laying, unconscious, on the hard surface of the rooftop. The Mask had now been detached from his face, and it too lay there, at the side of his head.
Once he had retrieved, and sheathed, his sword, Sparlie stepped back to where Killer was, and carefully picked up the Mask in his left paw.
"This is it," he said. "It's time to finish this."
After that, he glided back down towards the crater. Upon returning to the ground, he saw that it was surrounded by hordes of Imps, boars, and giant fleas. Not only that, but the crater itself had been shrouded by a volcanic dome, formed from solidified magma.
Sparlie made a bee-line for the volcano, using the wakizashi to defend himself from the hellish creatures. Once he had climbed up to the peak, he stood by the hole, holding the Mask over it.
Taking in a deep breath, the dragon-dog prepared to throw the artifact in. He raised his arm up high, before swinging it downwards, and opening his paw...
... But when his arm came back up, he was dumbstruck to see that it was still holding the Mask.
"What the..."
Upon taking a closer look at his paw, he could see that a set of tendrils had attached themselves to the palm. He tried frantically to shake them off, but when they detached, they migrated to his face in the blink of an eye.
"Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
"No!" Sparlie yelled, struggling to prise the tendrils from his skin. However, his fingers could do little to prevent the Mask from attaching itself to him.
Only a second later, the face of Belladonna had pressed itself firmly against his. As he clutched his temples, the evil, cackling voice ceased to stop.
"You're mine now, Chucky-boy!" it said. "Let's see how you take charge of the forces of Hell!"
"Uuurrrghhh!" the dragon-dog groaned. "Get out of my heeeaaad!"
Then, with what little willpower he had left, he clenched his right fist tightly around the handle of the Japanese shortsword. Fighting against the will of the Arch-Demon, he slowly raised his arm upwards.
"What are you doing with that? No! Put that sword down this instant!"
"I don't think so... cousin of Annabelle!"
With that, Sparlie wedged the blade in under the Mask, and sliced across his face. Even though this left his skin badly grazed, it worked to sever the dreaded tendrils, leaving the demonic horcrux to fall down into the volcanic crater below.
"Noooooooo!" ... Fizzzzz...
Once the Mask had been eaten by the lava, the army of hellspawn was sent into a blind panic. Sparlie took the opportunity to escape, and once he was at about a hundred yards, the dome was engulfed in a burst of flames.
By the end of it all, the army of hellspawn was nowhere to be seen, and all of the lava had solidified into magma. The crater had been sealed up, and was no longer spewing fumes. Sparlie, meanwhile, was laying on his back, having been blown away by the force of the explosion.
"Ughhh..." he sighed, with a relaxed smile on his face. "Now that, was awesome..."
Back on the rooftop, Itchy and Gerta were crouching at the edge, having watched the spectacle from a distance.
"My gosh," the Dachshund said wearily. "He did it. Char-... er, I mean, Sparlie did it!"
"You all right, Itchiford?" the Bichon Frisé asked. "I know I'm kinda battered and bruised, but I can still help you if you need it."
"Thank you, Gerta. Could you take me to David's house, please? I'm really not feeling okay at the moment... cough, blulp..."
"There, there. I'll help you down."
With that, they went to take the side-scaffolding back down to ground level, before making the trek to the boy's home.