The Electric Dragon
Chapter 5: Complications
Nix threw the red and black substance at Spyro, but he rolled out of the way. Lucky he did, because it exploded once it hit the ground. The purple dragon faced Nix and breathed a stream of ice at her. Nix flinched and disappeared in a puff of black and red smoke. She later appeared on a tree branch and threw three more. Spyro dodged without much trouble, and flew straight at Nix with his horns, and head butted her off the branch.
Nix hit the ground with a thud, but jumped back up. Once she did, Spyro was charging at her. Nix summoned some black liquid and it stopped Spyro in his tracks by sticking him to the ground. Now stuck in the goo, Nix threw one of her bombs again, and it hit Spyro this time in a big explosion.
Spyro fell through the air for a spell, but recovered mid-flight and flew back to the ground. Once he touched down, he breathed more ice at Nix, figuring out that it was her weakness. The woman started running to the side to avoid the blast, with the dragon following her with his attack.
Nix then threw another bomb at Spyro, who was forced to stop his ice power to dodge it. Both were breathing hard, and both was mad as hell at each other.
"You're strong, monster-" Nix started.
"Dragon. I'm a dragon." Spyro interrupted earning a scowl for his troubles.
"Whatever, You're strong, but you will not beat me!" She then balled her hands together and a big bomb was starting to form; Nix hoped she could end it with this payload, or at least knock the dragon out.
Spyro saw the mega bomb starting to form, and he knew he had to quickly take her out or he would die. He started to form his own fury into his breath, preparing to fire convexity at her. The two looked at each other; seeing each others master attacks, and charged. There was absolutely no thinking of peace, only the death of the other.
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The Devourer, using its tongue, was close to biting distance from Cole. When he got close enough, though, the conduit threw an electric grenade in its mouth. It exploded; forcing the creature to whine in pain and release Cole from its grip. The electric man, after released, started to shoot bolts at it to take it down. Unfazed, however, the Devourer just spit large amounts of explosive slime. The conduit dodge rolled out of the way and swung around behind the beast. While it was trying to get Cole back into its view, The electric man jumped on top of it and made his way to the mouth. The beast bucked and swung left and right to knock him off, but Cole only hung on to it. The Devourer lurched forward causing Cole to be flipped over its head, but he was still able to hang on. He now was dangling right next to its mouth, which was opening wide to swallow him. A crazy idea swiftly came into Cole's mind.
"Open wide!" he yelled like a maniac as he started lobbing as much grenades into its mouth as he could. Soon, all the bombs he threw in started exploding causing Cole to be launched through the air. Before he landed on the ground in a not-to-fancy manner, he was able to get the satisfaction of seeing its giant head blow up.
He got up slowly; checking himself to make sure nothing was broken. Afterwards, he started to make his way back to Spyro, to make sure he was alright. The conduit had never seen a dragon in combat before, and was a dash curious. In spite of killing a Devourer, Cole could begin to hear more corrupted coming his way. "I don't have time for this," he whispered to himself.
None the less, the swamp monsters came, and to Cole's dismay, there was a lot of them. To the conduit's knowledge, he has never encountered so many mutants at once. They swarmed the area around Cole, surrounding him completely, and cut him off from escape. The electric man took out his Amp, swiveling around to see who would attack first. Unfortunately, they all jumped him at once.
They all landed on top of him, like a giant dog pile. They scratched, banged, and trashed Cole all over the place. He couldn't get a shot out from the sheer number of hits he was taking. He just wanted it to end, to get away from the noise and pressure, and just take a breather.
Suddenly, a large explosion of purple, red, and black was experienced by everyone. The monsters stared at the light show and then scrambled to escape, thinking something extremely strong was about to attack them. The conduit could only watch in amazement as he saw the hundreds of fierce beasts turn tail and run.
Cole knew that explosion could not be good, whether it be from an enemy or an ally. He then remembered Spyro being ambushed, and rushed as quickly as he could, in his condition, hoping he was not too late.
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After the explosion of convexity and Nix's mega bomb making contact, the two themselves were absolutely exhausted. To them, they had never had to exert themselves to such level of combat. Even Spyro, who had to fight a purple dragon like himself. Of course, he did have Cynder by his side at the time.
For now, both were knocked back by the force the blast left. Spyro was laying at his side thinking he had lost, while Nix laid on her back also thinking the same thing. They slowly got up and looked at each other rather lazily.
"I'm... not going... to give up... dragon..." Nix gasped, trying not to fall back down again.
"Me... neither..." Spyro said back, having trouble standing.
Spyro would not lose this battle, he could not lose this battle. Doing so would put Cynder in depression from both his death, and her further containment by Bertrand. For Nix, she just didn't want to lose her pride to some beast that came out of no where.
They both prepared their super attacks again, wishing they could just stop and rest. They were about to release their offenses when Cole jumped between them, with hands outstretched to each member. Both were shocked and confused.
"Demon, why are you in the way? I'm trying to kill this thing here!" Shot Nix, returning some of her composure.
"Cole, get out of the way, before I accidentally hit you!" Spyro also said.
Cole only stood there, taking shallow breaths, before answering them, "Do either of you know about each other at all!" He didn't give them the time to answer, "I had to almost fight a hundred swamp monsters, while you two were just squabbling!"
"I was just-," they said at the same time, but Cole cut them off.
"Save it, neither of you tried to talk this out, this is exactly how teams are destroyed." Both suddenly had a revelation that they were on the same side, but Cole was still not done with his rant. "Now, before I pass out from almost being mauled to death, I want you two to apologize right now." Cole felt like a mother, stopping her sons from fighting each other.
Nix and Spyro looked at each, and looked away in embarrassment, before mumbling their sorry. "Much... better..." Cole said with a smile, as he collapsed to the forest floor.
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Cole awoke to the sound of two women talking to each other and the crackle of a fire. He opened his eyes to see the canopies of the trees. He realized he was resting on a sleeping bag next to a camp fire. He gently sat up, and as soon as he did, the two women stopped conversing, and he could hear foot steps approaching him.
Cole put a hand to his head, rubbing some of the soreness out, before he heard a familiar voice.
"Hey, Cole, glad you didn't get yourself killed," joked a woman. Cole turned his head to see Kuo squatting down to his eye level. He smiled at his friend and calmly got up.
"Good to see you to, Kuo. When did you get here?" He asked; he expected her to still be at the meet site.
"I heard the giant bomb go off near the entrance of the swamp and went to check it out. When I got there, you were on the ground and Spyro and Nix were there trying to wake you up by shaking you senseless."
Nix humphed at that, and just stared away from Kuo. Cole brushed himself off, and asked his next question. "Did you get a chance to talk to Spyro?"
"Yes," she sighed, "I didn't expect him to be, well, normal."
Cole raised an eyebrow, "In what way?"
"Well, actually, in morals, he reminds me a lot of you. His tale was amazing to say the least, and his friend, Cynder, seems really important to him." Kuo said with a small frown on her face. Cole knew that look well; it was the look she has when something downright wrong was exposed. She sometimes gave it to Cole when he did something bad, but this time it was directed to no one in particular.
"I would hope so," Cole chuckled, "He is in love with her after all." After saying this, both Kuo and Nix both shouted "What!?"
"How could you know that?" Kuo said astonished
"Did he tell you or somethin'?" added Nix.
The conduit gave a sad smile, and said slowly, "No, I only guessed, but the way he talks about her, and the resolve to find her, reminds me of myself when I was with Trish." Kuo and Nix nodded in understanding, and did not push the subject.
Unbeknownst to them, Spyro was behind a tree listening to the whole interaction. He had made the excuse to look for food in the swamp, to see how these people were really like without a dragon nearby. To his surprise, Cole had assumed that Spyro was in love with Cynder. Not that he was wrong, but that he was able to read the purple dragon like a book felt a little exposing. Also, Spyro learned of another person, someone Cole used to love. That person was called Trish. The dragon wondered what happened to her. Did she leave Cole? Did he dump her for reasons unknown? Or did she die?
If it was the latter, then Spyro finally realized why Cole was always encouraging him and staying by his side: so he doesn't feel the same pain that he felt when he lost his love.
Cole looked around in different directions before asking, "Where is Spyro anyway?"
"Don't know," Kuo answered, "He said he was going to hunt for food, but he hasn't returned yet."
Cole looked back at the two woman, "We should find him before the Militia or Corrupted do. We need a plan of attack if we want to rescue Cynder." The conduit then turned to Nix with a sly smile, "I assume you also chatted with Spyro?"
Nix grew slightly angry at Cole before saying, "Of course I have! I know how he got here and everything. Now come on, Demon, we need to find him now."
Spyro realized he should show himself before they went through the trouble of finding him. "I'm right here," he said stepping from the tree.
Cole chuckled, "Been listening long?"
Spyro looked down in embarrassment, and felt ashamed on listening in to their conversation. "Well, pretty much the entire time." He shyly said.
Cole gave a wide grin, "I knew you were here, you don't have to feel bad about it."
Spyro was surprised that Cole wasn't more angered, but was more surprised that he knew the whole time. "How did you know? How long did you know?"
Cole then thought that the best time to show Spyro his power was now. "My power allows me to sense where people are and where they've been. It wasn't hard to find you."
Spyro raised an eye brow, "What are your powers anyway?"
Cole raised his hands parallel to each other, and allowed an amount of electricity to arc between them. The conduit could only smirk at Spyro's awed expression, while the two other conduits only groaned at his boastfulness.
"I can control electricity," Cole explained, "I received it from my future self named Kessler," he lowered his smile to a frown at that, "He also did something I will never forget."
Spyro only nodded in comprehension, and asked another question, hoping it would distract Cole from the sad experience. However, it would only worsened it. "What happened to Trish?"
Cole only closed his eyes and faced downward. "She died, when I was forced to make a decision, a very hard decision." Spyro was about to stop the man to explain he did not need anymore details, but was stopped from a hand being placed on his shoulder. He looked to his right to see who placed it, and saw Kuo with a distressed expression. Spyro understood even though he wasn't told: Cole needed this out of his system to truly move on.
The electric man, having not seen the exchange, continued his story, "I was forced to choose between saving Trish, the love of my life, or several doctors, who in turn would save hundreds. Knowing what Trish would've done, I chose the doctors, and when I saved them... Trish fell from a building."
Cole let a few tears fell from his face, "I was able to revive her... but only for a few seconds, and in that time she told me how proud she was of me, from saving the people of the city. Then... she died, right in my hands."
The conduit wiped the tears away with his sleeve, and looked at Spyro with determination, "And that is why we will save Cynder, no matter what."
Spyro had a few tears in his eyes as well, before also wiping them. He looked straight into Cole's eyes with newfound trust in him, and nodded.
"And I have the plan to do it," Kuo spoke up, everybody turned to her. She smiled devilishly, and motioned them to gather around. She whispered her scheme, and when they all broke out, they all had wild and scary smiles on their once tear-stricken faces, except for Nix of course.