Chapter 4: Training

Flame wore his mother's necklace all time ever since Sparx found it. It was the only thing he had left of her; he never wanted to let it go. Sometimes, at the end of the day when he was alone, he'd speak to it, as if it were her. He'd tell her that he missed her, so, so much. He found himself to be disappointed every time, because there was never any reply.

A guardian's job is to keep order in the city, and to worship the dragon ancestors. Guardians are supposed to be heavy believers in the ancestors. As a guardian's son, Flame should believe in the ancestors too, but he didn't. At first he didn't want to believe simply because his father did believe, but the more he thought about it, the more the ancestors made no sense to him. The young dragons are taught in school that the ancestors are supposed to be the protectors of the dragon race, otherwise known as the guardians of the past. But if they're supposed protect everyone, then why did they let his mother die? Why did they let his best friend, Derrick, die? Why did they let all of the innocent dragons die? He thought that if the ancestors did exist, then they were pretty pathetic. He never thought about these things for that long because it made his head hurt.

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"Hey, Sparx!" Cynder called.

Oh god…. Sparx thought. "Um, hey," Sparx said as he turned around slowly.

Cynder rolled her eyes. She knew he didn't like her, but she'd gotten used to him by now. "Do you know where Spyro is?" she asked.

"Probably somewhere having weird dreams again…" he replied quietly.

"Wait, what?" Cynder looked concerned, "What…what kind of dreams?"

Sparx put his hand over his mouth, "Never mind. I think he's outside!"

"Okay, well thanks," Cynder gave a small smile, and then took off outside.

Sparx hovered where he was for a moment, watching the door the Cynder just went through, expressionless. Then, he decided to follow her. "Can't be too safe!" he said to himself.

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A large ape sat on a large throne in some sort of cave. He had a large helmet with spikes that resembled a dragon's, and his left eye was completely green. He was surrounded by hundreds of other apes, cheering for him.

"Gaul…. Gaul…Gaul…" they chanted.

"Soon," Gaul spoke, "the night of eternal darkness will be upon us. Evil spirits will once again roam our land. But our enemies are prepared to defend the temple."

All of the apes started to yell in excitement. They were ready to attack the temple.

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"Come on!" Cynder yelled, "Here it is!"

Cynder was leading Spyro and Sparx to the training room. She wanted to show them something. Spyro hasn't gotten his powers back since the night of the big battle, and she felt bad. So, she thought she'd try and help him get his powers back, so that she could feel better about it. Ignitus told her that the guardians were going out for a few hours, so she thought that this might be her only chance.

Sparx was extremely nervous. "Oh, good! We get to spend the day inside the creepy dragon room!" Sparx said out loud, sarcastically. He'd hoped that they would've stopped, but they kept going. "Ugh," he sighed, "I need new friends…"

Cynder made the tall dragon statue sink into the ground, just as the guardians did when they trained Spyro.

"I don't know, Cynder," Spyro said looking down, "I'm not even sure how this works."

"Relax, Spyro. It'll be fun!" she assured. "All you have to do is stand outside the circle in the middle, and whatever you think of appears!"

As Cynder spoke, a dummy ape appeared in the middle of the room. It was the same sort of ape that Spyro learned all of his fighting and element skills on. "Try it!" Cynder encouraged. Sparx watched from a distance, like usual, keeping a close eye on Cynder.

Spyro gave the dummy an unsure look, "Okay… here goes nothing!" And then he ran up to the ape, took a deep breath, and out came nothing at all. He tried a few more times, and got the same result. Spyro looked down, disappointed.

"Keep trying!" Cynder yelled. But he couldn't do it, no matter how hard he tried.

Sparx flew beside Spyro, "Ha! Nothing!" he joked.

Spyro was embarrassed, especially in front of Cynder. He didn't want her to think that he was weak.

He looked up at the ape one more time, and gave one last try. He took another deep breath, and let out all that he could, and a few flames made their way out of his mouth, burning the ape dummy.

Spyro brightened up, "Woah, I did it!"

"See? It was only a matter of time," Cynder smiled.

Spyro puffed out his chest as she walked by, "Give me something more challenging."

Spark rolled his eyes, "Yeah, Cynder. What are you thinking?"

"Alright, tough guy," Cynder accepted. "Try this one."

As she tried to make a larger ape dummy appear, to her horror, Gaul appeared instead. "Cynder," he called as he swung his staff at her. She screamed and jumped out of the way.

Gaul was cornering Cynder as Spyro was yelling, "Cynder! End it! Make him go away!" Spyro jumped in between Gaul and Cynder, trying to protect her.

"I can't!" she told him. Spyro tried to attack Gaul, but his fire breath disappeared again. "Oh no…" he said. Then, he looked up at Gaul who was now cornering the both of them. Gaul smacked Spyro so hard that he flew across the room into the wall. He didn't want Spyro; he wanted Cynder.

"Cynder…" Gaul called again. He got closer and closer to her.

"Do something!" Sparx yelled.

Spyro got up slowly, and then saw Cynder looking up at Gaul, who was about to strike her. Some sort of fury came over him, and he started to attack Gaul. He quickly slashed Gaul's face several times, and then he disappeared.

Cynder walked slowly over to Spyro with her eyes wide open, "Spyro! How…how did you do that!?"

Spyro couldn't answer her, because he had no idea.