Chapter 10: Answers

The bullet was on its way to Kayla's heart. Before she could utter a scream, Spyro jumped in front of it, catching the bullet between his teeth. He looked at Ratchet, the bullet still smoking.

"Any other time, I would've let you kill her." Spyro said, and then crunched down, crushing the bullet. "But she is more valuable to us alive." Kayla started to smile with arrogance until Spyro then added "for now at least." Here smiled vanished quicker than it had appeared.

Ratchet was shaking with rage, but as Spyro's words sank in, he let his arms drop, and put his pistol back into its holster. As he began to walk away, Spyro following, Kayla started to attempt to slip away. Before she had taken her third step, she was planted on the ground, claws digging into her back.

"I would not be so hasty to move if I were you." Came Cynder's voice.

As Ratchet and Spyro were walking to nowhere in particular, Ratchet began thinking. 'Had that really been Tachyon? How did he survive? Why is he here of all dimensions? Why in the hell is Kayla helping him?' Clank and Qwark had come back and met up with Ratchet. Ratchet and Spyro took turns answering questions from Qwark and Clank. The four then made their way to the hospital and sat in the lobby on Talwyn's floor. They shot ideas back and forth about what to do about Kayla and Tachyon, as well as getting Talwyn her memory back. After fifteen minutes, Cynder joined them, after dropping Kayla off at the local jail until she could be properly tried and convicted.

"We should try to figure out where he's been hiding all this time." Qwark said.

"Illogical" Clank disagreed. "He would've hidden his tracks carefully, and by the time we would find anything of use, he would already be five steps ahead, if not more."

"I could put together a dragon search party in all of our major cities. 5 dragons can cover a 300 mile diameter area in 18 hours." Spyro suggested.

"Also futile" Clank said "The time it would take for the message to get out would be too long, not to mention that Tachyon is currently in a ship, which can easily fly over the dragons at any height. "

"Then what do we do?" Cynder asked. "We can't just sit around here playing 'I spy' until he decides to make his next move. If he's a smart one, he'll wait us out until we get bored of looking for him or think he moved his efforts elsewhere, and then strike again."

"You are right Miss Cynder" Clank said. "The best thing to do in these situations is to focus on the problems we can solve. Kayla is our best bet."

Ratchet looked up.

"Let me talk to her." He said darkly as he stood up. Spyro stood up with him.

"That's not a good idea." Spyro told Ratchet. If Ratchet's fur could stand on end, he would look like a porcupine at the moment.

"I WILL DECIDE WHAT I CAN AND CAN'T DO, NOT SOME PROPHESIED LIZARD WITH WINGS!" Ratchet yelled.

"YOU ARE IN NO CONDITION TO BE MAKING DEMANDS! YOU ARE NOT THINKING CLEARLY!" Spyro roared back, the sound being so loud that the widows rattled in their frames.

Ratchet drew his pistol from its holster and raised it at Spyro. Before he could do anything, Cynder knocked it out of his hand with her tail, and Spyro leapt on him, pinning him to the ground with his body. As Ratchet started hurling the most vile of curses at the two dragons, Spyro growled with impatience and clamped his jaws around Ratchet's throat. As soon as Ratchet felt Spyro's teeth against his skin, he stopped. When Spyro was sure Ratchet wasn't going to speak again, he loosened his jaws and looked down at Ratchet, his purple eyes boring into Ratchet's green ones.

"The next time you do that, I will tear your throat out." Spyro warned.

Spyro got up off of Ratchet, and told Cynder that he was going to interrogate Kayla with Clank.

"What are you going to do?" Qwark asked.

"Smart and good robo cop then smart and evil dragon cop." Spyro answered, and the two took the elevator down.

While the two were going to interrogate Kayla, Cynder started thinking about Ratchet's ability to heal from any wound.

"Ratchet" she asked "how do you heal from any wound you have? After the fight we just had, you had gashes on your arms and legs that would take weeks to heal, and now their barely visible."

"I have microscopic robots in my blood stream called nanobots. They heal my body from the inside out, repairing the more severe damage before moving on to less serious injuries." He saw Cynder moving her eyes back and forth. "What are you getting at?" He asked. He then saw Cynder beam like a little girl who saw Santa for the first time.

"Do you want to hear the weapon idea or the part where your girlfriend gets her memory back?" Cynder asked. Ratchet, of course, chose getting Talwyn's memory back, and Cynder started to explain. "If these nanobots can repair tissue, why wouldn't it repair the brain? The reason Talwyn's memory has been knocked out is because those parts of her brain have been damaged. With a few nanobots injected directly into the areas of the brain that control memory, she should, theoretically, regain her short term and long term memories. The memories are still there, just the part of the brain she needs to access for them are damaged, like a file cabinet that you need a key to open but can't find. With the nanobots, it's like bringing hundreds of people into a massive office building to find that single key."

"Cynder, you're a genius." Ratchet exclaimed.

"I have my moments." Cynder said with a smile. "Now the weapon; cragmites have certain DNA markers, if we found those, we could make a weapon that would target specifically cragmites and confuse their antibodies to attack themselves, thus lessening their threat level and numbers, allowing us to overthrow them. "

"That's a great idea" Ratchet said hurriedly. "But we don't have any cragmites to practice on. But we can help Talwyn." Cynder saw the desperation in Ratchet's eyes, and flagged a nurse down, and told her their plan. The nurse ran and grabbed Talwyn's doctor. After Cynder explained the plan to the doctor, he took Ratchet to a room, and siphoned a pint of his blood, and Cynder watched as the nanobots healed the small hole in his arm.

"Talwyn" Zepher said. Talwyn looked at the old war bot. "They believe they have a way to bring your memory back." The nurses came in and had Talwyn sit in a wheelchair and took her to the operating room. They sat her in the operating chair as the doctor and nurses finished putting on their scrubs. After inserting an IV into Talwyn's hand with a sedative, she looked through the window reserved for family. Cynder, Qwark, Cronk, Zepher and Ratchet were there. The last thing she saw before the sedative completely took over was Ratchet mouthing the words "I love you."

Meanwhile…

"Unless you talk to us, we can't help you." Clank said. As a robot, he could extend his parameters for patience, but even after he ran that program, his patience was nearing its end.

"You won't help me." Kayla said defiantly. "I would sooner ally with Tachyon." She smiled sarcastically. "Oops, already did that."

Clank walked out of the room. The plan was to weaken her with logic, then have Spyro go in as the "bad cop" and break her. Although when Spyro was the one who outlined the plan, the "break her" part was different for him. Cynder's eggs could've been damaged during the cragmite attack, or Cynder herself could be killed. Spyro was going to break her, and in more ways than one.

Clank walked back to the observation room, watching Kayla.

"I think I've done all I can." Clank told Spyro. Spyro let out a small growl, psyching himself up. He walked out to the hallway and a soldier opened the door to the interrogation room. Spyro walked over to Kayla and stared at her. Kayla gazed back at him and felt her resolve weakening. As she looked into Spyro's purple eyes, she saw something different; she saw something primal, evil. Spyro's scales darkened as his eyes changed to a blazing white. He pounced on her in one quick smooth motion, knocking her on her back. Planting her down with his paws on her shoulders, he roared, every ounce of his anger projected into it. After the roar, his scales lightened and his eyes returned to their natural purple.

"I've made my point." Spyro said. "That other side of me, few have had the privilege of seeing it and living. It took all I had to keep that side of me from killing you. However, if you continue to be silent, he will return, and he will kill you, and not quickly either."

Kayla smiled back at Spyro, but her smile was faint. Spyro reached down to Kayla's knee with his paw, and then pressed down until he heard a pop. Kayla screamed out in pain.

"Where is Tachyon?" Spyro asked darkly.

"Screw you!" Kayla yelled. Spyro reached over and crushed Kayla's other knee cap, and repeated the question. Again, she refused. Spyro hated torturing others to get answers, and this was his first time doing such a heinous act. But his desire to kill Tachyon was immense, like a bag of bricks he was carrying around. Ratchet wasn't the only one Tachyon hurt, and Spyro was hell-bent on making that cragmite pay. As Kayla continued to scream, Spyro knew she was crumbling. A few more breaks to her body, and her resolve would break shortly after.

And the end of chapter 10. Everybody give a big hand for "Lucy the cat" and "Lucy" give yourself a pat on the back for reminding me of a secondary plot line that I hadn't touched on in a while. No serious action in this chapter, but more will be happening, and of course the final showdown will be epic. Tell me; what did you think of the short appearance of Dark Spyro in this chapter, and do you think he should appear again? Also, what did Tachyon do to hurt Spyro so badly? Give me your thoughts, comments, reactions. Till next time, take care! ;)