Spyro wasn't sure how long he sat there waiting. He had hoped that once the pirate had fallen sleep he could free his friends and get out, but the pirate never fell asleep and he grew tired waiting rather quickly. He shook his head trying to keep his eyes from drooping which helped him stay away for about half a minute but no longer than that. Terrador and the pirate where sitting there in silence, making him wonder how they managed to stay awake this long. Peaking around the corner again, Spyro watched as the pirate was fiddling around with a stick, drawing or writing something into the dirt. He would use the same stick to poke the fire to keep it going, and let the stick catch on fire before putting it out again by drawing something in the dirt.
Terrador was just watching the fire and glancing over to his monument to Nova every now and then. Obviously he was thinking about her, though Spyro had to wonder if his parents went through something similar before.
Both Cynder and Hunter where asleep, or at least that is what it looked like. For all he knew they were just pretending to sleep, and where going to jump out of there bindings and escape.
"I hope so" Spyro mumbled under his breath. Hiding his head again, Spyro did everything he could to stay awake. He pinched himself, he bit his tongue, and he tried to keep himself busy but it was the fear of being heard that kept him from moving too much. It wasn't long before he ended up falling asleep.
Spyro found himself back in his dream world, the white void. He figured his counterpart, or at least one of them, would show up eventually so he took the time to use his imagination to create the scenery. Trees began to sprout from the ground and grew to the size of buildings, and their branches stretched as far as the eye could see. Grass and dirt formed at his paws and glowing flowers sprung up to light up the otherwise dark forest, filling the place up with a variety of blues, greens, and oranges. Though it was just a dream, Spyro's nose was assaulted by different forest smells, and there was even a gently breeze the shook the leaves.
Looking around to admire his work, Spyro thought it seemed rather peaceful. He wasn't sure where he had seen a place like this, but it felt like he had seen this place before, or at least a place that looked familiar. He shrugged, figuring he saw it in a book or something.
It didn't take him very long to notice that some of the plants and tress started to wilt and decay, and even started to turn a sickly black, no doubt a sigh that he was about to show up.
"Hey there buddy." Dark Spyro called as he walked up to his counterpart. "Been a while since I see you in here." He knocked on Spyro's head like a door. Spyro shook him off.
"What do you want now?"
Dark Spyro merely shrugged. "Do I really need a reason? I live here after all."
"Well if your just here to bother me, then why don't you just leave already!" Spyro tried his best to look fearless as he bared his teeth and growled at his dark counterpart as he tried to scare him off. This only made Dark Spyro laugh.
"Really? That's the best you got?" he said, not phased at all by Spyro's fear tactics. Dropping the act, Spyro looked downwards glumly. Dark Spyro put a wing over his back. "Hey don't feel to sad, not all of us can be as strong as I am." This earned a sharp shove from Spyro, pushing Dark Spyro away.
"I don't want your sympathy. You've gotten me nothing but trouble."
"No, you've gotten yourself into trouble. It was I who's gotten you out of it."
"Killing someone isn't helping me! In fact, you made things much worse when you killed Blast. Everyone in Warfang would still hate me, but at least I would still be able to live there! Now I have to run for my life from everyone, and risk the lives of both Hunter and Cynder."
Dark Spyro pretended to look hurt. "Hey, if I didn't kill him then he would continue to torment you. Eventually you would have kill him yourself without my help."
"What? No! I wouldn't have ever done that!" Spyro refused to believe that he would have gone that far, not with someone like Cynder by his side to help keep him in check.
"Oh trust me, I should know far more than you would about how your brain works."
"And why is that? You are just the embodiment of my fears and nothing more!" Dark Spyro flared his wings, making Spyro jump back in fright as his counterpart looked ready to strike him.
"Listen Spyro!" Dark Spyro growled. Unlike his own attempt, Dark Spyro knew how to instill fear into him. "You have no idea what exactly I am. I am far more than just your fears, and I grow tried that you can't figure out exactly what I am. You created me because you couldn't handle the reality the world put you in, and now that you're out of that world, all you do is spend your day wallowing in your own self-pity. You sit on your ass and say you're not strong enough to do anything and I'm growing tried listening to it."
Before Spyro knew what was going on, Dark Spyro had grabbed him by his neck, tossed him to the ground and pressed his weight down on Spyro's chest to keep him down on the floor. "Tell me why I shouldn't just take your body now and kill everyone in the cave right now?"
Spyro grew a little worried that Dark Spyro might hurt his friends or his father or worse. "Because if you do, then I'll just kill myself, then you'll no longer exist either." He said in a panic.
Dark Spyro scoffed. "Do you think your death will make me back down? Unlike you I'm not afraid to die if I have to. I'm not afraid to get the job done, even at the cost of my friends. They are merely road blocks in our way to our own ascension Spyro." Dark Spyro got off his counterpart and paced around.
"We are capable of doing so much Spyro. We can rule cities, destroy nation, slaughter millions, tear this world to pieces, and so much more!" he stopped and stared at Spyro as he picked himself up off the dirt. "The only thing standing in my way is you Spyro."
"If you are as powerful as you say you are, then why haven't you taken control and done all those things you say you can do!" Spyro shot back, finding the fading shreds of courage that he still had inside of him.
Dark Spyro began to laugh at his own expense. "Because Spyro, I am a mere thought, a dream, your imaginary friend, if you will. In truth I can't really do any of those things, but you can." This left Spyro completely confused.
"What are you talking about? I know you can take control, you proved that you can when you killed Blast!" Dark Spyro shook his head.
"No Spyro, that was you, you killed Blast." Dark Spyro began to rub his temples as he grew more and more frustrated with his counterpart. "Maybe someday you'll understand, but for now I grow tired of this conversation, and frankly I want to rest." He turned to leave but Spyro quickly ran in front of him to block his path.
"You're not leaving until you answer my question! Just who are you?"
Dark Spyro rolled his eye. "Do you want the truth? The whole truth?" Spyro nodded, thinking that he was ready. "Well like I said a million times before, I am you. I've been you, I am you, and I will always be you, what more do you want?"
"You keep saying that, but your nothing like me!" Spyro said growing rather irritated himself. "You say your growing tired that I can't figure it out, so why don't you just tell me and save us both a lot of trouble!"
For a moment Dark Spyro looked impressed by what Spyro was saying, but that look in his eyes disapeared a moment later, turning back to the cruel and unforgiving ones that Spyro remembered. "Fine. If you really want to know who I am, well I can't really tell you as I don't know, but the best I can tell you is that I'm Malefor."
Spyro took a step back. "What?" he said bewildered. "How is that even possible?"
Dark Spyro shrugged. "I'm not the real Malefor, moron." he said as he groaned irritably. "You're really going to make me spell it out for you aren't you? Fine then. Maybe this will help you understand just exactly who your mystery voice and I really are." Dark Spyro took a moment before speaking, taking the time to figure out how to phrase this properly without spoiling the full truth. "I am, what you believe Malefor is like."
Spyro looked at him confused. "I still don't get it."
Dark Spyro thought about how to phrase that again. "Tell me, what do you know about Malefor?"
"That he was an evil dragon that tried to kill millions for his own personal gain." Spyro knew this so well because that was what people feared he would do, and he was reminded of this every time he saw the look on people's faces as he walked by when he lived in Warfang. That fear they had in them which would always branch out of them which they used weapons, both verbally and physically, to beat Spyro into submission so he couldn't become the thing they feared.
"Exactly, and so when your mind broke when dear mother tossed you out that window, you made me out of that idea of you becoming like Malefor, just like all those towns people thought you'd turn out to be. Do you get it now?"
Spyro had to take a moment to really think about what his counterpart told him. "Not really. I mean that doesn't really make a lot of sense." Dark Spyro let out an exhausted sigh.
"You truly are, the most worthless dragon in all the realms Spyro." Before Spyro could say another word, his counterpart vanished, taking all the corrupted plant life with him. Spyro looked all around, confused now more than ever.
"Wait! Come back!" he shouted. But not a single word was spoken back to him.
Spyro woke up shortly after, his heart pounding in his chest. He looked around and noticed that he was still in the cave, and was rather glad that he didn't make too much noise when he was asleep. That's when he remembered about the pirate in the cave and he peaked out around the corner to see if he was still there. He wasn't sure if he should be glad to see that the pirate had left as both Hunter and Cynder were gone as well.
Slowly walking out from his hiding spot, Spyro walked up to his father who was still sitting in front of the smoldering ashes left by the fire, leaving Spyro to wonder how long he had been there.
"G-good morning." Spyro said timidly, still finding it hard to believe that he slept in the same cave as one of his childhood tormenters. Terrador just nodded back at him. Spyro sat down in front of the fire pit, and remained silent, rather hoping that his dad would come up with some idea that would help him get Cynder and Hunter back, though after what felt like an hour of silence, Spyro figured that he was out of luck. He looked over to Terrador, who hadn't moved ever since Spyro woke up. Sure enough he was still sitting in the same spot, still gazing into the burnt logs and ash. It was easy for Spyro to assume that his dad was thinking about Nova. He never really realized that his father actually cared for someone, though the only time he ever really saw his parents, they were practically torturing him. The more he thought about it, a question came to his mind.
"Hey dad…" he paused as he was worried about what Terrador might do. "Why did mom make you keep that promise… you know about forgiving me?"
Terrador's gaze didn't shift, making Spyro question if he even heard him in the first place, but after a moment he looked at his son. Spyro expected that his father would attack him, or at the very least look angry, but instead he looked sad which caught Spyro off guard.
"Your mother changed after you left." He said in a low and solemn voice. "She wasn't the only thing that was changing either, everyone in Warfang seemed to change as well. While you were in Warfang, everyone seemed peaceful, calm, and I dare say that they were happy, but when you left people began to panic. When you were at Warfang, people always kept an eye on you, and seeing you in such a decrepit state eased their thoughts and worries that you would someday end up like Malefor. By leaving, people began to speculate that you were going to build an army and attack them. While at the time I sided with the people of Warfang, your mother thought otherwise. She told me once that she blamed herself for the way the people around us were acting, that it was our fault that you ran off." Terrador paused to sigh and in doing so, Spyro realized that his father looked tired. Not due to a lack of sleep sort of tired, but the kind of tired that you would get when you're tired of doing or thinking of the same thing over and over again.
"I can still remember the day she came home crying." He smiled a little though his eyes still held all the sadness in the world as he played the scene over in his head. "I comforted her the best I could and I asked her why she was crying. She told me that she witnessed the city go to hell, honest people were stealing, riots where forming, and building where being destroyed in all the panic that people where causing. She told me how scared she was, and that everything going on was our faults, for being shitty parents… I didn't really think about what she said until…." He stopped, though Spyro didn't need him to continue to know what he was going to say.
Spyro walked over to his dad and sat down beside him, hoping that in doing so, it would help ease the pain. He didn't say anything though, to be honest he didn't know if he should, but he knew that just being there was helping as Terrador pulled him closer with the use of his large wing.
"Spyro," his dad continued. "On the behalf of your mother, we're sorry for everything that we did to you." This brought a smile to Spyro's face. He didn't know how long he had wished to hear those words, but it felt like an eternity.
Spyro looked up to his father, who was looking back down at him. "You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that dad." He played his father's words over again in his head and smiled some more, but then he remembered the issue at hand. He pulled away from Terrador who looked confused as to why Spyro moved away.
"Hey dad, I know that we just got back together and we just started repairing the damages done, but…" Spyro stopped, a little worried that his father might get mad at him for what he was about to ask. "But will you help me save my friends?"
Hey guys, sorry this one took longer to post, I had a really bad cold and I couldn't work on the story at all during that time, not to mention that work wasn't making it any easier. Still I hope you all enjoyed this one and I'll try to get the next one out a little sooner.