He was falling.

Fast.

And Far.

The void rushed past him in a fury of pitch-black streaked with crimson-red, circling around his plummeting form like a maelstrom of fire and darkness; the roar of the wind drowned out his thoughts, and the heat of the flames licked against his skin. It was as if he was falling through the inside of a tornado made of fire, the winds whipping around in to form a tunnel leading downwards…or perhaps a more accurate description would be it was like he as in a dark whirlpool, being pulled down by the mighty, swirling current into the dark, dark abyss.

Never to see the light of the sun again.

Most people, under such circumstances, would most likely be panicking for their very lives, terrified beyond comprehension. They would most likely scream, cry, beg for help for whatever higher power they believed in for salvation. As was the nature of the weak and the mortal.

But he was by no means weak, or even mortal, and there was only one emotion he felt right now:

Rage.

Pure, primal, animalistic rage.

His own bestial roar of fury was so loud it pierced through the winds like a gunshot through the silence of the night. The flames hot enough to melt metal brushed harmlessly against his scaly skin, leaving not even so much as a smudge of soot; said flames were nothing compared to those burning from his very eyes, the gold and lavender tongues blazing all the way to the bases of his horns. His long tail thrashed through the swirling winds with anger, its long spines tearing holes in the edges of the vortex. His large, featherless wings beat against the winds, desperately trying to gain control of his descent into wherever he was going, but to no avail. His talon-like claws tore at the streams of smoke around him, and his dagger-like teeth snapped shut on empty air, as if he could find the source of his predicament in the chaos around him. And his brilliant purple scales glimmered in the dim light like gemstones, as did his golden underbelly and bronze horns.

He was a beast known by many names, throughout many worlds. Some were titles bestowed upon him by birthright, inherited from his ancestors during the time they influenced the universe, while others he had earned himself through his actions, which influenced millions of lives across the universe. Some worshipped him as a god, singing his praises and giving thanks for all his actions had done to better their lives. While others damned him as a demon akin to the Devil himself, cursing his very existence and seeing him as nothing more than a monster needing to be slain; the majority of these, however, were of the wicked or the cowardly, who didn't approve of the fact he actively sought to destroy their ways of life, purging the world of evil and idiocy alike and reforging them with his power over the elements.

Jendovahzoor, The Purple Dragon, the Son of Akatosh, the Lord of Time, the Heir of Gojira, the Thane of Nimh, the Primal God of Vengeance, and the Son of Malefor. These were but a few of many, many titles he had earned for himself across the world of Tamrizeroth.

But to those who knew him personally, such as his family, allies, and friends, he was simply known as Spyro the Dragon.

And he was fucking pissed.

He could not remember the events that led up to this situation; the entire day itself was a blur of fog, color, and noise. Everything looked and sounded like it was submerged deep in murky water within his mind's eye. And now he found himself here: in this 'vortex of darkness', being pulled down into…somewhere.

He didn't know where, and he couldn't have cared less: wherever it was, it was away from his Home. From his Domain. His People. His family.

His mother.

Whoever was responsible for this…whoever had torn him away from them…they would burn. He promised by his very name: they would burn until even the ashes of their skeletons were consumed by his fire, along with all who would dare stand between him and his way home.

He had just about to start blasting holes throughout this swirling 'tunnel of doom' when a distant glow of red drew his attention downwards, the faint glow of what looked like the late evening sun reflecting in his blazing eyes. There, deep into the abyss but approaching with speed, was the literal light at the end of the tunnel, or the bottom of the whirlpool in this case. He didn't care either way: all that mattered was getting out of this swirling mess so he could find a way back home.

The winds whipping around the dragon began to die down, and the red flames dispersed around him; the darkness of the void surrounding seem to outright crumble away like sand through one's fingers, black chunks of non-existence breaking apart and disintegrating into true nothingness, revealing a dark red sky filled with paler-red clouds rushing past him. His sense of touch also returned in a flash; the hot winds howled in his ears and whipped against his scales. The sensation of being pulled somewhere had shifted as well: from the arcane feeling like he was being dragged in a violent current to the naturally-occurring pull of gravity.

Finally. Now he was back in command of the situation, as it should be.

With a loud *WHOOSH* of air, his mighty wings snapped open to their full length; his fiery-orange membrane caught the air beneath them, and he felt his descent quickly slowing as he took flight. The clouds stopped rushing past him as he leveled into a comfortable glide. His draconian eyes pierced said clouds like a beam of light pierces the dark, and he saw that he was soaring high above a vast desert landscape of dry, wind-swept red stone that stretched as far as the eye can see, lined with great mountains ranges, and dotted with many large, twisted rock formations scattered all across it.

His eyes narrowed at the sight; he didn't recognize this land. He had no idea where he was; that was going to make getting home a bit of a-

The moment the thought of going home entered the dragon's mind, he was suddenly yanked to an abrupt stop.

Seven points on the drake's body: his neck, wrists, ankles, and wings were all seized by previously-nonexistent chains, which rattled with an almost crystalline chime as they went taut. His wings burned with pain as they were forcibly pulled downwards mid-flap, nearly tearing them out of their sockets, while his neck nearly broke at the point of connection.

He barely had time to register the pain before he was pulled down out of the sky, once again violently plummeting to the earth against his will.

An enraged roar exploded from his jaws as he bellowed his pain and fury to the heavens, struggling violently against whatever had seized him in their grasp. His scales lit up with a brilliant purple-magenta light as he summoned every last drop of Aetherian power within himself, and his entire body literally burst into violet flames from the sheer amount of raw Aether energy he created, pouring every last ounce of strength he could summon into fighting the pull towards the ground; the sky around him was filled with small explosions as the very molecules of air were crushed by his sheer raw power.

But even that wasn't enough. For all his might, all the legendary power that could consume entire worlds in its wrath, it made no difference: the magical chains didn't give in the slightest, pulling the dragon down with no effort.

And once again, he was falling from the heavens into the abyss below.

In more ways than he had yet to realize.

Another day, another kill.

That's how it always was at Serial Killer Summit, the large, forest-covered mountain range that all the local boogeymen and serial killers of Hell used as their personal playground, far from the main cities and their laws (as far as law went in the pit of eternal damnation, that is).

And one of the most infamous killers in history was busy cleaning up from his latest victory.

Of all the previous murderers of life that lurked in these woods, the infamous Jason Voorhees was perhaps one of, if not the most feared and known of the 'iconic' killers that lived in these woods. The massive sinner was sitting on a log, wiping the coating of blood off his trusty machete with the edge of his sleeve. His iconic hockey mask stared blankly at the world, while his scaly, webbed-fingered hands handed his weapon with the utmost care. In front of him, just shy of his large, soggy boots, laid the carcass of yet another sinner that had come rushing into the forest, seeking a most twisted version of salvation from salvation.

It must've been that time of the year again, he thought.

The time when the angels came down to punish all the evil men of this land, and said evil men came running into his abode for deliverance, be it by shelter of temporary death.

The angels never came to the forest, as most of the evil men lived in the big cities in the open plains, far out from the base of the mountains. Once a year, when the angels came down, many of them would leave the city and seek shelter from their wrath in other places; places that the angels didn't care to tread, and this mountain happened to be one of those locations. Sinners would come fleeing into the forest in droves, desperate for anywhere to hide from the winged executioners, even if it meant risking a run in with one of the many killers who lived here, such as himself.

Some came seeking a place to hide from both sides of death; thinking they were capable and clever enough in their new forms to hide from or even fight the many once-human, now-monsters that roamed these mountains. And some of them were: a lucky few that would be able to ride out the Extermination without becoming a serial killer's plaything, and then return to their lives of debauchery and disgust within the cities, albeit with a few stories to tell others.

However, as was all too often the case, most were not so lucky. And most found themselves on the receiving end of one of the many forms of blade that was wielded in these woods.

But then there were those who came looking for said blades.

Those who actually came to die. Albeit temporarily.

It was a…confusing concept for Jason, to say the least; he was familiar with the fact that he and everyone else in this world would never truly die. That if you were killed, you would just 'come back' in a random location in hell, usually near the cities. He learned this when he experienced death for the first time, at the claws of that delusional megalomaniac Freddy, only to wake up perfectly fine within the outskirts of the big city.

He did not recall the memory with fondness. To experience death once was truly painful in itself, but being brought back from the black void, his body painfully reforming within seconds as his soul was dragged from that foul abyss…just thinking about it made him grit his piranha-like teeth in rage. Not only that, but it had taken him weeks to find his way out of that crazy labyrinth of lights, sounds, and cars that was the city, and then up the mountain until he finally made it back to his lake.

And yet, for all the pain it wrought, for all the confusion that came after reawakening, some of these sinners were actively seeking that. To die by the hands or weapon of one of Serial Killer Summit's most dangerous, and thus hide the immortal soul away in the void during the extermination, rather than have it erased by the angels.

Such as the sinner that laid before him; a creature that resembled a human with elongated arms, an obnoxiously-bright orange skin, and a fan of webbed frills instead of hair. When Jason stepped out of the trees and into his path, ready and waiting for the sinner to flee, they instead opened their arms and awaited his blade, taunting him with cruel words; they had come looking to die, and expected him to deliver them from the angels for another year.

So be it. Jason wasn't the type to turn down a free chance to kill an evil man. However, he did not like be used for such selfish means by others, so he granted the sinner death…in the slowest, most painful way he could: a quick swipe of his machete's blade through his victim's abdomen saw the orange sinner's organs splatter across the forest floor in a spray of blood, and the pathetic wretch dropped to the ground right after. Even now, as he silently cleaned his blade, the sinner lay there alive, still twitching, and gasping for air. All the while the former terror of Crystal Lake ignored him, relaxing in the otherwise silent calm of his forest home.

Though it was different than the one he knew in life: the grass around him was a deep rusty-red in color, and each individual blade was shaped more like a thorn, though it bent beneath his feet without issue. The trees were just as uninviting; pitch-black bark with long, thorny branches filled with deep-red leaves that looked more like twisted blades soaked in blood, while any form of rock to be seen resembled burning chunks of lava-rock, glowing through the cracks on the surface from within.

A hellish parody of the woods that he had once called home.

And yet, it was here he felt most at peace. And peace was what he longed for most.

*Thoooom…*

Said peace, however, was not to last: his calm musings were interrupted by a sound like thunder. This puzzled Jason; there were no storm clouds in the sky, overhead or beyond on the horizon. He scanned the skies above him, squinting against the bright red glow of the Sky Pentagram, until he spotted what was making that noise: it looked like a meteor or comet streaking across the sky at a dangerous speed, blazing with an intense purple flame and trailing a long tail of smoke behind itself as it fell from the heavens. The roar of the flames against the air almost sounded organic, like the bestial roar of a great monster.

It soared overhead so fast that he could barely keep his sight up with it, whooshing over the serial killer's head with a thunderous blast of air and fire. It disappeared behind the trees before the forest lit up as if the sun had fallen to earth, and the ground shook as if the very ring was breaking apart. Jason fumbled backwards and rolled over the log he was sitting on, literally knocked off his ass and onto his back; his machete arched in the air before coming down blade-first into his victim's head, finally putting the sinner out of his misery…at least, until he would come back in the city in a few weeks or so.

The whole forest shook from the blow of the comet's impact: the tree shivered in the wind, the weaker leaves falling in a flurry, while the Hell-Crows and other birds of the forest scattered to the air, screeching their demonic cries as they fled in droves. Meanwhile, a heavy cloud of dust only just began to settle, the light of the blast fading into the distance.

Thoroughly shaken from the experience and thus understandably pissed, Jason pulled himself to his feet, glaring with baleful red eyes in the direction of the impact. He swore; if this was yet another killer he had to deal with, he was going to murder somebody…moreso than usual.

Pain.

It was the first thing that made itself obviously apparent as Spyro slowly came to, causing a deep, reptilian groan to escape his jaws. It wracked his entire body like the claws of an Odogaron, especially in his wings; they felt as if they had been ripped completely out of their sockets. It was a miracle the joints hadn't been dislocated and the membrane hadn't been torn.

He laid there motionless, his body laid out on its side and spine curled backwards, like the fossilized remains of a dead dinosaur found in a dry riverbed. He didn't move. He didn't speak beyond a pained groan. He didn't do anything buy lay still and wait for his body to regenerate from the damage it took, and for the pain to go away; he could already feel his body staring to mend itself, the ache slowly fading away as his wounds regenerated from their damage; broken bones snapped back into place and sealed their fractures, and torn muscles knitted back together. The bruises under his scales began to clear, while said scales grew back from where they had broken from the impact.

Only after the pain had completely subsided did he finally move, rolling himself over onto his armored stomach and folding his still-tender wings to his sides for protection; it would be a while before he would attempt to fly anywhere again. He gathered his limbs under himself for stability before finally using his long, snake-like neck to lift his horned head above his body...at which point he coughed harshly, hacking up the mouthful of dirt he had swallowed during his crash, showering part of the crater floor in molten-hot, magma-like saliva, which hissed loudly with steam wherever it landed.

Then, after all of that, he finally opened his eyes.

Said eyes glowed so brightly that they lit up the dim area of the crater with a light that was very much like the light of the sun: fiery in nature, yet dimmer than actual sunlight. He slowly lifted himself to his feet, turned his head back and forth, taking in the details of his surroundings: of the newly-formed crater his body had smashed into the solid clay-red floor. Broken pieces of gravel and rocks tumbled down the sides of the pit, crumbling from the broken ground, while the howling of winds could be heard above, the crater ironically providing shelter from their biting gales.

The sound of rattling chains, as well as a heavy, dragging weight pulled on his neck as he turned it, and he looked down at his fore-paws to see the source of the noise: to get a better look at what had literally pulled him out of the sky.

Chains. Seven of them. Seven great crystalline chains that were attached to the dragon's body at several points, with cuffs carved to resemble the heads of snakes biting down on their captive, their eyes burning with yellow-orange flames. There were seven points of attachment: his neck, both arm-wrists, both wing-wrists, and both ankles, leaving only his tail free. The teeth of the snake-head cuffs seem to be biting into the dragon's flesh, holding him in place, though there were no wounds caused by the teeth, and no blood spilled at the points of supposed puncture. The ends were just as peculiar; rather than being tied up to something or fastened on the other end, they seem to 'fade' into the ground, the last links seemingly fading into non-existence just above the floor.

These 'snake-chains' that clung to his body like the jaws of a gator clung to their prey; despite clearly seeing their fangs passing through his scales and burying themselves into his flesh, he didn't feel any pain from them. At least, not on their own; when he had been yanked from the air, it had felt as if someone had jammed red-hot hooks into where the chains held him from before pulling down as hard as they could: not to tear the flesh, but to prevent him from going home.

Home...it was the exact moment he thought about going home when these chains first seized him...

And when the thought passed through his mind again, the chains suddenly glowed with a red light before pulling taut once more, causing the dragon to lurch forward as the red-hot fangs burned into his flesh. A pained shriek escaped his jaws as he was pulled forward; he was just able to catch his footing before he fell, but he was unable to fight the unbelievable strength of the chains as they pulled him to the ground, forcing him to his elbows and knees with a heavy thud.

His tail thrashing back and forth at dangerous speeds, slamming into the walls and leaving even more holes punched into the solid rock, he gripped the earth with all four legs and pushed with all his might. So much so that the very ground beneath him split from the sheer force of his strength, splitting the very crater in half with a thunderous crack. Almost as thunderous as his roar of pure, primal rage he bellowed as he poured everything he had into the fight to break free.

And even then, they didn't budge an inch.

For all his strength, for all his legendary power of the Aetherian Safi'jiiva, he was unable to do anything.

A dark growl of a murderous blood-lust escaped his throat, promising a death by hot, painful flames to the one who had cast this spell upon him; to whoever had not only sent him to this realm, but sealed him to it. That's what these were: a seal to this realm, made to ensure that he stayed in it and never escaped.

It was with the acceptance of that fact did the chains finally stopped glowing and went slack; Spyro exhaled in relief, a cloud of smoke billowing from his mouth as he slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. The chains appeared to 'ripple', as if becoming made of water, as they slowly faded into nothingness. Soon, they were gone completely, along with any sensation of them being there in the first place.

He couldn't see them, hear, or feel them and their weight. It was as if, for all intent and purposes, they had ceased to exist...and yet, he could still tell they were there. Sense them, in a way: sense that they still held their unbreakable grip on his limbs, keeping him bound to this very realm.

But that was the real question: what realm had he been bound to?

The glow of crimson light drew his attention skywards, and his eyes widened at the sight above him.

There, floating high above the clouds and filling the entire sky from horizon to horizon, was a massive red pentagram that glowed with a baleful pale-red light, radiating with an evil energy. And a blackened sun that looked more like a solar eclipse than an actual star shone balefully through one of its points, casting the world in what would only be described as 'black light', for lack of any other term.

'What is this place?' the dragon asked mentally, the crimson light of the pentagram reflecting in his eyes.

The only answer he got was the instant chill of a dark presence making itself known behind him.

Spyro whipped around at the bottom of the crater, teeth already bared in preparation for combat. There, standing on the ledge of the crater, was what resembled a human in overall shape and build, but that's where the similarities ended. The creature was a goliath, standing almost ten feet in height, and built like a giant gorilla in terms of pure strength: his body and limbs were swollen to the extreme with muscle and bone, the blue denim overall he was wearing stretched to its limits against his frame. A pair of chains had been wrapped around his torso and hung from his shoulders, broken at certain points that left them hanging loosely, clattering with every movement the beast made. Through the tears scattered across the overall, along with his bare hands, Spyro could see shimmering, scaly, teal-green skin like that of a fish, along with large gills lining the sides of his neck. His face was covered completely by a hockey mask that looked to fuse with his mishappened head; the only feature visible were the burning red eyes of a monster glaring hatefully at the dragon.

A truly terrifying titan of a man, perhaps…but just a man, nonetheless.

Jason wisely took a few steps back, now realizing the scope of the creature rising from the dust like a great demon from the depths of an even deeper, darker hell. The massive, draconian head of the beast slowly lifted high up into the air upon a long, serpentine neck; the head alone was more than three times the size of a man, casting a large shadow over the glade as a deep, rumbling growl of a breath thrummed from between its dagger-sized teeth. Eyes that blazed with a primordial power glared down at him with the intensity and heat of a great fire, daring him to make the first move.

The monster was a massive saurian, easily as big as a T. Rex, that had six limbs in total: four legs and a pair of wings, the latter protruding from his shoulders. His hind-legs were saurian in nature, complete with a digitigrade ankle structure and four-toed bird-like feet, while his forelegs were outright primate in build, complete with five-fingered hands with one being an opposable thumb; both fingers and toes were tipped with sharp, curved claws, obviously used for slashing prey. The dinosaur-like tail was incredibly long, twice the length as the rest of him, while his wings were large and bat-like, with four long fingers lined with a fiery-orange skin membrane and a single clawed thumb on each of the wing's 'hands'. His underbelly was lined with overlapping gold-colored scale-plating from chin to tail-blade, while the entire length of his spine was covered in hundreds of long dorsal spines that looked sharp enough to pierce through metal, the longest lining the back between his wing-shoulders and the thickened end of his tail, turning the latter into a deadly weapon. His neck was long and snake-like, yet thick and strong to support his head, which was more like a prehistoric dragon's than a traditional dragon's in appearance: outright saurian in structure, with a therapod-like snout and jaws, forward-facing eyes, bony eyebrow-ridges, a pair of backward-facing horns that curved upward in an S-shape from the back of his head, under which several smaller horns and chin spikes lined the back of his head and jaws. His eyes glowed with a fiery light in the dark, blazing pools of bright gold and magenta-purple with snake-like slit pupils.

Those fiery gold and purple eyes glared down upon the fishman-like sinner with a fierce intensity as Spyro growled in warning, daring him to even try and make the first move. Jason met their gaze with his own unflinching glare, standing tall without so much as a single flinch.

Two forces of nature, one a man and one a beast, just waiting for any excuse to throw down with each other.

Then Jason's murderous aura faded into simple observation, and Spyro stopped growling in response, though he continued to glare at the masked murderer.

The dragon gave a grunt of defiance, but otherwise said or vocalized nothing as he stepped back before turning away, climbing up the side of the crater to the left of the masked killer. His movements were slow and reptilian, with very precise placing of his hands and feet, scaling the steep surface like a massive lizard. A huge reptilian hand larger than a fully-grown man burst from the dust-cloud settling over the crater, grabbing onto the edge with a grip so strong it cracked the very rock it clung to; claws as long as a human's arm carved deep grooves in the earth as a second hand joined the first.

Then the beast hopped up and out over the edge, like a cat leaping up onto a higher surface, flapping his wings slightly to boost himself forward. It was here that Jason could really tell the size of this new creature, and just how much bigger than him it was. It reminded him of the dinosaurs from old picture books his mother used to show him back when he was younger.

And that's why he decided not to attack. This beast, whatever it was…was just that: a beast. An animal. Not an evil man by any sense. Not something that deserved death like they did.

Besides, judging from the number of scars all across the creature's body, it seemed that enough people had harmed it already. Its eyes carried a fire in them just like his own; those foolish enough to raise their weapons against it paid the ultimate price. And while he wasn't the most intelligent killer in these forests, he was no mere fool: he knew when he was outclassed; a rare phenomenon to be sure, but one he still knew, especially in this dark world.

And he had no desire to die and wake up in the city again.

Ultimately, though, there was no fear of that to happen: after a moment of their silent stare off, the dragon gave a disgruntled snort, twin columns of smoke shooting out of his nostrils, before turning away from the dark human and stepping away. Jason watched him leave for a moment before turning away himself, ready to return to his peace and quiet.

A sudden rush of wind blew across the glade, whipping up a flurry of dust from the crater. Jason turned back to see the dragon taking to the air, spreading its massive wings and taking flight, flying fast and far into the sky above. He lifted his machete a touch, ready to fight if that was going to be the case, but it wasn't: the dragon simply took to the skies above the mountain range, growing smaller and smaller into the distance.

Satisfied, the masked killer turned away and disappeared back into his forest, his essence vanishing to the shadows.

Spyro glanced back as he felt the presence fade entirely and saw nothing but the clearing in the forest that his impromptu entrance had left. He wasn't entirely sure what that had been all about, but that human carried the heavy air of death around him like a reaper. Not something for one of his powers to fear, but he could imagine the fear and death that he must bring to his fellow men.

Yes, men. Despite possessing scaly skin, webbed hands, and other such features from a fish and a reaper, he could sense it: under all the differences, under the aura of darkness that radiated off their form, that being was a human.

Humans…

The Creators of Nimh.

And the ones most feared by Rodentkin over all other races.

His eyes hardened with resolve, and he flapped his wings to pick up speed, soaring through the mountain range like a small comet of purple. He was going to escape this hellish realm where transformed humans roamed. He was going to find his way back home. He was going to see his mother, his siblings, and his people again. And if anyone or anything even thought about trying to stop him, be they man or beast, then they would taste the full wrath of Jendovahzoor.

That was a promise.