Aimless

by The Silent Insomniac

Joshua Renalia finds himself lost in the Dragon Realms with nothing but his sleeping clothes, his knowledge of Spyro lore, and a power beyond his understanding. Cut off from all he knows, the human discovers Spyro's world is alien, unforgiving, brutally shattering his naive expectations. How long can he live here before going insane? Is there a way back home? Why is he even here?

18. The Unknown Element

Author's Notes:

Hey, readers! Sorry for the delay.

Long story short, but real life got in the way. Over the past three months since my last update, personal affairs compelled me to make a huge, long-term relocation back to my homeland in Southeast Asia. Economic circumstances and aspirations tie me down here, so I don't expect to be returning to the United States, not for years. Unfortunately the IRS doesn't let go of American citizens that easily – I'll still have to pay taxes to the US. =_=;

Anyway, to make up for the months of absence, I'm presenting CH18 with a length rivalling that commonly found in my main fic's chapters. It's extra long, extra detailed. I look forward to your feedback. Seeing you guys entertained inspires me to keep on going even more. :3

BTW, this chapter features more dialogue and action involving the TLOS canon cast, so please be as critical as you can if you have glaring problems with character portrayal. Remember! Spyro isn't my home fandom! I will try to fix any issues that may arise.

Now without further delay, enjoy! Y'all have waited long enough. :)

---

Chapter 18: The Unknown Element

"He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom."

- P.G. Wodehouse

---

As soon as the hostile spheres departed beyond his sixth sense's maximum range, Joshua let out a deep breath and relaxed, and the beating of his heart slowed to a steady, peaceful tempo. A tightness he never knew he had unraveled; the fog surrounding him dispersed into the air with it. With the City of Dragons imposing its wall upon his eyes, it looked as though the White Cloak had never appeared in the first place.

Provided one did not glance at the huge spot of dead grass where Joshua and Cynder now stood.

The boy bent forward, exhausted. Hands on knees. "They decided to leave," he said. He'd been worried back there. Joshua doubted the Cloak could've endured a sustained assault for more than a minute. That he did not trust his own skills was telling, if he had any at all. "Thank God." He groaned. "That was a close one."

He wasn't the only one flushed with relief.

"Ughhhh…"

Joshua snapped his head in time to see Cynder's wobbly stance finally give way to the overwhelming fatigue. She teetered to her left. Her eyes had shut and a pained breath dug its way out of her deformed jaw. The human tried not to look at how Rimeer had crushed it, making it cave in on itself. Her teeth was mangled, and splintered bone—some of it—stuck out, into the air and into her mouth. Blood seeped out of gaping wounds in her maw and on what should've been flawless, black skin.

Joshua Renalia turned his gaze away as he rushed in. A sudden move like that would have gotten him killed had Cynder been alert and wary of her own life, but with her reflexes dulled, her senses still caught in the rapture of sweet relief, and her body still recovering from the lingering effects of the White Breath, the dragoness did not register the human's presence until he stood right next to her, one hand on her chest and the other on her left flank.

Cynder stiffened at his touch. "Don't worry," Joshua told her, making sure his favorite character stayed up on her feet. "I won't hurt you, Cynder," he reassured her. "Just lean on me."

And lean on him she did. Joshua bit his tongue, swallowing the curses quickly forming behind his lips. He never realized how damn heavy she was until she did exactly as he asked. Stupid. He could've easily figured that out; the dragoness stood taller than him, already as large as a fully-grown horse back on Earth. But out of courtesy, out of that muted desire to make some kind of progress with someone familiar in this goddamn world, he didn't say anything.

In fact, he couldn't say anything. Joshua was too busy trying not to fall over and be literally smothered to death by the greatest fictional heroine of his life.

Scratch that. The Dragon Realms was not "fiction" anymore.

The underdeveloped muscles on his neck burned beneath Cynder's weight. He exhaled, and exhaled with it the burgeoning desire to let the dragoness fall. But it was never gone for long.

"A-alayb," the word spluttered out her broken mouth. "Suh, sta-ahl…" After Rimeer deformed her muzzle in his attempt to kill her—and horribly so—the warm and charming voice Cynder had when she first spoke with Joshua lost its light, alluring inflection. "Alayb." She coughed out the word, the sound mimicking the rickety old BMW his grandfather drove around the city whenever he felt like it. It didn't matter if it was the kind of city where it took nearly five hours to travel a mere five miles.

Joshua caught the confusion settling in her sphere of life, sensing not just the incredulity of her voice but the way her life pulse jittered and switched between fast and slow rotations. He thought of leading up with a composed and confident explanation, but what came out of his mouth made it all the more awkward. "Glad you're alive too."

Spyro's beloved mate recoiled at his voice and, startled, whipped her head in his direction. Did she just forget he was there in the first place? Keeping her steady? Making sure she didn't fall over like a disgraced and defeated loser? Was… was this still a result of whatever he did to her? Or did this come from Rimeer's aborted scheme?

Residual distrust lingered in the gleam of her eyes. Not once did the black dragoness step away from him, but this close, he felt her muscles tense. Quick to discern the daunting threat, Joshua couldn't help speaking immediately. "H-hey! I really wanted to help you. " Jesus Christ, the way Cynder eyeballed him, it did not feel like she was observing him so much as she scrutinized his very soul, scouring him for ulterior motives, wicked schemes, and any of their insidious ilk. "I never wanted you dead! I put everything I had into making sure I didn't kill you by accident!

"I mean it, Cynder!" the fanboy insisted. A subconscious reaction brought out of him a quote straight out of Classic Spyro's playbook. "You gotta believe!"

Ha! Believe him, he requested.

Funny how that turned out, huh? Despite his own words, everything else that was with them underneath the White Cloak and all its opacity had died. The grass, the bugs, the little shrubs growing out… every single one of those died and left a circle of death large enough for observant dragons and guards stationed on the walls to notice from above.

Joshua Renalia savored the irony. He was morbidly amused by it—a small part of him even found the whole thing hilarious to some degree, if only so he did not focus his entire attention on the bloodstains scattered around the grass, the large number of corpses surrounding them, or the fact Spyro the Dragon tried to kill him.

Regardless of the distractions Cynder and this entire situation provided, contrition still gnawed at him, clawing into his heart with unrelenting hunger. The guilt condemned his spirit to an agony not even the Ancestors' blessings to dragonkind could heal. All the deaths, all the people hurt and frightened by this one event… all those fell on his shoulders, didn't they? If he had just gone to the secret tunnel to Warfang from the West or if he decided to spend a few more days with Kilat in the forests and seriously learn to control his only power first instead of being a retarded gamer fanboy looking for a way home, then all this crap might not have happened in the first place.

Cynder ogled him for a long time. Tens of seconds, and he could not make a reliable inference from it, and his heartbeat loudened in his ears.

Was she going to give him the benefit of the doubt? Would she truly believe him and his desire to make things right? Notwithstanding everything that happened since their first foray into a fecund dialogue? No longer could he interpret the way her lips moved and curled around her mouth, not when her elegant snout became the hideous piece of crap it was now.

FUBAR.

Joshua found it difficult to describe how thankful he was to the Almighty Father the moment Cynder's head turned away. He forgot his own private trip into the world of guilt and compunction, drawn to the way his accidental companion—for the time being at least—frenetically moved her head left and right. She paid no heed to what he spoke.

Standing still together, as one, Joshua and Cynder wobbled. They bounced into each other as the latter twisted her neck back and forth. Joshua perluscrated her, his viridian orbs sinking deeply into a pair of solid pools no more or less verdant than his own. Yet she did not return his gaze; she kept her eyes trained outward, running her line of sight along the massive wall. Always straining to see something. To find something.

Correction.

It was someone.

Joshua remembered where Kilat and the Purple Dragon of Legend were. Slumped within paces of each other somewhat near the Eastern Gate, both had distinct pulses of life of their own and, more importantly, both were still alive. Mother of God, he didn't even know how he managed to stabilize his great hero. He could sense their exact positions so long as he didn't stray any more than 500 meters away. A good thing the clusterfuck that happened afterwards failed to send him any farther than that, right?

"Spuh, S-Spah-wo." Cynder found Spyro a split second faster than Joshua realized the Savior's true intentions. Without warning and in complete ignorance of her abysmal physical condition, she moved towards her mate. Cynder brought a forepaw forward and took her first step without the human boy's support and slowly, gradually, made her way to—

A groan.

Cynder's head whirled around and a dull glaze sheathed her eyes for a split second. Joshua watched her stumble on a pebble, literally one step in front of him. "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" He scrambled at once. He dug in and shoved his shoulder into hers before she collapsed in a heap face-first. He spent every ounce of his strength—all the strength appropriate for a gamer of his caliber—keeping her up. "You aren't doing too well yourself, you know."

Damn it. She needed to heal up. Red Gems, maybe? He didn't know how they would affect fractured bones and deformed snouts, but surely that would be a dramatic improvement over—

Gray.

The red crystals Joshua used to recover from Rimeer's effort at severing his right arm had turned gray long ago. They looked like the slightest breeze would topple the growth and turn the entire thing into dust. So much for that idea. That bastard had truly done quite the number on Cynder's muzzle. She didn't even look as good as she did in Dawn of the Dragon.

Cynder brought her head up, still looking in Spyro's direction. Joshua saw the longing, the worry shimmering in them. "Spahwo!" An incomprehensible whine went out of her mouth. She stated his name the best she could, and as loud as she could possibly make it without putting her mouth and its fractured bones through agony. Joshua thought she sounded like a mewling kitten, crying out for its mother. Hearing it was like a stab to the chest, and compassion compelled the teenager to act on it.

"C'mon," he said. "I'll take you to him." He reached down and snaked his arm around Cynder's foreleg. Her legs, though slender, were well-developed, the scales far smoother than he expected. It did not bite into his skin as he moved to give the dragoness a slight tug. He tugged harder when her life signature contracted—jolted as though it stumbled over a tight knot. Instinct alone provided the diagnosis. "No need to hurry, okay? I know he, I, I know he looks like crap, but believe me, he's fine."

Cynder looked down at the (slightly) shorter human standing next to her, bearing the brunt of her weight. The dragoness's expression was uncertain, and her teal eyes were just as inscrutable. Joshua Renalia wished she could speak comprehensibly, if only so it made this awkward conversation more tolerable.

Joshua Renalia was the only one keeping this dialogue alive—if it could even be considered a dialogue in the first place. He was the only one who took the initiative. Didn't he rush to Cynder's side as soon as she collapsed? Didn't his muscles suffer from bearing it all? Didn't he even offer to take her to Spyro, without any strings attached?

He couldn't maintain eye contact with his favorite Heroine. Every time she gazed at him, Joshua felt as if she was sizing him up, that she was once more on the brink of seizing a great opportunity to snap his neck faster than he could react. The fact she, too, invested great effort, power, and personal risk at an attempt to kill him bothered Joshua by such an immense magnitude even a Spyro fanboy like him found it almost impossible to trust her.

Goddamn it! How were they going to talk now? Sure, there was virtually nobody to interrupt them.

Yes, he volunteered to be her support. Yes, he volunteered to give her an extra leg. A genuine care for his idols—his living gods—had driven the human gamer to do this, but that never meant he would forget, and easily so, how Cynder disregarded his requests for pacification, too bent on vengeance to even consider giving him a chance to fix the Purple Dragon of Legend and make things right.

Joshua Renalia set his eyes on Spyro and Kilat. Fifteen to twenty steps, he estimated. By no means was it an accurate number, but the number was high enough to tack an irritated grimace on his face. Fifteen to twenty paces felt distant—very distant—with Cynder putting nearly 60% of her body weight on him. Her black scales dug into his shoulder, and at this distance, her natural, smoky scent almost overpowered his enhanced senses and threw Joshua into disarray. It stirred up memories of large passenger buses spluttering thick clouds of noxious fumes and smoke on the main thoroughfares of his home, polluting the air—stinking up the city, while police officers directed to comply with an eco-friendly mandate turned a blind eye and persecuted, instead, the common man who sought an honest living.

Cynder muttered, "Jo, sa."

It was his name. Joshua almost failed to catch it. The Heroine refrained from talking loudly and saying anything that could move her deformed, unhealed snout—only mewling and unintelligible noises resulted from speaking that way. And to add insult to injury, the disfigurations obstructed her ability to talk evenly—to talk coherently.

Did something bother her? Jesus f*cking Christ! What was wrong now? Didn't Cynder realize he was on the cusp of leading her to Spyro? That if she didn't waste both of their times, then in about ten or so minutes, she would find herself right beside her mate?

He glared, annoyed. By all rights, Cynder should be somewhat more conscious of all the things he was doing for her right now. "Cynder, look. Can it wait? I can only hold you up for so long but I really, really want to bring you to Spyro so you can stop worrying about him."

She held her tongue and replied with a subtle nod Joshua might have missed if he literally hadn't been standing right next to Cynder, enduring her weight. Gratitude supplied the dragoness's life signature with a bright and wonderful glow, and the thought of doing something good—of impacting Cynder in this positive way buoyed Joshua Renalia far more than if he received his favorite character's appreciation verbally.

But buoyed or not, every step they took together was a careful one. Joshua, being the frail human he was, teetered on his feet. Spyro's beloved barely kept pace with him. Nonetheless, where the young adolescent lacked in strength, he more than compensated for it with resolve. A dogged resolve. "One more step," he encouraged her.

The Savior gnashed her teeth. Her body wobbled, and she pushed most of her weight on the weak gamer. Cynder's throat let out an exasperated rumble. It was strong! Her neck vibrated powerfully, and Joshua Renalia's automatic reflexes led him to shiver uncontrollably. It amazed him to feel the grunt juddering his neck. No wonder he felt small—he was stricken dumb from terror every time a dragon so much as growled at his face. None of the cheetahs or the moles could hold water to that. Never.

What used to be flaccid biceps on Earth had somewhat hardened after a few days in the Dragon Realms. After rescuing Kilat, adopting the little girl (in all but name), and watching over her like the surrogate big brother he was slowly becoming, even Joshua felt assisting Cynder was slightly more tolerable than it might have been otherwise.

Spyro rested about seven paces away from them. Kilat, give or take another three. "And another," Joshua continued. Arms coiled around her left foreleg, he called on all the strength his average but skinny build could provide, even when he himself wobbled from the heaviness bearing down on his right shoulder. "Come on. You can do it! Just a few more. Just a few, more and I'll get you there."

Sure enough, the massive purple lump in the distance, with yellow specks glittering in the sunlight, became more defined as they sauntered—no, staggered to the revered Hero of the Dragon Realms, one step at a time. Slowly they approached her dearest mate, their bodies quivering. But aside from Joshua's grunts and stifled curses, and Cynder's querulous bleating, the two undertook this arduous venture wordlessly.

The endeavor alone ensorcelled the gamer. It trapped his mind in a vise of its own machinations, and Joshua Renalia felt the moments stretching past the breaking points he anticipated. A light breeze caressed Joshua's only ear, and the sunlight shining down on him and his idol delivered a gentle, relaxing warmth Joshua might have enjoyed in another world. But if Mother Nature had been trying to tempt him—all this time—away from the one thing haunting his mind, she had clearly failed.

Disquiet blasted Joshua's mind from all sides. He felt restless. In fact, he was incapable of concentrating on this little side mission he set for himself. Goddammit, Joshua! What was he doing? Why wasn't he talking to her? This was his big break—the one chance to talk to one of his childhood heroes, one on one. Nobody else on Earth would be this blessed to have the opportunity to talk to a favored character. A person who was nothing more than fiction, back home.

He yearned to talk to Cynder, to answer some of the unanswered questions undoubtedly filling her sharp, astute mind. He wanted to discuss his situation, to see what he could do for Kilat and his journey home. And most of all Joshua wanted to know…

God, he was so embarrassed to admit it. Thinking about it made him feel ten years younger. Like a child again.

…he wanted to know if he could still be friends with her and Spyro, if they could overlook all that's happened today.

But what could he say now? And where would the young man even begin? Gaucherie even impregnated their short, quick interactions with each other. Cynder still stiffened every time they teetered and bounced off of each other. She always gave this infinitesimal resistance in reaction to all the times Joshua tightened his hold over her foreleg and pulled, lessening the burden she had to deal with.

Every now and then she would ogle him. Sneak a peek at him when she thought he wasn't keeping an eye out for it. But Cynder averted her eyes the instant he noticed. Was she curious? Did she want to talk too? Was this concerted effort to reach Spyro and Kilat as awkward for her as it was for him?

It amused Joshua to no end, who knew he could never look at her in the eyes. Not for long. Whenever they landed on him, he felt like Cynder was judging him. Appraising him. He felt no trust, no special connection between the two of them. Not in that hollow gaze. Granted, it was better—far better than the outright hostility rushing out of Spyro's—

Joshua hissed. No, you fool, he chastised himself. He shouldn't—he mustn't go back to that moment. That was best left forgotten in Ignitus' special library.

In the end, Joshua capitulated. "I'm sorry."

And he did not regret it, for the silence had been maddening. Humankind, truly, was a social animal at its core.

Joshua's sudden apology broke the routine. His voice shattered the rhythm—fragmented the clockwork stringing him and Cynder along the same way a puppetmaster manipulated his pawns and props on a string. The black dragoness even flinched at the sound; Joshua conjectured she forgot a living, breathing "furless ape" had volunteered to be her wall, her legs… her crutch. Only had eyes for Spyro, probably.

They stopped. Cynder turned, her eyes dilating at the two words. Although her muzzle was too disfigured to properly infer her inner thoughts, with a gift from his only power Joshua sensed both the slight tremors rippling across the Heroine's sphere of life and the minimal slowdown in its rotation.

Characteristics Joshua had long applied to diffidence, to unease, or to confusion.

"I'm sorry for all of this," he said. "I, I never wanted things to turn out the way it did." A panorama of tragedy surrounded them. In their haste to escape, Warfang's citizens and guardsmen alike left behind the dead and lifeless. Only nine had the luxury of their lives vanishing in an instant. The rest… Honestly, Joshua couldn't look at any of them. The rest either bathed in their blood or suffered terribly from multiple organ failure.

Every corpse in front of Warfang's Gates testified to the danger he posed to the people living in the city. They brought his dreams—his fantasies to the gallows and hung them out to dry, dangling on a tight noose for God to whack around at His heart's content. Never would Joshua go agog at the opportunity to learn more of his Element. Never would he throw himself at his heroes or their friends at the Temple, fighting for sport instead of dear life. He would never dare to make himself at home in the so-called City of Dragons, not after this.

"I-I-I didn't want to kill any of these folk. I didn't mean to hurt Spyro." He brought his eyes to Cynder, gazing up into those spheres. But he had no hope of deciphering her expression, of divining her inner thoughts. Her lips did not move and her snout was so broken, she was better off keeping her mouth shut. "And I, I didn't mean to—

He gestured at her mouth, at her. "I didn't want to do this to you." He clenched his fists. "But I didn't really have a say in the matter. Like I tried to say earlier, I can't control my Element. I just can't. It—of course it's an Element, Cynder! Don't look at me that way. Jesus Christ, I'm telling you the truth! I, I-I, I, just don't know anything about it. It's, i-it's not normal, and you know it.

"My power—my Element rarely listens to me. If I try to exert my will on it, if I try to make it do something—do anything, it rebels. It resists me. Most of the time, it does nothing. But on the off-chance something happens?" One arm's sweeping motion spoke for him. And it spoke powerfully. "Voila! Deader than dead! I can't adjust it no matter what I do! It will almost always kill or do something equally horrible.

"I'm lucky I didn't kill you. And thank the Lord, Spyro didn't die instantly after I punched him. Matter of fact, it's a miracle I got this stupid power to stabilize him, and guess what? I didn't know how I managed it in the first place!" Joshua laughed, not from amusement but from the absurdity of it. From the Fridge Horror of knowing just how close he had been to destroying the two people he wanted to meet and greet all his life. "F*ck! I don't even know what this piece of shit Element can do! Hell, until today, I had no idea I could control the other Elements."

Joshua had done everything he could to figure out the nature of his ability. Yet, regardless of his approach, again and again and AGAIN it never failed to surprise him. Difficulty-of-use aside, its sheer flexibility and its disturbing potency nearly convinced Joshua Renalia that this was all just a dream, that the Dragon Realms was some sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy. He already had a power that naturally drew unwarranted attention. So how much more ostensible was it considering his very humanity was in itself a glaring anomaly among dragons and all the anthropomorphic creatures on this planet?

If this whole experience turned out to be some inane, poorly-written story uploaded onto , Archive of Our Own, or whatever the Spyro geeks used to expressing themselves and their desire to spread and nurture their creative thoughts, then, maybe—just maybe— it wouldn't be so bad. He would've gotten the recognition he so deserved, or the attention—the public interest in his case, on his very foreignness.

But so far this world… this video game world enjoyed f*cking with him wherever he went. Spyro and Cynder trying to kill him? That might not even be the worst to come. So however amusing—however comical it was to seek the aid, the friendship of Warfang's greatest heroes after they themselves made him out as an enemy to its populace, surviving long enough to go home and see his family again fell squarely on fostering a good, decent relationship with those two dragons.

It hurt, to even use them like this. To lie to them. All to cover his own stupid ass. Mother of God. CYA? Here? In the Dragon Realms?A Spyro fan would never do this, not to their favorite characters. Not to Spyro! Not to Cynder!

But he had to. God f*cking dammit, he had to!

And the worst part of it was, he had to sprinkle the whole deception with itty little bits and pieces of the truth, diced, cubed, and minced. Knots of guilt looped around his heart in almost every sentence. After all, didn't the Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson once say half-truths were the blackest of lies?

"That, Cynder, is the reason I'm here," he managed to say with a straight face. "What I have, w-what I have is really unique and extremely dangerous. I need help controlling it. And figuring out why I even have it." Joshua Renalia broke eye contact, bowing his head. He ogled the pavement, lips curled tight in a frustrated grimace. Had he been able to manipulate, to tap into his Element with far greater skill and mastery from Day 1, Kilat would have never lost Lani or her left wing. Maybe this whole fiasco could have ended before people started dropping like flies. Then again, if it wasn't for these misfortunes, he might have never missed home and worried for his loved ones so terribly. "I never asked for this."

A gurgling cough found its way out of Joshua's throat. An indescribable emotion that could only be analogized to the utter reticence following an unbelievable series of outrageous events overwhelmed the boy. "I never asked for any of this." He found himself sniffling. "I only wanted… I, I only wanted—!"

The gentle strokes of a warm, spongy thing along the side of his cheek shut him up. He turned instantly and saw Cynder's snout looming close to him, to his face. He found the ebon muzzle far too close for comfort, flashing back to Spyro's mouth opening wide to bite deep into his throat and kill him. To Rimeer bringing his teeth down on his arm. To the Red Lady bringing her head down, being friendly and touchy with the little Electric girl.

Joshua flinched at the sight of Cynder's pink tongue and scrunched his nose at the rancid smell of smoke and mayonnaise coming from her a maw that had never been subjected to the wonders of modern dentistry and personal hygiene. He leaned away, but stopped when the dragoness rubbed her warm, scaly head on his cheek. The first and possibly the last time she would ever do this with someone who wasn't even her mate.

Only then did he realize she gave her tongue a quick run on his face.

Cynder just licked him. She even nuzzled him!

"Eh?" He was stunned. Did that happen? Did that seriously just happen? Joshua, unable to process what the Heroine had just done, brought a hand to his cheek and sought proof.

And proof was indeed found. Wetness dribbled down his cheek. His precious evidence, in fact, clung to his fingers in long, viscous strands that somehow retained its owner's natural scent. If he spent a little more time cogitating on it, he might have realized how much wider and forceful her lick was compared to Kilat's enthusiastic "bathing". Instead he blanched from astonishment. "EHHHH!" He never expected something like this, and especially not right now, with all that's happened. "What was that for? Cynder, I—

"My tenks," the Savior said. Her face crumpled from the agony of talking, of moving her injured snout. Joshua wanted to stop her, yet he couldn't resist listening to what she had to say. "You a good pehson, Josa," Cynder clarified the best she could, and empathy hummed along her pulse of life. Joshua Renalia also heard her perfectly; it was a great shame her injury made it difficult to understand her. Her words were splayed and borderline incoherent. As though she was trying to speak with her tongue sticking out. (Wouldn't be a far off description, either, after what Rimeer did.)

"I…" Joshua yanked his head away from her and focused only on the purple lump lying down on the grass. "I, I don't deserve it."

"Josa—

It pained him to say it. It pained him, after he decided he liked Cynder's voice. It sounded like a singer's, different yet similar to her voice actress back on Earth. "Please don't talk anymore," he said, eyeing the way she pawed at her snout. "I know it's hard for you to talk with, w-with that. Just, give it a rest. It can wait until we get your mouth fixed."

The dragoness had nothing to say to that, and responded with a slow and respectful nod when he tugged at her foreleg once again. "C'mon," he said. "Spyro's close."

Hearing how close Spyro was shifted the Savior's attention to her mate and nothing but. The Purple Dragon of Legend slept quietly a couple paces from them, and if it hadn't been for the blood drying on the blades of grass sticking out next to his muzzle, anyone could've mistaken him for taking a nice, refreshing nap next to the City of Dragons, beneath the beautiful sun.

"Spahwo!"

Cynder blurted out her mate's name as soon as they were within a step from him. She all but launched herself from the young man. She kicked off of him, not noticing Joshua stumbling backwards in her yearning to get close and see—feel her beloved breathing. F*cking hell! How his muscles screamed in agony! She didn't have to do that. It wasn't like Spyro was going anywhere, and he already said he was stable.

He wanted to chastise her for the inconsiderate move, but his words never made it out his mouth. Because her pulse of life began to quiver more madly than it ever did—or had its shaking intensified along the way? Joshua had never noticed—and it took multiple bouts of sniffing, nuzzling, and licking before it settled down to stillness. To peace.

All these she did while muttering Spyro's name the best she could. Cynder raised a wing and draped it over the Spyro as she set down next to him. Her eyes had shut when she rubbed the full length of her body along his. That Cynder coiled her tail around the other dragon's did not escape the human's observant gaze.

Watching the black dragoness snuggle up to the great Hero of the Legend trilogy drew out the suppressed fanboy inside Joshua Renalia. He shivered at this wonderful moment. It may not have been the same character that Ted Price and his team created under Universal's payroll and struck the hearts of young children across the world, but as far as the gamer was concerned, it was the same thing. How could he be a Spyro the Dragon fan if he didn't accept what Sierra Entertainment had produced in his formative years? Even he had come to terms with Activision's direction with the franchise, in the end. And begrudgingly so.

No matter how screwed up the real Dragon Realms was over the fictional world presented by the Legend trilogy, personally witnessing with his eyes something he had seen only on DeviantArt, read on fanfiction, and imagined in his daydreams brought out a sense of satisfaction and contentment that Joshua Renalia could not describe. The little boy who grew up on a PlayStation 2 and the first generation Xbox could have never predicted he would see his favorite characters—his greatest heroes—the stars who introduced him to the wonderful world of video games for himself. Seeing this scene unfold before Joshua lessened the weight on his shoulders. It held at bay the inexorable sadness stalking him with the persistence and fortitude of a hunter.

But only for a moment.

The sorrow that pursued the adolescent took aim and released its weapon. It struck Joshua in the heart, tearing right through every strand of joy, every wave of pleasure lifting him up. He sunk into the deep sea of gloom, and his happiness quickly faltered—disappeared when he remembered why Spyro and Cynder were reduced to this… this… to this in the first place.

In her haste to shower the Purple Dragon with all her love and affection, Cynder had forgotten she had an audience and proceeded to an outstanding display of her devotion to her mate. A display every single Spy/Cy shipper throughout the Internet would kill to see up close and personal.

And Joshua Renalia turned away. He averted his eyes away from something he knew he would never again have the privilege and opportunity to witness himself. Jesus Christ, what was he doing? The Spyro fan in him was up in arms over this. He was certain—deadly certain that if he published this experience on a blog or a Youtube video, all those Spy/Cy shippers who bothered to give his narrative any sort of attention—if they believed him at all—would criticize him.

Hell, they would all condemn him.

But Joshua's heart ached terribly. He couldn't watch. He couldn't watch any of this. He did this. He was personally responsible for this. How could he let his own selfish wishes override his very decency as a human being? It felt wrong.

His eyes searched for Kilat. He found her, sleeping a few steps away, exactly where he unceremoniously dropped the child to protect her from Infernape's sneaky, dishonorable gambit.

Joshua dared a glance up, ogling the shining star above them. With a hand shading his viridian eyes, he studied the blinding orb the best he could. Its bright, golden rays—oh. It had a different color from the Earth's sun. Pure white. Slightly bluish. The radiant sphere shone even brighter than Sol.

If he needed any more signs telling him he was in a different world—a different planet with apparently different rules, then that was it. After seeing that for himself, he was certain he would barely recognize the night sky if he subjected it to closer scrutiny, for the constellations he learned at a younger age, in an observatory.

…All of a sudden, he didn't have the desire to even check that out for himself. For all he knew, he could very well be in another galaxy altogether.

Joshua strolled over to the unconscious child. The hairs on his neck prickled, and from that he knew the only other dragoness still alive around him had ceased cuddling into her mate like a naïve, lovestruck adolescent and tracked him with eyes as teal and green as his own. But he did not care anymore. He had no plans of running. Why would he? Why would he risk his neck out there again? Why would he even think of leaving Kilat alone? She needed him almost as much as he needed her.

The boy descended to one knee. He reached down and picked up the child from the ground. Her small, yellow body rested in his arms. As soon as he rose and carried her in a makeshift "bed" of skin, flesh, and bone, the dragon squirmed. She nuzzled the crook of his elbow. He felt the little girl take a few deep sniffs. She enjoyed the human's scent and, though unconscious, hummed happily at the familiarity and safety it now provided to her.

Joshua wiped the sweat off his forehead with his shoulder, relying on the sleeve of whatever remained of his shirt. He bit back a curse, feeling his flat, unimpressive stomach exposed to the elements. He wanted to get rid of it—it was falling apart on him!—but it was one of the last remaining keepsakes of his home, other than his flannel pajamas. Thank God the trousers weren't as f*cked up as his shirt. Though the fabric bore some minor damage, he believed the former was serviceable and needed deep cleaning to scrub out all the dirt and grime… and Spyro's blood.

Thinking about his childhood hero in such a horrific state made him sick. He resisted the urge to throw up. No, Joshua! He had to remember, he was okay now. He just needed a place to recuperate, maybe replenish all the blood he's lost or something, and—ah! How the hell would he know what to do with Spyro anyway? He wasn't a doctor, let alone one that specialized in dragons! He's just a stupid, shitty brat who didn't know anything about the world.

Oh God, at the rate he's messing up, whatever Joshua knew about the Legendverse from the good, old TLOS days didn't matter. He would be lucky—very lucky—if he got into Warfang mostly unharmed. Preferably with his right arm still attached.

Joshua Renalia went back to the two Heroes. He met Cynder's watchful eyes and sat next to the dragoness, cross-legged. He took care not to lean on the Savior as though she was his pet or a pack animal. They were not mates, and they certainly weren't friends. For sure the concept of personal space existed in his place in one form or another, and he didn't want to offend one of the few people who would no longer attack him on sight.

He set Kilat between his legs. He smiled at the way the Electric dragon-child naturally curled up around them. Joshua hunched over her, touched her snout with his nose, and rubbed it. She giggled in her sleep. How adorable! Seeing the little girl like this melted his heart enough to distract him from whatever plagued his waking thoughts.

Unfortunately, one of them was Cynder, and a black paw resting on his leg stripped the smile off his face. She demanded his attention.

She cracked her mouth open, and attempted to speak properly. What came out sounded like a cat's meow, and she hissed from pain. Cynder tried again before Joshua could stop her, and this time she managed to say something. "Why, Joshua?" Almost spit it out. "Why help? You, had, every right."

Every right to run away with the little girl.

To abandon Spyro to his death and leave a vulnerable Cynder alone with Rimeer and his followers.

Joshua Renalia considered her question. He let the silence drag on. He broke eye contact with her, to stare at the slumbering Kilat. He stroked her snout. Rubbed the golden belly and felt the smooth scales where they weren't as thick and where they were warmest. In the end, he decided to be honest with her. "You're my hero, Cynder," he confessed.

Honest, at least, to the extent he did not look like a raving lunatic. There was simply no way in hell he could come clean with his origin story. As much as he loathed it, Joshua couldn't find himself completely trusting either of them. "Both you and Spyro are. I've always looked up to the two of you. If, i-i-if you both died today," his voice trailed. He sniffled. "It would've"—he sniffle again—"It would've broken my heart."

Cynder had no reply for him.

She was completely and utterly speechless.

Joshua finally turned to her after what felt like an eternity of awkward silence, and only then did he see the most dumbfounded expression plastered on her gawping muzzle. It accentuated the deformities Rimeer left behind, and he almost ruined the moment with tactless chuckles. "You looked up to me?" Cynder blurted out. She flinched. "OW!" Her paw flew up to the fractured bone. She tenderly rubbed the muzzle. Agony for speaking too loudly, too forcefully. Too clearly. Damn, she really needed an HP crystal. It was too bad the nearest one outside the walls sprouted up about three minutes away—he could sense the gems. Though it, may not be appropriate for him to leave the two dragons and grab it. Not right now. "ME? Yer heewo?"

Ahh, that's right. This might have been the first time she ever heard something like this from another. Considering that debacle earlier, a great many people in Warfang must hate her still, and if she had friends in the city other than Spyro and the Guardians—any friends at all—she must have earned their friendship, and over the years she spent helping people. The surprise she regarded him with said enough.

Joshua wanted nothing more than to release his inner fanboy all over Cynder, to expound on that train of thought. But he held his tongue. He had to. How could he say anything now? He couldn't afford giving Cynder any reminder to analyze his background, and thanks to that godforsaken cockup, Joshua hadn't come up with a lie proper and solid tale everyone would believe without question.

He suppressed the urge and shot back. "Yes. You heard me right. I know you did all those terrible things before, but that won't change the fact you're my hero, too. You've always been, since I was young."

Cynder stared at him, her jaw open and reaching for the ground for much longer (and wider) than what human society considered polite. Her sphere of life seemed to gleam, sparkling a little brighter than normal. A smile ghosted the fringes of her muzzle before she turned away and her life signature chilled. The expression on her snout looked just as guilty as Joshua's, and because of the disfiguration it unsettled him far more than it already did. "I, I'm sowwy," she murmured. "Foh whut we did."

For trusting in Spyro despite doubting his judgment.

For trying to murder him even after he begged multiple times for his life.

What little happiness Joshua drew from Kilat, his confession to Cynder, and the fact he conversed with a revered godde—a hero of his vanished as fast as the past hour or so flickered in his thoughts through brief but powerful flashes. His lips flattened into a tight, emotionless line. He gazed down at Kilat, hoping he could forget she mentioned that.

"I hep you."

"Huh?"

"I'll help you," Cynder stressed, eyes scrunched. She really couldn't speak properly without the blazing agony that came with it. "I thok to da gardins."

Her words may have been slurred, but Joshua understood her. She would talk to the Guardians for him? That would be sweet! But doubt and skepticism—not distrust—nagged at him until all the color drained from his face. "I don't know if that'll work now. After all this bullshit"—he gestured to all the bodies around them—"I'm pretty much dead!"

"Not wizzat my hep."

"B-but, but I, uh, but I killed so many! There's a dead 'Guardian Candidate' among 'em. The Purple Dragon's covered in his blood and you're—

"Dey wunt kell you, but I can't pwamis anythang moh. Okay, kid?"

In other words, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and expect nothing, just like what John Jay said back in the 1800s. He had to be prepared for whatever would happen and accept whatever consequences he'd receive from Warfang's judicial system.

"Okay," he said. "Okay-okay-okay. I got it." Joshua sighed. "Praise God. At least, I'll get to keep my life."

Joshua took a deep breath. If he was being honest with himself, the news relieved him immensely. He already won Sparx over when he saved Spyro from bleeding out, and with all that's happened after the goddamned unreliable insect bailed on him, even Cynder's on his side now. Joshua doubted they would be enough to gain some measure of trust from Spyro or the Guardians, but it was better than nothing. Much better than a guaranteed death sentence.

If he was lucky, maybe this also meant he would have the opportunity to openly discuss his issues with his power and his singular, over-arching objective, not to mention the possible reasons God brought him to the Dragon Realms.

Even if he received none of those and was doomed to several years of solitary imprisonment, Joshua Renalia could still see the glinting silver lining the dark, imposing clouds ahead. Because, at the very least, Kilat would have the opportunity to live the life Lani and Explodon wanted for her, and she'd have easy access to him, so the child would never be truly left alone.

He glanced down at the little girl in question. If only she was awake. The human caressed the small dragoness, fondling her ears. He smiled at the way it twitched. Everything's going to be fine, Kilat, and I'll still be with you.

"Josa."

Cynder's voice dragged the teenager out of his happy thoughts. He trained his gaze at her, and blinked at the way she regarded him with dilated eyes, full of curiosity. "Tell me 'bout yarsel. Weh yar fwom." Joshua couldn't help but stare at the way her tongue flopped around in her disfigured muzzle. It revolted him. This was not the way he wanted to remember Cynder when he thought of her. It… simply didn't jive with the image he had of her in his head. He hoped the people in Warfang could help her with it. "Whut adda hoo-mans are like."

Joshua maintained a confused expression for his response. He gave his head the appropriate tilt. "But, why?" he asked. Deep inside, he sweated bullets. Not now. Damn it, Cynder. Not, f*cking, now!

"I a-ready toll you."

Damn. She got him there. "That's, th-that's true…"

"Spahwo will ohso wanna know," the black dragoness added. The underlying hint stood out if Joshua spent even a single moment to think about it. Spyro was a curious one, even back in A New Beginning. The way he was now, the gamer was certain this meant he would accost him about his origins as soon as he woke up and was physically able to do so. He wouldn't put it past the Purple Dragon to talk to him, literally snout-to-face.

Joshua Renalia blanched at the thought of Spyro getting in his face about anything, at any time in the foreseeable future. Telling Cynder something—anything to satiate even a little of her interest delayed that conversation. And the longer he could avoid Spyro, the better. He sought for an excuse, for a meaningless detail to get the two Saviors off his back, but his mind drew blanks. It kept drawing blanks, and he hesitated to reply.

The gamer in him chastised the boy for his hesitation. Why be reluctant about this? Wasn't he living out every Spyro fan's dream of a lifetime? Not only was he already conversing with a protagonist of the Legend trilogy—and one of the community's favorites at that, considering how many writers made original characters who were practically Cynder's carbon copies—but he also had the prospect of speaking just as closely with the Purple Dragon himself.

By all rights, he should be excited for a chance to talk to Spyro and Cynder.

The real Spyro and Cynder!

Not Elijah Wood. Not Christina Ricci or Mae Whitman.

And certainly not Jared Pullen or Bruno Rime.

After all, didn't characters have a life of their own? Weren't authors, actors, and artists merely conduits of what could possibly be, rather than narrators of what actually were?

He shouldn't even hesitate about his origins in the first place. He should yell it, announce it—say it and be damn proud of it! Joshua Renalia should come clean with everything. Absolutely everything, and throw it all to the wind. That's what every gamer—every fan in his place would do, wouldn't they?

Wouldn't they?

But in spite of all he felt about this unique situation, notwithstanding everything his inner fanboy wanted to do, Joshua stopped himself before he plummeted into this deep rabbit hole. He stood over it, realizing not only how far down the ground it went but also the vast darkness—the uncertainty hidden within. There would be no going back if he leaped in.

Had this all been a dream, had this all been some weird fantasy playing out in his head, maybe Joshua would have jumped. Maybe he would have taken that leap of faith if neither Spyro nor Cynder tried to execute him or if the Dragon Realms never reared its ugly head and remained the ultimate fantasy it should have been.

But this was real life.

Real f*cking life.

And that alone terrified him.

Fortunately, the perfect excuse literally squirmed in his legs. Two rows of short, but incredibly sharp teeth tickled his thighs, and a tongue coated in thick saliva flicked the skin once, twice before the pitched voice of a little girl called for him. "Jo, Joshua?"

He glanced down to find cobalt pools opening up beneath him. Kilat was conscious. Aware and alert. Praise the Lord Almighty.

Joshua glanced back up at Cynder. "Sorry," he apologized and bowed his head a little. "I guess we'll have to talk about this another time."

The black dragoness rebutted with an indistinct grunt and a not-so-subtle roll of eyes as green as his. "This conversation isn't over," the gesture seemed to say, before Cynder drew closer to Spyro and gave her mouth a rest. Even if she didn't properly enunciate most of her words, conversing with Joshua must have hurt regardless.

Still the human paid no more attention to the Heroine of the Dragon Realms, for he instead concentrated on the small dragon lying comfortably on his legs. "Hey, girl!" he greeted the child. "You're awake."

Kilat's body twisted and turned, all four paws stretching outward, like a cat stretching on a comfortable bed. She batted the hand caressing her snout before her eyes finally focused on the teenager's brown face and his mirthful smile. "Joshua!" the Electric dragoness brightened. She sat up, easily reaching his eyes. "You're okay!" Her muzzle agape in a cheery rictus, Kilat remained woefully oblivious to Joshua's discomfort at every single claw on all four of her feet poking into his bare skin.

Inelegant and devoid of any grace, the child dropped her snout on his shoulder and brought her tiny arms about the young man in a snug embrace. She even managed to get her right wing to arc right round his back. It looked—it felt awkward, coming from a quadruped. "You're really okay. I, I-I, I, I tried to help you—I did the best I could—but that bully knocked me out! When I woke up, I thought, I, I almost thought you"—she snuffled—"you, y-you, I almost thought they—

"Everything's all right, Kilat." Joshua Renalia hugged the little girl just as tightly. "I'm still here. It got really close a few times, but in the end, they didn't get me." He gave one of her ears a gentle tug, and chuckled at the slight twitch it gave. How adorable.

She nuzzled the crook of his neck. "I'm sorry, Joshua…"

"Huh?"

"If, i-i-if I was stronger," she whined, biting back her tears. "It would've never 'come close'. I, I would have, I, I-I would have…!"

"Shhhhh." He stroked her head, traced his hand along it and touched the stump that used to be her left wing. "It's okay. You did what you could. But hey, even after you got the daylights pounded out of you, Jesus Christ, what you did back there, it was great. Amazing. I've never seen anything like it."

Her head rolled sideways a little. "What happened to Infernape?" She asked, as though the praise went right through her ears. Cobalt eyes trained their gaze at him, mystified and enquiring. "And how'd you get the Purple Dragon to stop?" she spoke without missing a beat. "H-he wanted to kill—Oh nooo…

The dragon-child let out a horrified gasp. "What happened to your ear?" Kilat bumped her snout on the gross, unsightly gash that Spyro himself replaced his left ear with. "Ancestors! It's gone!" Joshua flinched as Kilat ran her nose across the scar, across the exposed nerves. He felt her sniffing around, putting it under scrutiny. "It's really gone!"

"It was either that or a hole in my skull," Joshua rebutted. "Obviously," he added with a chuckle, "I'd take the missing ear every time; beats missing a brain or even a part of—

"Joshuaaaaa! This isn't funny," the little girl nagged. "I don't want—I can't have you dead! I need you. I really, really need you! I don't know what I'd do if you died, and all because of something stupid!"

If Spyro, Infernus, Rimeer, or any of the other dragons and armed guard had truly succeeded in killing him, it would've traumatized the young dragoness. Worse, it would have also destroyed any trust she might have had for Warfang, its people, its leaders, and its esteemed heroes. Joshua wilted from the disturbing realization. "Oh, Kilat…"

"What else?"

Without waiting for him, Kilat pushed off from Joshua. She balanced herself on his thighs, eyes going up and down, inspecting his body. "What else happened to you?"

With the shirt visibly torn—practically falling to pieces after what's been done to him, she had the front seat view to his exposed stomach and irrefutable evidence of doping on those wonderful crystals. Kilat's jaw popped open and stayed open while she took in everything her eyes could see on him. The various scars. All the ugly, barely-healed wounds. A giant, starfish-shaped scar from one of those goddamned arrows. Blood splattered on what remained of his clothes. A right hand with visible tears across the skin, looking like a mad dog gnashed at it. A right arm that looked like an even bigger and madder dog had its way with it…

"Y-you got hurt all over! Ancestors above, what did they do to you?" She stretched out her neck to run her muzzle across every inch of his chest, abdomen, and arms. "Who did this?" she doted on him. "Looking at you, I'm sure it can't have just been the Purple Dragon!"

Joshua found himself gazing into Kilat's cobalt eyes. Concern and worry shone in them; after blurting out how much she needed him, the gamer felt immense guilt at gambling on Warfang's people with all the cards stacked against him. He had a child relying on him. A little girl who would much rather live the life of a vagrant—a beggar than see the person who took her in maimed and bloodied by the very city she and her friends wished to seek refuge in.

Joshua Renalia had miscalculated how much risk he actually took, walking up to the front door.

Kilat quaked, having trouble to say the words, to admit what shouldhave happened. "But then you, y-you don't, you don't look like you've just flown through a storm cloud."

All thoughts of self-admonishment and guilt vanished, hearing those words. He was lucky he understood the figure of speech this time. On impulse, the young man brought his hands closer, palms wide and ready as they drew closer to her head.

"Ancestors, I shouldn't be questioning the blessing they gave me," she shook her head and reproached herself. "But I gotta know." She leaned to Joshua's right and, for the first time, took in the surroundings, letting her own curiosity take initiative. "What happened while I was out co—H-hey!"

She never realized until it was far too late. The fanboy clasped his palms over those bright, astounded blue seas, pulled her muzzle into his chest, and held the child tight. "Hey!"

Kilat squirmed in his grip. Her one wing flared open, and had Joshua paid Cynder's sphere of life any attention, he would've sensed it spike outward in reaction to his sudden move and the little girl's equally conspicuous response. "Joshua!"

Joshua Renalia still wanted to protect her.

Because Kilat was young.

Because Kilat was far too young to expose her innocence to the real life again.

Once—no, twice was enough. She still had a few years of childhood left to enjoy, and he had come to enjoy the relationship they currently had. He may have informed her what his Element typically did back in the Dry Canyon, but from what he remembered, he left out the graphic details. All of them.

If she knew what he was truly capable of…

Goddammit all, Joshua simply didn't want to see their relationship change going forward.

"Don't look," he pleaded.

"Get your hands off my face!"

"Please, Kilat. You don't want to see this."

"Eeeeeeehhhh! Let go. Let go of me!"

"Kilat!"

"No! Noooo. I'm not letting this go." She growled. "Ancestors, Joshua! I'll give you double—no, triple the sweeps in every bath you get for the next year and worse if you don't let me—

"I'll take it," he told her. "I don't care. I'll take all of it. Just don't look, please."

"But why? WHY? What're you hiding? Why can't I see what happened?" Frustration colored her voice. "Grr, don't tell me this is one of those silly things I'm 'too young' for! Why does everyone older than me do this?"

She wriggled. She writhed in his hands. Kilat's right wing slapped him in the face. Its wing claws scraped across his cheek, but neither that nor the increased discomfort from the electric dragoness's feet on his bare skin dissuaded him from sparing the child the carnage his first encounter with the people of Warfang left behind.

"Don't do this to me! You know I'll find out about it sooner or later."

Her pleas falling on deaf ears, the gamer could only hug her tighter.

"Joshuaaaaaa!"

Without warning, a gust of wind smacked his forehead. Too weak to knock the human over and release the little girl, it carried enough strength to yank his attention away from his dependent and move his head up, where he saw a pair of teal pools gazing back at him.

Joshua Renalia did not enjoy making eye contact with Cynder. Every time his viridian gaze touched hers, he felt as though she saw through him, objectively questioning him. Judging him. He found it unsettling, especially when, in another life, he had seen those same eyes struggling from grief and self-loathing.

Spyro's mate shook her head disapprovingly. She flicked her disfigured snout at everything around them before coming back and glowering at the human. Joshua did not require a superior intelligence quotient to know Cynder just gave him—without uttering a word—very good advice. Advice on parenting, of all things. Mother of God, he was only sixteen! A stupid teenager who didn't have to worry about deciding what a child should and shouldn't know, who only wanted to immerse himself in video games and fun.

She needs to know.

She'll learn about it quicker than you think.

Better to tell her yourself than hear about it from others.

She's old enough.

Trust her.

Trust her.

"F*ck me!" Joshua cursed. "Fine! Jesus f*cking Christ, fine! Have it your damn way!"

Cynder was quick to draw her head back to Spyro, but Joshua's eyes did not mistake the small smirk forming on her lips for anything else. F*ck being a parent, he told himself. He would never have children of his own for the rest of his life. Natasha can go f*ck herself the day she'll want a damn kid.

He took a deep breath. "All right, Kilat," he said. "You win."

"I win?" She stopped wriggling.

"Yeah. You can look. You're—ugh, I don't want to say this, but after what you've been through, you deserve to know," Joshua admitted.

Kilat did not reply. Regardless, he followed through on this decision and relinquished the ten-year old dragoness to wherever she saw fit to be. The girl sat up, cobalt eyes tentative and watching the human for any more "sudden moves".

"So I win?" You're not going back on this?

Reluctantly, "Yes." No, I'm not.

"Yey!" replied the child, before making a sudden move of her own. The Electric dragoness jerked forward and nipped the bridge of Joshua's nose. Sharp teeth and all.

"OW!" He rubbed at his sore nose, wiping off specks of saliva and blood before reaching out to grab the girl, but by then, she had darted away from reach. "What the f*ck…"

Kilat blew a rather loud raspberry in his ear as she scampered behind him to acquire a good position and assess their surroundings.

Her life signature contracted momentarily. It heralded a pregnant silence. Joshua grimaced as he imagined the dragoness memorizing every detail, every contour of the patch of land in front of Warfang's eastern gates. The gamer visualized—as easily as he would imagine himself being the player character in many a video game—Kilat choking from the corpses of dragons, moles, llamas, and cheetahs littering the grasslands, many of them killed in a way that would've made Ryuk of Death Note fame proud. The body count now exceeded 16 by a long shot, after he sliced through one of Rimeer's fellow dragons, after his power had gone and done something—until now he could not even remember what it did—to make all those bastard archers go away and die.

How many of those bodies looked like the Alpha death hound, grotesquely swollen, discolored in a hideous black crust, and emitting the disgusting stench of the newly dead? How many of them stared back at Kilat with glassy, catatonic eyes? With their lifeless maws held agape, as if multiple Dementors descended upon them and administered the dreaded Kiss in bulk, seconds before invisible Death Eaters finished them all off with the Killing Curse for added measure?

Did she notice the patches of grass literally drained of life until they were gray and decayed? Could the child even perceive the insignificant insects and worms that fell victim to his power? What about the blood bespattering the lands, the blood he himself spilled when Warfang's people, guards and civilians alike, all sought his death? Did she see the Purple Dragon of Legend too, covered in his own blood and looking like he narrowly eluded the Grim Reaper at the last second?

What did Kilat make of it all?

Joshua Renalia was terrified of her feedback, of what she thought of him after seeing the horrific potency of his Element for herself. The boy dreaded that much more than even the fresh memory of his childhood heroes baring their teeth at him. Worst of all, he discovered it was virtually impossible to prepare himself for her reactions. Reluctantly, he turned his head. He lifted his chin up slowly, towards the little girl.

An expression of monumental disbelief had stuck itself to her mouth, and it refused to come off despite how much Joshua wished it. Her eyes, fully dilated as expected, was petrified. Nailed down at the center of the schlera. It mirrored the tightest contraction he'd ever sensed in Kilat's pulse of life.

Uncurling from his lotus posture, Joshua tested the waters. "Kilat?" he said.

Saying her name pulled the Electric dragoness out of her trance. Pools as azure as the skies on the midday concentrated on him. She jolted on eye contact. "Hey, Kilat?" Joshua tried again with a tentative move towards her. "Are you—

She inched back.

Her wing curved around her lean body, growing taut as though preparing for flight. The stump also curled inward. It reflected the way she crumpled defensively and shielded both her belly and snout from sight. Joshua caught his breath at the pleading whine that came out of her. As seconds passed, he could barely process how the only true friend and ally he had in this goddamned fantasy-turned-hell was turning her back on him, before his eyes. Jesus Christ, she was terrified. He couldn't mistake the shimmering ripples in her life signature for anything but foreboding.

Joshua Renalia was crushed. Should he cry? Should he weep? Should he turn away in shame? He had no idea what to do.

Almighty Father, why? Why the f*ck did he listen to Cynder? What did she know about parenting, huh? It wasn't like she and Spyro had a clutch these past four years! (Did they?) A hand reached out to her. "Kilat, I promise you, I—

She curled in tighter, shifting a little farther away from his reach. "A-all those people," she said, utterly appalled. "You, y-you, you…!"

Joshua could not break his eyes away from hers. The way she cowered in front of him broke his heart. It was a reminder. A brutal reminder of her youth. A callback, to the way they met a few days ago. That they weren't as close as he might've wanted. That before their chance encounter Kilat had been a war orphan, and Joshua an ignorant, lazy-ass student, for more than a decade.

"Yes," he noted solemnly. "I did it. All that. That was me." Worst of all, he remembered little of it, catching only hazy images, a great distress, and impulsive thoughts borne of desperation and a strong desire to live.

Regardless of this, Renalia's instincts, whatever they were, compelled the human to reach out for the third time. Kilat flinched at his approach but, maybe remembering what he'd done for her or respecting his honesty, forced herself steady not long after.

His touch stiffened her, but Joshua Renalia disregarded that and pulled the dragon-child into a hug. "But it's not my fault. You know that. I even told you a couple nights ago how dangerous my Element is."

"I know." The little girl shivered in his arms. "I know, I know, I know! My, m-my thing is, s-seeing it all myself—looking at the Purple Dragon—I, I-I-I…" She had trouble finding the words. "I, I don't, I, I-I just don't—

"I understand," he said, with a sad smile. "Still, you have to admit: it's a good thing I do have this Element. If I didn't…"

Joshua would have literally shat himself to death on Day 1, if not turned into dog food by the pack of Death Hounds if he somehow survived dysentery long enough to last until nightfall. Meanwhile Kilat would have died of acute poisoning, severe blood loss, even starvation. Whichever came first.

She would've been alone out there, in the Dry Canyon.

Terrified.

Dejected.

With the sight of Warfang taunting her until she finally gave in and caved.

The unspoken argument brought another round of long, uncomfortable silence. Unable to make heads or tails of her life signature, Joshua worried if everything had truly changed between them. Sensing the blue, rigid pulse of her life warm up to a calmer state ameliorated his concerns somewhat, but he knew something had changed, for the little girl no longer found security and comfort with him. He discerned at least that much from the lingering tension in her body language. The springiness in her legs. The underlying ripples within her sphere of life.

Still, the fact Kilat acknowledged his words gave Joshua some hope.

"At least Infernape's gone," she muttered. "I'm hap—I'm not going to cry over that shitty bastard."

That did not escape his ears. "Kilat!"

"Huh, what?"

"Don't say that! That's a bad word."

"But, you say stuff like that all the time. Besides, I don't even know what it means."

He sighed. Someone f*ck me. With Kilat discovering what he was capable of and trying to rein in her own fear of him, right now was not an appropriate time for a lecture on cursing. "I beg you. Just, just don't, okay? It doesn't suit you."

"Am I 'too young' for that too?" She frowned.

"Yes—I mean, no! But—you know, it depends on—ahhh shit. It just, it just doesn't give off a good impression, okay? If, i-if you really want to know what those mean, ask me later. I won't hide anything else from you."

That was a lie. There was his origin story, after all...

"Okaaaaay." The child nuzzled the crook of his shoulder, exhaling a tensely-held breath. "I'm… sorry. It's hard to, to look past what you did and remember you saved me too. But I'll do it, Joshua. I really will. I can trust you, can I?"

God bless this little girl! Maybe it was her life as an orphan, maybe it was something that came with her family, or maybe it was the way she somehow—like animals back on Earth—saw who exactly he was, but somehow, Kilat far surpassed his younger sister in maturity. She impressed him so much he couldn't help beaming when he reassured her, rubbing the golden scales on her head. "You can. You know I'd do anything for you, Kilat."

For better or for worse, Joshua omitted any guarantees on how effective he'd actually be at it. Not when the whole shitstorm that happened here resulted from a decision he made for her benefit. Thank God nobody ever reads the fine print.

And that was also a lie. There was his whole journey home, after all…

Any compunction that may have lingered in Joshua's thoughts for blatantly lying to a child as young and as innocent as Kilat disappeared when he felt the girl rubbing her snout on his cheek, her life signature a warm, but still uncertain auburn. A wordless gesture of thanks, and it meant a lot to the teenager as much as his commitment did to her.

Joshua Renalia glanced at Cynder, who had been peeking at their little show of drama all this time. They made eye contact once again and this time she made no effort to hide her smirk. The gamer was infuriated at his inability to decide whether he should be pissed off at the bitch for being right, or grateful at the Savior for being right.

"Soooo…"

Kilat withdrew from her gesture of appreciation and happiness. She backed away from Joshua, her expression still radiating some optimism for the future ahead. "Everything's over, right? We're out of this?"

"I think so. All we need to do is wait for the Guardians to fly down here and I'll have a chance to explain things. No point in running now; they'll think I'm some 'bad guy' otherwise."

The child released a frustrated sigh of her own. "Warfang people are stupid." Cynder's smirk widened at that remark, obviously in agreement. "At least that means we can finally talk."

"Talk about what?"

"There's one last thing I've been wanting to ask you."

"Go right ahead."

Her expression became a dark grimace. Kilat's right wing flared out, and her cobalt eyes narrowed at the black dragoness lying next to Spyro, watching the two of them as she'd been doing all this time. "Why?" she questioned him. "Why defend Cynder?"

"I told you, Kilat. She's not an enemy."

"Do you know, Joshua?" the child asked, not directly acknowledging what he said about her. "Do you know how much I want to attack her with everything I got? To make her pay?"

Cynder's smug grin vanished, her disfigured lips retreating into an uncertain but somber line. Kilat's sudden 180° shift from distrust and fright to outright hostility surprised both her and the gamer.

"No," he said. "But I can imagine." Joshua pointed at the bloodied corpse of the Ice Dragon who had nearly severed his right arm. Flies, attracted by the stench of fresh meat, had begun to swarm the dead body—a likely scenario for the other corpses around them. "Remember Rimeer? He started all this. He tried to kill her out of revenge, then use his authority to get away with it." The human's gaze bore into Kilat's. "And I stopped him."

"Why?" she exclaimed. "She's evil! Nobody's called 'Terror of the Skies' for nothing! I can't even imagine how many died because of her!" Indignation shuddered through the child. "Do you, d-do you actually know how much that, that demon enjoyed killing them all?"

The truth was, Joshua didn't know. A New Beginning never went so far as to demonstrate the years Cynder spent being Malefor's right hand. To his knowledge, The Eternal Night did not completely show the depth of her guilt and shame either. In spite of his familiarity with Legend's lore, the gamer simply couldn't remember if DragonOfIceAndFire ever asked Jared Pullen about Cynder's past. Nothing like that ever cropped up in the DeviantArt page. He'd have known otherwise.

Renalia tried to stall. "I, I'm—goddammit, that dragon isn't—

It was futile. "Cynder killed my siblings! She toyed with them the same way she played with my parents. Treated the way they fought tooth and claw for my life—for their lives like a game. Ancestors, like a game!"

Joshua had to exert all his willpower to keep himself stoic, to not reveal any kind of tell. But f*cking hell, even for a spellbound servant, that was too far, too sadistic. And Kilat was about three at the time? Damn it all, something like that would never be forgotten, especially when it happened in front of a person that young. She must have had nightmares for months.

"She lied to our families, made us betray each other for her own sick pleasure, and, a-and—!

He saw Cynder turn her head away in shame, perhaps recalling the memory and the twisted ecstasy that came with it.

"But she's not the same dragon," he protested. "She's, not, that, dragon! The Purple Dragon saved her from—

"I don't care!"

"The Guardians said she's okay now!"

"They don't speak for me!"

"She's been making up for it for years! She even helped the Purple Dragon. This planet would've been destroyed if she didn't—

"That won't bring my family back!" Tears trickled down the child's snout.

"Neither will revenge."

"She just gets away with it then? How's that even fair?"

"Kilat, you're acting just like those guards—like those Warfang people."

She huffed. "Well they have the right idea then!"

"I don't understand any of this! What else do you want from Cynder? She's living a life of service!"

"I don't understand why you're defending her!" Kilat yelled at him. "She doesn't deserve that life! I want justice, Joshua. Justice!"

Jesus-Mary-Joseph, he had no chance of turning this around. Joshua needed much, much longer than a few days to make the Electric dragoness understand where he came from. Maybe even longer than that, if he couldn't tell her anything that hinted at his origins. Joshua worried Kilat might not even forgive Cynder in the future.

Emotions were always a difficult thing to predict—to anticipate or influence. Oftentimes, it was impossible to sway, for any variety of reasons, up to and including mere whimsy. Growing up, Joshua Renalia encountered this emotional drama bullshit multiple times back on Earth. With his parents, with his siblings, with his extended family, with his friends and classmates. Shit, he even had to deal with drama in his relationship with Natasha.

Sometimes the reasons he received never made sense to him, despite deep reflection on it. Sometimes his reasons never made sense to the others, either. But that's just how it was; no life was ever perfect. Some kids had abusive, even criminal parents. Some had premature deaths in the family. Maybe others had to deal with external things, like relentless bullying or the inability to socialize.

If the world worked like a well-oiled machine, untainted by the constant struggle between good and evil, maybe everyone would have lived lives of logic, or mutual respect. Hell, if the Dragon Realms was the magical, fantastic Never Land it was supposed to be—

F*ck this place! F*ck the Dragon Realms. Why was it just the same? Why were people here just as prejudiced, emotional, and damned unstable as shit as the people back home?

Joshua hissed in frustration. They needed to revisit this again. He at least had to get Kilat to warm up to the idea it's just to have Cynder—a fully reformed Cynder live. "Oh God," he said. "Look, we're getting nowhere with this. How about we set this aside for now and—

Multiple spheres of life breached Joshua's maximum range of detection. In one inexplicable moment, he knew every single one approached the top of the wall at high speeds. Three of the signatures carried an enormous presence. Great power rippled within their pulses.

Joshua Renalia smiled.

The Guardians had finally arrived.

---

Watching Joshua and Kilat together inflated Cynder's confidence. Truly, the human was a good person. The way the apparent prodigy fawned over him as soon as she woke—latched onto him even, like a child would to her own mother—evidenced the closeness of their relationship. That, the assistance he rendered earlier, and the very fact he did not run away when he had the motive and every opportunity to do so proved Joshua's integrity as an individual. Nothing else could be better.

Guilt resurged in Cynder. Until now the dragoness who was once the feared Terror of the Skies could not comprehend Spyro's decision, yet all she had to go on were the enormous burden he shouldered on his wings, the exceeding protectiveness laid upon those he loved the most, and the limitless resolve to minimize damage by every means possible.

When he told her there was something wrong with the young man, when he insisted on putting Joshua down for the sake of peace, she should have tried harder. She should have stopped him. Asserted her position, having already confirmed the boy's pacific disposition. She should have trusted Joshua back then, too. But looking back at it, it would've been impossible. Her memory was still fresh from maddening rage. Cynder would much rather see Warfang burn to the ground than see Spyro dead.

Such oversight weighed heavily on her. Cynder's shame grew when the young man forgave her, and so easily. She felt her guts lurch when he called her a hero. Joshua considered her a hero? A hero? Just like that? No skepticism, no condescension, no crazy hoops and expectations, despite knowing exactly who she was? Even she couldn't believe it. Nobody in the City of Dragons ever thought of her as a hero during the first meeting. Nobody ever forgot the Terror of the Skies. Even the little dragoness under Joshua's care remembered her.

Thinking about the girl shook Cynder. It brought up memories. Terrible memories. Her last act of genocide, in Malefor's name, took place only months before Spyro defeated her cursed form in the realm of Convexity. Tipped off by a trader they snatched, tortured, and procedurally disposed on the existence of a hidden but surprisingly prosperous settlement of dragons within a peat swamp forest, where the trees were as large, as formidable as fortresses and the surrounding land practically impassable to the untrained traveler. Intent on crushing this unhatched egg months, maybe years, before it produced organized resistance, she took direct command over a brigade or two of Apes and conducted the extermination in the dead of the night.

Cynder remembered basking in the suffering of the settlers there. She especially loved it when the dragons fell into the peatlands below, unluckily into deepwater, where they would sink and die slow and agonizing deaths. The two families she manipulated… Yes, she remembered that, too. It was the only time she had done so in the years she served the Dark Master. The dragoness recalled the satisfaction she got at watching the children and adolescents fight each other to the death, not long after disemboweling their parents before them.

It was a brutal massacre, and to her knowledge, there were no survivors. No prisoners of war.

How Kilat could have escaped a surgical operation like that baffled Cynder as much as it relieved her. That she lived was by itself a miracle.

There was no mistaking the enmity in Kilat's voice. The venom she spat was nothing new to Cynder. Rimeer resented the black dragoness as much as the child did, and for sure there were many more people like them living behind the walls of the great city. Living so she could atone for the lives she exterminated, the damage she caused—alone already a joyless endeavor given the ridicule and scorn she receives from the general public—became so much more demoralizing when all the immigrants coming in diluted the number of friendly faces month after month.

Glancing at Joshua, Cynder studied his face and found an expression of exasperation and fatigue. He arrived at an impasse. Their friendship and his unconditional love—however short—may have been the tipping point the girl needed to give the furless ape a chance notwithstanding her pristine fear of his power. But Cynder doubted that would be enough to overcome the loathing Kilat must have carried for years.

Then the young man suddenly bared his teeth in a wide and smug grin. She surmised positive emotions reeking from this gesture. Happiness. Hope. Relief. A good indication that humanity and dragonkind had a few cultural habits in common.

Now why was he smiling—?

"Oh my God!" His green eyes went skyward. The pupils contracted, as though he zoned out for a moment or two. "They're here! They're finally here!"

"Huh?" Kilat swapped her aggressive posture for confusion.

"It's the Guardians!"

He swept the little girl off all four of her paws before she could do anything. "Meep!" Joshua swung Kilat around and around, dancing like a fool. "Whoaaaa, whoa, waaaahh!"

With a sudden stop, the human brought the disoriented dragon to his face and vigorously nuzzled her yellow snout with apparent cheer. "Oh Lordy, things are looking up at long f*cking last!"

Her paws batted at her assailant. She tried to repel his advances with her curved horns. "Uh, w-wha—what?" But her efforts, while useless and weak, had no heart behind them in the first place. Had Cynder been looking at Kilat's muzzle, she would have found disbelief at the sheer brazenness of his actions. "I, I-I-I, uhm, you, you can't just—we were arguing—

"F*ck, that!" He held the Electric dragon-child by the pits of her forelegs at arm's length. "All those things we were just talking about?" Joshua gesticulated up using those strangely-shaped lips of his. "Ask them instead! Kilat, they have the answers you're looking for. They know more about Cynder than I ever will. Hell, they're the ones who forgave her in public!"

Any optimism she might have shared did not show on her muzzle. "Eeeeehhhhhhhh…"

Extensive analysis of Kilat's body and tonal language would unearth doubt. A skilled reader of dragons could discern the fear of disappointment in her wings. Her ears. Her tail. Even the oscillations of the light beaming down her entire body.

However good she was at reading people in general, Cynder did not truly specialize on her own species. Neither was she tracking the conversation, for the black dragoness had settled for staring at the human and letting her thoughts stir. How did he know the Guardians were here? Warfang's walls were mammoth. Its strength impenetrable. Nobody could hear squadrons coming from within the city, let alone specifically identify them. Not down here, far below the wall.

She trained her gaze up and only found the blue sky. How did Joshua know this? Could he even detect them by some means? Did that even make sense? Cynder understood the human possessed an impeccable, natural talent for close-quarters combat. Spyro and Infernus would have easily killed him if he didn't. But that didn't mean he could… that's impossible.

He was bluffing.

He had to be bluffing.

If the adolescent couldn't pacify Kilat or outright turn her around without retracting the progress he just gained with their relationship, a solid, convincing deception was probably the only way he could get the little girl to stop, to calm down, and—

A wing of comprised of four squadrons zoomed past the top. Cynder's teal eyes recognized Terrador, Volteer, and Cyril at the front. They dilated at the sight. At the way their presence brought a feeling of heaviness upon the sky.

Ancestors. Joshua had not been making it up. He was right all along.

Cynder, in awe, watched the Guardians lead the charge. Carried by explosive velocity, they swerved down the sides. Her insides seesawed at the swiftness of their descent. She ogled the way their wings were tucked in. The stiff tails. The curdled frames.

Oh no.

"Joe-wa," she coughed the boy's name. Her words jumbled out. A vocal mess.

Cynder tried to speak properly. "Josa!" Ancestors damn Rimeer for what he did to her face. "Argh!" It hurt to open her mouth a little.

At least she had the human's attention. "Cynder?"

"Joshua, you—

Agony shot through her snout. Terrible pain worked its way across the bones, stunning the older dragoness with hidden jolts of electricity. "Rrrrkk."

Joshua lowered Kilat a bit, though kept carrying her. The child didn't seem to notice. "Cynder, what's wrong?" He watched the Heroine shake off the pain. Cynder placed her own paw on her muzzle, rubbing the soreness on the jawbones, trying to get it in a working position. "Are you okay?"

She ignored him and dared another glance up. Cyril had taken the lead. Seeing the serious glower on his snout obliged her to act before it was too late. Cynder gave Spyro's unconscious body one last, longing stroke with her tail before forcing herself to stand.

"Hey-hey-hey-hey, you shouldn't be doing that!"

"Be-sad me," she struggled. Oh what she would give to have a Spirit Gem right now. Cynder spat on the ground and tried one more time. "Get beside me!" her words came out in full.

"W-what're you talking about? The Guardians—

Kilat stared up at the approaching group, her eyes wide open. "Joshua!"

"What?" he hissed. "Everything's going to be fine. We can trust the Guardians. They're—

Cyril spat a spherical block of compressed ice down at the same time a younger fire dragon behind him belched a powerful fireball. Cynder recognized the other dragon and the body armor he wore. Another Fellow. Same rank as Rimeer.

Just like before, in some inexplicable, incomprehensible way, Joshua tensed and finally looked up. "THE F*CK!"

In split seconds both ice and fire converged at a spot directly between Joshua and the two Saviors, and the Elements exploded viciously. Kilat shrieked, the sheer force of the explosion throwing her off and away from the human. A precision strike intended on upsetting Joshua's balance rather than killing him, done for the sole reason he had a presumably defenseless and hurt child in his arms.

Cynder's legs barely endured the intense vibrations reverberating around her. It threatened to knock her down, but she held strong, evoking great determination to set things straight before the whole cycle of vengeance started anew.

Terrador, Guardian of Earth, crashed into the ground with a loud boom. The very earth trembled in his wake. His stance lower, protective, and ready to move at a moment's notice, he glared at Joshua with the intimidating air of a ruler. A true guardian. A person who would do everything to protect his subjects. The adult dragon's impact was too much for Cynder. What little strength she mustered gave out at once. Again she fell, but this time the ground was not there to meet her broken, disfigured face.

Instead the blades of grass shrunk, shrunk, and shrunk. The gap between her and the ground became farther. Volteer swept down and picked up Spyro. He turned towards Cynder—towards the dragon carrying her. "Cyril! Cynder doesn't look too terrible. A little rejuvenation will mend those broken bones sufficiently!" Cradling the world's hero in both arms, he then carried Spyro up and over the wall before the Ice Guardian could reply with anything beyond an acknowledging grunt.

"Joshua!" From above, Kilat could be seen getting up, snarling at Terrador. He must've been a gigantic green dragon to her. "Hey, you! Get away from him. He's mine!"

Another dragon swooped in from above, her body as lean, as aerodynamic as the Heroine herself. Cynder watched her descend at greater speeds than she normally expected from the typical dragon. She snatched Kilat from the air, seizing the child's nape with the grace and fluidity of someone who had decades of experience, as though she'd been a mother all her life. The Wind itself roared at a single flap of her powerful, oversized wings.

"Ancestors, no! I can't leave Joshua!" Kilat clawed and screamed anxiously, violently, at her supposed rescuer. A profound disquiet dominated her rapid flailing, and the alarming intensity of her fighting demonstrated how much she worried for someone she still feared could kill her by complete accident. "Let go. Let goooooo!"

The female dragon shot past Cynder's eyes, past the other dragons. Her lustrous scales glinted with the pale, pinkish hues commonly found on seashells strewn across the nearby Breeze Harbor—a stark contrast to almost every dragon in the air.

A Wind Dragon.

One of the immigrants from Cloud Spires.

Cynder watched her spiral upwards, moving as if she owned the skies. She circled faster and faster, fully intending to disorient the child clutched in her forepaw. The black dragoness recognized the deeper, orchid tones of her underbelly and the impressive control over an Element as volatile and as malleable as the Wind itself. Skydancer. What is she doing here?

Cyril's genteel voice interrupted Cynder before she could process this. "Cynder, are you alright?"

The scene below her featured an astonished Joshua desperately pleading with Terrador. He had his arms clasped together, begging for mercy. Cynder imagined the "I'm not your enemy" speech coming out of him, trying to explain everything that had happened to the new actor in this situation.

Multiple squadrons hovered above them. About twelve dragons waited for Terrador's signal, their ranks split evenly between Fellows and Apprentices. Their shocked, livid murmurs wafted up her earholes. Aware this escalation merely repeated what took place minutes ago, she blocked them all out and instead sought out Sparx. He was the only other person who knew the truth.

Where was he? Wasn't he going to help?

"S, Sparx," she croaked. "Where's, Spa—ack!" Cynder put a paw to her snout again, unable to say a word.

"Fret not, Cynder," Cyril said. "I found some healing crystals. You will regain your ability to speak once you're done with them." He began a descent. "Terrador had the dragonfly remain at the Temple so he could round up Warfang's best medical specialists and provide immediate treatment for Spyro's internal bleeding. Of course, the same goes for everyone else that repulsive ape hurt.

"He made the right choice, I'll be honest," he continued. "Sparx had gone hysterical. Even Volteer couldn't keep up with him."

Cynder tuned out Cyril's "professional" assessment. She focused on Joshua, who definitely got his wish of meeting the Guardians. The colossal disappointment was palpable on his face; right now, he looked like he traveled for days in the harsh, barren desert towards a large oasis in the distance and discovered an empty, lifeless mirage in its place.

"Do you take me for a fool?" Terrador spoke, his voice a deep and intimidating rumble. "We intercepted survivors from Rimeer's and Infernus's Wings and they told us a different story."

"What!" Joshua exclaimed. "No! No, no, no, no. You can't believe them! I don't have anything against you guys. This wasn't my fault! Rimeer tried to kill Cynder, and Infernus turned Spyro against me. F*ck, I only wanted to talk!"

"Enough of your lies," declared Terrador. "It does not matter if you are a subordinate of Caesar, an agent of the Dark Master, or a mere traveler. You knowingly put our Heroes to a state of near-death and murdered many who tried to help him and the innocent child you deluded."

"Terrador! Please, listen to me," the human entreated, his cheeks shining from the tears dripping out his eyes. He fell on all fours and put his head on the ground. The act bewildered Cynder—it was so foreign, unusual—but she figured it was a gesture of extreme contrition. "I beg you. Talk to Sparx. Talk to Cynder! Bring Kilat back here! I promise you, they can speak for me! I'm not who you think I am—

"We are done, Joshua Renalia," The Earth Guardian snubbed him. He leaped high into the air and flew off, soaring higher than all the other dragons in the sky. Then Terrador opened his maw, launching three glowing spheres of his Element airborne.

It was the signal to attack.

Every single dragon moved on cue.

Joshua stood, gaping at the scene above. Stupor ensnared the human, and from the way he quaked, he buckled before several dragons rushing in to expunge him from the Dragon Realms, Cynder conjectured the shock—the trauma of seeing the people he truly believed would bring his ordeal to a peaceful end betray those expectations, petrified him. And he now lived in denial.

A fireball exploded near him. The force sent him flying, forcibly knocking some sense back into his head. He picked himself up, but before he could get on his feet, two of Cyril's Ice Dragons sent icicles towards his neck while one of the dragons under Volteer's tutelage clad himself in a blanket of electricity and flanked him from the side.

Joshua brought his hand up to stop the icicles, and failed to do so. "Goddammit, f*ck!"

He moved at the last minute. One of the icicles impaled his shoulder, while the other shattered as soon as it struck his chest. The Ice Dragon that could have won the glory of killing the furless ape grimaced, probably swearing to ramp up his training when he returned to the Temple. The human ogled the Electric dragon coming for him, staring the way prey animals did in the forests around Warfang, seconds before death claimed them.

Joshua turned away from the sight of his immediate demise, raised his hand, and screamed.

"Oh!" Cyril said, apparently not paying attention to the battle. "Here we are." One bash from his claw and several Spirit Gems cascaded down to the ground, free for the taking. "Okay, Cynder. Start taking these and I'll hold on to your jaw so your mouth could heal right."

Once the Ice Guardian set her down, the Savior did as instructed. She felt Cyril put his forepaw atop of Cynder's snout and pressed hard. Not enough to crush, but enough to pin it down. The dragoness clutched the red crystals and held tight, allowing the rush of warmth to burst throughout her body and begin a healing process that should have been accessible to only dragons.

Afraid of possibly delaying the process, Cynder stifled her screams and forced herself still. The effort was mostly futile, for the feeling of her crushed jaw settling back into position and magically repairing all damage caused her to writhe, hiss, and growl. She clawed at Cyril's massive forepaw. She bit a rock, clamping down with so much force it began to shatter between her teeth. "ARRRGH!"

As the seconds passed, as the fighting continued in the background, Cynder felt strength finally returning to her. Her hearing, her eyesight, her olfaction all clawed back the infirmity Joshua's White Breath inflicted upon them. "Terrible," Cyril remarked when the Heroine snatched the sixth Spirit Gem from the pile. "Simply terrible. I cannot believe that barbarian would do this to one of the greatest heroes in our city." He grunted. "Hmph, I am even surprised an ape that small has the strength to do this to you."

"It wasn't him," Cynder replied.

"W-what?"

"You heard me. It wasn't Joshua. Rimeer did this to me."

"...Preposterous! He swore loyalty to you—to us when we inducted him as an Apprentice. No respectable dragon would—

"Infernus discredited me in front of Spyro." She grabbed another Spirit Gem. Just a few more and she would have healed enough to intervene on Joshua's behalf and fight if she had to. "A Guardian Candidate who even overlooked several attempts at my life by the other guards."

Rendered speechless, the Ice Guardian had no prepared reply for her. Cynder glowered at Cyril as the crystal faded to gray in her claws. "Eh, e-e, e-even so, the furless ape still slaughtered—

Blinding light flashed their surroundings before Cynder could persuade Cyril to switch sides. The two turned their heads back to the fighting and saw two dragons down. They were still alive, but their wings and legs twitched as though they couldn't move them. Joshua, however, was in worse shape. He had one hand over the side of his abdomen, where bright-red blood gushed despite his best efforts.

"I apologize, Cynder," Cyril said. "But they need my assistance! We shall discuss this later!" He galloped to the battle and took to the sky, spiraling in the air until a frigid twister formed around his body. Hailstones the size of moles flew in Joshua's direction. The human recoiled at the spectacle of a Guardian putting his full power into an intermediate-level attack. More dragons attacked from at least two other directions.

Joshua Renalia prioritized the battery of elements coming for him. He made multiple attempts to manipulate any of the four Elements, but Cynder noticed he never got it to work. Not once. Miraculously, the human managed to at least bring up the white shield and stave off a blanket of fire, letting it backfire into some attacks and one Earth dragon rushing straight for him. Yet this opened him up to other angles. An opportunistic fighter snuck in an Electric Orb from the side and forced it to his face. Joshua tried to manipulate it several times and failed just as much.

At point blank, the human shrieked from panic and swatted the thing away with his bare hands. It flew in Cyril's direction and detonated in the air. The attack halted the Ice Guardian's deadly approach. "What magic is this ape using?" clamored Cyril. "Impossible!"

Another one of the pale-colored Wind Dragons landed in front of Joshua—an actual immigrant, not Skydancer—and unleashed a blast of air at him. It smacked straight into Joshua and sent him tumbling down one of the hills, where a tiny red spike stood. He fragmented the crystal and held the shards for dear life, but to his dismay, it did nothing except staunch the profuse bleeding from his side, and Cynder knew a mortal wound like that can reopen again. "Oh God, no."

The Wind Dragon screeched and used his Element to spring towards him, rushing past every dragon in his path. Joshua observed this and deduced the intent to literally eviscerate him in half. Running or even evasion was not an option; there was no "fleeing" a dragon that thrived on speed and agility.

"Get away!" he said, lashing out his arms at the oncoming beast. "Get away!" He whipped it out again and again, as though expecting something to come out. "Get away—get—get—get the f*ck—

A sphere of light appeared out of nothing and a beam raced out to intercept the approaching destroyer. The latter contorted and, with another burst of wind, accelerated towards the human at an even greater speed. "OH F*CK! F*CK! F*CK! F****CK!"

Two more spheres of light. Two more lasers, and they proved to be one too many for the Wind Dragon to elude at a close distance. Joshua's frantic attempt at surviving this particular dragon struck his target true—right in the shoulder. Yet, unlike earlier, when trees withered and people swelled up and died, Joshua's opponent simply lost control of his wing and right arm and shortly careened into the ground.

But not before using the last of his momentum to make one last charge with his body, tail whipping out at the young man. Horns pierced the human's chest; as Joshua flew backward, the tail blade landed a clean cut on the left shoulder. His corresponding arm instantly went slack.

The human, for all his cursing, for all the vigor he put into this one-sided fight, could only kneel. For all intents and purposes, his left arm had been permanently disabled. His other hand pressed into the painful, open gash on his side, preventing his intestines and kidneys from falling through. Joshua wheezed with every breath, and he spat blood out every few seconds.

Cyril yelled to the other dragons. "Great work, all of you! This filth is all but spent and we haven't had a single casualty among our elite number. One more charge and we shall overwhelm the furless ape and eradicate him."

Terrador did nothing. In fact, he said nothing, remaining content to watch the execution from the air. A leader who had complete trust in his delegates, and likewise.

"I'm done," Cynder's remarkable hearing heard Joshua speak, grumble through the pain, the tears, the utter disappointment. "I'm done. I am absolutely, f*cking done."

"Go!" the Ice Guardian commanded.

"You heard him!"

"Go, go, go!"

"Let's show this murderer what happens when you mess with Warfang!"

A yellow beam intersected the squadrons' advance and cut them off. "Stop! Stop it!" Kilat shouted from the ramparts, the Electric child a tiny speck on the wall. Skydancer was slumped behind her, obviously unconscious. "Please," the dragoness begged, her eyes cast across the scene. "Don't kill him! Please! He, h-he's telling the truth! Really!"

Her protests fell on deaf ears; the dragons resumed their attack.

"Ancestors, why doesn't anyone f*cking listen?" the child yelled, exasperated. Kilat collected another obscene amount of mana in her mouth, pooling her natural element into the attack as though the Zap Cannon was a mere Electric Orb.

"Look out!"

"Disperse!"

Terrador decided to act. He nosedived towards Kilat, seconds before she released her second Zap Cannon into the Wings. The Guardian of Earth, his body irradiating mana, conjured solid bedrock of immense mass around his body and dropped, straight into the rod of plasma and electricity surging from the child's mouth. It absorbed the entire attack, not letting a single bit of it leach into the atmosphere and land on any of the assailing dragons. Terrador singlehandedly demonstrated, before many, that the intensity and raw power of a natural prodigy would never overcome the skill, training, and conditioning of a full-fledged Guardian.

The attack went on unabated. A cacophony of flapping wings, bestial snarls, and calls for the furless ape's messy evisceration accompanied the various dragons headed in the teenager's direction. Joshua Renalia, who never heard anything, who no longer cared about the fight, slumped in complete defeat. "I can't do this anymore," he said to himself. "I can't. I, I can't." He began to cry.

Cynder stretched, feeling her strength return in full. She discarded the last of the Spirit Gems and flexed her wings. Before she could take off, Volteer landed in front of her, obstructing her path. "Do not worry, Cynder. We have everything under control."

Under control? How can Volteer claim they had it under control? She was incredulous. Couldn't he see the white wisps circulating around Joshua? The white glow his body began to emanate?

"Volteer, I don't have time. I need to stop this mess."

"I will admit, my intellectual curiosity wants him to live. That power he possesses. Why, it shows all signs of being an Element! What he's done with it so far is amazing," concluded the scholar. "Temporary deprivation of motor functions. Obstruction of the other Elements. Unparalleled versatility in form and function, from focused attacks to crowd control. I've never seen anything like it. Not in my entire career. My entire life. Extraordinary. Simply, extraordinary..."

She twisted to the side to bypass the Guardian, but the rambling old coot blocked her path. "Out of the way, Volteer!"

"An Element we've never seen, never studied! It carries neither the same 'fire' as Spyro's Elements, nor the 'weight' that grounds yours. It feels like somewhere in between." Volteer turned towards Joshua, who balled up on the ground and waited for certain death.

He's distracted! Cynder flapped her wings twice and galloped around the Guardian of Electricity. She picked up speed. Picked up momentum. She readied her wings for flight and…

…tripped on Volteer's paw. Cynder snarled at the Guardian, who graced her with a sad smile. "It feels like Convexity," he said. "I am sorry, Cynder. We do not know what the Unknown Element is truly capable of. I cannot hurt you, but as a Guardian, I cannot let you stop this. Joshua is far too dangerous."

Cynder checked on Joshua again. Fear, urgency spiked through her liver when she saw the pallid wisps combine into something that looked like a cross between clouds and energy. It swirled around Joshua Renalia, draining all life within it as the mass lifted him into the air.

"God, please end this f*cking nightmare," She heard the young man weep. "Just let it end, quick. I don't give a f*ck anymore."

The Guardians' squadrons of Fellows and Senior Apprentices launched elemental attacks at the adolescent. Even when they aimed at what looked like an unprotected zone, their projectile were immediately converted into the same white energy coalescing around the human the second it entered within a certain range.

A Fire Dragoness challenged Joshua, coating her orange scales in blue fire and performing the Comet Dash. The student aborted the attack when she came close. While her flames were assimilated into the white plumes, her body shuddered before she veered off to the side and crashed away from him, where she wriggled and thrashed the way Cynder did when she lost all her senses.

"Nobody ever listens. This crazy bullshit keeps happening over and over again. It's never going to stop."

Everything around Joshua's curled body literally began to wobble. The space itself shuddered, quaked as more and more of the white mass collected around him. "Jesus Christ, I beg you, end this. I don't want to deal with it anymore. I want to go home."

The sound of glass shattering filled Cynder's ears, followed by a frightening thworp. Both Volteer and the black dragoness stared up at Joshua's floating body. To their horror, several spherical holes appeared near the human, on the fringes of the white mass. All the size of dragon eggs. A Fury. He's forming a Fury!

"Ancestors help us all!" Volteer exclaimed, caught utterly off-guard. "T-this is ca, catastrophic…!"

Cynder saw the swirling kaleidoscope of energy within each one for a split second before it leaked out and dispersed into the world.

As a purple haze.

As Convexity.

"I just want to go f*cking home…"

---

Author's Notes:

One more chapter to go! One more and it is over!

All right, so… reader feedback!

Again, I can't respond to everyone because I don't want this to be too long, but I'd like to thank you—every single one of you—and *sigh* yes, even the guests who don't bother identifying themselves or logging in to their FFN accounts—for all your reviews, comments, and support. Criticism and encouragement are both highly welcome, and I hope to live up to your expectations or even inspire new writers among you.

Djax80, good to see you once again and thank you for your review. Heh, the good ol' template plot. I have plans for that one. I'll be playing the long game on it though, so don't expect any Trope Breaking on that 'til much later. And unfortunately I'll have to agree with you. The clichés are there, but they're there because I either have conceded to their usage or plan to play with it at some point. Take your pick. :P

GhostChris, thanks for your comment! But you're sad to see the rollercoaster end? I'd revise those expectations if I were you. The Gates of Warfang arc is just the beginning. Just because I'm putting a stop to a heavy, combat-oriented arc to a character-driven, slice-of-life style doesn't mean there will be an utter lack of emotional turmoil. On the contrary, there will be. Plus with the other characters now in the picture, I can take extended breaks from using Joshua as a POV and throw in mini-arcs or mega-arcs, the way TokoWH's Spyro Loops operates.

Keyblader Zen, great seeing you again. Let's see… On #1, Joshua's outburst in Cynder's defense was only directed to Rimeer's followers. It wouldn't positively affect her overall rep in the city, and with her approval rating rapidly being diluted by the large number of war-traumatized immigrants pouring in, I daresay it may even backfire despite public backing by the Guardians and her relationship with Spyro. (Only God knows if that will happen—with all my focus on making it to the end of this story arc, I haven't had the chance to seriously consider the consequences yet!) On #2, a "respect up" from Spyro? That's probable, if not guaranteed. Still, she'll be seeing a medical specialist about her disfiguration after this bullshit at the Eastern Gates comes to an end. The most I think she'll have is a scar. An ugly and very noticeable scar. Last, on #3. You wouldn't be wrong to assume that…

Koal, what are you talking about? Joshua's always going to be in a hellhole. Doesn't mean he won't have his happy moments or people are going to try to kill him all the time but… the entire Dragon Realms will behell for him either way. XD It already started after Kilat utterly demolished his sense of personal hygiene.

Sol1234, hmmm… a civil war? That might have happened if Warfang was populated solely by dragonkind. But as it stands, Warfang is a fortress city with a high degree of sentient biodiversity, with the dragons being a minority. Albeit, a rapidly growing minority, all of whom have superpowers and the ability to fly. Heavy immigration for a city that's still recovering from the war with Malefor and brutal hostility by the rising power that is Aldozira (The City of Apes) all lead to… an interesting socioeconomic structure.

Maga016, thank you for your comment! And a rare one too, about my writing style. Again, much appreciated. This immersive style that tactically fluctuates between introspection and emotive impact, with scattered descriptions took years of work to get to, with my Digimon deconstruction fic being my starting point. BTW, were you one of those guests before? I swear I saw your name somewhere before…