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?

58. (BW) (64D) Night Raid End

Author's notes:

Happy Holidays 2023! Hell yeah. Finally got to the end of the Night Raid series of chapters, and we're ending this with one hell of a bang. The chapter's approximately 14K. I am looking for places to bring down the word count to a more palatable 11K. Normally, I would've split this, but I really wanted Night Raid to end on CH58.

I have also deleted the A/N chapter since it's no longer relevant now that I'm updating this every now and then. Still can't say it's back to regular updates, though seeing as how I'm very busy with IRL, plus money's been tight too, but I'm working on Aimless on and off so I guess that's fine.

Messages from my two beta readers below:

AzureDragonZX. Hello, AzureDragonZX here, once again. And it looks like we managed to get this done before 2024...! We're ending this arc with one last action-packed chapter, possibly even more intense than the last one. (Sometimes I wonder if we need to put warnings for all the Chaos that takes place...) Regardless, I hope you all had a great year, and we'll see you again soon. Until then!

Strykeruk. Hey all, Strykeruk here. As always its a pleasure to work with Silent and Azure on one of his obscenely well written chapters. I hope you're all keeping safe and enjoy this new part of the story. Merry Christmas to you all and a happy new year!

My response to them:

Azure — I wouldn't quite call it an arc ender since the December Cliffs features one last battle, but we can take a big break for now and focus on Warfang for the next few chapters. I'm sure a lot of readers are wondering what happened after Cynder pretty much did something on her own and found out she was a major contributor to, if not one cause of, the Incident.

Stryker — And it has also been a pleasure to work with the two of you! My fic has really improved in quality ever since you and Azure came onboard. Stay safe yourself! Nasty flu going around these days. I actually got knocked down for a week earlier this month. A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you (and Azure) as well!

Timestamp key: "D" for days, "W" for weeks, "M" for months, "Y" for years, "EM" for early morning, "LM" for late morning, "EA" for early afternoon, "LA" for late afternoon, "EE" for early evening, "LN" for late night, and "AD" for all day. Note that the Dragon Realms follow the sexagesimal system for keeping time, just like Earth. (In other words, 60 seconds per minute and 60 minutes per hour.)

Snip category key: There are four categories of snips. "Settling In", "City Life", "Beyond the Wall", and "The Journey Home". All four represent parallel storylines that take place within Aimless, and other than "Settling In", each snip category has at least two subtypes. Those subtypes aren't listed due to potential spoilers.

Enjoy!

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Beyond the Wall — Ape Menace

Chapter 58: Night Raid 3 (Final)

"There is no difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people…."

~ Tony Bean

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[64D/LN]

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Green, red, and innumerable flecks of twinkling white.

A stationary mist hovering in the center of that wide, unending patagium, set aglow by some mysterious, pallid flame.

This awe-inspiring sight greeted Aurona the instant her eyes snapped open.

A sight only visible when flying too high, dangerously close to the northern airstreams that blanketed all of the December Cliffs and doomed all foolish flyers swept up in it to a savage death in Devil's Reach.

Her eyes raced around.

No longer was the world around her compressed into a narrow, tubular passage.

No longer did a rich blue paint the celestial sights in its entirety.

No longer did she feel that sense of falling sideways, with gravity reoriented below her just as it always had.

It was only now that the Ice dragoness registered the weight between her claws, the sensation of scale and flesh resisting her grip. One glance at what she held—at who she held—and where was holding—had her yipping in astonishment.

She relinquished her grip immediately, guilt seeping into her psyche upon seeing rivulets of blood trickle from where her claws had been. Gravity took hold, but not for long, until a few beats of her wings bore her aloft.

"I, I passed out," she said, addressing her words to no one.

"You did," Spyro responded as though she'd been speaking to him. To her confusion, he even sounded impressed. "The whole time, I was worried you were gonna let go before we made it back."

Aurona hung her head low. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cling to you like that. It's just—the way Jayce was shouting back there—

"It's okay, Chief Aurona! I understand!" Spyro sent a placating glance at her. "I'm worried about Eyria too."

Aurona squinted at the dragon. "Lord Spyro…? Y-you're not feeling awkward at all?"

"Awkward?" He echoed. "Should I?"

Before she could reply, he started chuckling to himself, giving her a rather meek or timid expression, something Aurona had never seen the entire time he was here. "I don't know how much you've heard about my life before the Great War, but remember, I was never raised by dragons. I've only lived as one for four years, so there's still much I have to learn. Even Cynder is more of a dragon than I am."

The aura around Spyro felt colder all of a sudden. His figure wilted, voice turning gloomy as he continued, "We were supposed to visit Concurrent Skies earlier this cycle, but then… the furless ape… Windvale Arena… the apprentices…"

Aurora looked askance and saw a lost expression on Spyro's muzzle. His despondent tone and the words he was muttering revealed not only his inner thoughts but also the potential for an insider's perspective of the intriguing events occurring in the heart of Warfang. A combination of curiosity and concern lit up in the dragoness' chest. Buoyed by these feelings, she opened her mouth to ask for more details—

Only for the village of Eyria to come into view.

And it had been completely, utterly devastated.

Spyro audibly gasped. "Jayce was right…!"

As the two descended towards the ruins, they saw that a gruesome and violent battle had taken place. Motionless figures, mostly ape-like in shape, littered the moonlit snow. The perimeter fence was demolished in several places, and nearly all the wooden huts at the front of the village had been smashed in, rendered into nothing more than piles of useless lumber. The stone huts near the middle of the village were still standing, but at this point, it was reasonable to expect that they had also suffered much damage.

"I can barely recognize anything," the Savior muttered in horror.

Aurona, however, could. She had lived here for nearly her entire life. Her limbs quivered as she beat her wings and absorbed the devastation that greeted them. She had seen her home from the air at their approaching angle easily thousands of times. So much so that she could mentally juxtapose the sickening sight before them with how Eyria should've looked under the glow of the twin moons above.

She choked as she laid her eyes on the massive crevasse cutting across the entire length of the village, bisecting it in two. An ice bridge had covered the entire thing for generations; a bridge that was now absent. Destroying it had to have been an act of desperation. A last resort against invaders incapable of flight. The mountain rising above Eyria was now bare, casting a dark silhouette in the skyline—an avalanche had fallen right on top of the village, burying the temple and several stone huts along with everyone caught within.

As the two approached her ruined home, Spyro raised a foreleg and pointed at the rear. "Look! They're still fighting!"

Aurona spotted chaotic flurries of movement in the far midground. Hulking figures squirmed and lumbered along the snow while either wiry or elongated shades bobbed and weaved around them. Her people!

"Praise the Ancestors, we're not too late!" Aurona cried out. With Ventura's blessing, they might yet pull out of this tragic dive.

Spyro's next comment, however, kept her optimism in check. "It doesn't make sense. The dead villagers… none of them are dragons."

Alerted to this detail, Aurona trained her gaze back on the front side of the village. "You're right." Indeed, every lifeless corpse within Eyria's grounds was that of an ape, an atlawa, or a snow leopard. Not a single one was a dragon.

A terrifying portent settled in Aurona's breast, causing her to tremble from dread.

"Where did the dragons go? What are they—

Her voice suddenly choked.

"By Azeroth!" She cocked her snout at Spyro twice, drawing his attention. "Lord Spyro, over there, by the crevasse!"

"I see it."

Beside the deep crevasse that now bisected the besieged village was a spheroidal portal exactly like the one Aurona had seen back at Mystic Pinnacle. It floated beside one of several ice bridges now crossing over the pit, each looking too new, too sturdy, to be natural. The Ice dragon's muzzle contorted with rage as she saw troops of ape fighters converging around the portal, bustling to and fro, redshifting with large and heavy objects in hand before blueshifting back.

No, not heavy objects.

Dragons.

Living or dead.

"They're working together!" Aurona yelled. "All of them: Vanish, Bartholomew, Bleakshooter! I can't believe it!"

The fog was thickening. Bleakshooter sought to revive the Great War. Bartholomew had a personal vendetta against Skylands. Vanish… What did Vanish even want?

How did their objectives even intersect?

Voices, distant and soft, yet clear in her ears, put a stop to Aurona's thoughts.

"...must retreat! …damned… of the Crown…!"

"...tearing… —tagia that lifts, Slam Bam!"

A yeti with four arms stood between the apes and the remaining survivors of December. Clad in spiny armor made of solid ice, he fought with two dragons as well as two bipedal figures wrapped in purple cloaks. The magical orb embedded in his cuirass cast its azure glow on his opponents, allowing Aurona to recognize Akash and Ophelia from a distance.

It was none other than Bartholomew, the Skylander who'd gone rogue.

Wielding an oversized club in two of his hands, he swung it in wide, sweeping arcs, keeping both dragons in abeyance. Every strike, every blow, was focused on the Skylands orator, who banked left and right to evade a fatal hit. Bartholomew's armored bulk resisted much of the blunt force Akash could generate with his wind.

Snow and debris flew in every direction, ballooning into an obfuscating cloud. Though most of the apes were retreating across the ice bridges that Bartholomew had obviously magicked into existence, several stepped up to assist the beleaguered yeti and blindside his enemies.

Ophelia was lunging continuously at the yeti, her scales shimmering and reflecting the moonlight as she twisted and turned. The old dragoness had sheathed her talons and tail blade in long spines of ice, each as cold and as sharp as Bartholomew's. He parried them all with his vambraces, adeptly choosing the best arm to meet her strikes. The few attacks that did slip through struck the Blizzard Battle Armor instead and failed to pierce the magically enhanced surface.

Without warning, the elderly dragoness whipped her forepaw back, curling it up as though she'd gotten hit. Aurona and Spyro, still in the middle of their descent, could do nothing but watch Bartholomew conjure an ice ball with a free hand and hurl it into Akash's breast—stopping the orator's advance—while simultaneously stepping forward to smash his great and massive club into Ophelia's head.

The two purple figures idling nearby sprung into action. They were as shadows, weaving around him to strike at obvious weak points in his magicked armor. Bartholomew waved his fourth arm, summoning a small shield of ice in midair to absorb their attacks and launch them away in retaliation. With the yeti momentarily distracted, Akash beat his wings and sent a gust of wind strong enough to slightly alter the trajectory of his club and barely miss his target.

Bartholomew stumbled and even Aurona could see the openings in his hunched form. Unfortunately, none of the combatants could capitalize on this, as pawfuls of apes, all comparable to if not slightly larger than Jayce in size, rushed in, slashing, stabbing, giving them no room, no wherewithal to take down the enemy leader.

The December villagers began to rally. Seeing the four-armed yeti nearly fall drew out a thunderous and impassioned cry audible in the skies. A remnant group equivalent to roughly one-fourth of the village population charged into the fray, many of them ordinary folk who had never bared their fangs, claws, and blades against other sapients with killing intent. A distressed whine ripped out of Ophelia's snout as this happened, only for Bartholomew to shockingly turn on his returning allies and dash toward the crevasse. The safety of the portal.

Icicles, stalactites, and boulders rumbled across the rear side of Eyria as the remaining survivors of December Cliffs fought desperately to survive this onslaught and push back the invaders. Three members of the group stood out, and their heavy armors distinguished them as members of Claytor's vintaine.

By this time, Ophelia and Akash had gotten back on all fours by now and they unleashed their elemental breaths on the outnumbered primates. However, Bartholomew was able to assist them from a distance. As if he knew his rear guard would have been instantly overwhelmed, the rogue Skylander conjured icicles and boulders of solid ice and hurled them at random, crushing as many villagers as he could, his victims mutilated beyond recognition.

In response, the survivors howled indignantly, vengefully. The few dragons she could see took to the air, rolling and maneuvering to avoid arrows and icicles alike.

"After him! Don't let that yeti get away!" Ophelia's cry rang out.

The two cloaked bipeds had not given up on their prey, either. They chased after Bartholomew, completely ignoring the apes with no consideration to stop and assist the people of December Cliffs.

"Accursed assassins!" the yeti shouted out in frustration, realizing the deftness with which they evaded his projectiles.

In his rapid charge to the nearest ice bridge, Bartholomew made it to the throng of ape fighters bustling to get away from the front lines. Without hesitation or mercy, he grabbed one monkey after another by the nape of their necks and hurled them at his two pursuers.

"King Bleakshooter… only one job… sword and shield!"

His fervent cries grew more audible as Aurona and Spyro neared the village, having taken on a steeper and faster descent. The Acting Chief of Eyria narrowed her eyes as she watched the results of Bartholomew's dishonor.

The two reacted slower than stealth elves, yet they demonstrated greater flexibility, contorting their bodies in ways she would have thought restricted to a dragon. A few of the careening masses collided with them, yet somehow, they cushioned the opposing momenta, redirecting it to flow in their target's direction. Swiftly and unabatedly, they circled around these sudden obstructions, but not without striking at any unlucky ape in the process.

None of the monkeys they hit got up again.

Was it a poison? A paralytic? A debilitating enhancement? Or hidden blades? Aurona couldn't tell what they were using to disable the ape fighters.

Even so, Bartholomew's tactic had a chilling effect on the fleeing apes. Most stepped aside and gave the yeti a wide berth. He chastised, "Inutile maggots! Fail to perform the duty bestowed unto you…" The pearl-shaped artifact in his cuirass shone brightly while he slammed his fist into the snow.

A wide wall of ice, identical to the sheets that comprised the apes' fortress in Narvas Mesa, rose behind him. It ascended in the blink of an eye, looming above his pursuers and forcing them to split direction. The yeti did not stop. Instead, he forged a blade of ice longer than he was tall and cut down at least seven apes in front of him. "...and I shall adjudicate your incompetence on behalf of your king!"

The swift and abrupt execution of the ape fighters had an even greater impact than the sight of their brethren being methodically dispensed by the assassins. They began gathering behind Bartholomew, scared into barring the path.

By this point, the yeti had finally reached the crevasse, the hastily-conjured ice bridge now mostly emptied out, the few apes standing on it beckoning him to proceed. He rushed ahead without slowing down. Not a single thing stopped him from crossing the ice bridge. But, just as he arrived at the midpoint, just as he was about to get away, one of the purple-robed assassins appeared atop the wall, carried by an ice dragon resembling Kalen, a well-known face of the village guard.

The dragon pirouetted in the air and swung the foreigner with his forelegs, launching him towards Bartholomew at great speed. It seemed as if the ape's apparent leader was about to fall…

Only for the traitorous Skylander to suddenly shift his stance and, flying straight at the assassin, thrust two armored fists out. His pursuer was struck brutally and violently. The assassin's headwear fell off, revealing a dead mabu with his head completely scrunched inward.

The artifact in his armor then lit up, illuminating the area around him in bright blue. With one sweep of a third arm, shards of ice flew out and forced Kalen and the other dragons following him to retreat behind the wall.

Bartholomew pressed on, the way clear—

Golden light flashed from within the chasm.

Like the sun, it blinded.

Like the sun, it obscured.

"Agh! I can't see!" Spyro yelled, spreading his wings apart to arrest his dive.

Aurona did the same with a frustrated hiss, covering her eyes with her paws.

A blaring crash rumbled across the entire enclave, presaging the loudest, ear-splitting whine the dragoness had heard in her entire life. Bartholemew's gnarring rose in a crescendo, sounding pained, frustrated, and distressed all at once.

"Ngghhh! Model… Vavriel…!"

The dragoness opened her eyes just in time to see the four-armed yeti himself blur a few wingspans beneath her, bracing all four arms together into a frozen shield to defend against a golden biped ensconced in a misty haze.

The two soared parabolically across the air, narrowly avoiding her and Spyro. They flew back across the crevasse. But, as gravity regained its grasp, the golden biped curled up and sent Bartholomew flying with a kick so powerful he zoomed straight into the wall.

Crashing through it.

Burying everyone fighting in the immediate area in rubble.

"No!" Aurona screeched.

"Chief Aurona, wait—

She ignored Spyro's plea and folded her wings to dive after Bartholomew and his latest assailant. As the next Chief, Aurona couldn't let any more of her people die! How could she disappoint her father Gileao after he'd sacrificed his life to destroy the apes' other base?

"What is the meaning of this‽ The Crown has granted me Exemption Seven!"

When Aurona passed over the wall—heart clenching at the sight of Eyrian villagers and two of Claytor's knights weakly struggling to escape the debris—she saw the creature called Vavriel engaged in close-quarters combat against the rogue Skylander.

A frigid rage consumed the ice dragoness when she watched a screaming atlawa rushing in from Bartholomew's flank with a hammer, getting in between the two foreigners to strike at the yeti and landing a hit just as Vavriel's fist penetrated his head with zero effort and, dripping with brain matter, shattered one of the yeti's vambraces and fractured the forearm within.

"Bartholomew, asset tag 'Slam Bam'. Your status on the network is currently 'non-exempt'," declared the new arrival without a tinge of emotion, its feminine voice monotone.

Soulless.

"What‽ Why… when was my exemption revoked‽" Even as he spoke, Bartholomew formed an ice club with one hand and swung it at Vavriel. The attack was easily blocked, and he nimbly retreated before his new opponent could retaliate.

Vavriel did not close the distance, choosing instead to reply, "Submaster Kaos requires your return to the Empire for discovery procedures. Failure to comply will result in the use of soul extraction."

Bartholomew grimaced but did not respond back, his outrage cast off in an instant. Whatever this was, he must have anticipated it.

Just then, two earth dragons touched down in their midst. Aurona recognized them. They were foragers who were part of a small group of villagers that would sometimes visit Uzali every other cycle to maintain or repair the crystal lanterns along the treacherous mountain path.

"Trouble flying away, smushed egg‽"

"Die!"

Both dragons encased themselves with stone armor. One took to the air while the other lowered their center of gravity and charged at the yeti. Bartholomew glanced at them, yet remained still.

"Non-compliance corroborated. This unit shall now execute first-tier intervention."

At first glance, the dragons' intention to fly into this crevice was sound. The new Skylander not only stopped Bartholomew's retreat but also put him on the defensive. Even without synchronized cooperation, it was only a matter of finding the perfect flight path to the yeti's blind spot.

It appeared as though the two foragers hadn't seen Vavriel brutally murder the atlawa whilst pushing harder on their offensive. Either that, or they had become willfully blind, wholly consumed by rage and desire to tear out Bartholomew's horns.

Aurona herself did not enter the fray precisely because she had not completely yielded to her wrathful urges. Still possessing some sliver of rationality, her mind processed what she had seen and heard: Vavriel's uninflected speech, their informal tone, their decisive movements, Bartholomew's deceptive apathy—

Aurona instantly made the connection. The golden biped was just like the monstrosities Falconsinger had unleashed upon the raid party earlier that night!

She had to stop them!

Folding her wings, Aurona dived in, ignoring Spyro's voice as he caught up to her. She couldn't stop seeing the dead dragon that the Snap Shot crocogators had so violently slain. "Stay aloft! Don't go any closer and get back!"

But it was too late.

Membranous, sclerotized wings exploded outward from the golden figure's back, materializing from nothing. Their eyes glowed a deep blood red, the ominous light trailing in the darkness as they flew into the air. Golden fluccolates spawned around their entire arms, their yellow light illuminating the surroundings.

The club in Bartholomew's arms swelled to comical proportions as soon as he raised it to block the attack. Their fists landed on the conjured ice, radiating a golden cloud that coated everything around the two of them in gold powder—including the villagers who'd reared up on their hind legs, intending to raise stalactites beneath the yeti's feet. The fluccolates ground away at the conjured ice, quickly pulverizing every surface it touched.

Bartholomew swung outward and flung the golden figure aside, yelling, "Take the power of FOUR!"

Airborne, Vavriel quickly flipped themselves upright, their bizarre wings flapping frantically at speeds unknown—unnatural to dragonkind. They whipped their arm towards him, summoning and hurtling several bladed spinners across the air.

So sharp were the conjured blades that they cleaved through everything in their path, including the helpless dragons struggling to break free from the powderized metal covering their entire bodies.

"Ophelia, no! Listen to me! Don't attack her! That's a Golden Queen—

Even as Aurona heard Akash pleading for restraint, she could no longer tolerate the deaths that happened before her eyes. "You're not hurting any more of my friends and family!"

Channeling the bountiful mana in her core, she raised her hindlegs and shaped the magic around them, wrapping it several times, instantly fashioning into thick talons of ice.

"Chief Aurona‽"

Her enhanced hindpaws slammed into Vavriel before they could resume their attack on Bartholomew. Aurona's eyes dilated, feeling the Golden Queen remain whole despite the power of her descent.

"Registering external interference. Commencing secondary measures."

Aurona was close enough to hear Vavriel's voice. Her scales prickled with a crawling sensation. Taking heed of her instincts, she aborted her attack and kicked off the golem a split-second before two beams of energy melted the tips of her Ice Talons as they shot straight through it.

Bartholomew jeered at her. "You have my gratitude for defending me, Acting Chief. Now I must take my leave—

"Oh no, you don't, 'Slam Bam'!" Spyro shouted in reply, faint at first, but rapidly climbing in volume as he also entered their midst.

"Oh ho, you've learned my old moniker—HMPH!"

A raucous din reverberated behind Aurona as Spyro clashed with the Skylander. "You're not getting that chance this time!" He was speaking nearly three times faster, clearly utilizing his ability to wield time itself. Aurona was sure that she'd see the white-furred yeti desperately trying to block a purple blur if she looked behind her, but she couldn't afford to do that, for the Golden Queen was streaking towards her now, their unnatural wings carrying them across the air at high speeds.

"Removing the intruder."

Misshapen blobs—shards of metal gyrated around Vavriel's arms. Remembering what those particles had done to Bartholomew's club, Aurona knew she couldn't let those things touch her scales!

The dragoness took a deep breath and, drawing a significant portion of mana from her reserves, unleashed a blast of snow and ice, comparable to an Ice Breath released by the Ice Guardian himself.

The Golden Queen reacted just as swiftly, retracting her wings into an invisible space inside their back. Vavriel rolled onto the snow and sprung upward with one arm raised towards Aurona's attack. The fluccolates enveloping the arm slid forward and flattened out into a sheet, unfolding as if she was performing the Light Screen technique. Shielded from much of the Ice Breath, Vavriel gained the opportunity to whip her other arm out to the side.

The billowing cloud on this limb launched forward, converging into a metallic construct—a hard-shelled insect that Aurona could not recognize, membranous wings flapping rapidly as it traced an arc around—

It was headed towards her!

Aurona flexed her rump, whipping her tail into the snow. Ice cascaded down upon the approaching insect, only for the summoned construct to penetrate the icefall with an explosive flare. She could do nothing else but fold her wings, curl up her left forepaw, and tense her muscles for the impact.

A disorienting clap tore at her earholes as the entire weight of the flying construct slammed into her shoulder. It felt like a boulder! Worse, as soon as it crashed into her, the insect exploded into the same metal powder that immobilized the two Earth dragons who now lay dead on the ground.

Aurona was horrified to learn that her entire left flank felt twice as heavy now that it was covered in this golden sand! She responded by hawking and spitting out globs of magicked ice at the Golden Queen, but the Polar Bombs were so slow that the golem could charge forward without receiving a single hit.

Vavriel clasped her hands together, materializing yet another particle-ridden sphere that summoned three more insectoid constructs. They flew towards Aurona at a much greater speed. Fortunately, she evaded each one with a nimble sidestep and a reactive crouch, executing every dodge with excellent timing. The metal powder coating her left flank also fell off her scales as a result, but before she could capitalize on this, the Golden Queen closed the distance between them with two serrated blades in hand.

"Escalating threat rating," spoke the golem in her feminine yet oddly soulless voice. "Intensifying countermeasures—

"You aren't alone, Aurona!" Elder Ophelia, having shaken off the Skylands orator for the moment, came up behind Vavriel and flung several icicles at the golem, with one striking the strange headgear she was wearing. It chipped off a small piece, revealing that it was made of an unknown metal just like the bipedal monster wearing it.

Ophelia's pace continued unabated. Talons of sharpened ice formed all over her body, covering her claws, tail blade, horns, and her dorsal fins. Aurona, meanwhile, spewed solid balls of ice as soon as Vavriel turned her back to her to face the new threat. They slammed into the golem's back, damaging her metallic body and causing her to stumble.

Akash flew towards them, following Ophelia from the air. "Please, stop! You'll make it worse! She's designed to—

"Golden scarabs, protect this unit!" Vavriel screeched, her bright ruby-like eyes glowing with power. Several places in her golden "robes" snapped open, venting out mana in a volume that rivaled a dragon's Elemental Fury. Hundreds of insects like the one Vavriel had summoned previously, albeit notably smaller, materialized beneath them and created an impenetrable barrier, repelling the older dragoness.

The so-called "scarabs" flew upward before exploding in the air and unleashing shockwaves of golden dust upon what was left of Eyria.

"Ancestors! What's this‽"

"Damnable golem!"

Spyro and Bartholomew shouted louder than the other survivors, yet Aurona's hearing focused quickly and intensely on her fellow villagers as they wailed in despair. Myriad voices she recognized from her life in December called for shelter.

Aurona watched Ophelia soar backwards, propelled by the power of her own strike. She landed on the ground tumbling, then a disturbing snap resounded across the air and the dragoness unleashed an agonized howl.

"Elder!" Crying out in concern, Aurona did the only thing she could do for her and channeled her mana, pulling it from her core and spreading it through her forepaws. The frantic, if desperate, resolve to protect her people gave it power, resulting in a wall of ice emerging from the ground a split second before the first wave of gold dust smothered her.

Saving Ophelia, however, came at a price—time Aurona could have spent erecting a wall for herself.

Countless flocculates of pulverized metal rushed in faster than she could properly react. The Acting Chief of Eyria instinctively turned away and curled up, tucking her snout under her tail and wings. Ice further crusted her scales, a form of emergency armor, and she made sure to cover the tip of her muzzle in ice.

In her periphery, Spyro sunk into an inky shadow while the rogue Skylander extended an arm outwards. Holding a metallic plate she didn't recognize, the yeti conjured a sheet of ice between him and the waves of dust.

The sound of golden sand washing over them all overwhelmed Aurona's ears, reminiscent of the worst avalanches she had ever heard in her life in December. The gloomy, moonlit glow of her home was inundated by an opaque yellow shroud. As the dust storm raged, her body felt heavier and more constrained as powdered metal continued to bury the dragoness.

She could hear the other villagers nearby screeching, scrambling to escape Vavriel's attack. Snow and ground rumbled as various dragons did their best to erect a wall of ice or earth, or at the very least encase themselves in elemental protection, yet their screams and grunts faded easily, quickly, much to Aurona's horror.

Thank Azeroth that the storm summoned by Vavriel did not last much longer. After a few breaths, the waves of metallic dust waned until they were no more. Vavriel muttered in a heartless tone, "Primary battery depleted. Secondary battery online."

Aurona required more effort than expected to wring her neck out of the pile of golden dust weighing down on her entire body. Gasping for breath, she whipped her head around just in time to see Bartholomew relinquish his conjured shield of ice, letting it drop to the ground with a resounding thud, and sprint back to the crevasse now that his path was unobstructed and more apes were coming to provide much-needed reinforcement.

Spyro burst out of the shadows. He became a purple blur moments before fire surged all around him in preparation for a Comet Dash.

"Ostensibly, you forgot about my countermeasures," Bartholomew quipped as he raised the mysterious slab of magicked metal and directed the mana of his orbicular artifact into it. White runes lit up across the surface and his surroundings distorted, light bending and warping by magical means far beyond any dragon's understanding.

They harmlessly passed through Aurona and everyone else around her. To her shock, Spyro's blurred image became clear and his movements lost their magical acceleration. The war hero scowled angrily, baring his fangs at Bartholomew.

"I won't need Dragon Time to deal with you—

With a flap of his wings, Spyro spiraled in the air and narrowly avoided the sudden icicle Bartholomew launched at him. The yeti took off, forming an ice sled beneath his feet and literally sliding down Eyria's slopes.

Aurona whipped her head everywhere else, grimacing when she realized that nearly everyone was buried underneath piles of conjured dust. Vavriel had smothered both apes and villagers alike with that last attack. Some of the bodies were twitching, cracks forming along the metal caking their bodies as they struggled to break free. Yet many more were motionless, dead from suffocation.

Vavriel, who had resumed her pursuit of the rogue Skylander, stopped when Aurona pulled herself out of the pile, thundering the air with a loud, powerful grunt. She shook the powder off of her and glared at the foreign biped.

A glint seemed to shine within the Golden Queen's crimson, jewel-like eyes. Despite the lack of emotion, Aurona caught on to the golem's intention. She steeled herself, crouching down, tapping once again into her core of mana. She still had about half her reserves remaining.

Suddenly, the Golden Queen kicked herself off the ground, launching into the air and streaming straight towards the dragoness.

Before Aurona could react, a gust of wind smashed into Vavriel from their blind spot. Her flight trajectory interrupted, the golem plummeted and expertly rolled away. Without looking, she thrust their hand out in the assailant's direction before propelling herself towards the Ice dragoness once more with another slam of her foot.

A spinning blade shot out of her arm and flew towards the only Wind dragon in their midst. Akash spat a ball of compressed air at the projectile and deflected it away. Rather than pressing on with his assault, the orator vaulted over to Aurona and positioned himself between her and the Golden Queen. He stood on his hind legs and spread both his forelegs and wings as wide as he could, tensing up and shuddering as Vavriel approached.

Aurona recoiled visibly, seeing the golem veer towards her living shield with an outstretched arm enveloped in swirling, golden dust. She had seen what it did to Bartholomew's ice club; she braced herself, expecting the Wind dragon to be pulverized into meat paste in seconds.

The moment never came.

Before her eyes, Vavriel again brandished her sclerotized wings. Surprisingly, she used them to reduce her speed—to reverse her momentum and stop the solid fist from plunging into Akash's body in an instant. Powerful winds gusted past Aurona and Akash, the sheer power forcing both dragons to take one step back. She shuddered. If the golem had not stopped herself, her fist would have penetrated the both of them.

But why? Why did Vavriel stop?

"Acting Chief," Akash muttered to her as though he could read her mind, "The Golden Queen operates directly under Submaster Kaos. She's a Doomraider! You might start a war if you don't—

Vavriel interrupted them, a gleam running through her scarlet eyes. "Citizen 64707. You are interfering with clandestine operations. Explain yourself."

The white dragon lowered his body and prostrated before the intelligent golem with his neck clearly and prominently displayed. Killing him would be effortless. "As per record," Akash replied, "I'm on a joint diplomatic mission to support a remote village besieged by apes. We discovered that the situation is more complex than initially assessed—

"Irrelevant to the mission," Vavriel dismissed without a change in her cold, impassive voice. "Step aside or face the consequences."

"No!" Akash cried, whipping his muzzle back at Aurona. "Standing behind me is a local person of authority."

"That bottom-dweller attacked this unit."

"Because you were hurting her people!" Spittle flew out of the orator's maw as he passionately shot back at the golem.

"Submaster Kaos did not provide instructions concerning the inferiors of the World Below. Now move."

Akash rose to his feet. "Vavriel. I know you're pursuing Slam Bam. Please, let's work together. It will be better for both of us. I can sense a large group of dragons flying in from the west as we speak."

The relief that Aurona felt from learning that Jayce, Sir Claytor, and many members of the raiding party had finally caught up was washed away by the golem's debasing language and intonations. How could they work together, after what she'd done to her beloved people? They couldn't just flop on their underbellies and let these foreigners trample all over their backs!

Not without paying what was due.

She growled. "Stay aloft, orator. I refuse to work with these 'Doomraiders'." She glared at the Golden Queen. "Not unless that golem promises that Skylands will compensate us for our losses and minimize all collateral damage from now on."

Akash gawked at her. "Twin moons! Can't you see the storm you're flying in‽ Hurry, retract your—

"Silence." Vavriel stared up at her, a dragoness standing several heads above the golem's own. She had a pair of jewels for eyes. Lacking pupils—lacking any facial expression of some sort, Aurora found the Doomraider completely unreadable. "Request denied. Your conditions will result in suboptimal efficiency."She paused. "Mission parameters updated. In light of new information, this unit shall erase recent actions from memory if provided safe passage."

Aurona snarled. So did Ophelia and the few Eyrian villagers close enough to follow their short conversation.

A panicked expression appeared on the orator's snout. "Vavriel, you must concede! Spyro is on-site and has friendly relations with the people here! If you push forward, the Empire will earn his ire—hnnggh!"

Vavriel had raised her hand and, enshrouded in deep, bright indigo, thrust it at Akash faster than he could react. The Wind dragon went still, body tensing to the extent of muscular paralysis. His eyes rolled upward and his words became unintelligible gibberish.

The orator crashed to the ground the moment Vavriel retracted her hand and the indigo glow separated into prismatic light then faded into the darkness. His white scales blended almost perfectly with the snow.

"Processing Soul Scan." The golem's eyes lit up. "The possibility of Descension is within acceptable tolerance. Proceeding with the mission." She gazed down at the fallen orator. "64707, your name has been flagged on the network for expulsion."

Then, the Golden Queen finally looked at Aurona. No, she looked at the scene behind her. Spyro and Bartholomew had brought their fighting so far that their indecipherable yelling was the only thing Aurona could hear right now. Ice and earth boomed behind her, with rallying cries soaring into the air. The battle was reaching its peak, and she was certain the yeti could be dealt with by an unexpected yet well-timed attack.

"Bottom-dweller, this is your final warning," warned the Doomraider. "Let this unit through. Skylands bears no responsibility for what happens next."

The words were enunciated without a shred of emotion. Their speaker, a heartless lump of metal and magic with no sense of empathy for the people who would fly at the wrong place and time. Aurona could see the parallels between her disastrous encounter with the Stealth Elves and this confrontation with the Golden Queen.

And it filled her with dread.

Even so, she remained aloft. As much as she wanted to turn away and let the golem do her work, it was her duty to muster the courage and hover firmly on her position. No doubt her father would have done the same in her place.

"No," she stated.

Coughing, Elder Ophelia slithered past the side of the wall, her eyes exuding what Aurona believed was indignation. "Well said!"

Several villagers, all bearing minor injuries, physical fatigue, and early stages of magical exhaustion, gathered closer.

"We will fight with you, Chief!"

"Vulcan's Flames, at least the pawlicker isn't like this golden airhead!"

The supportive cheers of her peers lifted Aurona's wings. Though she didn't have a clear grasp of the mountain ahead of her, the very fact she had people willing to fight with her made her feel warm and filled the dragoness with vindication.

Her father would have been proud.

Meanwhile, Vavriel quickly scanned her surroundings. Aurona couldn't fully tell where the golem sent her gaze, but she had a feeling she was making a rapid assessment. "Auditory-visual record uploaded to—

They had to strike first! The dragoness tapped into the remaining mana deep within her body and spread it across the air, infusing it with ice. The temperature immediately plummeted. Numerous crystals, nearly transparent with clouds of dust inside each, materialized around the Golden Queen. Aurona then reared up and slapped her paws together—a somatic motion linked to the floating ice.

Frozen dust and water smashed inward and collided with Vavriel. Converging upon her, the golem was squeezed, squished, and pressed into the mountain, subjected to enormous pressure and a paralyzing freeze cold enough to affect even an Ice dragon.

Ophelia and the other villagers acted without needing Aurona's command, knowing the Doomraider would destroy them if given the chance.

Icicles speared towards the entrapped golem. The earth swallowed Vavriel's feet. Arrows streaked towards her, their shooters hoping to catch one of the myriad openings scattered all over the entrapment. Stones were slung at Vavriel for the same reason, despite nearly all bouncing off the solid crystal.

One of the Earth dragons crouched down and encased himself in a jagged armor of solid ice. Elder Ophelia, quivering from her previous injury, did the same. Aurona recognized their respective intents to perform Drill Dive, and its ice counterpart, Icefall. They were both powerful attacks; she could only hope they would inflict some damage on Vavriel! After all, the intelligent golem shouldn't be able to perform another "golden fury" if she wanted to even have a chance at subduing Bartholomew.

"Prepare to perish."

An ominous, crimson light bathed the lustrous jewels that were Vavriel's eyes, filling Aurona with a deep sense of foreboding. She realized the golem's gaze had fallen on Ophelia, who'd already been hurt from their previous bout.

Alona's claws, no!

"Don't you dare!" Aurona screeched. With several rapid beats of her wings, the Ice dragoness dashed across the snow. Drawing out her mana and sheathing her teeth within them, she closed the distance between her and the Golden Queen with a loud and guttural snarl.

She was upon Vavriel in a blink of an eye. Growling, she bent down, intent on cramming that golden head between her jaws and crushing it with her teeth. But Vavriel reacted to the imminent danger faster than Aurona thought possible, swiveling her head away from Ophelia.

Twin, scarlet beams of heat and energy streamed out of the golem's eyes, forcing Aurona to abandon her bite and weave her neck sideward. To her dismay, the Golden Queen saw this and brought her gaze down. The double rays sliced through scales and seared her flesh.

Roaring in agony, Aurona flopped to the ground. She spread her four legs to break the fall and spring back up to slam her horns into her enemy.

Vavriel explosively broke out of her icy prison, while radiating a withering heat. "Treasure this!" She raised her arm, a sphere of golden sand hovering beyond the closed fist. It split into four beams and drilled into the surrounding snow.

Constructs the size of a mole rose from the ground, mimicking the grand appearance of Vavriel's headdress. From the glowing orbs at their center, each turret conjured spinning swallows and shot them out at everyone in Vavriel's proximity.

Aurona immediately splayed her feet and flattened herself on the ground a moment before the rotating blade zoomed past her. She heard it bury into someone, abruptly cutting off an agonized scream. Incoherent shouts and yelling arose from the Eyrians' ranks, and the tangy, revolting scent of blood infused the air.

Ophelia and the other Earth dragon followed through on their leaping strikes as soon as they found the opportunity. Acting with emotionless precision, Vavriel thrust her hands at them both. Even without the flocculates on her arms, the golden "scarabs" were still conjured in front of her open palms, flying to meet the two dragons in midair.

Before any of them realized it, six scarabs had been created.

The two dragons made their best attempt to avoid collision, only for each to crash into one of them. The conjurations exploded into a mist of heavy dust, slowing them down enough for Vavriel to not only avoid them, but also counterattack with incision.

Twin scimitars materialized in her hands. The sclerotized wings sprung forth from her back once more. The Doomraider blasted out, flying past the fallen villagers and approached Ophelia first.

The elder, with all the experience she'd gained over the centuries, spat on the snow, sprouting an icicle with which she propelled herself in another direction. Her execution was a second too late; Vavriel's blade stabbed through the icicle and pierced Ophelia's side.

In a fluid motion, Vavriel gutted her open, splattering warm, steaming blood on the pallid snow. Then, the Golden Queen flew towards the other dragon, red death firing from her eyes. They burned—melted his stone armor, paralyzing him more than the golden dust did. Caught in a daze, he couldn't stop Vavriel from beheading him in one horizontal slash.

Seeing the hellish carnage left behind by the Doomraider, Acting Chief Aurona bellowed ferociously. She had to at least make that damned Skylander pay for all the people she'd slain! She rose to her feet, launched herself airborne with an earth-shaking throb of the densely packed ice beneath her, and pirouetted with her wings spread out as widely as she could.

Snow Storm. An elemental attack just as devastating as Icefall when concentrated on a single target. The freezing vortex trailing Aurona would crash into the Vavriel and either inflict significant damage or force her into expending more mana on a defensive magic.

Unfortunately, the golem had calculated that outcome, and she threw her two swords at Aurona. They rolled in the air four times before one arced into her left foreleg and the other bounced off her wing. It not only interrupted her assault, but also grounded her, exposing her to the four turrets, each sending one last swallow out before disintegrating into gold dust.

Aurona reacted fast, consuming all the mana remaining in her core for a final defense and raising walls of ice around her. To her shock, the spinning blades still penetrated the walls, owing to the potency of the magic fueling the Golden Queen herself. Torturous pain beyond description shuddered throughout her entire body. Gasping, Aurona fell over in a steaming pool of her own blood. Fortunately, the walls had blunted the swallows' sharpness to the point that they cleaved into her body and nothing more. When they, too, collapsed into magicless piles of dust, they would leave unsightly gashes in their wake.

Vavriel was not even facing Aurona while this happened. She had instead fixed her gaze on the apes and villagers clashing across the wide crevasse, staring only at Bartholomew and Spyro. Then, silent and devoid of emotion, the golem flew towards the battle on the other side of the village, leaving Aurona exhausted as more blood seeped out amidst the devastated remains.

As she laid on the slopes, she felt lost in the clouds.

Her head became light. Her vision, teetering.

Lethargy sapped her strength. She struggled to move her head, to raise herself. Every action, every thought, felt sluggish. She felt… sleepy.

Why aren't I yawning…?

Aurona lost grip of her thoughts. Temptation intruded. Wouldn't it better to simply, let go? To relinquish all to Azeroth the Infinite?

The muzzle of her father, Chief Gileao, appeared. He called to her, a stern gaze fixed upon her. A phantasm from her days as a young hen…

"Our affinity for Ice makes us more resistant to the cold than the other dragons and all the lesser species, but only so much. Remember, never fall asleep in the snow!"

The words came to Aurona, unbidden, but she felt too listless to heed them, to comprehend them.

Her eyes swam.

She blinked rapidly.

She blinked multiple times.

For a moment, the world around her came into focus. Adrano and Zella shone brightly in the firmament. The torches were unlit. The houses dark, as though the bioluminescent crystals remained covered.

Warm, lively homes now reduced to rubble.

People laid scattered across the landscape around her. They were sleeping on the snow, unbothered by the cold. There was the village elder—a long-time friend of her father's. There was also an atlawa who had visited her hut several times, known for fantastic carvings of wood, stone, and jewels common and uncommon. Not far away was a feline, married to one of Eyria's best warriors, who descended to Uzali almost every red cycle to sell fermented vegetables.

She… she couldn't recall their names.

Foreign invaders annihilated friends and family…

Aurona tried to stand. Her legs quaked. Vertigo put her rise in abeyance. She gagged. She choked. She coughed.

A fluid splattered noisily beneath her, by her forepaws.

It was blood.

…while someone was abducting children amidst the turbulence.

Cold and terror-stricken shudders twitched Aurona's scales. The nausea intensified, blanking out the memories rushing back to the dragoness. It throbbed in tune with the blood pinching out of her wounds.

The allure of sleep and rest—eternal rest—grew more tempting by the second. Once again, she could hear her father's stern lesson, all but screaming at her to stay awake.

Aurona didn't look at the people beside her. She couldn't look at any of them. Instead, she slowly—weakly—turned her head towards the other side of the crevasse.

The moonlit world blurred into a tapestry of white, green, red, and blue momentarily, golden lights twinkling in the back. Clearing her vision with several blinks of her eyes, Aurona finally saw Bartholomew and his apes fighting a losing battle.

Just as the orator had said, the raiding party had finally caught up with them. They, too, had seen the devastation that the apes had wrought upon the Village of Eyria, and joined the besieged remnants of their home with the flames of the Sunburst Dragon alight in their souls. Pandemonium struck their side of the battle, but she could see the invaders losing momentum as more apes fell.

"...na!"

The faraway silhouettes of Sir Claytor and Spyro clashed with that of the four-armed yeti. The brilliant figure of the Golden Queen was also there, colliding with the other Skylander whenever the other two dragons pulled back. There was no cooperation whatsoever—

Suddenly, Spyro pulled back and attacked Vavriel instead, the various auras of several elements clashing with the golem. The wind carried his voice into Aurona's ear holes, but like everything around her, it was rendered incomprehensible to her dreary mind. He sounded furious, intoned with wrath and mercilessness.

She couldn't tell what they were talking about. They were too far away. She couldn't even make out the details of his snout.

"Au… na!"

How did they even arrive at this situation? Didn't Bartholomew have a portal waiting for him on the far side of the crevasse? She remembered Spyro chasing after the yeti, his access to Dragon Time disabled. How did he catch up? What happened to that portal?

Why did Spyro look so uncharacteristically livid—

"Mmmmnnnhh…"

Aurona ground her teeth. Thinking hurt.

Her head listed sideways. The world transformed back into a colorful blur. In a surge of strength, she tried to rise, before her legs gave out. She stumbled, barely catching herself with a flutter of her wings and a sudden splaying of her feet.

More liquid spewed out on the snow.

Adding to the pool of blood below her.

Standing precariously, Aurona took deep, heavy breaths. With each huff she cast away—she rebuffed that incessant urge to close her eyes until that nauseating feeling dissipated into the wind.

Then, bravely, she stepped forth.

No amount of mental preparation could steady her shaky, uncoordinated forepaws. Aurona staggered. Bilious dysequilibrium hammered her attempt to even stand straight. She coughed again.

More blood joined the puddle beneath her.

Her entire being, throbbing with agony, finally yielded against her will. First, her forelegs folded. Then, her hindlegs. Aurona's tail fell limp. She gasped in defiance, but it was futile. There was no more strength to draw from.

She collapsed in a pathetic heap.

But she did not strike ground.

"Chief Aurona!" A pair of furry, calloused paws broke her fall. They belonged to a moderately-sized ape clothed in the attire of an Eyrian warrior. "Lifebringer, I-I'm glad you're still alive."

It was a long, uncomfortable moment before she recalled his name. "...Jayce," she wheezed. "You're, here."

"I sprinted over the moment I saw you and Ophelia—" He cut himself off and trained his gaze on her. "Anyway, that's not important."

Jayce Bladelizard kneeled down, holding her flank up with his knees and a single hand. His free arm rummaged around the inner hem of his thick robes. "The Golden Queen did something to Bartholomew's portal. She raised her hand and the whole thing just imploded! Still, Lord Spyro and Sir Claytor rejected her offers to cooperate. They saw what happened here and—ah, praise Azeroth I brought this."

Jayce took out a red spirit crystal. It was big enough to fit in both hands. He placed it on the ground and, unsheathing one of his swords, struck at it with all the might he could muster. Notwithstanding the awkward position, the gemstone was cut into approximately two even halves. He stabbed his weapon in the snow, grabbed a piece, and shoved it against Aurona's breast.

The magic within immediately began its work. Incisive pain replaced her mind-numbing grogginess. Aurona gasped out of shock, paws clenching the empty air. "A-ah! It… hurts!"

The ocher-furred ape clasped her paws and squeezed tight. She grasped it reflexively, barely hearing Jayce's rambling. "That's only enough to drag you away from death's grasp. Even if I had used the full crystal on you, it wouldn't have brought back the lift to your wings, and I'm sorry, I can only spare this much. I need the other half for Ophelia—

"Shhh!" Aurona shushed him. He didn't need to say it. She understood. The prickling, agonizing sensation of flesh and scale knitting themselves together, of her body regenerating faster than what nature permitted, had cleared her mind. Already she felt stronger than she did a few seconds ago.

"Go to her, Jayce," Aurona urged the anxious ape. Using her snout, she nudged his leg away and pushed him towards the village elder lying motionlessly behind her. She couldn't see her innards. Maybe there was still hope. "Your mate might still live."

Jayce locked eyes with her, with the mother of the young dragoness who had given him a new life in the frigid ends of the Allied Territories. Somehow, he figured out her intentions.

"Whatever happens, do not engage. If you fight, your wounds will reopen and you will fall. Lord Spyro can't protect everyone."

"I know."

"May Azeroth be with you." Jayce released Aurona and hurried over to Ophelia.

Standing was more difficult without the ape's support, though far more manageable than it had been before the minor healing she received from the spirit crystal. An anxious cry erupted behind her. She heard Jayce moaning Ophelia's name and muttering entreaties to the various Ancestors of the draconic pantheon.

It was painful to hear. Aurona's only consolation was the fact his voice had not descended to a mournful, grieving bellow. Grunting, the village chief fixed her gaze on the fierce battle across the crevasse and made her way forward.

Remembering how easily Bartholomew had gained distance from Spyro's pursuit, Aurona drew out the little mana remaining in her core and spread it across her breast and forepaws, creating a smooth sheet of ice.

Essentially, a sled.

Aurona lowered herself and set off. She kicked and pushed her way towards one of the ice bridges. The sudden acceleration was slightly disorienting, and that lightheaded feeling resurged for an instant, but both were manageable for now.

Golden light flashed unpredictably on the other side. Flaming boulders and explosive crystals of what appeared to be ice flew toward Vavriel. She invoked the destructive fluccolates on her arms, but the Purple Dragon's attacks were so strong that she could only be pushed back, deflecting every deadly projectile.

A loud shout soared across from the other side.

"Taste… fists of fury!" Bartholomew furiously pummeled the ground in rapid succession. The gemstone in his breastplate let out a brilliant but dimming light, flashing intensely with each punch. Its magic shot forth along the land, sprouting sharp icicles in its wake.

Demonstrating his situational awareness, the magic rushed towards Spyro, Sir Claytor, and the Golden Queen despite their scattered, uncoordinated positioning. The Talonpoint Knight, roaring in frustration, beat his wings and sprung backward, his green, earth-attributed mana rippling on the snow, and narrowly escaped becoming a pincushion. Spyro ceased his assault on the golem and quite literally vanished from sight in a flash of pure light. Vavriel, meanwhile, did nothing and stayed aloft, facing the incoming attack with her hands brought together to evoke a shield of powdered dust.

Aurona felt herself accelerate, the angle of her descent steepening. Distracted by the sudden change, she glanced down and realized she was quickly approaching the yawning pit that was the Eyrian crevasse. She could not fly in her current state!

Hissing in frustration, the dragoness cut off the mana flowing into the ice sheets accelerating her slide. As it shattered into countless pieces, and raucous dins hurtled shockwaves across the pit, she redirected her magic to her tail, forming a solid spike with which she used to dig into the tundra beneath and arrest her descent.

A simple maneuver, albeit one that required quick judgment and intimate familiarity with ice and snow.

Taking note of where the ice bridge was, Aurona returned her gaze to the fight on the other side.

To her surprise, a massive block of solid, blue ice now stood where Vavriel used to be, a dim, golden light glowing in its center.

Vinetar Claytor had flown closer to Bartholomew to engage the yeti in close combat. Frozen spiked orbs and thick, sturdy blocks of ice materialized over all four of his opponent's arms. He tilted his neck, reared up, and rolled sideways to avoid multiple fight-ending blows from the rogue Skylander. A left hook, then an uppercut from the other left arm, flew in at breakneck speed, but with a swift tuck of his armored body, and an equally reactive turn of his shoulders, Claytor blunted most of their power and earned an opportunity to stab a stone-laden gauntlet at Bartholomew's breastplate.

The yeti's two right arms struck the outstretched foreleg and deflected the counterattack before pulling in the Earth dragon. "Wham and—

Claytor, demonstrating much experience fighting bipeds, snapped his wings open and beat them forward—offsetting the imbalance and creating distance.

He failed to anticipate a long-range attack.

"—SLAM!" Bartholomew bellowed and punched the space directly in front of him with all four arms. The artifact in his armor shone brightly and four rods of ice appeared before hurtling into Claytor's front and propelling his body backward.

Aurona felt her breathing pause, only for the rising dread in her breast to alleviate when Claytor cried out, "NOW!"

Spyro's form suddenly reappeared behind Bartholomew, fading into existence as the opaque shadows fell away from him like water. He lowered his horns. Their sharp, pointed ends were trained on the Skylander, with the tips glowing an ominously fiery red. Bolts of purple-white lightning streaked across his body as he surged towards the yeti, their presence enough to cause Aurona's scales to tingle.

The yeti twisted his body to avoid the first strike and used the momentum to take out the small rod hanging on his waist. Aurona caught a glimpse of his breastplate—the artifact embedded within had lost much of its luster, as though the vast majority of its stored mana had been depleted.

Almost as soon as Spyro landed on the snow did he leap right back into the fray and assail the four-armed yeti from another angle. Bartholomew only had so much time to interact with the scepter and thrust it forward. The jewel on its head glowed brilliantly, conjuring six petal-shaped barriers of magic, each interlocked with the other.

Bartholomew was unusually well-prepared for someone who'd been expelled from the Skylander Corps, sporting a versatile, formless weapon and defensive items capable of neutralizing Dragon Time and possibly an elemental fury from most of Aurona's kind.

Yet his preparations were only so effective on the Purple Dragon, the hero who'd single-handedly ended the Great War. Spyro had attacked Bartholomew with Fire and Electricity with so much potency and power that all six of his barriers shattered on impact and the magicked scepter visibly disintegrated. They slowed Spyro down, but they could not rob him of his devastating force.

An uncharacteristically terrified expression appeared on Bartholomew's face right before Spyro careened into his body. He was tossed into the air, battle armor splintering into pieces. The glowing gemstone popped out, but the yeti seized it before it could escape his grasp and take most of his power and lethality with it. He crashed on the ground and rolled multiple times across the sleet and ice, passing numerous villagers and apes until he finally collided with a stone hut that had long been reduced to a pile of rubble.

Suddenly, another loud crack rang across the air. The ice prison encasing the Golden Queen shattered from the inside, shards of ice bursting outward. Vavriel was smooth and whole, as if she had not suffered any damage.

A staggering Claytor placed himself between Spyro and the golem. His stance was unsteady, wobbling in the frigid, winter breeze. His armor had long been shattered. His mouth was open, rapid breaths condensing in the cold. He was clearly suffering mana exhaustion, and yet his gaze remained resolute.

Bartholomew shakily rose to his feet. Spyro galloped towards him, a wind blowing away the snow to his front. Ice materialized on his tail, preparing an attack that would finally end the fight.

A grim look appeared on the yeti's countenance. One hand fell to a supply pouch on his waist, pulling out what appeared to be an unusually large summoning scroll.

However, it was at this moment that the Doomraiders chose to reappear, proving faster and more adequately prepared to eliminate the Skylander. The other mabu assassin that had accompanied Vavriel emerged from a dark area unlit by the twin moons, rushing in from a close distance. Caught by surprise, Bartholomew turned around and saw a death blow approaching his head, thoughts of ripping up the summoning scroll all but forgotten.

Bartholomew would have met his end at that moment if another shadowy yet dragonic figure did not plummet down from the air and hit the ground with enough power to unleash a shockwave and force everyone—everything back.

That figure…! Aurona had no definitive proof, but could this be the mysterious Vanish finally making an appearance?

It had to be. It HAD to be!

The simmering rage that was slowly fading away amidst the terrible pain and agony of her wounds reignited the moment Aurona caught the ambiguous silhouette in her sight. Their coming to Bartholomew's aid at the last second had caused the despicable magic masking their true identity to dissipate. The murky figure rapidly shrunk from the size of an adult dragon to a biped half her size.

Aurona scrambled—crawled over to the ice bridge, intent on crossing over and doing something—ANYTHING—to this heartless monster. She hoped to freeze Vanish's true face in memory, so she could finally know who took her Selema, who took all those poor dragons and dragonesses from their loved ones. "Mother of Knowledge," she mewled. "Please, let me, have this…!"

Before the desperate mother could catch even a glimpse of the muzzle hiding behind those thick, black robes, the biped brought their fists together. A golden light more brilliant and more intense than anything Vavriel had created that night surged from nothingness and bathed the ruined village in yellow.

To her utter dismay, the golden light enshrouded nearly all of Vanish's features, their clothing barely visible under the glow. Spyro snarled, his voice clear even to Aurona, "It's too late to hide behind your magic now! Surrender quietly or we'll take you down!"

"I wasn't trying to hide," replied the glowing biped, a spell bending their voice into a distorted, guttural sound. Suddenly, a familiar, colorless blur enveloped Vanish as they stomped the ground.

Spyro was startled. "Huh‽ Impossible! That's—

Vanish reappeared in front of him and kicked him in the breast faster than he could react. Sent sailing across the village, Spyro landed in the remains of another fallen hut. Momentum returned the cloaked figure to Bartholomew's side. Returning to normal, they took out a thin wooden stick from inside their billowing robe and thrust it skyward. An intricate magic circle appeared at the tip of the wand, ethereal blue light reflecting on the snow. Seven spectral blades materialized above Vanish, circling their bright, glowing head. Aurona was not sure what their purpose was until she saw the mabu assassin who'd been repelled earlier sprinting towards Bartholomew.

The yeti spun around too slowly to defend himself, but his efforts were ultimately unnecessary. One of the blades abruptly stopped moving, instantly rotated around to face the mabu, and shot forward as though it had been an arrow released from a taut bow.

The mabu dove sideways, his neck narrowly eluding the blade.

"Spellcraft confirmed."

Vavriel was running towards the pair, easily circling a stupefied Claytor while addressing the other Doomraider with her soulless voice. "Threat rating: high. Nightshade 3, fall back."

Three of the seven swords turned and shot at the golem, while one returned to its place above Vanish's head. Vavriel swung her shielded arms to defend against the conjurations. They shattered easily, but they managed to slow her down as intended.

"M-my deepest apologies," spoke Bartholomew, the summoning scroll returned to his pouch. "The portal to Devil's Reach collapsed—

"Even the weakest of the Golden Queens can do that much, Bartholomew. You're lucky this isn't Model Gimmel." Vanish took a slip of paper out of their robes. Grasping it in their furry fingers, they flicked it straight. It began to glow blue. "I can't let Skylands or Warfang catch you, but I can't fight Vavriel and Spyro without revealing too much."

"But the scroll remains unused—

Bartholomew's protest was silenced when Vanish slapped the glowing paper on the remains of his shattered breastplate. The inscrutable symbols written on it began emitting a strong, azure light. A white aura enveloped the yeti.

"Don't use the Camellia unless you absolutely must. Now RUN!"

Bartholomew did not fight Vanish on this point. He turned around and dashed towards the hill at the entrance of Eyria. He abandoned what surviving Ape soldiers were left and deserted the battlefield. Moving with incredible speed, his strides now carried him more than double the usual distance.

Bartholomew did not look back. Not even to see that Vavriel had finally destroyed the seventh sword and targeted Vanish directly. She swung her arms at the hooded figure, proving more competent in close combat than them. Vanish raised their left arm to block an incoming punch, a move that should have exposed the vulnerable limb to the golem's destructive dust.

Instead, the limb surprisingly remained intact. The golden flocculates ripped the sleeve apart, revealing an arm enveloped in the same blinding light that covered Vanish's entire body.

"Spellcraft identified: Rune-tempered Body, Brightsteel Gold arts. Looking up known users on record—

"Shut up." The cloaked biped swept up the golem's arm and interrupted her with an immediate roundabout kick to the head. Unable to block the strike, Vavriel was knocked aside. Vanish followed it up by whipping their arm at the Doomraider, throwing something Aurona couldn't see even as she finally crossed the chasm.

In an instant, the space around Vavriel suddenly became unrecognizable. Her moonlit image distorted, twisted as though the very fabric of reality was imploding in on itself.

Rendered paralyzed by the force exerted upon her space, Vavriel's impassive voice warbled and stuttered as though she'd been broken, "He-heavy damage sust-su-su-sustained. R-releasing distress si-si-signal."

Vanish stood beside her, watching the golem floundering within the spatial collapse. Her posture oozed with satisfaction. A slight rumbling noise drew her attention away for a second. Then, as she gazed up at the sky, a beige aura appeared around her, coalescing, converging, until it overshadowed the glow surrounding her.

For some reason, Vanish was giving Aurona the impression of a dragon about to take flight. Their furtive eyes, their crouched form, and the way they seemed to be preparing for a massive leap, all tolled like alarm bells in her instinct. They were about to escape!

"No!" Aurona growled. Alona's horns, she wasn't letting that heartless monster abscond from Eyria without so much as a scratch on that seemingly fragile body!

Jayce's warnings echoed in her mind, but Aurona discarded them—silenced his words through the irresistible desire for vengeance—and reached into her core, mentally grasping her mana. It came to her easily, unbidden, even in her current condition.

She pooled the mana in her maw and shaped it into a ball, letting it accumulate until she could no longer hold it in. Parting her jaws, she exhaled with a forceful and mighty roar, unleashing the strongest Ice Breath she could muster at that moment.

Vanish twisted their enshrouded head towards the incoming attack and extended a hand out towards the snow. "Useless!" They dismissed the mother's desperate efforts while making a violent uppercut movement.

Any thought that this was a futile action shattered upon seeing the snow itself move at the biped's command. A solid wall rose to shield Vanish; it proved just as sturdy as Aurona's own when her Ice Breath collided with it, slamming countless projectiles upon its mass.

Aurona was shocked into a stupor. Spells never worked that fast. That was elemental magic! Ice magic, the kind only dragons could use!

By Azeroth, how‽ Vanish isn't even a dragon!

The beige light that ensconced Vanish launched into the sky, moving as fast as a dragon taking off from the ground. Even a dragon like Aurona could recognize it as a form of magic. Vanish was surprising her more by the second; magical flight was nothing but fantasy among the spellcasters of Warfang. Just who were they…‽

Aurona made to pursue Vanish in the air, to catch them and take them down mid-flight, only for her wounds to burst open as soon as she moved. Crimson ichor splattered on the snow and dizziness knocked her to the ground. She would've fallen on her snout if a scaly hide had not caught her from beneath.

"Stay aloft, Chief," Claytor murmured to her. "You'll kill yourself by chasing after Vanish. Your people need you."

The dragoness' eyes were fixated on the beige star ascending higher, shrinking further and further away. She watched it ascend unaffected by the turbulent, stormy air currents buffeting the skies high above December. A purple blur shot after Vanish. Supported by Dragon Time and the element of Wind, Spyro did his best to arrest the interloper's escape.

A forlorn Aurona sighed, accepting reality. It was already too late.

Looking askance, the dragoness saw the distorted image of Vavriel reverting back to normal. The light unbent itself, revealing a heavily damaged golem in the moonlight. The Golden Queen had lost one of her arms. Her ornate headdress now a pitiful sight, and fractures had appeared all over her body.

High above, a purple beam streaked across the heavens. White and violet, its presence prickled Aurona's scales and left an impression of immense danger beyond her comprehension. So that's the fabled Convexity…

Nightshade 3 appeared beside Vavriel and assisted her up. "Golden Queen! Are you all right?"

"This unit remains mobile," she responded. "Your concern is unwarranted." She gazed at the sky, showing zero concern for her fractured body. "We must return to the Palace. Slam Bam has managed to escape with the collaboration of an unknown third party."

"The Purple Dragon is pursuing—

"Detecting spatial anomalies," Vavriel cut off the assassin. "It is futile." She trained her pupil-less eyes on him. "Hurry. Risk of Descension has escalated."

"...Very well."

Aurona saw the other Doomraider fiddle with something in his ears. Looking closely, she realized it was an earring—the same kind worn by the two Stealth Elves from before!

She nudged Claytor. "V-Vinetar, they're—the foreigners—they're trying to leave. The earring—" She coughed and spat out globs of blood. "An artifact. S-stop them."

The knight's expression darkened.

"Ancestors! After what they did‽" He glared at the Doomraiders' direction, eyes narrowing. Claytor snorted and moved to lower Aurona as gently as he could.

With his help, Aurona managed to lay down on her stomach, her legs tucked in tight to restrict her bleeding as best as possible and promote clotting. Still possessing the strength to raise her neck and observe the situation, she watched the armored Earth dragon ambulate towards the foreigners. His gait was unhurried yet steady, emitting a position of strength and calmness.

"Summoning a portal to the Empire‽" Claytor projected his voice, yelling loudly, hoping to draw attention from anyone still alive. "Valorem's cloaca, how shameless of you damned airheads!"

Claytor froze slightly when the Golden Queen faced him, but after a short pause, he mustered the courage to shout even louder. "You invade our lands, harm our people, and even attempt to force a one-sided collaboration! And now that the turbulence is calming down, you don't even want to brave the currents‽"

Nightshade 3 stopped touching his earring to glower at the Talonpoint Knight. "Save your breath, bottom dweller. We are just acting on orders. Bring your complaints to our embassy and this can be resolved through proper channels."

Claytor snorted derisively. "'Proper channels'?" he scoffed. He gestured his wing towards the rear end of Eyria, where the nearest Skylands orator was laying down, still unconscious after whatever magic Vavriel had performed on him. "I just saw that golem knock out your orator minutes ago! You want to leave? Try starting with a heartfelt apology, at least—

"Sir Dragon."

Vavriel stepped forward, choosing to face Claytor even as the space above the crevasse—the space behind them—collapsed into a black sphere, gravity shifting for a second or two before stabilizing into a portal. She ignored the materializing rift and continued her retort, "These inferiors you refer to had already been given ample warning. The Empire bears no responsibility for related damages."

Vavriel's refusal to be held accountable was clear to all. An audibly offended Claytor snarled. "'INFERIORS'‽ Your offensive language reeks of arrogance! None of you are leaving without consequences of your own."

Nightshade 3 gestured towards the portal behind him, floating above the deep pit cutting across the ruined village. "Oh yeah? Our exit's right there. Watch us."

Spyro dropped between them and the open portal. He was livid, seething, purple eyes quivering. He'd clearly heard the exchange with Claytor.

"You're not going anywhere," he declared. "I don't care about that legalistic dung you hurled at Vinetar Claytor. You fought Bartholomew without any regard for Aurona and her villagers! How can you just fly off like this‽ You did this to them!"

Vavriel's eyes glowed an ominous scarlet. "This unit has already complied with standard Doomraider rules of engagement."

"Your rules can go fly in a volcano! Skylands is at fault no matter how I look at it." Spyro's scales gleamed darker than usual in the moonlight, but it was so brief that Aurona thought it was a trick of the eye. Tuffs of fire gusted threateningly out of his nose. "Make a decision now. Aurona is right there behind Claytor, bleeding from the injuries YOU inflicted on her!"

"This unit has already complied with standard—

Spyro bellowed a furious roar unlike anything Aurona had heard that night. He was wrapped in a blaze of his elemental fire in an instant, then in the next, he bolted towards the Golden Queen. Vavriel had no time to channel her mana before he was upon her.

In a half-beat, he had accelerated to such a fast speed that direct impact would cause serious damage, if not outright destruction. Even from a distance the heat he was giving off surpassed the hottest flames that Aurona's long-dead mate could have produced.

Unexpectedly, Spyro passed through the Doomraider, with Vavriel's figure warping and twisting as if their collision had become a physical impossibility.

He snarled in frustration. "You can do this too‽ Ancestors, you Skylanders are hard to hit!"

A new voice rang in the air, cheery, practically singsong. "Spyro, Spyro, Spyyyyro~! Have you gotten so angry you forgot to think?"

Aurona shot a look in the newcomer's direction. She flinched. None of them realized someone had already blue-shifted through the portal.

Spyro growled. "Kaos…"

The Portal Master‽ The name left her reeling from dread. Sorcerer Hugo's display of power was still fresh in her mind, and now she was about to fly through the same crevice again‽ Why was this happening?

Vanish… Bleakshooter… Hugo… the Doomraiders… now Kaos himself… Just what did all these powerful people—these high-flyers—see in December? Egeria's horns, this was one of the most remote regions of the Allied Territories!

Aurona couldn't stifle her tears. Even with the Purple Dragon flying with them, there was no way they could survive an encounter against the entity who led the Doomraiders!

All the apes had either fled or been slain, and the remaining people of December now outnumber the foreigners almost twenty to one. Yet the Portal Master did not seem to care. He was sauntering over towards their group, utterly apathetic to all the glares being thrown at him.

"Indeed. It is I, SUBMASTER KAOS! Here from the skies."

Aurona couldn't believe her eyes. One of the strongest people in the Realms… was a dragon‽ He was, surprisingly, smaller than her. Diminutive, bearing the signs of adulthood despite being just slightly larger than Spyro. Kaos sported a pair of menacing, sanguine eyes. His cream-hued muzzle appeared perpetually twisted into a sadistic grin.

He was preening, proclaiming his identity and his presence as if it was the most natural thing to do. "Good thing I came over myself!" he said. "I wasn't expecting my FAVORITE future Skylander to be so CRUEL as to toss out all those years of hard, diplomatic work!"

"You can't fool us, Kaos," Spyro retorted. "Your people have already achieved that!" He made a sweeping gesture with his wing. "They fought Slam Bam without a care, and refused to share information about him when we asked."

The Portal Master's grin widened further, as though bemused by the situation. "Eh! It's not their fault you bottom dwellers keep getting in the way!"

"What‽ Are you blind‽ Can't you see they'd just had their homes attacked—

"Blah blah blah blah blah," Kaos butted in, waving his paw dismissively. "Whateverrrr! It won't take much for a bunch of primitives to rebuild their cute little huts." He moved over to Vavriel, gliding across the snow as though he was a ghost.

The Golden Queen knelt down subserviently. "This unit awaits your command, Submaster."

"Just stay still." Kaos placed his forepaws on the golem's shoulders. Her eyes glowed, as did the azure markings on the dragon's forehead.

When they broke off after what felt like two seconds, Kaos turned to Spyro. "Well, 'Purple Boy', I checked the record and, frankly, I don't really see anything wrong here."

"You're joking," he rebutted dryly.

"Hah! Let me fly low here," Kaos chuckled. "That's the idiom you draggies use, right? Anyway! I, Submaster KAOS, don't fool around with matters grave and serious!

"AcCORding to the Golden Queen's auditory-visual records, the mission was executed in FULL compliance with standard operating protocol approved by the Grand Celestial Palace." Kaos shuffled past Vavriel and walked towards Aurona until he was halfway to, where Claytor stood protectively in front of her.

"Doomraider missions only come from me, and me ALONE!" Kaos' gaze lingered on Aurona. She felt like he was deriding her. "The Sky Empress knows nothing about them. She might have heard about it from that bearded bufFOON in Lightcore, but in the end, all matters related to Slam Bam concern only me…

"...and Master Eon," he hurriedly added.

The Portal Master sat on his haunches and nonchalantly scratched his black scales. "And as far as we're concerned, the struggles and challenges of worms and insects are irrelevant to the big PICture!"

Aurona couldn't stay quiet anymore. The longer she heard the dragon talk, the more her fear yielded to the burning desire to tear his horns off.

"You are terrible!" she exclaimed. "You're the worst leader I've ever met and you're an even worse diplomat! 'Bottom dwellers', 'inferiors', 'insects', 'worms', whatever you airheads think of us, we're still people! Living, breathing, thinking people! People don't deserve to be treated like garbage no matter how they're living life—

"Ahhhhhhh!" Kaos shrieked, jerking, eyes lighting up, and deepening that condescending smirk on his snout. "You're right! You're totally right!" In an instant his manic joviality faded to a menacing whisper. "I really do make a pathetic diplomat."

The blatant, shameless admission had Aurona nonplussed. She didn't know what to say. No one knew how to respond. Kaos was coming off as an unreadable lunatic. Was it right, for someone like him to possess so much power?

"Too bad you have ME instead of some totally unbiased orator, right? Still, as one of Skylands' greatest authoriTIES, I can grant appropriate… reparations."

The red-eyed dragon left an after-image on the snow and reappeared at Aurona's side as if Claytor had never existed.

"First, your wounds." The Portal Master slapped a paw on the Ice dragon. An unfathomable amount of mana instantly flowed into Aurona. As it cascaded through her veins, bodily regeneration began to take place but at a monstrously accelerated rate. The torturous agony of healing overwhelmed her, all happening in a fraction of the time it would've normally taken for a spirit gem.

Aurona collapsed, unable to speak. Overstimulated, her body convulsed uncontrollably. What kind of healing was this…‽

"Azeroth's cloaca, Chief Aurona—!" Claytor immediately ran to her, with the Portal Master stepping back to give him space. He placed a paw on her, but her scales had gone numb. She couldn't feel him at all.

He snapped his head towards Kaos. "What did you just do‽"

"She'll be fine, bottom dweller! I just restored her to full health. Her nerves are firing off from shock, that's all!"

Claytor growled. "You could've warned her—

"And waste MY time?" Kaos snapped back. "No way! I have many more things to worry about." He turned around and walked back towards Spyro and his Doomraiders, casually showing his back to the Warfang knight.

Claytor, quivering, was practically breathing hellfire. Aurona tapped a shaky paw on his foreleg. She glared at him, wordlessly telling the knight to ground himself. The Portal Master might be showing him his tail, but these openings–these 'weaknesses'—they didn't exist.

"Now with their little leader taken care of, let's see… what shall we give…"

Nightshade 3 complained, "Submaster Kaos, must we do this? Let's just go home—" His voice trailed to a halt at a glare from the Portal Master.

"Oh, but we MUST!" Kaos glanced in Spyro's direction. "Can't you see Spyro glowering nastily at us over there? How can we leave him like that‽ No, no, his animosity won't be good for Skylands."

"O-of course, Submaster. As you wish."

Kaos didn't acknowledge him. Instead, while padding over towards the Savior, he panned his gaze across the entirety of Eyria, assessing the ruins and the devastation with a cold, clinical detachment. In a few moments, the insane dragon somehow produced a comically-sized bag out of thin air and tossed it by Spyro's feet.

"And what's this supposed to be?" Spyro grunted. He nudged the bag with his forepaw, causing it to fall over and spill out some of its contents.

Flags and banners with runic inscriptions that looked similar to those written on the summoning scrolls Aurona, Spyro, and Claytor had all seen that night.

Precious jewels that did not carry the essence of magic, but had been engraved with the ornate insignia of the Skylands Empire.

"Compensation," Kaos said matter-of-factly. "Aaaaand that's that! Now we're all settled."

Spyro gnashed his teeth. "What do you mean 'we're all settled'‽" He yelled. "Kaos! Look around you! Eyria—no, all of December are suffering. They're enraged, grieving, and you added to it! You can't just throw money at them and say the currents have leveled!"

"I just did," Kaos refuted. "Half their economic worth in gems plus enough formation flags to set up a defensive barrier for a full 8-day week."

Spyro stomped towards him. "You're missing my point! It's not enough to—

The dragon flicked his black forepaw at the Savior. Space distorted around Spyro in a manner identical to what Vanish had done to Vavriel. The degree to which it was warped was far less than what the Golden Queen had suffered, but it was enough to flatten him to the snow.

"Ngh-ngh-ngh-ngh!" Spyro grunted as if he was burdened by an irresistible weight. His stammering was audibly mangled by the way the very space fluctuated.

"Tch! The World Below is truly full of uncivilized ingrates!" Kaos griped loudly to the two Doomraiders. "Let's go!"

Vavriel and the mabu acknowledged the command and followed the black and cream dragon back to the floating portal. The two Doomraiders went ahead and leaped into the rift. Just as before, their figures froze in the air as if stopped by time, then became red silhouettes that darkened further and further until completely vanishing from sight.

Kaos stayed behind long enough to grin at the Purple Dragon, who had just righted the distorted space with a deafening roar.

"Until next time, Spyro~"

The wormhole collapsed as soon as Kaos leaped into its vicinity and his image red-shifted into nothingness.

With deafening abruptness, Eyria had become a quiet and solemn wasteland. The snow-covered landscape was littered with corpses. Jayce and Ophelia's cries could be heard from the other side of the chasm. Their daughter, Altai, had most likely gone missing.

As the minutes passed, parents who survived the battle went out and sought their loved ones, only to find them gone, and joined the weeping swiftly taking over the ruined village.

Spyro plodded over, defeated. "I'm sorry."

His words offered little comfort.

They had defeated the apes in Narvas Mesa, but in exchange, Eyria was demolished. Bartholomew had escaped while Vanish had taken their children. The "compensation" given by Skylands felt hollow and meaningless.

Unable to endure, Aurona finally broke down.

---

Author's notes:

Aaand finished with Night Raid! The story will be moving back to Warfang for the next few chapters, so we'll finally get to see Joshua again.

We'll be reaching the milestone where Joshua moves out of the 3rd floor in this series of chapters. Why is that important? Because it unlocks a lot of the content that I've been eager to write since the first chapter.

Some of the content will feature Joshua's further exploration of life in Warfang's central districts, and it will come with a bit more socialization since he will soon be truly living among dragons and the myriad species in the city.

Many TLoS fanfics that involve human transmigration don't usually build up normal mundane life beyond the standard "fantasy-world high school" setting with exams & adolescent worries like bullying and romance, so I intend on doing that here. Naturally, these will involve the personal story of characters in the main cast—Vara's abusive mother and Kilat's lost relatives, for example. I'm aware that the slice of life content always detracts from the "Main Story" or "Serious Aimless", but this content is the reason I started writing this fic in the first place, so it will be here to stay.

I'll just be more deliberate in balancing the "slice of life" and "main story" stuff so there is progression on both ends and readers who are interested in only one or the other will have something to read.

Hoping IRL gives me more opportunities to write Aimless.

Replies to reviews:

Starfett13. Hope you enjoyed this update then. See you next time! Thanks for the review.

Ren (guest). I already have a small portion of my portfolio invested in cryptoassets. However, I have a much better track record in stonks—also much longer too (15 years of direct experience and counting!), so I don't expect to increase my allocation to crypto very soon. My full-year return for 2023 has been very high thanks to a strategy I implemented in mid-2022.

Anyway, I will stop talking about this. FFN isn't exactly the right venue for business/finance talk.

Coollatiospokemon4342. Glad you enjoyed it! Hope you enjoyed this update as well.

BronzeHeart92. I haven't given up on this fic yet! XD Oh yeah, the Night Raid chapters had some great moments. My favorite part from the first two is Spyro's opening move on the mesa. My next favorite would be the Golden Queen's "fury". I wonder what your favorite moments were.

Actually, I recently found out that Aimless does have a TV Tropes page. I've no idea when that popped up, but to whoever is maintaining that—thank you very much!

Now, I don't plan on paying too much attention to what's gonna be put on there. Sure, I read your criticisms and make a few adjustments here and there, but ultimately I decide to write what I want to write. It is my story after all. Besides, some of the opinions expressed don't account for information that I have in my files/outlines. My beta readers, Azure and Stryker, do have more information on the future direction of Aimless, but I haven't shared everything with them either.

And… lol… regular schedule. Yeah, maybe if I'm making money off of this through , why not? But then I'd have to come up with tiers, and I need to come up with perks… then commit to servicing those…

Blegh. Stocks, my job, and my wife are huge time sinks already. I just can't.

Kranos459. Pay me $40,000 a year and sure, I'll write a chapter every two weeks. The story will be finished in less than five years. /s

In all seriousness, I'm not the only one who's written a popular fic and took their time to update it. Some people have even given up on their fanfics/fancomics completely. Real life responsibilities and aspirations take priority over hobbies or activities done to pass the time or express myself.

If you can't even comprehend that, then you are a child, an adult who's spoiled on generational wealth, or someone who peaked at high school. Either way, this review suggests you lack empathy, and I highly suggest you rectify that.

Earthpatriot117. I think I can squeeze in one more moment between Spyro and Jayce in a post-A/N sequence in the future. Jayce Bladelizard being a father figure to Spyro, even for a moment, sounds like a nice scene to write. I would like to think that River wouldn't mind the idea.

Hope you enjoyed this update, btw!

JDM (guest). Thanks for the glowing review! I've also missed writing Aimless, you know? Hope you enjoyed this update! See you in the next one.

Owen O'Henry (guest). Hey Owen! Thanks very much for the long and well-written review. We've pretty much discussed your review after you made an account and DM'd me directly, but for summary's sake I'll go over my initial replies.

Aurona's portrayal — Bizzleb, who owns Aurona, didn't provide many character-defining moments in the story that predominantly featured her, but I got the gist that she would be a highly devoted mother and a true leader who cares for her people. I am glad I was able to do right by that portrayal.

Rogue Skylander — This was revealed to be Slam Bam (Bartholomew) in this chapter, though it should've been obvious to you by the end of Night Raid 2. I probably should've been more overt about it.

Skylands is actually a place with lots of political infighting. The Empire currently has two major factions—Skylanders Corps (controlled by Eon) and the Doomraiders (controlled by Kaos). The chapter "Lay of the Land" indicates this. Slam Bam's personal story will show that he's not a "bad guy" from his own perspective, but I have no idea where I'll be able to show this… Oh well. For now, his backstory will remain in my notes.

Story structure — thanks again! I figured that I had to do this after Joshua's entry into Warfang in the 19th chapter. People seem to be divided on what content they want to see (slice-of-life vs serious), so I did the best I can to strike a balance. Had to sacrifice a few slice-of-life chapters to get to where I am now, but it ultimately helped in making the fic a success.

My beta readers helped a lot in this regard too. I go over the chapter-by-chapter outline with them occasionally, in between updates.

Sharing pointers – I usually don't mind discussing this on FFN or Discord. We had a pretty good discussion, though I suppose we lost track of it one way or another.

Austin (guest). Hey Austin! Thanks for the review. And whoa, you binged through everything‽ Daaamn. That's a lot of content you just went through. Fics as long as mine or longer (and there are many fics that are longer) take a few days to get through from chapter 1. Glad you stuck around.

To be fair, Aimless doesn't really "break" that premise. Looking back, I would say it's a fic that takes the human transmigration thing to a level that the vast majority of fics of its genre don't bother going to.

There will be some design choices that it will have in common with other TLoS transmigration stories—the human being mistaken for an ape, the city showing scars of war, the human having special powers or "that one dragon" who's loyal to them, etc. I can't help it. It comes with the package. Fortunately, the quality of most other transmigration stories are so terrible that there's a lot of low-hanging fruit to take advantage of. However, it was also thanks to those factors that I inspired, directly or indirectly, a few other stories that have promise. One's even from a different fandom (Splatoon)!

Spyro and Joshua — I get this question a lot. All I can say is that they will have a moment after he returns from December Cliffs. He embarked on that journey to get some space for himself, after all.

The Apes — We'll be seeing them in the next serious story arc. :D

Meaningless crossovers — I am not aware of that fic.

Malefor opening a portal to the human world — I've never once insinuated that Malefor is the primary antagonist of Aimless. He is also incapable of opening a portal directly to the human world, so your hypothetical scenario just cannot happen.

If I were to humor you… well… I suppose Joshua would be overjoyed at first, then horrified at the fate that will befall his home. He will ultimately be powerless to stop a fully-realized adult dragon who would probably be able to figure out the inner workings of Joshua's Element after a few clashes. And Joshua is extremely easy to kill by someone who knows his weaknesses.

Guesy (guest). Sounds like a cool idea. Unfortunately, it's not what I'm gonna go with. Thanks for your comment. :)

Dr. Kocktor. Yeah, Kilat's traveling group had it rough. Joshua could've never intervened though. He probably would've died if he tried to help.

Hope you got to see the rest of the story. Thanks for your review!

Guest #1 (guest). Definitely! Joshua will be motivated to get better control over his Element now, so as to minimize the risk of becoming a danger to the people around him.

DatGuy1st. It's just the second major story arc, so yeah, no real answers yet. Well, the only thing we have so far is why the Incident happened to begin with, but there are still plenty more unresolved questions. XD

Hopefully you've got the patience to stick around for a long time. ^^;;

Guest #2 (guest). Thanks for your review!

Hmm… Joshua, OP? Not happening. Joshua is limited by his humanity. The only way for him to achieve that god-like state is through Fear, but that method is extremely dangerous and will result in the deaths of everyone around him with no exception. He might even destroy the entire city, too.

Guest #3 (guest). Thanks for your comment. You the same person as Guest #2? Well, either way, it is a nice idea, but I'm not sure if this can happen in Aimless canon. A significant plot reason prevents Spyro from treating Joshua as anything more than acquaintances even after they've had their moment of reconciliation. (See Chasing Leads for an example of that. Sparx also hints on it.)

Guest #4 (guest). Thanks for your comment! Uhhh… same person as Guests #2 and #3? You write similarly.

Anyway, Joshua's Element already has a name. I already came up with it way before I started writing the story. Like with the "Red Lady" (the dragon he was lining up with while at the gates of Warfang), I'm just waiting to get to the point where I can finally write it out.

Yuvalyly. Hello, thanks for the comment! Huh… I never got back to you directly (just checked my outbox).

First, sorry to learn that you're involved, in one way or another, in one of the wars going on in recent memory. I don't care what side you're on; the victims of every war will always be the noncombatants or the people forced to carry out commands on the frontlines. I only hope that you survive this senseless ordeal.

Re: "month". That's an error on my part, and it should be replaced with "cycle", which refers to one lunar cycle of Adrano the Red.

Re: "spirit gems". I see… hmm, that's interesting. I suppose I can use health and mana gems in my terminology then.

Did you actually finish TEN? Some people I know had given up on it.

Wolfe Itzo'k. Thanks for the review! Hehe, sorry about that long update time. IRL, as I've said multiple times before.

I am still confirming that romance remains on the table. However, if it ever gets to the "raunchy stuff", the story will most likely fade to black or sweep it aside to offscreen. Aimless will remain T-rated.

But since I've already tried my hand at lemons/smut, standalone works or drafts uploaded to… other places… will not be subject to the same restriction.

Sir MountCastle (guest). Hello, thanks for reviewing! Hmmm, I never really thought much about that. I would say he got transported in the middle of the year. Somewhere between July and November.

ThatBombsMine. Heh, your review came in right as I was wrapping up the chapter. What timing, huh?

Anyway, I am happy to know that you're planning on sticking around. I hope you'll have the patience to keep going; the slice-of-life content will remain a major part of Aimless as it is the reason I started the story to begin with. The Main Scenario will chug along, as I will keep an eye on the content balance.

I certainly hope my commitment to writing this story amidst my IRL responsibilities remains unwavering.

Thanks again for your comment.

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No post-A/N this time! This chapter's long enough already. :P