FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 24

His imagination knew no bounds, things and scenarios it could come up with were infinite like moles with a mining spark. Possibilities stopped surprising him when he was still a little kid, infinity meant infinity after all, if he would be shocked by his ideas with whole certainty he would go mad.

That doesn't mean that he constantly lives in some kind of utopia, reality was still the most crucial milestone, no matter how rich with ideas one's brain can be. That didn't mean however that reality must be dull and boring, not when you can add your own flavor to it.

His imagination was the chef of the worlds, knowing every recipe, making each day, each confront with reality an exquisite experience of tasting a dish full of fantasy of his own creation.

And it's a proven fact of self accomplishment that what you cook yourself, tastes better.

Sometimes however you simply burn things and no matter how hard you try to convince yourself, the meal is just not good..

A similar rule applies to his imagination.

Imagination in its infinity, especially practiced like his, doesn't come up with bad fantasies and even if reality tries to mash its point of view in some occasions, he had never left it uncontested. There was however that one black void his imagination couldn't shape, here reality run rampant.

The black void could be described and from today he knew exactly what hid behind the shades.

It was the inside of a slick, toothy maw.

And the dish that was burning here was called being eaten alive.

Being a dragonfly has one, big flaw, you are the smallest creature in the world, surrounded by predators. Even blind creatures like the moles are intimidating. Then there are cheetahs with their sharp teeth.

And then there are dragons!

Dragons with even bigger sharp teeth!

This is the horror of being a dragonfly, you can be eaten just by about anything in the world. Both those predatory races are a friendly bunch, minus some rotten apples like in every society, but that didn't prevent parents from telling their children that if they behave badly a dragon will come and eat them.

Funny thing is that he was raised alongside one, all the time thinking Spyro was just his retarded, fat dragonfly brother.

That didn't however help with the horrible perspective of being eaten.

He was afraid of many things, their adventures somehow lessened the impact of fear to the point he could make fun of it, or just put the mask of irony on and let things progress on their own from there. It was so much easier when you have two most powerful dragons the world has ever seen as your friends and sidekicks.

But when you're alone and especially locked in a place of nightmares, like literally, the mask shatters on its own and every experience you gained through adventures doesn't matter like at all.

He had his arms wrapped tightly around himself, wings keeping him aloft barely above the meaty ground, flapping slower than usual. For the very first time he hated the fact that he can't turn off his glow. Shutting eyes can only help for a certain amount of time, then no matter how hard one might try you open them back again.

Locking them once more after that isn't so simple any longer.

Something he had already gone through.

Despite his better judgment he looked around his surroundings, his nightmare.

It was very warm in Cynder's mouth.

That was the only bright note he could come up with about his current situation.

Horror tends to send cold shivers down your spine after all.

Most of the time he stared at the sharp, white, tightly sealed bars in the form of murderous teeth ahead of him. They were pressing against each other so tightly that he heard small, crunching noises every now and then as the fangs grinded against one another.

He couldn't help himself, but imagine this was the sound his bones would make if the teeth decided to munch on his body.

He didn't like looking at those teeth, but the alternatives were so much worse.

All around him was a bloody, meaty, slick surface that reminded him of some monstrous flesh that would suck him in if he just touched it. Palate can be so disgusting from up close.

The only time he ever looked down Cynder's throat was when he was getting inside his mouth, after that he never mustered enough courage to do so again. That was path down to her gullet after all, the hole into the devouring pits wasn't as scary as the meaty tongue right at the entrance.

The uvula danced and bounced mockingly, as if it would be an entity of its own, craving to taste him.

He couldn't stand the look of it.

As much as he preferred to focus his sight on the closed teeth, his position was far from perfect.

All because of the damn, wet, huge, ugly meat of a tongue twirling below him like an overgrown larva.

It just didn't want to stay in place.

The most annoying thing however was that Cynder had to breathe, of all the irritating things she could do and done, she had to sustain her life right in this moment.

The constant breathing created gust after gust of air his wings had to fight against, shoving him all around the place as a result. He squealed like a pig when he bounced off the meaty palate, or when he accidently poked the ugly tongue.

Luckily he didn't have to deal with the stench, her mouth and breath smelled of wine, at least that was one less thing he had to worry about, one less thing that could kill him.

Here the cheerful thoughts ended however.

Cynder swallowed constantly, like all the time actually, as if purposely trying to force him into suicide, deep down into her gullet.

That was the main reason why he couldn't stop his yelps of horror.

Whenever he managed to get the right balance against her breathing, Cynder swallowed, making the tongue below bounce up and lick him.

That forced an abhorrent groan out of him, not to mention the loss of the earlier gained balance. Whenever that happened he glued himself either to the palate, sides of the meaty, slick mouth, or the teeth.

That however forced the tongue to move, the disgusting piece of meat always bounced in his direction, licking and poking him as if he would be a crunch of food stuck in the teeth.

He tried slapping the slick larva away, it worked to some degree, forcing the tongue back, yet it always was restless after that for a while.

Each grunt and groan, each dodge and squeal carried a tone cursing his stupid brother for coming up with such a stupid idea. Staying in this meaty prison was taxing, both physically and mentally. Of course he has to deal with all the trouble, while the two of them just swagger through the corridors like bosses.

It was always like that, all the time. No one appreciates it, but it was him who had to deal with the biggest chunk of disaster.

Due to his fate Sparx became subjectively ignorant, he was too busy to think that he wasn't the only one suffering during this process.

Cynder didn't like it as much as he did.

She took many lives, far too many for her liking, an ugly experience she would like to forget about, yet in all those horrors she committed, she never ate anyone alive. This was probably the only thing that kept her away from becoming a true monster.

Just imagining literally crushing someone's soul in her teeth while that one still screamed made her sick.

The moment Sparx got inside her mouth she couldn't stop thinking about him inside there and just how barbaric it would be to accidently choke and swallow him whole.

This was the most annoying and scariest thing she had to deal with in her life.

Even if she somehow managed to forget that there was actually an alive dragonfly behind her tightly sealed mouth, she couldn't fight back her impulsive instinct and that instinct screamed all the time there was something stuck inside her mouth.

And the mouth reacts to forbidden objects in its domain in one way only.

By constant swallowing.

She tried to keep it under control, she really did, but her mouth just seemed to produce far more saliva than it could actually store, forcing her throat to crunch again and again, swallowing bulge after uncomfortable bulge.

The most horrendous thing about this was not the fact that she felt Sparx bouncing inside her mouth after each touch of her tongue, but the fact she could actually TASTE him with each swallow. This alone made her stomach rumble and making her want to throw up her very guts.

His constant bouncing made her choke and gag several time, she really had a hard time to keep her mouth sealed and not spitting him out like immediately. The discomfort reached such a cruel level that her eyes filled with tears, it was like having a stick shoved in your mouth for what seemed like eternity.

It was so horrible that the tears not only stayed in the corners of her eyes, but dripped from her cheeks and eyebrows onto the ground in a silent, suffering of discomfort.

The hood was dragged across her whole head, even hanging lower than her nose, tears soaking the corners of the hood. Her head was hanging low, watery eyes aimed at the floor, on which she trailed the wet path her tears made.

She was in a different world, no matter if dangerous or not, this was a DIFFERENT world. Having its own wonders and horrors and she couldn't see anything of it, but her own wet, trail of tears.

This was such a terrible idea.

Spyro was only one from the time traveling group that could admire the new, old world, yet even if his sight was unhindered his eyes always landed on his covered mate that walked in between him and Diazen.

He could hear her choking and muffled whining coming from under the robe. She was shuffling her paws as if she was a recently tortured prisoner that was dragged out of her cage for public mockery.

His heart bled like a pierced keg of wine.

An idea that he proposed and believed to be a rather ingenious punch in Sparx' and Cynder's sarcastic relation that leveled them both equal footing, turned to be a torture.

He hated himself so much right now.

"Keep your head up. Ignore them" Diazen hissed, his muffled voice was filled with what seemed to be hateful, disgusted irritation

If not for the small, quiet rattle of his teeth Spyro would never suspect that fear could be a part of it either.

The tone of Diazen's voice didn't bother him, pompous bastard is a pompous bastard after all. What truly infuriated him was the order to not give a crap about the state of his love and brother.

He snarled at the purple dragon, what he wanted to ignore right now was this stupid plan and simply fight their way to this Constructor.

Preferably starting the punching from one particular orange eyed purple dragon.

"I will never abandon my friends"

"That's wonderful, but right now you need to forget about your friends and keep true to your part. Sentiments have no place here"

"Don't tell me-"

"Silence. Focus"

There was a purple flash and soon a pair of massive door opened from the hallway they found themselves in after leaving Diazen's room.

Spyro wasn't in the mood for another order, yet even if his blood boiled with anger no sound left his throat. All due to the fact that fresh air invaded his nostrils and sound similar to a busy marketplace filled his ear holes.

This had caught him by surprise, he already got quite used to the confined and dull atmosphere this place created, thanks to Flare's words and his own observations he never expected this place to be anything than a soulless prison littered with arrogant guards earning their keep on the misery of others.

This however changed his whole perspective and solidifies his original thoughts, thoughts about Flare's biased and subjective look on this place. He saw nothing but ugliness here, Spyro didn't blame him, since he really doubted that the red dragon had the chance of seeing anything else than dull corridors and dirty cages.

He couldn't know that this place had a graceful, beautiful touch.

One of the examples opened right before his eyes.

It was a courtyard, a piece of garden created right in the middle of a usually tightly roofed structure. The courtyard itself was huge, placed in even bigger gallery than the one next to the lava room.

They were standing in what could be easily described as a big, wide porch. High, slightly dropping ceiling, decorated columns for support and ground made from granite. The porch stretched all around the big courtyard, forming a circle around the garden, many doors dotted the walls.

The mentioned garden filled exactly the middle of the courtyard, here the sun was responsible for the only source of light that illuminated the center of the courtyard.

He immediate remembered Flare's words about how he fought to get to a grate that pointed up into the sky and how he desperately wanted to bask in its rays. All of his dreams were locked behind a pair of stupid door.

Torture and humiliation in all its glory.

The roofed porch looked exactly the same in every arch of the room, columns, ceiling, braziers and stone. Pretty. Directly in the middle of the garden stood a massive tree surrounded by a pristine pond, the Nature's natural skyscraper reached high into the air through what seemed to be a deconstructed part of the ceiling, maybe reaching even higher than the building itself.

Marble pathways led to the tree from every corner of the porch, as if they were the needles of a compass pointing at each direction of the world. The paths met in one spot in front of the tree where they formed a circle around a patch of grass on which a fountain was erected. All the rest splotches of earth were green as Cynder's eyes.

The smell of freshly trimmed grass was overpowering.

Spyro didn't know what particularly special was about this garden, growing up in two cities, well developed ones at that, already showed him how beautiful and special an architect's mind can be when it comes to merging nature with technology. Not to mention that moles live in his time and this particular race alone knows more about construction than all of the other species combined.

Yet this place, simple and lacking any sort of genius touch was somewhat refreshing, giving you a strange sense of freedom and power. There was no magic involved, it was simply a sensation which potency could be rivaled only by satisfying overpowering thirst with cold water.

It was strange and weird, back in those dull halls you constantly felt threatened, pressured and tired. Here on the other paw all those strangling feelings were vented up by the fresh air. As if the massive tree instead of absorbing all the pollution found in the air, sucked away the taint and impurity from yourself.

The massive tree moaned and creaked in the wind, its thick roots pulsed like veins. It was clear from just a single look at the tree that it had a lot to digest in this place.

This was not the only reason why Spyro's mouth opened itself and his eyes widened.

They weren't alone in the courtyard.

Keepers were standing at the sides of each door, their motionless bodies making them look like statues than actual animated constructs. He knew better however and the gentle fire smoldering in the golem's eyes only confirmed that this innocent look of the Keeper's is just an delusion.

There was something odd about them however, he couldn't really put his claw on what it was exactly.

Besides the Keepers there were other dragons here.

All of them were purple.

He couldn't believe his own eyes, even after remembering Flare's words and meeting Diazen, he still believed that he must be imagining things.

He wasn't however, the smell of draconic scale hanging in the air was too strong to be taken for a play of imagination.

There were purple dragons here, plenty of them, both males and females. His eyes firstly ran over the females, he never saw a purple scaled dragoness before and they were the first members of his newly met kind that he paid much attention to.

Part of him was glad that Cynder couldn't see him right now.

He examined girl after girl, fascinated by their looks, fascinated like a child after seeing another version of its favorite toy and that was all truth be told.

Exactly like a child's love for the new toy, his fascination was precisely as fickle, before he knew it, it was gone. It was surprising how he didn't see any beauty in them, even if plenty of them were definitely pretty. He didn't notice any particular physical trait that would grab his attention.

No curve of the thigh, no cute snout, no slender figure, strangely none of them had it, even when they were pretty. He had his favorite border of beauty and none of those girls even aspired to reach it.

They were lacking many things.

For starters, they didn't have black scales.

Even when all of them were young, or in the prime of their life.

All of them were young.

Spyro frowned, cocking his head, looking around the courtyard more intensely this time.

Every single female was either near his age, give or take fifty years, or at the brink of their adulthood. His gaze fell on the males after that, noticing that they shared exactly the same fate.

There was no single dragon here that could be considered a fully grown adult.

That wasn't the end of the weirdness however.

With so many people in one place, you could expect some conversations going on, some kind of social interaction, even if wordless.

Here there was nothing.

Not even dragons standing side by side, that was a very rare sight indeed, were talking with each other, at least openly, it there were any whispers going on it was hard to hear from here.

One specie, but it seemed as every member was a race of its own.

There were plenty of dragons here, whether in the garden or the porch, whether walking, standing or sitting, none seemed to be especially interested in one another.

At least that's what he thought at first.

This idea was quickly shoved away when among the purple dragons he spotted also those made of flesh and bone ghosts like Cynder is currently. Robes and all manner of different clothing were dragged across those specific members of this strange society.

This representatives were never alone.

At least always one purple dragon was next to the hooded, obscured figure, sometimes even having three such creatures at his, hers side. Sometimes a duo took care of a single living ghost like him with Diazen right now, sometimes it was a completely different combination.

It was enough to understand that Diazen's idea about covering Cynder had a second bottom, seeing similar tactic used by other dragons was enough to tell that this was some, strange ritual of secrecy.

He didn't know for what and honestly he wouldn't really care as long as it would keep them away from trouble.

The longer he observed the population, the more he became certain that nothing like that will happen. They were being watched, examined like every other single, pair or group of dragons having their own obscured figure or figures by their sides.

Process of constant evaluation.

This one sentence perfectly described what this world was about, he felt as if he would be a subject of some war experiment, everyone looking for a flaw in his defense to exploit it.

Something was very wrong with this place.

Cynder's eyes widened, her nose started to bounce as she started taking quick whiffs of the atmosphere, she only felt fresh air. Her head impulsively started to rise, curiosity driving her into committing a swift survey of the surroundings.

"Head down" Diazen growled, slamming his paw on top of the covered head and shoving it forcefully down

Spyro slammed the paw away, not caring if it was a good thing to do or not, not caring if they were watched or not, he won't let anyone treat his friend like that.

"Keep your paws to yourself" he growled, amethyst eyes burned with anger as they drilled into his companion's soul "Last warning"

Diazen snarled at the disobedient dragon.

"I've told you to focus, you better start listening if you don't want every dragon here on your tail. Don't show weakness"

"I am not"

Diazen visibly flinched at the dragon's rough statement and confident stare. He understood then that in his world care and sentiments lead to misery, opening the opportunity to be toyed with. In Spyro's case however, the result was a complete opposite, making him clearly realize that if he will push his luck he might lose his leg at some point. After all his constructs did lose more than just arms.

This group's power was coming from their bond, how was something like this possible he didn't know. In this world trust led only to death and your hide landing on someone's wall as decoration when that someone tore it off your back while you didn't watch.

"Be it as it may, you don't want to display open hostility between us. Not in this moment, we need to pretend that we formed a truce, it lowers the risk of unnecessary attention and whether you like it or not Cynder and Sparx are our bargaining chips and those here are a currency. You don't care for it"

Spyro frowned.

"Don't act surprised, don't draw attention, look at them, not me" he quickly added when he noticed the purple eyed dragon surprised look

Spyro's head quickly returned to its natural place, as much as he disliked the dragon, he was certain that in this particular thing he deserved to be slightly trusted.

His eyes traveled across the courtyard once more, they were eyes aimed at them, he didn't know if more than earlier, but the sensation that he is being examined from claw to horn was strangling.

"What do you mean currency?" Spyro swallowed, challenging the stares with as much arrogance as possible "If the success of your plan depends on trading my friends at some point I can already assure you that it's going to fail"

"Trading them away would mean losing whatever opportunity we have, we don't want that to happen"

"I see dragons without any currency as you called it"

Diazen tapped his claws against the floor in irritation, trying as best as he can to tone down his anger caused by the mistrustful, indignant dragon.

"Listen Spyro, what we do here is crucial, those lone dragons are in a different situation. That situation would be bad for us, you don't know how to behave, this at least provides some ground of normality of this world so your flaws aren't so conspicuous. Letting your friends roam free would be a disaster, I've already explained that your friends are extraordinary species never seen before here. We don't want a sensation"

"You're leading us to the Constructor, sooner or later we will have to drop the charade, wouldn't it be simpler just to trigger that sensation and just like automatically land at the Constructor's paws? Important figure will have guards anyway"

"This has nothing to do with the Constructor. This robe is a safety measure, it prevents..." Diazen licked his lips "Lowers the risk of theft, among other delicate things"

Spyro frowned, having a very difficult time to not give the dragon a condescending and disgusted look.

"You steal people?"

"In this world, the covered up members are more than just mere people, they are... treasure" the orange eyed dragon shook his head "This is complicated and I doubt you will understand our ways, stop worrying about it, your friends are safe as long as they are with us"

"Somehow I doubt that a treasure can be safe"

"It is safe, as long as the guards protecting it are present"

He wasn't stupid, in fact Volteer called him intelligent on more than one occasion, hence he had no troubles reading in between the lines most of the time. A nudge he was more sensitive to when walking through hostile territory and in dealings with its inhabitants.

"I never said we're safe" Spyro quoted his companion from earlier, using his own, gloomy tone

Diazen nodded in a swift, small display of approval.

"Let's get out of here" he once more scanned the many glares directed at them, he couldn't help himself but to feel as if someone had opened his chest and now its poking at his guts while he is still alive

"I get the feeling that they want to eat us"

"Not all of them"

Spyro's eyes widened, Cynder gagged louder than ever.

"This way. Stay calm and confident. Don't look and speak to anyone and keep up with me. All of you"

Without any further warning Diazen moved, scraping his hide across the covered up dragoness to make sure she understands in which direction to move.

Their made they went into the garden, sticking to one of the paths.

Spyro had a very hard time pretending that the dragons they passed by, or the ones around that stared at them, were just air. He felt really uncomfortable and for a moment wished to be in Cynder's place, covered up in big robes, oblivious to everything around.

He felt as if he would put his head under a gate of a castle that was slowly pushing down.

Occasionally his eyes darted towards his companion, where they absorbed every notion of head and pace of each step. Diazen sauntered confidently, his eyes locked in one place and staring ahead. He acted as if he was beyond everything that is happening in this room.

Spyro cleared his throat quietly, pushing his head high, ripping his eyes of any emotions, flexing his muscles and puffing out the chest, trying to look as commanding and intimidating as possible.

He despised this role with every fiber of his being, even if currently it was just for show, part of him felt that in the future brandishing his leadership features will be common bread.

Something didn't feel right about it, he didn't feel right about it.

In his mind he saw himself shaking his head, the image was enough to discard those thoughts. There was no point on dwelling on discomfort right now, in this place the feeling of insecurity was as prominent as the sensation of peace in your own home.

Even if he successfully kept the pretense of intimidating presence his orbs gently shifted from side to side on quite a frequent, reoccurring occasions.

To his right he saw a female looking his way with her own treasure by her side. Some distance away there was a lone dragon, male, almost reaching adulthood, staring at them with the same amount of hunger even if struck by loneliness.

To his left he saw two treasurless dragons, male and female, their mouths were moving quickly, communicating something silently between each other, something he couldn't understand during those short glances thrown at them.

There were two more groups not far away from the pair. One had three members, two females and a male, from the looks of it each had their own covered up currency. The other group was completely male, three members, only one robed mystery in between them.

He knew that he shouldn't be looking at them, but at the same time he didn't want to lose them from his sight. Never turn your back on the enemy, even if a potential one, this was the first lesson of Ignitus.

So his eyes kept moving from side to side, looking for any sign of trouble, not really sure if the bold, hungry gazes aren't already such signs. Nothing was happening, only the damn stares, yet he kept examining swiftly the bystanders nevertheless.

Male , female, pair, groups, male, female, pair, groups, male, female, pair, groups, male, female, pair, groups, male, female, groups, male, female, groups, male, female, gr-

His eyes widened, he quickly reminded himself of his reaction and quenched it down with a quiver of his body.

The pair disappeared.

His heart skipped a beat, something changed and that was everything that mattered, in a stale place like this change is frightening. He didn't really understand why he let something like this get to him, but he really wanted to look behind his shoulder to check if the pair really did disappear, or if he merely lost them from his sight.

Every bit of his being screamed that this was vital information and yet he didn't muster enough courage to glance behind his shoulder to look for confirmation of his suspicions.

There was too much at stake, he felt that he already made a mistake, or two here and the only thing that is holding this people on capitalizing on it was their own doubt.

Or Diazen.

A nearly deafening grind of stone suddenly broke his train of thought.

Spyro jerked his head back, so hard that a bolt of sharp pain pulsed along his neck. One of the guarding golems moved, lowering its upper body to look at them. Its empty, burning eyes just grazed over Diazen, they drilled intensely into Cynder and himself.

The fire the golem was made of started blazing slowly.

The second stony guardian moved also, repeating the same move.

"Calm the second one. Quickly" Diazen reached up, touching the golem's chest, his leg was covering whatever was hiding inside, yet even from here Spyro could see a purple glow emanating from the chest

He felt a weird sting in his paw that he used for opening the doors, he would never pay any attention to it, taking it for some uncomfortable flex of muscle, or a scream of some unhealed bruise before an incoming fight.

He remembered Diazen's words however and immediately thrust his paw up, trying to make the move look as natural as possible. He touched the golem's warm, rough chest, feeling a sting in his draconic palm that could be taken for an accidental cut against sharp rocks.

A silent gasp escaped his throat when he felt the warmth of the golem jumping onto his paw, its moves slowing down and a rock sliding down like some wall to a secret treasure trove.

A purple gem, the so called enchantment heart pounded inside, so similar to the one the Destroyer had. The little spikes around the gem were the only difference, they twirled and slithered around like little tongues.

When his paws moved closer to the heart all the sharp tentacles turned towards it, hungrily wanting to taste it. All of the tongues joined together, forming a single, meaty spike the size of an icicle which momentarily lunged forward like an attacking snake.

Spyro observed everything from up close, he saw the spike thrusting into his paw, directly into the middle. Only the sharp tip sunk into his flesh, he hissed impulsively, expecting to feel pain.

He felt absolutely nothing however.

The process of tasting was about to end shortly, judging from how Diazen handled the situation. It wasn't so bad, the only thing he regretted was his own ignorance, if he would know about this trick sooner everything would be different.

This experience opened his eyes to another perspective however, one that didn't allow guilt to eat away his soul entirely. Diazen spoke about different golem types, one controllable, others not, he said he would know what golem belonged to what category. This one was undoubtedly sensitive to influence, exactly like the one on the opposite side Diazen took care of.

And yet he felt absolutely nothing.

That wasn't the end of crankiness however.

The spike that, as he expected, should only probe his paw and blood like the sockets to open the door started to suddenly swell. He observed the spike with slowly widening eyes, the meaty spike suddenly shrunk and he watched in horror its changing form, realizing that the difference in its form wasn't the result of some weird shift of physical figure, but because a bulge just moved through the meaty, purple tentacle and went straight to the heart.

The spike swallowed.

It swallowed his blood.

He gasped, in instinctive horror he pushed his paw away, at least that was what he planned to do, in reality his leg didn't move at all.

All because of the spike.

Instead of retreating, the meaty, sharp tentacle thrust ferociously and hungrily forward, sinking almost completely into his flesh.

There was still no pain, his leg however went completely numb, he didn't really know what caused this sensation. Either the tentacle injected some tranquilizing agent, or his mind silenced all of his nervous system, letting terror only scream through him.

Especially when the tentacle started to change its form alternately again, quicker than before, much quicker. It was swallowing his blood bulge after bulge, as if it would finally got to a source of the most refreshing water after many dry days.

The purple gem pounded more excitedly after each gulp.

"Spyro! What are you doing!?" Diazen hissed in horror, his voice was coming from somewhere far away

"N-Nothing!" he tried to jerk his paw away, at least mentally, using physical force was to no avail, he couldn't feel his muscles

"Stop it!"

"I can't, it doesn't want to let me go!"

"Nonsense! Stop panicking! Peacekeepers cannot harm you, this golems here are natural!"

"I-" Spyro's voice froze when his gaze landed on the heart

It was no longer pure purple.

The gem was pulsing, crunching and swelling like molded clay, all this struggle was caused by a very strange color shift and lightshow. The gem was invaded by spirals of black energy, swelling like veins, the heart was pulsing with a purple light, especially in places where the crystal pulsed more intensely as if huge worms would slither under its surface.

To the purple mix of light were added two more colors, the black one from the ugly veins and a gold one, a hue without any origins. The heart pounded like crazy, feeding itself and trying not to burst at the same time.

The vein kept feeding it unceasingly.

"Stop it this instant!" Diazen roared

Spyro shook, raising on his hind legs and using his other paw to pull at his trapped leg, trying to free it.

It didn't want to budge.

"Stop it!"

Spyro growled loudly after another startled roar, pulling at the held leg with all his might.

Then unexpectedly his groaning was silenced by the noise of grinding stone. He instinctively looked up, noticing the golem moving, its head lowered itself to his level in one fluid motion with the flexibility of a snake, something that should be impossible to accomplish by such a crudely built creature.

He was quite certain that the stale gallery behind him came to life, dragons of this world clearly didn't see a golem behaving like this before.

He couldn't help himself, but to meet the empty stare of the golem, his mouth dropped open when he looked into the rocky eye sockets. Fire was burning in them as usual, yet this time it was not a standard, magical, lifeless flame.

There were emotions in them.

There was life in them.

Staring at him with a gentle curiosity of a scientist that just spotted an interesting reaction of a white mouse he was experimenting on.

The golem opened his mouth, he felt as his heart leapt into his throat, he was nearly certain that the blazing fire inside the golem's mouth is going to melt the scales off his snout.

Nothing like that happened.

The construct kept its mouth opened, he stared into the flickering flame inside, when he began to somewhat relax, he then heard the fire form words.

"Exquisite taste"

The golem spoke even if its mouth remained in the same place, the voice was a rumbling, distant echo.

He had troubles telling if he didn't hear the voice just in his head.

"Wanderer" hollow voice of Creep resounded unexpectedly, blackness filled the underside of Cynder's robe

"What was that voice?" Diazen blurted out in shock, looking around in fear

"Come to me"

The distant voice echoed again, Spyro began to feel pain in his pierced paw.

"Stop!" he roared, thrashing wildly

To his surprise this was what exactly happened, everything stopped, froze in place, he didn't even notice the stream of blood lazily stretching in the air when he pulled out his paw from the hungry spike.

Time.

He used his Time powers.

The flow of the world returned to its normal place before the fact that he actually managed to stop it sunk into his mind. He dropped on the floor, nearly toppling over when he landed on the ground and put pressure on the numb leg, he head to steady himself by using Cynder as support and by flapping his wings

The golem that fed on him roared, its insides exploded with a strong purple light, life was gone from its eyes. The golem screamed and thrashed wildly, slamming its massive arms everywhere.

One blow smashed into the ground right next to him.

"Stop!" Spyro exclaimed impulsively, hoping to freeze the time again even if he didn't feel any connection with that power

Nothing happened.

At least with Time.

The thrashing golem steadied itself, balking like a lost traveler at the sound of a wolf's howl in a dark wood. It returned to its post like nothing happened, its usually red flame was flickering with strands of purple.

"Did he just influence a Peacekeeper?!" some female shouted from behind them

"What kind of creature they have there!" another shout, a male this time

"Fuck it! We're taking it for ourselves!" a combined shout of at least three voices echoed throughout the room

"Only if you beat us!" a different group joined the fray of roars and growls

"Whoever joins with me can get a piece of that treasure!"

By now the room was like a volcano ready to erupt. It was quite obvious who exactly the magma wanted to consume.

"Through the door!" Diazen roared at the top of his lungs "Now!"

Purple dragons are rare, very rare, Spyro never believed he would ever see a whole civilization of purple dragons.

Even if he would some day imagine it, he wasn't creative enough to come up with the idea of attacking purple dragons as if they were an army.

It would definitely be worthy of remembering and noting in a history book.

If only this army didn't throw itself after their blood.