FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 28

Not all of the golems were looking fresh and recently created, there were four at least that definitely had many years of service under their fiery belts.

That didn't make them any less dangerous however, not when surrounded by some newer models.

"Get back Diazen!" Spyro roared and threw himself into the row to the left "Keep close to them Sparx! They can't use their wave force! If they do we're going to be bouncing between them like a ball when playing clawball!"

"What is clawball?" Sparx raised in the air, dashing in the direction of the other purple dragon and the golems nearby

"No time for jokes now!" he leapt into the air, with a couple of flaps reaching his target, running alongside one of the older golem's waking arm he channeled his elemental energy

Time for holding back is over.

He pounced from the shoulder, pressing his wings close he dived behind the golem's back, an inexperienced dragon would make a simple turn, keeping his wings opened all the time.

He however was an experienced warrior and knew that in battle every second counts, the period where you aren't doing anything is an advantage to your opponent, to become a good fighter you need to minimize that period as best as you can.

Ignitus taught him that, it's only ironic that he gets to use this lesson against the thing that killed him.

The moment more than half of his body was past the shoulder he began to roll in midair, spreading his wings sharply. Basically lying on his back he directed his snout at the back of the golem's neck, quite clearly seeing the weak spot over there.

Years of servitude and unending vigil cracked the stone there.

He released a stream of ice at the creature, breaking its natural defense with ease. The freezing flow of energy got inside the construct's body, it started to thrash and roar wildly.

One small victory in the battle he feared will bring more than one failure.

While Spyro took off to the left Cynder sprang to the right, narrowing her eyes on the target.

Like Spyro, she targeted the weaker link, hopefully maybe the weakest one from all the golems stationed in this row.

Creep instantly joined her in the run, the moment she moved his whole form jerked itself behind her, as if they would be chained together.

He literally flew into her.

She moaned softly in excitement when Creep became a part of her once more, the surge of power and sensation of satisfaction that can only be achieved by finally reaching your dreams washed over her like a crashing wave against a bank.

Tendrils of black shadow splashed from underneath her paws as if she would be wading in water. The tentacles of her empowered by darkness claws seemed to purposely and playfully tickle her paw scales.

A grin spread her lips.

She sunk into the ground. The splotch of darkness vanished just to nearly instantly reappear on the ceiling, almost directly above her target.

She shot from the hole with wings tightly pressed to her back, her claws leaving a trail of black smoke in her trail. She flew precisely behind the golem.

Instead of spreading her wings to regain balance she thrust her empowered by magic claws into the animated stone. Her claws cracked whatever weak fragment they could find until they reached a piece hard enough to hold on to.

The strength in them was immense.

With all fours paws tightly secured to the stone she made a turn in place like a fly changing position on the wall. Due to magic the momentum of her fall causing absolutely no stress to her bones and muscles.

She threw her upper body back, with drawing her claws from the rocky body, she made two sharp swipes. Her blades and tongues of shadowy fire following them whipped at the rock, weakening it.

As her body began to drop back to its natural, stable position on the golem's back, she thrust her dark claws back into the neck. Fire bled through the cracks like blood.

She gritted her teeth and pulled with all her strength, hiss turned into grunting when she strained her body backwards, beyond the limit of any comfort. With the rising tone of voice during her strenuous effort the darkness surrounded her claws grew more thicker, filling the cracks and quenching the fire.

As if there was something inside that dark mist, right inside the golem, pushing against the same rock from its side, making her work all that much easier.

She tore the rock, throwing it behind her like used bandage.

The only difference was that this particular bandage was made of heavy rock and was almost twice her size.

Before the wakening golem realized what was happening she already push away from the neck. Flapping her wings and hovering above the ground, right at the same level of the now exposed hole in the golem's neck she channeled her poison element.

In the meantime being glad and thankful for the natural draconic regeneration, her wings were like new.

Part of the channeled element she used directly at the burning essence of this creature.

Just like its companion on the opposite side, this Keeper also began to thrash and roar rabidly.

"You there!" Sparx yelled, pointing at the probably paralyzed purple dragon "Wake up! Bad time for daydreaming!"

Diazen was mesmerized by both his draconic companions, his orange eyes landed on Cynder first. He observed with fascination and true awe as she gracefully moved in combat and the powers she used! So much chaos, so much swiftness, so much hopelessness!

Hopelessness, this is what he felt when looking at her during combat, he would never want to be on the receiving end of her power. There was no point to fight against nightmares incarnated.

He has never seen such magic before, whether is was her or the thing inside her it didn't matter, they were a single entity and she was the wielder of their raw strength. He could already imagine what it would feel like to be able to possess only a scrape of her power, to be able to move through shadows.

This was unimaginable, they would finally realize what a mistake they made in rendering him useless.

Cynder would make a perfect Source, if the situation would have been different, if she would run into him in another time where things would be in his favor. He would suck out the magic from her marrow.

This was just a dream however.

Cold cruelty and justice is beyond his reach.

It pained him greatly to realize that it took a portal to a different realm to find a creature like her, he realized just how empty his own world is in that regard.

Just imagining if from where she came from, there could be more like her, the thought was intoxicating.

When he believed there was nothing that could surprise him more regarding his companions his eyes landed on Spyro. Sight drawn from Cynder by a sudden, incomprehensible nudge, what could be so interesting in a purple dragon when a creature of black scales is presenting him the show of his life.

He couldn't be more wrong.

Cynder surprisingly became unimportant.

Spyro was breathing ice from his mouth, not fire, but ICE. This image alone sucked the breath out of his lungs.

Spyro was normal, a typical dragon, without scars and mutations, without sacrifices. He was a normal dragon with unexpected powers.

Powers that were only fledgling.

He was sensitive to that kind of thing, Sources come with different potential, some are weak, some immeasurably strong. In Cynder's case the power she wielded was already matured, there was hardly any place to increase potency of the powers she already wielded, while unimaginably powerful these powers had a limit, somewhere far away, somewhere unreachable perhaps, but there was definitely a limit.

Both in potency and the repertoire of skills.

In Spyro's case however, this limit didn't exist, in his case magical potential was an endless void of possibilities. His abilities radiated with raw power, yet he knew this was merely a glimpse of the true potential he saw in him.

There weren't many things that scared him to death, golems and other powerful entities of this world are terrifying, more powerful than him, but all of them didn't make your perspective completely worthless. In this land of opportunity even the mightiest fall, it's all about perspective, which is never obscured if you pay enough attention and find the right key.

When it came to Spyro this perspective didn't exist.

Even if everybody said that the Constructor's creations are indestructible, deep down he sensed that this cannot be the truth. Not in this world that simply had a knack finding weakness.

Spyro had none.

Spyro was unbeatable, he was certain of that.

In a fair fight, where everyone is on the same ground, there was absolutely nothing that could stop him. How can you stop something that doesn't have an end after all?

Just like Spyro's power.

He would turn his gaze away in painful shame if not for some strange ringing inside his soul, as he stared at Spyro something strange was happening with him, he couldn't exactly explain what it was, but the feeling kept on ringing with what seemed to be the exact same tone over and over again.

Funny thing.

After a while he imagined himself breathing ice, the weird thing is that he actually believed he can do it.

"Diazen! Dude! Move!" Sparx reached the drake, slapping him across the snout

The smack wasn't as stimulating as the blinding yellow light that flashed right into his eyes.

The complete train of thought that was running through his head derailed with a huge boom at the deafening noise of roaring golems. He immediately remembered where he was and how unimaginably pitiful his chances look to fulfill his dreams.

One of the golem's looked their way, finding its prey.

Sparx immediately noticed that and measured the distance, it was a perfect space for a small, bone breaking wave of force, maybe even for a nice touch of scorching, melting eyeballs flames.

He cut the distance to the golem as quickly as he could, gesticulating at Diazen wildly.

"Don't move too far! Keep close, but out of reach of this guy!"

Of course he had to be lucky enough to face the newest type of these walking rocks. It was already fast, it's only fair for it to have a flame from the Dark Realms burning in its guts.

Every opportunity to lower the chances of survival of your opponent is a good opportunity.

Especially when you are the size of a guard tower and your opponent has the figure of a mouse.

Sparx flailed his arms.

"Over here you dumb brick!"

The golem ignored him, its attention entirely drawn to the purple dragon. It was already stirring up its arms for that one, special clap.

Sparx groaned and sped up his flight, protecting a purple dragon was something new to him, something he will probably never get used to. There were times of course when he assisted his brother, even a hero needs help once in a while. Spyro however lived up to his legend, growing into a type that can take care of himself, the privilege of the scales as the stories went.

Turns out it isn't as accurate as people made it to be.

A dragonfly raising in defense of a purple dragon, not like the extra dagger for that unexpected stab, but a shield. A shield that when dropped would mean the end of the purple wielder.

A purple dragon totally dependent on a dragonfly in battle.

No one would ever believe him if he told this story.

Someone must have been really drunk when he constructed the prophecy, bringers of peace and justice, how both can be achieved when you cannot fight for your goals?

With no better idea at his disposal Sparx smacked the rough rock, hitting the construct's arm.

Physical contact always drew the attention of the golems, it also drew their speed, in this particular example the speed was so much more potent.

The golem made a swift swing, letting out a growl so deep that fire flew from its gaping mouth. Sparx was fast in the air, speed during flight is one of dragonflies' greatest assets and yet he barely dodged the strike. The massive arm swinging above him rippled the air, creating gusts so uneven, strong and chaotic that t his quickly flapping wings couldn't keep up.

The gust alone pushed him away.

He kept on spinning in the air for a while until he finally recovered his balance, the world was making circles by this time in front of his eyes.

He shook his head, in time to notice the golem crossing its arms.

"Fuck!" he yelped, diving down fiercely and hiding behind the first step of the staircase

The world hummed all around him, he spotted Diazen sliding along the ground, thrown by the shockwave. There was a small flame in the form of a tear drop eating his body, beginning from the corner of his right wing.

His head hurt from all this ringing humming. He could only hope that the other two are pulling off something extraordinary.

For the sake of everyone.

The golems they attacked were slow and clearly overused, those were probably the constructs that supposed to watch over the garden. It was now understandable why there was an opinion circulating around that they are sensitive to control.

These golems were a very old construction, dangerous of course, but for those who knew what they were doing they were no match. They couldn't even be compared to hordes of the Dark Army. It speak volumes about a massive construct which's strength cannot be compared to the prowess of small creatures walking on two legs.

They might be making an intimidating impact on the dragons of this world, since they probably all wield fire and mainly fire, destroying something with the element that is the source of that something's creation is not the best of ideas.

Luckily, both of them had experience in dealing with the Keepers already and their prowess in battle escalated probably beyond anything the dragons of this world could see.

Both Spyro and Cynder were killing the force that kept their enemies alive.

His opponent didn't even manage to react properly and was already being defeated, Cynder was applying the same treatment to her enemy.

They just got into the fight and were already winning, things were going smoothly. He didn't understand why really, either they were that good, or were just lucky. Whatever the case may be he hoped that their streak won't end anytime soon.

It was then when Sparx screamed.

Spyro looked up, still striking at the golem which was already crumbling and on its knees, the fire within turned basically to ice. Instead of tongues of flames now only hissing mist wafted from the cracks in the rock.

His eyes widened momentarily, the ring was quickly heading his way, yet it was far enough for him to dodge it.

"Cynder!" he yelled, making sure his companion is also aware of the incoming danger, he was glad to see the golem she was fighting with practically melting under the pressure of her poison breath

Even from here he heard her gasping.

They don't have to look for cover long, the golems will serve as a perfect obstacle, more than enough to withstand a standard shockwave.

The problem was that there was nothing standard about this incoming force.

When the magical ring touched the golems on its way, they flared up like ignited oil, their insides burning like the brightest of lamps. Not only the constructs seemed to get infused by the magical arc, but even the ring itself.

It started to burn, fire circled around it as if around some disc, even from their positions Spyro and Cynder could already feel it being charged with the destructive magic of the Belt.

They ducked behind the crunched golems, both pressed their bellies to the cold rock, sinking their claws in the cracks and looking at each other.

Despite the circumstances they exchanged small smiles with each other, small proud smiles. Even despite that they were shackled no longer, they still mimicked each other's moves as if the green chain would still be wrapped around their necks.

The heated arch of force struck the golems they were holding on to.

The cold rocks heated immediately, the insides of the golems burst with fiery energy, exploded to be more precise, tongues of their magic hissed away together with the painful whines coming from their throats as they were forced away from the stones.

The Belt of fire lashed at their paws mercilessly.

The golems roared, flames wafting from their opened mouths like a fire breath from a dragon's mouth. The golems seemed rejuvenated, pushing themselves up momentarily, fire of the Belt blazing inside them, fighting off their own elements that cracked inside their bodies.

Spyro and Cynder gulped, something that was basically destroyed caught a second wind. And this was an older model of the golems, there are a couple here that are more up to date, how they can beat something that can heal itself during combat was beyond them.

It turned out that their fears partially resolved themselves.

Belt of fire is a destructive force, unfortunately for the golems also to some degree, it seemed like the powerful magic in its arrogance wasn't satisfied with scraps and ruin.

The golems they just beat up were exactly that.

The fire within them might have given them a surge of endurance, but it was of no use when the host was too weak to contain all that breath of life.

The revived constructs froze in place suddenly, the flames within them burned blindingly and began to bleed from nearly every part of the rocky body. The blares of the constructs were silenced, now only fire gushed through every opening, growing and growing in fierceness.

To deafening fierceness.

Spyro and Cynder realized too late what was happening.

With one, huge bang the Belt tore the weakened constructs apart, they exploded in a show of flying rocks and lashing tongues of flames.

Both dragons were close to the explosion, its aura burned their bodies, the hot shockwave sent then flying across the air and when they got struck by one of the shooting rocks their flight was directed into a numbing fall to the ground.

Spyro was too winded to even scream, a weak grunt was everything he managed to spit when he crushed into one of the carvings, which was just recently a dragon's head. He ripped off one of the black, rocky horns, the sharp stone ran right through his shoulder, spikey end projecting in the direction of his now bloodied, gold scales.

He hit the ground, dropping flat on his belly, the pain he felt in that moment was excruciating. He landed directly on the protruding spike, the impact forced it back into the wound, so roughly that it cut through every nerve and exposed bone possible until he could feel it swaying on the back of his body, clenching desperately to the straws of his flesh.

A pool of blood momentarily started to paint the floor below him.

Cynder hit the floor crosswise, the impact making her bounce like a ball, her body cracked tile after tile, followed by a snap here and there when parts of bones gave under the force of the crash. The part of the hall where she was hurled at led to the main exit door and as in every greeting hall the main path was always decorated the most.

She ruined some vases on her way, toppled a small plant here and there until her bouncing turned into a quick, rolling slide across the floor. Blood splattered from her head, blocking her vision occasionally, during one of those breaks she managed to spot where exactly she is heading.

Directly at some stony column, with rocky rings surrounding it in places, keeping an even space between the rings, as if making sure to catch every level of height of a growing dragon when he stands on two legs.

Nothing bad.

If not for the fact that the rings were spiked, rocky collars and one of those rings was exactly on the level of her head. With a groan Cynder began fighting against the momentum, managing to push herself onto her butt eventually, with the force of the throw still dragging her along the earth.

There was no way she could avoid that, the only thing she could do was to minimize the damage.

She forced a spin, her rump burning already from all this scratching against the stone, she no longer faced the spikes, aiming her back at them she craned her body forward to keep it as far away from the rough collar as possible.

In this sitting position her head was safe from the spikes, that was the most important thing, the rest was about minimizing damage.

She spread her wings and threw them back, into a very uncomfortable position behind her back, her joints already started to sting.

She could feel the spikes approaching.

"Sugar!" Creep howled, she liked to imagine that his hollow voice was pulsing with worry

"I've got this" she hissed, tightly clenching her teeth together

That was a lie, there was no way to prepare oneself for something like this.

Disgusting, crunching sound filled her head when her wing membranes impaled into the spikes, three spikes pierced her wings. The membrane had no veins, hence there was no blood, their nervous system is there, but hid under the flexible combination of flesh and bone so deeply whatever strike they take is usually an uncomfortable numb.

A perfect, natural shield.

But unfortunately a shield can break.

And when a draconic one does, the pain that accompanies it is indescribable.

She heard some stories about that, a membrane in theory is a more formidable part of the body, no different than a leg or paw, when sliced through all hurt the same, at least when it comes to physical pain. The legends say that when a wing membrane is broken it is not only your body that is screaming, but also your soul, dragons are meant to fly and when something happens that prevents such thing from happening the soul weeps.

And its wail is agonizing.

She tried to ease her suffering by any means possible.

She tried to imagine Spyro in front of her, the stretching thrust she felt caused by his dragonhood sliding into her, the crunching sound filling her head as their combined, blissful moans, the slap as his groin smacking into her own and finally the warmth she felt as his breath wafting into her mouth as he kissed her.

It didn't help.

Sharp, rocky spikes were responsible for the thrusting, her breaking membranes for the crunching, her wings for the slap as they hit the column and finally the warmth triggered by her boiling nervous system.

Her mouth parted open.

She howled in agony.

Sparx shivered.

The explosion and the full of suffering howl of Cynder wasn't what he had in mind when he thought about extraordinary. She screamed, very powerfully, that meant she lived through the explosions and was not about to give up.

Not the best good news he heard in his life, but he'll take them nevertheless.

Two golems were down, four are still remaining, sadly for them these two pairs were Belt Keepers.

The dust was still settling on the battlefield, even massive walking rocks like the golems seemed to quiet down after the rumbling explosions. Powerful as they may be, explosion the size of a castle full of dynamite made an impact on them.

When he popped his head out from behind the staircase he noticed two golems on either row that were close to the exploding ones picking themselves from the ground. Blazing streams of fire were slipping through the cracks in the golems bodies like saliva from a drooling mouth.

The golem that was after him previously didn't change its course, now followed by its other companion, both fully recovered from the blast and looking for more action.

For the first time in his life he wished that all of his arrogant blabbering about his magnificence and skills had some merit.

The golem near him swung its massive arms, despite the bulkiness they dropped down sharply as if they weighted nothing.

Sparx pushed back with a yelp, the heavy fists turned the step of the staircase he was hiding behind to shreds.

"Crap!" he blurted out, with arms covering his face he looked through the fingers of his hand as he maneuvered through the flying debris

Somewhere from behind the dust another of the golems roared, he spotted through the specks of clean air its stirring with heat body.

He didn't even have to feel the ground trembling to know that it was charging.

A fireball shot suddenly from the side, striking the golem right into its bent and pushed forward knee during one particular stride.

Fire doesn't work on these things, but that didn't mean that a concussive force of an exploding ball of flame also falls under the same rule.

The golem tottered, the blow crippling its run, sending it swaying to the side, massive hands twirled in the air looking for support. When they found a column the ceiling screeched in agony when the column supporting it grew visible cracks on its surface.

Diazen was lucky, he hit the knee when it was vulnerable and exposed.

However his luck ended as quickly as it begun because now the golem found another target to punch its aggression into.

With a roar the golem sprang up and momentarily charged its aggressor, moving swiftly as if its limbs were made of feathers than actual rock. During its run their opponent clenched its fists together and raised the rocky bulge above its head.

Sparx' eyes widened, he immediately dashed in the direction of the attacking golem, smacking it across the artificial face, unfortunately for him a tongue of flame decided to push out from one of the cracks.

He yelped, it felt like being stabbed by dragon horns.

The golem dropped its arms in annoyance, smashing its fists into the floor.

Diazen jumped back just in time, hitting the dropped hand with another fireball just for good measure, intention fueled by his previous victory. Intention that was unaware that this particular golems are not only resistant to elemental energy, but also draw power from it like parasites, providing the one who granted it to them taste of his own poison.

The Keeper's hands started to grow brightly, the rocky fingers straightened, tearing parts of the floor and then clenched back again. In that moment the bright light shot from the cracks in the golem's natural armor in the form of a fiery blaze.

Diazen wasn't ready for something like this.

He started to run, covering himself behind his wings.

He wasn't fast enough.

The flames scorched his natural shield, while he screamed in pain he couldn't understand how it is possible that Spyro can withstand so much while he cannot. They had the same scales after all.

When the heat melted away the color off the hollow bone on his wings he realized that the shade of one's body has nothing to do with anything.

There are many purple dragons here, despite the differences here and there, all of them were just like him. It didn't matter how exactly colored Spyro was. As he screamed himself hoarse he came to a conclusion that scales do not make the dragon.

It was the individual that mattered, that certain spark of supreme identity that only a handful poses.

When his mouth impulsively clamped down and fangs pierced the lips he realized emotionlessly that he didn't have such a spark.

It was the bouncing of the ground and the tremors rippling his own blood that made him look up.

One of the Keepers was heading his way.

Each step it made sent small shocks along the ground, the blood from his wounded shoulder kept on spitting up small splatters which started to dot his snout with red, thick, small streaks.

Spyro groaned, forcing a roll onto his back, he pressed his paw to the wound and used the trick he learnt from Iris, freezing the flow for the time being, the rest regeneration will have to handle.

If they want all to live, there is no time to hold back.

There was a clap, he knew instantly that a shockwave is coming his way.

He rolled back on his belly, ignoring the discomfort in his shoulder and sprung into the air, as high as he could go, just barely avoiding the magical ring.

He began to spin, Ice flowing through him he began to hurl icy shards everywhere, purposely forcing the golem to stop and absorb all the energy.

By the roaring he recognized that the hulking stone was about to burst.

He dived, turning into a boulder just when all the magic he sent was thrown back at him. The magical shell protected him from the worst, he had to spend some elemental resources to keep the form under all this pressure.

When the blizzard he created stopped lashing at him he cut off his Earth powers and returned to his natural form which he once again immediately lifted into the sky.

With the construct partially slowed down he could direct himself only in one direction.

Deciding that only with Cynder in team they have a chance to beat this things in a reasonable amount of time before their companions die.

Neither Sparx nor Diazen could defend themselves from the Keepers.

"Sugar!"

"Oh don't sugar me now Creep!" she squealed out a cry as she pushed her wings forward, trying to unglue herself from the fucking spikes

All she managed to do though was to squeeze more tears from her eyes and irritate her nerves more. The uncomfortable position she was in causing each jerk to tear more of the membranes than actually helping in any way of dislodging herself from the collar with as little amount of pain as possible.

"You are hurt Sugar! Mistake! I warned! I warned!" Creep wept with her, she was too busy being in pain to be bothered by his screeching, grinding wail similar to claws raking across stone

The ground shook, a golem was heading her, or their, way.

She squealed.

"Yeah, yeah, I didn't listen" she whined "Sue me" squeaking she tried to push again, she felt like she was making actual progress this time

Until another, disgusting crunch.

She howled again, slamming back into the spikes, she severed another sensitive nerve and the pain that shot through her was nauseating. She never before had her wings wounded, it was unbearable.

Everything was spinning.

She retched, nothing came out of her mouth however.

The figure of the golem grew bigger.

"Fuck" she rasped, spitting on the ground "You can do it Cynder"

"You are...in pain Sugar"

Curiosity.

He was fascinated by her plight.

She didn't know why she found that funny.

She cackled.

"You don't say. And here I thought I was being tickled. Silly me"

The golem roared, he was quite close now.

She narrowed her eyes on the approaching construct.

"I do not like seeing you in pain. I do not like pain" Creep stated blatantly, his realization sounding like a scientific statement done after a successful experiment

So very blatant.

"You don-"

Thump-Thump-Thump.

Her mouth snapped itself tightly shut, she cocked her head, for a moment completely forgetting about the agony, her whole attention drawn to the surprising sound.

Did she just hear a beating heart?

The golem roared, spotting its prey.

She gasped, not because her enemy was about to begin its deadly charge, but because her paws unexpectedly started to pulse with magical energy. She looked at her fores and her eyes nearly popped from shock.

Her claws were gleaming with a poisonous green light, tongues of the same toxin danced from the tips of her natural blades like strands of hair on a wind.

"Melt the spikes"

She gulped, feeling extremely uneasy

"I...I cannot melt rock with poison"

"This is acid"

"A-Acid?"

"Melt the spikes" Creep commanded

She couldn't resist that order, or she simply didn't want to it was hard to tell with a charging golem right in her direction.

She rose her fores and grabbed onto the protruding rock from her wings. In a moment's notice she felt her grip becoming weaker and weaker, with each passing second the thing that served as her holding point was shrinking inch by a quick inch.

A green drop like tear splattered on her chest.

She looked up, she had to look up, just in time noticing the rock completely green form of the spike, disintegrating into toxic liquid in front of her eyes.

Everything lasted maybe two seconds and her wounded wings were free.

She flopped down the column, her butt roughly smacking into the floor.

The pain subsided momentarily, in between pulses of ache she could swear that she heard her soul thanking her.

The golem roared deafeningly, five or six more strides and it will be on top of her.

It all changed the moment a burning whip lashed from the sky and encircled one of the golem's leg, the one that it was actually kicking backwards. She followed the trail, immediately spotting Spyro in the sky holding onto the other end.

He jerked his body fiercely, the golem's leg twisted unnaturally to the side, when it moved to press against the ground once more the foot didn't connect with the earth, there was nothing that balance of the construct's body was used to.

The Keeper fell forward, crushing into the ground with a rumbling noise and furious roar, the pulse of magic that forced it down was sent back at the one who dared to interfere.

Spyro sighed, knowing all too well where this was going, he had no idea how exactly defend himself from the Belt's recoil without taking any damage. He always got hurt, and it never were stupid scratches or burns either, no matter how well he sealed himself behind his wings a tendril of that fire always found a crack through which it burned his body.

Even the earth boulder wasn't perfect and it was supposed to protect him from anything.

He didn't know if the Belt of Fire can be stopped.

That thought alone made him feel incomplete, as if he would be missing something, it was probably his conscience speaking. He saved the world once, true, but to do that he used all of his energy. The Belt here is a common, typical enemy like a grublin, it can continue attacking unendingly while he, besides spending all of his resources to defeat one blaze, had no counter attack.

There was still so much he didn't know.

He pressed his wings together, transforming into a boulder in the meantime, the gravity already began taking its toll on his morphing, dragging him down.

The recoiled magical energy struck him back, sizzling with the Belt's destructive force.

He yelled through clenched teeth when his magical, round form turned red out of a sudden, stabbing him like small daggers in every possible place, going deeper and deeper with each second.

With a painful roar he threw his wings open, casting aside the elemental energy from him, the fading frame of his shell still spat tongues of flames as it dispersed in the air.

His scales were undulating as if worms would be slithering underneath them, every small bump stung like hell.

"We must kill this thing Cynder!" he roared from the sky, feeling extreme relief to be able to spit out all that ache "Together, while it's down! Sparx is in trouble, we don't have time to waste! Quickly, before the other one comes!"

Cynder charged immediately, narrowing her eyes on the fallen construct.

"My wings are a mess! I can't fly! Just a warning!"

Spyro didn't see anything from here, he couldn't worry about that now though. Even if wounded Cynder seemed to be fine, this is far more than he could have asked for in the midst of a battle anyway.

He knew where his focus must be concentrated and that is their common enemy.

"You are not prepared Sugar" Creep intoned emotionlessly

"Thanks for the prep talk" Cynder growled, she was more angry at the golem right now that was a threat to her and her friends than Creep's blunt wisdom

"I feel like I can move the mountains already. Nice job"

"Spyro is helping, we are one Sugar, we can defeat the copies with minimal effort"

She reluctantly slowed down her charge.

"I don't have time to play your games Creep. Straight to the point. How?"

"As one. You must unravel the knot. Dangerous now, there is a risk that the Wanderer will take advantage"

Cynder groaned in irritation.

"Whatever, do what you want, I don't have the time to play your games, you hear me? You do you, I do my, end of conversation"

She sped up again.

"Consent is the first tug" the black orbs on her horns and tail burst like bubbles

She didn't feel Creep at all, she swore to herself this is the last time he abandons her during battle.

"Wonderful" she sped up her charge once more, poking at her element

Surprisingly it was there.

The hall suddenly grew darker as if a moon would overlap the braziers and torches.

Everything then with a blink of an eye returned to normal.

Cynder's eyes widened when she felt something crawling suddenly underneath her scales, she looked down, spotting pulsing dark veins stretching down her magenta scales, scratching at them from the bottom side.

It was like termites would be eating her from the inside. This particular ones had a taste for flesh however.

It wasn't the end of the weird and strange.

She couldn't really describe it, but she felt the similar worm undulating her scales all around her, she could feel wiggling inside other bodies.

Bodies that soon materialized from splotches of shadow or appeared from behind columns.

She looked around with wide eyes, creatures of living, twirling shadow appeared in the room, their white eyes gleaming coldly as they stared at the fallen golem.

She recognized these creatures.

She saw one of those pitch-dark unsubstantial beings before, one stood with its dark sword risen over sleeping Spyro back in the cave near the cheetah village.

She didn't imagine it after all.

They were plenty of them all over the place, all focused on the golem, at least a dozen was with her and she could feel every single one of them.

Her head dropped down to look at her chest again, driven by a strong, unexplainable impulse.

There were exactly twelve dark veins pulsing below her scales.

For some reason she wasn't scared, or uneasy, she felt strangely confident. It was weird maybe, but she felt that right now she can at least be of some kind of help to Spyro when fighting those damn rocks.

When the life of her friends is on the line this is all that matters.

Her shadowy companions turned into small clouds of dark fog and dashed forward, following right in her tracks, she could feel her excitement pulsing through each and every one of them.

Every vein like a small, beating heart.

They were truly one after all.

Spyro stared wide eyed and with mouth hanging open at his attacking mate, all of his previous statement and dedication to the cause faltered. He didn't like what was happening with Cynder, he knew Creep was behind it all.

And he didn't like Creep even more.

The worst thing however that he didn't like was the worry, it was eating him up hungrily.

Even despite the fact that Cynder seemed perfectly fine.

The construct roared, the earth rumbled under its fiery blare, it started to pick itself up from the floor.

It was enough to wake him up and remind where his priorities lie in this current moment.

He dived sharply, sending alternately earth and ice missiles at the exposed neck before he stretched his body even further, cutting through the sky with great speed, air around him rippled with green, elemental energy.

The projectiles connected one after the other, he perfectly measured the distance and smacked into the golem's neck right after the projectiles, not letting the construct charge its counter attack, not until he finishes what he started.

Green waves of energy stretched across the golem's neck, the weakest spot on its neck cracking.

There was a loud roar and momentarily the golem released a wave of fiery energy, it didn't however take the form of a ring instantly, first it fought against the lines of earth spreading through its body.

The Belt had no troubles burning its enemy away.

This however bought Spyro enough time to push away from the golem in search of a hiding spot.

"Cynder! Watch out!"

She didn't stop, nor did her companions, even when the released a wave of scorching energy.

The golem was rejuvenated, instantly rising up while the thirteen charging beings sunk into the ground, avoiding the wave with ease.

Cynder reappeared a moment later, followed by her companions. She jumped onto the golem, climbing up its arm while the shadows blinked towards the creature, slicing it from every spot once with their dark swords before forming one, single mass of swirling darkness in a shape of a collar.

It wrapped itself around the golem's leg and jerked it fiercely, forcing the construct back down.

Her paws burned, but she kept on climbing, now with ease due to the fact that the mountain she was climbing dropped flat on the ground, changing from vertical angle to horizontal.

She reached the neckline, using her natural agility, with her acid imbued claws she slashed the weakened by Spyro crack in the golem's neck, shattering it completely and opening the hole to the sizzling essence of the golem.

Holding her ground she breathed poison into the fiery cave, her magic was mixing itself with the golem's essence perfectly, to make sure her powers come on top of this union she spiced the struggle with a little wind.

"KNOT!"

Creep howled and so did the golem, it was a blare like no other, she didn't know if it was so loud because it screamed its rocky lungs out, or because the combined shout of both the golem and Creep was simply so deafening.

The rumbling roar was enough to make her totter.

Spyro dived, in the air turning into a boulder to make sure that gravity speeds up his fall, he saw like the golem was charging with fiery energy from above.

Not to mention that it broke from the dark bond that was holding it in place.

Before he reached the golem he casted away his round form and spat three leafy bombs into the cavity on the golem's neck before scooping Cynder from the heating body.

She gasped softly as she was lifted into the air.

At this moment more roars filled the room, coming with whole certainty from the other three Keepers, obviously finally realizing who is the real danger here.

This was bad news.

They need to make progress or they will be overwhelmed.

Cynder as if sensing Spyro's thoughts wished for the same thing to happen.

The black veins on her chest formed a single line.

The shadowy fog rose up, stopping right at the hole in the neck, it stretched up, forming what could be a long, black spear. Then that spear leapt and dove into the opening.

The line vanished from the feminine, magenta chest.

The charging of the golem suddenly change from fiery red to a combination of bright green and black, as if an explosion of both elements that ravaged the Keeper from the inside was caused by those two elements molding into a big bomb.

The golem ceased its wild roaring, the fire that fueled it with life died down, extinguished entirely.

The Keeper shattered unceremoniously.

"We got it" Spyro exhaled deeply

Cynder nodded with her own pant of relief, only then realizing that there was something warm constantly dripping on her shoulder and nose sometimes.

It was red.

It was blood.

"Spyro! You're bleeding!" she looked up, spotting the hole in his shoulder

Shoulder that was constantly put through stress due to the fact that it has to carry her whole weight.

He threw the wound an ignorant glance.

"I'm fine"

"Put me down this instant!" she commanded

This was the tone he couldn't win against no matter how hard he tried, he complied, putting his companion gently on the ground. He landed next to her, with wounded leg bend in the air.

"It's already healing" he said, answering the obvious, still not asked question

"Not when you have to carry my ass around" she retorted

"Can we take a raincheck on my recklessness and focus on the battle, please?"

She snorted, she didn't want to argue also.

"You're lucky that I love you"

He winked at her.

"How do we do this? We won't be able to bleed them out one by one now, they are going to draw strength from each other when they are so close together"

"I would propose to drag one of them away, but I don't know how much Creep is going to withstand" Cynder added her own thoughts

"Minimal effort Sugar" Creep replied

"Sorry Creep, but your scream from earlier kinda spooked me, besides I don't know what is going on between us. I can improvise quite good when facing a single enemy, but not a whole group. We need to find a better solution"

Spyro frowned, there was only one way to strike all three golems at same time.

"We can Convexity their asses, we know where to aim now"

"What about the Destroyer Spyro? That thing will stomp us if we deplete our juice"

That was the risk, yes, yet somehow he felt that his idea was good nevertheless, not only because there is a chance that he won't have to listen to his friends painful screaming, but also he had that weird feeling that the Destroyer, Wander or whatever doesn't really want them dead.

Or at least him.

The only thing that rendered that sensation stupid was the fact that they are currently fighting for their lives.

"I'll take being tired instead of broken and bloody any day"

"Do not listen Sugar" Creep boomed, his voice sounding more stern then usual, as if holding back a growl

"Minimal effort, we can destroy. No need to waste, no need to tie back again. You are not prepared"

Cynder scratched her choker thoughtfully.

"Spyro has a point, it'll be easier for someone to distract those things than fight them head to snout"

"Knot Sugar, knot!"

Spyro snarled, that dark thing was irritating him so very much, it was like it purposely didn't agree with his every idea.

It.

Not so long ago Creep was a person and now he returned to being a thing...something.

He preferred it that way to be honest.

"What is your problem Creep? You're always disagreeing with me, us, better get use to the fact that we are calling the shots here. You are just here for a ride"

The black swirling orbs pulsed as if threatening to explode right in his snout, but then as quickly as they swelled, they shrunk back again to their original size.

"Mistake" Creep stated coldly, it was like a blow of wind, sounding again hollow and practically indifferent, the black fire on her horns and tail died down completely

"We're doing it, let's melt those guys" Cynder stated, making up her mind, coming to a conclusion that it was better to end the danger earlier and worry about what's to come later

The roars of the golems grew louder, the earth wept under their rumbling steps. They were charging them from across the hall.

"I'll get their attention!" Spyro exclaimed, leaping into the sky "You find Sparx and Diazen! We need that distraction!"

Cynder sprung to the other side, making a wide arch to make sure the golems will lose attention, or not spot her at all.

One went after her, that is at least for a while, until Spyro drew its attention to himself by zapping it with an electric arch.

To make sure the golems remain focused on him he started his own, small blizzard, spinning in the air with a small, freezing tornado surrounding him he spat icy shard after icy shard at the Keepers.

What was once cold and blue slowly transformed into warm and red. Two of the Keepers slapped their massive hands, the wave of magic they created sucked the fiery air and then unleashed it at the hovering in the air young dragon.

Spyro sighed, the effort that it takes to make everything right is taxing,

And painful.

So damn painful.

He dived to the best of his ability, with the intention to slam into the floor using his element, anything just to speed up the process of descent. No matter how hard he tried he wasn't fast enough, the scorching arches of the Belt still managed to touch him.

As he gritted his teeth and let out agonizing whizz through them he felt as some of his scales popped under the pressure of this heat. He never let his teeth part their clench, doing everything he can to make Cynder remain focused on the task, while at the same time keeping the Keepers from pestering her.

Despite the pain he attacked once more, throwing a fireball at the trio of constructs, it goes without saying that they remained unscathed by the attack.

However he found something else when spitting flames at them, this time there was no magical recoil, the golems that were grazed weren't affected at all, yet the one construct that received the blunt force of the attack seemed to feed on the flames, its essence flashing brighter.

And that was it.

He had a feeling that there was some nasty consequence waiting for him if he would feed the golem mindlessly. He won't definitely find out what it was exactly today, right now he was concentrated on something else entirely.

On the fact that the golems didn't counterattack with their magical bolt and yet remained focused on him despite not receiving any damage.

He immediately pushed as far as possible from them, pulling them away from sneaking Cynder, the only downfall of this move was to dodge three incoming waves.

So very, very taxing.

"Sparx! Diazen!" Cynder yelled whenever a roar resounded in the hall, or some other different, loud noise

"Cyn! Over here!"

It was Sparx, his voice strangely muffled.

She immediately dashed forward, the part of the hall near the entrance they used to get here was covered in white, thick dust. It didn't take long for her to see what was the reason behind it.

The huge staircase collapsed, dragging behind quite a hefty part of several columns, ruining also the nearby carvings and decorations.

It was like the first glimpse into the ruins that they saw in their world.

For a second she stopped, struck by an enlightening thought. The part of this place that got locked in their era was ruined and old and that was definitely the part of this complex near the lava room. They ascended the same staircase after all and passed through the same magically sealed door.

And yet this place was intact.

It was like the Veil dragged the nearby material presence of this world and aged it accordingly to fit the scenery of their time.

She shook her head, this was undoubtedly a very interesting insight, but she simply wasn't allowed to think about things like that right now.

"Sparx!" she cried out, coughing occasionally, choking on the dusty fog

"Here!"

Her head snapped in the direction of the shout, without thinking she ran into the thick mist, holding her breath. She couldn't see a thing through this choking fog, squinting her eyes she pushed forward.

She tripped over something rough, sharp and round.

She didn't even manage to gasp since momentarily she crashed into some debris, with her fores down she had no chance to somehow lessen the impact. Her snout collided first, she cut her chin, nose, lips and cheek on the obscured rocks, the double impact turned her around, making her twist her hind paw in an unnatural angle causing a numbing bolt to shoot through the leg and slam her shoulder on the rocks, cutting it.

"Fuck!" she growled, clenching her jaw

"I'm right here Cyn!"

The shout came from right in front of her.

She threw her head up, narrowing her gaze,, she saw him, she saw a faint yellow glow through the milky dust. It was coming from behind the debris she crashed into.

Sparx was buried alive.

"Watch out!" she pressed her paws against the rock "I'm going to get you out of there, stay back!"

She kicked with her fores, hurling rocks behind her, she dug through the debris like a mole, her only intention to free her friend from the choking prison, she didn't care that she sliced her scales on the rough edges sometimes.

The exertion caused her to inhale deeply on occasion, this always triggered a fit of cough. Luckily Sparx was a dragonfly so she didn't have to listen to the noise of dropping rocks for long to make a hole big enough for Sparx to fit through.

"Freedom!" he shot from the hole, choking on the dust as a result of this shout

She was panting and coughing yet she managed to smile, licking off a droplet of her blood that dripped in the corner of her mouth. Never before she was so glad to see this annoying little bugger.

He was also bleeding, something she found creepily fascinating and scary. Never before she had seen a bleeding dragonfly, a creature so fast and small has a talent for avoiding injuries. The fact that he is bleeding only proved how close it was.

"Are you alright?"

He looked himself over, he would take having little cuts over being buried alive any day of the week. He discarded her worries with an indifferent wave of hand.

"I'm magnificent remember?" he looked her over with a wince "You look however like you rubbed your face against sand paper one too many times"

"Did it add to my charm or not?" she presented her snout to him, turning it from side to side with a little smirk "This is important"

"Cyn, darling, that train is long gone"

She giggled, choking on the dust, but it was worth it, Sparx was truly fine.

"You're here, so I guess Spyro is the reason behind all that noise?"

The roaring of golems and explosion of magic to some degree answered that question, his brother knew how to cause a mess when he wants to.

That was his blood after all.

"We're going to Convexity wreck them, you need to distract those things so we can aim at their necks"

"They kinda lost interest in me, that guy that attacked us destroyed all this stuff while chasing Diazen, he'll drag them off if he's still breathing"

Cynder looked around the fog, coughing occasionally.

"Where is he? I don't know how long Spyro can hold on"

Sparx cleared his throat, pointing forward he dashed into the last known direction of the drake.

"He was somewhere there the last time I saw him"

She followed him, relieved that his glow provided some kind of guidance in this damn dust.

"Diazen!" both of them called out the name of their companion

They could hear nothing besides the rumbling noise of the ongoing fight.

The faint light of Sparx' glow danced within the dust.

"I don't see him, he should be here somewhere"

"Diazen!" she cried out, he might not be the most nicest and trustworthy of dragons, but in this ugly adventure he was their companion and basic honor demanded to assist him

He didn't answer.

She began to feel really anxious by the second.

"Dude! Where are you?"

"Diazen!"

Her paw kicked something.

At first she made nothing of it, it was difficult to see anything due to the hanging dust, but then after few steps and another shout growing in her throat she stopped.

She was walking in a straight line and the thing she kicked bounced off the side of her paw.

She didn't kick it.

It was thrown at her.

"Sparx!" she called him and plunged her head into the fog, eventually finding the thing that struck her paw.

It was a small, bloodied stone.

She went the most probable direction from which it might have arrived, judging by the weak force of the throw it was quite easy to say that whoever threw the rock can't be far away. With her nose basically touching the floor she could see and smell draconic blood, the scent getting more potent with each step.

Sparx joined her sniffing nose, illuminating the path with his natural light.

Eventuality her head was filled with rough rasping and shallow breathing, tip of a purple tail soon appeared before their eyes, its bottom side presented to them. They both trailed its length until they found stretched hind paws, the soles directed at their faces.

The owner was clearly sitting.

They trailed the waist, chest and neck, more nervous the higher they went due to the increasing amount of blood. Their eyes eventually landed on Diazen's snout.

He was alive.

Panting and rasping heavily he stared at them with huge, filled with terror eyes, both his front legs were clutching his neck, they were bloodied beyond belief, not because they were injured, but because there was blood constantly trickling through his toes.

Cynder gasped, dragons are powerful creatures with strong regeneration capabilities, yet as every creature they had a weakness.

Every predator knew that the greatest strength and the greatest weakness in a hunt is the throat. When torn apart not even the most advanced regeneration abilities can kick in, especially when usually there are more wounds than only a single bite when neck is involved.

No dragon, no creature would allow an obvious enemy to its throat without a fight. You cannot win with a survival instinct.

All this knowledge filled her with dread.

She jumped towards Diazen.

"Sparx, give me some light"

He hissed when he fulfilled her wish.

"Shit"

She sat down, extending her paws towards Diazen's bloodied ones.

"Show me this"

His raspy panting increased in strength, his eyes grew even wider as he shook his head.

"Show me the wound Diazen" she touched his legs

He growled, trying to push himself deeper into the wall he was leaning against, away from her needy paws.

She grabbed onto his paws gently, caringly looking straight into his eyes.

"Let me see it, it might not be life threatening, but I must examine it. Please, allow me to help you"

She applied pressure on his legs, tenderly pushing them down.

Diazen stared back at her in terror, she could clearly see that he was more afraid of hearing bad news than actually the fact that she would interrupt his healing process.

"Please" she tugged a little more sternly

His paws slowly slid down.

Cynder nodded sharply, Sparx understood the signal and with an abhorrent whine moved closer to the bleeding neck. Covering his mouth and turning his back to the injury he illuminated the throat as best as he could.

The paws dropped finally, revealing the injury.

The first thing she noticed was the blood flow, it was profuse and steady, but not spurting, she was no healer but as a warrior who saw and caused many veins to shatter she could tell the symptoms of a broken artery.

One of the obvious ones was spurting blood like from a geyser.

She didn't see it here.

In all honesty this was everything she could tell about the injury, her knowledge was limited in this matter, but luckily was enough to come up with a diagnosis.

She nudged his legs to return in their previous position, Diazen tightened his grip around the wound.

He was staring at her with scared, begging eyes. Nothing remained of his previous pride and arrogance. No matter your social standing, in the face of death everyone is equal.

"You're going to live, no arteries are nicked, it's muscle blood. Calm your breathing to relax the neck and you should slow down the blood loss a little"

His eyes glimmered with disbelief.

Cynder smiled kindly at him, she wasn't certain if her ugly, cut mug could radiate this warmth however.

"Something got stuck in your body? We need to pull out any foreign object to speed up the regeneration process, otherwise it will focus too much on removing the unnatural things"

"Please don't lick it, please don't lick it, please don't lick it" Sparx shut his eyes and began muttering suddenly, his mind filled with memories of Cynder cleaning Spyro's wounds in the lava

He immediately imagined her sucking herself to Diazen's neck and drinking the blood.

He gagged, he was about to throw up.

Only a soft, amused sigh escaped her throat, her focus remained locked on Diazen.

He shook his head.

"Good, if you don't strain your neck the blood flow should end quickly, the first thing regeneration does is to prevent all those things that keep you alive from leaking out. It's like a magical plug. I know it might sound weird, especially when you are scared, bleeding and in pain, but try to relax. We need your help"

"Cyn" Sparx raised one finger in the air while clearing his throat into the fist that he was pressing to his mouth "Small objection. You shouldn't be mixing words like pain, bleed with help together. Your request kinda lose on attractiveness"

There was a loud explosion somewhere behind them, followed by some roaring.

Cynder winced.

"There is no time for semantics. Spyro is out there fighting those things to buy us time to regroup. Get up Diazen, we need you to distract the golems"

"W-What?" the drake let out a raspy blurt, blood gushed through his toes as he instinctively jerked his head back

"We're going to destroy those things all you'll need to do will be to draw those things attention, only for a moment. We'll do the rest"

Diazen started to trash again, his mouth opening up once more, all of it was quickly cut off by Cynder who slammed his mouth shout and grabbed him by the horn to steady his impulsive head movement.

"You can stay here and wait for those things to kill us all or you can do something about it and help us this last time. There is no turning back, you must go forward Diazen. You are a purple dragon, show those walking rocks what it means to be one.

Another explosion, another roar.

A cold finger of dread tapped a quivering melody across her spine.

"Now" she let go off his mouth

"I...I can't run anymore" he rasped, swallowing bulge after bloody bulge, her grip on his horn somewhat relaxing and so very much guiding

Even when wounded and basically humiliated he still had enough sparks of pride within him to don't make himself look entirely pathetic in the face of a female giving him clear directions on how to behave.

"You won't have to, those things will be rubble the moment they turn towards you"

He didn't want to do that, for him the plan seemed insane, but Cynder was right in one case, he had no other choice. There was no turning back now, not when he went all in into this mess.

Another rumbling noise.

"GUYS!" Spyro roared impatiently at the top of his lungs k, even from this sound it was obvious that he was in pain.

Cynder jumped up, startled and worried.

"Now Diazen"

Not waiting for him to get up she turned around, marching towards her mate. Slowly, but steadily, Sparx keeping her company.

After a short while Diazen caught up with them, limping behind the nearly still black tail.

"Fireball at the three of them on my mark, watch for a black smoke" without looking back she turned her calm pace into a sprint "Stay behind their backs!"

Sparx hovered near Diazen, just in case, making sure that he pulls through his part of the plan.

Cynder sunk into shadows, crossing the hall as fast as she could and making her way towards the golems and her fighting friend. Following the trail of elemental energy he was leaving behind.

She popped out right next to him, when it came to sensing Spyro she was already an expert in this matter. After all this time she spent drooling and running after him she had to learn something, even if she wouldn't want to.

They were currently hiding behind a long, horizontal statue that was a fountain, it depicted once a beautifully carved from obsidian battle scene. Now after all this fighting that Spyro initiated they no longer needed statues and mosaics reminding them of skirmishes when this room alone is a big fighting scene in itself.

Currently the statue they were hiding behind was chipped and ruined, but still big enough to provide some sort of cover.

Cynder's eyes landed on Spyro, he was panting, his chest was heaving quickly, wet tongue hung from his mouth, sweat covered muscles pulsed with exertion. If they would be in a bedroom right now a sight like that would be extremely sexy and mind numbing, especially if she would be the reason for him to go for all this pleasurable work

Circumstances were different however.

This tiredness had nothing to do with pleasurable weariness. His body was strained, muscles pulsed because they were unendingly put under pressure of typical, hard, physical labor, specific only for a warrior. His panting body was covered in blood and cuts, the hole in his shoulder reopened and bleeding profusely, it was still the most horrible wound she could see, which was good in its own, sad way.

That didn't change the fact that he gained some more injuries, some merely scratches, others worse, for instance he had quite a serious cut on his nose. His condition was probably worse than the eye can see at first glance, there wasn't much blood because his body was dotted with burn marks, plenty of them, making his scales unnaturally bulgy.

When fighting those golems however physical, visible wounds were not the worst case, magic has a way of injuring someone from the inside, especially concussive force, she knew a thing or two about that.

Spyro showed signs of tormented insides.

The wet tongue was not dripped in saliva, but blood, tears of it were dripping from the tip of his hanging tongue. A stream of this same fluid was trickling down the corner of his mouth.

Despite all of this he looked strong still, formidable despite the wounds that would make more than one dragon bend under the weight of pain.

Besides that Spyro's body was covered in dust, plaster and dotted with occasional small piece of rock here and there. It was obvious that he never tried fighting the golems, only stalling them, saving his energy by seeking constant cover behind columns or statues like the one they were behind now.

"How are you holding up?" Cynder inquired, watching him closely

The roars of the golems grew wider, their heavy steps tearing rock after rock from their hiding place. He knew she was coming before she jumped from the shadow, his eyes remained focused and narrowed on the cracking fountain.

His nose however began sniffing at the air which in turn forced his eyes to shift a little, enough to spot her maimed snout. With a blink they returned to their vigil. His heart was stabbed by the sight of his hurt mate, soul shed a bloody, guilty tear, the one he was supposed to protect was hurt and in pain.

He didn't let it eat him up however, Cynder was a warrior herself and on a battlefield you need to accept some cruel facts, for example a fact that your friends can and most likely will get hurt and there is hardly anything you can do about it.

Only when they die you might be blamed.

"Fine" Spyro replied sternly, his voice as tense as his muscles "You?"

"Sore, but not complaining"

"Boys?"

"Hurt, but alive. Waiting for our signal"

A big tremor ran along the ground, tearing a head from one of the rocky figures on the fountain.

He licked his lips, smearing blood on his sharp fangs.

"Let's end this"

Spyro dashed to the left of the statue, Cynder to the right, they left a fading trail behind themselves of brimming elemental energy.

Spyro grabbed the attention of two golems, instead of leaping into the air he ran straight at them, they were standing right next to each other. He turned the floor in front of him to ice before jumping on it, the golems stomped and swung their fists but were unable to smash the swiftly sliding purple figure. As he slid along the floor he kept on spitting ice, making sure he reaches the middle ground, dragging the golems as close to each other as possible. In the meantime he made sure to create an slippery, ice platform on the opposite side , from where Cynder will be approaching.

The constructs blindly followed him, smelling easy prey.

Cynder circled from the other side catching the attention of one of the golems, it was far enough to release a wave of force at her. She made nothing of it, sinking into the ground just to reappear right next to the Keeper's big leg, she slashed it twice before vanishing again. The golem merely managed to rise the now safe leg to stomp the persistent dark bug that was no longer there. She reappeared near the other leg when the first one connected with the floor, she sliced at it with her dark empowered claws before beginning to run away.

The golem threw its arms down.

She jumped onto the frozen platform, stretching herself as far as she could, the fists of the golem slammed behind her. She slid towards Spyro, the Keeper giving chase.

She pushed up, leaping form the edge of the platform, landing near Spyro she began to spin around, releasing her Shadow breath, coating them in a fog of darkness.

Spyro held his breath as the world went black around him, charging his powers.

Cynder opened her mouth, releasing a stream of shadow fire straight at the ceiling.

"Now Dude!" Sparx exclaimed, pointing at the dark stream

In between the noise of roaring golems Diazen threw a fireball at the blaring creatures.

Keepers are powerful creatures, capable of crushing even a full grown dragon, but they were only animated creatures with simple intelligence if not guided, with one purpose directing their moves.

Remove the threat, remove the enemy.

Sensitive to elemental energy.

They couldn't comprehend wit and tactic so the moment both Spyro and Cynder disappeared from their sight and another touch of magical energy bounced off their rocky bodies they changed priorities, locating another danger.

The three golems turned around, roaring at the purple dragon who had the audacity to attack them.

Unaware that within the black fog was brewing a threat they never encountered before, a threat that you should never turn your back to, especially when the thing that can kill you is located at the back of your neck.

Spyro and Cynder stepped from the shadows and immediately opened their mouths, purple beams of Convexity shot from their mouths. Spyro aimed at the golem on the left, melted its neck for a while before jumping to the middle one and applying the same treatment but for a shorter amount of time before jumping back at the left one.

Cynder on the other paw focused entirely on the one to the right and didn't stop attacking it until she noticed the first signs of it shattering. She jumped then to the one in the middle.

By that time Spyro finished the one on the left, he joined his beam with his partner's when the construct crumbled. No matter how formidable the Keepers might be, Convexity is a power that can destroy even the creatures of the Belt, it was doubtful that there was something out in the world that can withstand the strength of cosmic energy.

Of the energy of creation itself.

It sucked them out dry.

Both Spyro and Cynder shut their mouths, dropping on their bellies with tired sighs as they rose their eyes on the last standing golem. It was frozen in place, a gaping hole in its neck, the fire that burned inside completely extinguished.

After a second or two the cold rock collapsed into a rubble.

Piles of rocks remained of the Keepers.

Diazen stared wide eyed at the scene.

"T-They...destroyed them...destroyed them..." he stammered, even the wound on his neck seemed to suck in a shocked breath, ceasing its blood drooling

Sparx grinned, nodding his head.

"Yep, my school"

"They...d-destroyed the Keepers...they..."

"Ok, ok I get it, shut your mouth man or flies will nestle inside"

"You have proven yourself" the same voice of the Keymaster echoed all around them

Despite the shock, weariness and sense of victory every single one of them jumped on their paws, metaphorically speaking in one case, and looked at the end mosaic at the far wall.

"Approach"

They looked at each other, even the distance separating them was not enough to block their silent commune. It was Sparx that first nodded his head towards the Keymaster.

They all agreed that it would be best not to piss it off right now, not when it is impressed by them. Better to preserve the pretense of being indestructible.

The group made its way towards the mosaic, Spyro and Cynder walking on shaking legs.

"Enter" the voice intoned and the Keymaster's eyes flashed with a bright, purple light, the keys inside its eyes growing small, familiar spikes

The group stopped in front of the carving, exchanging uncertain glances once more.

"Ready?" Spyro panted, not even bothering to ask what they think about it, the answer was obvious, they haven't bleed for nothing after all

He received no answer, he didn't expect it truthfully, which was good, his companions knew what was at stake, silence only confirmed their alertness.

He touched the spike, the recently opened depression in the wall flashed again with a purple light and soon the Keymaster as they knew was no more. The artificial snout moved, making Spyro jump back in worry.

It opened its mouth, stretching it widely like a Death Hound, instead opening the entrance to its gullet, this snout opened the entrance to a staircase leading to the famous lift.

One descent separated them from the Core.

Separated them from the Destroyer.

The Ender of Worlds.