TLOS TDJD: Chapter 8

The legend of Spyro
The Double-Jointed Dragon
Chapter 8 Contact

    As the day began the next day, all those under the sky, noticed the lack of said sky. All they could see was a sea of clouds. And these were not white fluffy friendly clouds that they had been flying through the last several days, no. These clouds were storm clouds, plain and simple.

    It could be said that no sane creature would willing fly through even a forming storm, and yet all dragons under those clouds were getting ready to do such.

    The purple dragon felt certain that he would be able to deal with any electricity, and as water was no concern for either him or his companion, having already dealt with far worse, they would fly.

    The third dragon under those skies however, it can be said he was insane already so he took to flying in a storm as nothing more than another day in his life. Over the days of his flight, the odd-dragon had grown confident in his ability to fly in any condition. This was coupled with the extreme amount of experimentation with his powers and then adds in his semi-informed mind on physics and atoms and the like. Put those together and you got a dragon that is extremely full of himself and feeling that he can deal with a "little" storm.

    But thankfully, there was a small part of the mind that belong to the human-turned-dragon that was still down to earth in a way, and realized that he should take some care to not become hit by lighting and become a human-turned-dragon-cooked-well-done. And so when he took off, he flew closer to the trees than he normally would, almost scrapping the tops of several trees with his hanging appendages.

    But sadly, flying like this started to cause the low-flying-dragon flying to become difficult. Every time he scrapped a tree, friction demanded that part of his body slow down while the rest kept trying to move on. Along with the different aerodynamics that is caused by flying so close to the trees, this caused all sorts of strange flying.

    After a time, the wind started to kick up, naturally, and this caused so many problems that the human-turned dragon was forced to rise away from the trees into "open air." But now he was exposed, and there was little likely a lightning bolt was going to hit a tree instead of him.

    Thankfully, part of physics that he understood was electricity. And he knew that electricity will always take the path of least resistance. And to get from the clouds to the ground, that was no exception. Right now, the strike was more likely to go through him than not. So, using the little bit of knowledge he had gained from his earlier experimenting, what little bit he understood of the conductivity of different gasses, and his power, the dragon-that-was-human created a bubble of air around him that was not very likely to conduct electricity.

    Trying to keep the bubble together, as well as fly took up a great amount of the dragon’s concentration. He almost thought of letting the bubble go, but then a lightning bolt struck.

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    Spyro and Cynder had been weathering the high winds as best they could. They were thankful so far that there was no rain, that would have made trying to keep pace behind the dragon they were following near impossible.

    They were shocked as it was that the dragon was even flying. They knew it was crazy to be flying in a possible thunderstorm, and yet the dragon was flying in front of them. They noticed how he tried to stay low to the trees, much like themselves. But they also noticed that he seemed to have a far harder time in doing so. For them it was a matter of will to keep flying, and they had plenty of that.

    Not once did they worry about clipping the trees, or the aerodynamics. They knew enough about flying to be able to fly straight and on the correct path with little to no difficulty no matter the weather.

    But just because they were not worried about flying did not mean they were not worried about the weather. The fear of being struck by the extreme power of a true lightning bolt was in them. But they took precautions to that. Spyro used his power over electricity to create an electric field that he as certain no electro bolt would come near.

    When Cynder saw Spyro doing this, she could not resist asking how he knew it would work.

    Spyro was rather happy to explain, "Volteer taught me more than just how to fight. In some down time, while we were waiting for I-Ignitus to give me and Sparx the next lead, Volteer ran me through some control techniques, one was being able to create an electro shield with minimal power, one that could protect me from electricity…and possibly other things if I remember his ramblings right. Got rather good at it too before I had to leave for Tall Plains."

    A small smile would spread across Cynder's face, "It's nice to know you weren't just taught how to fight…. I sort of wish someone could have taught me…"

    Spyro gave her a questioning look then would look at the dragon they were following. "Maybe he can teach you something. I mean, there is no way he is one of four standard elements. We flew over some places where he seemed be testing his powers out."

    "I guess you're right, but I think he is just able to control wind."

    Cynder was looking a bit down casted, so Spyro shifted over and gave her a quick peck on the cheek before shifting back, "Some is better than none. You've had to learn every bit on your own, while I've been taught. I think you learning something new from someone else would be a great thing."

    Cynder had a small smile as she looked at Spyro, "How?"

    "Easy, he thinks differently. He may have an idea how to control his power differently than you do. And besides we've already seen some of the things he seems to be able to do. I think he would be a great help."

    "If he is even friendly." Silence fell between them, but then Cynder had a thought that she had to voice, "Since when did you start thinking like you are."

    Spyro shrugged, "I don't know, maybe it's being around you. Or it could be that I no longer have Sparx around to say the most unrelated things. Or it could be that the fact that whenever I was around Cyril when I did not have my powers that I had to listen to and read different things with philosophy. Personally I think it's a mix of no Sparx, you, and having to listen to Cyril drown on and on about the oddest things and not be allowed to fall asleep for fear of being stuck in a block of ice or something similar."

    Cynder tried to hold in her giggle, but failed before she was even able to try. But that was alright for Spyro, her giggle was an amazing sound to him. It was a sound that made him smile every time, and it also put her into a better mood, everyone wins.

    Though this happiness was quickly dashed by the first lightning bolt the couple had encountered. It did not go to them thankfully, Syro's electro field worked. The bolt however went for the other dragon. But it did not strike him. Instead the bolt curved around the dragon leaving him completely unharmed.

    Neither of the two could even think of a way this could possibly happen. So with little argument, they marked it down to just yet another strange thing that the dragon could do.

    They would have conversed longer on this but for it was not long after that the bolt struck that the heavens decided it was time to let loose the flood gates. The downpour made it difficult to see, but they were lucky that it seemed to affect the other dragon as well as they noticed he slowed down as well and so were able to at least keep the dragon in sight despite the downpour of rain. It was by no means comfortable for them, the water felt good to some degree and they were determined to continue on.

    It can be said that not all storms are just rain and lightning, and this was one of those storms. The winds were an intricate part of this storm and it was nasty to all in its way. To normal dragons, dealing with the wind was reliant to the strength of their wings. The more they can flap, the stronger they can flap, and how well they can keep their wings on the correct course was everything.

    Spyro and Cynder were experienced, so while the storm's winds were tough, they could keep their track and speed with only minor difficulty.

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    While the two heroes were flying well, the Human-Turned-Dragon was not. While he could flap his oversized wings, every time he did it would get so much wind it would cause him to almost turn into an umbrella caught lose in the wind. All he could do was twist his body and wings to best catch the wind, and keep the range of his wing movement to a minim. Yet, with this storm, the wind flew in all directions, making it extremely difficult to fly for him. He eventually had to use the closer half as a stability point while the farther half eight did light flaps or reoriented to best direct his movement. It was tiring, and work intensive, but it worked.

    And yet, even with a vast majority of his concentration on his ability to fly, the Wind Dragon still had a portion of his mind using his powers to judge the winds to make his flying that much easier. Using the natural currents in the wind allowed him to save his own strength, strength that was being used to hold the sphere of "anti-lightning gas," as well as his Wind Sense. And yet, through this flying he was able to keep a good amount of speed and control.

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    Through luck and time both groups were able to fly through to the other side of the storm in one piece. But they were all tired and wanting rest. This brought on an unknowingly unanimous decision were both the single dragon and the couple went after the first game they could see and then settled themselves into clearings that were protected to some degree.

    When they were settled in and done with their food the couple were so tired they were content to merely lay together and let sleep overcome them.

    But for other dragon, while he was tired, he had something to do before he could go to sleep. He had to work on the deer pelt mesh that he had been creating. The part he had, those had received some interesting treatment from the different gasses forced around them and the massive amount of water that went over it. This had intrigued the Human-Turned-Dragon, for the pelts now had an abnormal feel to him, and from what he could tell, while the fur was the same, the outside had the feeling of being rough and tough. He went so far as to run his claws along it to see how well it would do.

    He found that he had somehow turned his deer pelt into what he could call hardened leather. It had become a type of armor, now if only he could do the same to the newest pelt he had gotten from his recent kill.

    Not wanting to add the new pelt until he figured it out, and not wanting to destroy the whole thing, the Interested-Dragon took some small pieces off of the pelt, and became experimenting on them. He applied different levels of the gasses and water, and eventually some heat and static charge.

    It was when he added the static charge that he was finally able to bring the results he wanted. If anything, he found that it was better to do it on purpose than by accident.

    With this new knowledge, the satisfied-dragon took his new pelt and turned it into some hardened leather as well. And then, with some work, he was able to attach the new piece to his improvised armor. He had to do so in a way where he could remove the thing without destroying and then reattach it without too much hassle. It took a bit but he found a way.

    Even after all that, the Slightly-Armored-Dragon had some left over pelt that he was able to use. So he used what he could to try and cover up the seams.

    With no more work left to do, the dragon would spend the rest of the night before he fell asleep letting his mind wonder. He thought of his home, what might be going on there, how his family was, and the one thought that made him chuckle lightly, what would they say when they found out what had happened to him. He would not get much farther in these thoughts as he would fall into a semi-comfortable sleep.

    As the morning came around only the couple was up with the sun. And though their minds were awake, that did not mean their bodies were happy about it. Their wings had taken a beating while flying the day before and thus had become sore during the night. Neither was really used to the pain, at least not in the scale that they were receiving it at.

    Every twitch of their wings hurt, but the needed to be able to use their wings were forcing them to move them. Thus they were forced to stretch out the kinks, wincing at every movement. It took a bit of time, but eventually the couple was able to loosen up their wings enough for them to fly. It would not be their most comfortable flight, but they needed to get moving, it was already getting late into the morning as it was.

    As it was much later in the morning, they would both figure that the other dragon would already be long gone.

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    The Human –Turned-Dragon had woken up much later than he usually did. He did not mind all that much though, for this allowed his tired body to rest more and thus gain more of his strength back.

    That did not give him a reason to stray from what he had been doing all the mornings previously. So when he was done with his morning routines he was off and flying like all the other days. Though, unlike the other days, he did not experiment with his powers too much. He had used up much of his strength during the storm, and thus felt it was best he let his body relax a bit on the use of his element until he felt back up to full strength.

    The most that he could even do without feeling like he was even really using his strength was fly, with help of what little strength he needed to use, and then there was his Wind Sense. That he felt he could use and not even make a dent in his strength. So with that known he wanted to again see how far he could sense now that he had more experience in the use of his powers, and thus most likely a bit stronger.

    He did not extend his Sense quickly, for he wanted to truly see how well he could do with it. He was starting to reach what he could figure as a mile when he felt two other beings behind him.

    The now worried-dragon instantly switched his sense from an expanding "sphere" of sense, to a single line, this allowing him to concentrate solely on the two creatures behind him.

    In this way he was able to discover that the two were dragons. Both were smaller than him, he figured they might come up to his shoulders. From what he could tell, their movements appear strained, like they were hurting from something. They both had some form of armor on them. And their overall appearance seemed familiar to him, but he did not know from where he could remember them from.

    The fact that he had two dragons behind him, and maintaining the same distance had the Human-Turned-Dragon concerned.

    His first thought was that if they were keeping the same speed, he might be able to increase his own speed, thus allow him to pull away and eventually hid from them. Then he could try and follow them and decide if he wanted to actually meet them or not. But when he started to increase his speed a little bit, so too did the dragons behind him. They really did not want to lose sight of him it seemed.

    So with faster failed, he started slowing down a little bit. This would allow them to catch up to him. But when he slowed down, so did they. They were keeping the perfect distance. This actually unnerved him slightly. As he also had no idea on how long they had been following, this left him with quite an intelligence gap. But there was one thing he could figure.

    He was able to figure that the two of them had been following as early as after the Dreadwing Fight, and as soon as the storm yesterday. He figured they had to have gone through the storm by the fact that their wings appeared to be hurting. The only reason he himself was not hurting was because: One, he never hurt the day after always the second if he did not exercise, and two he used as much of his power as his wings.

    No matter which, they would have been following him for some time. As they had yet to make any moves towards him, so he had to hope that they meant no harm. If he thought about it, they were probably trying to figure him out, wanting to know if he was hostile or friendly.

    While he did not think he could do much of anything about figuring them out currently, he can at least make their flight a little easier.

    To do this, he dropped his speed to slowest he could possibly go. It was quite a drop in speed, so he did it slowly. By the time he was at his slowest, he truly was gliding, relying almost completely the natural wind. He would have to produce some good hard flaps from time to time, but for the most part he glided nicely.

    As the need of his powers was much less, the now Gliding-Dragon was able to put more of it into sensing. He spent only a small amount to keep a constant watch the two dragons following, while the rest he went back to seeing how well he could sense.

    And yet, he still thought about the two following. He hoped they were friendly, and that they recovered from whatever was hurting them and actually came up and talked to him soon instead of just following him. He really could use someone to talk to.

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    While flying was nothing new to Spyro and Cynder, flying after a storm sure was. They hurt big time, even more so with every flap as they tried to keep a constant distance between them and the dragon they were following.

    The days before they had noticed that the dragon seemed to be experimenting with his powers, but now they were seeing nothing.

    Spyro had to force down a groan as his wings twitched in yet another flash of pain. Instead of groaning he decided to talk. "At least we don't seem to be the only ones recovering from that storm."

    Cynder was not in a good mood, apparently pain made her really grouchy, "I could care less if one of his legs decided to fall off. I just wish…"

    Spyro noticed her stop and looked at her with a worried expression. He saw her with an inquisitive expression on her face as she looked around quickly. "Cynder? What is it?"

    Cynder looked at him, "You don't feel it?"

    This had him worrying even more; usually he was one who felt the weird stuff. If Cynder was feeling it, that caused him massive amounts of worry. "Feel what?"

    "I…I don't know how to describe it. It's like the very air is shifting around us. Measuring us..."

    Spyro was going to respond when he noticed the dragon was speeding up slightly, so instead of speaking he groaned and worked to keep up. But then the dragon started slowing down, this caused a confused expression to spread across both of their faces. Then they were back at the previous speed.

    Spyro was about to question Cynder again when the dragon again started slowing down, and did not stop slowing down until they were gliding more than they were flapping their wings. It was the slowest they could possibly go while still actually flying. This allowed their wings to finally relax a little bit and not hurt as much.

    But once they were more comfortable with their speed, Spyro tried to bring back up their conversation. "Now, what was this about 'very air shifting around us'?"

    Cynder blushed lightly, "That was the best I could describe it. At first it felt like a soft wall of air that moved past us. And then it just seemed to concentrate on us. I don't know what caused, or even what it was. It really was odd…you probably think I'm crazy."

    Spyro had to force down the small grin and chuckle that was trying to come from him. "We'll, if you're crazy, then I am insane. There are times when I think weird feelings are just part of our lives."

    Cynder smiled lightly, "I guess…I do wonder what caused it."

    "What do you think?"

    "I have no real clue; how do I even tell?"

    "I first learned through instinct, then taught. But even still, I have found that instincts are very helpful. What are your instincts saying?"

    "Um…my first thought is that he," She motions to the dragon they were following, "somehow used Wind to…sense I guess, the world around him. And in doing so found us, and then concentrated his control on us. But that sounds extremely crazy…"

    "As crazy as the fact that I was once able to slow time?"

    Cynder blushed lightly, "I guess you got a point. It does make some sense."

    Spyro smiled, "It's the best and only idea we got. And personally, I'm more ready to believe that than anything else."

    Neither had anything else to say after that, so they simply let silence fall between as they continued to fly/glide after the strange dragon.

    The rest of day would be spent in quite thought. And the falling hours of day spent just as the last several days had also been spent.

    When the couple woke up the next day, it looked like it would be a good day. They were still sore, but felt much better than the day before. And after the promise of the slow flying of the day before, they felt that they would have a much better time with flying from here on. So they got ready and were soon flying again, and with excellent timing they caught sight of the dragon they had been following and went right back to following him.

    Though now, they were thinking of ways of which they could possible introduce themselves to them. Both of them were beginning to feel that whoever this dragon was, he would not be too hostile.

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    With the knowledge that he was being followed, the Human-Turned-Dragon was a little bit more on edge. With the additions he had made to his "armor" the night before, he felt a tiny bit less on edge, but only a tiny bit.

    With the catch he had the night before he had added some sleeves for his legs a bit for his tail. This now meant that a vast majority of his body was covered with some form of protection. All he was missing was three quarters of his tail, his neck and his face. But with the majority of his body protected, he felt he would be able to last at least that much longer in any fights he might get it.

    Once he had finished his work, he had used his Wind Sense to take a quick look at the dragons following him. They seemed alright to him, and the increasing feeling that he knew who they were was making him think about maybe trying to talk to them. But he wanted them to make the first move.

    Even still, the On-Edge-Dragon was being a little cautious as he flew. He had his wind sense in a two mile radii sphere around him. This allowed him to keep a careful watch on the two dragons following him as well as watch out for anything else. As he flew two miles off the ground, the Cautious-Dragon was able to have his sphere scrapping the ground so as well as giving him what he was figuring would be a two-minute warning before something fell on him or came up on him from any direction.

    But for the most part he was hoping for a quiet day.

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    "Where are these Bloody dragons!? You said you could find them assassin!"

    The assassin in question was a dragon with Jet black scales, excluding his underbelly, horns, iris', crests, wing membrane, claws, and tail-blade, which were all golden in color. His horns were shaped like blades, giving him the option to slice his enemies open with a head-butt, with two large horns in the middle of his head, one going straight forward, over his eyes, the other growing off of that horn, going in the opposite direction. Beside those, he had two smaller horns along the sides of those, with an additional two along his cheeks, giving him six horns in all, and an imposing figure. His tail-blade resembles that of a military standard-issue serrated combat knife. He also always seemed to have his brows furrowed, even though he currently had the most neutral expression possible.

    This Dragon assassin was also getting annoyed about his "company's" complaining too. So he turned and gave the Ape next to him a glare that should have been able to melt solid steel. His voice was quiet but hard to miss, especially since he was half growling at this point. "You should be thankful I haven't killed you. We are catching up, so shut up before I take my pay and stuff it down your throat."

    The Ape merely snorted and turned his attention back to flying his dreadwing amongst ten other dreadwings there.

    One of the smaller apes had been uncomfortable this whole flight, he also had increasing memory problems. "Can someone remind me again why we are working with this piece of meat?"

    A group wide sigh rang out and most looked to one of the other apes. Being forced to repeat what they were doing every couple of hours got old, so the job went around.

    The Ape that was being looked out took a breath and worked to explain to the smaller ape what was going on…again. "We are working with him because the general had wanted to hire the best assassin he could. This dragon showed up, called himself Moonlight and proceeded to bargen more gems out of the General than all our armor is even worth. Then after a patrol was found slaughtered the General sent us out with the Assassin to track whoever killed them to bring them down ourselves."

    The smaller ape grunted, "Seems like an odd wo…"

    The dragon, Moonlight interrupted the ape, "Quiet, the targets are just up ahead." And proceeded to fly a little higher to allow a much better view on said targets.

    The Apes followed him up and once sufficiently high enough they got a good look at their targets.

    The leader of apes had a smile spreading across his face, "Three dragons, going slow. They don't even seem to be paying attention to what's around them. You Five go after the two in back, the rest of you with me for the one father ahead. As for you Assassin, do whatever you want. This is our job."

    "I was going to say the same thing." What he was not saying however was that he felt something off with all three of the dragons. He could not tell what from this distance, but he would be happy to observe the apes and see how things turned out.

    Besides, he figured he might have some fun watching the annoying apes. And later kill them so that he could ask for a higher price for this rather long term job. After all, he was going to need that money to deal with his personal…problems.

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    The Dragon-Who-Was-Human felt something scrape the edge of his Sense Sphere and became even more on edge. The scrape seemed like it belonged to a creature that was still rising for some unknown reason, and knowing that not many animals actually liked to fly five miles above the earth he knew something was most likely not right. He really did not know what it could be.

    He found out what it was extremely quickly though. He found out in the form of five dreadwings dropping towards him from directly above him. They had already been going quick when he sensed them, and they were only getting faster. As science can tell you, an item gains speed when falling until it hits terminal velocity, and said velocity is decided by the way the item is shaped. Dreadwings instinctively shaped their bodies in a dive so that they get the least amount of air resistance possible.

    In this way they can reach max speed in under twenty seconds and then hit anything that is below them in anywhere from thirty seconds to three minutes depending on distance. The Sensing-Dragon was close to 1.5 miles from them when they reached max speed so would thus be able to hit him around fifty seconds. This gave the dragon a little over a minute to get out of the way. Most would be unable, but most did not know they were coming.

    The Human-Turned-Dragon did, and a lot can happen in a minute. His only problem was how was he going to respond. It took ten whole seconds for his brain to process that the dreadwings were coming his way, and then another ten to figure out how to respond. By then the dreadwings were maxed out on speed, and he sensed another group of five dreadwings going after the two dragons that had been following him.

    He could tell that those two dragons did not know what was coming, yet either way he had to deal with his own group. That thinking took another five seconds. So thoughts firmly in mind, his body going into motion and his mind slipping into passenger as he fought back. Though, a portion of his mind did notice that he felt like less of a passenger than before.

    With the dreadwings getting close to thirty seconds away, the battle-ready-dragon flipped his body so that his back faced the ground and the rest faced the sky. He took a quick breath, drawing in different gasses, combined them quickly, and then let those gasses lose like a cannon. The ball of gasses collided with one of the dreadwings and exploded.

    The dreadwings flew around the ball of fire, while the one hit continued through it still alive but its chest burnt. It goes without saying that the dreadwing was also very pissed, and as its ape rider had gotten burned off the dreadwing it had nothing to rein it in. The rider himself had been burnt quite nicely by the ball of fire, a lot of the superheated air ramming into his lungs and burning that too. If he had somehow survived that, the fact that the harness that kept him attached to the dreadwing had been destroyed forced his body to separate from the creature and instantly slow down do to not having the same terminal velocity as the dreadwing did. And by some off chance he was not dead by the time he reached the ground, the landing would kill him, but that would be a whole forty to sixty seconds away.

    And while the dreadwings and their riders dealt with the fire ball, the Fighting-Dragon had changed his course, almost straight down. The explosive gasses were a distraction while he got closer to the trees, and picked up speed, in an attempt to get a little bit of a distance. His ultimate plan was to find a good clearing to land in and fight there, a battle where you only had to worry about five directions was a lot better than having to worry about six.

    He never found the clearing sadly. For even though he had picked up far more speed, it was not as fast as the dreadwings. They had changed their trajectory to impact their target and impact they did. The one that had been hit already ran straight into the dragon, and then tried to use the dragon as a buffer between it and the trees they were about to collide into. It did not, however, take into account the dragon's rather unique wings. Those wings caused the two creatures to fly in all sorts of directions.

    It was at this moment that the dragon truly began to feel like a passenger in his own body again, it was around the same time when he realized he had no idea what to do. But in become a passenger he noted the haze had returned, making it hard to figure out what was going on. But in forcing the issue he was able to see it, but it was more like he was watching in Third Person.

    He watched as his body gained control of the fall and then kicked the dreadwing away so that it hit the tree they were about to ram into first, and then flared its wings to catch all the air it could and slow down as quickly as possible.

    His body almost did not make the landing. But the dreadwing had taken out just the right amount of trees with its now dead body for the Dragon to slow down enough where he was able to fold up his wings and perform a landing while running.

    While the dragon was working on landing it did not take into account the four remaining dreadwings after it, at least not until one of them was almost on top of him. He caught sight of it with only enough time for his eyes to widen before it would have been on him.

    He was saved by the unexpected arrival of a black scaled dragon with a white underbelly and grey claws, 4 grey horns that curl back at the base and point forward at the end, more or less looking like an "S", the base of his wings are black and as it goes up it turns into a dark grey. Its wings looked to have barbs like his tail, which appeared to be a triangular prism shaped with triangular hooks on the corners, it's also quite sleek and thin, and could no way be called shiny.

    This new dragon was roaring as he, at least it looked like a he, intercepted dreadwing that almost hit the already-fighting-dragon. The new dragon aimed and latched onto the dreadwing’s throat and crushed it with a might snap. The new dragon then instantly landed behind the odd-winged-dragon with the dreadwing still in its jaws, but with a quick throw, that was taken care of, and the rider on the dreadwings back got himself crushed by the now dead body of a dreadwing.

    There was little time for the two dragons to anything more than look at each other, and that is when the Human-Turned-Dragon noticed that his savior's eyes had white pupils and the rest of his eyes are black. And his overall body was riddled with scars, and interestingly enough there was a small chunk missing from one the new dragon's horns. But with no time to talk, the two of them seemed to converse through a mere nod of their heads. After which they both looked at the three remaining dreadwings and tensed.

    The Wind Dragon let lose a quick cannon blast of air at one of them forcing it into some trees behind it, it was out of the fight for a little bit. With two immediate threats the two fighting dragons leaped at their enemies who leaped right back at them. With the four bodies meeting their targets it became a festival of claws, teeth, and limbs as they tried to get the final blow in.

    While the dreadwings were good and tough, one of the dragons had experience, and they both had deadlier body parts. It ten seconds both dreadwings were dead, and the dragons were moving away from the bodies of the dreadwings and their riders which were killed in the fight.

    The last dreadwing was brought back to their attention when they heard it moving. The new dragon was about to jump at it, when the Wind Dragon shot another shot of wind at it, this one much stronger and denser allowing it act a little like a bullet and blow straight through the chest and back of both the dreadwing and its rider.

    Seeing all current threats down, the two dragons went back to looking at each other. The Human-Turned-Dragon was beginning to feel like he was no longer a passenger again, when the other dragon suddenly took off into the forest. He had left as quickly as he had come. He almost shouted out to the fleeing dragon when he heard what had to be an explosion in the direct opposite direction.

    His mind figured it must have been the dragons that had been following him still fighting. He was torn between going to help them or going after this new dragon. But another explosion made up his mind. So he took off and followed the sounds of the explosion.

    Over all time of fight, from when the dragon first responded to the attack, to when he took off, about five minutes.

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    Spyro and Cynder had been enjoying the flight that day. At the start Cynder had commented how she felt that odd feeling from the day before again. And this time it seemed to remain constant. She tried to concentrate on it a little, but every time she thought she was getting close to figure it out, it seemed to slip from her grasp.

    She did not get frustrated from the constant fails, she was in too much of a good mood and it was more of a random interest than anything.

    Their day was interrupted when they noticed the dragon change how he was flying. They saw him flip so his back was to the ground, then draw his back a little before shooting it forward. Almost immediately after that they heard a loud boom, and then and even louder one. The second was plainly an explosion.

    The legendary couple instantly looked up to the source of the explosion and where shocked to see the dreadwings. They then saw something briefly and that forced them to look up. That is when they saw the five dreadwings flying straight at them.

    Spyro's brain was the first to register the threat, and was instantly ready for combat. He took a page out of the other dragon's play book and fired an explosive fire ball, it got close to the dreadwings before it exploded and created a large disk of fire. But before it did he turned to Cynder, "Split, try and find some place to land."

    After fighting together for so long, it was easy for the two of them to know how to fight with one another. They could easily communicate their ideas to each other with only a few words. So When Spyro spoke, Cynder nodded and was off in a shot. With an added boost of wind from her wings she took off in a random direction looking for a clearing of any sort.

    Spyro took off in a slightly different direction, but he was not able to go as quickly. But what he lacked in speed, he could make it up in power. So when the dreadwings finally got around the fading fire disk and were forced to split off, Spyro made sure they directed more of their numbers to him.

    The instant he saw them starting to break off from each other, moved his maw over his shoulder and started unleashing icicle spears aplenty. They were not as fast as his fire ball, but they were quick enough, and plenty enough that it made the dreadwings do a four-one split, four heading for Spyro, one on Cynder.

    The separated Couple saw two different clearings at almost same exact time. Cynder was in the one she saw near instantly and got into position to ambush the dreadwing heading for her. Spyro was not so lucky.

    He almost did not make it to the clearing before the dreadwings reached him, but he made it.

    Spyro had to land quickly, and then pivot on a paw to look back at the dreadwings heading for him. To deter the dreadwings from going straight for him, he unleashed a large cone of flames. He had to stop quickly though as a dreadwing landed next to him and attempted to strike.

    In response, Spyro slid to the opposite direction and released an Earth Bullet, the ape threw an explosive and intercepted the elemental power.

    With a minor curse Spyro flapped his wings in time with a jump backwards getting a bit more away from one of the other dreadwings that tried to land on top of him. Even as he was moving Spyro unleased a strong current of electricity giving the dreadwing a good zap.

    A third dreadwing jumped at Spyro, he jumped up as the dread had jumped at his legs. Once above, Spyro created a ball of earth around him and dropped straight onto the creature. The massive weight landed first on the ape and continued to the creature, both were crushed to death.

    Feeling that his earth ball was no longer necessary, Spyro burst forth from it with a wave of fire. This gave him a bit of breathing room, enough to move away from the dead body and reminding himself with his surroundings and enemies.

    It was here that a claw soaked in shadow came out from one of the dreadwings, throwing the creature up and injuring it. Along with the claw came out the full figure of Cynder, who quickly moved next to Spyro.

    Spyro could not help but smile, "There you are, was wondering what was taking you. Have any problems?"

    "Nope, poison to the face and a good bout of close range fear and done. What about you, I thought you would have more done, purple boy."

    Spyro chuckled, he was keeping close eye on the three dreadwings, "I think taking out one out of four isn't too bad."

    "We'll see about that." And with that the banter was interrupted with a stick of dynamite.

    The couple split off from each other and away from the explosive. Cynder let lose a blob of poison at a dreadwing getting it in the wing and causing the thing massive pain. Spyro unleased another current of electricity, at the same one that had received it beforehand. He was able to pump enough into the creature and its rider that it overloaded their nervous system, heart, and brain killing them, and also turning them into chard corpses.

    Done with one more dreadwing Spyro was about to let loose a fire ball at the dreadwing that Cynder had hit when he was forced to dodge the sword of the ape of the dreadwing Cynder had hit.

    Cynder continued to throw poison at the same Dreadwing Slowly bringing it down, she was also constantly on the move getting away from constant supply of explosives that were being tossed at her. She only noticed Spyro forced to take on the ape out of the corner of her eye, she was too busy with her own fight to help him sadly.

    Spyro was thankfully able to deal with the ape with ease, after only dodging a few attempted strikes, he was able to pivot around and strike the ape with his tail end, sending the ape flying. And with a complete turn an icicle spear flew from his maw and ran the ape threw.

    He then drew his attention to the dynamite throwing ape and let lose more icicle spears. They were stopped midflight by another explosive. But that was the only break Cynder needed to finish off the riderless dreadwing and turn her attention to the last dreadwing.

    It was this dreadwing that they had problems with. For when it saw that it was alone, the creature began to move around constantly, and while it moved, its rider threw dynamite like it was confetti.

    After a minute or two of this neither side had landed a hit on the other and the dragons were getting frustrated.

    Spyro was the first to voice this frustration, "Stop moving Already!"

    Cynder snorted as she jumped to the right, avoiding yet another explosive, one larger than the others. "Where is he even getting all these things!?"

    Not to be left out the ape decided to speak, "Just stop moving and die like proper dragons!"

    The couple was ready to respond when a different voice cut them off, "I think not." Along with the voice came a dragon that the couple instantly recognized as the dragon they had been following. The dragon crashed into the side of the dreadwing. The dreadwing was dazed while its rider thrown.

    Unluckily for the rider the new arrival continued on his motion and landed directly on top of the ape, crushing it. He then turned to the dreadwing and let loose a burst of wind sending the dreadwing flying into a tree, but the thing was sturdy and still alive.

    Seeing it was alive the dragon let loose a ball of gasses that exploded when it hit the dreadwing, that finally killed it.

    Over all time of engagement, just over seven minutes.

    Taking a deep calming breath, all three of the dragons let themselves relax a little bit before they realized, the new dragon did not know the couple and vice versa. This set all three of them into a combat stance.

    Neither side spoke, but ever the trusting one, Spyro went first. But first he was silently wishing Sparx was there, that annoying Step-brother of his was good at breaking the ice at least. "I guess I should thank you for helping us with that dreadwing."

    The dragon nodded, "Happy to help. Though I'm sure you could have taken it down eventually. Much like you did the rest here."

    It was then that the couple looked around at the mess of bodies near them. It truly was a mess. The dragon seemed to also no longer consider them a real threat and had gotten into a much more relaxed standing.

    The couple looked at each other, and with a silent conversation they too got into a relaxed stance.

    Not wanting an awkward silence to fall between them Cynder tried to get some info out of new dragon, "So…Thank you again. But ah…what is your name?"

    The dragon blinked a few times, "Oh…Uh, Sorry. Name's Marshal. And like I said, I was happy to help. Would I be correct in assuming that your names are Spyro and Cynder?"

    That put the couple on little bit more of an edge, but Spyro nodded a yes. Then added a question of his own, "How do you know our names?"

    The now named dragon, Marshal raised a paw and scratched the back of his head. That was when the couple noticed the odd armor he seemed to be wearing. "I guess the best way would be say…rumors. I mean if you listen I'm sure you can hear all sorts of things."

    Something about what he just said made Cynder thing a little, "So wait, does that mean you're from a city near here?"

    Marshal let loose a small chuckle, "Don't I wish. To be honest, I have no clue where we are. I woke up in the middle of the forest with no memory of how I got there or where I was. I've…been trying to find civilization since then."

    Spyro was quickly beginning to like this guy, "Then I guess we all have the same problem. I only wish we had spoken to you sooner, would have made life a little easier."

    Marshal frowned, "Yea, about that. How long have you two been following me anyways?"

    Cynder shrugged lightly, "A few days, almost instantly after you killed those last dreadwings. Which reminds me, were those your first kills? If they were those were some good kills."

    Marshal became really uncomfortable being asked that, "As a matter of fact, yes. I had never killed creatures that big before. Small annoying insects sure, nothing bigger than my…paw though."

    Spyro nodded in sympathy, "First kills are never fun, no matter the being."

    Marshal nodded, then he suddenly remembered where they were. "Hey, I know we could probably keep the Q&A going for some time, but do you think we can take it elsewhere. It feels a little odd talking here."

    Spyro blinked then looked around then back at Marshal with am embarrassed chuckle, "Right, yea. We should be able to get a bit of distance from here before night fall."

    Marshal nodded, "You two can take off first, I need a bit of room to take off." He let out his wings to their full extent. Spyro and Cynder knew instantly that his take off would be a bit different than their own, so they quick took off and waited a bit above the tree line.

    Just before he took off, Marshal got an odd feeling. This odd feeling got him looking to a different part of the sky than where Spyro and Cynder were. He could not really see anything there, but for a second he could almost swear that he saw a shape in the sky. But as quick as it was there it was gone.

    Shaking off the odd feeling Marshal positioned wings, then called forth a burst of wind to send him flying into the sky. And soon Spyro and Cynder were joining him. When they had, a sudden thought popped into his head. "Hey, this may be an odd question, but how old are you two?"

    The couple got a questioning look of their faces but none the less answered, well Cynder did. "We're about fifteen, we don't know exactly but that is close enough. Why?"

    Marshal shrugged, "Just wondering."

    Spyro shook his head, "Alright then. Since you ask, how old are you?"

    "I recently turned seventeen."

    Getting his answer Spyro nodded, and a comfortable silence fell between the three.

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    Far away from the three dragons Moonlight was watching them. He had watched as all of the Apes and dreadwings died. It had indeed been interesting. There were more dragons fighting than he thought. And that one dragon that left, the fact that he had not even know or seen where it went said something impressive.

    But the one dragon, the odd winged one, that one was the most interesting. He knew all about the Legendary Couple. His employer kept going on about how he wanted to fight the two, but the creature that was always by his employer's side kept his employer from directly ordering that someone go out for them.

    But the odd winged one, he knew nothing about him. And he could tell that the dragon was powerful. And then when the dragon looked directly at him even though he himself was using his power to see him from an extreme distance. It had unnerved him.

    Moonlight knew he was going to have to watch out for the four dragons he had seen today. But for now, he was going back to camp. So he turned in the general direction and called up a portion of his power allowing him to leave the area at unheard of speeds. His job today was done, and he really wanted to get the raise. This was starting to become way beyond his normal rate.