Whew, glad to be back to posting! I took a month to just write, and write I surely did.

Where last we left off Darkmire had just verbally torn strips off Spyro, Cynder, Imperia and Malefor; and the result wounded them more than even some of their toughest fights. They'll have to recover quickly to be ready for their attempt at ending Hope once and for all, but to make matters worse they're not even sure how exactly they're supposed to do it!

For the moment they have some peace and quiet, time to talk things over and begin planning. They'll need to make the most of it...


The cold mountain air wrapped around Imperia, the chill sank into her wings and leached away her body heat. If only the numbness she felt in her body could numb her thoughts as well.

It would, if she stayed out here for long enough. Eventually it would kill her, her study of the ice element hadn't progressed far enough to grant her special immunity to the cold yet, that skill which came so naturally to even ice dragon children could still be a century of training away from her.

Not that she was lacking for magic, of course. Her wind element wasn't something she would have traded away for any other kind of magic, it was by far the best element in her opinion and she was very talented with it.

She sighed, her thoughts had nearly managed to drift away from Spark and from Darkmire's words, but her mind pulled her back again.

The mountains were beautiful. The stone of the fortress roof was cold below her paws, and the wind even colder. Those upturned peaks were reminding her of a ribcage surrounding them, making Darkmire's Tomb into it's black stony heart, clinging to the edge of the valley, she couldn't quite seem to get the image out of her head.

And then there was Cynder. A rush of warmth flowed through Imperia's chest at the mere thought of the black dragoness, but it was followed by a rush of shame.

She hadn't really had any better choices. Doing nothing wasn't in her nature. Had she done good? Had her impact on the world so far been positive?

At this point it was in danger of not mattering at all, everything she'd done would amount to nothing if the Darkmire dragon was set free.

Then again… following the same line of thinking if she was able to stop Hope and Darkmire here and now then it would be the greatest good act she had ever achieved in her life. That would make it worth it, right?

No wonder Darkmire had called her out for being willing to kill. Imperia didn't know if she could do it anymore, but she could see that it was still a viable option, and not one that she had fully ruled out yet. Was she really the only one out of the four who would do it? Surely they all would if they needed to?

Maybe not. Malefor hadn't been able to arrange the attack on the Dragon Temple knowing that it would lead to the breaking of innocent dragon eggs. Imperia had played the key role in that. She doubted that Spyro could have broken a dragon egg if he'd been in her position, or given orders making that happen.

Was Malefor using her to take the fall? Darkmire had called him a coward, and that was what a coward would do…

Still even if he was maybe that's what she deserved; if she was capable of something like that, and willing to risk the lives of Cynder and Spark and then continue smiling even after some of those risks resulted in losses. Would she be able to casually flirt with Malefor if the two of them were responsible for Cynder's death instead of Sparks?

Maybe she deserved to be used to do the dirty work of someone more honourable than she was.

Imperia didn't even notice the cold slowly creeping into her body as she lay down, her thoughts spinning aimlessly deeper and deeper into negativity.

She'd been having a rough time of it lately, a part of her mind observed. All of her past sins catching up to her at once. It would be great when all of this was over, a chance to restart her life with a cleaner slate. She could come to terms with what she'd done, her good and bad aspects to her personality, and move forwards with a hopefully bright future as a guardian of Warfang.

Her natural positivity was difficult to break, more difficult to break than her heart was.

She smiled faintly, that was a rather poetic sort of phrase. She wondered if it was true, or just something which sounded deep but had no solid meaning to it.

Her thoughts were starting to slow down a bit, becoming jumbled. If she didn't get inside soon she would be in serious trouble.

She grunted in effort, using her wind magic to cradle around her body and take some of the weight off her legs as she got up. With heavy steps she turned around and walked back inside, only her magic keeping her upright.

She slammed the door behind her and fell back against it. Shivering from head to tailtip, clutching her wings tight around her. She was seriously cold. She mentally kicked herself for waiting for so long.

She'd decided, hadn't she? She'd promised herself she would do better, would consult with Flare and do the right thing the next time she was faced with a difficult moral decision. She wouldn't let someone else die, not if she could hope to stop it.

She flicked her wings, a few scattered flakes of snow were shaken off her body; then wrapped her wings back around herself tightly.

Imperia wished Flare was here now, her warmth, her advice, her understanding. She could solve Imperia's lack of body heat and talk her out of her slump at the same time.

Of course she already knew what Flare would say.

'Don't listen to Darkmire. You made a promise, so keep it. As long as you act in a way that would make me proud then you'll be on the right path. And even if you do slip up I still love you and believe you can do better. You're not a monster you silly girl.'

"Thanks inner Flare." Imperia muttered slightly.

"Ahem… Why is everyone talking to themselves?" A male voice asked from behind her.

Imperia jumped, spinning around with a rush of wind. Her wind senses had of course noticed the shape behind her, she could keep her magic active even in her sleep, but she'd not been paying enough attention to realise the large object behind her was, in fact, something alive.

She let out a high pitched squeak, landing in a defensive position before relaxing with a blush as she saw the orange yellow scales of Scara, the former vice captain guard, and now the lead guard due to the fact that his commander had turned out to be working for Malefor.

"Heehee, sorry… You scared me a little. It's Scara, right? I've read your status reports to the Warfang guardians occasionally, but I don't think we've really met before."

"I don't believe so, but I've heard a lot about you Imperia. Are you alright? You look very cold."

"Oh, yes I'm okay." She nodded. "Stressed. We've had a little chat with Darkmire and she's… quite something to talk to."

"Right." He nodded. "Seriously, why are you talking to yourself? Spyro was doing that and I assumed it was some purple dragon thing. What's going on?"

"No it's fine. That is a purple dragon thing. I'm just talking to myself in the normal way. Calming myself down."

"Right…" He nodded, accepting this after a moment. "Sorry. I'm just paranoid, you know? First we get Spyro coming here with an invisible enemy, then we get Darkmire who looks and acts like some sort of nightmare creation, and now Malefor is back, the dragon who was involved in killing several of my fellow guards and then escaped."

He didn't raise his voice at all, although Imperia wouldn't have blamed him if he did.

"There is a whole lot going on here that I don't understand, and I'm really struggling to know what to do."

"I know how you feel." Imperia nodded in agreement. "Like we're trying to work around powers much greater than a normal dragon should ever need to deal with. I've been around this kind of thing for a lot longer, and even I still feel a bit out of my depth sometimes."

She gave him a warm smile.

"Please don't worry too much though. I'm one of the guardians of Warfang and I'm accepting full responsibility for what happens here. I'm officially in command, at least that's how it can look on your report if anything goes wrong, but I'm still willing for you to have full control over the guards and to stop us from doing things if you consider them too unsafe."

"Actually yes, that is what I wanted to talk to you about. Firstly is Malefor safe, and if so then how do you know? And secondly what sort of safety precautions should we be taking with Darkmire? I'm willing to give you free reign of the lower part of the fortress and move our guests wherever you please down there, but under no circumstances do I want one of these dark dragon incidents to occur in the upper section."

"That's entirely fair." Imperia nodded. "I've been in contact with Malefor for a significant period of time, he also had the 'dark dragon' thing going on and I played a role in solving the problem permanently. I can attest to him being no threat. I recommend that you pull out all of your guards from the lower part of the prison. If we need volunteers to bring food and water or anything of that sort I'll let the guards know. Otherwise I think you should lock as many doors between us and the open air as possible. If you're not safe in the top of the fortress then nobody is safe in the entire world."

"That's not entirely reassuring…" Scara muttered. "Can I ask you to keep Malefor down there as well? Even if he's entirely safe I would prefer to be cautious, and I don't like him."

"Of course."

Imperia nodded.

"Oh, and can I borrow one of your dormitory rooms. Remember that black crystal thing we left in the lobby like it wasn't important? It's actually pretty important and I'd like to tuck it away somewhere safe."

"That creepy thing? Nobody's touched it. It's still on the floor and I'd love to have it out of the way. All the rooms on the second floor are empty. Take the first one on the left and put it in there. Key is under the bed."

"Got it. And thank you." Imperia smiled warmly to him and walked away.

"Good luck." He nodded to her.


Imperia collected the soul crystal, meditating over it for a few moments to confirm that it did indeed contain Spyro's signature.

She smiled faintly at the memory of overwriting Malefor's signature with her own the last time she was alone with this thing, but that had been a special case, and this time things would be very different. She wouldn't be in any danger… probably.

She was grateful that they still trusted her to be alone with the thing, considering that she knew how to overwrite it. Imperia would make sure to live up to that trust. She didn't expect anybody to try and play around with the crystal, but she felt it was important to protect it anyway.

The crystal was placed on the floor and the key was retrieved from under the bed. She left, locking the door behind her and then using her claw to scrape a symbol onto the wood, a circle with a series of lines and triangles through it. A basic locking symbol. It wasn't going to be truly effective without the hundreds of supporting inscriptions which would normally be placed around the doorframe to increase it's power, but it would still help.

Not only that but she had none of her magically infused ink, leaving her with the more painful option.

She winced as she carefully bit the tip of her tail just enough to make it bleed, drawing a smaller triangle in a circle in the centre of the design. The magic in a dragon's blood would be enough to power the symbol for months, and with any luck things would be solved before then. At least for Spyro they might be. Pleasure's future was even more uncertain.

Her defences in place Imperia headed back down into the darkness of the tomb, waving goodbye to the guards as she went. They promised to unlock the door if they heard her call from the other side, but Imperia's heart still fluttered with nerves as she heard the lock click behind her. Solid stone and iron reinforced wood now stood between her and the open air.

She breathed deeply as she floated downwards in the complete darkness, the narrow crevasse leading deep into the heart of the mountain was much worse without another dragon nearby to light the way. Luckily she wasn't scared of the dark, but she still felt a chill of dread from thinking about what waited for her down in that buried cavern.

Landing at the bottom she took the time to perform a couple of dance steps, letting the movement work tension out of her body as well as the last remaining chill from outside. She sensed a dragon approaching, and quickly recognised the posture and horns of Malefor. She continued her dancing as she sensed him stop to watch, eventually turning back towards him with a flourish.

"Beautiful."

She curtsied and smiled. "I'll definitely teach you sometime. Anything happened?"

"Nothing of note. Pleasure is still out cold. Spyro and Cynder are minding her. They locked us in here didn't they?"

"Yes they did. Although in a day or so Flare will arrive and that may change."

"Hmm…" Malefor nodded. "At least they're exercising a proper level of caution."

Imperia nodded in agreement. "So… How are you feeling after what she said?"

"Darkmire? It was concerning. Yourself and Spyro I'm not worried about, you two are both well aware that what she said about you were lies."

"Heehee… yep." Imperia laughed slightly.

Malefor looked at her keenly. "My apologies. I see that she got to you."

"Yes, a little bit. And to you too I take it? I notice you didn't mention that you knew what she said about you was all lies too."

Malefor shrugged slightly. "I think I was the least affected, but she certainly has a way of finding your weaknesses. Are you alright?"

Imperia nodded softly. "I am now. I had to take a little bit to think. I imagined Flare talking me out of it."

"I'm glad to hear that." Malefor moved to put a wing over Imperia like he had seen her do to Cynder, then hesitated.

Imperia looked at him playfully. "Go on. Put it down." Using her tail she pressed Malefor's wing so that it rested on her back. "There… It feels nice…"

Malefor flushed slightly and looked at the stone of the walls, her back was very warm and soft. "Yes it does. Ahem, well if you need to talk then don't hesitate to say so. I for my part will do my best to notice if you need anything but are not saying so verbally."

Imperia giggled. "That's one of the traits of a good friend. Noticing how someone close to you is feeling without them needing to ask you for help. Although asking is always important too."

"Both asking and being asked." Malefor nodded. "Before you I'd had almost no contact with the outside world, alone floating in convexity with only my dark side for company. I'm glad that your refresher course on social skills has proven to be accurate to the whole world, not just to interacting with you."

Imperia laughed. "What? I'm a good teacher. I wouldn't corrupt a student like that… much. I hope I'll get to do it for Pleasure too, help her find her confidence and her personality again, give her the tools to have positive relationships and to trim her horrible long nails and all those good things."

"I look forwards to it, and to doing my bit to help with that… Provided that we can save her. Saving Spyro is going to be challenging enough."

"The real problem seems to be finding Hope in order to get rid of him. Spyro coming here was brilliant, it's trapped Hope, but it's also walled him off from us to a degree. Any ideas?"

"Well one possibility is that we take him into Convexity."

Imperia's head perked up. "Wait, that works? I was so sure that you would have to chase Hope into convexity, but once we came here I assumed that was no longer a possibility."

"It seems like it might be…" Malefor said thoughtfully. "This place is a prison for dark creatures, creatures not wholly contained by a single world. I get the feeling that the prison itself exists within convexity just as solidly as it does here."

Imperia's face brightened. "That would be fantastic! How do we test that? After all we don't want to break the prison or anything."

"I'll try to jump into convexity and back. Not yet, but soon. I also plan to teach Cynder to do it too if I can."

"Speaking of teaching Cynder… what do you think Darkmire wants to show her?"

"I don't know." Malefor admitted. "But it worries me. I trust Cynder very much, but Darkmire seems to want to turn her against us, and I don't want to give her the chance. Her jabs at each of us seemed meant only to hurt us and to make us doubt ourselves. But what she did to Cynder was something different… She made Cynder furious, as well as trying to isolate her."

Imperia frowned at him. "You're wrong about Cynder. She wouldn't let that happen to her. I guarantee it."

"How can you be so sure? When she faced the Dark Master he was able to turn her into a creature of darkness. I was there, I saw her strike Spyro down before the final battle."

"For hardly a minute. Then she resisted the effect and overcame it. And when Hope tried to do the same thing to her she didn't even turn for a moment. She's not going to let that happen to her."

"You're right." Malefor nodded, looking slightly ashamed. "I shouldn't doubt her."


"So what exactly have you been up to while I was out of it?" Spyro asked.

His voice was soft in the dim light, soothing.

Cynder gazed up at him, noting the way the torchlight flickered and shimmered, reflected in his scales. She considered the question. "A lot of things happened. I don't even know where to start."

"At the start?" Spyro suggested.

"Whoever invented that comeback needs a smack on the head. I hope it was Darrr… uh… our highly unpleasant black dragon friend, just so that what we do to her can count as vengeance twice over."

Both of them turned to glance at the still form of Pleasure, curled up against the wall in a little ball with a blanket carefully tucked around her. The wounds she had suffered from Cynder's lashing out in anger were still raw and would be deeply painful, but the most serious damage had been treated and for the moment rest was the best thing for her. She certainly looked like she would be unconscious for hours yet.

"I don't really know where the start is. I guess you missed me learning to like Ember. I'm still trying to decide on Malefor. I never thought I was good at forgiveness, but I'm giving out lots of chances and they've been working out kind of well. After Malefor how bad could Cyril and Altia be, right?"

Spyro chuckled jokingly. "Ten times worse I guarantee it. How are you feeling about the Imperia thing? Do you want to talk about it?"

"Surprisingly I'm feeling okay about it. It's a big betrayal, and she knows that. There was a trial and everything, the guardians took a vote on whether to kick her out and it barely scraped by. Volteer and Cyril for her staying, with Flare and Terrador against."

"Say what?" Spyro stared at her, amazed.

"Seriously. Cyril was in favour of her staying. Something about opposites attracting. Kind of. And Flare was against because Imperia is a wildcard, which is pretty fair, all things considered."

"Opposites attracting?" Spyro tilted his head curiously and snuggled a bit closer to her. "I feel like I'll need to get the full story from him. The stripped down version sounds far too ridiculous to believe."

"Really? I thought Cyril voting in favour of Imperia on anything was ridiculous no matter how long I spent explaining it." Cynder let out a purr of contentment and laid her head on top of Spyro's paws, resting it against his chest.

"He's not quite that unreasonable. He's pretty close though." Spyro laughed slightly. "But you haven't so much told me how you feel. Especially after what you just heard. Trying to imagine Imperia calmly talking about your odds of survival was… heartbreaking, just a bit. It's hard to imagine her doing that."

"I mean it was before she knew me. Whatever she did in the past doesn't matter as long as she's making up for it, and really making up for it, not just apologising a lot. Which she is. After we lost our first chance to capture you I was pretty upset. We were so close. Imperia helped me through that, and so did Flare actually. It's all forgiven, not forgotten, but I'm okay with it."

"I'm proud of you."

Spyro said, pure warmth in his voice. His wing squeezed her shoulders slightly.

"I would have supported you if you were angry. You know that. But I think instead you've taken a really mature and sensible approach to all of this. It's kind of sexy." He added with a slight grin.

"Mature and sensible are my two defining traits." Cynder replied playfully.

"Not sexy?"

"Nope."

"Oh, I must be thinking of someone else then. Imperia maybe."

Cynder snorted. "Mature and sensible are definitely not her defining traits."

"You're right then. I don't know who I'm thinking of, but I have a huge crush on her whoever she is."

"Aww…" Cynder licked his face, careful to avoid the side with the nasty chemical burn he still had. It did make him look kind of cool, but she would prefer to see it gone as it looked painful and wasn't nearly as nice to touch as his undamaged scales.

"So at the risk of spoiling your good mood what about Malefor? He hasn't seemed actively nasty since he was reborn, but I would have thought you'd still find his personality pretty enraging, he's very smug and self important, not to mention that he still decided it would be a suitable test to just throw a golem and a pair of fanatical ice dragons at us to see what we did."

"Right, he did do that." Cynder nodded, quirking her lips slightly in a smile. "I would have hit him harder if I'd been thinking about that."

"Hit him harder?" Spyro blinked.

"Training matches. You might have noticed going over Hope's memories that Malefor's hand to hand combat skills are noticeably lacking. I called him out on it, and he had the intelligence to swallow his pride and accept some training. He did pretty well, he didn't complain, he didn't cheat, he didn't backchat me, and every time I dropped him he got right back up ready to go again. In fact he did really well." Cynder admitted, almost surprised she was saying it.

"I want to be dropped by you." Spyro muttered, playful but ever so slightly jealous, just loudly enough for her to hear.

"I mean sure, if you're into that. Obviously that's not what was on either of our minds while Malefor and I were training. Still I guess I'm feeling mostly neutral about Malefor now."

Spyro laid his head gently on top of Cynders, feeling her purr underneath him in relaxation and approval. "I love you."

"I love you too, my hero."

"Being called that sounds so much better coming from you than from anyone else."

Cynder hummed happily in response and twined their tails together.

"I still need a name for you too." Spyro said.

"Mmhmm…" Cynder purred in agreement.

"My… heroine?"

"Nuh."

"Black Beauty?"

"Hmm… Meh."

"Aww, I really thought that one was good."

"It's ok. Not great though."

"That's fine. I think I have the right one anyway. If you're okay with it, that is."

"What is it?" Cynder tilted her head slightly so one emerald eye was able to look up at Spyro with curiosity.

"Well actually it comes from Sparx. At the time I didn't think anything of it, but… well recent events have made me start to think about it a bit more. When I was under Hope's control and he'd taken us to Warfang something strange happened. As you hit him with your fear I found myself sitting in some sort of dream landscape…"

Cynder listened, having no idea where this was going, but interested to find out.

"I was on a leaf, like a lilypad, and floating in an ocean. Hope was there, kind of. It was like some sort of mental escape, a place where we could be safe from the fear, try to recover some control."

"I see…"

"Well the thing is that it wasn't quite working. Hope was trying to regain his power, he was stressed to his limits. While we were in there I could feel you, I could sense your presence outside, squeezing on the world, like the threat of a distant storm, bringing fear and pain with it. I know that sounds like a bad thing but… it wasn't. It was you. You trying to save me. So I let you in, I let your powers crash into us both and drag us back into the real world. So I was thinking maybe your name could be that."

"Could be what?"

"Nightmare. Nightmare girl."

Cynder was quiet for several moments, thinking about it. Her next words made Spyro's heart sink slightly. "You know… I don't think I'd let even Imperia call me that."

He nodded, ready to apologise, but she spoke before he could.

"But you? From you I like it. Nightmare girl."

She nodded slightly.

"That's what makes it special."

Spyro hugged her tightly. "I'm glad you like it."

The two of them enjoyed several minutes of comfortable silence before Spyro eventually spoke again.

"Hey Cynder? You don't think that mind prison thing I experienced is where Hope actually lives, do you?"

"What do you mean?" Cynder asked.

"Well… what if instead of killing me in the real world and then using the crystal to bring me back, what if I was able to kill Hope in there? If he dies in there… maybe he dies completely?"

"Inside your head?" Cynder mused thoughtfully. "It might work. If you were anyone else, and this situation was anything other than what it is I would say that trying to literally kill your own inner demon is basically self harm and not going to work. But in this particular case maybe it would work… I guess it's worth a try, right?"

"Right." Spyro nodded, smiling. "You would need to fear blast me again, of course. But I really do think it's worth at least trying."

"I wonder if that's what Darrr… uh, nasty old black wyrm, was going to teach me about if she got her wish of talking to me alone, or if she was just going to be horrible."

Spyro's expression tightened slightly in concern. "I don't like the idea of finding out. Still that's your decision."

"I'm going for it. It's just a question of when, how long she wants me for, how exactly you'll know when to let us out, and I want to have a shot locked in that room all alone for a few minutes to make sure I can handle it before I let myself be locked in with her as well."

"We'll do everything we can to make sure it's safe." Spyro said softly, giving her another squeeze. "Just remember you don't have to do it. You don't have to do anything."

"You'd do it for me." Cynder responded

Spyro nodded. "Yes, but that doesn't mean… you know." He shrugged slightly.

"You'd probably even do it for Cyril."

Spyro snorted slightly in amusement. "Only so he can teach me more about ice magic. Otherwise I'd let him suffer."

Cynder laughed. "Would you though?"

Spyro shook his head. "No I wouldn't. I'd want to save anyone."

"You deserve saving too." Cynder said.

Spyro smiled. "Thanks. I definitely would rather be saved, I'm just sorry that you've been through so much. You shouldn't need to take this responsibility, even with me helping as much as I can."

"I appreciate the sympathy, but I can handle it." Cynder said confidently. "I spent enough time looking for an easy way to keep you without any strings attached. Sometimes people are worth fighting for."

"Thanks Cynder." Spyro hugged her tightly.


Ahh I've had that SpyCy scene in mind for so long, it feels great to finally get it out!

Writing the final big payoff for this story hasn't been the easiest. I feel like other stories wrap things up into a nice neat bow somehow, while in mine the way that everything comes together is complicated. Not so much putting the final piece in a puzzle, more like carefully performing the rotations and twists which complete the last side of a rubix cube.

Anyway I hope you liked it! Please review, follow, favorite and all that stuff.

Love you all.

Thanks for reading!

Oh, and merry christmas!

-4Dragons