Draco, Contrinus, Chip and Cydra are property of my co-author, Cydra.

Matt, his merc team, the NSC and related tech, the ancients/atlanteans and malefors dragon generals are mine.

CPS Chronicles

Soulless Abyss

Chapter 10: Darkest Hour pt 2

Normal

flashback

The active ring sat in space, the flowing colours of convexity still visible through it and the surrounding space choked with wreckage. Anyone listening with a radio would have heard a single S.O.S message beeping away...

Techo looked at the beacon he had set up. It was only 20 minutes since the HQF fleet had been torn apart, stranding him and Spyro on the ring stations control tower.

"So what do we do now?" asked Spyro. "Well, unless you can fly through space, which I doubt, we just sit here and hope that someone comes and saves us," said Techo.

Spyro looked gloomily out of the window in time for a piece of starship armour to bounce gently off the viewport. Techo walked up next to him. "Hey...someone'll be along..." he said in a feeble attempt at comfort. "I just hope it won't be one of the Dark Ones," said Spyro.

Techo sighed and walked off before angrily sweeping some of the tools he had placed on a control console across the room, yelling "Goddammit."

As the radio hit the floor, it started producing static before it cleared up to allow the words through, "Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there?" Techo and Spyro looked at each other before Techo gently picked it up and said that months winner for the stupidest response in history. "Who's calling?" he said weakly.

The distortion cleared up and Matt's voice came through clearly "Techo...Is that you?" "Matt? You're still alive?" asked Techo. "No, I'm calling you from the afterlife. OF COURSE I'M ALIVE!" snapped Matt. Spyro looked out the window and said "Where are you?"

Matt looked at the flickering controls of the Starfury he was sitting in. "Oh, just hanging around outside...taking in the sights...you know how it is." he said. Matt said "Almost didn't..."

Flashback

Matt yelled over the noise at Robbins. "I'm gonna lead some starfuries...draw some fire so we can get outta here." Robbins said "Are you nuts? Starfuries'll have no effect against that."

"No, but they'll at least buy time to get us out of here," said Matt. With that he ran down the corridor towards the Starfury bay.

When Matt arrived at the bay, it was clear that alot of pilots had a similar idea, pilots scrambling for their starfuries. Matt grabbed a helmet and climbed into a ship. He was on the bay for launch when the ship shook like something had kicked it, knocking alot of the bay personnel down.

Matt gunned his starfury down the bay as explosions ripped the bay apart. The Starfury flew out and Matt looked at the rear camera to see that the Abbadon had been cut in half by two beams. A second later his ship was sent flying as the Abbadon exploded.

Present

"Blast fried my starfuries systems...I don't think anyone else got into the air though." said Matt, finishing his explanation. "So you're stuck drifting?" asked Techo. "Basically..." admitted Matt. Techo sighed "So you're as stuck as we are...thats a fat load of good." he said.

Just then, a third voice came over the comm., "Guys, is that you out there?" Techo looked at the radio. "What are the chances?" he muttered before replying. "Chloe?" "No, its the tooth fairy." said Chloe sarcastically. Techo looked at Spyro and muttered "Well...least we know they're well enough to be smartarses."

"Chloe, you got any power on your side?" asked Matt.

Aboard the Bladestorm, it was minor chaos. The bridge itself was a mess. Chloe was sat at a intact console. "Barely. We got damage on all decks and most of our systems are toast. We're working on getting the teleporter working again." she said.

"So you're stuck drifting too?" asked Matt. "We've got sub-light but the jumpdrives so much scrap..." said Chloe. WARDEN could be seen conversing with Chip, working on getting the teleporter working without it having any nasty side effects.

"I can probably coax a few minutes thrust from the fury...enough to dock up. I think I spotted you now." said Matt's voice. Just then, another voice came over the comm., "Hello, I'd like to order a large pizza with extra cheese, olives, anchovies, gumdrops, bacon, not Canadian..."

Chloe glared and yelled down the comm. "MORPH...GET OFF THE RADIO BEFORE I MAKE YOU EAT IT!" "Chloe? Since when did you work at Dominos?" asked Morph. Chloe's eye began to twitch violently. "Morph...get off the radio...NOW!" she yelled before sending a arc of lightning down the comm to Morph for good measure.

"But I was hungry," moaned Morph before hanging up. "Was that Morph?" asked Spyro's voice. "Yes, it was." sighed Chloe. WARDEN flickered for a second. "Miss Lynch. The captains Starfury has...well, I say docked but he landed it upside down." he said

Chloe shrugged and said, "Well, at least he's latched on. Let him in." There was a slight yelp over the comm as Matt apparently fell into the docking bay.

Back at the station, Techo was a bit nervous. "Ok...so...how much progress has WARDEN and Chip made of the teleporter?" he said. "Oh, we've tested it," said WARDEN, "But unfortunately, Sparx was in the same booth so it got rather messy."

Spyro and Techo exchanged a look and Techo said "We don't mind waiting." Spyro managed to say weakly. "Tell me that was a joke." Then two voices was heard laughing on the other end and they heard Chip saying, "Oh, he got you good didn't he? I told you they'd fall for it."

Spyro and Techo glared at the comm. Techo said "Hey, Spyro. Wanna know how to reprogram a CPU with a pickaxe?" "Sheesh, some people can't value comedy relief," said Chip, "We'll have you beamed over soon. Make sure you're not touching each other or you could wind up in each other's body." There was a brief pause before Chip said, "That wasn't a joke."

Spyro and Techo immediately backed away from each other. WARDEN's voice was heard counting down. "Erm...you sure this'll work?" said Techo. Chip said "I'd say 90% confident." Techo managed the beginning of a swearword before the control room lit up, the teleporter beam carrying away Spyro and Techo.

Techo's vision came back to show he was intact. "Nnnngh." he managed. "I knew it would work," said Chip, "You guys are alright, but you might be slightly disorientated for a bit." Spyro looked like he had been span round at high speed for an hour. "Bleh?" he said, dizzily.

"Take it easy, your stomachs probably won't have settled well after being de-moleculed," said Chip. Techo tried to step towards Chip with violence in mind and managed to get two steps before running out of feet.

A little while later, the gang were having a small war council. "Well, what are our options?" asked Matt, "And don't tell me 'turn around and fly back to our galaxy', we're not abandoning those people down there."

Chris didn't look happy with that but said "What'll we fight those Dark One ships with...harsh language? The ships barely holding together." "Well, how good are their ground forces now?" asked Spyro.

"They won't need much. They just bombard their targets into submission from orbit." said Techo, grimly. "And I've checked their software as best as I could," said Chip, "These guys are unhackable."

A crewman came in. "Sir? We getting a life reading from one of the wrecked ships." he said. "Which one is it?" asked Matt. "I believe it's the one that had Capt. Morgan in it," said the crewman.

Morgan was not the only survivor. Several other atlanteans, not Shar Khan, had survived. Morgan just looked grim. "This should not have happened." he said simply.

"I don't suppose there's any records of an invasion force like this being repelled, is there?" said Matt. "The ships I brought should have done the job." said Morgan, sadly. "Well, we're screwed," said Chris, "Not like we can throw that station into reverse and suck them all back in."

Morgan looked hopeful at that. "You might be onto something. There must have been some kind of remote system in place...oh no." he said. "What? What is it?" asked Chip.

"If it is anywhere, it will be the ruins of Sor'thon Colony...where the colonial archives were once located. The council would have placed it there to take advantage of the archive defence systems." said Morgan. "Oh, right, the defence systems," said Matt, a little uneasily.

Morgan said "Mr Lynch told me what happened during his first month here. The control facility will still be intact...however..." Matt finished "...there's a small army between us that there." He looked at Spyro and remembered what the prophecy had said.

"The rest of the prophecy on that crystal, it said that the Dark Ones would be banished by the way they came here," said Matt. Spyro nodded "There must be some way we can get there."

"You really think there's a reverse switch on that station?" asked Chris. "Not the station," said Matt, "I mean the place where all this started in the first place: that arc in the catacombs."

Morgan nodded "The device mentioned is probably a backup system to whatever Kai destroyed in her escape. We simply activate it and it will do the rest." he said. "Problem is that the catacombs is probably crawling with Heartless now," said Chip.

"The device we want can be found in the colony...in a exit into the catacombs. The colonists probably collapsed it from the main sections millennia ago." said Morgan. "We cannot fly there in this ship...your...'Nighthawk' should be sufficient."

"I'm a little worried about the guys back down at Warfang," said Chloe. Morgan said "The ring was designed to strip corruption as well as remove the dark ones. If we activate it, they will be returned."

"We probably ought to try to get communication down there to be sure," said Chloe, "Those Keyblades would sure come in handy right now." Spyro looked worried, obviously worrying for his friends in Warfang. Matt said "I'm sure the eldars got everyone out in time."

"Well, are we just gonna sit up here worrying or are we gonna go down there and do something?" asked Morph. The others turned and looked at Morph. "How'd you get on the Bladestorm?" asked Techo. "I'm on the Bladestorm?" asked Morph. Matt sighed and said "Where do you think you are?"

"I dunno, I was fiddling with a bunch of crystals to get pizza and, poof, I'm here," said Morph. It was Morgans turn to sigh. "I did tell you that teleporter crystals cannot be used for...what did you call it?...Take out?" "Well, you try finding good pizza in Warfang," said Morph. Spyro said "Whats Pizza?"

"Ok, so here's the plan," said Morgan, "We have two possible solutions to this ordeal. One: we can send a group to get help from the NSC, or two: we use the Nighthawk to get onto Avalar and activate that arc. I propose we split into two teams so we can accomplish one goal if the other fails."

The group all nodded. Nobody voiced the opiniuon that if the arc plan failed, the NSC wouldn;t stand a chance.

Spyro watched through a window in the Nighthawk as the Bladestorm limped into Nullspace. He looked over at Chloe. "Is something wrong? I get the feeling that you know something you don't want to tell me." he said. Chloe didn;t answer. She had gotten the full prophecy from Matt.

"I'm just...worried about if Xodrin has any special forces waiting for us," Chloe half-lied. "Morgan said that even he isn't sure." said Spyro before saying "He saw Cynder...didn't he."

"Yes, he did, but Xodrin probably has even worse monsters," said Chloe. Spyro was just silent for a minute before saying. "I failed her." dully. "No you haven't," said Chloe, "And if you say that one more time, I'm throwing you into the mouth of the nearest Heartless that's big enough." Spyro jumped back at that, a look of shock on his face as Chloe carried on.

"Ever since you lost Cynder it's been 'oh, I've failed her' or 'oh, poor Cynder'. Have you ever considered for a second that other people have been suffering as well? I miss her too, but reiterating that she's gone doesn't change jack-squat. So either make yourself useful and do something that could help us or shut up completely."

Spyro growled before sighing. "You're right. If the arcs activated, she'll be ok." he said. Chloe smiled "Thats right...now lets go get ready." she said.

Xodrin looked around the deserted Warfang before looking at Darkans. "I thought you said this was their capitol." he said smoothly. "It is," said Darkans, "This is their homebase and the place where their government works. No other place could be the capitol."

Xodrin nodded to Cynder who moved to block Darkans's escape as Xodrin said "Then where is everyone? You said we would catch them off guard." "I don't know," said Darkans, "Perhaps they've retreated into the catacombs." Xodrins eyes glowed red. "They will not escape presuming you were not foolish enough to fail to block the other catacomb exits." he said.

"Er, of course not," said Darkans, "Besides, the apes would probably have caught them." "You are a fool and a bad liar. Order your men to leave. We will leave this city...but we won't leave it intact. Order your fleet craft to fire once we leave."

Several miles away, the refugees from warfang finished coming out the catacombs and heard several shrieking noises from the direction of Warfang. They could see blue orbs slamming into the unseen city from the sky, columns of smoke rising.

"I had thought our doom would have come at the hands of Malefor," said Cyril, "I would have prefered that. At least Malefor is one of our kind." "It is my belief that they will continue their bombardment to ensure our full eradication," said Volteer. Zara was glaring angrily before looking at the smoke. "We will not go quietly." she snarled.

"I didn't have that in mind either," said NegaMorph, who had been helping the dragons evacuate. Just then, his right arm started to beep. "Uh, could you excuse me for a second?" he said before extending a tracker from his arm.

He walked to a empty area and looked to see an old device that Johnson had made for his web of lies back when he had worked for the empire. He had never used it as he'd never thought Matt would bother with such a subtle device. It was a scanner designed to detect cloaked ships.

He waved it in the air before he picked up a signal. A few seconds later, he had found the Nighthawk flying in cloaked mode. The ship appeared to be heading for where the archive had once stood. "Why head there?" he muttered, before he heard Smoldron say behind him "Head where?"

"The Nighthawk's heading towards the old archive," said NegaMorph, "But what could be of any importance there?" Smoldron was not alone. Sonya, Flame, Ember, and Xephros were also there, Xephros saying "Nothing is there now except ruins.

"Possible, but if that were true, they wouldn't waste time or risk their lives going there," said NegaMorph, "And if that's the case, then they'll probably need help." Flame said "We can't ask the eldars to come with us. The refugees need protection." Sonya said "Then its just us."

"Fine with me, small groups are easier to transport," said NegaMorph as he rolled up his various sleeves, "Panic is inadvisable during the trip and if you barf, well, I'm not sure where it will land." Sonya said "What are you talking abo..." before the ground below the group turned into a shadow portal.

"Screaming makes it hard to concentrate, so if you want to get to the right destination, make as little noise as possible," called NegaMorph before they went in.

Meanwhile, the Nighthawk had landed on an overgrown landing pad near what had been the main street. Morgan was leading the group through the city. A large number of the Bladestorm marines had come as well. "The actual facility will be in the colonies underground." he said.

"Ok, so how do we get down there?" asked Matt. "I can dig down," said Morph as he turned into Digger. Morgan shook his head and walked over to a bunch of vines near a post covered in markings before pulling them away to show a staircase leading down. He noticed their stares and pointed to the post. "Underground access sign." he said.

"Good, now we ought to finish this before-" started Chloe before a black portal appeared above them. They only had time to look up and say, "What the-" before five dragons landed on them, NegaMorph following afterwards. "I told you not to scream," said NegaMorph.

He looked to see the others staring in sheer speechless shock. "Ok...what the hell?" said Techo eventually. "I spotted you guys coming here and knew you were gonna need help," said NegaMorph, "They wanted to come too, which was fine. What wasn't fine was screaming their heads off and throwing off my course."

Sonya said weakly "Travelling that way does that." "Well, maybe you should have stayed back there and egg-sat," said NegaMorph. Sonya said "If we live through this, I'm going to turn you into a snowman." Chloe rubbed her temples and said, "Can we please get on with this before anything else unpredictable happens?"

A marine called out "CONTACT!" and fired at a shape on the top of a building which proved to be a wyvern heartless that quickly flew off south. "Great...everyone stop tempting fate." said Matt.

"Yeah, quit tempting and keep an eye out for watchdogs," said NegaMorph. There was a barking sound and a small pack of Rabid Dog Heartless bounded around the corner. "Ok, didn't mean for that to be so literal," said NegaMorph.

The marines and gang all aimed and blasted the heartless apart. There was so much firepower that there wasn't even a need for positron plasma. "Lets get this done. Who wants to bet that wyvern heartless has gone to snitch on us?" said Matt.

Morgan nodded. "Lynches, Spyro, this way please." he said. "You guys go on down," said Sonya, "We'll hold up the fort up here."

Spyro and the three Shar-Khan walked through the underground. Fortunately, Morgan was very familiar with its layout and there was no worries about getting lost. Matt could not help but notice how much the underground tunnel they were in resembled a metro tunnel. They had even passed a smashed transport pod. Finally Morgan stopped at a appraently innocent wall, before blasting it aside, revealing it was a fake door. The other side was less damaged and could have been fine except for the dust so think it looked like the corridor had been whitewashed.

"Let me guess, this room's never been used," said Matt. "It was probably never needed. This city fell after you took me and the others through the portal to this time." said Morgan. Spyro however said "This is too easy...its never this easy." Chloe nodded "You have a point."

"Yes, I suspect Xodrin will have dispatched a team to take care of anyone who would try to use this room," said Morgan. Matt went ahead and slowly pushed the door at the end open and was nearly blinded. The room was lit up with a red light and all the holo-screens were lit up with the atlantean word for 'Alert'. A large window showed a gigantic crystal reactor beyond. "Wow...and I thought the CPS reactor was big." said Chloe.

"Considering what it's put here to do, I'm not too surprised," said Matt. Morgan nodded and walked over to the main console and began touching the crystals. He finally smiled as the red lights vanished and the screen turned into several different shots of the city above, except for one screen that was obviously a shot from the ring station.

"System powering...we're good." he said before having to jump back as the control practically exploded. The main screen changed to a schematic, showing a flashing red section. "Dammit, I was afraid this would happen." Morgan said. "What happened?" asked Spyro.

"The controls up here are degraded. There's a backup control system down in the reactor room...but if the safeties are damaged...We have to risk it." said Morgan.

Meanwhile, the Wyvern Heartless made it back to Xodrin. It was able to communicate to the Dark One general what it had seen at the old archive. Xodrin was impressed. "Hmm...I guess the atlanteans were not so feeble as I thought they were." he said before turning to Cynder and Malefor. "I have a task for you. I would prefer these...troublemakers surrender. Go and make sure they surrender...if they refuse, we will let them join their wonderful city." he said.

The two corrupted dragons nodded before disappearing through a corridor of darkness. Darkans said "They would not be able to get away from the area in time." only for Xodrin to say "They're easily replaced. Move the fleet into position."

Meanwhile, NegaMorph and the other dragons were keeping an eye out for any more Heartless. A few had attacked, but nothing that couldn't be destroyed with a breath attack.

The marines had set up a blockade across the street, manned with heavy Positron cannons and marines with PRS-50 laser rifles. "Contact. 200 metres." yelled a lookout. 'Contact' was a understatement as two large dragons shapes with numerous dark one warriors could be seen in the fog that had clogged the end of the avenue.

"Here comes the big ones," said NegaMorph as he materialized his Lockblade into his hand. The shapes cleared to show Cynder and a heartless that looked like "Malefor." whimpered Ember.

"Whoa, he really let himself go," said NegaMorph. Chris said "I don't think he's exactly himself...look at his chest.", pointing out the heartless symbol. "Hmm, you'd think he'd end up uglier, if that was possible," said Sonya. "Foolish mortals," called Dark Cynder, "You are given one chance to surrender. It is the only way you will survive."

"Only way we survive, eh?" said NegaMorph as he tapped his Lockblade in though, "I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure we can survive without your charity, unless you want to put that to the test right now." Dark Cynder glared as Draco yelled "I take it the romance between you and Spyro's over then."

"As if there was any romance at all," said Dark Cynder. "Are you kidding? You and Spyro were-" Draco paused when Chip tapped him on the shoulder. "Don't bother with that," said Chip, "I already heard from Matt, her mind's been twisted so all her relationships are reversed."

Negamorph glared at the dark ones assembled. "We're not surrendering to you or your boss." he yelled. "Then you have chosen extinction," said Dark Cynder before launching a dark fireball at them. The fireball was only to make a point. To the gangs shock, the enemy began to back up. "Oh, this can;t be good." said Techo. Cynder turned and called out with a parting shot. "My master will burn you from orbit."

Up at Xodrin's ship, Xodrin had received Cynder's message. "The enemy has opted for oblivion," he remarked, "Then we shall see that they get it." A dark one nodded and began communicating to the other ships. Xodrin watched with satisfaction as several cruisers moved into position. With his command ship through the portal, other ships had been able to bypass the arc ring, allowing for a large fleet. "Fleet reports ready." said a crew member.

"Excellent," said Xodrin, "Prepare to fire on my-" An explosion outside cut him off and shook the ship slightly. "What in the void?" he yelled, before looking out the main viewport to see what looked like a meteor storm slamming into his fleet, hails of armour piercing missiles. He skimmed the view around to see over 3 dozen large ships appearing through void portals.

Xodrin looked rather annoyed and said, "I had a feeling some rats managed to escape. We'll deal with these nuisances and then get back to the archive." "My lord...new contact...by the void." said a pilot before seeing a much larger portal appearing before a ship rivalling Xodrins ship appeared, the word 'Planet cracker' on the side. It fired a huge blast into a cruiser already damaged from the first hail, blowing it to bits.

"Why are our shields not up yet?" demanded Xodrin. "W-working on it." said a crewman. It was just in time as the planet cracker turned and fired at them next. The ship still shook but the shields just held. "The rats have fangs." said Xodrin before saying "The worms on the planet can wait...crush these newcomers."

Meanwhile, the surface group were having to deal with a wave of Heartless. They were mainly Armored Knights, but they kept coming in mass. They had been cheering at first when the comms had been flooded with NSC fleet command chatter. The cheering had turned to chaos as they had heard Cynder and Malefor roar before the heartless had rushed them. "We don't have enough ammo for this." yelled a marine, before firing a positron heavy round into a cluster of imp heartless, trying to jump the blockade.

"As long as we can hold them off until they get that arc working, that's all the time we'll need," called Chip before sending some viral blasts at some Guard Sentries.

A hail of golden bolts shot across the top of the barricade, killing a couple of marines closely followed. Several dozen dark one warriors were steadily walking towards the barricade, taking advantage that the marines were reloading the positron cannons. "Hey...where are Malefor and Cynder?" said Sonya, sending a icicle through a warrior.

Meanwhile the underground team had gotten to the room where the crystal reactor core was. "Ok, so where's the manual controls for this?" asked Chloe. "There...between the stabilization spires." said Morgan, pointing to a platform between the four crystal columns.

"Ok, so we just throw the switch and send those creeps back where they came from," said Matt, "Why do I get the feeling it won't be that easy." Just then, a little loose rock fell down from the ceiling. Chloe looked up to see Morph falling down and held out her arms to catch him. "Howdy-doo," said Morph.

"The arc is basically a giant reality alternity device. A person has to tell it what to effect and what not to." said Morgan. Chloe gave Morph an annoyed look and said, "What are you doing here?" "Well, I was fighting up there when this big fat Heartless landed on me," said Morph, "Knocked me all the way down here."

The others all looked up in time to see the very same heartless following Morph down before blasting it before it could land. "We have no time to lose. We have to set the reactor to go. Someone has to go to that platform and activate it." said Morgan once they were sure the heartless was toast.

"Well that will be a problem," said a voice. The five of them turned to see Dark Cynder and Malefor's Heartless. "You see, dead worms can't activate anything," said Cynder.

The others all readied to fight but Spyro looked like an internal fight was in progress. Matt couldn't blame him...He'd felt the same when he had aimed at Avarona when she had used Kala's body.

"Hey, why is Malefor all spooky black with yellow eyes?" asked Morph. "Heartless. He finally made a deal with the wrong people." said Matt. Spyro, however said "Cynder...its me, Spyro...please." "Spryo, barely even know that name," said Cynder.

Spyro looked like someone had just punched him in the chest. Morgan said "Do not listen...that is not your Cynder...it is a twisted version created by the dark ones corruption." he said.

"Besides, I think those guys are scarier than her," said Morph, pointing at the Dark One warriors that have appeared besides the corrupted dragons. Malefor actually spoke in an echoing voice. "Surrender your lives or perish." Matt, unable to resist said "Oh...the giant gecko speaks."

"Frankly, I didn't think he'd be able to talk," admitted Morgan. "I vote we make sure he has nothing left to say." said Chloe, igniting her blade. "I second that," said Matt, igniting his own blade.

Cynder snarled "Then die." before her group charged. Matt got a shock when the warriors also charged, similar blades to what Xodrin had used on their wrists. He also noticed their armour was more streamlined. "Great...uber troopers." he muttered before being forced to dodge a slash.

Spyro however was immediately charged by Cynder. Spyro used his earth breath to create a barrier, but that only slowed Cynder down slightly. He managed to flap back, his previous experience when he had to fight the adult form Cynder all those years ago paid off. "Cynder, please." said Spyro desperately, dodging a shadow fire blast.

"Oh, you want to whine some more?" asked Cynder before nearly slashing him with her poison claws. "Cynder...Don't make me fight you. I don't want to hurt you." said Spyro, barely dodging another slash.

"Well that makes one of us," said Cynder as she tried to poison him again. Spyro said "Then I'm sorry." before back-winging and spitting a fireball at Cynder. Cynder narrowly avoided that and remarked, "So you can fight back."

Spyro quickly began to fly back, forcing Cynder to follow to keep a clear shot going. The chase led in-between the crystal columns, already buzzing with energy.

Meanwhile, the Shar-Khan had their hands full with the uber-troopers. It was farely obvious that these were specifically made to take out tough enemies and were certainly giving them a run for their money.

Matt blocked another slash before punching his opponent in the face, knocking the mask off. The Dark One paused before turning back to face Matt. Where a human would have hair, it just had stubby spikes covering its skull. Its face was not much better. It had two eyes in the regular places, one in its forehead, and one where its nose should. The gaping leech-like orifice below presumbably performed as both nose and mouth.

"Smegging hell." yelped Matt before blasting the dark one in the face, killing it. He didn't have much time to catch his breath as another dark one elite charged him. It appeared that Malefor retained some of his sadistic sense of fun, as he was currently forcing Morph to run around by breathing fire right at his backside. "Stay still." he hissed, before spitting another flame at Morph.

"Ooh, it's hot, it's hot, it's hot!" squealed Morph as he kept only a few inches ahead of Malefor's flames. Malefor laughed darkly before tlying forward to land in front of Morph and slamming his hand down on the experiment, obviosuly expecting a quick kill.

However, Malefor was rather unfamiliar with the experiments in general and thus did not know about Morph's near-limitless regenerating power, not his semi-solid composition.

Malefor lifted his paw to see a puddle before it formed back into Morph. "Ohhh...that felt wierd." said Morph dizzily. "What the?" said Malefor before turning and smashing Morph flat with his tail. Morph sprung back again. "Can you do that once more? Its making my back feel so much better." he asked, cheerfully.

Malefor growled, picked up a large boulder, and slammed it on top of Morph. Again Morph flowed back out from under. "Careful...could have killed somebody with that." Malefor's eye twitched before he yelled, "WHY WON'T YOU DIE?" "That same question could be applied to you," said Morph.

This was the final straw for Malefor. Heartless, he may have been, but he could still be driven round the twist. "GRAAAH!" he roared before tail-whipping Morph across the reactor chamber before flying to see if that had finally done it.

To his credence, he found Morph in a crater. Sadly, he was completely unharmed. "Ooh, that was fun," said Morph, "Do it again!" Malefor glared at this, his eye tick now extremely twitchy before he lunged at Morph. Morgan and his opponent both looked over in confusion as they watched as Malefor literally went nuts.

Meanwhile, the Heartless assault on the surface got even more intense. Since Morph was squashed underground by that Large Body Heartless, the rest have been pressing forward even more now that only one Key/Lockblade was present to oppose them.

A marine yelled something at Negamorph before a blue bolt shot out from the clouds and blew him backwards, blowing the cannon he was at to bits.

A dart fighter flew overhead a second later. Ember blasted a heartless trying to get advantage of this situation. "This is bad." she said, before a dark one warriors blast nearly killed her. "There's too many of them," said Flame, "They'll overrun us before we know it."

Chris fired a blast at a warrior before yelling. "Fall back to the underground...we'll have to hold them there." Several marines didn't need telling twice, grabbing ammo and what weapons they had before sprinting for the entrance. A hail of dart blasts shredded them a second later.

"I'd agree with you, if we could actually get underground," said Xephros. The dart fighters however had circled around to fire on the group that was behind the barricade. Their droning engines could be heard through the clouds, getting louder.

"Looks like our last stand is right here," said Draco. "It would seem so," said Chip, "If we don't survive, I want you to know that I've looked up to your fiery determination." "Chip, I use your spare legs as backscratchers," said Draco. "Excuse me?" said Chip.

The darts cleared the clouds, apparently coming in low. The marines and the gang began firing at the approaching ships before a hail of various elements shot over their barricade from behind and into the darts, forcing them to either scatter or nosedive into the ground in flames.

"What was that?" asked Contrinus. "I believe that was the Calvary," said NegaMorph, pointing upwards towards several dragons that were flying towards them. A large group of dragons, led by the eldars immediately attacked the dark one force, some landing in the middle of a group and using their claws and tails to devastating effect, others breathing their element on the warriors or at the remaining fighters.

"Now that's more like it," said Chris. "Hope it'll be enough to last until they get that portal going," said NegaMorph. Techo stood up and shot a half-burnt but apparently unbothered warrior. "Well...we gonna let these guys get all the fun?" he said.

The battle in Orbit however was another story. Neilsson gripped his command chair as the cruiser he was on caught a glancing blow. Once the dark one ships had raised shields, the battle had begun to turn against the NSC ships. Even the Planet Cracker class, 'Absolution' was struggling.

"How are we losing?" demanded Neilsson, "This is supposed to be one of the elite fleet in the NSC armada." "The enemies shields are taking everything we can throw at it. Even my ships main cannons useless...not that its much use...they took it out a few minutes ago. I got fires on all decks...next hits game over for us...but they're not getting us for free." said Captain Andrews, the Absolutions captain.

With that, he cut comms and the Absolution, covered in gouges and damage from the firepower being hammered on it, turned and began to bear down on one of the heartless command ships.

Lord Zalis...the enemy capitol ships is heading right for us on a ramming course." said a crewman. "Those humans can't really be foolish to pull off a suicidal ploy like that," said Zalis.

"My lord...the targets mss will easily bypass our shields." said the crewman, desperately. The human ship, the proud words 'NSS Absolution' still visible was clearing going to hit. "Destroy them...NOW!" said Zalis, a hint of fear slipping into his voice at his crewmans speech about the shields not protecting them.

The ship brought their full firepower on the ship, but they lacked the total destructive power to break it apart.

On the bridge of Neilssons ship, silence fell as the doomed Dark one command ship fired again and again into the Absolution before the two ships connected. For a second, the command ship seemed like it would hold, its shields flaring into the visible spectrum, before both ships exploded violently, the shockwave and debris destroying 3 other ships that were too close.

On Darkan's ship, a similar shocked silence had descended. "You know what, I didn't survive that old war to become Xodrin's lapdog again," said Darkans, "I'm out of here."

A crewman looked over in confusion. Darkans said "Tell the ships in my wing to jump to the void...Now." The crewman said "We're leaving?" Darkans grabbed him by his collar and yelled "You want to go back to that limbo?"

The thought of returning to Convexity was unpleasant enough, but the way Darkans said nailed it in. The crewman nodded numbly and said, "Aye, sir." Nobody, least of all Xodrin, noticed a half dozen cruisers slowly turn and vanish into a nullspace portal.

Meanwhile, down in the reactor cavern, the battle was really heating up. Primarily contributing to that was Malefor, who had basically gone berserk with his futile attempts to kill Morph.

Cynder however was doing everything in her power to kill Spyro, fuelled by the twisted personality that Xodrin had planted. The two had ended up between the humming Crystal columns, arc energy crackling around the two dragons.

"Cynder, we shouldn't be fighting here," said Spyro. "Oh please," said Cynder, "If you think I'm going to listen to your pathetic pleading to 'come back over', you can stuff it up your-" "No, I mean we shouldn't be fighting right here," said Spyro.

Cynder managed to work out what her opponent meant too late. The arc energy on the crystal stabilizers didn't just look like lightning...it acted like it too meaning it would earth in the nearest suitable object. Cynder found this out a second later as several bolts from a column earthed in her back with a sickening buzzing noise.

Cynder screeched as her body jerked with the overload of energy. Of course, that meant she couldn't keep flapping her wings so she fell down to the floor. Luckily, as a dragon the fall was not fatal for her, but when she landed on the platform placed between the spires, she still had the wind knocked out of her.

Of course, the ruckus of the battle did more than just shake the cavern. It awakened some long forgotten security. Security that was best off sleeping and forgotten. Cynder managed to shake some sense back and was ready to continue her fight when she heard a whirring noise. She slowly looked ahead to see one of the same crystalline spiderbots from the adventure at the archive, barely an inch from her face and looking at her with insect-like curiosity.

A dozen more were crawling from where they had hidden flush with the floor of the platform. Matt had only noticed them when he did a haymaker on one warrior and sent it sprawling on top of the spiderbots. Needless to say, the spiderbots did not like that.

The warrior managed to get up, hissing like some animal before several spiderbots lunged on him with more force then would be expected, forcing him to the floor and stabbing at his chest and face. The momentum of their lunge sent them and their victim falling down into the reactor pit. More spiderbots appeared to be waking up and scuttling towards the warriors and Malefor.

"Oh guuuuys..." said Matt slowly, "I think you need to take a second and look what's coming at us." Morgan was standing perfectly still, one spiderbot sitting on his shoulder and staring at him like it had just eaten the pirates parrot. "Don't respond...they're reacting to the heartless...they won't stop the warriors but it will buy us time." he said, slowly.

Cynder stared blankly at the crystal spider. She had a feeling that she should be terrified, but her mind didn't to be acting quite right. Emotions were flickering on and off and her train of thought couldn't stay on the tracks for more than three seconds.

The spiderbot's optic shone a light in her eye, seemingly looking for something. Whatever it found there, it didn't like it, making a hiss and readying its sharp front legs.

It probably would have tried to make paper dolls out of her grey matter if Spyro hadn't smashed it with a blast of earth power. The other spiderbots all turned in unison, the same hiss coming from them before they began shooting small arc blasts at the purple dragon. Cynder was shocked by her apparent enemy's actions.

"Why...should he help me? We're enemies...aren't we? We've hated, no, loved, no, ugh..." Cynder winced as her brain was probably doing the mental equivalent of a funny bone spasm.

Spyro rolled round the spiderbot blasts above Cynder as well as being forced to back-wing when a spiderbot tried to leap from a wall onto his back. All this time, the electrical shock was slowly eating through the forced personality Xodrin had imprinted, fracturing the false memories like a broken window.

Of course, this wasn't a simple veil-dropping for Cynder. Her reforming memories flashed before her eyes, as well as conflicting and weak-looking false memories. At the same time more spiderbots were methodically crawling onto the platform around her. They were in no hurry, which made their advance all the creepier. Finally, one spiderbot stopped and shone the light at her face again...and stopped. The others stopped, still ready but...waiting.

However, the spiderbots' opinion on Spyro hasn't changed. One of them managed to leap onto his neck and started carving long scratches into his skin, causing Spyro to roar in pain.

That noise was all that was needed to finish crushing Xodrin's homemade personality. She yelled "SPYRO!" and sent a well aimed shadow fireball that neatly flicked the spiderbot off Spyro's back.

The other spiderbots around her seemed to tense up before losing interest and scuttling off. Cynder shuddered as she shrunk down slightly back to her normal form. She had a bit of trouble finding her legs again, but she managed to stumble over to Spyro.

"Cynder?" he said cautiously. Cynder could not blame him for that. Barely a minute ago she had wanted to much to see him dead despite the fact that same thought now made her want to throw up. "Spyro, I'm so sorry," said Cynder. "Oh, now don't you get all mushy too," said Spyro.

A angry roar got both the attention, closely aided when a cracked spiderbot flew between them with a high pitched 'waaaah'. They turned to see Malefor now fighting alone but apparently still holding his ground vs the others.

A second 'waaaah' was heard before Morph landed at their feet. "Hey guys," said Morph, "Is Cynder back to normal yet?" "Yes, I am," said Cynder. "Good, cause this guy's really getting angry," said Morph, pointing back at Malefor.

They were just in time as Malefor spat out a pure black version of a convexity beam, nearly blowing Matt to bits. Malefor then turned slowly to look at the two dragons before growling in mindless rage.

By that time, the last of the dark warriors had been killed by either the Shar-Khan or the spiderbots. This currently meant that Malefor was the last enemy in the room, though quality often overrules quantity.

The spiderbots immediately swarmed Malefor, stabbing or electrocuting him with their arc blasts. However all this did was apparently make Malefor even more angry.

"You know, I distinctly remember reading that the more darkness in a heart, the more monstrous the Heartless becomes," said Chloe, "So I'm kinda wondering why Malefor just looks a black version of himself." "It may be possible that what's left of his mind is holding back a majority of his inner darkness," said Morgan, "Which is remarkable in itself that Malefor has any consciousness left." "And Morph, a expert at making people lose their minds is within 5 feet of him...this isn't good." said Matt.

"No, I'm right here," said Morph's voice. They turned around to see Morph at the opposite end of the cavern. "Hi guys!" he called. "What are you doing over there?" asked Chloe. "Staying away from him," said Morph, pointing at Malefor. "That's actually pretty smart of him," said Matt. Malefor was looking at his enemies. "No...how could you defeat me again...and you...traitor." he hissed, looking at Cynder and seeming quite insane.

"No one in their right mind would want to work with you," said Cynder, "Especially now. Look at yourself. You're not even a real dragon anymore." Morgan said quietly but seriously. "It is over, Malefor. We can restore you to normal...but you must surrender or we will bring you to an end."

"I will never surrender to a human!" roared Malefor. "Look at yourself, Malefor...what do you see?" said Morgan. Malefor, out of curiosity turned and probably for the first time since he had been changed, saw his reflection.

Apparently, the view of his heartless self was too much for what remained of his mind and he let an incredibly loud roar that didn't sound too dissimilar from Godzilla. At the same time, the dark aura that had been surrounding him flared up like an inferno.

The pulse shot out, sending the gang flying back and rendering the Shar khan members out cold when they struck the far wall. Morph, who was already far enough from Malefor, didn't suffer as big an impact. So he was able to notice Malefor being swallowed up by his own aura, which was rising up like flames of darkness.

Spyro and Cynder got up from where they had landed in time to see this and were rendered speechless. Morph however said "Shoot...I coulda brought marshmallows."

As the dark aura started to take on form, Morph realized that now was a really bad time for Matt, Chloe, and Morgan to be unconscious, so he proceeded to wake them up in as gentle a method as he could.

Sadly, to even a regular experiment, the meaning of 'gentle' didn't usually coincide with the rest of the multiverses, hense why he took a trumpet out his tek-pack fitted the funnel onto Matt's head and blew as hard as he could.

However, Matt was infamous for his ability to sleep through anything and all the blowing that Morph did would only cause him to get a bad earache when he woke up, and sub sequentially, end with Morph being stuffed through his own trumpet. "I don't think they're waking up today." Morph said nervously before hearing a snarl from the cloud of smoke that Malefors flames had kicked up. "Uh oh." he said

When he, Spyro, and Cynder looked, the dark aura had parted, revealing a large Heartless looked a lot like a classical European dragon of the village-torching, maiden-stealing legend type. The main indicators of what it really was were the Heartless emblem on its chest and the horns on its head that resembled Malefor's.

The Malefor heartless turned to glare at Spyro and Cynder, whatever that was left of Malefor making them the priority targets. Without any warning he spat a huge fireball at the dragons.

The three of them swiftly scattered to avoid being roasted. "Ok, this is probably the biggest bad guy we've ever fought, right?" asked Morph. "Not really," said Spyro, "The golem and the Destroyer were much bigger than this, but I'm not sure how much more powerful."

The Malefor heartless spread his own wings and took off, flying towards Spyro with his claws out. Spyro rolled to avoid it and Malefor smashed into one of the spires, leaving several cracks.

"Ok, anybody have any ideas of how to defeat this thing?" asked Cynder. "I could see if St George has a mobile number." said Morph, cheerfully, dodging another fireball. "Who's St. George?" asked Spyro before avoiding a sweep from the Heartless' tail.

Morgan came around slowly to see the Lynches still out cold...but also to see Malefor charging towards him as he chased Cynder. "Good lord." he said and rolled to avoid being pounded into the ground.

Just then, Morph rolled to a stop in front of Morgan. "Hi Morgan," he said. "Morph, you have to use your Keyblade," said Morgan, "It was built to fight these kinds of creatures."

Morph pulled out his keyblade. "This thing? I use it to get into the coffee cabinet on the ship." he said disbelievingly before being picked up by Morgan. "You are holding one of the few effective weapons against a heartless...USE IT!" yelled Morgan.

"Um..." said Morph as he looked at the giant Heartless, "Where do I hit him?" "I recommend the wings first so you can ground him, at least temporarily," said Morgan, "And when he's on the ground, hit that emblem on his chest. It might tire him out enough for him to be stunned for a bit, so you'll be able to get at his head and do more damage."

Morph said "You know...this seems alot like a game I played at Lilo's...WHOA!" before Morgan lost patience and threw Morph at Malefor directly before turning dragon and flying up to help Spyro and Cynder.

By sheer luck, Morph happened to land on Malefor's back. He glanced at the wings on either side and said, "Well, I better get to work." He waddled unsteadily over to the left wing and began swatting it with his keyblade, singing "I've been working on the railroad, all the life long day..." until Malefor rolled in the air, resulting in Morph flying backwards to grab onto the tip of the tail.

"Ok, this is trickier than a video game!" called Morph. His day got worse when Malefor turned a corner and his tail headed at high speed for a wall. "Oh no." said Morph before the tail slammed into the wall. "How does Matt do this stuff?" moaned Morph.

Morph managed to climb back up and settled for stabbing into Malefor's back. The keyblade surprisingly cut insanely well, leaving a glowing slash apparently made of light. "This isn't so hard, I don't what the big deal was-" started Morph before Malefor turned his head back and breathed fire down his back. "Oh yeah...that." rasped Morph, before blowing out the candle flame on the end of his keyblade.

"Just like old times, right Spyro?" asked Cynder. "Certainly is," said Spyro before both of them blasted at Malefor's exposed chest. Malefor roared in pain as the shots hit his heart symbol, the classic heartless weak point.

Meanwhile, Matt came round dizzily and wondered why he had such an awful headache...before the sight of Malefor bearing down on him made him forget about his sore head. "HOLY SH-" started Matt before he grabbed Chloe and jumped out of the way.

Malefor sent a stream of flames out, incinerating where the duo had been a second ago. Matt seemed naturally shell-shocked before looking at his sister and shaking her as hard as he could. "WAKE UUUUP!" he screamed.

Chloe barely woke up and looked very cross eyed. "Hey...I got dibs on the donut..." she said faintly. Matt grabbed her and forced her up to see Malefor fighting in the air with the others. "DOES THAT LOOK LIKE BREAKFAST TO YOU?" gibbered Matt.

That snapped Chloe back to normal time. "What the heck is that?" she said. "I think it's Malefor," said Matt, "Or what's left of him." Malefor turned to look at them and hissed before sending a blast of shadow fire at the Lynches. The duo was forced to jump over the railing and turn dragon to avoid being roasted.

"Ok, hopefully someone has a plan to take care of this... Wait, where's Morph?" asked Matt, only counting three dragons in the air and no blobs on the ground or walls. Chloe peered around before pointing in confusion. "Tell me I'm not seeing that." she said, pointing to where Morph was holding on for dear life on Malefor's back.

"It's ok!" called Morph, "I've got the big key thing!" The Lynches watched in shock before snapping out of it to fly after Malefor and strafing him with some lightning and plasma. "Blast from the past, eh, Spyro?" called Matt.

"In more ways than one," said Spyro as he dived to avoid being blasted by a meteor Malefor spat out. "All that's missing is that Chloe should be Sonya." Chloe at that point landed on Malefor's back and bit into the back of the huge heartless's neck. "Nah...Chloe's temper is worse." said Matt.

Meanwhile, Morph had gotten to the other wing and was starting to work on it. "How many whacks does it take to ground this guy, anyways?" asked Morph. Malefor finally landed, if only to try and scrape Morph off. The others continued to fly around Malefor, blasting at him.

Morph got up unsteadily and tottered over to Malefor's chest. "Ok, you big mean dinosaur thing, take that," said Morph as he slashed at Malefor's Heartless emblem. Sadly, it had never been documented how hard you had to hit a large heartless like Malefor was and all Morph earnt was another paw on top of him.

"I'm ok!" called Morph's muffled voice. Spyro flew around and sent a column of fury breath into Malefor's heartless emblem. That had a lot more impact. Malefor roared loudly before his head fell on the ground. "He's stunned!" called Morgan, "Aim for his head!"

Spyro and Cynder swooped round and shot down, both firing their fury breaths into Malefor's head. The reaction was impressive, cracks appearing all over Malefor's body. "Urm...take cover?" suggested Matt, before they were all blinded by the flash of light as Malefor's heartless seemed to explode into light.

As the light faded, they saw a large heart floating up from the remains and seemingly passing through the ceiling. "I wonder what'll happen to him?" muttered Chloe, as the group landed. "Don't know, don't particularly care," said Matt, "What was it we came down to here again?"

Morgan already had realised and was on the platform. "Oh no...no no no." he said angrily, looking at the panel. At the same time a message came over the NSC band. "All units...hostile ship has breached and is approaching firing position."

"Oh yeah, now I remember," said Matt, "Shouldn't we be switching on that arc now?" "We cannot. The system is damaged." said Morgan. "The feedback system is damaged." "Maybe you weren't fully grounded," said Matt.

"You idiot...the device needs the guidance of a mind...but with the feedback damaged, whoever uses it may not survive the sheer amount of information." said Morgan angrily. "Don't they have computers for this sort of thing?" asked Chloe. "Without input the arc will be apocalyptically disastrous." said Morgan.

"So what can we do?" asked Cynder. "I could hit it with the key thing," offered Morph. "No...one of us must hook up to the device...they simply have to stand on this platform and the system will do the rest." said Morgan.

"That doesn't sound so bad," said Matt. "It would be a one way trip...no mind is meant to handle an entire defence grid without aid." said Morgan sadly. "What about someone who barely has any mind?" asked Chloe, looking at an oblivious Morph. "It would not work with...Morphs species. Their minds are wired up differently." said Morgan.

The Lynches took one glance at Morph and said, "I can believe that." Spyro said "This is the only way to stop the dark ones?" in a thoughtful voice. "The only way known," replied Morgan.

Spyro nodded before looking at Cynder. "I'm sorry, Cynder." he said. Cynder looked confused and Matt said cautiously "What are you apologising for?" he said accusingly. Spyro simply said "For this..." before jumping onto where Morgan had said to stand. Immediately the platform lifted up and a force shield surrounded it.

"SPYRO, NO!" called everyone as the platform started to glow.

Meanwhile, the surface team was completely surrounded by Heartless. "Well, this is it," said NegaMorph, "If anyone can do a kamikaze attack, this is the time to do it." Chris suddenly said "Hey...you feel that?" before the ground began to shake. A vine-covered tower opened up and a glowing blue orb flew out before shooting at a warrior, burning clean through. The other warriors seemed surprised by this before a huge swarm of the orbs flew out of several other towers and shot at the warriors, flying neatly round everyone else with ease, another swarm heading up.

Chris looked in shock as the orbs circled around the group before another shaking fit made them all turn. "By the ancestors." said Cyril as a beam shot skywards from a building hidden under the undergrowth. "Um, I'm guessing they were able to boot up that arc thing," said Chip.

In orbit, the NSC fleet had continued the fight to avenge the Absolutions demise but were being pummelled, and now were in worse shape now extra Dark one ships had arrived from the arc.

On Xodrin's ship, he was getting a comm. "Lord Xodrin. I have been sent to assist." said a female dark one called Zarina. "Excellent," said Xodrin, "We'll soon have these mortals under our heel."

"My lord...incoming..." began a crewman before the ship shook violently. The beam headed for the arc had shot right through his ship, crippling it and now what looked like a horde of fireflies were converging on the Dark one fleet, tearing them and their fighters apart with sheer numbers while ignoring the NSC ships.

"What is going on? What are those things?" demanded Xodrin. "Sir...that beam...the arc is activating." said a crewman. Another said "We've lost engine power...the drones are crippling us."

At the arc, the beam hit and the reaction was instant. A bubble of translucent blue energy expanded out, the dark one ships it hit disintegrating. Neilsson watched as the wave of blue light approached them. Considering how they obliterated the Dark One ships, he wasn't feeling particularly confident.

He closed his eyes a second before the wave hit...then opened one eye. Apart from a slight tremor, nothing had happened. "Sir...all hostiles are gone." said a navigation technician. Neilsson was speechless before saying "That merc'll never let me live this down."

Meanwhile, the crystals, which had been shining bright after Spyro got on the platform, were starting to dim now. The force shield dropped away...and Spyro also slumped forward like he was asleep. "Did it work?" asked Morph.

Cynder however had ran up to Spyro in tears and was trying to wake him up. "What's wrong with him?" asked Chloe. "I told him it would be too much for any mind to handle," said Morgan sadly.

Cynder was saying Spyro's name over and over, crying. Matt however didn't feel sad...he felt furious. This was a cruel fate for someone who had saved this world more then three times. "This isn't right." he said. Suddenly the world seemed to go into monochrome and a voice said "Fate is never fair, Mr Lynch."

Matt turned and spotted Mr. Black. "Look, I'm in no mood at all for cryptic Ancient mumbo jumbo," said Matt. "I know what you have in mind. There is nothing you can do...Spyro's fate is to end here." said Mr Black harshly. Matt saw red at this and attempted to throw a punch at Mr Black.

However, Matt just went on right through Mr. Black. "You should know by now that you shouldn't waste time with that," said Mr. Black calmly. "You asshole...you ungrateful asshole." swore Matt, pointing to the frozen forms of Spyro and Cynder. "You'd be facing the Dark Ones again if it wasn't for him."

Mr. Black's sunglasses briefly glowed red as he said, "Don't for an instant think that I was not aware of what was at stake. And in case you weren't aware, the entire omniverse was at stake!"

"Screw you, you sadistic smeghead. I don't count dying as much of a reward for a job well done...DO YOU?" retorted Matt, to angry to be bothered about the danger signs that Mr Black was radiating.

Mr. Black suddenly let off a bright flash of red light as his echoing voice said, "DON'T TELL ME WHAT MY DUTIES ARE, MORTAL! MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE FAR EXCEEDS WHAT YOUR CORPOREAL BRAIN IS CAPABLE OF! I ONLY APPEAR IN THIS FORM BECAUSE YOUR MIND CANNOT PROCESS MY TRUE FORM!"

"No, you don't." said Matt, un-phased. He had been yelled at by worse things then even Mr Black. "You let him die and you're no worse then Taleth...or Xodrin." he added and closed his eyes, expecting a fatal response.

Mr. Black seemed to be gearing up to let Matt really have it, but then the steam seemed to let out from him. "You've made your point, Lynch. I shall intervene enough to spare Spyro this time, but don't expect this to ever happen again," he said. "I won't ask." replied Matt coldly. The colour and time flow flooded back to the world and immediately Matt thought that Mr Black had pulled a fast one.

Suddenly, Spyro jerked and gasped in air. "Spyro?" said Cynder and hugged Spyro, sobbing tears of joy now. "Well, I guess that's what they call a miracle," said Morgan. Matt simply nodded "You could say that." he said to himself. He knew that one day, his 'deal' with Mr Black would come back to haunt him, but he;d still consider it worth it.

The return to Warfang was really a victory parade, but the dragons were grateful to be back home. The city had taken heavy damage, many of the buildings completely gone to be replaced by crates, one so deep it had punched down into the catacombs. "Sorry about your city. It kinda got wrecked." said Matt.

"We've repaired from worse," said Terrador, "We can rebuild again." Matt looked over at where Spyro and Cynder were. "The NSC'll probably help rebuild...plus Morgan and his people are fixing up the old city...so you'll have somewhere to live this winter while you rebuild." said Matt.

"Yes, it would seem that things may return to normal again," said Terrador, "Except for you and Kala." Matt looked at Terrador. "Nothing slips by you guys." he said in a 'drop it' tone of voice. "Now, now," said Terrador, "You don't want to do what Spyro did, do you?" "Taleth took her from me." said Matt, darkly.

"Which is essentially the same as Malefor or Darkans taking Cynder from Spyro," said Terrador, "You two, er, four have a lot more in common than you might think." Matt calmed down a bit. "I'll find her again...but if I have to...Taleth goes down." he said. "I'm sure you will," said Terrador.

A little later and several NSC dropships loaded with medical and aid supplies had landed. The NSC had no doubt that they owed the people of Avalar and were sending any and all aid to help them rebuild. Chloe was sitting with Sonya, watching the efforts. "Matt won't give up on Kala." Chloe said after a minute.

"Probably not," said Sonya, "Smoldron would probably do the same thing for me." Chloe looked at Sonya. "I don't want to see my brother become one of those...Shar virk monsters..." "He won't, his heart's stronger than that," said Sonya.

Chloe nodded. "It still worries me. He's constantly balancing on the edge." "I've known him before. Sure he can be a little nuts, but I don't think having a corrupted girlfriend will be enough send him completely over the edge. If that were true, he'd have snapped years ago." Said Sonya, reassuredly.

Chloe shook her head. "I know...but you've never seen how close he's come." "What? With his nutty giggling and whacking people that are annoying him?" asked Sonya. "No...when he nearly executed someone in cold blood or tried to kill us all." said Chloe, speaking obviously of Draconus, the name of Matt's split personality, known to Shar Khan as an 'other'.

"Well, as long as he has you to hold him back, he'll be fine," said Sonya. "I guess," said Chloe, "By the way, how's the egg?" "Its fine." said Sonya, smiling a bit. "We managed to get it out safely before the city was attacked."

"Good, I'm happy for you," said Chloe. "You know, you should consider getting yourself a boyfriend," said Sonya. "Just because you're a dragoness, doesn't me I won't hit you," said Chloe flatly. Sonya just smiled to herself. "I seen how you look at Chris..." Chloe glared before laughing a bit from shock.

Intercepted NSC NewsNet Transmission

"...and thanks to the assistance from the experiment super-soldier, EnigMorph, the Kentyne Belt is now a protected neutral area again, free from occupation. The top headlines again, NSC Navy Command confirm that the 32nd fleet was dispatched to the Dragon Eye nebula wormhole to aid in a H.Q.F operation. Reports say that among the casualties was the Planet Cracker class 'Absolution' with all hands."

"However, we have received word that the battle was a success and heartless threat has been neutralized. Thanks to the natives of this world's instrumental help in diverting this apocalyptic catastrophe as well as Ancient connections dug up, the planet known as Avalar is now considered a B-Class world."

"NSC officials however confirm that the Avalar wormhole will be authorized access only until further notice. When asked if any Heartless escaped the quarantine, NSC officials say that all threats were eliminated. In other news..."

Darkans turned off the comm. He could not believe how lucky he and his sub-fleet of 6 cruisers had been. "Sorry, Xodrin...guess you lucked out." he said. "But sir, our kind is considered criminal in all of the realms," said one of the crewmen, "We won't find any worlds that will welcome us."

Darkans looked over at the crewman and laughed. "Didn't you hear? We're all dead." Another crewman said "What do we do now sir?" Darkans smiled darkly and said "Anything we want..."

End

There we go...my soul gem saga finished. The Lynches adventures will continue in mine and Cydra's saga stories, posted on Cydra's profile. Expect to see Darkans and his minions again...