Alright, so, for those of you still following this story, I can only imagine how glad you are to finally see an update after more than a year of silence. However, the chapter you're about to read actually only contains the last couple scenes of chapter 8. Now, the reason I'm skipping chapters 4-7, and most of 8, is because I've come to realize that book 2 was so horribly (extremely horribly) thought out that I honestly couldn't stand to even think about it anymore.

I know I said before I found it difficult to explain why I didn't like it so much, and later on said that it was because it wasn't as complex or lengthy as book one. That's only part of it, though. Truth is, "Mergence: Deception" was half-assed. Unlike book 1, there was really nothing that I considered to be very memorable in book 2, save for the ending chapter which had some nice twists (unless you considered some of the gags memorable). And, to me, a good story is one in which every scene makes enough of an impact for it to earn its place in the story.

When I originally started thinking about Deception, it was only because I desperately wanted to make Mergence a blockbuster trilogy. And because I went that route, and didn't give book 2 the attention it sorely needed, its development suffered, making it a mere placement until book 3 came out. For this, I greatly apologize.

There's more to say, but I'll leave it for the end of the chapter and let you guys get on to finally reading this.

Coughing, I pushed against the earth barrier that surrounded us, easily breaking the now brittle rock. My eyes went wide in both horror and shock. The whole building had been reduced to rubble along with the surrounding area.

I staggered outward, falling to the ground, unable to process what was around me. My body was trembling.

"NICK!" I yelled desperately, hoping for some sort of reply.

"Trent..." Spyro called, also stepping out of the shield along with the others.

I turned to the purple dragon, tears in my eyes.

"I felt the explosion when it hit the shield... Unless he was with us...there was no way he could have survived..." Spyro said sadly.

Anger and rage surged through me. I refused to believe what Spyro said. Nick had to be alive; he just had to be.

"NIIIICCCCCKKKK!" I screamed once more.

I waited for several moments, not seeing or hearing any other signs of life besides my own and the dragons that stood behind me. I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my face.

"I know it's not easy to lose a fellow soldier," Spyro said.

Hearing those words, I felt my blood begin to boil.

"We are not soldiers!" I shot back, glaring at the purple dragon. "I was not raised to fight in a war, Spyro, don't you dare compare me to you!"

Cynder stepped forward to say something, but was stopped by Spyro's wing. I could only guess that he wanted to keep my anger directed only towards him. He then stepped forward. "I understand you're in pain, but you need to calm down. Getting angry won't do you any good."

Standing up, I gritted my teeth as I gave the purple dragon a death-like stare. "Shut it, Spyro..."

"No, you need to control your anger, otherwise that hatred will control your actions!" Spyro lectured, taking a few steps towards me.

"Coming from the dragon that lost his cool in the belt of fire? Yeah, real inspirational [remove: coming from you]... " I mocked.

Spyro lowered his head. "I'll admit... I wasn't in control of my emotions then, but I'm better now. I have control."

Now staring at him in disbelief, I walked over to the purple dragon and knelt down in front of him, our faces inches apart. "Fine... Then prove it. Show me you can get angry without turning that soulless shade of black and white..."

In my peripheral, I could see the others staring at me in shock. This was the first time I'd ever criticized Spyro.

"I'm not fighting you..." Spyro replied sternly, his gaze fixed upon mine.

"And I'm not giving you a choice," I said softly, just as stern.

For the next few moments, all we did was stare at each other, waiting to see who would make the next move. After about a minute of nothing, though, I spawned a ball of shadow in my right hand.

"I'm not fighting you..." Spyro uttered again, his tone more serious this time.

"This isn't for you..." I said before firing the shadow at the others behind him.

Shocked, Spyro turned around to see Cynder, Krystal and the others yelp in surprise as a wall of shadow engulfed them.

Suddenly, Spyro's scales started turning black.

"TRENT!" the now darkened purple dragon yelled in a demonic voice.

"Yes? What wou-GAH!"

Spyro head-butted me, cutting off my sentence and sending me back a few feet. Quickly regaining my ground, I looked past him to see everyone else jump out of the shadowy smoke unscathed. I had purposely hit the ground right in front of them, giving the illusion that I was aiming for them.

"FRIEND OR NOT, IF YOU WON'T CONTROL YOURSELF THEN I WILL!" Spyro roared, breathing out a large stream of fire.

Not wasting any time, I quickly surrounded myself in an ice shield as the flames engulfed me. I closed my eyes, trying to focusing on maintaining the shield as long as possible. Several moments passed. Feeling the shield not melting anymore, I slowly opened my eyes and the ice shield shattered in front of me as Spyro suddenly charged through, knocking me down and pinning me to the ground.

I squirmed and struggled to break free, now angered. "Get off me!"

Continuing to hold me in place, Spyro said nothing. His white soulless eyes fixed upon mine.

"I said GET OFF!" Using both hands, I blasted two streams of shadow at the dragon, stunning him. Making use of the opportunity, I quickly brought my legs under Spyro and immediately pushed them up against his stomach, causing him to fly back a few feet this time. However, since he had wings, it didn't take long for him to regain his composure.

Standing back up, I ignited both my arms with fire and began to step back. Just from him pinning me down, it suddenly dawned on me that Spyro had to be an expert in close-quarters combat. After all, Scorch had only taught me how to use my elements, and how to use them for long-term duration defensively. There had never been a single moment where he'd taught me how to fight offensively with my abilities, let alone teach me hand-to-hand combat.

"Don't do this, Spyro..." I warned.

Ignoring my words, Spyro started to run forwards. Not wanting him to get close, I shot multiple blasts of fire at him. Each one missed as he began running diagonally towards me. A feeling of coldness emanated from him.

"Spyro, Trent, stop!" Cynder cried out.

He was now only a few feet away from me; I quickly readied both my arms with my shadow element.

"Young dragon!"

Distracted by the sudden voice, I was unable to keep Spyro from jumping and pinning me down once again. I watched as the black dragon slowly raised his paw.

"Spyro!" the voice boomed again.

I looked to my left, Spyro looked to his right, and we all saw Ignitus and John materializing into view.

"Ignitus?..." Spyro said, releasing his grip slowly.

The Chronicler stepped forward. "Young dragon, you wish for Trent to control his emotions. Yet you do the opposite with your own."

I watched as the black from Spyro's scales started to dissolve.

"I know... He attacked our friends out of anger... I couldn't control myself from feeling betrayed by him. I'm sorry," Spyro explained, in his normal voice.

"Considering none of them seemed to be harmed, it may be that he wanted to spar against you to relieve his anger, to release it instead of holding it all in," John added.

Spyro looked down at me. "That true?"

Tears began rolling out of my eyes yet again as the thought of Nick's death came back to memory. "For a few minutes...I was able to forget about his death..."

"There will be time to mourn for your friend's death, young one. But, for now, you have work to do. As it stands, Reaper is now no longer in the human world," Ignitus said.

I gazed at the blue dragon carefully, sliding myself out from underneath Spyro. "How do you know that he left?"

"The pool of visions, and John sensed it as well," Ignitus explained.

I turned my attention to Overfang. "It's over, then, isn't it...? We've lost. Reaper found what he was looking for. He can now bring the Original back to life."

John shook his head. "We may have lost this battle, but the war is yet to be lost."

Feeling as though I were talking to a moron, I stood up and stared at John as if he'd lost his mind. "Yet to be lost?! Ignitus just said that he left the human world. Which means he's back in Avalar, about to revive what the Ancestors considered to be a godlike dragon because of the amount of power he possessed!"

"Wrong," John replied. "We haven't lost. When Pyro shared this information about the Original with me, he told me that our fates would be decided by a dragon that would combat it. However, in his visions, he was unable to see the dragon who was fighting it."

"Okay, and? What does that have to do with me? That could be Spyro for all you know!"

John closed his eyes. "The blacked-out figure was able to control nine elements... The ninth being light, an element which you and your other half both possess."

"There's more than eight elements...?" I questioned, gazing at John in shock. Thinking about it, though, I was surprised X hadn't freaked out over what had just happened, which was a first.

John nodded as he opened his eyes again. "Apparently so. For now, however, you're unable to use it as it seems to be incomplete without X using it as well."

"But we share the same body, so how are we—?"

"Sorry to interrupt," Spyro said, cutting in. "But if Reaper is back home, then that's where we need to be."

"Spyro's right," Cynder said, stepping forwards along with the others. "If we can get back and stop Reaper, then we won't even need to worry about using any extra elements than what we already have. All this talking is doing nothing but wasting what little time that we have. Open a portal so we can get back."

John shook his head his once again, this time regretfully. "I'm sorry, but my ability to do that is still replenishing. It's going to take a couple days before I can open one again. So, for now, you will all just need to be patient."

I looked back toward the others, who all stared back at me in return. We now all had the same concern. With the item that Reaper had taken, how much damage would he be able to do in a couple of days? As it stood, I was just hoping that the Guardians could delay him, if not stop him.

XXX Two days later, elsewhere in England XXX

Giving a heavy sigh, Scorch took another sip of beer before setting the bottle back down. His mind was torn on whether or not his decision of not helping the others to save Krystal and Ember had been the best move. He shifted his attention to the window next to him. "No... If the soldiers found out who I was, it would've made everything worse".

The restaurant door chimed, and Scorch listened as the person walked up to his table. Shifting focus to the person, Scorch's eyes went wide. "Wait, what're you—?"

The man's eyes were blood red. "Sorry, I think you have me confused with the other guy."

Scorch narrowed his gaze. "Oh... You're him...aren't you?"

The man simply nodded his head.

"How are you even here?" Scorch asked curiously.

"Sorry to say it, but I didn't come here to tell you how I was born into the physical world," the man replied. "All you need to know is that it took me a bit of time to find you. And I need you to transport us back to Avalar."

Scorch gave the man a stern look. "I'll send you back, but you're going alone. I have no plans on going there."

Putting his hand down on the table, the man gave Scorch an even sterner glare. "Yeah, you do. Because if you didn't give a damn about Avalar, then you never would've trained Trent in the first place. Like it or not, you're now a part of this fight, so you're going to help us end it."

Legend of Spyro Mergence: Comosian War (2017/2018)

Finish the Fight

PREVIEW

Slowly limping across the ground, I panted in heavy exhaustion before giving a weak glance at the warzone around me. From every direction, there were dragons firing elements at each other. Those that weren't fighting simply lay on the ground where they fell, next to their fallen neighboring species. The black sky matched the coldness of our now darkened ally, who fought out of grief.

Looking forward, I paced another few steps before hearing my right hind leg crack. Gritting teeth and closing my eyes, I fell to the ground as agony immediately began surging through my leg. Tears streamed from my eyes. There was nothing I could do to help the others. I had no more energy to use my elements, and I could barely even move now. I had hit my limit.

Opening my eyes, I pushed against the ground with a paw, trying to get up.

"Watch out!"

Unable to react, I shut my eyes once more as I felt my body get sent flying through the air, crashing soon after on a wet surface that quickly engulfed me. As I looked up, I saw the surface traveling further and further away. I closed my eyes for the final time, accepting the inevitable.

Everyone... please... forgive me...

Alright, so, as said before, I know this wasn't the update that you were all expecting, but I just really needed to end this book... Besides me hating it for reasons stated above, this book had actually started adding to some major depression which I had been having for the past 2 years. And the only reason I honestly wanted to finish it was because I wanted to give myself as well as you guys at least some kind of closure with it. Otherwise, I wouldn't ever be able to get it off my mind.

Also, if it seems like this ending chapter had a bit more detail in it, it's because I've been practicing writing 3rd person over the past year (original book series and little shorts), so there's the explanation for that. But yeah, to anyone who has continued to wait this long for an update, I congratulate you on your patience. I know the feeling of not seeing something you're fond of finished, so I wanted to give you guys at least some kind of ending.

Update (1/12/15) - Due to what Riverstyxx told me when sending me back the chapter, I've decided to reconsider coming back to this book in the future and adding back all missing chapters. However they'll all be titled as "Lost Chapter: _"

Few more things before I go:

- Massive thanks for Riverstyxx for beta-ing this

- While there was originally supposed to be another trilogy after this one, I've decided to cut it. This book has killed so much of my passion for writing fanfiction that it's not even funny. (I'll give away the rights, though, should someone want to continue the story after book 3.)

- Book 3 will be done completely in 3rd person, save for one scene.

Details from previous chapters worth mentioning to understand this one:

- Archer had been killed by Reaper after Archer tried to stop him from killing more humans

- The group followed Reaper and Archer to England. While there, Trent talked to a truth teller who told him the following "You've been hiding who you truly are this whole time and are continuing to do so. If you continue on this path that you're on, it will eventually destroy you in the end. You must remember who you actually are"

- A miltary organization kidnapped Krystal and Ember after fighting with the dragons. Trent and the others followed suit to save them while Scorch refused to get involved.

- While rescuing Krystal and Ember, Trent got trapped in a machine that extracted something from him. Reaper stole the Original's life gem before running through a portal back to his work (a scientist then threw a quadrocopter drone after him)

- One of the dragons element attacks hit a type of nuclear/bomb core, hence why the building blew up