Hey. It's been a while. I have to say, I didn't know so many people cared about this, but I got nearly two dozen people messaging me over and over over the past few months asking, "What happened to Challenge of Hearts?" Well, I decided to take the summer off and restart when school did, but then school got in and a combination of work and laziness took effect. I bet many of you thought this wasn't coming back, well I'm not going to leave this unfinished. But enough of me rambling on about what happened, you all deserve this, and I hope you all enjoy. -Cynderthedragon.

Spyro woke to the sound of dripping water. It was dark, though that hardly affected him due to his heightened senses. The air was still and musty, with the scent of something else, something dead and rotting. Looking over to the cell next to him, Spyro saw a Dragon that had gone missing weeks ago, dead and covered in maggots.

Sniffing around the cell proved a fruitless task, it was nothing but an ordinary cell, made to hold a Dragon that is. And so he waited, for what seemed like hours. But nothing happened, No Auron, no Malefor come to gloat over their victory. Nothing but the solitude of cell and silence. Occasionally the room would rumble and rock due to the battle going on outside. Sometimes he felt a thump as if something large had fallen to the ground, and only hoped it was not Dragons falling to their doom. The door opened, emitting a white light, and a Grublin walked in carrying a haunch of meat, mutton it appeared. The creature unceremoniously threw it into Spyro's cell.

Spyro merely nodded, but the Grublin just snarled at him. Spyro quickly finished his meager meal, and with nothing better to do than worry, he lay down and slept. No one would call it restful, but it was a relief from the exhaustion of fighting. Refreshed, Spyro got up and listened again, this time hearing footsteps approaching his cell. A dark form stood in front of him, and Spyro felt a cold sense of dread come upon him.

For he knew with utter certainty, that this was his hated enemy, his bane, his doom. Malefor, the destroyer of worlds. The words that followed only strengthened his certainty.

"Well, well, well. Looks like I finally caught you…." A dark voice, full of seduction and deceit said to him.

"caught in a web like a fly, waiting for the spider to take its kill… Long have I awaited this day, Spyro."

Suddenly, with a breath of fire, the entire room lit up, the flames following a trail of oil in a gutter around the perimeter of the room. The harsh orange light cast shadows on one half of the room, leaving Spyro to study the face of his enemy.

Malefor, the face of evil was now whole and complete where there had once been only scraps of flesh. His form was muscled and limber again, the tattered wings now canvas sails that would catch air. Yes, Malefor had returned to his full power, and was now an even match for Spyro, who had hoped he would get him before returning to full strength.

Spyro struggled in his chained bonds.

"Squirm all you like, you shall not escape, those chain are hammered by Mythril from the bottom of the Well of Souls. It is not breakable to you."

Spyro stopped, noticing he was right, it was not iron or steel, which would have warped in his grip.

"Why not just kill me already? Why keep me alive?" Spyro asked, his voice full of hate.

Malefor responded in kind, looking at him with those pale yellow eyes.

"Oh, that will come soon enough. First I want to show you a few things, then let you watch your army fall under mine, before showing you the entrance to your doom. It is a lever plan." Malefor said, very pleased with himself.

"You know the ancient inhabitants of this mountain wanted to find out what was beyond the Well of Souls? They sent poor souls to the bottom to try and find a way in, to the other side. But every candidate they sent never returned." Malefor turned to Spyro.

"I believe we should see if you can find the bottom." Malefor smiled a wicked evil thing, looking at him.

"Have you ever felt Balefire before, Spyro? They say it is the essence of evil, and burns hotter than dragonflame, but is colder than the peaks of the north. They say that once branded, the pain never goes away, but lingers like a parasite, forever eating away at you."

Malefor turned back towards the door, peering at something far distant.

"The well of souls is the only source of Balefire on this plane. It sits, and some sinister evil lurks beneath the passage, waiting to be freed."

Spyro spat at him. "You could never control something as powerful as Balefire."

Malefor laughed. "I already control it. Where do you think I got more earth elementals? You killed off the rest, as well as the Destroyer of worlds. There are none left. Not in this world. So I called for more, and they were given to me by the great one within the fires… Such power it would grant upon me if I but released it from it's hold."

Spyro noted that his tail was not restrained, and stopped waving it back and forth from below in irritation. It might come in handy later.

"Then why not release it? If you are in such control, why wait?" Spyro asked.

"Everything has a price, Spyro."

"Then why are you telling me this? You just told me everything I should know about this place, I could escape and rally the army, we now know where to direct our efforts." Spyro said in a smug tone.

"Because I believe in a certain amount of honesty between us. Enemies we may be, but after all that time of Spying on you and your mate, the abomination Cynder, I think you should know at least how you will die. But I think that enough for now. I'll leave you to drone over this for a few minutes, time is on our side."

With that said, he turned and left, leaving the fires burning, which Spyro could be thankful for. Looking around the room brought no solutions. The room was barren but for him. Pivoting his head down, Spyro noticed he could breath flame upon his chains, and that might be his ticket out of here.

Turning his head so that it was looking down, Spyro breathed the hottest fire he could, and directed it upon the metal chains securing him to the floor. Though his fire was hot, these were no ordinary chains, and would take a while to heat. He just hoped no one would notice the intense red from his fire emanating from outside the room.

Nearly half an hour had passed before the chains started to warp. Spyro quickly stopped, the chains a white hot color, and started to pull at them. The links parted easily, due to the heat, and he was free to remove the collar around his neck, and the brace around his body. As the chains and braces fell to the floor, Spyro stretched his wings, the muscles protesting after being held in place for so long. With that out of the way, his next step was to escape his cell.

"Shouldn't be too hard." Spyro said to himself.

He approached the door, feeling it with a paw. The door was made of solid iron, and would be easy to heat and break, but the hinges were made out of something sterner. A grayish green metal that looked tough. But it was no matter, Spyro didn't intend to break the door.

Employing his fire again, Spyro heated the door until it was white at the center, orange on the edges, and dull red on the outside. He then slowly pushed on the hot metal, his purple scales protecting him from the heat, and watched as the metal parted around his paw. Spyro opened a hole wide enough for him to crawl through, and with that he was free.

Even better, he was behind enemy lines, and able to do much damage while he searched for Malefor.

The hallway stretched a dozen paces to the left and right, made out of hewn stone bricks neatly put in place. The ends of both halls looked the same, so he went left. Creeping his way down the corridor with his claws sheathed, he approached the first turn. The hallway turned right, stretching even further. The only difference was that there were torches and doorways in this hall.

Creeping down the unguarded hall, Spyro peered into the first room, an opening without a door. In it were several dozen sacks, all stacked on top of each other. Moving on to the next portal, Spyro looked in to see barrels, many of them, too many to count. Creeping in and opening one proved them to be full of fruit. The floors were sloped, and had gutters running through them to carry away and traces of water. Smart of them to do that, as it would keep the food dry and free of rot.

Spyro continued his search, looking into several rooms with similar items strewn throughout them. The pathway eventually ended, so he returned to the hallway where his cell was. Going to the right this time, Spyro found several twists and turns before stepping across his first guard.

It was a tall Grublin clad in iron plate armour, standing with his back turned to him. Past the gate was a wider expanse of room that had several doorways, and a table at the far end with scatter books across it. A single candle smoldered on the right corner of the table, barely enough to illuminate the room. Chances are that Grublin couldn't see very well.

But the dark was no problem for Spyro's dragon eyes, he could see everything in the low light, and slowly approached the Grublin from behind. When he got close enough, Spyro pounced on it, sinking his claws into the back of it's head. The Grublin went down without a sound, and Spyro muffled the sound of it's falling corpse. Leaving it right where it lay, Spyro noticed another Grublin asleep in the chair at the table, so he ignored it and moved to a doorway with a stone staircase traveling upwards. The stairway let upwards. Carefully sheathing his claws so they wouldn't click against the stones, Spyro climbed the stairs. Up and up they went until at last they arrived at a doorway. Inside were more Grublins milling about, moving equipment and supplies. Spyro flapped his wings, rising above the arched doorway and moving on. He passed several doors, some led to more storage rooms, some led to armories and barracks, others led to the defenses, where an occasional dragon would be spotted, and on the off chance, shot down. And yet still others led to smelter rooms, giant rotunda's filled with large cylinders full of liquid metal, troughs transporting the heated metal to Grublins who hammered it into shapes, many swords and armours.

Spyro ignore all of them and kept going, until at last the ground leveled out, a giant archway to his right, and more stairs to his left. Poking his head around the corner, Spyro beheld Grublin elites, clad in jet black armour, and armed with long black Halberds.

"Blast." Spyro muttered to himself. These might be difficult to deal with, the large room gave their Halberds an advantage over Spyro's claws. Spyro searched for a way to turn the tide, get those Halberds in close quarters where they wouldn't be of any use. Revealing himself would work, only they'd raise an alarm and spoil his plan of doing internal damage. Spyro looked at the wall in front of him. The workmanship was a bit crude, with bits and pieces crumbling off. The fortress had been added to, the ancient parts from time beyond holding while Grubin crafters tried to add to it.

A piece of brick had broken off from above and fallen into a corner some time ago, and had been pushed aside by the Grublins. Spyro took it in his claw and moved back to the archway, tossing it down. Immediately at the sound of the rock hitting the ground, the two Grublins stood erect with their weapons pointed towards the archway.

One of them muttered in it's incomprehensible language to the other, who nodded and slowly crept forward. Spyro flapped his wings again and held onto the ceiling with his claws, waiting for the right moment. As the guard crept in, looking left and right, suddenly stopped just under Spyro's hiding place. The Grublin sniffed the air, and turned his head to the right, that was the last thing he ever did. Spyro dropped on top of him, using his claws to slash its neck. Though he tried to muffle the sound of the body, the Grublin was heavy, and its armour made a heavy thump as it hit the ground.

The other Grublin turned and ran, reaching for his horn to raise the alarm. Spyro flew after him, reaching him in only a few seconds. As Spyro closed around his prey, a loud horn echoed off the walls of the hallway, blaring its approach. The sound was cut short two seconds later by Spyro, turned him into a frozen monument that fell to the ground, shattering. But the damage was done, and Spyro heard drums start to echo from the deep, and knew his time was up.

"Damn!" Spyro said, before taking flight down the massive hall, at the end of it was a massive portcullis, the sides of the hall branching odd into other sections with massive archways of their own. Spyro knew he had to raise the portcullis and lower the drawbridge if his forces were to take the fortress. Spyro flew to the foot of the gate, looking to the side to see a series of levers.

Spyro yanked on one of them, pulling it down. Metal groaned overhead as the mechanism worked, and the portcullis slowly started to raise, gate by gate. Spyro felt a sense of triumph. Dragons would soon be all over this place, he would find Cynder, Flame, Solaris, and Glacia, and they would track down Malefor.

That triumph died in his throat as a flash of bright red appeared at the other side of the portcullis, moving on multiple legs towards him, four arms raised to attack. Fear coursed through his body as he saw the drawbridge had been ripped down, and the titanic creature smashed through every gate along the entry hall, straight towards Spyro. Fire and heat filled the room as Spyro prepared for a fight.

The earth Elemental roared out a challenge and charged him, swing its arm. Spyro attempted to dodge, but it was too fast, Spyro saw a flash as it came down, and his last thoughts were of Cynder as his eyes closed.

He heard a low pitched Whoosh, followed by something striking through rock and flesh, and then a heavy thump as something heavy hit the ground with a wet smack. And Spyro heard a females voice calling out to him…