Spyro:Bridge Across Worlds CH3

Chapter 3: Well this is awkward…

“Cynder is that you?”
Cynder’s head shot up as she stared blindly into the darkness “Spyro?”
“Eh….  Not exactly”
Cynder tensed up as she stood on her feet.  “Who are you show yourself, if you’re here to talk to me, I don’t want to hear it, there’s no way I'm ever going back.”
“What are you talking about?”
The guard outside stormed into the room.  “Quiet in here wench, I'm trying to sleep here, and you don’t wasn’t to disrupt my sleep.”
Cynder just kept quiet in the corner of the room.  She stayed silent until the guard had walked back outside and fell asleep “who are you, and why can’t I see you, show yourself before I start swinging.”
Zach realized that he was still bending the light around his body.  While he could see Cynder, from her perspective, she was talking to thin air.  “Oh, yeah, right, you can’t see me can you?”  Zach released the flow of energy he was maintaining to keep himself shielded.  It was costing him a lot of energy, he might not be able to do it again if he tried, he would need to be more careful with how often he used it.
Cynder was shocked when another dragon suddenly materialized in front of her.  This time she kept her voice low to keep from waking the guard.  “What?  How did you do that?  Who are you?”  She had never seen this dragon before, even in all her travels and time spent at the temple.  But the strangest thing was that the dragon standing before her seemed to be her age, and that wasn’t possible, she and Spyro were the only two dragons to survive from their group, and she didn’t know of any eggs hatched after that.  But the dragon standing before shook her beliefs.  Things just got really weird, well weirder than things already were, if that was even possible.  But she also had to be wary of him, who knew where he was from or why he was here.  She wouldn’t fall for a trap that easily.  Not again.
“Names Zach.  But as to why I'm here or what happened, I really don’t know, I was actually hoping that you could explain some of it.”
Cynder snapped back at him “I'm sorry but I can’t help you with that.  I have my own problems…”  Cynder turned away from Zach, her voice mellowing out, seeming almost sad, “and no one to help me get out of them.”
“You have me to help you” Zach mentally slapped himself in the face as soon as he said it.  What the heck was he thinking?  There was no way he could help Cynder.  He couldn’t fly, he couldn’t fight, and he was dead dog tired.  Cynder would have to do everything to get them out, and he would just slow her down.  But he just felt like he had to do something, he couldn’t just leave her.  “What are you doing here anyway?  Why don’t you just leave?”
Cynder took back her cynical tone.  “Hate to break it to you but no one can help me now.”  Cynder walked out towards the edge of the room.  As she neared the edge, a rope of green energy spanned from her neck to a gem embedded in the floor of the room.
“Oh, one of those.  Can’t you break the center gem though?”
“No I’ve already tried, it won’t break, I'm stuck here, probably forever.”  Cynder stopped.  She still didn’t have any idea who this dragon, yet she was openly talking with him.  She had to be more wary.  “You still haven’t told me exactly who you are.  Where do you come from, why are you here, and how did you sneak in like that?”
Zach stammered for answers.  Cynder was asking questions now, questions he couldn’t answer.  His only way out of here was going to be with Cynder’s help, and that possibility was slowly slipping away from him.  He needed to come up with answers, and fast.  But there was always the possibility that his answers would come to bite him in the ass.  “I already told you.  My names Zach and as to those other questions I can’t answer them.  I really have no idea where I came from, or where I'm going.  I was hoping to get to the dragon temple and get some answers.”
“You say you have no clue where you are, yet you know about the dragon temple, you also knew what my name was, and I never told you, you’re lying to me and I know it.”
Zach stammered for answers again, he couldn’t tell her the truth, there was no way she would believe him, and they were running out of time, he couldn’t stand in this cell forever, someone was sure to come by and see him.  He wracked the memories of his dreams for answer, and came up with something that might just get by, he hoped.  “Cynder everyone knows who you are, you were the terror of the skies, and as for the dragon temple, I got the idea talking to some locals, very strange people by the way.”  Then under his breath, “as if everything here wasn’t strange.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing, but we need to get out of here, who knows when someone might come by and see us.”
“I don’t trust you, and you still haven’t answered all of my questions, besides I already told you, I'm not going anywhere, Malefore made this, and only Malefore can break the bond, but seeing as that’s not possible anymore, I wont be going anywhere.”
Zach was getting slightly frustrated, he could understand her distrust of him, but she was not helping things along with her disappointment.  “Fine then, ill come back with help then.”
“Hah, how are you going to do that, you don’t even know where the dragon temple is, besides, I doubt anyone is there anymore, if the place still exists, and no one can help me, no one is as strong as Malefore.”
“If I recall correctly, Spyro is a purple dragon, doesn’t that mean he could do it?”
Cynder became more solemn again as she thought of Spyro.  “Spyro’s dead, there’s no way he can help me”
Zach was taken aback by the news.  “What, how did he die?”
“I overheard some apes saying the threw him over the cliff into the river”
Zach calmed down a little.  “Wait, so you didn’t actually see him die?”
“No”
“And you believed what you heard from an ape”
“Well; yes I…”
“Seriously Cynder, you think that after all you have been through, something like that would kill Spyro?”
Some hope returned to Cynder as she considered the prospect.  “What do you know about what we’ve been though anyway?”
“A lot more than you think actually.  So will you tell me how to find the temple?”
“No way, I still don’t trust you”
“O thought I told you to be quiet in here.”  The guard from out side had woken up from his sleep, and he was not happy about it.
Zach quickly shielded himself against being seen by the guard and Cynder quickly lay down where she was standing, trying to appear as if she had been crying the whole time, It didn’t take any acting on her part.
“I'm trying to sleep out there, and you making any noise is making that very difficult.”
Cynder looked up but not directly at the guard, “I'm sorry I…”
But the guard really didn’t care how sorry Cynder was.  Instead, he drew his sword and smacked Cynder in the side with his blade, the edge creating a shallow gash along her side.  Zach could do nothing but watch helplessly from the side of the room.
“Maybe that will teach you to be quiet.  I would rather just kill you here, but the master wants you alive for some reason, and its best not to make him angry, your lucky wench.”  With that, the guard went back outside, and was soon fast asleep again.
Once Zach was sure the guard was asleep, he let down his shield and came out of hiding.  “Cynder I'm sorry I didn’t think…”
“Yeah some help you were, thanks a lot.”
“Cynder I didn’t mean to get you hurt.”
“Just get out of here, no one can help me, I'm not sure I want to be helped anyway.”
Zach walked up next to Cynder “Cynder, I know and you know that someone can get you out of this mess, that person just isn't me.  I’ll find the temple by myself if I have to but I will come back with help.”  Zach wanted to provide more comfort for her, but he barely knew her, except from his dreams, but that didn’t count.  Not knowing what else to do Zach placed on of his claws on Cynder’s shoulder.
But much to Zach’s surprise, when his claw came in contact with Cynder, strange green and blue sparkles started forming around his hand and flowing to Cynder.  What the heck was going on, he didn’t do that, did he?  And what kind of a sissy thing sparkles?  Maybe he was just seeing things.
“Is my hand sparkling?”  Zach didn’t really pose the question to anyone; it was more of a statement about how confused he was.
Cynder turned her head to see what was going on and immediately became alarmed when she saw that miniature fireworks display coming from Zach’s hand, but perhaps more alarming was the fact that it was attached to her.  She yelled at Zach in a hoarse whisper, taking careful care not to reawaken the guard.  “What are you doing?!?”
“I don’t know, my hand just started doing this”
“Well get it off before I make you take it off”
But as soon as the strange display had started, it ended.  Cynder took this opportunity to get up and come face to face with Zach, putting one talon on his chest.  “What did you just do?”
Zach felt fear, lots and lots of fear.  There was a very angry looking dragoness with known devastating abilities with a talon on his chest.  And she was pissed… at him… figures.  Zach stammered as he tried to spit out the answer.  “I don’ know what happened…  I just touched your shoulder and…”
“Oh you can do better than that, or so help me I’ll…”  Cynder stopped suddenly, surprise written all over her face,
Zach was now very confused.  “What?  What is it?”
Cynder turned and examined her side.  “The gash in my side, it’s gone, I can’t feel it.”  She took a few more moments to examine the place on her side.  “I think…  I think you healed it.  But how?”
“You got me; I didn’t even know I could do that disappearing trick until I almost had to fight a group of apes earlier today.”
Cynder looked at him again, it was unsettling to have someone study him like that, and the fact that it was someone from his dreams made it even creepier.  As she looked at him, Cynder seemed to make up her mind, and her face took on a softer expression.  “I still don’t know exactly who you are or where you come from, but you’re my best chance of getting out of here, guess I’ll tell you how to find the temple, although, its really not that hard to find.  First I need to know where we are.”
Oh great, Zach had no clue where he was except that he was in a cliff face under a river, hopefully that would be enough.  “Um right now were under the Silver River.”
“What?  Under it?  How is that possible?”
“Well actually were in a cliff at least hundreds of feet high that the river runs over.  At the base of the cliff there’s a large forested valley, but that’s about all I can tell you/”
“Cliff face I don’t know of any cliffs that high, but as for the forested valley, I think I might know.  All you should have to do is follow the silver river downstream until you see the temple.”
“How will I know it’s the temple?”
“Oh trust me, you can t miss it”
Zach heard footsteps coming down the hall, he tried to cloak, but didn’t have the energy.  This could be bad; he had to go now.  “Cynder I have to go, but ill be back with help, I promise.”
Zach quickly clambered up and out of the window he had enter though back to ground level.  
“Zach” It was Cynder, “thank you, for my side, and for everything.”
Zach quickly ran from the courtyard to the cover of some nearby boulders, he had to get out of this freaky place now, and he couldn’t use his powers to help him, he was way too tired.  But getting out of a place should be easier than getting into it right?  Zach sprinted the distance to the next group of boulders in case anyone happened to walk by.  The central tunnel that would lead him out lay in front of him.  As he was siting there a strange though came to him.  He was sure glad everyone here spoke English, because he would have a real hard time talking to people in a different language.  But now was not the time for those thoughts, he had to get out of here.  Zach made sure the coast was clear, and bolted for the passage.

Spyro was in darkness.  He couldn’t see anything, smell anything, he couldn’t feel the ground under his feet.  Where was he?  “Hello… is anyone here?”
There was no answer, not even an echo from his own voice.  “Where am I?”
“Spyro…  Spyro…” oh great, creepy voices, again.  As if this hadn’t happened to him before.
“Spyro why did you leave me… don’t you care for me?”
A light appeared in front of Spyro, blinding him and casting a shadow on an unknown figure.  The figure started walking towards him.  
“Who are you, what do you want?”
But the figure kept coming closer.  “I needed you and you left me alone, why didn’t you come to find me Spyro?”  As the figure approached, Spyro started to make out the shape of a dragon, a young dragon, a young black dragon.
“Cynder is that you?”
“Why weren’t you there Spyro, you left me alone, and now I'm trapped, why did you do it?
“Cynder I didn’t mean to…  I…”
“Why Spyro, why?”  As Cynder kept asking him questions, the darkness started to return, slowly blocking out the light from the doorway.
“Why?”
The darkness started to make its way towards where Cynder was standing, but she didn’t seem to notice.  He had to get Cynder out of there.  “Cynder look out!”  He had to save her; he wasn’t going to lose her again.
“Why Spyro?”  The darkness seemed to become a tangible wave as it rose from the ground and towered behind Cynder.
“Cynder get out of the way” Spyro continued to run at Cynder, but she never seemed to get any closer.
“Why did you leave me like this Spyro?”  The wave of darkness crashed down on Cynder engulfing her, and rushed towards him.  “Spyro?”
“Cynder!”
Spyro found himself lying in the center of the outside platform of the temple; it was just another nightmare.  He had been having them all day and hadn’t gotten much sleep.  But it wasn’t as if he could do anything else.  With his bad leg and wing, he couldn’t go anywhere.  But e had to do something, Cynder was out who knows where with a bunch of apes, and it was all his fault.  He had to go find Cynder.  Spyro put weight on his three good legs and tried to stand on the fourth, it caused him a great amount of pain, but he could do it more or less.  He would just have to avoid using it as much as possible.  Spyro took a few tentative steps on his legs, and groaned in pain every time he set his injured leg down.  He could take the pain, maybe if he could get to the edge of the temple platform he could glide down to the ground.  But that depended on how bad his wing was.  Spyro turned to his wing and started using his teeth to unwrap the bandages holding it in place.
“And what do you think you’re doing young dragon?”
Spyro stopped cold with the bandages still in his mouth.
“You aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
Spyro turned to see Terador standing in the doorway.  “I thought I told you that you shouldn’t e going anywhere until your leg and wing heal, or did I tell that to another young purple dragon?”
“I'm sorry Terador, but I need to go find Cynder.”  Spyro continued to unwrap the bandages from his wing.
“Oh no you don’t” Terador walked over to Spyro and picked him up with one of his claws.  Spyro was too week to protest.  “ I already told you that we would lock you up if that’s what it took to keep you here, now you need to lay down and rest, let the other guardians and I take care of finding Cynder.”
“I know Terador, but I can’t help but feeling responsible for what happened to Cynder, I can’t stop thinking about it, and I can’t sleep, I keep having nightmares.”
Terador looked ashamed when Spyro mentioned his nightmares.  Spyro lay back down on the bed that was there for him.  “You heard me then”
“Yes Spyro I did, but you must know.  What happened wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t have done anything more, you were tired and without powers, just be glad you made it out of that alive.  You can help look for Cynder once you get better, but that won’t be for quite a while, so for now, rest, get better, and let us search for Cynder, I'm sure she can take care of herself wherever she is.”  With that, Terador walked back off the platform.
“Terador, wait.”  Terador appeared back in the doorway.
“What is it Spyro?”
“Isn’t there anything I can do to help, anything at all?”
“You’re not leaving if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No not that, but is there anything here I can do?”
“Spyro you need to rest now, we still don’t know where Cynder is, and since you can t go out to look for her, the best thing you can do is be healthy when we do find her, because I doubt we’ll just be able to walk in a get her.”
Spyro felt dejected.  Cynder was out there alone, with apes, who knows what she was going through, and all he could do was sit here and sleep.  “I feel so useless.  I have to do something”
“Rest easy Spyro, you don’t have to do anything, your not the savior of the world anymore, rest and let other people do the work, you’ve earned that and much more.”
Spyro watched as Terador turned and left the room again, while what he said made sense, he could never understand, not the way he felt right now.  Cynder was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it.  As he lay there and looked at the sky, he couldn’t sort out his emotions, why did things like this always happen to him?  What kind of a cruel world was this, that he was saved from one disaster and thrown into another?  What kind of a life was that?  Would he ever have a normal life?  These thoughts swirled through his head as he lay there, keeping him from sleep.  Eventually his body could not function any more and gave into sleep due to sheer exhaustion.  But still in his dreams, he was tormented by his thoughts.

This was not good; Zach was in deep, again.  Zach tore down a hallway, taking the left passage when it split into two, he hoped this was the right direction; otherwise, he was going to run into a bunch of angry apes.  Zach barreled down the hallway; the angry cries seemed to be further away.  He must be going in the right direction.  This was partially his fault, but he really didn’t have a choice, he needed to get out of the cavern and he couldn’t dodge all of the patrols.  Who patrols a cave anyway?  Zach came to another T in the passage; right would take him back into the mountain, so he took the left passage.  He had been so close to getting away without a hitch; he had made it back into the cave with the opening to the waterfall where he had encountered the apes earlier.  He had been walking out of the central passage, when a patrol had appeared from one of the side passages; by the time he noticed it was too late.  And apes don’t really take to kindly to an unknown dragon in there secret lair (if you would even call it that) and all hell broke lose after that.  Zach had no chance to get past them, so he turned and bolted into the maze of passages in the cliff.  That was the start of a chase that had lasted a good half-hour by now.  He had returned to the central chamber at least two times, had gotten lost four, and had hid in a corner for a good five minutes before an ape quite literally stumbled over him, which was why he was in the current position he was in.  And all of this was made worse by the fact that he couldn’t cloak himself, he had tried on multiple occasions, but he was far too tired, he wondered if he would ever be able to do it again.  But now was not the time to bother with that, he needed a way out.  Zach came out of the passageway he was in into another connecting chamber.  While there were many passages to choose from, Zach thought he could hear the roar of the waterfall coming stronger though one of the passages, and he didn’t really have time to pick and choose with a bunch of angry apes chasing him.  As Zach ran down the hallway, he started to feel light headed, he was out of shape, and the drain from using his power wasn’t helping either this chase was going to end soon one way or another.  Zach reappeared in the first chamber, the one with the opening to the waterfall; he knew how to get out of here now.  All he had to do was take the passage to the left and follow it down the hillside…
“There he is!  Get him!”
Oh, things just couldn’t be easy could they?  Zach turned back around and ran back into the chamber.  He was stuck now.  He couldn’t get out, and he couldn’t go back into the mountain, they probably had all the paths blocked by now, and he would just tire of running and get caught anyway.  He didn’t really have any options.  He could try to fight, but he didn’t know how and would only get himself killed in the process.  He needed a way out, but he couldn’t think, the roar of the waterfall was drowning out his thoughts, he really couldn’t hear himself think…
Oh no, that was the last thing he was going to do, he would drown in the waterfall, who knows how high it was off the ground.  Add that to the fact that he couldn’t fly if he was too far off the ground, jumping through that waterfall was not going to happen.  He didn’t even know if there was open air on the other side.
“Hah!  We’ve got him now, he’s trapped.  Everyone form up”
Figures, he was trapped, they had blocked off all the passages from him.  And boy were there a lot of them.  About twenty angry apes all bearing down on him.  It was time for drastic action, and it involved flinging himself off a cliff… again… except this time it was through a waterfall.  Things just kept getting better and better.
Zach started backing away from the advancing apes, where did all these guys come from?  He thought all the apes had died, but there was living proof in front of him, well at least he hoped they were living.  Zach’s foot slipped off the edge of the cave mouth.  This was it, there was no way back, again.
“Any last words you worthless dragon?”
“Uh yeah, just a few, I am totally crazy”
“What” the ape looked at him with confusion plastered all over his face, it was almost comical.
“My point exactly.”  With that, Zach turned and jumped out of the cave mouth, into the waterfall.
Immediately he was forced down by the crushing force of the waterfall, “I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die.”  Of course, he couldn’t say this aloud as he was falling through a waterfall.  Zach tried to open his wings, but the falling water made it impossible, he was caught in the waters, and he couldn’t get out.  After falling for what seemed like forever, Zach crashed into the waters below.  Zach panicked, which way was up, how would he get out of here.  He was running out of air, he needed to breathe, but not now he was under water.  Zach flailed his limbs, and finally established his bearings, he needed to go up and out to get away from the falls.  Zach tried to swim with his limbs, but made absolutely no headway, it was like trying to do the dog paddle upside down.  As soon as he made any progress, he was caught in the undertow and thrown back into the falls.  He needed air.  Now!  But he was still underwater.  Unfortunately, his need for air overpowered his rational mind, and he gasped for air, underwater.  Water started to fill Zach’s lungs and he started to lose consciousness.  He had one last chance; maybe if he used his wings like giant fins, he could get enough force to escape.  On the edge on consciousness, Zach thrust out his wings and pulled them back with all the force he could.  The force was just enough to help him escape from the undertow.  Zach broke the surface gasping for air and choking on water in his lungs, he got just enough air to keep him from falling unconscious.  Zach used his wings again to propel him towards shore.  Once Zach could put his feet on the ground, he collapsed, coughing up water all the way, but he would not lose consciousness, not now.  He had to get away from the falls, the apes might follow to see if he was still alive, and he couldn’t even run now.
Zach stumbled away from the water edge and into the forest.  He had to find a place to hide, anywhere.  As he was stumbling through the forest, he came to a hill with a large rock protruding out of the side creating a small cave.  This looked like as good of a place as any to hide.  Zach crawled under the rock and kicked at the rock over the opening.  This created a small cascade of rocks that closed off the opening.  He could still breathe and he could still kick them out when he needed to, but for now, they covered him.  If anyone wanted to find him, they would have to dig though rocks to find him and that seemed less likely.  He was actually hiding under a rock.  If he weren’t so tired, he probably would have laughed at the irony
As Zach lay there still coughing up water, he realized that every limb on his body was shaking.  He had been running on adrenaline for the last half-hour, and it was wearing off.  He was physically and emotionally spent, he needed sleep.  Someone could have a knife to his throat right now, and it was an actually possibility, but he didn’t care, he was too tired to care, he needed sleep.

“Do you think we should go look for that dragon?”
“No, there’s no way he could have survived that fall.”
“What if he landed in the water, couldn’t he have lived then?
“No, everyone knows dragons can’t swim, he’ll have drowned by now.  Now I'm hungry lets go back and get some food.  Maybe we can get double rations for this.”
With that, the apes turned and walked back into the depths of the cliff.

Cynder tried to look out the window but the chain held her too far from it.  Something had been happening outside, something big.  Minutes after Zach had left, the area had become a flurry of activity, apes going everywhere, lots of yelling.  But of course, she had no idea what was going on, although she had an unsettling feeling that Zach was the cause of the commotion.  While she didn’t really know him, and wasn’t sure if she should trust him, he was still her only hope of getting out of this mess.  Cynder gave up trying to see out of the window.  Whatever had happened seemed to be over now, she hoped Zach was ok.  She returned to the center of the room to lie down.  All she could do now was wait, so she might as well make herself comfortable.
“Ah I see you have noticed all the commotion about, perhaps you had something to do with it?”  The same ape that had first greeted her was standing in the doorway again.
“You again, I already told you, I’m not going to talk to you, and I'm never going back.”
“A little more confident now are we?  Well don’t get your hopes up.  The guards disposed of that white dragon just as easily as they got rid of Spyro.  Funny thing, I’ve never seen him before, oh well he won’t trouble us anymore.”
Cynder was taken aback by his statements, but quickly hid her face, she wasn’t going to show her feeling to this monster, and he was probably lying anyway.  But she had not been quick enough to hide her face.
“Ah so you knew him as well, it seems that everyone you know goes to their deaths because of you.”  The ape walked over to Cynder and started to whisper in her ear.  “No one can save you here, those who have tried to save you are dead, all your friends are dead, and no one else knows you’re here.”  The ape turned and walked towards the window, which he could see out of.  “You should just give in now Cynder, you have no hope, no one can save you, why not make it easier on yourself and give in now.”
“I already told you, I will never go back.”
“Oh I think you will, you just need some… convincing” the ape pulled a small gem out of his packet.  Immediately, the snake around her neck flashed, forming a connection between her and the gem in the ape’s hand.
This was Cynder’s chance, she jumped at the ape, trying to get the gem out of his had.  If she could get the gem, she could get out of here.  But that possibility never came to pass.  As she moved toward the ape, he drew back his hand and sent her across the room.
“If you ever try that again, I don’t care what the master says, I will kill you.”  
“Who are you?”
The ape gave her a devilish grin “that’s unimportant.  Now let’s go, we have some business to attend to.”
As Cynder followed the ape down the hallway, she couldn’t help but feel like she was being led to her doom.

Zach awoke to darkness, again.  But he remembered where he was.  He almost laughed at the prospect.  He really was hiding under a rock.  Zach lay quietly in his cover.  He felt so much better after he slept, but just how long had he been out, he didn’t know.  He did need to get out though, the air had become stale and he was lying in a cramped position.  Zach kicked at the rocks that had piled up over the entrance, breaking out into the fresh air.  Zach crawled out and stretched.  The sun was high in the sky now.  How long had he been asleep?  Either he had slept through the night and most of the next day, or he hadn’t slept that long at all.  By the way he felt, he would guess that he hadn’t been asleep all that long.  While the aches and pains from running thorough the caverns had subsided, and he could think clearly, some part of him felt drained, as if he had no energy.  Zach was curious, maybe sleeping had restored his ability to bend the light around his body.  Zach focused, concentrating on his arm as he had done before.  Nothing, he still couldn’t do it.  What if he never could do it again?  Oh well, easy come easy go, though it could just as easily come back in time.
Zach looked around, he was lost, in a forest, again.  That just seemed to be the story of his life right now,
Waking up lost in forests and jumping off cliffs to get away from apes trying to kill him.  But this time he knew where he was going, sort of.  While Cynder said all he would have to do was follow the Silver River, she hadn’t said where it was exactly.  Well, she had actually said “you can’t miss it” and hopefully that meant that it was really big.  But then again, she probably expected him to fly along the river, and he couldn’t do that.  Hopefully it was close, otherwise he was going to spend a few days trudging though the forest, as if he hadn’t spent enough time trudging though the forest already.  But first things first, he needed to find the river again.  He had two options, he could retrace his steps and go back to the waterfall, he could hear it from where he was so it wouldn’t be that hard to find.  Or he could trudge through the forest until he found the river again.  While he didn’t really want to go back to the waterfall, he could easily get lost and never find the river if he went off in a different direction.  So as much as he didn’t want to go back and possible run into apes, he really, really didn’t want to get lost again.
Zach started back towards the river, following what he thought was a path.  At the very least, there wasn’t much undergrowth and the path was fairly easy to follow.  Zach eventually made it back to the bottom of the waterfall.  He hid in the shrubs on the edge of the forest, it didn’t look like anyone was looking for him, at least something was starting to go his way.  But even if he didn’t see anyone, he still had to be careful, the last thing he wanted to do was get caught, there was really nowhere to run anymore.  Zach started to walk along the edge of the forest.  While it didn’t offer as much cover as deep in the forest, he could move much faster while still being partially covered.
Zach walked for a good half mile before he was convinced that no one would be around to spot him.  Zach moved from the edge of the forest out onto the bank of the river.  Thankfully, it was a shallow incline from the river, making a good path for Zach to follow.  As Zach walked down the side of the river, he got lost in thought again.  This world was just getting weirder and weirder, but at least he had some idea of what was going on now.  He had met Cynder, not in the best circumstances, but met her just the same.  And Spyro had been mentioned a few times.  That meant that this really was the world from his dreams, and that meant he had some information he could go on.  But that still didn’t answers his biggest question.  Why was he here?  Was there a reason or was he just the casualty of some freak accident?  Maybe he would finally get some answers when he got to the temple.  No, that was not the most important thing right now.  Someone’s life was at stake, and his questions could wait for that.  Which brought him to another question, where the heck was the temple?  It would take him forever to find it at this rate, but he needed to keep moving, and not just for his own sake.

How long had he been walking.  The sun had already started its decent in the sky, if this world was anything like earth he had been walking for about two hours, and boy did he feel it.  He wasn’t quite sore yet, but he could feel the tightness in his muscles.  As soon as he got a chance, the first thing he was going to do was sleep, for a long time.  That’s all he had wanted to do since day one, but between turning into a dragon, running from apes, jumping off cliffs, and getting lost in forests, he really didn’t have a chance to sleep at all.  But now was not the time, he needed to keep focused.
Zach stopped, something wasn’t quite right.  Zach tried to keep as quiet as possible as he searched his surroundings.  Nothing.  Maybe he was getting paranoid.  It was possible after all, he was jumping at every sound, and people had been trying to kill him.  Zach started walking, but stopped again.  He knew he had heard something this time.  Zach started to move towards the forest, he needed cover now.
Zach slipped into the forest just as a group of apes walked into view.  What was it with these apes, they were everywhere.  Zach needed more cover, he was sure to be seen where he was.  Zach quietly slipped further into the forest as the apes got nearer.  Zach got to a clearing in the forest and turned back to make sure no one was following him.  No one had.  As he looked back he could see the group of apes, there had to be almost forty of them.  Where the heck were they all coming from?  He assumed they were headed to the caves, but why?  Apes meant bad news, he knew that much, but a lot of apes in the same place, that was even worse.  Zach watched carefully as the last ape walked out of site.  Zach lay down against a tree, if he started running into more groups, he would have to start walking through the thick forest.  Zach looked around, he really didn’t want to have to walk through all this.
As Zach looked around the forest, he noticed something shinny in the distance.  “What is that?”  Its not like he had ADD and was attracted to shiny objects but something was drawing him too it.  What was it?  Zach figured he could find the river easy enough from where he was so he set of towards the glimmer.  As Zach got closer, he noticed that it was a green crystal that seemed to draw him in.  He had seen these before many times in his dreams, Spyro and Cynder had often touched them, but he could never figure out what they were for.  As the crystal drew him in, Zach reached out a hand, he was a dragon now, he should be able to touch it, right?
As soon as his hand touched the Crystal, Zach felt a rush of energy flow through him.  The fatigue he had been feeling washed away in the energy’s flow, he felt refreshed, renewed, and most of his aches and pains were gone.  Zach removed his hand from the crystal.  He felt great again; he could probably even…  Zach smirked as his hand disappeared from sight.  His power was back.  He could hide again if he needed to.  Obviously, he needed power from this crystal like he needed food.  That reminded him, he hadn’t eaten all day and he still wasn’t hungry.  That was odd.  Zach touched the crystal again to make sure he had all the energy he would need and set off again.  After reaching the clearing around the river, Zach set off again downstream.  He had what he needed to get to the temple.  Now all he had to do was find it.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me.”
Cynder was right when she said you couldn’t miss it, because you really couldn’t, even from the river.  This was because the whole temple was floating… in the air… without anything toughing the ground.
“How the heck am I supposed to get up there” Zach studied the temple.  It was sitting on top if a large slab of earth that tapered down into a point at the end that hung at least fifty feet off the ground, probably more, he really couldn’t tell from this where he was.  He had almost missed it.  He wasn’t really looking in the air for a building and had only noticed when he walked into an extremely large shadow.  He didn’t really know what to think at first, It just seemed like a giant floating object, but the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that it was the temple, but now he had another problem, he had to get up there, or get someone to come down.  He had no idea how he was going to do either.  Zach started through the forest, maybe if he got closer to the temple he could find some way up there, or get someone’s attention.
Zach trudged through the forest, he was really getting tired of this.  This world seemed be a big practical joke sometimes.  He really needed to learn how to fly.  He had wings after all.  He just needed to learn how to use them.  As Zach was wandering through the forest, he kept his eye on the floating temple.  He needed a bearing to keep from getting lost.  As he was wandering, he noticed a dragon flying overhead.
“Hey…  Hey!  Down here.”  The dragon just kept flying towards the temple.  He probably couldn’t hear Zach from way up there.  As Zach got closer, he noticed a clearing towards the base of the temple.  He probably could get spotted better if he was standing in the clearing.  Zach moved through the forest and into the clearing.
And was immediately caught in an updraft.
“Woah…..”  Zach’s wings caught the updraft, flinging him up into the air.  “Someone stop this thing,” Zach soared higher and higher into the air.  Now he knew why there was a clearing right here in the middle of the forest.  He was flying through the air again.  Buy maybe that was a good thing.  If he could get high enough from the updraft, he could probably get to some part of the temple.  Zach soared out the top of the updraft, he was high enough that he could make it to a platform outside of the temple.  Zach set his sights on the platform and moved towards it as he glided towards the platform he couldn’t help but remember his last attempt at landing.  This was going to be bad, very, very bad.

Spyro lay awake on the platform; he still hadn’t gotten any sleep.  All his dreams turned to nightmares, leaving him panting and sweating when he awoke.  Often when he slept, he tossed and turned, aggravating his injuries.  What was he going to do?  He wasn’t allowed outside, and all he was told to do was sleep.  But he couldn’t sleep, so all he did was lay around in a dreamlike state, agitated and confused.  What was he going to do?
He didn’t care what anyone said, he was tired of lying around.  Spyro got up and walked towards the edge of the platform.  He wasn’t going to try and go anywhere, he had reconciled himself to the fact that he couldn’t save Cynder, not in the state he was in.  But he needed a change of scenery.  Spyro looked out over the edge; everything had changed since the destroyer had been resurrected.  There were a few things that had been left untouched, but much of the landscape had changed.  Even in the short days that he had been here, he had come to call this place home, but now everything had changed.  Cynder could be out there anywhere, and he didn’t have any clue as to where to start.
Spyro stood there looking out at the landscape, feeling the cool breeze, listening to the whistle of the wind… wait, that wasn’t the wind.  
“Incoming!!!!”  Spyro backed up incredible confused as dust was kicked up along a path on the platform, he hadn’t seen anything fly in, but something had landed there.  It had to be an assault.
“Intruder!”
“Hey, woah, wait a second here, I'm on your side.”
“Then why can’t I see you?”
“Huh?  Oh I really have to stop introducing myself this way.”  Spyro stood in amazement as a white dragon suddenly took up the space where moments before there had only been air.  “My names Zach, nice to finally meet you Spyro.”
“How did you know my name?”  How was it that everyone knew who he was but he didn’t have a clue as to who they were?
“Long story but now is not the time, I know where Cynder is, and she needs your help.”
The new dragon immediately had Spyro’s attention.  “Where is she?  Why didn’t you get her out?  Can you take me too her?”
“Easy Spyro I’ll need your help to get her out, but you don’t look like you’re in any shape to help, I’m guessing that’s from your fall off the cliff.”
“How did you know about that, you seem to now a lot about me but don’t know anything about you?  Why is that?
“I'm sorry Spyro, I didn’t mean to, part of it will take a long time to explain, but I knew about your fall because I’ve talked to Cynder.”
“What?  You talked to her? Was she ok?  And do you know who took her?”
“Yes I talked to her.  She was more or less ok when I talked to her, and I would guess that the numerous apes that were there were the ones who captured her.”
“Apes, what are you talking about?  All the apes are dead”
“No they’re not.  I’ve had to dodge them all the way here, they really have something against dragons.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense…
“Join the club, nothings that has happened to me today has made sense.”
As they were talking, Terador burst onto the platform and immediately set his sights on Zach.  “Step away from him, I don’t know who you are or who sent you, but you will not get what you came for.”
Zach was in deep trouble now, why was it that everyone was trying to kill him.  He was only saved when Spyro stepped in front of him.
“It’s ok Terador, he knows where Cynder is.”
Even Terador seemed to be taken back by the news.  “What?  How?”
“Seriously it’s a very long story, and I don’t think Cynder has the time.  She’s currently being held in a series of caves in a large cliff face north of here.”
“Cliff face?  There are no cliff faces north of here in Avalar.”
“Well I don’t know what else you would call that, but I do know where she is.”
It was Terador’s tun to talk.  “Good, you can tell us where and the other guardians and I will go and get her, a few apes shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Yes but there’s another problem with you plan.  The reason Cynder isn’t with me is she’s being held there by the same kind of chain that bout her to Spyro not that long ago.  Only the person who made it can remove it, and Malefore was the person who made it.  So you can see how that would cause a problem.”
“What how do you know about all that…”
“I already told you, it’s a very long story.”
“But if she is stuck with one of those on her, how will we ever get her out?  Malefore is dead, if he made it, no one can get it off her.”  Spyro looked downhearted as he came to this realization, may be no way to save her.  “But we have to try”
“As I was saying earlier, I think I may know a way around it, unfortunately there’s a problem with that as well.”
Both dragons looked at Zach, impatiently waiting for him to finish.
“I think that Spyro may be able to break it.”
“What, I don’t have that power.  Do you think Cynder and I would have traveled all over the country side together bound by those things if we didn’t have to, I don’t think so.”
“Spyro I don’t know if you haven’t noticed or what, but your purple, and that means a lot more than you have purple scales.  I would guess you have the same amount of power as Malefore, you should be able to break it.”
Both Spyro and Terador looked at Zach.  What he just said made sense, but he would only know those things if he had followed Spyro through all of his travels.  And that didn’t make any sense.  Who was this dragon?
Spyro was the firs one to talk.  “I don’t think I could do that, I'm not that powerful.”
Terador cut him off.  “Spyro… he’s actually correct, you are a purple dragon, with the right reason you have the power to do anything.  You just saved the world not more than a day ago, what makes you think you can’t do this?”
“I don’t know, but it really doesn’t matter, as much as I hate to admit it, I can’t go anywhere like this, if what you say is true, it will be months before we can go.  And by then it will be too late.
Zach thought back to what had happened earlier with Cynder.  Maybe he could do it again.  “I have another idea that might solve that problem.  Spyro will you let me see your wing?”
Spyro looked at Zach for a minute, trying to decide if he should let this strange dragon look at his wounded wing.  In the end, he unwrapped his bandage and splayed his wing out on the ground in front of Zach.  The wing was mangled and bent in different places, some places were bruised and inflamed, and parts of the wing membrane were torn or missing altogether, in other words, it was a mess.  Parts of Spyro’s mainstay were bent at angles close to ninety degrees.  His wing would have to be set back into shape before it could be healed, and that was going to be painful.
“Ok before I try this, if what I think is going to happen happens it will be very painful but it should heal your wing, are you sure you want me to try this?”
Spyro thought about it for a second.  But if it meant saving Cynder, he could deal with the pain.  “Ok do it.”
Terador turned to Zach.  “What are you going to do, and how do you know it will be painful?”
“As to what will happen I'm not sure, but bones snapping back into place would be quite painful.”
“How do you know these things?”
Now it was Zach’s turn to think.  How did he know these things?  “I really don’t know the answer to that either” it was as if he had knowledge of what was wrong with Spyro and how to fix it.
Terador turned back to Spyro.  “Are you sure you want to go through with this Spyro?”
“If it means helping Cynder, then yes.  I’m ready”
Zach reached out and touched Spyro’s wing.  Just like with Cynder, his hand began to spark when it cam into contact with Spyro’s skin.  But unlike with Cynder, Zach was watching what would happen this time.  Everyone watched in amazement as Spyro’s wing seemed to realign itself and begin to heal over, everyone that is but Spyro.  Zach looked over at the purple dragon.  His face was in a very serious expression and it was obvious that he was gritting his teeth.  Either Spyro didn’t want anyone to see him cry out or he didn’t want someone to stop it because he was in pain.  Zach guessed the second.  Spyro would do anything for Cynder, even go through this torture.  It was very obvious he loved her.  Through his concern and rapid-fire questions when Zach showed up, and the fact that he was enduring this pain for her, plus Zach had the added bonus of watching them together in his dreams.  Zach wondered if Spyro had ever told Cynder how he felt, and he wondered the same about Cynder.
Zach turned his attention back to Spyro’s wing, something wasn’t quite right.  The bones and such in Spyro’s wing were aligned, but they weren’t fusing back together.  Maybe he shouldn’t have tried this.  Cynder’s wound was only a gash, not realigning bones, muscle, and tissue.  As Zach grew more concerned about Spyro’s wing, a sudden compulsion to breathe on Spyro’s wing came over him.  While he though it was strange, he couldn’t stop himself from doing it.  As Zach breathed lightly over Spyro’s wing, he was shocked to she a green mist laced with blue streaks and sparks come out of his mouth.  What was going on?  It almost didn’t matter anymore, it was just another weird thing to happen to him today, almost…
But more shocking than the fact that this mist was coming out of Zach mouth, was the effect it was having on Spyro’s wing.  Zach could see the bones, muscles, and tendons all stitching themselves back together, the bruising and swelling on other parts of his wing diapered, and tears and breaks in the wing membrane were completely healed over.  Then as suddenly as it had all started, it was over.  Zach backed away form Spyro’s wing, he needed to lie down again, he had that same drained feeling he had after he couldn’t cloak anymore.
“Amazing!”  Terador simply stood in amazement looking at Spyro’s fully healed wing.
Spyro on the other had, was just glad it was all over.  Spyro stood up from where he was on the ground and flexed his wings, putting them thorough their full range of motion, making sure that everything still worked.  “That worked well, although I never want to go through it again.”
Zach almost laughed.  “I hate to break it to you Spyro, but you are going to have to go through it again.”  Zach nodded in the direction of Spyro’s still broken leg.
Spyro let out a groan, this was not going to be fun.
“Don’t worry Spyro, ill give you a minute to recover.  That last bit drained all my energy.  I can’t do another, not without getting more energy from a crystal.”
“Here Zach, ill show you where one is in the temple.”  Terador turned and led Zach into the temple.
Zach gazed in amazement at the inside of the temple.  Large hallways conjoined rooms that were large enough to fit houses in.  It was an amazing piece of architecture.  The only thing that Zach wondered was how it was built.  The dragons didn’t have opposable thumbs or anything, and the walls looked like they were crafted by tools, maybe someone else built it.  Then there was the fact that this whole thing was floating in the air.  Zach just shook his head, too many questions, and they would all have to wait.
Terador led him into a room with a collection of the green crystals he had found in the forest.  Zach walked up to the nearest one and placed his hand on it.  He immediately felt the flow of energy coming through the crystal.  It was time to go try again.
Zach and Terador walked back out onto the platform where Spyro was still waiting, he was lying down and had already unwrapped his bandage on his bad leg.  Zach walked up to Spyro.
“Are you ready for this, its probably going to hurt more than your wing; the bone is thicker in your leg.”
Spyro looked at Zach and spoke through already gritted teeth.  “Do it”
Zach reached out and touched Spyro’s leg.  Just like last time, the leg realigned itself, but didn’t begin to fully heal.  Once again, Zach felt a compulsion to breathe on Spyro’s leg, and once again, a strange mist came out of his mouth when he did.  Except this time, Zach wasn’t paying attention to what was happening to Spyro’s leg, but to what was happening himself.  Zach tried to find where this mist was coming from.  But every time he concentrated too hard, the mist coating Spyro’s leg would thin out.  Zach stopped trying to figure it out.  He seemed to be able to do it on instinct, and Spyro’s leg needed the attention right now.  He couldn’t afford to stop now.
After a few minutes, the flow of mist and energy stopped.  Zach felt slightly better than he did last time.  Either he was gathering endurance or that wasn’t as difficult to fix as a wing.  But he still was wiped out.  “I need to go get more energy, I'm wiped out again.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, doing that really takes it out of me, ill be right back” Zach walked off into the temple, alone this time.  He returned to the room with the crystals and repeated the process again.  When he walked back out to the platform, Terador and Spyro were talking.  But when he came into view, they stopped.  T didn’t take much guessing to know that they were talking about him.  “What’s going on?”
“We were just talking about how we were going to go about getting Cynder.  I want to wait for the other guardians to get back, but Spyro wants to go now.”
“Well when are the guardians supposed to get back?”
“I don’t know”
“Well then that should answer your question, besides, we should get Cynder out of there as soon as possible.  Add that to that fact that Spyro is going to go now whether you join him or not…”
“Hey, I wouldn’t…”
“I don’t blame you.  She’s very important to you, and it would be crazy to expect you to do anything less.  So Terador, what are you going to do?”
“I suppose I don’t really have a choice.  We will leave as soon as possible.”
“Well good luck to you guys then.”
Spyro shot a confused look at Zach “What.  You have to come with us.  You may be the only one who can find where Cynder is being kept.  Besides, we need all the help we can get”
“Yeah, about that… there’s a slight problem with that…”
“What do you mean?  What could possibly keep you from going?”
“Umm… well…  I can t fly.”