LoS: Heart of Power: Ch 18

All Out


Malefor was the one who opened the attack, launching two streams of flames at them. Weaving back and forth across the ground as they approached Spyro and Cynder they finally erupting into large flaming snakes which flew at them with their fangs barred.

But Cynder immediately stepped too, creating a powerful gust of wind which blew out the flames in mere moments.

However she had barely done that before Malefor jumped through the last sparks of the flames and landed right in front of Spyro lashing out with his claws.

Spyro quickly retreated a few steps and turning a bit to the side he whipped his tail at Malefor.

But Malefor simply raised his wing in defense and immediately also turned around blasting a lightning bolt at Ravina as well as sweeping his tail low across the ground towards Cynder who was trying to get behind him.

Ravina blocked the lightning bolt with her wings and immediately jumped forward aiming for Malefor´s flank.

Cynder saw the tail coming at her and disappeared in a cloud of dark smoke. But this only lasted a moment before Cynder reappeared again attacking with her claws as well as several shadowy claws she conjured during her attack.

In the meantime Spyro also jumped attacking with his claws and teeth.

Malefor could not defend himself as they came at him from three sides and their claws struck across his body ripping of chunks of Malefor´s crystal body and leaving large cracks in the rest.

But Malefor seemed unconcerned about it as Ravina noticed, his only change of expression being a slight smile.

Suddenly Spyro felt a sudden tingling in the air around him and quickly realized what it meant. "Get back!" he yelled quickly and he jumped away along with Cynder and Ravina just as a lightning bolt came roaring down from the elemental sphere around them and completely engulfed Malefor.

However Malefor himself was unharmed, the lightning crackling along his body without causing damage and in fact the lightning grabbed the chunks Spyro, Cynder and Ravina had ripped off and pulled them back into his body. It only took a moment before Malefor looked as undamaged as when the fight began.

"Shall we continue?" he asked with the same devilish smile.

Spyro and Cynder snarled and together with Ravina they slowly started circling him, jumping in for a quick attack every now and then, trying to find or create and opening.

But Malefor defended himself perfectly, retaliating every once in a while with a quick blast of flame or lightning.

And then suddenly Spyro attacked, jumping at Malefor and attacking with his claws.
Malefor blocked the initial attack with his wings and then proceeded to leap straight at Spyro.

Spyro only barely managed to twist his neck out of the way as Malefor aimed for it with his teeth, but then he was struck by the full weight of Malefor´s body and it pulled him to the ground, Malefor landing on top of him.

Spyro immediately began clawing desperately at Malefor with both his fore and hind legs trying to get Malefor of him. But Malefor did not seem to notice and Spyro could feel the pain of large claws sinking into his flesh.

"Is that all you got?" said Malefor looking down upon Spyro and Spyro simply glared angrily back at him.

However Spyro was quickly forced to defend himself as Malefor opened his mouth and a cone of flame erupted from it towards Spyro´s face.

Spyro meet it with a blast of cold, the flame and the ice streams wrestling back and forth for a moment before Malefor stopped. Quickly Malefor then spread his wings and jumped into the air just as two powerful screams ripped through the air where he had been.
Cynder immediately turned her attention upwards and launched several fear projectiles after Malefor.

But Malefor simply laughed and increased his altitude, avoiding the projectiles without trouble.

Spyro quickly got to his feet and focused upon the wounds he had received. Though he could not see most of them, from what he could feel they were not too deep and he stopped the loss of blood with a layer of rock.

He then glanced shortly at Cynder nodding quickly to let her know he was all right and then together they jumped into the air in pursuit of Malefor.

Immediately Cynder attacked Malefor head on with blasts of acid before closing with him.
Malefor deflected the acid with a shield of rock before lashing out at Cynder as she got close.

But Cynder had anticipated this and dived under Malefor just as Spyro came in from the side. Wreathing himself in flames Spyro used them to boost himself forward and slammed into Malefor´s right side while Ravina unleashed a powerful shriek upon Malefor´s left side.

Malefor staggered in the air, but quickly recovered and turned towards Spyro with a irritated snarl. Lashing out with bolts of lightning, Malefor forced Spyro to go on the defensive and Malefor then quickly turned his attention to Ravina who was forced to quickly dive towards the ground as great spheres of flame erupted from Malefor and started homing in on her.

But it was at that moment that Cynder attacked again. Coming at Malefor from beneath she engulfed him in shadowy flames, before raking his side as she flew past.

This continued as Spyro and Cynder constantly alternated between attacking Malefor and drawing his attention away from the other and Ravina coming in with her own attacks and helping the defense when she saw an opening.

It was a constant barrage of attacks keeping Malefor off balance and preventing him from focusing on any of them for very long.

But then suddenly Malefor stopped in the air and without warning a pillar of flame streaked downwards from the storm of elements above. The pillar engulfed Spyro and Cynder, though he managed to raise a shield of earth in time and Cynder escaped by becoming a cloud of black mist.

"Enough!" roared Malefor and with that multiple enormous pillars of rock, flame, ice and lightning formed from the elemental sphere around them coming at them from all sides.

Spyro and Cynder immediately retreated a little, weaving in and out among the first barrage of pillars, but as a particularly large pillar of rock came at them from above, Spyro stopped and from the nearby elemental sphere he drew out a rock pillar of his own which smashed into the one threatening to crush them, shattering both.

"You are not the only one with power over this place!" said Spyro confidently as he turned towards Malefor and then drew upon the elements of the sphere around them and unleashed his own barrage of pillars.

Malefor simply smiled and unleashed his own barrage and they crashed together in a enormous clash.

Ravina quickly retreated towards the platform to escape the pillars which threatened to crush or burn anything caught among them. From the ground she looked back up at the chaos trying to find a opening for her to get back into the fight. But the sight which met her was stunning.

Pillars of rock broader than she herself was would fly towards Spyro from both above and to the side only to be torn to pieces by pillars of lightning. The very same lightning pillars would then change direction and fly at Malefor like a storm.

But Malefor would defend himself with pillars of ice, which absorbed the electricity into them before splitting apart and flying like a deadly razor hail back at Spyro. But before they even got close greats gusts of flame would erupt from the elemental sphere around them and envelop the ice, evaporating it.

And among this Ravina could see Cynder weaving in and out among the dangers with extraordinary agility and becoming a black mist when no other exit existed. Like that she was slowly getting closer to Malefor.

Ravina had grown up around Malefor. He had tried to show her how weak and insignificant other creatures were by forcing her to watch as he annihilated those who stood against them with displays of power which had baffled Ravina´s young mind.

However anything he had shown her at that time seemed like nothing compared to what she saw as Spyro and Cynder clashed with Malefor within the sphere of crystal and raging elements which made up the Heart of the place.

And even as Spyro and Cynder clashed with Malefor time and time again the entire elemental sphere around them seemed to destabilize as great gouts of flame erupted inwards, the platform started to vibrate lightly and a cold wind blew through the area.

Spyro saw a pillar of rock coming right at him and quickly increased his latitude enough to get clear of it. He then immediately called down a shower of ice shards  from above Malefor, but he simply sheathed himself in flames negating the attack before continuing his assault upon Spyro.

Spyro was focusing everything he had into bringing the elements of the sphere around him to bear against Malefor´s power even as he also had to defend himself against Malefor's attacks. He was holding nothing back this time knowing full well that if he did hold back he would lose…and that might happen anyway.

His strength was rapidly draining and he knew he could not overpower Malefor like this. But that was not his goal either, he knew Cynder was getting closer and his only thought was to make sure Malefor did not see her.

Cynder dived under a lightning bolt and a moment later was forced to roll in the air to avoid a pillar of flame coming straight at her. It was only her mastery of the wind around her that she was able to move fast enough to avoid the dangers. It did not protect her completely however as she had to evaporate into a cloud of black mist to avoid a particularly large wall of flame coming at her.

But even so she knew she was making progress and through occasionally glimpses through the chaos of the elemental attacks raging around her Cynder could also see that she indeed was getting closer and closer to Malefor with each passing moment.

And then finally she emerged into a relatively calm zone where she could see Malefor hovering in it, with his back turned to her.

Approaching slowly and carefully Cynder attacked quickly when she was close enough. opening her mouth she unleashed a powerful scream upon Malefor, aiming for his back.
But a wall of stone appeared in mid blocking the attack and Malefor looked back at her with an evil smile. "Did you not think I had seen you?"

"No" said Cynder with a snarl, but before she could attack again she saw a large razor sharp crystal disc tear directly through the rock pillar which had defended Malefor and come straight at him.

Malefor noticed it in the last second however rolling in the air to get clear, but as he did Cynder saw an opening and attacked him.

Latching onto Malefor's back Cynder started tearing at the base of Malefor´s wings with her claws.. Malefor immediately started rolling in the air in an effort to shake her loose, but Cynder secured herself with claws of shadow holding her onto Malefor as she worked her way through his wings.

However just as she managed to tear of one of his wings, large spikes of crystal erupted from his back and though Cynder jumped off immediately, they still pierced her stomach in numerous places.

Spyro also saw Malefor´s attacks cease and exhausted ceased his own attacks. The last crystal disc he had made in a direct attempt to damage Malefor had weakened him more than he had expected and  he slowly descended towards the ground.

Suddenly a shadow fell across him however and looking up he saw a massive rock pillar coming towards him. Desperately Spyro tried to repel it with his own rock power, but he was too weakened and it was too close.

But then Ravina suddenly flew past him and hit the rock pillar with a scream, tearing apart the rock which made it up. But it was only the bottom layer and Ravina knew it and gathering all her strength she continued the scream tearing the pillar apart even as it came towards them.

But even though the pillar was becoming smaller, some of the shards created as she tore it apart were dangerous in their own rights and Ravina felt as a large sharp piece of rock tore across her side, drawing blood. But she ignored it as she continued the scream until the entire pillar was torn apart in all its length.

Exhausted Ravina landed on the ground, trying to catch her breath and also feeling the pain of the wound she had received.

Near her Spyro was quickly treating the wounds Cynder had received with a quick layer of rock to take the worst blood loss.

He then turned to her and she could see that he was heaving for breath after exerting most of his strength. She tried to tell him that he needed not waste his strength on treating her wound, but found no air to form a sentence yet.

But Malefor was not much better off than them. The crash to the ground from the loss of the wing had caused large cracks in his body and though those cracks were slowly healing, the wing could not be recovered a clear sign that despite his artificial body his strength was still limited.

But his evil smile had not changed as he looked at them. "Doesn't look like you will be able to keep going for much longer" he said.

"Longer than you will!" said Spyro defiantly.

"Yeah…you will…never beat us!" said Ravina slowly regaining her breath.

"We shall see" said Malefor confidently. "And soon judging by your condition."

Slowly Malefor started moving towards them and Spyro and Cynder looked at each other and nodded. Together with Ravina they also walked forward towards Malefor. The next clash would decide the battle, they all knew that.