#dark!spyro

{🔥}—; It had been a struggle filled week for Spyro, he’d gone to destroy the final dark gem in Red’s cave with his friends Hunter and Sparx but things turned out bad. The dark object had grown in power and strength and was not so easy to destroy and the young dragon ended up paying the price and was cursed with darkness. 

Causing the little dragon’s appearance to shift and turn making him look more intimidating and more like an evil dragon. It scared the baby dragons a bit with his new piercing red eyes and black scales, most said his personality seemed a bit different as well as if he was more erratic and wild, even aggressive judging by the last time he’d encountered a villain within the week.

But the young dragon still had a promise to keep and he decided to go back to the Mushroom Kingdom to see Grey and Karik. Sparx insisted that he should try and get the darkness within him removed before they go. “I don’t know about ya pal, but I think I’ve been keepin’ ‘em waitin’ long enough.”

Though Spyro decided to go anyway and Sparx told the dragon elders where they were heading off to and followed his best friend through the pipe to return to the Mushroom Kingdom, intending to keep an eye on his companion while they were there. 

{🔥}—; The little dragon trotted across the grassy green plains, taking in his thoughts as they spun around in his head and he’d just gotten done with defeating Ripto once again. But he’d noticeably acted more wild, erratic and even aggressive while fighting against his longtime enemy that even Sparx brought it up to him. 

Ever since he’d had a run in with a leftover Dark Gem thanks to Red, he’d been cursed with darkness and now even the Magic Crafters didn’t have a clear way to remove it as this was something they hadn’t dealt with before. So, now he had to wait on a possible new spell being created to counter that and deal with it for a while longer. 

To make matters worse, about a week ago he said he’d be going to visit Death today and now he was still going but looked different from his usual appearance and it might come as a big surprise when he finally went to see him. 

{🔥}—; The little dragon trotted through the portal that led him to a city he’d never been too. Recently he’d been cursed with dark magic and it enveloped him in darkness, so now his outer appearance had changed and he was slowly starting to change in the way he acted that gave even Sparx some concerns.

But right now he still had it in him to go exploring another realm, but Sparx advised him not to while this darkness ails him but he stubbornly didn’t listen. Usually when he didn’t heed his best friend’s advice it was cause he was overly confident in the face of danger, but now it was more like defiance.

Spyro glided across the night sky past some buildings, looking around the place as his wings fluttered seeing what there was around here to see.

{🔥}—; It should have been an ordinary day in the Dragon Realms, but with what started with a bit of a bad feeling where something felt a little off to a certain purple dragon. It would escalate into something much worse that could change everything, Spyro had been called to go and see Nestor in the big castle of the Artisan home. 

The dragon elder seemed, very nervous and told Spyro and Sparx that a very powerful dark presence had been located by the Magic Crafters near the traitorous Elder Red’s old laboratory where he’d fought against him and had destroyed the Dark Gems, or so he thought. For he was told that according to the still shrunken Red who was contained in a jar in the room, that he had hidden away a unique Dark Gem away from the lab in further isolated part of the underground caverns where it wouldn’t be found as he knew Spyro would be coming and he wanted that one Dark Gem to survive. “I thought I took care of all of ‘em? Huh, well I guess I’ll head over there and handle it.” 

He glared at the little jar that contained his old enemy. “Looks like ya tried to pull a fast one didn’t ya? Well I’m gonna go an’ take care of it, so next time ya hide somethin’ make sure it’s not gonna be somethin’ easy t’find.” The young dragon looked down at him with a smug grin, but Red spoke up still in a tiny voice that he be surprised by what he’d find after the Dark Gem had been left undisturbed for so long like he was expecting something but Spyro just huffed and a wisp of smoke billowed up from his nostrils. “Gee, am I seriously supposed t’be scared of anythin’ ya say? I mean can ya hear yourself talkin’? Not like you were that much of a challenge before anyway short stuff.” 

With that he headed out to take the balloon over to the Volcanic Isle, climbing into the hot air balloon’s basket he was soon in the air. Spyro took in the sights from the balloon, Sparx flew up to his friend with a buzz. 

“Hey Spyro, did you notice how nervous Nestor looked when he started talking about the Dark Gem? I’m pretty sure something’s wrong, cause those things weren’t that big of a deal back when we took care of them before.” The glowing dragonfly said, trying to state facts that Spyro seemed to not have taken notice of when he was given this task. His companion only wanting to advise he be careful going into this. 

After a long trip, the duo arrived at Volcanic Isle but almost immediately they were approached by Hunter, who had come to try and lend him a hand as he overheard talk of this. “Hey Spyro! I heard you were going back into the caverns underneath this place to take care of the last Dark Gem, that you missed.” He said, putting emphasis on ‘missed’ like he was trying to take a playful jab at him. 

“Real funny Hunter, but thanks for comin’. We better get a move on an’ maybe after this you an’ I can hang out and maybe have a couple rounds skateboardin’!” He playfully nudged him and led his friend over to the shaft that would take them down to the caverns.

Upon taking the lift and entering the familiar caverns the type of atmosphere down there was different. With the power of darkness spreading with puddles of dark substance and energy all around it gave off a dark and dismal feel to the place it didn’t have before. Spyro was well aware that the Dark Gems were capable of corrupting the environment around it, but the extent of it here baffled him to say the least.  As it turned out, something really was wrong, so with Sparx’s guidance Spyro made sure nothing would jump out and attack since he knew Hunter was with them and he wasn’t going to let him get in trouble.

By the time they reached the Dark Gem itself it had seemingly ingrained itself into the ground it rested on, glowing and had covered the entire cavern surrounding it in black energy with the weight of it’s power spreading across the area and increasingly became heavier on the trio.

Spyro wasn’t going to drag this out any longer than he needed to so he trotted over to the Dark Gem with the intent to smash it into bits as he’d done with all the others he’d encountered before this. Approaching it though, it almost seemed like it tried to defend itself even if it wasn’t sentient.

For when he got closer then in unleashed a blast of dark energy towards Hunter and Sparx, almost as if deliberately a dark spell came from it as it unleashed a beam of darkness that rippled through the caves allowing it to spread rapidly. 

The young dragon’s attention went directly to his friends who were within seconds put in danger, his first instinct was to try and protect them. “Don’t worry guys, I’ve got ya!” The young hero rushed quickly to the Dark Gem to destroy it, but the energy pulsing from it knocked him off his feet and tossed him aside. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get close enough to it to stop it nor could he push Hunter out of the way since he seemed locked in place by the Dark Gem’s power which had begun to attack him.

He felt a sense of urgency wash over him, worried about his two friends and what could happen to them and to the Dragon Realms if the sudden rapid spread of darkness couldn’t be stopped now, not only could it put everyone in jeopardy but the fact that he’d be here powerless, while his friends were attacked by an inanimate object of darkness hurt him.

There was only one other option he saw that he could see, and so without even the slightest regard for his own well being, Spyro rushed and put himself in front of the beam of dark magic  which caused a large banging sound to be heard coming from the Dark Gem. 

Intense dark energy rippled through Spyro’s body, even Sparx’s presence couldn’t protect him from the sheer amount of power being forced onto him. The darkness in the cave began to rescind and fall back towards the source, but didn’t return to the Dark Gem and instead the dark energy began flooding into Spyro, latching on like a leech. 

Both Hunter and Sparx tried to save him, but even with their efforts just like before, they could not get close enough to stop this. All they could do was watch helplessly as the dark magic was painfully forced upon the hero of the Dragon Realms. “Spyro, no!”

The amount of pressure Spyro could felt  was like he was being crushed as well as having daggers pierce his scaly hide which caused the young dragon’s toes to curl under the unseen weight. He could barely keep his eyes open, let alone think straight as his heart pounded rapidly in his chest. which soon translated into pain that could be described from the pained shouts from the little dragon that was only followed by him shaking violently while the dark magic surrounded him and pain induced tears forcefully yet unwillingly streamed down his scaly cheeks. 

Within moments, the beam began to die out as did the energy in the Dark Gem itself and Spyro seemed to, change in appearance as his vibrant purple scales began to darken until they turned entirely black, while his friendly and inviting look changed to a more dark and intimidating appearance.

Once the energy had drained entirely from the Dark Gem, it crumbled to dust and Spyro collapsed onto the cold hard ground falling unconscious instantly. His breathing was labored and he was barely moving aside from slow shivers from the young dragon, his body also steaming. Sparx was the first to go over to him, quickly in extreme worry for his best friend, the dragonfly’s stomach churned terribly over what he and Hunter had just witnessed happen that even his glow began to dim. 

“Hunter, you’ve g-gotta help me get him, back.” The dragonfly was clearly in shock as he stumbled over his words and small tears were visible in his eyes, something that wasn’t seen often at all among him or Spyro himself. Hunter clearly understood the situation and didn’t hesitate to pick Spyro up carefully and quickly went back to the balloon to return to the Artisan homeworld.

Upon their return, they were quickly asked what was wrong with Spyro and Sparx explained alongside Hunter and the cheetah did most of the talking as Sparx was visibly distraught by this situation, fearing that what if Spyro didn’t survive the night or if something terrible had happened with a hint to it being his drastic difference in appearance. 

Nestor understood the severity of the situation and had a chamber in the castle set up for Spyro, where he was placed in a bed where he would rest until he would wake up. 

But, days quickly turned into a week and Spyro still hadn’t woken up or seemed any different other than his breathing seemed to improve but not by a lot. Sparx, never left his side and Hunter was kind enough to bring the dragonfly some food and help him out while he stayed with him. Spyro did get visitors from some of his other friends, including Elora, or even some of the younger dragons whom he’d once saved from the Sorceress before they hatched.

However, on the eighth day since the incident, while Sparx was sleeping on his friend’s head he felt movement which woke him up. The little dragonfly fluttered up in the air and it appeared that Spyro was finally stirring, and once he woke up it was clear his eyes had changed as well for now instead of a violet color they were now a blood red color...