"Now Ashe, my dear friend. You have thought beside me in many battles. It is now my turn to tell you everything that transpired regarding myself and how I got us to this point. You must know how and why I made that promise. Verily you must also know why I left planet Earth"
The portal closed, Spyro then slowly and cautiously made his way through the air vents. With not even a map to guide him, just the magnetism and field lines guiding his horns.
However, something about this building was off. A haunting? errors and glitches in the Encephalon? either are not optimal. having no cultural lense to view what he was about to see, having broke through a drop ceiling air vent into a room with lon dead Halogen lights and rows of black tables that were sat upon a brown carpeted floor, he was aghast and left rendered silent
One such black table he landed upon, his vision doubled at first, but coming into focus wiht only spots of moonlight to guide him. The every present but not so frequent sounds of an old building which should not be old in the slightest settling along with a strange breeze were the ambience. Sparx wasrent silent. He neither had a lenses by which to see what this really was. they both survived the room. Sparx , acting as a drone formed a link between himles fna Spyro's visual cortex flying around and taking in information....All com[pletely foreign to him. THough not to a certain close friend of theirs, not.. "back then"
Sparx returned to sp yro's side, finally finding back his voice, he buzzed his wings and spoke up
"Who....died?"
Spyro turn his head twoards sparx
"Only Gilbert knows how it happened for sure. "
"I always wondered why he was off....now I know" Nodded Sparx, going silent once more, buzzing at position
"Our Target is the Goetia Key. We have to press forward"
'Press forward' they did. Finding the door, sparx fit himself into the keyhole and tried jiggering the lock. This didn't work.
"Get out of there, I'm going to melt the knob off" commanded spyro.
He puffed up his cheeks, steam and smoke coming out and breathed a long, white hot flame that reduced the doorknob to liquid metal.
Exiting the room they landed in, they continued down one long, claustrophobia-inducing hallway with an echoey floor made of linoleum. Their only guiding light was the sparse moonlight they had seen in the defunct classroom they now left behind.
From out of seemingly NOWHERE, a gust of wind, cold wind surrounded both Spyro and Sparx. Sparxs' teeth chattered. Spyro, however, failed to react.
"Haunting" whispered Spyro. Seemingly unphased, they kept going.
***
The further they continued down the hallway, the more the seemingly dead lights began to flicker. A loud hum permeated through the hallway, which now seemed as though it was cut off. That was until...they came to a case.
This was a case usually reserved for prizes and accolades. Amongst the names listed on the plaques with trophies were a few that had a ring to them.
"Mikhail Yuriev" "The Rt Hon Dr Heinlein" "Professor Mallard"
*Professor Mallad* THEIR jovial, kindhearted Professor who they'd seen have an attack once, his name, and a photo of him in a Gebbler uniform stood there, staring seemingly at them.
Spyro hung his head solemnly, almost broken
"The professor" he lamented "This is what he saw, this is what drove him into madness...5,000 years ago."
Coming to a turn, they veered right and continued forward to another monotonous row of doors with numbers on either side.
The lights blinked again, struggled and turned all the way on. The spectre of a lady in a white instructor uniform was there to greet her
Spyro returned to form, his chin up as usual, eyes forward. He faced the apparition A certain warmth about her filled the air. Wind and leaves blew again. and he looked upon a kind face, with her hair tied back.
***
Once again, Spyro being as observant as he was made no mistake as he observed the hair tie dash dash the same hair tie that Gilbert wore around his shooting wrist. As he walked closer to The apparition, he spoke within his mind
"Well eat my butterflies, Sparx, that's the hair tie!"
Sparx noticed that Spyro had gone off into his own head again. He buzzed around said head and did what he could to get his attention. However, Spyro waved it away. As if she didn't notice, the specter turned and hovered towards the door. Unlike the last time, the door opened.
Spyro's eyes widened, and he turned to Sparx. Given that he had not been able to process what he just saw and what he just experienced he's spoken and light whisperer. He sounded a bit raspy.
"That instructor lady had that hair tie Gilbert's wearing around his wrist all the time. I can't believe this!"
Sparx nodded, and turned to his compatriot.
"Yeah, there's a lot of wild stuff going on lately that even I'm beginning to believe. "
However, Sparx was taken with his normally quizzical nature given a situation like this. Words echoed through his head. The words of Gilbert to Bianca the rabbit after she had recovered from a hemorrhage that should have been the end of her.
"They separate you from your mother's breast. When you were at weaning age that is. After that, you are sat at a table. You sit at a table, face one direction, and are to repeat everything said to you by the end of the week."
Spyros' jaw dropped. Even given that he had heard this before when said thing had happened. He imagined scores of children crying for their mothers to come back being led into a room like the one they were just in with multiple long black tables. The tables, the strange brown carpet, but now dead but usually brilliant and humming lights that drove some to their breaking point alone. This was too much for him to take in.
Both Spyro and Sparx, however, continued to follow the lead of the specter down yet another corridor. This one is well, contained a claustrophobic element. This time, it did not lead to Spyro be coming undone. All the meanwhile, Sparx had his own opinions.
"I don't get it! " He said in a raspy whisper, " how in the world is this supposed to Foster anything close to what anyone considers an education? "
"It isn't. That's the thing."Spyro had kept his composure. The specter weaved in and out of existence and consciousness. She stopped at a room with a random number on it. Then, in the minds of Spyro and Sparx to their surprise, she spoke. Slightly deep but still calm and affirming.
"Loneliness the pilgrims seek to find within"her voice echoed, "said the plaque upon the last door"
Before the both of them can't even process that thought she continued
"I am the janitor of this time period what you are looking for lies behind that door. The answer you seek you will find with in."
When this ended, Sparx with bewildered. He shot up and face Spyro directly.
"Whoa whoa whoa! That dead chick just talked inside of my head."
Spyro tried to hide his grimace and it evolved into a sneer. Neither was a very important because his head was down to begin with.
"It looks like the Goetia Key's in there. Let's get in and get out this place gives me the bloody creeps"
"I agree", replied Spyro. He turned his head to the door as it opened - - on its own.
***
"The morning that I fled planet Earth there were sirens and much chaos. There were many Hired guns and much ire. Be there as it may, it was the day that the Nightingale sang."
The door had open. The specter of the uniformed instructor faded back into the ether. The full effect of the Moon obscured by trees shown through the rotting windows. Both Spyro and Sparx looked around. They took in what they could see. It was yet another room with multiple long tables near the back. There was a radiator along the right side wall. Along the wall facing front, just as Gilbert had explained to Bianca, right there was the blackboard. The very blackboard with which they were all expected to face every single day. There was a lead below the bottom of the blackboard that jutted out made out of metal with an eraser neatly set at its edge.
The duo took some time to take in the scenery. This was not the temple they were raised in. These were not the kind-hearted and benevolent elders during their time of Beryn-fin. These surroundings were meant to make one sit straight and face forward. These surroundings were that which bread the kind-hearted but shadowy Gilbert. Everything started in this very room.
Spyro formed the mental link again with Sparx. Once again, Sparx became spyro's pair of Ariel eyes.
"Look for an upright chest of drawers" informed Spyro.
He had figured that the quicker they could get in here, get the Goetia Key, make it back up the air intake and get out of here but sooner this would be over.
Sparx settled on said upright chest of drawers. More of a file cabinet made out of steel.
"Now for my specialty!" he exclaimed with a grin "one lock pick, coming right up!"
Sparx fit himself inside of the lock and jiggered around inside until he could turn the boomers. Given that spyro's frame have been blown he let out a soft smile unseen to Sparx.
"That little dad's got a lot of moxie" he spoke to himself.
The both of them heard a click and the drawer opened as though on its own. Both of their mouths open slowly but wide. There in a leather-bound black with Sumerian cuneiform on it.. there it was! the Goetia Key!
In a mere instant, Spyro lunch towards the drawer and took the geisha key into his mouth. Hastily, he made a beeline of all beelines towards the end of the hallway. He scanned the hallway for any entrances to the air duct while he was at it. He charged! He said in and out of pools of moonlight that reflected through the window and played upon the the linoleum floor as though they were living entities with spirit. In the rush, neither of them could say anything. Just as I had reached the door to the rotunda unfortunately for them, a chill wind a winds that produced a feeling of rage and pure anger, no pure agony surrounded them and out of that wind came to glowing yellow eyes. In their minds a jealous and angry voice spoke.
"You are his friends, aren't you"this new voice hissed within their minds "he was always the favorite! Always the favorite always wanted always summoned always called upon. Everybody wanted him and not us. Now we will take the both of you from him! He will feel the pain we have felt. A pain that has lasted five. thousand. years."
A large purplish black cloud raised seemingly from out of nowhere it formed into a multitude of what look like children and medical smocks. They each wore a wristband on their right arm. White holes where their eyes should be shown with not but agony. Not but pain. Not but jealousy.
Even though taking it back by the words that he had heard. Spyro could not deviate from the mission. Forces collided in the rotunda. Spyro and Sparx by their lonesome did what they could to subdue be angry, and hurting ghost children. This battle seem to go on for endless hours. This was until a familiar face was seen, that is after a brick flew through one of the many windows. The four pain Windows shattered flakes of glass crashed on the ground. In the moonlight though fully engrossed in combat, Spyro and Sparx saw a familiar figure in a familiar uniform. Her Raven colored hair and accents to match on her uniform shown. There she was, and her navy blue, Yuriev facility issued running suit was an enraged Nina. She stood down all 521 ghosts and matched all of their emotions to her own.
"Hey guys", she kept her hands over her mouth and called out to both of them "it looks like you could use some backup"
The tachyons surrounded Nina has she transformed into a large black dragon with purple accents. With a frightening roar she sent every last one of those ghosts to their maker. She then flew around the rotunda flew down one hallway and flew down the other. She then returned making herself known by standing on the scalping of a dragon skull that was hanging suspended above the drop ceiling.
"I love the smell of a good workout in the… evening night whatever it is!"
She turned to Spyro in Sparx who were cowering in the center of the rotunda.
Without missing a beat, she walked over to them. Preaching her hand out to Spyro for the Goetia Key.
"There was a powerful spell book that the top brass in the urea facility guarded with their lives. It seemed to be a playbook of sorts on how to conduct what it is they did when they did it. Devices like The birdcage were wraught from the pages of that book. I heard Dr Merrick say to headmaster Yuriev that is very book contained the words of the Almighty. The very words, nay, the sound that created all things"
The three of them regrouped in the rotunda when the smoke had cleared. None of them had anything to say at this point. They stared at the Goetia Key. Neither the three of them I could fathom a leather bound grimoire could contain the sounds and vibration that make up the whole of the universe. Nina's facial expression had softened. She knew that her culture was not dragon culture. She knew that Spyro had nothing beyond nothing of a lens to process anything he had seen. She knelt down and looked him straight in the eye.
"That's right. This is where myself, number 7, number 8, and of course Gilbert were reared. This is the place we called home until we were around 14 years old. Gilbert was younger than us but by far the more intelligent. Those angry and irate words came from the other students."
Spyro continued to intently listen. This was all new and different to him. He was brought up in the warmth and loving care of the elders and Temple. He spent his days exploring artisans and getting to know the various peoples. This place was so foreboding so sad. His eyes weld up has he took in Nina's words. Everything up to this point now added up. Now the promise Gilbert had made to his father while the sirens were blaring and people were running made complete and total sense. It was at this moment in this very rotunda that he accepted the idea. That he, Spyro the dragon was not a birth of tragedy. Nobody died that day because of him. For he, too had heard the envy, the jealousy, no.. the pain of children who felt less than just now. No longer did he think ill of himself. The three of them headed back to base.
Fin
