Spyro

"Hang on! We're almost to the bottom!" Reena shouted at me, climbing down the rope.

"As if I had a choice?" I sighed, as I dangled from the rope by one foot. We had finally spotted the plane — or more precisely, the steady blowing of its smoke— and I had slipped after I tried to see where the plane was. The winds weren't nearly has harsh near the bottom, so I wasn't swinging much, but I was still stuck.

Reena rappelled down to me, and began to undo the rope. "Get ready to land on your head, Spyro Prime... This isn't going to be pretty."

WHAM!

I fell the next twenty feet down, my horns embedding themselves into some deep dirt. I righted myself up, and waited for Reena to reach the bottom. She tied off the rope, and then stood up. "Well . . . plane's this way, right?" She asked, and then ran off in the general direction. I followed.

It was a plane, all right. I could see the orange ultralight just a few inches from me now, along with the slumped over pilot. Surprisingly, the plane was unharmed— a few cosmetic details, but nothing too problematic. The pilot had apparently fallen asleep at the controls.

I shook him awake. He jerked up, whipping his head around. "Wha? What? Who . . . oh . . . Is'at you, Spyro? You must've learned a lot since the last time I saw you..."

"Huh?" I looked at him oddly. "No . . . I'm a visitor. First time around the Terrace."

"Well, you picked a fine time to visit. If you two could just help me get my plane up out of the crags, I'd be glad to get you back to the Terrace, but the plane's out of fuel. If I had the scroll, I could refuel the plane and get us back up." He stepped out of the cockpit, checking around the plane.

"FOUND IT!" Reena shouted, holding up a scroll and handing it to the pilot. The pilot quickly pressed the rolled-up end of the scroll against the fuel door, chanted a quick spell of some kind, and then opened up the fuel door and breathed a dash of flame inside. I felt the plane hum to life again, with one hand on a wing.

"That's our cue, kids. Now hop on!" He instructed, opening up two hatches behind the cockpit. We jumped inside, and he shut the hatches. I curled up, feeling the plane shake and hum with energy as we flew back to the terrace. After a minute, we were at a new section of the terrace. I waited until the plane stopped, and then opened up the hatch to see the pilot, his scarf now flailing and twisting in the wind. Reena was already out of the plane by the time I jumped to the ground.

"Thanks for getting this crate back up here. Couldn't have done it without ya." The pilot smiled. "I s'pose you'll be wanting a reward of some sorts?"

"Yeah . . . we need the scroll. We need some strong magic to open up a doorway." Reena explained to him.

"Must be an important doorway, then . . . well, here ya go." He smiled, as he locked the scroll into place on the pedestal to activate it. Then he handed the scroll to us. "I best be going. I've got some things that need to be delivered." With that, he hopped back onto his plane and flew off, leaving myself and Reena on the Terrace.

"Is Sparx still in there?" I looked over at Reena. She blinked, and then took off her coat to look inside the sleeve. Sparx was still in there, but this time he was looking a little green. I picked him up to inspect him . . . and if I'd known he was going to spew butterfly vomit, I would've held him the other way.

Reena smirked as she slipped her coat back on. "We'll get that cleaned up once we get back home. C'mon, boys."

ShadowSpyro

I glanced about the courtyard, looking to see if Reena or that nudist counterpart of mine were anywhere to be found. I'd decided to wait for them to show up nearby, instead of trying to pick a portal and chase after them.

Oddly enough, it wasn't them I was worried about so much, as it was Sparx. He did say that he had to go and fly around in Orient Speedway . . . but shouldn't he have returned by now? Not that he's the fastest racer in the Shadow Lands, but I think he would've given up by now, regardless.

A hum from the Stormy Terrace portal caught my attention, as I noticed the two dragons and dragonfly. My 'twin' looked like he'd flown into something. "What happened? He crash into a paint can?"

"Very funny, Spyro . . . no. We had a projectile vomiter for a dragonfly." Reena explained to me, wiping off part of the mess with one finger to show that it wasn't paint.

"I said I apologized!" His Sparx retorted. I went and found a wet cloth that Reena could use to wipe the insect parts off his face.

After he'd been cleaned up, Reena glanced over at me. "So . . . I thought you had to practice?"

"Well . . . I was. Then I found Mai'ko." Reena blinked for a moment. "She has some good news and some bad news for you."

"So which is which?" My counterpart asked, kicking a small mouse so that he could feed his dragonfly friend.

"Have you gone to the Temple lately?" I asked him.

"No. The door's shut. Reena thought maybe some trouble had found its way in there." He replied.

"Well, that's the good news. Nothing's wrong at the temple."

Reena, dissatisfied with that response, walked over to me. "Let me guess; the bad news is that it's a precaution. The question is to what?"

"And the answer is You-know-who." I explained to her. Her face grew somewhat quizzical, if not amused.

"Who's you-know-who? Because I certainly DON'T know who." My counterpart asked, relaxing. I quickly tapped his knee, causing him to jerk back up. I would need his attention.

I tsked at him, shaking my head. "I never thought I'd say this— but that makes two of us. I was hoping maybe Reena knew what Mai'ko meant."

"Not a clue. I do know that if whatever happened was enough to scare Mai'ko, then it's serious." Reena shrugged. "Any other details that we should know, Spyro?"

"She mentioned Xoyto's disc. That's about it as far as she told me." I saw my 'twin's' perplexed face as I explained the detail to Reena. I turned to him. "Xoyto's disc is a 4,000 year old talisman, about as wide around as I am tall. I'll explain more if you need me to, but the thing you need to understand is that if that disc needs to be involved, then it's a very serious problem."

"Then explain, Shadow." He answered. I glared at him. "What? I figured you needed SOME name to go by."

"Very well, then, 'Prime'." I snapped back. "I'll explain everything to you . . . after I do this!" I ran for him, staff swinging.

"Boys! Boys!" Reena stood between us, keeping us apart. I stopped just before my weapon would have marred my beauty's face. "Fight amongst yourselves later. As for you, Spyro—" She turned to face me, "It would be in your best interests to help us. If this 'You-know-who' character is on the loose, then there's no time to lose. Did Mai'ko leave any instructions for us?"

"As a matter of fact . . .." I started, but then looked over at Prime. "How about you head on to Sushi Shores? We'll catch up with you later." He shrugged, and went over to the portal.

"What was so confidential that you had to send him off?" Reena looked at me. "Because this is no time to sneak in some kissing."

"I beg to differ, but that's off the subject." I smirked. "Actually, it's about our ceremony at the temple tonight. Mai'ko won't open up the doors to the temple and perform the ceremony unless we can prove that some malignant influence isn't in the Reaches. She thinks getting the scrolls from each area will be proof enough that it's safe."

"I hope you're right." Reena came in close to embrace me, and then decided to let go. "Come on. Spyro Prime's probably waiting on us."

Spyro

I flew down to the nearest beach I could see, glancing around. The place looked awfully abandoned, except for some clam-digging dragon with his rear waving in the air while he dug. I decided to look away, and pick up a few gems while I was waiting for the others to show up. By the time I had picked up all of the out-of-water gems in that area, I noticed the clam digger I saw before was still down there, but this time his legs were kicking, as if a signal. I walked over to him and pulled him out.

"PTOO!" The dragon I'd yanked out spat up a good mouthful of seaweed. "Thanks, Spyr-. Say . . . you're not him."

"Brilliant deduction."

"Eh . . . that would explain his dad being here with that look-alike. I saw them here about ten minutes ago, going that way. Just if you're interested, of course."

"Thanks." I nodded and started swimming off, Sparx winging it not too far behind. I didn't get very far along when I saw Reena and Shadow flying down together. I swam back over to them, jumping out of the water. "Well?"

"Don't worry about it. There's a library over here that I can use to help explain some more about Xoyto's disc and such. We just need to get over there." Reena explained to me.

"Cool." I decided to swim over to the island nearby. There was a large building there, with a few statues near the doorway. We reached the building, and walked over to the doorway. When Shadow tried to open the door, it was locked. He finally fell onto his tail in the sand before giving up.

"Damn. Why Sab would lock the place up, I don't know . . .." He stood up, peered inside the keyhole, and then fell back on his tail again. "On second thought, never mind."

"What's in there?" I walked over to the door, about to go look for myself, when Reena pushed me away.

"I'm sure Spyro just saw something that wasn't very interesting . . . probably just sorting out the records..." Reena moved me away from the door. "We can come back to get the scroll later. I'll explain what I can about Xoyto's disc before we go inside. I sure if we just wait a few minutes, the door will open, and—"

SPLASH!

"What the?!" Shadow looked up, watching as something zoomed along so quickly and powerfully that it left water flying in its wake. Reena wringed her hair out.

"On second thought . . . How about we go and catch that particular speed demon . . .." She hissed.