"Of course, when you put it that way, how could I have possibly refused?" said Ignitus the Chronicler, watching his younger self escort Kata to the square.
The Chronicler then reached for Volteer's life book.
"To this day I'm not completely sure how we ended up friends Volteeer. I suppose it was because while all the other dragons picked on you when we were hatchlings, I didn't really see the fun in it."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --
One could have only imagined how quickly the red dragon's resolve melted under her sweet request as his jaw curled into a sheepish grin.
"Of course. Its good to have company anyhow," he said.
Katarra squealed with excitement.
"Thank you so much!! You're a real gentleman!!"
"Don't thank me yet, we've still got to go to the square."
"By the way, I don't think I've introduced myself yet. I'm Ignitus," said the Fire Dragon, "What's your name?"
Katarra froze for a moment. If she told him her name, then there was a chance that he would know she was the purple dragon, and then... well, she thought he wouldn't act as nice to her anymore. But then again...
"Oh... I'm Kata..." she answered.
Ignitus tilted his head sideways, "Kata... that's a pretty strange name for a fire Dragon..."
"By the Ancestors, Kata's a nice name!!" said Ignitus, seeming to panic momentarily.
Kata smiled.
"Anyhow, you said that you were headed to the square or something like that... You said you had to help a friend?" she asked.
"Well... yeah... We're probably way late now, but I did promise that I'd be there for Volteer," said Ignitus.
"Oh?"
"He's been my friend since I was a hatchling. Anyhow, you'll met him in a sec..."
Kata followed Ignitus between a series of buildings, being careful not to bump into anybody this time, until reaching a large courtyard. A small crowd of moles, cheetahs and other mammalian anthros that Kata had only read about but had never seen in person had gathered around the square, as had a few curious dragons.
Right as they toughed down, there was a powerful burst. The pair stopped as several pieces of metal, screws and bolts went flying in all directions, while the crowd fled from the scene faster than Ignitus could say 'Ancestors'.
"Well, there goes their invention..." said Ignitus, staring at the billowing smoke. Kata could only nod nervously, perching herself behind Ignitus. What type of strange dragons did Ignitus have for friends?
When the smoke cleared, two thunder dragons with their bodies covered completely in black soot emerged from the wreckage. The pair wore two identical pixieglass goggles over their eyes.
"By the Ancestors!! Our Revolutionary Portal Deluxe 9000 seems to have malfunctioned!!" said the younger of the two Thunder Dragons, not sounding all too upset at all. "And, after all our checks and modifications!! Dear me I suppose I wasn't thorough enough I suppose?"
"Well...well nephew, that's the risk one takes when striving to become a great inventor!! It is the failures one goes through that makes the triumph all the more breathtaking!!" said the older thunder dragon, with a resigned grin on his jaw.
"Eh...did we come at a bad time?" said Ignitus.
The older dragon, curved his gaze toward Ignitus.
"Why!! Not at all Ignitus!! In fact, you arrived right on time!!" he declared.
"Most definitely!!" said the younger dragon, "You see, the audience just bore witness the largest explosion ever produced by one of our inventions malfunctions!!"
The younger Thunder Dragon shifted his gaze toward Kata, "By the way, may I so possibly inquire who your new friend is?"
Ignitus stared blankly for a moment, before shifting his head in surprise as if just realizing she had been watching the odd scene unfurl the entire time.
"Oh!! Yes... well...er..." he stammered, seeming flustered. "This is Kata... We just... happened to bump into each other, that's all..."
"I've never actually been to Warfang before. Ignitus was nice enough to show me around the city," said Kata.
"I did?" said Ignitus. "Well of course I did!!"
"Well, then," said the older dragon, "I suppose I can't hold that against him now can we? Now then, I'm Jolt, the greatest inventor Warfang has seen yet!! And this is my nephew Volteer!!"
"Indeed!!" said Volteer affirmatively, "Or rather we would have been had our revolutionary invention not short circuited at the moment!! For you see, we strove to create a revolutionary new device, one that if successful, would be able to teleport any dragon, or mole, or cheetah or faun or whomever, instantaneously to the other side of the machine!!"
A portal!! Those two were indeed far more ambitious than she thought. Then again, one had to be rather mad to attempt to create something so revolutionary. She could only gaze in wonder as Volteer described in great, intricate detail how the machine worked. She never would have learned of something like that back in the temple, and though she hardly understood any of the scientific terms she came away impressed at the dragon's ingenuity and intelligence.
Kata shifted her gaze back to the wreckage, and she just had to ask... "So...what went wrong?"
Suddenly, a mole clad in a blackened lab coat jumped out of the wreckage, his thick glasses askew.
"Vell, it vas really zimple you ze?" he said with an exaggerated Franco-Germanic accent, "Ven I vent to turn on ze machine, I suppose I accidentally pressed ze self-destruct button!!"
"Strange, I do not seem to recall there being a self-destruct button as part of the blueprints," said Volteer.
"Wait... you're telling me you actually installed a self-destruct button on the machine?" said Ignitus, struggling not to laugh out loud. "And goggle eyes pressed it?"
"Goggle-eyes?" said Kata.
"I believe it is merely the nickname Ignitus has bestowed upon my foster brother Gunther," said Volteer, "He is truly a prodigy I must say!! However he always seems to make these rather trivial errors that sabotage all our experiments!!"
"Like pressing the self-destruct button instead of the on switch?" chortled Ignitus.
The near-sighted mole waddled forward toward the group. "Indeed!! It zeems that I did press ze self destruct button!! A slight miscalculation on my part, however, an aspiring genius such as myzelf shall never be fazed by zeese mere setbacks, for I shall be ze greatest inventor of all time!! Zen, ze world shall know me as 'ZE PROFESSOR!!'
"Right...." said Ignitus dismissively at the eccentric mole, "Whatever you say goggle-eyes..."
Volteer, his Uncle Jolt, and his adopted brother Gunther the mole. They were an eccentric lot any way you looked at it.
"If I don't mind speaking up, but how long do you think it'll take to repair the invention?" asked Kata.
"Based upon my intricate calculations I estimate it will take exactly four hours, twenty-six minutes and forty two seconds to repair the machine back to operational status," said Jolt.
Kata had trouble seeing how the three would manage to put back a complicated machine back into operating condition from a pile of wrecked metal and parts in four hours, but then again, perhaps that had something to do with being master inventors.
However, the implausibility didn't seem to faze them at all, "And then, you shall witness an invention unlike any other!!"
Ignitus meanwhile cheered inwardly. The three could take all the time they wanted...
[Author's note: Gunther the Mole is supposed to be the same character that appears in the original Spyro series; 'The Professor', an old, near-sighted mole inventor who first appears in Ripto's Rage, when he summons Spyro to Avalar from the Dragon Realms to stop Ripto. Throughout the original series, often provides useful gadgets for Spyro to use against the various badguys...]
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