Fanfic / Age of Heroes Saga

The Age of Heroes series are a group of four The Legend of Spyro fanfictions written by Spartan-029. They can be read here.

The first three books of the series take place immediately after the end of Dawn of the Dragon, as Spyro and Cynder return to the Dragon Temple and learn that the remaining Guardians are seeking replacements for Ignitus and themselves. The first book deals with Spyro and Cynder meeting the two candidates for Fire Guardian; Flame and Ember. When Spyro is mysteriously attacked by a wyvern, the Guardians decide to speed up the training of Flame and Ember in case a new threat arises.

The second book takes place after the new Fire Guardian is selected, and several other dragons have been chosen to replace the old Guardians; Candice (Ice), Stella (Electricity) and siblings Tremor and Gaia (Earth). When fragments of the crystal Malefor was imprisoned in begin to fall from the sky, Malefor's essence ends up being released. After finding a dragon to possess and recruiting a large group of wolves to his cause, the Dark Master decides to seek revenge against Spyro and Cynder. After several attacks are launched against dragon cities — and an assault is made against Spyro by Malefor himself — the young guardians decide to track Malefor to his base.

The third book continues on from the second book; with the guardians seeking out a hidden location Spyro saw in a vision, while Malefor launches an attack on Warfang which results in him capturing the city. After the guardians reach their destination and recover, they go to launch a final attack against Malefor.

The last book — ''Karma and Convexity" — begins during the events of the third book, but focuses on Crona, a young dragoness who is hurled a thousand years back in time by a magical accident. In time, she realises that Malefor has yet to be born, and the war between Dragons and Apes has not been started yet. However, the arrival of a severely injured young black dragon — Certo — causes alarm to two of the Guardians of the time, and it soon becomes clear that the war may be just about to begin...

A fifth book was in the making, but at present appears to be in Development Hell.

Has a work-in-progress Recap page.

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This series contains examples of:

Age of Heroes Books 1- 3

• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Almost happens to Spyro, but he decides to wait until he's lived a life with Cynder.
• Attempted Rape: Liun to Stella and Cynder at different points of Book Two, but Stella escapes and Spyro rescues Cynder in time.

• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Tremor and Candice in Book Two, and Certo and Crona in Karma and Convexity.
• Blood from Every Orifice: Happens to Flame and Spyro when their powers end up overwhelming them.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: All the black dragons kidnapped by Malefor.

• Disney Villain Death: Maximus in the first book, and Tuerto in the third, although he turns out to have survived the fall.

• Dying Declaration of Love: Slightly averted in that all characters who do this turn out to be Not Quite Dead.
• Foreshadowing: Each book — but mainly Book Three — includes some minor detail that becomes a lot more significant once you've read Karma and Convexity.
• Freudian Excuse: Liun aids Malefor out of a desire for power, having been insanely weak in his youth.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom:
• Green-Eyed Monster: Both Cynder and Flame in Book One, due to Ember's love for Spyro - Cynder loves Spyro, and Flame loves Ember. This takes a turn for the worse when Flame gets tricked into thinking that Spyro is actually trying to humiliate him before Ember.
• Healing Hands: Ember has the power to heal severe injuries with a kiss, but at the cost of her own energy. Book Three implies the power may be linked to her heart-shaped necklace.

• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Several; happening whenever a character becomes overcome by their Dark side.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Tremor is able to use his earth powers to summon stalagmites with this effect. In addition to this, Spyro, Cynder and Tremor suffer this injury at different points in time, but each get better.
• Insult of Endearment: "Candy" for Candice.
• In-Series Nickname: Flame and Amp's real names are Flameus and Ampus, but barely anybody calls them that.
• Killed Off for Real: Gaia, Infernus, Terrador, Volteer and Cyril. Briefly happens to Spyro and Tremor, but they get better.
• Love Triangle: In Book One, Spyro and Cynder love each other, Ember loves Spyro, Flame loves Ember, and Fiona loves Flame, but by the end of the book Ember has fallen in love with Flame. Book Three also introduces Max, who's in love with Cynder, but he realises almost immediately that Cynder's in love with Spyro and only sees him as a friend.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: It's implied that the Celestial Dragoness in Book Three was Spyro's mother in life.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Cynder's reaction when she learns that she most likely killed Spyro's real parents - and her own parents - when under Malefor's control. Spyro knows this was beyond her control, though, and comforts her when she breaks down.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: While Tremor is able to put up a good fight against the mutant wolf that attacks him midway through book two, the three-chapter fight has the first two chapters end with Tremor unconscious in a crater (and he doesn't even get a chance to fight back or defend himself in the second chapter). His beating is so bad that by the end, no one is sure if he'll even survive, and it takes several chapters worth of Ember's healing abilities for him to recover.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted; Book Three introduces a second fire dragon named Infernus, alongside Flame's grandfather Infernus. However, eventually played straight when the elderly Infernus is killed along with the adult Guardians.
• Opt Out: Tremor is set to do this in Book Three after nearly dying twice, but eventually changes his mind.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Gaia's spirit is still able to aid Tremor after she dies, and she occasionally appears to him and others.

• Superpowered Evil Side: Initially Spyro and Cynder, but later also Flame, and briefly Candice and Ember when under Liun's control. Cynder even uses her "Dark Side" to her advantage in Book Two.
• Take Over the World: Malefor isn't powerful enough to destroy the world anymore, so he settles for this to appease his host. Of course, considering who Malefor is, he might have just been saying that to his host.

Age Of Heroes: Karma and Convexity

• Abusive Parents: Towards Neros, at least.
• Adults Are Useless: Crona thinks this about the Guardians when she first meets them. It turns out to be a fairly accurate statement.

• Always Chaotic Evil: The Apes. Crona even discovers that their greed is so great that they destroy every place they dwell in.
• Asshole Victim: Sabre's parents, Volcanus, Tectonica and Cryus.
• Attempted Rape: Titanus with Crona, although Certo's Unstoppable Rage prevents anything from happening.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Certo and Crona, although this lessens over time.

• Call-Forward: Halfway through the story, Vixen's father gives her a special heart-shaped necklace...thus indicating Ember is her distant descendant.
  • At the end of the story, Sin takes Crona's notes and gives them to a pack of drakes, to ensure that Flame will be able to learn Karma in the future.

• Cruel and Unusual Death: When Neros tricks Crona into thinking Certo is dead, her anger gets the better of her and she uses her various powers to repeatedly kill Neros violently and restore him to life.
• Death by Childbirth: Vixen's mother.
• Death by Flashback: Crona's mother Ashe, her friend Arcadia, and Certo's family.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: Crona eventually learns the full details of Certo's past with the aid of the Chronicler and in the process, discovers that his sister's last egg survived the murder of his family.
• Driven to Suicide: Certo attempts this immediately after being rescued, but Crona stops him and chews him out; preventing him from trying it again.
• Eye Scream: Certo's eye gets injured when his family is killed which turns it red. Neros later tries to do the same to his other eye, but only succeeds in scarring his face. Crona does the same to Neros when he convinces her he's killed Certo. Cryus also gets slashed across the face, but recovers, and Sabre loses an eye in the final battle.
• Face–Heel Turn: Amp and Sabre briefly end up viewing Certo as an enemy - Amp because Certo's out-of-control attack nearly killed him and Sabre because her parents ended up killed by Neros when he came to attack Certo — but soon change their minds and return to being his friends.
• Fainting: Mostly Exhaustion Faints, but Certo also faints when watching the others prepare to dose the unconcious Crona with the cure to Sputum's disease, mainly because they have to administer the dose from behind for it to be absorbed into her bloodstream quickly enough.
• Fantastic Racism: Certo is discriminated by a number of dragons at first due to being a "feral", and also because of a prophecy stating that the arrival of a black dragon will mark the beginning of the Ape-Dragon war.

• Flashback: Both Certo and Crona's backstories are revealed through a number of flashbacks.
• Foregone Conclusion: A careful reader of the last three books will know that Titanus ends up an enormous monster trapped beneath the earth, and that Volcanus dies trapping him and also that Certo, Crona and Ampus will survive the events of Karma and Convexity.
• Freudian Excuse: Neros plans to rid the world of dragonkind because he perceives them as holding themselves above all other creatures. He bases this on his treatment by his family during his childhood.
  • It should be noted that some of the dragons of this time did hold themselves above others. Sin reveals that if not for the Dragon-Ape war, they'd have remained this way and destroyed the world.

• Green-Eyed Monster: Cryus and Titanus towards Certo, and Sabre towards Crona.
• Groin Attack: When Titanus first meets Crona, he bluntly proposes they mate and spreads his legs to show off. Crona responds by stopping time and hitting him in the groin.

• Heel–Face Turn: Titanus' gang abandons him after he shows no concern for their well-being; having even willingly let one of them get killed by Neros.
• Just Friends: Certo and Crona repeatedly insist this to those around them as their relationship with one another improves.
• Last of His Kind: Volcanus and Titanus are both a rare type of fire dragon with the ability to grow in size by absorbing flames.
• Love Triangle: Certo and Cryus towards Crona. Cryus initiates it, as he likes Crona from the start but Crona isn't interested in him - or relationships, for that matter, as she claims.
• Killed Off for Real: Lots.
  • Nearly all of Certo's family gets killed by Neros and the apes, Annol dies of old age, Sabre's parents are killed when Neros attacks, Volcanus and Tectonica die imprisoning Titanus, and Cryus, Kia, Stratus and Voltrus die during the final battle. A number of minor guards (Radiance, Icerus and possibly Azurite) and members of Titanus' gang (Stagnite, Spitfire, Arcane) also end up killed by apes, and Crona's mother Ashe and friend Arcadia are killed by apes before the story even begins.
  • Crona technically also counts; she was reincarnated several times after her original death as a result of the Chronicler's magic.

• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Amp and Terra. Their parents arranged it because Sin prophecised they would survive the conflict if they were together. Luckily for them, the two were friends from hatching, and easily made the transition to lovers.
• The Prophecy: Several:
  • When Terra was born, Sin had a vision of the beginning of the war between the Apes and the Dragons, and saw that it would begin when a black dragon came to purge the world of its sins. The Guardians assume that the dragon is Certo, when in reality it's his albino twin Neros, who plans to rid the world of dragonkind. Crona even points out that the Guardians acts towards Certo is what led to Neros arriving in the first place.
  • Late in the story, Volcanus reveals that Sin told him that he would end up destroying Titanus, which he unsuccessfully tried to avoid by alienating Certo.
  • Prophetic Fallacy: Towards the end of the story, Sin tells Certo that he cannot see his future, leading Certo to believe he's going to die. Sin eventually reveals it's because Certo's future is now in Crona's hands. This has a double meaning, since Crona eventually saves Certo's life by bringing him back to the future with her.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Kia and Cytros.
• Red Shirt: Radiance and Icerus.
• Sadist Teacher: Tectonica gets Titanus to fight with Certo, as she's trying to get him thrown out of the academy. It's fairly clear that she's setting Certo up to get hurt, and Amp stands up to her.
• Scars Are Forever: Certo, and later Sabre and Terra, who lose an eye and a limb in the final battle, respectively.
• Self-Made Orphan: Neros.
• Taken for Granite: Red Shirt character Radiance, when he gets fatally blasted with Convexity. His internal organs appear to have remained intact, however, as Certo later sees apes scavenging his bones.
• Time Master: Crona.

• Unstoppable Rage: Certo's Karma power manifests in this way before he learns how to control it. A similar thing happens for Crona when Neros tricks her into thinking he killed Certo.
• We Used to Be Friends: Certo and Neros, until Certo's family stopped him from sneaking out to meet with Neros.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Neros claims that his Convexity powers are responsible for his villainy at one point, but whether he's telling the truth or not isn't made clear.