darkSpyro

Prologue:

Before the gods and even the titans can remember, after Chaos & Night met, and birthed Earth & Sky, who sired the Mountains, Ocean & Nature; a Garden had always existed. Not Eden or paradise like you'd expect, this was still a beautiful garden, with a type of every plant, flower, bush & tree, in an amazing arrangement. In order to make sure nature still survives, these plants were blessed as to never die. The Garden was created by two deities never known to mortals, because if they found out, they would go to the garden and destroy it. So no myths have been written about Herba, lady of nature, or Nepenthes, lord of nature. They created it, and retire in the largest tree in the garden, more well-known deities such as Pan & Demeter protect the garden from intruders & monsters.

Until the greatest threat of all came.

A child of evil & man.

Malum.

I like it! You've clearly done your research...

Chapter 1: The Break-In

Pan was bored of playing guard duty all the time. Sure, he was more powerful in places of wilderness, but that didn't mean he had to guard it all the time.

"I'm sooo bored Demeter," he moaned to the goddess of agriculture, "At least you get to go to the Olympian Counsel twice a year, I've been here since Romulus killed his brother thanks to Eris sending that false message."

"Trust me," Demeter groaned, "This is better than listening to the Family moaning about mortals and how they're destroying things that have stood since Greece rose and other nonsense like th-"

She didn't finish because Pan yelled some rather ungodly words and held his chest.

"Bloody mortals just made another forest fire!" he yelled. But before he could continue screaming about mortals, the security warning activated. Whenever someone steps into the garden, the branches form a shape that says "EMERGENCY AT (wherever the intruder was)!" The gods quickly morphed into leaves and flew towards the north entrance, but they were too late. The treants and dryads that guarded the entrance had fallen in battle, and were now small bushes, but the bushes were decaying.

"They must have been poisoned." Demeter concluded.

"Over there!" Pan shouted pointing at the pond, in there lay a pale Naiad, clearly in pain.

"He-" the Naiad choked, "He had a blade. It-it looked like pure terror. Its blade was-" Her eyes grew wide and she started screaming about something black as shadow, but bright as sun, something impossibly formed, with fear everywhere. Eventually the Naiad grew too tired to carry on, and she dissolved into sand and a seashell. As a god of the wild, Pan was furious, and he picked up the seashell and put it into his pocket before turning to Demeter and saying:

"He's going to pay for that." he said, gritting his teeth, before holding his arm out to hold a staff, and so one appeared. It was carved beautifully from wood, and had floating animal shaped spirits around it. Demeter saw his rage, and summoned her scythe, normally used for farming, but not this time.

They followed the footprints, until they found a clearing, filled with all sorts of fruit plants. The footprints ended, so they looked up to see a wicked-looking man, no older than 18, with hair that goes from grey to black, stormy grey eyes, and the palest skin possible for a living being. His blade was sheathed to hide the sword the Naiad had muttered about, but in his hand a small grey circle was being prepared to throw. He hit the ground between Pan & Demeter, before running along the branch he stood on, as putrid yellow gas filled the air, making the immortals cough until they fell to the ground unconscious, almost dead.

But the boy finally got to his destination. The Sempiternus Tree at the heart of the garden was the only thing that connected the entire garden together. It was called the Undying tree because it lived even before The Garden, but that was about to change. The boy walked straight up to the tree, and he was met by an angry yet equally shocked Nepenthes. His skin, hair, eyes, clothes and almost everything was tainted green, and he used the ground the boy stood on to trap him in brambles. The boy simply raised his hands over his head calmly and said:

"My name is Malum, and I mean no harm to you specifically. Release me, and you might survive this."

Nepenthes laughed, "I was old when Kronos was in the womb of his mother. You pose no threat to me."

Malum sighed, "I thought you'd be as arrogant, clearly immortals never learn."

Quicker than seemed possible, his right hand pulled something from the neck of his solid black armour, and threw it with deadly precision at Nepenthes' heart. It was a dagger, poisoned with the same yellow venom that incapacitated the previous guards. The trap around Malum weakened, and he broke free before shooting a shadow from his hand at Nepenthes' throat, and the umbra strangled him as ichor seeped from his heart. Then Herba arrived, she looked like Nepenthes, but with longer hair and an emerald amulet around her neck. She turned to Malum and muttered a charm, making vines and ivy crawl around him, before she removed her necklace and threw it towards Nepenthes. He recognised it and grabbed it before putting it around his neck. It glowed with light that cast out the shadow trying to kill him, and the light spread through his veins, healing his heart's wound, but he still wasn't ready to stand up.

Malum was clearly irritated by the plants, but he said "Mortem!" and the plants wilted away, so he could step towards the tree, at least until Herba stood in front of him.

"Leave this garden, now!" she yelled at him, "Or I'll send you to Tartarus where you belong."

"Move out of my way," Malum responded, "Or you'll end up like your husband."

Herba reacted either bravely, or stupidly, by raising a Tartarus Mushroom, the deadliest of all.

"Mox Tartara." Malum said with disgust, but he wasn't scared, just unimpressed. The spores shrouded him in death mist, but when the fungus was cast out by Herba, Malum just stood in the grey murk, "Even family doesn't understand me well enough." he sighed as he shot the spores at Herba. They couldn't kill an immortal, but Herba wasn't going anywhere for a while.

Malum walked steadily towards the tree, he was clearly weak, but no-one was there to stop him. He found a hole in the bark that lead straight to the roots. He pulled a vial from his pocket, a mix between the yellow poison he favoured so greatly, the Mox Tartara spores and a shadowy herb, all mixed together in a volatile combination. He opened the vial, but the air didn't hurt him, and he poured the potion into the roots.

"No!" Nepenthes croaked, "Ladon's Venom, Mox Tartara and Diabolus Herbam together! It will destroy every plant in existence, nature will die and humans with it, after that, Aether will fade and all immortals too."

"You are the nature gods!" Malum yelled, finally losing his temper, "You, surely, must agree that mortals have gone too far! And if immortals fade too, maybe Night & Chaos will re-create everything differently next time. Better. If destruction is the only answer, then I will answer the call."

The vial was empty.

And Malum was gone.