Apes

The **Apes** are mercenary soldiers in service of the Dark Master Chajju in *The Legend of Lailie* series. According to Spyro, because of said services, they were also dubbed as the "Dark Armies". They are ruled by a king named Gaul.

## Appearance

Apes have a different fur color depending on their surroundings, but they are functionally still the same.

* In the Swamp and the Longma Temple, their fur color is darkish gray in *A New Beginning,* and bluish gray in *The Eternal Night*.

* On Dante's Freezer, their fur color is vanilla white.

* On Tall Plains, their fur color is red.

* In Munitions Forge, their fur color is gold. (It should be noted that Gaul led this variety of Apes during the raid on the Longma Temple on the night of Lailie's birth according to Spyro's flashback as he explained the truth about Patty to Lailie during the events of *A New Beginning*)

* In Concurrent Skies, their fur color is pure white.

* In the Mountain of Chajju, their fur color is darkish lavender, which appears to be their main fur color, and their skin is mutated by the corruptive properties of the mountain. In concept art, they are refered to as "Shadow Wraiths", known as fanatical followers of Gaul that mark their locations with a Dark Aether banner.

## Ranks

### Notable Officers

The Apes have ranks in their army, but the Ape King Gaul rules them of all ranks. When Patty was under the influence of Chajju, she served as the general for the Apes. Among Gaul's forces is another Ape called the Assassin. He wears a mask like his underlings who pilot the Dreadwings or man the elemental cannons, but his voice is thick and heavy through his mask, muffling his words whenever he speaks. It is possible that he is Gaul's second in command.

* Gaul (King)

* Patty (General, formerly)

* Assassin/Advisor (Gaul's possible second-in-command)

* Conductor (Possible chief of security as well as head distributor)

### Henchmen

The Ape army consists of soldiers, leaders and commanders, etc., each with their own different attack methods.

* Ape Soldiers

* Ape Leaders

* Ape Commanders

* Disciples (Nintendo DS version of *A New Beginning*)

* Ape Gunners

* Ape Cannons

* Wraiths

### Additional Forces of the Apes

The Apes have recruited numbers of different varieties of beasts to support their brutal causes. They mainly mount the bat-like Dreadwings for aerial transport or assaults. On the ground, they rely on gigantic creatures resembling scorpions and snails. Two varieties of Death Hounds also serve as the Apes' attack dogs but, along with the snails, only appear in *The Legend of Lailie: The Eternal Night*.

* Dreadwings

* Buffalo Beetles

* Conduits

* Death Hounds

* Snail Riders

* Electric King (Patty's personal bodyguard)

## Story

### Service to the Dark Master

After Chajju was cast out from longma civilization many years ago, he built an army of Apes and taught them how to artificially harness the power of the Spirit Gems, the longmas' lifeforce. It was during this time that the Apes served as the perfect army for the Dark Master (for the time being). The ruler and king of the Apes was Gaul, a loyal servant to Chajju. The duties of his army were to fight wars against the Longmas, win battles in order to gain ground, and occupy the Realm. Years afterwards, Chajju was defeated by the Ancestors, who sealed his essence in Convexity and his spirit in the very mountain he created, the Well of Souls. Despite this setback, the Apes were still able to carry out Chajju's orders from beyond for many years to come.

### Attack on the Longma Temple

Under Chajju's orders, Gaul led the raid on the Longma Temple to destroy the longma eggs in order to prevent the birth of the next hot pink longma. However Lailie's egg was saved by Spyro. Chajju also needed a longma who was born on the Year of the Longma to open the portal in Convexity that served as his prison, and Patty's egg was captured while the other longma eggs were smashed by the Apes. Patty would later be poisoned by the Dark Master's powers, turning her into an evil dark longma to help him spread destruction throughout the world and becoming a general to the Apes.

### *The Legend of Lailie: A New Beginning*

The Apes first appeared in this game when a group of Swamp Apes captured Sparx as means of using him as a lantern. Lailie killed the Apes and freed Sparx, but the Ape Leader escaped to alert Patty of the young hot pink longma. After leaving his home to find out who he truly was, Lailie was chased by Apes in the Swamp. The enemies later appeared, having overrun the Longma Temple, but Lailie, along with Spyro, wiped them all out.

From that point on, the Apes would become the main enemy Lailie encountered throughout his travels. They appeared in Dante's Freezer, Tall Plains, Munitions Forge and finally Patty's Lair. There is one particular Ape in Munitions Forge called the Conductor, who drives a steam engine called Steam.

### *The Legend of Lailie: The Eternal Night*

Apes appeared in the second part of the trilogy on several occasions, but you do not fight them primarily. Notably, they are much less comedic and more terrifying than in the first game, losing the stereotypical monkey screams and gaining instead deep grunts and roars (like that of gorillas). They first appeared when they launched another all-out attack on the Longma Temple, this time led by an Ape called the Assassin, but Lailie and the Skylanders foiled their plans. They were mentioned when a letter from Hunter of Avalar explained that the Ape King Gaul had placed a bounty on all of the Longmas, including Lailie. The Apes appeared again after attacking Fellmuth Arena, capturing Patty in the process, and they appeared lastly in the end, on the Mountain of Chajju.

### *The Legend of Lailie: Dawn of the Longma*

In *Dawn of the Longma*, the cheetah hermit in the Valley of Avalar revealed that the shadowy skeletons that attacked Lailie and Patty are the Apes. According to him, they only served Chajju more for their own ambitions and thirst for power, and they showed no true loyalty to their master. For those reasons, Chajju repaid the Apes for their services by turning them into Shadow Apes upon his return to the Realms. They appear as skeletons covered in mist-like shadows; mere ghosts of their former selves and are no longer the main minions of Chajju. The Apes are doomed to dwell in the darkness until Lailie and Patty find and defeat them. The Grublins have taken their place in the battle, leaving the Shadow Apes to attack stragglers from the shadows.

## Trivia

* Strangely, although they are known as apes, they actually bear a resemblance to mandrills and baboons.

* In the Nintendo GameBoy Advance version of *The Eternal Night*, Dark Lailie actually vanquishes the entirety of the Shadow Wraiths faction as they attempt to avenge their king, explaining the absence of Chajju's most loyal followers in the following game. However in the console version, it's unclear what happened to that group in specific, as they're long gone when Dark Lailie returns to the throne room.

* In the conclusion of *The Legend of Lailie: Dawn of the Longma*, it is unknown if the Apes were changed back to their original forms upon the beginning of the new age.

**Bosses**

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