Spyro groaned as he rubbed his head. His body felt so, so, weak, but not weak enough that it prevented him from sitting up and looking around. Last he remembered, he was on that battlefield with… Spyro shuddered as his heart stopped for a few beats, then slowly came back to speed as he looked around. All he could see with nothingness, just eerie, blank space for endless miles.

"You doing alright, Golden Boy?" asked a vaguely familiar voice.

Spyro swerved his head, gasped and stumbled back as he found himself face-to-face with Chihiro! She looked no worse for wear, thank the Dragon Gods, but her brown eyes rang with a level of gentle concern he rarely saw before.

"Chihiro, you're okay!" Spyro exclaimed as he looked up at her, then frowned and looked away. "Looks like I couldn't get you out of that thing, though."

Chihiro breathed a sigh of relief and tugged on her jacket, oblivious to Spyro's upset looks. "Man, I'm lucky I was able to pull off that teleportation spell! I almost thought we wouldn't make it out of that battle with Kaos!"

Spyro just stood there speechless for a few more minutes, shook his head and forced himself to walk up to Chihiro. "Did you get me out of there?" Spyro asked at last.

Chihiro beamed and nodded, but her answer didn't reassure Spyro at all. In fact, it only made him feel worse! Spyro drew back as his mind flared with all kinds of thoughts.

"What, wait!" Spyro twitched his tail ever-so-frantically. "How much of that did you see? What did you hear? What are you—" Spyro just shook his head and snorted "—that doesn't matter, just, forget you saw anything!"

"Spyro." Chihiro's smile faded to a look of concern as she knelt down to his head. "Is that why you've been so upset?"

Spyro's jaw dropped as he took another step back. So she had seen all that! He didn't know why, but some kind of awful feeling fell over Spyro as a pit opened in his heart. It was like, like he was weak and vulnerable and everybody watched him suffer.

"You, you…" Spyro just turned away and twitched his tail once more, and his voice cracked just a bit. "That's for me to deal with, Chihiro. You don't need to know."

Chihiro pouted and stomped her foot. "But I saw that whole thing! Why won't you let me help you? Do you not trust me or something?"

"Chihiro, stay out of it!"

Spyro stepped forward and flared his wings, his tone swapped from cracked to sharp and venomous. "I'm strong enough to handle my own issues! If I couldn't even handle my own personal problems, I don't know how I'd manage as a Skylander." Spyro flared his nostrils, but he realized the shift in tone once he looked over at Chihiro's startled face. As his gaze faltered, he hung his head and turned away. "Sorry, but, you don't need to worry about me."

Spyro slowly flapped his wings as he got ready to take to the skies, "You all have better things to worry about than me. I'll only drag you down if I bring up my issues!"

Spyro turned around and flew off, only moments spent lingering on Chihiro's taken-aback gaze. But, soon he heard someone run after him.

"That's not true at all!"

Chihiro raced forward, grabbed Spyro's paw, and hugged him as he fell down from shock. Pure silence echoed throughout the room, but Spyro didn't notice—he could only bury himself into Chihiro's hug. It was warm, and soft, and comforting, and so ripe with concern.

"I think I understand how you feel now." Chihiro stood up and smiled. "Since everyone's already dealing with so much, you don't want to give them more things to worry about!" Chihiro cast an aside gaze before she strengthened her smile and looked back at Spyro. "You, don't want to burden them or let them down."

Spyro bit his lip, unable to make any more words.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"… How would you understand any of that?" Spyro asked as he looked at Chihiro.

"Tell you what! If I told you my deepest, darkest, secret, would you be more comfortable talking about it?" Chihiro radiated with an angelic aura as she kindly smiled. "It'll be like a trade. You'll know my problems and I know yours. That way, it won't be like you're just loading all your issues on me!"

Spyro looked up at Chihiro, at the floor, and back again. He wasn't sure what kind of deep, dark secret Chihiro could possibly have, but at the same time, she did kind of make a good point. At least he could feel like he was doing something to help. Besides, she seemed earnest enough. She must really care about him if she wanted to go to all those lengths to help him...

Spyro heaved a sigh and reluctantly nodded. "Alright, I'll hear you out."

"Okie dokie then!"

Chihiro chirped and smiled as she looked over at the room around them. Spyro made an exclamation of slight surprise as he looked up, and found that he and Chihiro weren't in that liminal space anymore!

Instead, they were in the back of what appeared to be a colorful classroom primed for young children. The floors and carpets were brightly-colored, and decorated with all kinds of cheery childlike décor—children's drawings, worn picture books, toys, and all that fun stuff. Of course, scattered around were a bunch of kids who all looked to be no older than four or five, all of whom talked among each other as they sat in a circle. In front of the crowd, right next to a wooden desk, was a young woman dressed in formal clothing who talked to the crowd, though Spyro couldn't hear what she was saying.

Next to her, another young child clung to her skirt. Oddly enough, that child looked a lot like Chihiro? Well, a younger Chihiro anyways. Her black hair barely reached her shoulders, and her frame was a bit rounder and more youthful compared to Chihiro's, but only just a bit. Tears stung brown eyes that rang with fear, and she donned a pink t-shirt and salmon-colored shorts alongside sneakers of similar colors.

Spyro frowned and tilted his head as he looked back up at Chihiro, who only nodded as if she knew what he was going to ask.

"Yeah, that was me." Chihiro's voice sounded a little worn as her eyebrows furrowed slightly. "I'm not actually from the States, y'know. My folks moved there when I was five cause of my dad's job."

As Chihiro spoke, the scene slowly moved on. The teacher coaxed the younger Chihiro out from behind her skirt, and in turn, the young Chihiro warily looked at the class. The young Chihiro tried to open her mouth, but immediately closed it and stepped back.

"It was awful, let me tell you. I lived halfway across the globe, didn't know anybody other than my parents and couldn't even speak a lick of English!" Chihiro's voice cracked a bit, but she took in a breath and collected herself.

"Unfortunately, that made me ripe for the picking."

As the young Chihiro whimpered, one of the kids—a blonde-haired girl in pigtails who wore a baby blue dress—giggled as she talked to a boy seated next to them. One laugh turned to two, five, and soon the entire class laughed at the younger, terrified Chihiro. Now in tears, all the young Chihiro did was sob and run out of the classroom as the screen faded to gray.

"I was always that weird kid who couldn't speak English all that well, and when they found out I was autistic it got even worse! All the weird stuff I did like getting really into things or really upset over small stuff or really sensitive or weird noises… It made me the outcast, I guess."

As Chihiro carried on, tears welled in her eyes before she sniffed and wiped them away.

"As far as they were concerned, I'm that kid they can laugh about with the people who actually like them, cause, well, nobody really likes me."

Soon the screen rolled again, and many more memories flashed around them, but none of them were pretty. Childhood bullies teasing her in the halls, lonely nights spent crying in the darkest corners of her bedroom, her gazing at pictures of happy friends on the TV with an almost yearning sense of sadness. Spyro couldn't help but feel strange as he watched her, so sad and forlorn, so different from the perky Chihiro who was always filled with energy and cheer. It was like this Chihiro he saw was a completely different person from the one he knew.

"As you could guess, I didn't really have a lot of friends," Chihiro said as she twirled her hair and stepped forward. "They all think I'm weird, or dorky, or that I'm, well, I don't really wanna think about the other things that they call me."

Chihiro lifted her head and beamed back at Spyro. "But you guys, you actually like me!"

The sad memories faded away to newer ones, ones Spyro recognized! Chihiro talking with the Skylanders the night they met, joking with them in-between patrols, goofing off on the few free moments they had. As all these memories played around them, the area seemed warmer, happier even.

"You don't mind that I talk a lot, or laugh too loud, or act weird sometimes! You guys actually made me feel like I'm worth something!" Chihiro's gaze trailed away a bit as she let go of her hair. "But, I always had this fear that I'd lose you guys. I'd mess up too many times and you'd get sick of it, or you'd wise up and abandon me…"

Chihiro sniffled a bit, wiped her face and beamed.

"But you never did! You guys were always there to help me, and you were always so patient with me. You never gave up on me."

The memories shifted again, this time to all the various missions Chihiro had attended, but, Spyro didn't pay much attention to them. What he cared about most was the one in the center, in such a clear view he felt like he was almost inside it. Well, he technically was, because it was the time he and Chihiro got trapped in the abandoned corners of Master Eon's library.

"Especially you, Spyro."

"Especially me?" Spyro asked at last as the silence he held from the shock of gaining this new information finally broke. "But, but why?"

"That time we got stuck in that old library, when I was sure you'd hate me and give up on me after everything I did before then, you told me that…"

"That's where you're wrong." The past Spyro said as he looked back at Chihiro. "Chihiro, if there's one thing Skylanders never do, it's give up! I know it seems bad right now, but if we put our heads together, I'm sure we can find a way out of here!"

Spyro felt his heart lift just slightly. "That's right. Skylanders never give up."

"Exactly!" Chihiro spun around and beamed. "You really inspired me that day, Spyro. After that, I promised myself that I'd never give up, that I'd work just as hard as you did!"

"Really?"

Chihiro leaned down and hugged Spyro tight. "You bet'cha! You're my hero, Spyro! And after everything you've done for me, the least I could do is help you back up!"

"Chihiro…"

Spyro felt a warmth build in his heart as he returned Chihiro's hug, and a wave of calm now washed over him. Part of him couldn't believe she was that touched by what was just another day for him, but at the same time, it made his heart a little lighter, too. She really did care about him a whole lot, didn't she?

"Thank you," Spyro whispered as he withdrew from Chihiro's hug and made a solemn nod. As he flew up and watched the memory screens fade to gray, Spyro reluctantly exhaled. "Well, you fulfilled your end of the deal."

Spyro watched as images flooded onto the screen. They were all the same thing. Visions of Spyro fighting on battlefields against Kaos, all while his friends fell like flies and everything was consumed by Kaos's evil, the Core of Light captured in its midst…

"It's, well, er, it’s not easy for me to put this into words, but I guess you were right." Spyro's tail twitched as he held one leg with the other. "It's my fault that the Core of Light was destroyed and all this happened."

Spyro felt hot tears worm their way into his eyes, but he shook them away immediately. He couldn't possibly let anyone see him cry, even in a situation like this. "If I was stronger, or faster, or maybe even a better leader than I am, I could've stopped Kaos, I could've prevented all this from happening!"

Spyro's voice cracked a bit as his flying slowed.

"I let everybody down! Master Eon, the other Skylanders, practically everybody in Skylands… I wasn't good enough for them. I've been pushing myself to work harder, to do everything I can to undo this, but I'm still not doing enough!" Spyro’s who body trembled as he finally fell to his paws, but he quickly shook it away. "No matter what I do, it's not enough to make up for failing like I did."

Chihiro stayed quiet and hummed as she examined the screens, particularly one on the rightmost side, the one that depicted the actual destruction of the Core.

"This was the day the Core was actually destroyed, right?" Chihiro asked as she pointed to the screen.

Spyro nodded. He believed Master Eon had filled her in on what happened during that battle, so she could've probably figured it out without his help, but, nonetheless he nodded.

"Tell me then, Spyro. Were you the one that set that weird hydra-looking thing on the Core?"

Spyro sputtered for a bit and shook his head. "Wuh, well, no?"

"Did you personally invite Kaos to destroy the Core?"

"No, why would I do that?" Spyro tilted his head and furrowed his eyebrows. "Why are you asking me all this?"

"If you didn't do all that—" Chihiro's curious gaze turned knowing as she sat down in front of Spyro "—then how could you have possibly destroyed the Core of Light?"

Spyro's mouth fell slightly agape as he watched Chihiro gaze at him, and the space around became eerie and white once more. "But—"

"No buts, Spyro." Chihiro leaned forward and hugged him once more. "You did everything you could've and then some to stop Kaos! You can't possibly blame yourself!"

As Chihiro looked back up at him, she smiled and stroked his crest.

"But—" Spyro looked up at Chihiro, "—even then!"

"Nobody blames you. In fact, it's the opposite! Whenever the other 'landers talk about you, they, they always sound so worried. If anything, they all think you're working yourself a little too hard!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, they all care about you Spyro! They all want to be there for you. After all, you're their friend!"

Spyro only sat there and took in Chihiro's words. Though he didn't show it, it felt like something finally lifted off of his chest, like the heavy burdens he carried were lightened.

"And Spyro—" Chihiro gently lifted up Spyro's paw "—I may be your portal master and all, but I'm your friend, too! Don't you remember what I said, that night when I found you all upset and all?"

Spyro exhaled a shallow sigh as he clasped his paw around her hand. His memory was too fuzzy to recall anything, but slowly the words came back to him. "Even if you don't wanna talk about it," Spyro whispered as he looked down at their joined hand and paw, "just know that I'm always here if you need a shoulder to cry on."

"Or an ice cream sandwich," Chihiro finished with a wink, "or both!"

Chihiro giggled, but stopped short as she clearly noted the thousand-yard stare Spyro gave her. She gently brushed a hand around his scaly head, nuzzled him slightly and let go.

"That was a promise, Spyro." Chihiro beamed a soft, sunny beam as she rested her hands on her knees. "No matter what, I'll always be there for you. So don't think you have to deal with that all by yourself!"

For the first time that day, Spyro felt himself smile, but not just any smile, no. He smiled a genuine, warm smile as he looked into Chihiro's brown eyes, which now radiated with a kind of warmth and wisdom he had never seen in her before. As energy and warmth flowed into his body, Spyro laid his paw on her hand and looked up at Chihiro.

"Thank you, Chihiro," Spyro said with the most earnest of tones, his heart warm and fuzzy as he squeezed her hand. "That… That really helped."

Spyro let go of her hand and flew high into the skies. "Now come on, let's get out of here!" Spyro pumped a paw into the air as he looked down at Chihiro, and his eyes filled with light and joy. "Together!"

"That's what I wanna hear!" Chihiro beamed and bolted ahead. "Let's go, Golden Boy!"

"Already on it, Chi!"

As Spyro flew away, he looked back to where Chihiro's eyes sparkle with glee. They weren't going to give up now!