Chihiro gently groaned as she stirred back up. Her head rang with a kind of exhaustion, but not the bad, "stayed up all night" kind of exhaustion. It felt more like a good kind, the kind one gets when they sleep in for the day to fully experience a wonderful dream.

What happened? Chihiro thought as her blurry, awakening vision started to clear. Am I still in Skylands?

Chihiro rubbed her eyes as they trailed all across the room before her. Wait a second, this wasn't the makeshift bedroom she took residence in back on Skylands—this was her house's living room! So she was back on Earth again?

Chihiro frowned and examined the room around her. The lights went back, on and the TV now rang with the odd screen that showed up whenever her Gamestation powered down improperly. A nagging feeling tugged on her brain. Had she forgotten something important? Chihiro frowned, tapped her foot against the floor, and beamed as a distant memory popped back into her mind. Oh, now she remembered. The power went out before she went to Skylands! Looks like it finally came back on.

"Strange, how did I get back on Earth? I could've sworn that I was in—"

Chihiro sprung to her feet, and turned back to the array of Skylanders figures on her table…

But they weren't there. They were all gone, and all that remained was the slick, clean brown wood of the table itself.

"Guys?" Chihiro's voice faltered just a bit as she looked over the table that filled her heart with an unyielding emptiness until she shook her head and smiled. "Silly me, they're all back in Skylands!" Chihiro chuckled and gently bopped her head with her fist. "I'll just start up the game and say hello!"

Chihiro grabbed her controller from the couch, and passed by the various options on the menu. Her mind fixed on opening up the game…

But it wasn't listed. An empty, slightly-transparent icon with a disc printed on it stood in place of where the game option would be.

"Huh? Okay, I knew I left the disc in there when I left!" Chihiro placed the controller back down onto the couch and walked over to the Gamestation. "Maybe it got a little fried when the power outage hit!" Chihiro smiled as she hovered her finger over the disc eject button. "I'll just pop the disc out and put it back—"

When Chihiro pressed the button, no disc came out. Only a series of beeps that emitted with a friendly chime sounded off from her Gamestation, not the whir that it made as it spat out the disc.

"In."

Chihiro's hands trembled as she pressed the button a few more times, but every single time brought nothing more than the same chime of emptiness, the chime that swirled her head like a vulture over roadkill. No, no, what was going on? She definitely had the game in that console and the Skylanders by her side! Everything that happened before… It couldn't have possibly just been a dream this whole entire time, could it? Chihiro's breath grew frantic as she stood in shock, and light shimmered in her eyes as she raced to the kitchen.

"That's right! A lot of time passed by in Skylands, so surely it's probably been a day or two here at the least!"

Chihiro dashed into the kitchen, and found the appliances all had green, unset zeroes set over their timers—but that was of no concern to Chihiro! She immediately dashed towards the kitchen's island, grabbed her phone from its marble surface, and flipped it open to find…

No. No, it couldn't have been.

But, there on the screen of her phone was the date of that fateful day—October sixteenth, two thousand eleven. Worse yet, if the time on there was correct, maybe only about a half-hour passed!

Chihiro's whole body trembled as the phone slipped out of her hands, and the phone fell onto the floor with a clatter. Normally she'd quickly retrieve it to make sure it was alright, but now, she was in so much shock that she couldn't possibly care about that!

"So, it was just a dream after all," Chihiro whimpered as tears dripped down her eyes. "All those adventures, all my friends, everything that happened to us…"

Chihiro's soft sniffles grew louder as she fell to her knees and curled into a ball.

"It was all just a dream."

Unable to do anything else, Chihiro buried her face into her knees and sobbed so loud that it probably echoed throughout the entire house, if not the entire neighborhood. But, she couldn't possibly care about that right now! She finally found beings she could call her friends, a place where she felt loved and important, and it was nothing more than a figment of her imagination! Why? Why would this happen?

"If I’d known that was a dream," Chihiro sobbed as she wiped her tears with her sleeves. "I wouldn't have ever woken up!"

Chihiro clasped her wet hand into a fist, sobbed even louder as she held that fist against her heart, but froze. Something strange laid against her chest, something bumpy, and hard, and kinda gritty in texture? What the heck? Now that she stopped wallowing in her own despair, she also felt something hang from her neck, but what? She wasn't wearing any jewelry when she came to Skylands…

No, unless, could it be?

Chihiro shook her head, wiped away her remaining tears, and unzipped her vest with wet, trembling hands. As she peered down at her sweater, the glimmer in her eyes grew brighter while her frown quickly shifted to a wide smile!

There, rested against her chest was that same shiny, colorful cyan warp crystal, on the very same pendant she was given before she left for Earth! It all came back to her now: Kaos's defeat, the ceremony… No, it wasn't just a dream after all!

"Thank goodness," Chihiro gasped as she shook her head and pulled herself back to a standing position. "Oh, what am I doing lazing around here? I'm sure everybody's waiting on me to come back!"

So, Chihiro clasped her hand around the warp crystal and held it out in front of her person. As she did, the magic bubbled in her soul and paired itself with the magic in the crystal, and in turn the crystal shone even brighter than even before. Just the sight almost made Chihiro feel like she was back in Skylands already!

"Crystal," Chihiro proclaimed in her most matter-of-fact voice, "take me back to Ancient's Peak!"

Chihiro made a stern, commandeering look at the crystal as it glowed brighter and brighter. Slowly, its light jumped out from its surroundings, and swirled around Chihiro. Its bright beams enveloped around her as if they embraced family! Chihiro giggled as one nuzzled her head, let go of the crystal and let it fall back to her chest.

Soon, the cyan light grew brighter and brighter, until the kitchen was no longer visible, and all she could see was an endless wallpaper of skylike aqua. Of course, she loved it! She couldn't help herself but grin as the excitement burst from her heart at the sheer thought of returning to Skylands, of seeing the Skylanders again…

Of coming back home.

"Don't worry, everyone," Chihiro whispered as she closed her eyes, "I'm coming!"

A massive whoosh sounded around Chihiro, followed by a loud chorus of associated chatter.

"Chihiro!" shouted a voice that was undoubtedly Spyro's. "You're back!"