The Dread-Yacht creaked as it carried the Machine Ghost's ravaged body far, far away from the vault, till the vault's home island was little more than a blurry mass of stone to the eyes. The evening skies around warmed the colors of its metal, tinting it in warm shades like the golden light of victory. In spite of all that, the ravaged sight of the Machine Ghost's body, broken nearly beyond repair, and the now faint sights of the open, damaged vault below, hardly inspired any smiles or confidence.

The Dread-Yacht's body creaked once more as it blew off some steam. It knelt down on a grassy, abandoned island and laid the Machine Ghost's body down. It flew back, transformed into a ship as it landed beside the body, and with its mission now at an end, it collapsed. Panels fell off and smoke burst from the windows.

Everyone coughed and hacked as they left the Dread-Yacht and gathered together on the grass. The moment its soft, natural blanket hit their feet, they all collapsed. Some slunk against each other, others flopped down and fell asleep, but nobody shared a single look of joy. Their shoulders slumped with the sun as they caught their breaths, for nobody was quite willing to speak.

That is, until Chihiro sighed and stood up. Her face was still red and puffy, and she had to bite back tears, but nonetheless she turned back to the others.

"So, well," she started, her voice strained from crying still. She gulped, whimpered a bit as she puffed her cheeks, but quickly exhaled. "Is everyone alright?"

Sihiri cringed as she glanced back at the Dread-Yacht. "Well, thankfully, we, er, well…"

"Thankfully, most of us got off with only minor injuries," 'Enehana interrupted. They crossed their arms and gritted their teeth together. "If that idiot hadn't panicked, he would've been perfectly fine, too!"

A few small gasps came from the crowd, but 'Enehana didn't act shocked at all. They still stood stoic, save for their trembling arms, and their similarly-shaking scowl, one just barely visible from their hung head. Their fists clenched like they were going to shout, to say something more, but they merely turned around and huffed.

"Now, 'Enehana, don't you think that's a bit harsh?" Inochi asked as she clasped her shaking hands and turned aside. It seemed the tension from their looks spread even to her. "I believe he was only—"

"I said what I said." 'Enehana scoffed and stuck up their nose. "That robot only got as damaged as it because he panicked and tried to run away! He knew what he was getting into when he decided to help us! If he—"

"But he didn't," Vatra hissed as he pulled himself from the floor and walked up to 'Enehana. "He was a civilian who just got dragged into all this nonsense. Anyone in his position would have likely acted similarly. I know you're upset, but please, calm down!"

"I won't!"

'Enehana thrust their face into Vatra's as they cried out, and sparks started to fly from their hands as they clenched them the tightest they could.

"If he hadn't jeopardized the mission, Arkilles would be long dead and an Arkeyan revival would be the least of our worries right now, but he—"

"Calm down, you two! Arguing will get us nowhere!" Sihiri shouted as she flew between Vatra and 'Enehana and pushed them aside. "We've already had enough strife for one day, and we don't need any more."

"Sihiri's right," Spyro added as he flew up. "If anything, it's our fault for roping a civilian into all this, but what's done is done. Now we're just going to have to work from here. Pointing fingers won't get us any closer to stopping Kaos" — Spyro shook his head — "I mean, Arkilles."

Vatra conceded quietly, only nodding his head and straying away.

'Enehana just clenched their teeth tight. Their hands still clenched and sparked as if they wanted to lash out or retort, but they merely scoffed and muttered under their breath as they wandered off to the Machine Ghost's broken body.

Vatra shook his head and sat down as they disappeared within the body's battered corpse.

"Hey-o!" Flynn called as he strode over the Dread-Yacht's deck. "How's it going down there?"

Flynn immediately met with a handful of harsh glares. he gulped, turned away and scratched his head.

"Alright, probably not the best question to ask."

Flynn swung over the side of the deck, landed on the ground with a hup, and cracked his knuckles as he approached the group.

"Your amazing pilot is here with an amazing news update. Well, it's more like half amazing news and half… Not so amazing news" — Flynn smirked and rubbed a fist on his chest — "but someone as handsome and awe-inspiring as I am delivering it makes it much better!"

Flynn got shot a couple more glares and winced. "Geez, tough crowd."

"Give us the bad news first," Spyro said, clenching his front paws. "Might as well get that out of the way."

"Well, the bad news is, the Dread-Yacht's super busted, and we're gonna need to crash here for the night so I can do repairs."

A creak sounded from behind as a few of the Dread-Yacht's panels fell off, and Flynn glanced at them in fear. With a sigh, he turned back to Spyro and started to smile.

"But, on the bright side, the hermity dude's being treated by Cali and Whirlwind right now, and thanks to those healing rainbow thingies of Whirlwind's, the worst of his injuries are all fixed up! Still gonna need a little bit more time to rest, but he'll be fine."

Flynn's ears folded down as he turned to the others, but his smile didn't waver. The sight of them with their heads hung low, and their worn, tired eyes wouldn't have inspired a lot of joy in anyone. Not to mention, it came on the heels of such a failure, and from such heralded heroes. It was a little hard to look at, seeing even those of legends so downhearted.

"Hey, look on the bright side! That map's gone, and that means that Kaos, or that Arkeyan king dude, or whoever in that bald pipsqueak's body right now can't get back to Arkus!"

"I appreciate your optimism, but I'm afraid that this isn't going to stop Arkilles," Sihiri said.

Flynn lifted an ear in confusion. "The map's gone, isn't it? How's he gonna get there without a map?"

"Arkilles is a stubborn man. At most, we've been able to halt his trip for a little while, but he'll find another way. However that may be, he won't stop until he gets back to Arkus."

"That's not gonna be easy though, right? Cali's told me that even Skylands' best archaeology dudes and know-it-alls couldn't even find it! Of course, if it were me at the helm, I'd probably have it found before lunch…"

"He already has a way: that Conquertron."

All eyes turned to the front as 'Enehana emerged from the Machine Ghost's body, and 'Enehana snarled and gritted their teeth.

"He already scanned the map into its databanks, and prepared to leave when we arrived. All he has to do is repair it, and he'll have a fully-functional map to Arkus! If we had just destroyed that Ancients-forsaken thing, we wouldn't even have to worry about that!"

Sihiri reached out a hand for 'Enehana, but they turned around and trudged back towards the Machine Ghost’s corpse.

"Leave me alone."

Sihiri frowned and lowered her hand.

Flynn winced and turned away. It seemed even he recognized the tension in the air, and how unwise it would be to stir it.

"Anyways, I'm gonna go back to do repairs, I'll leave the rest to you," Flynn said as he walked back to the Dread-Yacht.

Flynn smiled and winked back at them for a moment. He climbed back up the Dread-Yacht's side, using the grooves in the fallen panels as grips as he scaled its side, but despite his optimism, it didn't lift the air any.

"Once you guys get a plan, just let me know and I'll speed things up!"

Everyone else watched as Flynn finally pulled himself over the side of the Dread-Yacht and disappeared down its docks, and sighed as they all dispersed. Most of their ranks headed for the Dread-Yacht, Jorden drifted away towards the Machine Ghost's broken body, probably to see 'Enehana…

But while they all left, Tree Rex just sat on the ground. His eyes laid on the sky as evening faded into night, and Sihiri sat right by him.

"Don't take what Arkilles said to heart back there," Tree Rex whispered as he planted his fingers, growing small patches of purple flowers between him and Sihiri. "He was only trying to get under our bark." Tree Rex forced a laugh and winked. "Luckily, mine's pretty thick."

Well, that's what he said, but those words Arkilles taunted him with ate through his heart, nagging at him in the dead silence. He glanced down at where Sihiri sat, for she didn’t even acknowledge the flowers he grew beside her. She curled into a ball. The skirts of her gown pressed closed against her chest as she glazed over the skies, and her sparkly purple eyes carried a bit less light with them.

"Do you really think everything we fought for's truly gone?" Sihiri whispered, her voice starting to crack in their privacy. She frowned and clutched her skirt's fabric as she sighed. "It's a stupid question, I know, yet we survived this long by some miracle!" Sihiri's voice cracked further, and tears began to form as she turned to Tree Rex. "Surely, there has to be someone, something that survived from our ages! It can't just be us and him, it just can't! After all, there were others with us, so maybe they're still around!"

Tree Rex frowned and pursed his mouth tight. Logically, it was doubtful, and all that changed in such a short journey proved that.

That being said, he was there when they were all banished to Earth. Surely, if all the others were alive, there was a chance that some of the other free magicians of his time could be alive? For that matter, how did the free magicians all get scattered across Skylands, anyways? Tree Rex wasn't quite sure, but maybe there was a tiny inkling in his heart that if they survived, surely more of their ranks could have as well? He didn't quite know why he reflected on this tiny sliver of hope that maybe there was more from his time that survived.

After all, it was only by sheer luck that any of them even survived death's hand themselves.

Nobody else would have been that lucky, not enough to survive the end of eras, the loss of everything they knew, and the spread of new generation after new generation. Living ten thousand years was a feat most were surely incapable of…

Ten thousand years.

Something about that number seared itself into Tree Rex's mind. Now that he had a quiet moment, it started to really hit him just how much time passed since then. How many generations were born, lived, died without him even knowing? How many of his friends and allies, enemies and foes, were buried? Did they have descendants who lived on in their steed? Did his homelands still bear their same names, or were they called something entirely different, if they even existed at all?

Just the thought was sobering: the Skylands he once called home was dead, replaced with a land as foreign to him as the Earth he was trapped on. Surely, the others felt the same way. Just the sight of Sihiri, their dear leader, so rattled by the prospects that they were all that was left of their time, confirmed that.

Surely, Tree Rex had to find some worth in something about this. Skylands managed to live on without him. It was a sure sign that he succeeded in the very mission he vowed on the same day he, the same day they all, were crowned Elder Elementals: defeat the Arkeyan Empire and save Skylands, so he could save his world from a future of Arkeyan tyranny.

But, here he was, doing the same thing he did before, in a world he couldn't even recognize as his own home. Was it futile to fight when he knew that his efforts could be rendered moot once more, especially in a situation like this? That he fought for a world that didn't recognize him as anything more than a name in a historical tome, something little more than an ancient legend? That he fought for a home he wasn't even sure he could call home anymore?

What was he going to do afterwards, for that matter? Once upon a time, that answer was easy enough. He'd help the survivors rebuild, tear down the Arkeyans' remnants, and lead a peaceful life in the new era. Would that even be possible anymore when Skylands changed so much, and he knew so little about it?

Sihiri sniffled beside him, and Tree Rex gently brushed his finger against her, moving as carefully as he could to avoid bowling her over. Surely, this hurt her even more than it did him. Being the mighty tree from an isolated, broken forest that lost most of its population to Arkeyan tyranny long ago that he was, he never had many connections outside of his own allies within their rebellion's ranks. Sihiri had friends, family, and more she had to leave behind for the rebellion, beings she surely desired nothing more than to reunite with once this war was over…

And now, almost all of them were gone, and only she remained.

He had no idea how to console her, so he grew a flower with soft petals from the grooves in his bark. Sihiri leaned against it like a cushion. They sat in silence, and glanced up as the sky changed from its warm tone, to the cool blues and purple of night. Massive streams of stars swam through the oceans of the night sky like schools of fish, and twinkled as miniature suns. Just the sight left Tree Rex smiling, and a small chuckle from Sihiri showed that she seemed to enjoy it as well.

"You know," she whispered, "so much in Skylands has changed, yet the starry sky is still the same as it's always been."

"That's true," Tree Rex replied, and the starlight poured over his face as he smiled. "It's still just as beautiful as it was ten thousand years ago."

The two of them basked as the intermingling shadows and light of the night cast over them. The only sounds were that of the wind blowing around them, and the grass whistling and twirling underneath them. The clouds moved in their slow, melancholic paces, as if even the quiet of night left them as tired as the rest of Skylands was. The scent of cool night air slowly drowned out the lingering scents of smoke and burnt oil let off by the broken vessels behind them. All was right for such a quiet moment, even after all the awful that just occurred…

It was funny, wasn't it? How something so simple as watching the stars could wash away the pain of earlier?

"There you two are. I was wondering where you went."

Tree Rex and Sihiri both jolted up as Inochi and Ninjini stepped out from the shade of the Dread-Yacht. They both held weary, but kind looks on their faces. They seemed a little more tired than usual, and Inochi's eyes puffed up a little. Had she been crying? Well, Tree Rex could barely tell, so he scrambled back.

"We were just keeping watch. Did you need us for anything?" Tree Rex claimed.

Well, he lied, and he was sure they knew it, but luckily they just nodded. Seems as though none of them wanted to press the issues that just happened even further.

"We're, well, we're trying to plan out our next course of action," Ninjini said, turning back to the Dread-Yacht and frowning.

"Unfortunately, nobody's really come to a decision just quite yet," Inochi added, and winced as she clasped her hands. Judging from that, Tree Rex could already tell tensions were high, unsurprising given the prior events.

Ninjini nodded in agreement, but quickly turned to Tree Rex. "You, you don't need to come in just yet if you're not ready. We haven't really made any progress just yet. I'm pretty sure we still haven't gotten past the initial arguments."

"No, I'll go."

The voice came from down below. There, Sihiri wiped away her tears and floated off. She didn't even say a word, nor did her face move beyond its stoic expression as she linked arms with Inochi, and wearily floated over to the Dread-Yacht. She collected herself so quickly, but Tree Rex supposed that was a leader's skill. After all, Tree Rex doubted it would inspire any confidence if she came to the meeting in shambles and tears.

Tree Rex turned to Ninjini and nodded, rising without a word. The two of them already started to run off, when the sounds of panting and footsteps so soft they could barely be heard over even the still winds came from aside. They stopped in their tracks and turned around. They backed away a bit, half in expectancy another ambush.

No, what came for them was 'Enehana! Their eyes were wide in wonder, and their strides filled with energy, totally unlike how they were when they left to sulk!

"Tree Rex, Ninjini, there you are!" 'Enehana cried as they came to a stop. "Where are the others? I've got important news!"

Important news? What important news? Tree Rex wanted to ask, but Ninjini pushed him aside first, and bent down to 'Enehana's height before he could even inquire.

"They're in the Dread-Yacht, plotting out our next course of action," Ninjini explained.

"Then that's where we're headed!"

 
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