One by one, their hands dropped with ease. The shields disintegrated with a low whirring and smoke consumed the palace.

Breeze sighed heavily and slowly lowered herself to the ground. "I can't believe we actually did it." She said. "I can't wait for our island to grow back into what it used to be..."

Oliver put a hand on her shoulder. "U-until it does, y-you can stay on our island..?"

"Speaking of," Taube said, appearing behind Oliver and awkwardly patting his arm with a sidewards glance, "Now that the storm's gone, we should get home. We need to get your sister, Olli." The fairy gazed up at the bug elemental, who nodded in response.

Upon exiting the smoky palace, the group squinted in the small amount of light filtering through the still dark sky. Across the ocean lining was their home; still a white swirl of snow and ice.

"Wait, what?" Maya muttered.

"Why isn't the storm gone?!" Max exclaimed.

"Because I'm not."

A sudden rumble of thunder made the group jump and spin around in alarm as huge chunks of ice rained from the sky.

Out of the smoke, Scarlet appeared, with a scowl on her face. A thin layer of ice disintegrated off her pale skin, revealing frizzy, singed hair, and a sickly charred eye.

"Guess I have to do this again." She said, lifting her arms. Breeze stared at her in shock, before attempting to struggle out of Scarlet's magic, being jerked into the sky amongst the borderhoppers. "Remember how I said humans are made of up to 70% water? That's how I'm able to do this!" With a grin, she flicked her wrist down as if accepting a kiss on the back of the hand.

All at once, the group bowed, rather excruciatingly.

"Scarlet!" Breeze gasped, "Please stop! This is ridiculous!"

"Oh I agree! It's ridiculous I have to teach you all this lesson...again." With her last word, her icy eyes shone and lightning struck behind her, hail and snow raining from the ever-darkening sky.

With a loud cry, Scarlet brought her hands to the earth, and an explosion of white caused each of them to fly back in different directions, thin ice spiking out of the ground, alluring neon blue magic surrounding the ice in an aura.

The air temperature dropped further, remaining chunks of dead grass froze over and died in an instant. Dead tree branches flew off in the restless wind.

Breeze caught herself just in time to create a wind to catch Max with the twirl of her finger, then, raising her arms to block the wind from her eyes, she heard something splash loudly through the storm.

Maya had no time to think before her whole body went numb, and she was surrounded in freezing water, black as the night sky itself. Her heart raced and her body shook terribly, as for just a moment, she thrashed about in the freezing water until her lungs had no air left and her eyes rolled back. The red glow faded from her eyes as she sunk to the endless black void of the freezing ocean.

"Maya!" Max shouted over the wind, pushing past Breeze to get to the water. Oliver caught Max by the sleeve and she thrashed about for a moment before Oliver pulled her face into his sweater as she shook.

Scarlet was gazing stoically at this, before she felt a sharp sting in her stomach, and fell back into the snow. Steam rose from her stomach as pink cytoplasm are at her skin, leaving her staring wildly up at Taube.

Ice flew through the air at him, and he whizzed by, doing loops and spins as Scarlet shot at him. Taube reflected pink magic at her, wings glowing blindingly through the storm.

Scarlet shouted something through the wind and Taube was frozen in place, before being spun around disorientingly and thrown into a tree, splintering the wood as he slid down.

Scarlet spun around to see Oliver standing protectively, although shakily, in front of Max, arms lifted and a familiar beetle snuggled up under his sweater. There was no sign of Breeze...or Maya.

Scarlet grinned and with the flick of a hand, Max was jerked straight up into the storm. disappearing into the harsh skies.

"M-Max!" Oliver shouted. Just as he was about to catch her with vines, he noticed Scarlet standing over Taube.

Hands shot up in the blink of an eye, and black dead roots of a nearby tree rose into the sky, towering over Scarlet like a wall of splinters, before coming down and crashing into the snow, shaking the earth.

"L-leave him alone!"

Max screamed as she flew straight up into the air, then with a 'puff!' flew through the clouds. She squeezed her eyes shut, puffed out her cheeks and curled her legs to her chest, her arms straight out.

Everything seemed to freeze. Slowly, she cracked open an eye, then looked down to see that she was hovering above the storm. The beautiful blue sky surrounded her, a gentle golden wind holding her in place above the storm. The black clouds rumbled and flashed beneath her, the sounds of chaos below.

She unclipped her eyepatch and threw it into the storm. For just a moment, she contemplated on staying above the clouds where it was nice: away from the chaos, away from everything.

Then she narrowed her eyes, and dove back into the storm.