"So, what's that pit?" Andrea raised one eyebrow and pointed into the depths of the gorge. The Elementals were all standing a few meters away from the edge of the pit in question.

Omar and Concord both shrugged. Why should they know? They turned to Cascade.

Cascade felt everybody looking at her, expecting an answer. "Oh. Um..." She paused. It could contain many things. It could contain riches. It could contain strange creatures. Or it could be empty. But she thought back to what she had learned about the cliffs, and what she had seen Sephtis do right before he had fallen.

"Well, Sephtis looked like he was considering jumping into it for a moment." Cascade spoke her thoughts aloud. "That would mean that there is something down there that he wanted." Cascade paced back and forth, though still limping slightly as a result of her injuries. "Sephtis was looking for the Monsters of Immensi - the Azenar - to recruit. Not the guards. The Iscoren, the Guards of Immensi, were just a way to get rid of us. Not that it worked."

Concord nodded. They had retrieved him from his ledge on the cliff after they had regained consciousness. "It almost worked, though."

"Unfortunately so. But I'm guessing that the 'pit', as Andrea put it, is the prison of the Azenar. They are kept there so that they don't... you know... try to take over the world and destroy it."

"Oh. So it's that pit." Andrea gave a sigh.

"Do you think he's really dead? Sephtis, I mean," Omar asked.

"I'm not sure. He could be. But Vespara is a different matter. Even if Sephtis dies, it's possible that she can just move 'homes', I suppose. So, in a way, it doesn't matter. We'll have to fight him- or rather her- again." Cascade shook her head grimly. "However, if Sephtis does survive, she'll stay with him. As far as I know, it's complicated to move people."

"How long do you think it'll take Sephtis- let's just assume he's alive for now- to recruit the monsters, bend them to his will, and come back up here to try and kill us?"

"I don't know! I'm not all-knowing, you know."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"It's all right. But I don't really know much else. Even what I've told you I can't prove until it happens."

They all stood in silence for a few moments.

"Perhaps... two years?" Cascade bit her lip. "But I can't be sure."

"What?" Andrea was confused. "Two years until who can do what?" She had lost focus.

Cascade gave a sigh. "Omar asked me how long I think 'It'll take Sephtis to recruit the monsters, bend them to his will, and come back up here to try and kill us'. I told him I don't have a definite answer. But now I have an estimate. Approximately two years."

"Is that a long or short amount of time?"

"What- I'm not sure. I mean... it's in a measure of years, so yes, it's a long time, in a manner of speaking, but it could also be a short amount of time, if you're considering how long a Homo Sapiens lives."

"A Homo Sapiens?"

"A human." Cascade wrote a mental reminder in her head not to use too many fancy words that she would have to explain to Andrea from then on.

"Oh." Andrea looked crestfallen that she hadn't known what the word meant. Then she straightened up once more and Cascade knew that she had a question on her mind.

"What's your question, Andrea?" Cascade raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"I was just wondering... if your estimate is accurate, and it'll take Sephtis two years to come back... then what do we do now? I mean, we all left where we had lived nearly our whole lives to go to some random desert because we had a vision, then we discovered an evil guy, then we chased him, then we defeated him. Except now he's going to come back in two years. So... what are we going to do literally right now, and what are we going to do for the next two years?? We can't exactly go back to the orphanage."

"Right. I hadn't thought about that. I guess I was too busy thinking about the period of time after the two years." Cascade smiled ruefully.

"Great. Wait... you didn't consider something?? Did I just beat you in thinking of something?" Andrea had a delighted expression on her face.

"Yes, Andrea. You did." Cascade sighed as a huge grin broke across Andrea's face and she did a small dance in celebration of her achievement.

"But really." Andrea's expression turned worried. "What are we going to do?"

"We'll figure it out, I'm sure."

Andrea rolled her eyes. "I've been a very bad influence."

"Maybe Emanai has something for us?" Omar smiled.

"Emanai!" They all exclaimed at once. "Of course!" The grin was back on Andrea's face. "She left us a while back on a mission for a place for us to stay! She'll have something for us!"

"Looks like we have a plan." Cascade couldn't hold back any longer. She grinned. "If you could call it that."

"Surprise!" Andrea, Omar, Concord, and Emanai all shouted in unison as Cascade entered the patch of forest where they were staying.

Cascade jumped in surprise and shock as she entered, a floor of ice forming under her feet. But it quickly melted as she saw her surroundings, a huge grin breaking across her face. Hythalus and Mindara, the root creatures, were standing behind her friends, their eyes sparkling and their arms waving.

There were balloons tied to logs everywhere, and there were colorful rugs on the grassy ground. Their large tent, which they normally lived in, was decorated with colorful leaves. They had just started building the log cabin that they would stay in permanently.

There was a banner strung between two trees. On the banner, the words "Happy Birthday, Cascade!" were painted.

"Did you make all of this?" Cascade asked.

"Of course we did!" Andrea laughed. "After all, we never got to celebrate your last birthday! We were kind of hanging out of an airplane."

They both laughed as they thought about their time at the orphanage, and their grand escape, now seeming so long ago. "I wasn't planning on attending that small party at the orphanage, you know." Andrea whispered.

Cascade laughed once more. It was a day for laughing. "I know. You didn't like me at all back then."

"I certainly did not!"

"But look. Now we're good friends. It just took a shift of perspective."

"It just took a shift of perspective."

"Certainly. Just a shift in perspective." Omar had a grin on his face as well. "I never would have thought I could do anything before this. I thought I was useless and needed to prove myself, but now I see people like me just the way I am."

"We couldn't have done it without you. You kept us together in hard times, Omar, with your smile and determination to succeed." Cascade put a hand on Omar's shoulder.

"Plus, you saved my life!" Concord had a grin on his face. "I couldn't be more thankful for that!"

"You're welcome." Omar laughed. "It was the least I could do."

Smiles were spread all around.

Andrea turned to Concord now. "You know, Concord, I probably would have quit the team if it hadn't been for you!"

"Aw, it was nothing."

"No, it was something. Thank you." Andrea stepped forward and embraced Concord. He looked surprised. But then he cherished the moment.

Suddenly, Omar spotted Emanai out of the corner of his eye. "Emanai!"

Emanai shook her head, "Naw, I codn't," but when she saw the welcoming smiles and the beckoning hands, she couldn't resist joining them in the circle of friends.

"We could never have found that base or gotten rid of Sephtis' cronies without you, you know." Cascade took Emanai's hand.

"Eh. I'm sure ya didn't really need mah help." But Emanai was grinning as well.

"No, we really did." They all replied in synchronization.

Omar sighed, a grin still glued to his face, and put a hand on Cascade's shoulder. "This isn't ever going to change, is it?"

Cascade shook her head. "Never."

The End