Skylands Legends

12.2 Hunted

Spyro soared over the razed island searching for more signs of life. For the last twenty minutes he had been doing this. Flying in and directing mabu toward a clearing Latch had found to set up a brief base of operations. Occasionally when he found some injured mabu he would have them stay where they were and direct the others towards them.

Based on what he was seeing, Spyro would estimate half the MDF had been wiped out. That would make it one of the largest number of casualties taken in the Skylander era — and it had been done under his plan.

He had never felt so guilty in his life. Soaring up above he would spot a mabu seemingly lying among the rubble and fly down to help them. More often than not they would be dead. He found himself committing their faces to memory when he flew away. A remembrance for the price of failure. His failure.

It was nearing the point when they were going to have to give up looking, so Spyro began to circle back towards the clearing. They knew that the beast had escaped, and based on how angry he had been when they had him captured, he most likely wouldn't leave until he got his revenge.

Latch had been up front when they had found the clearing saying anyone not found in the allotted time would be left behind. The lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few, and if they scoured every inch of the island for every lost soldier, the beast would only tear them all apart. The time they had given themselves might even be too much.

Normally Spyro would not have gone along with a plan like that. He would have argued that they could save everyone. But after everything that happened, he couldn't help but agree. It made no sense to waste more lives trying to save a certain few. He hated how it sounded, but he couldn't think of anything better.

And so, Spyro returned to the clearing.

A string of injured mabu were marching back towards the docks at this point. Some worked together to carry makeshift stretchers holding the mabu unable to walk. Various Skylanders stood around helping when needed and making sure they went in the right direction.

He spotted Latch at the center of the clearing readying his shock sniper and glided down to land lightly next to him.

"There was a small group just south of here," Spyro reported. "They were all able to walk, I told them to head for the docks as quickly as possible."

Latch grunted. "Good. Me and a few others are going to stay here to direct the stragglers back, I want you to go with the rest back to the ships. You're in charge of getting them all there."

Spyro nodded. "I can do that. Just don't spend too much time out here."

"Wasn't planning on it," Latch replied, offering his hand out to him. Spyro accepted it and returned the mabu's firm grip.

Just then, Crusher hobbled up behind them, a dire look etched across his stone face. "Roll spotted the beast heading east. Said it looked like he was on the hunt."

Latch nodded gravely. "Then that's where we're headed. Go tell the others."

Crusher bowed his head and hobbled off to do so.

Spyro listened to the exchange and realized what was happening. Latch and his team weren't waiting around for others, they were going to buy everyone some time to escape on the ships. They were doing something truly heroic. Something Spyro was too scared to do.

He put that fear out of his mind and told Latch, "Good luck."

The mabu nodded to him and met Spyro's eyes before saying, "Don't blame yourself for this. Even the best battle plans only last until first contact. You can't account for everything."