As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- Probably not a good idea to get too attached to Lilac's treehouse. After an exhaustive chase with Aaa's mechanical Giant Enemy Crab at the start of the sequel, Lilac returns home only to find the tree cleaved in the upper branches and her treehouse in ruins. Her subsequently collapsing to the ground and protesting the fate that befell it only adds to the drama... not to mention the argument she gets into with Carol because both were away from home at the time. One has to wonder what would have happened if one of them was in the treehouse when it fell...
- Once the group escape Shang Tu Palace after Merga takes over, Neera is genuinely infuriated, despite Gong telling her to stop, and she is broken by this, knowing that it was her home that was taken. It hurts more when she blames herself for trusting others with this work.
- When finding that there's still a remnant of Brevon's forces in the north, Lilac expresses genuine fear in the possibility that Brevon himself either didn't actually leave the planet or came back. Sure, she and her friends beat him the first time around, but the things he did, especially to her and Milla personally, have left the poor girl with emotional scars that still haven't healed. Even Merga doesn't inspire this kind of fear, that's how much Brevon is The Dreaded at this point.
- At the end of the Shuigang arc, when the deactivated Syntax is brought before Dail, it causes him to flash back to his father's death at Brevon's hands, and its clear that the trauma of what Brevon did to him is still strong even three years later. Becomes a different kind of tearjerker when Neera talks him out of the resulting funk.Dail: [grimaces at the sight of Syntax] Father...
Askal: Wait, that robot thing is his dad?
Neera: No.
Lilac: Dail's father, the previous king, was murdered by the intergalactic warlord Brevon. We chased Brevon off our world... but not before he left his mark on us.
Askal: Oh yeah. Heard the stories. Sounded made up. Didn't even think they could be true.
Dail: [slumps to the ground in sorrow] I wasn't strong enough...
Neera: No. You weren't.
[The others react with shock.]
Neera: There wasn't anything you could have done differently. But look at you now. You are the King of Shuigang. Your people look to you for guidance and leadership. You have only grown stronger since that day, your majesty. And you do your father's memory proud. - In general, its clear that, despite three years having passed, the effects of Brevon's invasion are still felt by much of the cast. Lilac is shown to immediately tense up and become deeply uncomfortable when around barbers or anything similar, as they remind her of how Brevon tortured her. And the moment Milla realizes that some of Brevon's forces are still on the planet, all her newfound confidence goes out the window as the memories of Brevon mutating her and forcing her to attack her friends smash back into her.
- Lilac laying into Spade for how he effectively forced her into a life of crime by stealing her egg. He was a kid who wanted to get in good with the Scarves, and while they were both lucky that the old leader didn't mind when she hatched, that's the kind of emotional damage you just can't fix. Spade seems genuinely remorseful for what he did, but Lilac makes it clear that still doesn't make it okay, even if she wishes otherwise.Lilac: I have a criminal record from being raised by a bunch of thieves, Spade! I had to live in the woods because my wanted posters were everywhere!
- If you thought Milla had it bad in the first game, she gets to go through the trauma grinder again and again here. As revealed in the sequel, Milla was traumatized by the experience to the point that years later, when she hears even the possibility from Serpentine that Brevon might return, it all comes rushing back and the poor girl breaks down in absolute terror. It's then also revealed that she's an extra-terrestrial who comes from the same planet as her tormentors, leading to her horror at the possibility that she's just a weapon rather than an actual person. Serpentine threatens to use this as leverage against Milla in Nalao Lake, which leaves her speechless against him even if her friends don't buy it. Then, while it fortunately fails due to Milla's Heroic Willpower and The Power of Friendship, Serpentine tries to brainwash her by having Syntax use a "Resonance Link" on her, putting her through the very same trauma all over again. This only makes the moment she blows his face in even more cathartic, but the poor girl's just about raw by this point. If you check her alchemy stand before taking off to challenge Bakunawa, you can tell with the short sentences and mirthless laughter that she's barely holding herself together before the big finish.Milla: All right! After we're finished here, we should. Get on the ship. With snake man. And go off into space. Like we want. To do. Everything's fine. Everything's great! I talked with snake man and we're all friends now! All FRIENDS! NOW! HAHAHAHAHA! GENUINE LAUGHTER!
- Carol's desperate attempts to try and get her sister to stop working with Merga nearly ends in an awful tragedy itself. After finally learning about Cory's motivation in trying to at least save Carol from what she believed to be an unstoppable Water Dragon, Carol finally manages to get through to Cory by telling her that she still wants to go down fighting an impossible battle with her friends than run. Merga, not pleased by this development, tries to strike Carol down, forcing Cory to take the blow for her. Carol gives a Rapid-Fire "No!" in terror at this and sounds one step away from going into a tearful breakdown before furiously giving an I'll Kill You! to Merga and trying to tear into her with her claws, which Merga simply pushes aside. Thankfully, Merga does still have enough kindness in her to give Carol a chance to leave with Cory and Carol is able to bring her to Milla for healing, but if she had died, Carol probably would have disregarded any further attempts to make peace with Merga given how infuriated she was.
- As extreme as her revenge quest is, it's hard not to empathize with Merga after all the crap that happened to her and her people. Not only was she actually in a relationship with an Earth Dragon and starting to believe that peace could be achieved between her two people, but this was also done after the Earth Dragons had enslaved and used the Water Dragons for their own purposes for years on top of being nearly completely eradicated by an accidental test fire by Bakunawa. Then, just around the time Cordelia was prepared to make a plea of peace, Merga was imprisoned, the implication possibly being that she went with Cordelia to try and give peace a chance only for the Earth Dragons to turn on her, and her lover was, for all she knew, killed or imprisoned for life for treason. By the time Merga breaks free again, the Earth Dragons are regarded as heroes and she and her race are seen as savage monsters who deserved to perish, and she doesn't even have anyone who she cares about who's alive anymore. Beneath all that ferocity and rage, Merga is really just a broken Dragon who lost everything to cruel and unfair circumstances who's all alone in the world, the only other member of her kind siding with the descendants of those who hurt her and her people. It's no wonder Lilac and her allies are far more interested in trying to convince Merga to stand down rather than kill her after learning about all of this, and even then, it can end in failure. If you don't get all the Capsules, Merga refuses to let go of her hatred and swears to keep going, even if it means her death while the ship falls apart. If you do though, she gets a final message from Cordelia, her loved one, and when it ends, she nearly sounds like she's going to break down in tears as she desperately begs to see her one more time. Even after helping Team Lilac stop Syntax, she becomes a case of Death Seeker, preparing to die with the ship despite Lilac's pleas. She does save Lilac and hopefully survives so that Lilac can track her down and make amends, but damn. Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds is pretty apt for the Water Dragon Centurion.
- After his and Aaa's final defeat in Bakunawa's Refinery, against the other girls Askal admits that Merga's plan to destroy Avalice is too much for him, since all he wanted was to create a new system where half-breeds like him are more accepted. In Neera's story, however, he sounds especially broken and angry over how Merga duped him into doing her dirty work.
- I didn't want this! (punching the ground in upset) Oh, spirits, I didn't want this!!
