It had taken what felt like an eternity, but slowly the forest had all but entirely recovered from Hexxus's second onslaught against it. The bodies of those who had been lost had long since been drawn back into the earth to make way for new life, and the plants that had been torn and broken had slowly made their way back up towards the sky. It had been a grueling, and mournful process in part, but the rainforest was beginning to look like it had before the humans had unleashed the spirit of destruction from his supposedly infinite slumber.

Though the events that had nearly brought down Old Highrise had managed to give Zak enough backing to have the logging camp shut down, but just a few years later another one planted itself at the base of Mount Warning. While the forest had been recovering and replenishing its once beautiful landscapes, a new crew began to hack away at the distant, unseen reaches of the forest once more, cutting down trees that had barely been able to make up for the ones that had been devoured but a handful of seasons earlier. And like the trees that were slowly growing back, so too had technology grown in the human world, and a newer and more monstrous Leveler lumbered across the earth, it's noise and continuous bellowing shaking the very foundations of Mount Warning itself. Its metal claws and grapplers tore into the ground below and tore whole trees in half with single wrenching twists, and heat spewed from its gapping gullet. The machine in its entirety looked more like some creation of warfare than of terrain and tree leveling, but regardless it crept and seethed along the barren outskirts of the rainforest, bidding its time as the humans drank coffee in its shadow and, more ominously than they could have imagined, shook their spray cans of red paint.

The misassumption that everyone had made before was that Hexxus had died when the seed of creation had sprouted within him, or at the very least had been rendered weakened and harmless, but in all truth he'd simply been bidding his own time within the sprawling tree Crysta had imprisoned him within. It had been just like in times before when Magi Lune had sentenced him to the same fate, and he'd waited within the rotting trunk of the tree, his rage sometimes causing the earth to groan and shudder from its roots. The tree itself decayed from the remnants of pollution that Hexxus had brought with him that kept him alive, and had slowly deteriorated his prison. He knew that soon enough he'd wear through the brittle bark and find the strength to find a way to escape entirely.

One day as he loomed within the hollowed innards of the tree, roaming the gutted remains of the former Leveler, he heard the growl of something echo over the canopy, and recognized the sound with a smirk as he peered out one of the few cracks in the bark, though the enchantment kept him from slithering through it.

"Ahhh, the welcoming call of humans…" his hissed with a vile smirk, watching the smoke churn in the distance over the treetops. "And to think, those foolish fairies and creatures thought that the words of one measly human would convince all the rest of them to no longer damage this forest…"

He wound his wispy body up through the tree, so he could see better through some of the gaps up near the top. "And what a wonderful machine for me to possess, once that lovely pollution makes its way here to empower me…" he said, his voice holding a tone of longing. His form had once again been reduced to mere wisps of toxic smoke and venomous slime that could form humanoid eyes and mouths, but little else.

With the little energy he'd managed to scrounge listening hungrily to the far-off machine, he changed the winds slightly outside with a sharp intake of breath through the largest gap he could find, shifting the billowing smoke towards him. He ravenously urged it towards him and fed upon it savagely when it finally spewed into the tree, and as this happened, his weakened form began to grow exponentially. His shriveled mass grew so large in fact that the tree began to twist and groan in continued agony, trying with all its might to keep him contained. But as more grimy pollution reached him within its dying masses, it became too much for the spell to handle, and the bark and wood of the tree splintered and fell away as it slowly and finally died.

Hexxus, now strong enough to do so, tore his way loose once a good share of the tree lay scattered unceremoniously upon the ground, curling into charred ribbons. "Finally free once more, free to kill whatever I desire to, and rid this putrid earth of all life…" he snarled with a malicious grin, his noxious breath turning the plants into withered and contorted shapes on the ground. Animals that had once been scampering innocently upon the earth and in the streams suddenly began to choke, and either fled from his presence or died attempting to. Hexxus relished in the suffering and death he was already causing, and trailed along, following the path of the smoke that had revived him towards the machine. Below him the cries of the horrified creatures echoed up in a chorus of despair. Hexxus chortled to himself as he twisted between the trees in a serpentine fashion, his onyx form caressing each leaf into a deadened husk.

"Soon enough, I'll see to it that what I began long ago is finished…" he whispered darkly, the toxins in his breath mixing with the smoke and giving it an acidic color. To the unaware humans in the distance, Hexxus blended in perfectly with the fumes and went unnoticed as he drew ever closer to their machine. "Just wait, Ferngully…I'll be there shortly to finish the vengeance I promised would come down upon you…"