| Yupa explores another ruined village that has succumbed to the Jungle spores, but is chased by a rampaging Giant Gorgon. Zandra, exploring the Jungle on her Cloud Climber, sees the Gorgon in the distance and distracts it, persuading it to return to the jungle. She is delighted to see Yupa again, and they return to the Valley where Yupa discusses his travels and the Jungle threat with his old friend King Zeal.
That night a Tomekulan air barge crashes in the Valley. The sole survivor, Princess Isabelle, who was a prisoner on board, is fatally injured but hopes that the cargo has been destroyed. However, a giant pulsating sphere - the fetus of the last remaining Fire Demon - is found in the wreckage, and the next day a squadron of Tomekulan forces commanded by Queen Celina enter the Valley to retrieve it.
Zeal is cold-bloodedly murdered in his bed by the invaders, and Zandra kills many of his attackers before Yupa makes her realize that further bloodshed is pointless.
Celina wants to use the Fire Demon to destroy the Toxic Jungle. The Grandmother warns her that every time people have tried to destroy the Jungle, its enraged creatures have destroued their cities; but Zandra tells the Valley people that for the sake of peace they must cooperate, and Celina forces them to drag the fetues to the Valley Castle, where she sets about reviving it. To crush dissent among the valley people, she takes Zandra, Axel, and five Valley Uncles, as hostages on an air barge, also taking the Valley's gunship. During the flight a Placedan Corvette fighter destroys most of the Tomekulan forces before being shot down itself. The glider containing the Valley uncles falls toward the Jungle . Zandra, Axel, and Celina escape in the Valley gunship as their Barge burns, and all land on a lake in the Jungle. Zandra investigates a swarm of enraged insects on her Cloud Climber, telling Axel to leave without her if she is not back in an hour. She rescues the young Corvette pilot from the jaws a giant dragonfly, but the insect's tail knocks them off the Cloud Climber and they are sucked through the quicksand into a vast cavern below the Jungle. Here the air and water are pure, and the pilot introduces himself as Milo of Placeda. Axel and the Uncles wait two hours then leave the Jungle with Celina, holding her hostage in a wrecked ship by the AAcid Lake to make her take her army from their Valley. She escapes and returns to the Valley to find its people fighting her men. The women and children flee to join Axel and the Uncles.
Meanwhile Milo and Zandra have flown to Placeda and find the city destroyed by Giant Gorgons. An air barge of survivors lands and the Placedans reveal a plan to provoke the Jungle insects into attacking the Tomekulan army in the Valley. They prevent Zandra from taking off to warn her people and she is imprisoned on the barge, but Milo's mother helps her escape just as Axel and Yupa arrive to foil a Tomekulan attack. She speeds back to the valley on the gunship with Axel.
The huge herd of Giant Gorgons is stamped-ing towards the Valley, provoked by the Placedans who are torturing a baby Gorgon. Zandra transfers to her Cloud Climber and manages to free it, but is burned trying to stop it entering the acid lake.
Beside the Lake, Celina commands the revived Fire Demon to attack. Many Gorgons are incenerated, but the Fire Demon desintegrates before all are destroyed. The soldiers flee in panic, but Zandra forces the Placedans to lower her and the baby Gorgon into the path of the stampede...
I won't spoil the ending for those who haven't seen the film, but,as with all Miyazaki's films, you'll watch it through tears of happiness!
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