When Robert had seen Jim Balmer on stage in Pennsylvania he'd thought that he was looking at the next president of the United States. After attending Tom Groff's rally on a high-school football field in Buffalo, New York, he wasn't so sure anymore. Robert and the Goose arrived at the rally after Tom had begun his speech and immediately upon entering the crowd they could feel the hope and enthusiasm that was coursing through the crowd that was being generated by Tom Groff, who was up on stage giving his speech with his shirt sleeves rolled up and his collar open.

"...a politics that unites us through common cause rather than a politics that seeks power through division. Jim Balmer is not the 'Restoration through Faith' candidate that his supporters believe he is; he's nothing more than an old-fashioned religious demagogue; we've seen his kind before and we've seen what the consequences are when men like him are given power and we do not want that here in America!"

Tom paused here to allow the crowd to cheer and hoist up their 'Tom Groff for President' signs.

"America has always stood apart as the nation where hope triumphs over despair, where there is no challenge that can't be overcome by us pulling together and meeting that challenge head on with the ingenuity and the grit that we're known for, and it is that indomitable spirit that..."

Just then Tom noticed Robert standing in the back of the crowd with the Goose perched on his head and instantly recognized that that was no ordinary Goose, and that the time had come for him to play his part in the pilgrimage. Tom wrapped up his speech and returned to his campaign bus where he waited for the crowd to disperse so that he could speak privately with the Goose.

"Are you sure he's going to want to talk to us?" Robert asked the Goose as the rest of the crowd was leaving.

"He saw us, my guess is he's waiting for all of these people to leave before he invites us onto his bus to have a chat."

Robert and the Goose continued waiting on the field and sure enough, after about twenty minutes, one of Tom Groff's aides walked over to them and told them that Senator Groff would like to speak with them. The young woman escorted them to Tom's bus in the parking lot and showed them inside before leaving and closing the doors. Tom was alone in the bus and had been waiting nervously for his chance to meet the Goose.

"Is this THE Goose?" He asked Robert.

"You have a keen eye, senator," the Goose responded.

"When the church posted on their website months ago that a new pilgrimage was upon us I knew that this election would play an important role in it, that's why I got into the race."

"You were right about that, and now that you've won the nomination there are some things that you need to know."

The Goose explained everything to Tom about the guardians that they had awakened, the team that the Raven had assembled, what the Raven's plans were and how they planned on putting a stop to them. The big surprise to Tom was hearing about John Lafferty falling under the spell of the Raven. Were he not hearing it from the Goose itself he never would have believed that it was possible given John's devotion to the Goose.

"Unfortunately John's devotion to me was outweighed by his desire to discover the Grand Truth. The Raven saw this weakness in him and used it to seduce him."

"Is there actually such a thing as the Grand Truth?" Tom asked.

"Yes, but it's been decided that humans aren't fit to learn it, at least not yet."

"Do I need to do anything else besides win the election?"

"Right now that needs to be your only concern, focus on the convention and the debates and on having a strong closing message, oh, and, I'm sorry to tell you this, but we're going to need to take that with us," the Goose said, referring to the dove that was standing on the counter next to Tom.

"That's a guardian?" Robert asked.

"The dove is the guardian of peace, and it's the final component that we are missing."

"If you take the dove away it's going to affect my campaigning and put the election in jeopardy."

"We only need it for a couple of days; once we've hatched the egg, which will probably be tomorrow, the dove will return to you."

"Is it going to be the same?"

"It'll be able to talk."

Robert and the Goose left with the dove without Tom getting to ask the Goose any of the questions that he was desperate to know the answers to. Having spent years learning through The Church of the Golden Goose about all of the magnificent things that the Goose had done all throughout history Tom was too overwhelmed by the Goose's presence to ask it the questions that he had always imagined himself asking it if given the opportunity.

Neither Robert nor the Goose spoke for the entire duration of the drive home to Queens; the sense of finality that both of them were feeling was occupying their minds completely. When they returned home the dove was greeted and welcomed by the other guardians and by Anne and Jessie. Robert slipped quietly upstairs to his room, feeling uncharacteristically solemn. Anne noticed the mood that he was in and followed him upstairs to his room, where he collapsed face first onto the bed.

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"There are two things about you that I've always known: one is that you hate change, and the other is that you hate responsibility, so which one is responsible for you being down like this?"

"Both, I suppose," Robert turned over and said.

"So you're worried that you and the Goose might end up failing, and you're worried about going back to living alone because you've come to enjoy living with the Goose and all of the others."

"There's also Jessie to think about, what's going to happen to her?"

"There's no reason why she couldn't stay, and if you'd like, I could stay as well," Anne sat on the bed next to Robert and said.

"What are you saying?" Robert asked.

Anne was about to lean in to kiss Robert when the Goose appeared in the doorway with urgent news.

"Robert, we're hatching the egg tonight!"

"Tonight?!" Robert shot up and asked.

"I just spoke with the oracle, she said there's no time left, we have to do it now."

"Okay, we'll go after midnight, so there's little chance of people seeing the egg hatch."

After driving all day Robert had wanted to go straight to sleep, but with the hatching of the egg now imminent he was too restless to sleep. He got up from the bed, went downstairs and made some coffee and sat with the Goose to talk about what came next. The Goose was, as always, withholding, telling Robert that he only need concern himself with hatching the egg. The Goose then walked away from the table, claiming that it needed to use the toilet. The Goose was feeling the same restlessness that Robert was feeling, the main cause of its restlessness being its worry that no matter what hatched from the egg it wouldn't be strong enough to defeat the Behemoth. After the Goose left, Anne thought about sitting with Robert to continue where they'd left off in the bedroom but decided against it. There was too much tension in the house for them to have a serious talk about getting back together; right now Robert needed time and space to get his thoughts together.

At 12:30 Robert, the Goose, Anne, Jessie, the owl, the rooster and the dove all piled into Robert's car and they set off. They drove south into New Jersey and kept driving along the coast in search of a completely deserted stretch of beach where they could safely hatch the egg. Anne and Jessie walked with Robert and the others onto the shore of the deserted beach that they found to see the egg hatch close up. Robert removed the backpack from his shoulders and set it on the ground and retrieved the egg from the inside. The egg was shaking from being so close to the guardians whose primal force would be enough to hatch it, so much so that Robert had to hold it with two hands, and even then he was still struggling to keep hold of it.

"What the hell's going on with this thing?" Robert asked the Goose.

"It's desperate to get out, we need to do this quickly before it breaks out on its own without absorbing their energies!"

The owl and dove both flew onto Robert's hands and the rooster jumped up onto his forearm. The three of them placed their beaks against the egg at the same time and underwent the transformation that saw them take on the appearance of normal animals. The egg also transformed, it was fully blue in color, and had stopped shaking.

"It's going to hatch, put it on the ground," the Goose said to Robert.

Robert did as the Goose told him. He put the egg down on the sand and stepped back from it, waiting for whatever was inside to emerge. The egg hatched in an instant, exploding open. None of them got to see it hatching, they had to avert their eyes from the bright white light that burst out from the egg and when the light had dissipated and they looked back there was a giant creature standing before them that had the lower body of a lion and the upper body of a bird. It had a long beak like a crane's, a golden crest on top of its head and large talons for forelegs. The top half of the creature was covered in red feathers and the bottom half in white fur. On its back it had four wings, the feathers on the insides of which were all different colors: blue, green, purple and yellow. It's eyes were a beautiful blue, and on the tip of its tail was a large black spike.

When the Behemoth had hatched from the red egg the Goose's hope was that either the Gryphon, the Phoenix or the Chimera would hatch from the blue egg. They were the only creatures that stood a chance against the Behemoth, and the Gryphon was the strongest of the three.

The Gryphon didn't stay for long. It sensed the presence of the Behemoth, looked out over the ocean, flew up into the air and took off.

"Now what?" Robert asked.

"Now we wait," the Goose answered.

"Hey guys, check this out," Jessie said.

Robert and the Goose turned around to see what she was talking about and saw that the owl, the dove and the rooster had reverted to their primal forms.

"What's going on? Didn't that thing take all of their power?" Robert asked the Goose.

"The blue egg isn't like the red egg, it doesn't absorb all of their energy for itself, when it hatches it returns some of their energy to them so they can help it if it needs their help."

"And we can still talk," the dove said.

The pilgrimage was now over, and with that being the case the seven of them shared in a moment of silent reflection.

"THE LEVIATHAN!" Robert exclaimed, imagining the penguin transforming back into the Leviathan and crushing the city with its size.

"Don't worry, because they maintain their consciousness they're able to perfectly control their powers, including their power to control their physical form," the Goose said.

"I'm going to go back to Tom," the dove said.

"I'm going to go with the dove, I think I could be quite effective on a political campaign," the rooster said.

"And I'm going to check in on Ryan, make sure he's okay," the owl said.

The three of them flew off, and Robert, Anne, Jessie and the Goose made the drive back home to Queens. When they arrived home, Anne got to see the Wolf and the goat in their primal forms for the first time and they all got to see the new form of the Leviathan, which had transformed into a small amphibious water dragon with blue and purple scales.

"Where are the others?" The Wolf asked.

"They left, the dove and the rooster have gone to help Tom Groff and the owl has gone back to Ryan."

"Soon it'll be time for us to leave as well to play our roles in the plan that we discussed with Sonya," the Wolf said.

"Are you going to go as well?" Jessie asked the goat.

"No, my powers are of no use in conflict," the goat answered.

Jessie was glad to hear that the goat was staying, but she could feel, as Robert and Anne could, that their time with the guardians was drawing to a close and once it did they were going to have to go back to their ordinary lives. For Robert and Anne that meant getting back together, Jessie could see that was inevitable. For her, however, what came next after all of this wasn't so clear, and it scared her to think about it.