When Jake returned to his Floating Island, he found neither Crunch nor any of the other felines, but his Shadow Guide was pointing toward the planet B842 below him. If they had stayed true to form, the feline pride was probably hunting. It was also colder and darker than when he left, but that was to be expected since he had taken his Aether Sun Core with him.
Before greeting his comrades, and perhaps to stall for time, the first thing he did was to put the now much warmer and brighter Aether Sun Core back where it belonged. Because of its much higher output than before, he had to adjust the various force fields protecting the island to seal off the excess energy, but in the end he managed to get the temperature and radiation back to a satisfactory range.
