Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

AU INTRO –SEASON 2

The six humans are packing things around the Fwagon-Trail, aided by the Plantars and their other adoptive frog families and friends (the Sundews for Sasha, the Flours for Marcy and Amelia, and Soggy Joe). Sylvia says something to Felicia and Ivy, while Maddie hugs her father and her small sisters under Marcy’s happy gaze. Sprig makes a sign for everyone to get onboard, and then Hop Pop whips the reins, Bessie and Liptea pulling the fwagon together while Akitsu starts flying in the background, Amelia riding her with some small bags on the dragonfly’s side.

The Fwagon-Trail is seen starting to move, the two snails pulling it while Akitsu buzz above. The camera moves forward, the scene switching to the interior of the vehicle, and we see everyone gathered around the table, Felicia showing a map of Amphibia. The camera zooms again on her hand, and we see her pointing to the large spot in the middle of the lily pad-shaped continent where Newtopia is located.

Inside the fwagon, Sprig and Ivy are running around while Maddie is preparing a potion. However, Ivy ends up knocking into Maddie and making her spill some of her potion into Marcy, the human girl transforming into a newt with emerald- green skin. Marcy start laughing once she realizes it, quickly followed by Maddie.

The next scene, we see many tribulations the caravan faces on its travel to Newtopia: harsh climatic conditions, monsters the group must face or run from, forced deviations to bypass a destroyed bridge or even an impassable obstacle. Yet, as the group is seen dealing with the last issue, Valeriana and Noc are seen watching over them from afar, the old newt having a wary, yet hopeful, expression.

The group is resting on a small clearing, sitting by a fire, Marcy and Sprig playing their fiddles as everyone is having a meal. A large, bulky shadow is seen moving among the trees, the shape and movement revealing for it to be a wandering Frobot.

Marcy is seen again, late at night, studying Hop Pop’s book with her makeshift notes and looking at the Box to her right with a guilty, sorrowful expression. Everyone else is sleeping…or so it appears, as we see Jacob lying on the side, his eyes open, covering his mouth with a shocked expression.

The fwagon is moving again, approaching the capital city of Newtopia. The scene then cuts to the Throne Room where King Andrias is seen sitting on his throne, General Yunan and Royal Advisor Olivia at his sides while a large group of Newtopia guards surround and protects them. The humans and their friends walk toward Andrias, a couple of them bowing respectfully as Anne pulls out the Box from her backpack.

Jacob and Sasha are on a training field, Yunan supervising both, clashing their weapons in a friendly, but still very energetic training. The camera moves back a little before showing Bella, the former bellhop now wearing a uniform of the Newtopian Army, looking at the training with a puzzled expression. Jacob gives her a thump up before resuming his mock fight against Sasha.

Anne is working in Newtopia’s Royal Kitchen with several newt cooks and chefs around her, preparing some kind of dish. As she works, Sprig peeks from behind a table, reaching toward the lid as Anne turns her back for a second, only for the girl to notice him and stop him. Sprig is sad for a second, but then Anne shows she had prepared another dish just for him, offering it to him as Sprig’s eyes fill with excitation.

Amelia is walking among unidentified ruins, looking around with a wary look. A shadow appears behind her, and the humans turns around, her katana unsheathed as she gets in a defensive posture. The shadow enlarges, revealing itself to be Noc, the old axolotl giving her a gentle nod as the human kneel with a respectful expression.

A group of cultists is seen preparing to burn some unidentified papers, when suddenly, a group of five jumps in. The camera zooms, showing them to be Marcy and Maddie, both wearing dark uniforms of the Night Guard, accompanied by the other members of their Ranger Team: Javi, Kettle, and Femur. Marcy is seen aiming with her crossbow before the group goes on the offense, attacking the cultists.

James looks at a small paper in his hand, depicting the map of Amphibia’s solar system he had worked on, putting it on his pocket as the scene enlarges, showing the human to be at Newtopia’s University, surrounded by several Amphibians, teachers, and student alike. The human is next shown on a wooden podium, giving some kind of speech, Professor Herringbone standing to his left with a proud expression while everyone listens to the discourse, holographic images of Earth and the planet of Sol projected over their heads.

Amelia and Polly are running into the wild, the human girl holding her katana while a group of Barbari-Ants is chasing after them, trapping them in a dead-end. Yet, before the ant can finish them, a shadow drops from the sky as Frobot joins the battle, the tide quickly turning in the trio’s favor.

Aiden is seen in his Tower, the evil prince glancing over a map of Amphibia as Monroe, now reduced to be his servant, is working in the background, a large book of unknown content opens in the middle. Aiden suddenly grabs a knife and stabs the map with it, the blade cutting through Newtopia’s drawing.

The humans and their friends are now in a barren, lifeless area, surrounded by several robots of Aiden. While most of them are Pikeys, one grabs the attention: twice as tall as the Pikeys, holding a giant sword in its hands, and moves it with scary speed. As the group prepares to defend themselves, the humans activate their Calamity Powers: Anne glows blue, Sasha pink, Marcy green, Jacob yellow, James white and Amelia purple, their eyes and hair changing to their respective colors while a couple of them get more small side effects (as Anne’s leaves and twigs in her hair grow into branches, Jacob Viking hat’s horns grow triple their size and get antler’s-like ramifications, and James’ pupils take the shape of stars). The teens then proceed to attack the robot army in front of them, Sasha and Anne focusing on the larger enemy as they attack it with a combined Calamity-powered punch.

The Sun rose slowly from the horizon, shining over the still-sleeping town of Wartwood, Frog Valley. It was a common town of frog farmers and herders, focused on subsistence farming and, until recently, the small commerce done there was aimed to gather enough money to pay the exorbitant taxes that a greedy and oppressive Toad Garrison had been extorting every year.

But this was the past. Now Wartwood, freed from the chains of a corrupt leader and the tyranny of toad taxes, united together with the others of the Valley, was flourishing like it had never done before: business was booming, new shops were opening, more trade revenue was being brought into the city by merchants and other travelers, coming from all over the Valley through the new roads and bridge built by the Wartwood Militia, the new trusted protectors of the town. For the first time in many years, the people in Wartwood could sleep soundly, as the future looked bright and filled with opportunities, rather than with danger.

Yet, as everyone was sleeping and dreaming, the fresh morning air brought the thumping and sound of several Toads, all dressed in uniforms of the same color, marching in line, a frog with a jester hat and a whole band on his back playing music while a human girl with a sword on her side, holding a stick like a baton, marched at their head.

“ Hup, two, three, four
Keep it up, two, three, four
Hup, two, three, four
Keep it up, two, three, four.”

The marching sound and the music acted like a wake-up call for the still-sleeping frogs. Some opened their windows and looked outside, trying to understand what had woken them up.

“Mom, Dad, look!” A small tadpole, the child of travelers, called out to his parents. “A parade!”

“Oh, no!” Another frog, a local who was now used to this, groaned with a tired expression, “It’s that dang Dawn Patrol again!”

“Company!” Amelia called out, looking to the Toads of her squad, “Sound off!”

“Oh, the aim of our patrol,” the toads began to sing, repeating the lyrics that the human girl taught them, “Is a question rather droll. For to march and drill, Over field and hill!” Percy blew his trumpet, waking up the last irreducible frogs who were trying to sleep.

“Is a military goal!” Amelia chanted.

“Is a military goal!” The Toads repeated behind her, as many children gathered on the two sides of the road, cheering.

“Hup, two, three, four! Give it up, two, three, four!” Amelia turned to the left, the Toad patrol now marching on a small road that would lead them out of the borders of the town, toward the farms and grazing fields where many farmers were already busy with their daily toils.

“By the ranks or single file, Over every swampy mile. Oh, we stamp and march, Through the underbrush!”

“In the military style!” The children cheered at once, before the toads repeated the line.

“In the military style!”

“Hey, Percy! Percy!” Some children called out for the newest town storyteller and musician, the gentle toad smiling as he greeted them back, “When will you tell us some new story?”

“Tonight!” Percy smirked, a warm feeling of acceptance and belonging flooding through his body, “Same time as last time, still in the main plaza!”

The children cheered once again, and Percy had to move a hand over his right eye as he felt a tear of compassion running down his cheek. Ever since he and the others had decided to accept the humans’ offer to stay in Wartwood, his life had changed for the better. Their new commander had even appointed him as the official ‘one-Toad band’ of the Militia, tasked with playing music to accompany them during their marches and training. Not only was he now free to follow his dreams of becoming a comedian, now he also got an interested and always-eager public that he could impress with his acting and delight with his stories every once in a while.

He was happy.

“Hup, two, three, four. Keep it up, two, three, four!” Their commander chanted, pointing to the crossroad in front of them. “To the left, boys! Percy, blow the trumpets and beat on the drum!”

“Yes ma’am!” He grinned as he started to play the music once again, the toads following Amelia as they walked out of the town and among the fields, heading back to their barracks. Yet, as they surpassed the crossroad, Percy felt a lump in his throat as his eyes laid on a sadly familiar structure towering in the middle of a grass field, not too far from the town’s gates.

In the aftermath of the battle, one of their first jobs was to gather the bodies of all their fallen comrades who had died during the battle, slain by their treacherous tenant and his mechanical abominations, put their remains together, and then bury them in Wartwood’s cemetery, side by side with the frogs they had given their lives to subjugate. The captain even led a small group of them to the ruins of the tower, to dig up the bodies of those who had perished within their fortress, so they could rest together with their brothers and sisters.

Another tear, this time of sadness, ran again on his cheek. Would they still be alive? Would they still be here if he and Braddock had taken a more direct approach, to try and tell the captain of the treachery of that…psycho? Or their effort only would have ended in their own death as well?

The Toad patrol kept marching, leaving the monument behind them. At least now, they would have been able to rest in peace…

(…)

“I feel like everyone on this island is suspicious, Peruvia, except you!”

“But, Randy, I think you're suspicious!”

“Noooo!”

“Wow. Randy too?” Grime laughed, “Everyone really is suspicious!”

“If you think this is good, wait till you finish the rest of the season,” Anne gave the toad a sly grin, just before she realized someone was looking at them from the door.

“Ahem!” Sasha coughed, stamping on the ground with her boot. “Boonchuy, Grimesy, while I am happy you have found an activity to bond together, I think this is enough for now. I remind you we should work on protecting Wartwood and its inhabitants, not waste time lazing around and carousing. Mar-Mar and the boys are already gathered, it’s just you now.”

“Fine, Captain.” Grime chuckled, getting up from his chair. The former commander of Toad Tower had changed greatly from his previous self: he was now wearing a deep green uniform with white stripes (the colors of the Wartwood Militia), as well as letting himself grow a beard under his chin. Yet, he was still an excellent fighter on his own and a good commander that had been able to climb the ranks once again. “What do we have to discuss today?”

“The outpost near the Doom Lagoon just confirmed that the last ice blocking the pass has melted. That means that the road connecting the Valley with the rest of Amphibia is now open.”

“I can't believe it.” Anne said with a dreamy voice, “You mean we could finally make some real progress with the Box? To recharge it and…return home?”

“Felicia said it herself: if anyone can help us get back home, we will probably find out in Newtopia. Of course, before leaving we must make sure the Valley stays safe in our absence.”

The trio walked down, up to the main room of the building, where the four remaining humans were sitting already. Jacob was busy polishing his hammer, Amelia was sitting with her legs crossed, trying to mediate, James was looking outside of the window, and Marcy was busy adding even more notes and sketches in her Journal.

“Oh, nice for you to come, girls!” Jacob said, leaning on his chair. “So, how are our Calamity Duo today?”

“We are fine, Jacob.” Anne shrugged, yet unable not to smile. “I mean, even if I am still unused to it, the fact that Sasha managed to activate her own powers as well–”

“Those were the pink gem’s powers, right?” Jacob interjected, before she could even finish her sentence, “That’s the gem associated with Strength! Then, my gem must be Courage!” The boy grinned, almost savoring the moment he would be able to use superpowers as well.

“Seems like someone is very excited about getting cool anime powers, don’t you think Mar-Mar?”

“Who wouldn’t be, Sash?!” The dark-haired nerd replied with cheerfulness, “I’m still not over the concept that we all have powers inside our bodies! And that my two best friends have already awakened them-”

“Mar-bles!” Anne and Sasha intervened together to calm down their over-enthusiastic friend, “Please, try to contain your enthusiasm. We have more urgent issues to discuss, remember?”

“Understood, girlfriends. Still, later can you come with me for a bit? I have some theories I would like to test with your…assistance…”

“Didn’t you have plans with Maddie later?” James raised an eyebrow.

“We canceled for today!” Marcy nervously laughed, scratching the back of her head, “Farine has not fully healed yet, so she’s trying to help as best as she can.”

“Guys! Let’s focus!” Sasha spoke once again, and this time, everyone shut up, Grime looking proudly at the blonde human. They had been together for a short time, yet it felt like he had seen her grow up now. Now he understood why Felis the Red and her bloodline had accepted her into their family.

You could become part of that family too if you accept Miss Ivy’s suggestion-

The toad shook his head, trying to push those thoughts away. No matter if little Miss Sundew was a fan of his, there was no way she wasn’t joking when she suggested marrying her mom. Moreover, he hadn’t been the kind of toad to marry frogs, no matter how skilled or beautiful they were.

“Let’s start with the basics. James, how’s the situation at the main gate?”

“Excellent, Sash!” The British boy replied, “We have finished repairing the last damages left from the battle, plus now both the gates and the walls connected to it are made with hard stones instead of with simple wood. Gary is already planning yet another expedition to the Tower to salvage new stone blocks, but I can say the Town is safe, at least for now.”

“I am still amazed that Gary could accomplish all of this in such a short time,” Grime murmured. “Another couple of expeditions, and we could make this town a true fortress.”

“That reminds me,” Marcy sniped in, “Loggle said the new ballista and catapult built according to my blueprints should be delivered in a couple of days at most. With those weapons at the top of the walls, we’ll be able to defeat anything that dares to attack Wartwood! I would even say that they’ll be greatly effective even in case of another Heron’s attack, so no need for any Calamity powers!”

“I’ll check this with Loggle later,” Anne nodded. “Grimsey, how are Percy and the others faring in our new regime? I know they come from a harsh training and many of them are still experiencing trauma after, well…”

“After Aiden, you mean?” Grime raised an eyebrow.

The humans said nothing, their faces morphing into haunted expressions as they started to have flashbacks of that meeting. How they had found out that another human had been living in Amphibia without them knowing; how he suggested they become his subordinates (or in the girls’ case, wives); how he revealed to consider Amphibians as nothing more than animals, viewing them with a hate so strong many had been shocked by it; his giant robotic soldiers, the massacre, the blood, the death-

“I guess it’s a good thing we put that behind us.” Amelia hurried to reply, still shuddering as he remembered how Aiden asked her to become his ‘assassin’. Every time she thought about it, she felt disgusted and horrified.

“I guess they are doing well,” the toad continued. “True, many of them are still traumatized after the events they were forced to endure, especially how I let myself be tricked by him and allowed his sweet words to cloud my own judgment.” He looked aside, feeling guilty for not being able to see the truth until he backstabbed him…literally, as the wound on his back still reminded him. “But I guess this town, and the Frogs living in it, helped many of us to heal. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Percy being this happy about his job before. And I do have to admit that the music and song you taught my soldiers are quite…catchy.”

Amelia shrugged, as everyone else looked at her. “I…I just wanted to share some of the songs I love.”

“Always knew you were a Disney nerd under that hat.”

“Sasha!” Amelia jerked up, her cheek blushing while Jacob tried not to show his amusement. “What’s the issue with my songs?”

“The fact that they all come up from movies for children?” Anne teased her.

“They are not movies for children!” Amelia defended her taste. “They’re classics!”

“Still!” Sasha said in a louder tone of voice, trying to move the discussion back on its tracks, “As some of us already know, the Mountain Pass that divides the Valley from the rest of Amphibia has finally cleared out, thus soon we will be able to set forth to Newtopia, where we will look for solutions how to return home. However, we must keep in mind that, as we leave, the Valley risks remaining vulnerable to any kind of…menace.”

“You mean that snotty, jerk prince charmless, right?” James said, still feeling angry every time he thought back to Aiden.

“Indeed!” The blonde girl replied quickly, her urge to punch someone rising for every second she remembered Aiden’s face. “And this is why, before leaving, I want to make sure that we settle every issue we still have unsolved, and make sure all the towns in the Valley are properly protected during our absence. You follow me?”

“Huh, yeah?” Marcy raised an eyebrow, unsure where Sasha was leading the discussion.

“Good! Then, as for this moment, I, Sasha Elizabeth Waybright, step down from my role as Commander of the Wartwood Militia-”

“WHAT?!” Grime gasped, shock taking over him, “Is…is this a joke?”

“Nope, Grimsey!” Sasha smiled at him, “I can’t continue to lead them if we’re going to leave the Valley, and the people in the Valley will need a new leader that can provide them with order, security, and protection. Yet, I think I have the perfect candidate in mind for my replacement-”

“I do too,” Jacob spoke up. “And I think we’re thinking of the same person.”

The former commander of Toad Tower, now sergeant in the Wartwood Militia, looked around as he saw all six the humans were looking at him with an approving look, his eyes widening in realization.

“You…You-”

“Sergeant Grime,” Sasha turned to face him once again, her eyes filled with heartwarming emotion, “we entrust you with the leadership of the Militia, with the duty to protect the people of the Valley from any kind of aggression, to ensure the safety of its settlements and communication routes. Do you accept?”

“You trust me?” The toad gasped once again, unable to think of anything else to say. “After everything I did?”

“I won’t dance around it, yes, you were quite dumb and arrogant, even before you met Aiden.” Jacob nodded, remembering everything Percy, Braddock, and the others told him. “Yet, in the days you were with us you have changed. A lot.”

“The soldiers who used to fear you, now respect you once again!” Marcy happily chirped. “And the Wartwood’ folks, now look at you with respect rather than with fear. You even have your own little fan club now.”

“Made by my little sister, of all people.” Sasha chuckled a little bit.

“Plus, you’re the best one we have. No one else here is more knowledgeable about military experience than you,” James intervened. “And Leatherleaf said he wasn’t interested already.”

“And don’t forget about Newtopia!” Amelia said as well, as realization had struck her just then, “Now that the mountain pass is open once again, emissaries from Newtopia are bound to come to the Valley, just as we plan to go to the big city. You were the former leader of Toad Tower; thus, they’ll be more trusting if they see you in charge.”

“I’m…not quite sure about the last point.” Grime scratched the back of his head. To tell the truth, he had suspected all the time that the result of him becoming commander of the Southern Toad Tower was due to the meddling of the other Toad Lords; especially one. This was one of the main reasons why he strove to shape his soldiers before Aiden used his goal to manipulate him and blind him to his own cruelty.

“Grime,” Sasha said, her hand grabbing the Toad’s shoulder and looking at him. “I know how you’re feeling. You’re desperate not to make the same mistakes you already did, even at the cost of going overboard in the opposite sense, but this is not healthy as well. Wartwood and the Valley need protection, and above everything, they need a leader who can protect them from any danger, that they can entrust with their own lives, charismatic and good-looking. In short, someone like you. Wartwood needs you, we need you. We can make a difference. Amphibia needs Grime, the fiercest fighter of the Newtopia Coliseum, more than ever! Are you with us?”

Grime said nothing for a couple of seconds before his smile grew and joined hands with Sasha. “Yes. I’m with you, more than ever.”

“Then, welcome back, Captain Grime…”

“-another important thing you must keep in mind, is not never step on the ground where you have just planted your seeds, because doing that-”

“I’m home!” Amelia announced, opening the door of the farm, and walking inside, noticing the toad that was sitting with Hop Pop, carefully listening to his lessons about cultivating and plant care. “Oh, Braddock! I wasn’t expecting to see you today as well. How's the garden coming along?”

“Oh, it’s gorgeous!” The female toad replied in a delighted voice. “You should see the squash-”

“Amelia!” Sprig and Polly yelled, jumping down from the stairs, and coming to greet her. “You’re back, how did it go at the Barracks?”

“It was good, I’d say.” The girl with the cone hat said, “Long story short, Grime is once again the captain, and he will take care of everything while we are gone. Hope that’s not a problem for you, girlfriend?”

“Don’t worry about me, kiddo,” Braddock chuckled, “Sure, I’ll miss you while you and your friends will be away, but-”

“Huh, Braddock?” Hop Pop interrupted her, “Maybe it would be better to move our gardening lesson to…another time if that doesn’t bother you. Is that an issue?”

“Not at all. Is that for some…family issue?”

“You could say that, yeah.” The old frog replied, his tone of voice puzzling Amelia.

“Ok, then. I’ll better be going-”

“Huh, what’s going on, HP?” Amelia raised an eyebrow as Braddock left, leaving the four of them alone. “Is this for something I did?”

“No.” Hop Pop replied, taking a deep breath. “Will Anne and the others be away for…some time?”

“Huh, yeah? I mean, Marcy went with Anne and Sasha to ‘test their cool, anime powers’, Jacob impressed James for one thing-”

“Good. To tell the truth, I think we should talk about something that happened that night.” Hop Pop said, once again with a solemn voice, looking over Sprig and Polly. “About…Aiden.”

“Are you still worried about him, for what he said? For when he tried to attack Sprig?”

“Of course I am! But more than that, I am worried about the name he said as he tried to hurt him, the same name you once asked me if it was inside our Family Shrub. Leif.”

Amelia gasped, feeling her blood going cold, exchanging a glance with Polly, the tadpole’s eyes widening like hers, as they both realized Hop Pop had managed to connect enough points already. Sprig, for his part, kept looking at them, unable to understand what was going on.

“Girls, I know you’ve been keeping something secret,” Hop Pop said as he looked at Amelia and Polly, the polliwog gasping as well as he realized he knew she was into it as well. “I played my part, I pretended not to know there was something that you were keeping from us, letting you do what you felt you needed to do, but now, I can’t turn a blind eye anymore. Not when the security of my own family is at risk.”

“How-how long have you known?” Amelia murmured, certainly not expecting this twist.

“I’ve known since the day you both came home relaxed and peaceful after you skipped spending the day with the other girls to go exploring the forest.”

“How?”

“How?!” Hop Pop repeated, “I raised children two times in my life, and I was young too! I didn’t know what happened on that day, but I assumed you went on some small adventure on your own.”

“Hop Pop…” Polly said, only for the grandfather to continue.

“I’m not angry with you two, really, I’m not. But…I’m scared because now I know there is someone out there that tried to hurt my grandchildren. Someone who could still try again, and the next time, we wouldn’t be so lucky. Please, tell me what you know. Who is this Leif, and how is she connected to us?”

Amelia didn’t say anything, her emotions running wild once again as she felt her legs growing weaker, the wannabe samurai sat down as exchanged a silent dialogue with Polly, the hotblooded tadpole uncharacteristically devoid of words. And then-

“Fine,” Amelia said, letting out a sigh. “I suppose it is time for you to know. But, before we start, I want to warn you that what we know might not be of your liking.”

“Psh, how bad could it be?” Sprig commented. “True, you two had a secret, but what kind of secret-”

“We met the Moss Man.” Polly simply said, stopping for a second as she waited for Sprig and Hop Pop’s reactions.

“Say what?” The young frog murmured, his eyes widening in shock.

(…)

“Ok, Marbles?” Sasha asked, raising her hand as she tried to get the attention of her friend, the dark-haired girl setting her phone so she could have a videotape plus the notes she would add to her Journal. “What are we doing here?”

“We’re going to train your superpowers, of course!” Marcy replied with an overexcited tone, “I mean, Anna-Banana and I already did some test earlier, but now that we have two Calamity anime power users awakened-”

“It’s…nothing you should get worried about, Sash,” Anne hurried to tranquilize her friend. “So far, we have only done some small tests to try and understand how to activate my powers, as well as to get used to using them. It’s not too different from our martial art training: the more you practice, the more fluid you get.”

“I guess so,” Sasha replied, still unsure how to feel. She still remembered the day she saw Anne awaken her own powers for the first time, how shocked and astonished she had felt when she saw her friend glow in bright blue light and take two behemoth birds with super strength and super speed. And now…was the emotional turmoil she had been experiencing the same path she had walked through?

Though I must admit, having cool anime powers is pretty awesome, she snickered as she clenched her fist. “So, what’s the first order in business?”

“We need to check your powers, so the first thing we need you to do is to activate them.” Marcy set ready to take notes and sketches for the experiment, “So far, we have found a system-”

“A system to activate superpower?” Sasha smiled.

“Yeah, but it’s not quite easy,” Anne commented, looking far away. “As far as we have learned, since our powers are…connected with emotions, we have to summon back the mindset we were experiencing when we managed to activate them the first time.”

“You mean-”

“Yes,” Marcy intervened, “We did try different ways to activate them without having to think back to those moments, but none of them worked, so far.”

“Ok, Sash,” Anne grabbed her friend’s hands as she looked at her directly in the eyes, connecting with her empathically, “You remembered how you felt when you ended up activating your first time? When Ivy and Felicia-”

“I do, Boonchuy,” Sasha replied with a meek tone of voice, her eyes closed as she remembered those dramatic moments. The robots attacking Wartwood, pitted onto them by the order of an evil, psych prince wannabe; the dark shadows looming over her adoptive family; Grimsey struggling to hold his ground against one of the robots, the other one ready to attack; the horror, the shock, the unbearable feeling of being powerless, of not being able to do anything-

Sasha opened her eyes, as she realized something inside her had changed, and came to face Anne, her friend once again shining in her now-characteristic blue light. She looked down at her hands, and she saw her body enveloped by a similar energy, pink in color.

“How-how do I look?” Sasha asked, turning to face Marcy, her dark-haired friend looking at her with eyes full of glitter, her hands moving frantically as she was now drawing a sketch of her two best friends holding hands, each one glowing in anime powers.

“Sasha…you’re amazing!” Marcy said, unable to stop watching or draw her friend’s current form. Sasha’s hair wasn’t simply glowing in pink, it was replaced with pure pink energy shaped like a ponytail, the same energy burning fiery in her iris, flowing through her body as the blue energy flowed into Anne. Where the two energies connected, as the girls kept holding each other’s hands, small sparks ran through her fingers and palms: yet, the girl didn’t feel like their power energies were in conflict. Rather, it felt like they were in synergy with each other.

“Ok, I have, like, one million questions now,” Sasha commented, still unsure about how to feel.

“Yes, me too,” Anne commented with a sigh. “But we have no one that can answer that. This is why we’re doing this: going by trial and error is our best chance to find as much as we can about these powers and how to manage them.”

“How about doing something more instead of simply connecting then, Boonchuy?” Sasha’s lips twisted into a smirk. In every manga, anime, and comic book where a character gets glowing superpowers, they show off at the beginning by shooting up at something.

“Do you have some suggestions, Sash?”

“Sure thing! Let’s see…” The pink-powered girl looked around, searching for a suitable target, until she saw a large rock standing in the middle of nowhere. Her smile grew, as she raised her arm and summoned all her willpower, pointed at the rock.

At first, nothing happened. Then, Anne and Marcy’s eyes widened as they saw a trickle of pinkish light condense on Sasha’s raised arm and hand before departing as fast as it had gathered, the blast of energy hitting the big rock on a straight shoot and blasting it, leaving only a few pieces on the side, many small pieces of rocks and dust (whatever was left of the chunk the girl had just vaporized) falling onto the ground.

“Wow!” Anne said with an astonished look, before looking at her own hands. Could she pull up something like this as well if she tried?

“Sasha!” Marcy gasped as well, mentally wondering if her phone had caught all of that, “Did you…did you just blow up a rock?!”

“I guess I can be even more awesome, when I want to.” Her friend smiled, “So, want to try something different?!”

An idea blossomed in Marcy’s mind, thinking back to what she read in Hop Pop’s book about the Calamity Gems and the powers that were supposed to be granted to their bearers. Make nearby crops grow better, heal wounds, and cure diseases-

“Maybe I have an idea!” Marcy suggested, making a sign for Sasha and Anne to come closer, “It’s something I wanted to try, ever since we started translating that book…

(…)

“Huh, Jacob?” James asked, raising an eyebrow, “Small question: why did you want to talk with me alone? Is it for something ‘guy-talk’ related?”

“To tell the truth, no.” The other boy replied, sitting on a small log lying on the ground. “The reason I wanted to talk with you today is about the girls. More specifically…about their powers.”

“It’s our powers, remember?” James was quick to point out, “I mean, according to the book, every one of us has it inside: Anne and Sasha are just the first among us to be able to awaken theirs.”

“I know,” Jacob replied as quickly, “But there is another thing I remember. You remember the small…experiments we did with Anne when we first awoke her powers?”

“Sorry, I wasn’t there.” The British kid sat down as well, “But Marcy gave me a smattering.”

“Did she tell you that, in order to activate their powers, they have to relive the same set of emotions and turmoil they experienced the first time, again and again?”

James stopped and looked at Jacob with eyes filled with dread and shock. Yeah, Saint James’ regular prankster and blithe free spirit boy thought as he saw that, I guess you didn’t know that until I told you now.

“They…what?!”

“The powers activate in moments of emotional turmoil, remember?” Jacob continued restlessly, “When Anne first activated her powers, she did because she believed Sprig and Polly had just been eaten by the herons. When Sasha activated hers, Felicia and Ivy, her adoptive mom and sister, were being targeted by two giant robots commandeered by a psycho prince!”

“It’s too bad Sasha broke them into many pieces. We could have managed to learn something-”

“My point is,” Jacob said with a deeper voice, looking at James like he was failing to grasp the whole point of the conversation, “every time one of them needs to use their power, they must feel the same set of emotions. How would you feel if you were forced into one of the most dramatic moments of your life, again and again?”

Silently, James asked himself how he would feel if he was forced to relive such a moment. For example, the day his grandfather-

Yup, I would never want to relive that day over and over.

“I can see the logic in your reasoning.” The British boy said, “Still, I’m not sure what you plan to do. I mean, I’m sure Marcy will come up with a different way-”

“She did already. Many times.” Jacob replied, taking off a sheet of paper and a pencil from his backpack. “None of them worked. But maybe, I have an idea that could.”

“You do? How?!”

“Superhero comic book fan, remember?” Jacob allowed a smug smile to blossom on his lips, looking at his bro like he had just discovered fire. “And in many comics, the heroes have to trigger their transformation sequence by shouting one specific sentence, or reciting an oath…”

“Like Green Lantern?” James said, Jacob looking at him with widened eyes, “What? Just because I’m not a fan it doesn’t mean I don’t know the basics!”

“I guess I’ll refrain from deepening the question,” Jacob snickered, a part of him positively surprised. “Anyway, you hit the mark. In the comics Green Lantern uses a special sentence and mantra to activate his powers: the Oath of the Green Lantern. The Oath not only allows him to channel his determination and hope, but it’s also a powerful reminder of his mission and strengthens his mindset, and through that, his powers.”

“Let me guess, you think that if Anne or Sasha could use a similar mantra to activate their powers, it could work?”

“It would be faster and more efficient, and less traumatic than having to relive some of your worst fears and memories every time.” The former prankster nodded, “Plus, being able to activate and use such powers at will would be invaluable should we need to use them against a new, all-powerful enemy…or for one or those side effects we found out by the translation.”

“And what do you need me for?”

“I need you to help me to come up with some good mantras, one of each of us, that we could use to summon our powers and control them. I mean, come on: you were born in the land of the greatest dramaturgists of all times, I’m sure you can have an easier time than myself to come up with four rhyming short sentences!”

“You’re not a big fan of poetry, aren’t you?” James chuckled, before continuing. “Very well, let’s get to work bro!”

“So, let me get this straight,” Hop Pop spoke, looking over Amelia and Polly, the small tadpole standing in the human’s arms while Sprig was at their left, having listened to the whole story. “You met the Moss Man. The REAL Moss Man, the one that everyone believes to be a myth, and that only gullible people and folks like Wally would think to be true.”

“We met it twice, actually.” Polly said, Sprig gasping for the -nth time as he heard that.

“The first time it was only us, but the next one,” Amelia scratched the back of his head, “Anne and the others met it as well. It gave Marcy a small gift too.”

“You mean the pendant she currently wears?” Sprig said with an amazed expression. “It’s a gift from the Moss Man?!”

“Yup, and when we met him,” the human continued, “he revealed to us that he used to have someone who was close to him, and whose name was Leif.”

“So, this is why you asked if there was someone named Leif in our family shrub.” Hop Pop replied, his suspects now being confirmed, “But…she wasn’t.”

“Yeah, and this is why I assumed she wasn’t related to you. However, after hearing Aiden say that name when he saw Sprig, it got me thinking. Plus, the hidden rooms of the Plantar family underground, and the book where you first found about the Box gave us some clear hints.”

“You think they’re all connected?” Polly gasped, “How?”

“First of all, we don’t know how old that book is,” Amelia quickly replied, all three frogs focusing on her, “And the myth of the Moss Man is old too. So, either there are more than one…or our friend living in the forest is quite long-living.”

“You think he’s actually that old?” Sprig said, raising an eyebrow.

“Aiden claimed to be and while he could have been lying, he sounded quite sincere with such affirmations. And the book’s warning about the Box could have been against him. This would even explain why all members of the Plantar family pretended to be mere farmers and hid their talents under the family farm.”

“Hey, what’s wrong in being farmers? Marcy said: We are the backbone of society and don’t get enough credit for it!”  Hop Pop protested before calming down, “Still, that would explain many things…”

“But why Aiden,” Sprig said, his voice trembling for a moment as he pronounced that name, “mistook me for this Leif?”

“Probably because you look very similar to her? And that could be explained if she was a member of the Plantar family.” Amelia concluded, Hop Pop’s eyes widening as he heard that. “You know how it works in families: every few generations, the same face can reappear more than once. I guess even Polly would look like that if she was a bit older.”

“For once I am quite happy to not have my legs yet.” The polliwog nodded.

“But if she was in the family shrub,” Hop Pop moved to grab the Pantar Family History book, “Why doesn’t her name appear even once?”

“Beats me.” Amelia rolled her eyes. “So far, our best guess is that either Leif wasn’t her real name, or she changed it at some point. If she was trying to hide from someone else, that could explain it.”

“Y-you mean-”

The four members of the Plantar family, frogs and humans, shared glances filled with worry as they stared down the partial truth they had managed to assemble. If Aiden’s claims to be more than a thousand years old were true, how long had he been looking for Leif? How long had the Plantars unwittingly been hiding from this psychopath? Did it mean that, now that he knew about them, he would target them for whatever purpose he was doing this?

Hop Pop took a step back, as he felt his own blood turn cold, fear gripping his mind. For more than a thousand years, a dangerous maniac had been looming over them.

And now, he had found them.

(…)

“So, what are we supposed to do here, again?” Anne asked, looking around the various vegetables growing in the fields surrounding the farm.”

“We’re going to test your powers, of course!” Marcy said with her usual never-ending enthusiasm. “Now, choose a vegetable.”

“Mar-Mar?” Sasha raised an eyebrow with a puzzled expression, “While I think that it would be quite fun, I don’t think HP wouldn’t be too happy about us burning the crops.”

“We are not going to burn them, Sash. We are going to make them grow out of proportions!”

“Make them grow?” Anne asked, surprised, “With our powers?”

“Yes! Don’t you remember, Anna-Banana: The Gem’s power was used to make crops grow in the past. How about test it out?”

“Look, it’s not that I am against it, only…I have no idea how to do it.”

“Me neither,” Sasha nodded, “And I fear that if I touch them, I may end up disintegrating them instead of making them grow.”

“That’s one of the risks, yes.” Marcy murmured, chuckling as she tried to repress her nervousness once again. This was the reason why she wasn’t too enthusiastic to try and ask Anna-Banana and Sash to try and heal Farine’s wounds. Forgive me Maddie, but I won’t try untested medical powers on your family until I’ll be 100% sure it will work with no side effects.

Anne looked around, to the many vegetables and crops she and her friends had spent so many days with. Ever since Hop Pop took them under his care and gave them a place to sleep (no matter how cold, dusty, or smelly the basement was). She remembered how she used to think the farm was a dirty place with exhausting work, but now?

Now it started to feel like home, even more than the one she already had on Earth.

Her lips twitched into a smile, as she remembered how many happy moments she had ever since they arrived here. How they met Sprig and how he ended up becoming her best friend. The crazy adventures they had, the good memories they shared or how much she had grown as a person and as an individual. And not just her: Sasha, Marcy, Jacob, James, and Amelia, every one of them had changed so much, and they all had made new friends and had happy moments in this world.

Hop Pop, Sprig, Polly, Felicia, Ivy, Maddie, Stumpy, Soggy Joe, Wally, Mrs. Croaker, the girl though in happiness, being surrounded by such kind people helped us so much. This is why we had been able to adapt so nicely to this place, and I’ve never felt so welcomed. So…

Anne didn’t notice, but as she thought back to all the kindness she had received, to all the frogs that helped her ever since she arrived here, a light appeared on her chest, and she felt a strange, yet pleasant warmth growing on it.

…I want to be able to help them, as much as I can.

“Boonchuy!” Sasha gasped, the first to notice what was happening to her friend, “What’s happening to you?!”

“Anne-Banana! Your chest…is glowing!”

“Huh?!” Anne looked down, suddenly brought back from her thoughts, as she noticed a small globe of blue light glowing over her chest, smaller globes appearing all around her. “What-what’s going on?” Is this…

As one of the smaller globes impacted with one of the vegetables, a turnip, the globe’s energy was being absorbed by the plant, its skin glowing.

Anne looked back at Marcy and Sasha, her friends looking back at her with their jaws open, silently watching. Was this the power Marcy was talking about less than a minute ago? The ancient power of the gems, imbued into their bodies, that could make crops grow, cure all diseases, and heal any wound?

Please, Anne though as she closed her eyes, focusing on the energy flowing into her, please let it work.

The orb of blue light on her chest began swirl faster and faster, the other orbs around her growing steadily, until a large wave of azure energy departed from her body and spread all over the fields, covering them with blue energy that was quickly absorbed by the plants and vegetables that come into contact with it, each vegetable that got its share of energy glowing for a good minute.

At first, nothing had visibly changed, except for the glowing skin of every vegetable. But a few seconds later…

The plants began to grow, the carrots and the turnips, the pumpkins and the eggplants, the cabbages and the cauliflowers, all began to grow, slowly but steadily, the three girls watching in amazement as they saw the veggies become bigger and bigger with every passing second, in leap and bounds, until every one of them had become bigger by a third compared to their previous sizes.

“Anna-Banana!” Marcy ran to her friend, the excitation in her voice reaching new heights, “You did it!”

“I…I guess so?” The girl replied, her knees feeling a little weak, as she watched over the larger-than-usual crops surrounding them. “Did I really do this?”

“Boonchuy, that was amazing!” Sasha interjected, “How did you understood what to do?”

“I guess that’s-”

“Girls!” Hop Pop shouted, opening the door of the farm and rushing outside, Sprig, Polly, and Amelia (the human girl holding the tadpole in her hat), “What’s going on? We saw some flashes of light and- say whaaaat?!” The old frog gasped as soon as his eyes laid onto the fields, and he saw his vegetables having grown bigger and more beautiful than he could ever imagine.

“What happened to the vegetables? Marcy, did you manage to develop a fertilizer even better than the one you made already?”

“Sorry, Sprig: not me this time!” The dark-haired girl hurried to say, pointing at her friend, “This time it’s all Anne doing!”

“Anne?” Amelia raised an eyebrow, understanding what Marcy meant. “Does that mean-”

“Yeah!” Sasha smiled with a smug expression, “You remember that secret power of the gems, that could make crops grow faster and bigger? Found it!”

“You mean…you did this, Anne?” Sprig said, his eyes even bigger in amazement.

“Most importantly, can you do it again?” Hop Pop’s eyes shined.

“I…suppose we can do some more tests?” Anne replied, looking at Sasha and Marcy.

(…)

“Ok Sasha, let’s do that again!” Marcy said, everyone else standing behind her and watching the blonde girl test her newfound skills, “Remember: you must keep your mind in the point between fear, and serenity.”

Sasha nodded, closing her eyes once again, feeling the power of the gem rushing through her blood, thinking back to all the happy moments she had shared with Ivy, her family and Grimsey. Curiously, the more the human thought back to the toad, she more she felt like…like the relationship between the two of them was not close to transcend mere friendship: maybe-

Don’t let Ivy’s words mess with you, the image of Felicia admonished her, especially when you start thinking about me and Mr. Grime getting married!

Sasha repressed a chuckle, as she felt her powers focusing once again, the pink light of the energy growing in her chest, the gem’s power condensing around her before being released suddenly, once again impregnating every vegetable that was in their radius. She almost fell to the ground, her tired body aching for how many times she had done this already, as she saw Marcy and Amelia rushing to assist her.

“Amazing, amazing!” Hop Pop almost yelled in excitement, seeing his vegetables getting bigger and bigger with every infusion of power. “Again, let’s do it again!”

“Hop Pop, please!” Anne groaned from the bench she was currently resting on, her body aching in pain. “You asked us to do it several times already!”

“She’s right, Hop Pop,” Amelia said, as they rushed to bring Sasha to the bench as well, “Moreover, the vegetables are big enough already!” She pointed out to the pumpkin, now almost as big as the house itself.

“But I’ve never got a harvest like this!” The old frog replied, looking over his now-giant vegetables, the turnips alone now bigger than him, “Is this something you found in the book?”

“Yes, Mr. Pop.” Marcy nodded, finishing sketching a small drawing of Sasha pouring her power on the crops and making them grow to such sizes. “Apparently, the gems were also used make crops grow better, so we decided to make a small experiment using the vegetables of your farm. Of course, assuming that doesn’t have any side-effect-”

“What’s going on here?!” A female voice called out, Sasha raising her head to see her adoptive family (that being Ivy, Felicia, and Sylvia) looking at the giant crops surrounding the farm. “Hoppy, is that you?”

“S-Sylvia?”

“Sprig, what’s going on here?” Ivy jumped in, looking around with an amazed expression, “Did Marcy come up with a new fertilizer?”

“Actually, it was all Anne’s doing.” Sprig chuckled, “And your sister’s.”

“Wait…Sasha?!” The young yellow frog with tortoise hat gasped, turning to see her blonde adoptive human sister, “You did this?!”

“Sure did.” The former school queen chuckled, taking a moment to taste the look of surprise in her family’s eyes. “Boonchuy and I were testing our cool anime powers, and apparently we can use them to make crops grow bigger and faster.”

Anime powers? Amelia was taken back by Sasha’s choice of words. Sure, they were quite appropriate, yet…

“I must admit…this is not something you see every day.” Felicia nodded, “What else could this be used for?”

“Well, we haven’t tested it yet,” Marcy said, showing the Sundew the notes she and the other had translated, “But according to Hop Pop’s book, not only the power of the Gems can help us during a fight, but they also grant powers that go from curing diseases to, well, making giant vegetables. And that should be the case for any of us.”

“Any of you?” Felicia was the first to notice the hidden meaning of that sentence, “You mean that even you, Amelia or the boys could do it, should your powers awaken as well?”

“I…I think so… maybe?” Marcy started to laugh nervously, clearly feeling uneasy as it hit her that yes, she would probably be able to do the same things that Anne and Sasha could do if she managed to activate her own powers as well.

Suddenly, the way Hop Pop was looking at her and Amelia made her feel weird.

“Anyway,” Sasha asked, as Anne slumped against her shoulder, starting to feel sleepy, “Why are you here? Did something happen?”

“To tell the truth, we are here because we need to discuss something important,” Sylvia replied, looking around with a prideful, assertive expression. “Can you look out for the boys, and gather everyone? I don’t want to be forced to explain it again.”

(…)

“Ok, we’re all gathered here, as you said,” Jacob said, sitting on one chair in the living room of the Plantar’s farm, looking at his friends and allies, “What’s all this about?”

“Simple,” Felicia replied, smiling at him, “now that the mountain pass has cleared off, I guess it is time for us to leave the Valley and help you find the responses you need to go back home. Of course, we’re coming with you.”

“For real?” Anne asked, with a surprised, yet happy tone of voice, “You’re coming with us too?”

“Hey, I’m not leaving my big sis!” Ivy jumped and grabbed Sasha’s right arm, the blonde human smirking as she did. “Plus, you’re going on a big adventure. You’ll travel through unexplored wilderness, mysterious ruins, and savage mountains! All to reach Newtopia, and you don’t know what kind of dangers you’ll end up meeting. For my whole life I’ve waited to go on an adventure like this, and mom said that now I’m ready!”

“She is?” Sprig raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I wasn’t actually expecting for my own daughter to find out the truth about my past this early, nor that I would have been forced to reveal my identity to the whole town-”

“Come on, Felicia,” James spoke, “it’s not that bad, right?”

“There are a bunch of new customers coming to the teashop every day,” Sylvia revealed, “all here to see the greatest adventurer of Amphibia with their own eyes. Some even came with expensive gifts or come with marriage proposals.”

“Grimsey was there too, and he scared them with a glance.”

“Ivy!” Felicia protested, her face blushing, “Anyway, I need some time away from the Valley, while the dust settles and the novelty wears off. I may have two daughters now, but I still have all my experience and knowledge as an adventurer, and I have contacts in all the largest settlements from here to Newtopia. Plus, I too would like to have a good adventure with my daughters.”

“Sylvia, you’re not coming?” Hop Pop asked, noticing how his old-time love had said nothing about herself.”

“Believe me, sweet potato, I would love to, but I’m not as young and vigorous as I used to be. Moreover, someone must watch over the teashop while my daughter and granddaughters are away.”

“Wait, I have an idea!” Marcy raised her head, her eyes once again filling with enthusiasm. “Can I ask Maddie if she wants to come with us? She knows magic, and she would be invaluable in our journey.”

“What?” Ivy stopped, her left eye now twitching for a second as she felt a wave of unfamiliar jealousy.

“I don’t see any reason to refuse,” Felicia nodded with a thoughtful expression, “I mean, an active combat mage is something rare to see nowadays, and since we can’t rule out the chance of facing hostile magic out of the Valley, having an expert on our side might be helpful.”

“Yay!” Marcy cheered, “I’ll ask her first thing tomorrow morning!”

“Be careful to ask for the permission of her father first!” Hop Pop grumbled, “Farine is still healing from the injuries he received fighting those…things that day.”

“Hey, you said the Gem granted the power of healing!” Sprig suggested, “Why can’t you try to use it to heal him?”

“Because…we don’t know for sure how that works.” Marcy quickly replied, confessing her inner fear, “And I don’t want to risk causing him some…unpleasant side effects.”

“She’s right,” Sylvia nodded, “Besides, Farine’s wounds are not that serious. He’s already much better than he was a week ago, and to tell the truth, he deserves a small break from his work. From what I heard, he and his family have more than enough money to make up for him not being able to work for a while, thanks to his adorable assistant and adoptive daughter with black hair-”

“Sylvia!” Marcy lamented, turning around to hear her blushing.

“What? You’re adorable Mars, deal with it!” Jacob nodded, prompting the girl to blush even harder, “Just to ask, what do we have to do in order to prepare for the trip?”

“I was hoping you would ask that.” Hop Pop smirked, taking off some paper with notes written all over it, “Ok, first thing tomorrow morning you, James and the others will help us harvest all the giant vegetables-”

“But it’s not harvest day yet!” James protested, already imagining the hard work in front of them.

“Well, since the vegetables have gotten so big already, why wait?” The old frog replied, both boys groaning in response. “Anyway, we’ll need to bring them to the market and sell them. Then, Felicia and I will get the…vehicle needed for the long trip.”

“I already know where to find what we need at a good price,” the teashop owner nodded.

“Everyone, remember to use your time wisely to prepare your luggage and everything you think we need to bring with us on the journey be careful not to forget anything, but also not to pack useless things. I am talking to you, Sprig!”

“Why, my collection of actions figure is not among the bare essentials?”

“Nu-huh!” Hop Pop rolled his eyes, before turning to the girls, “Amelia, I want you to be sure that Bessie and Akitsu are in good shape for tomorrow. Can you cover that for me?”

“Sure thing, Hop Pop!” The wannabe samurai replied, almost bowing, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they’ll be ready and well-rested for our travel.”

“Hey, mom, can we bring Liptea with us?!” Ivy suggested, “Two snails are better than one.”

“Well, I…suppose so…” Felicia guessed, “At least Bessie will have some company.”

“You three!” Hop Pop now looked at Anne, Sasha, and Marcy. “Can you take care of making a list for everything we need to bring? Especially…the thing?”

“You mean the Box, right?” Sasha scoffed, a part of her still angry at him for having broken their trust and attempted to bury the box in the farm’s lawn. “Still, I can agree on bringing that with us…but this time, we will watch over it!”

“I guess I deserve that,” Hop Pop sighed.

“Come on, Sasha, are you still angry over that?!”

“We could have ended up trapped here forever, Mar-Mar!”

“Girls, girls, calm down!” James intervened, not wanting to waste valuable time in a stale, meaningless discussion that would only reopen old wounds. “I’d say the Box is not the only important thing we need to bring with us: We should also bring the book, this way we can keep up with the translations on our trip; then, our personal weapons of course, as well as a couple of spares from Pollyanna’s room; some emergency cash or rations too. I also want to take some items from Gertrude’s room-”

I wonder if all this preparation is necessary, Anne asked, rolling her eyes as everyone else listened to James’ words. I mean, is not like we are going to fight for our lives again tomorrow…

“Ugh-” Juniper lamented as she crawled froward, desperately trying to flee, the slash over her stomach hurting with every movement as more blood kept pouring out of it.

Dad was dead, his head removed from his body and crushed under their latest ‘visitor’s’ boot. Mom was dead, her body cut in half by the blade of the visitor, her remains splattered over the floor in the inn. Even Juliet, her almost-identical sister was dead, the visitor having stabbed her in the heart with the same swift attack that had cut her on her belly. The only reason why she was still alive was that, while the intruder focused on her sister, she had run, desperately trying to make a getaway to the stable. She knew that many snails (all the snails of the previous visitors that had taken refuge at their inn) were currently detained in there. If only she could get one of them free, if only she could drive one, if only she could get away-

The inn’s door behind her slammed open, and a tall, shadowy, and frightening figure with a scary look glared at her. Juniper looked behind and could see the inn that had been her family’s home, and the trap that brought so much food to them before, burning, the intruder having set fire inside of it before focusing once more to her.

The figure marched forward, its metallic boots stomping on the muddy ground, as Juniper realized in horror, that it was over, and that she couldn’t escape. That the visitor they had planned to eat, would now kill her as she did with the rest of her family.

“So, this is what was going on, all this time?” The newt hissed, her polite tone of voice barley hiding her anger, “Trapping innocent passerby, forcing them to seek hospitality at your inn, drugging them with tampered cookies, and then eating them? Tell me, how many?”

“How many-what?”

The newt kicked her in the head, “How many frogs ended up in your stomach before I stopped at your door? How many innocents ended up losing their lives, just because they passed too close to your inn?”

“I…I don’t remember,” Juniper cried, the blood running from her forehead mixing with her tears, “It never mattered, they were just-”

“—food?!” The newt hit her again, the horned bullfrog wimping as she did. “Would you have done the same to me, if I didn’t find the truth?”

“You- who are you?!” Juniper yelled back at the newt, who proceeded to stare down at her as the bullfrog kept yelling, begging, and weeping with a pathetic voice, desperately trying to find a way to convince the same newt that she tried to eat before to spare her life.

“My name is General Yunan,” the newt in armor, with many medals appointed over her chest to attest her previous successes.

“Scourge of the Sand Wars,” she kicked the cannibal frog again, a couple of teeth departing her mouth.

“Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched,” she hit her on her stomach with a fist.

“-and the youngest newt to ever achieve the rank of general in the great Newtopian Army!” She finally yelled, unsheathing the switchblades in her right gauntlet, before using them to cut the bullfrog’s head, her now-detached skull rolling away.

Yunan rolled her shoulder, the inn burning behind her, as all the anger she had felt barely a minute ago began to dissipate. Then, she moved again, walking toward the stable she had seen before. As she moved the doorway with her shoulder, the Newtopian general almost gasped as she saw several snails, one of them wearing a band with the words ‘JUST HITCHED’ on its side, detained in there, all of them with a conspicuous trap on their tail to prevent them to escape.

They surely got a better end that they deserved, Yunan thought angrily, quickly moving to remove the restraints of every snail. She had faced many enemies in the years she had been a soldier, and then an officer of the Newtopian Army, but sometimes she could still feel the shiver, every time she ended up facing a being so dastardly and villainous whose actions were an outrage to every society and culture.

She chose one, an adult red snail with a small luxury sedan chair on its shell and that looked like it was more energetic and vigorous than the others, quickly jumping on its back and seizing the reins, the other snails following as they quickly left the stable and dispersed, leaving that place of horror behind them. Maybe, they would find new owners or make a new life as free snails in the wild.

Yunan gave them a sympathetic smile, the former inn now completely enveloped by flames, before focusing back on her duty. The orders she had received from King Andrias were clear, and she had lost too much time already between the last thawing of the pass, and many other ‘incidents’ she had met on the road.

It’s time to check if the rumors I heard are true, the newt though as she passed a lone road sign with the words ‘TO WARTWOOD’ written over it.

Once again, the cosmic forces of an all-dimensional being were at work…

Chapter Text

“You want me to come with you?” Maddie gasped, a part of her still unable to believe what she just heard.

“Of course!” Marcy nodded, her face as usual full of cheerfulness and enthusiasm, “Hop Pop and Felicia already went to look out for a coach that can carry all of us on our trip to Newtopia, and I would be delighted if you would join us!”

“I…admit it is quite a tempting offer…” the young blue frog thought about it. Ever since she had been a tadpole, one of her greatest desires was to see the world beyond the Valley, to be able to explore it at her whims, and now Marcy and her friends were heading to Newtopia. The Capital city of Amphibia, from where King Andrias Leviathan, the wisest of the Newts, ruled. The beating heart of Amphibia, where wonders and prodigies that would have looked like miracles elsewhere were parts of everyday life. A bustling metropolis full of ancient knowledge, with its libraries and archives, and its university where the most bright and distinguished minds of all Amphibia were carefully nurtured and refined.

And, the best chance any adept of magic arts could ever hope to find any more scrolls and knowledge about magic theory and applications, to better understand the nature of magic and how their spells could be further enhanced and adapted. To reach a level of wisdom and magical prowess no frog, newt, or any other Amphibian had ever reached in the last 1000 years.

And yet-

“It’s just…I’m not sure if it’s a good thing to leave home currently. Dad is still healing, and without me to help around-”

“Don’t worry about me!” Farine said as he walked right at that moment, his broken arm now held together into a cast, some small patches covering the bruises where the last glass wounds were healing. “I may not be a youngster anymore, but I can still take care of myself. Plus, the doctor told me that my arm should be fine in one month.”

“But that’s a whole month where you cannot work, Dad! Are you sure we can’t try anything to try and speed up your healing? I am sure Marcy and I-”

“Maddie,” the baker frog smiled to her daughter, patting on her shoulder, “I am fine. And like I said, we have more than enough coppers not to worry about working for a while. To tell the truth, it’s been a long time since I got so much free time, it’s quite pleasant all considered.”

“Marcy!” three young voices shouted at the same time, as Rosemary, Ginger, and Lavender joined them. “It’s true? You’re leaving the Valley?”

“And you’re going to Newtopia?!”

“Huh, yeah?” Marcy chuckled nervously. “Hop Pop and Felicia say it’s the best chance we must find a way to get us back home, and besides, I really want to see what it looks like. And since we don’t know what kind of adventures we may went through, they said I can invite Maddie to come with us, and to bring all-”

“Will there be monsters?”

“Or bandits!”

“Bandit monsters!”

“Please, can we go with you?!”

“Nuh-uh!” Farine shook his head, “You three are too reckless to go on such an adventure, and you’re too young too!”

“But Polly is going!” Rosemary pointed out, “And she’s barely older than us! How is that fair?”

“Polly is Hopediah’s granddaughter, so she is his responsibility.” Farine replied, “And I need your help for a bit, at least until I can use both hands once again.”

“Awwww…” The tadpole triplets looked down, prompting Maddie to say something to cheer them up.

 “Look girls, let’s make a promise, shall we? If you promise to behave well while I’m far from home and to help Dad, I’ll get one souvenir for each of you from Newtopia, ok?”

“Will you?” Ginger looked at her older sister, her eyes now shining in happiness.

“Sure, we can do that!” Marcy nodded as well. “Plus, we can tell you all about it, we can take photos, so it will be like you went with us.”

“As long as you do your chores,” Farine grumbled, “and prepare yourself for your…other things. Since the town’s school is operational once again, next year you’ll have to go as well.”

Marcy didn’t notice, but as soon as the baker frog pronounced the word ‘school’, Maddie trembled for a second. She still remembered when she used to go to the old one before it was destroyed.

“OK then, I guess I could use some help to prepare my things. Marcy, can you help me?”

“Sure thing, Maddie! What do I need to do?”

“Well, first I’ll need to bring some spells ready for use, as well as the ingredients and the items we need to make more. That means we’ll have to go gather ingredients and make some supplies; then, we’ll need to prepare all our books about magic that we can use as reference or to make remedies should something happen on the road; then, I’ll need to prepare some spare clothes; and then-”

(…)

“Yoo-hoo!” Hop Pop pulled the reins, Bessie and Liptea obeying the command and stopping right in front of the Plantar Farm with the large two-wagon caravan attached behind them, Felicia jumping down.

“So, this is the vehicle we will use to travel to Newtopia?” Jacob asked with a puzzled look. “It’s very…”

“Impressive, huh?” Hop Pop chuckled as he came down as well, “This here's an all-terrain, custom-modeled family wagon. Calling it…the fwagon.”

“Fwagon?” Jacob repeated with a snarky tone, even as he looked over the remarkable carriage. Somehow, it reminded him of those carriages that pioneers used to move as they traveled in search of prosperity and fortune, in the days of the Wild West. “Pun intended?”

“It’s one of the most reliable and adaptable carriages for families or traveling groups.” Felicia nodded, “Even if a bit expensive. I was quite surprised we managed to get two for such a price.”

“One of them had its previous owners dying inside,” Polly revealed with a mischievous grin.

“And even if they didn’t, we would’ve been able to afford it!” Hop Pop smiled smugly, unable to further hide his inner happiness. “Do you have any idea how many coppers we got from the giant vegetables?! We are rich!”

“So, I guess you are no longer afraid of the Box and the powers connected to them, huh?” The human boy prompted, earning a guilty look from Hop Pop and a disapproving glare from Felicia.

“Young man, that wasn’t very polite-”

“Felicia, you don’t have to get angry on my behalf,” the old frog replied, before turning to face Jacob. “It’s true, I made a grave mistake. I let paranoia decide my actions, and they ended up hurting everyone. However, I accepted my responsibility, and I promised to take care of you for as long as I can. You’ll go back to your world, no matter how many challenges we’ll have to face!”

Jacob chuckled, lowering himself so now he and Hop Pop were almost face-to-face. “I know, and we really appreciate that. Sorry if my words sounded a bit rude, just…do you realize that, if you had known then what you know now, you could have had a whole month of such giant crops?”

Hop Pop shut up, his mind freezing as he realized how he almost missed a fortune, while the human boy turned toward the Fwagon.

“Looks not bad at all!” He commented, “I’m sure James and the girls will like it too!”

“In that regard,” Felicia pinched him on the side, the human yelping as he realized the teashop owner was speaking to him in her ‘mom voice’, “Where are Sasha, Anne, and my daughter?”

“Huh…”

(…)

“Well,” Sprig said as he sat on his spot at Stumpy’s, he and Ivy standing on the sides of Anne and Sasha respectively, the two humans looking like they had just been drained of all the strength in their bodies. “It seems like those powers of yours use a lot of your energy.”

“Y-yes, it does. Yep!” Anne grumbled with a tired voice, so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. “You can see how tired we are after they made us cast it over and over…”

“Sorry, Sash!” Ivy massaged her adoptive sister’s shoulder, the human blonde barely able to notice it. “I guess I was a little overexcited when I saw you do that-”

“You really had to shout it in the middle of the teashop, with all those gossiping frogs listening?!” Sasha lamented, “Every frog farmer of Wartwood came to ask us to use our powers on their crops!”

“At least all that practice helped us to master it,” Anne said, shivering as she felt yet another pain fit on her arm. “Not that I look forward to doing it again soon, of course…”

“You should be proud of yourself, Anne,” Stumpy said, bringing food and beverages for everyone. “I knew you were special since you helped me save my restaurant, but…for you to have actual powers? Powers that allow you to do all those crazy things? If there wasn’t so much competition already, I would try to adopt you!”

“Hey, she’s my adoptive sister! Hands off!”

“Look Stumpy, I appreciate the gesture, but I’m already comfortable enough with you being my employer,” Anne said while Sasha took a deep breath, hoping that the nice smell of the dish in front of her would be able to give her back enough strength to move her arms and hands. “Moreover, even if we had our ups and downs with Hop Pop, he ultimately cares for all of us. He just gets too fearful for his own good sometimes.”

“And Felicia will gut you if you ever try to take me away.” The blonde human spoke as well, looking at her frog sister. “If Ivy doesn’t beat her to it.”

“By frog, I would never dare! The one and only Felis the Red, the adventurer that they said she was lethal as she was beautiful? There are better ways to get killed than cross her path.”

“My mom!” Ivy said with a prideful expression as Stumpy walked away, focusing again on her meal, “Sasha, do you need help?”

“I’m…fine, Ivy.” The human said, as she felt her eyelids becoming heavier and heavier, “I just need to…rest my eyes a second-” and then she fell full frontal onto her dish, having used the last reserve of her energies and falling asleep out cold as soon as she closed her eyes!

“Sasha!” Ivy gasped, grabbing her, and moving her face out of the dish, to allow her to breathe.

“Wow, I guess she was tired, right Anne?” Sprig said, not noticing the lack of response from her friend and adoptive sister. “Anne?”

She snored in response.

(…)

“There you are, young fellow!” Sadie Croaker said, placing a large suitcase with a key lock in front of James, the boy blinking as he saw it.

“Huh, what is this supposed to be again?” He asked, raising one of his own eyebrows with an interrogative look.

“Just some of the gadgets I used on my old job, as well as some items you could end up needing. Camouflage binoculars to observe without being observed in turn; a codebreaker table to write coded messages; magnifying glass; an explosive cigar-”

“But what in frog’s name do you think we will be doing on our journey?!”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know, darling. Luck favors the prepared. I had no idea what kind of danger or enemies you may end up facing, so I covered the basics. Oh, almost forgot, I included a small supply of Blank Berries, should you need it.”

“You mean those berries that can make anyone forget things they want or need to forget?” The human gasped, his brain still feeling…mellow from the last time he used those. What did he ever have to forget, to eat so many of them at once?

“Yeah. Look, if what you told me about that Box of yours is true, there is no limit to people that might try to covet that. Back in my days, I ended up meeting too many of them. Corrupt governors, small-time tyrants with huge egos, criminal syndicates, underground bosses…so different, yet so similar in their goals and quest for richness and powers. Believe me when I say this kiddo, sometimes knowledge is dangerous when it falls in the wrong hands.”

“Yes, even Hop Pop’s book warned us against it.” James looked aside, Archie jumping on his shoulder and then moving to his arms, the human starting to pet him as he used to do now. “Yet, we can’t destroy the Box. Without it, we would be stuck in this world for the rest of our lives.”

“Yes, and that I can agree.” The old frog replied, “Yet, be careful to whoever you show that, and always keep an eye open for any kind of menace you may end up facing. That guy like you, Aiden…he may not be the only one after it.”

The British boy grimaced, as his memory ran back to him. Those eyes…that voice… Every time he thought back to him, James felt the blood in his veins turn cold and shiver. Maybe because he remembered how messed up his words were.

“We’ll be careful, I promise!” He finally said, looking again at her, “I did say I want to protect my friends, didn’t I?”

“Yet, of the six, you’re the only one who still hasn’t got his own fancy weapon.”

“That’s because I haven’t found what suits me best yet!” He scoffed, “Moreover, weren’t you the one to teach me that not always the best weapon is not a material one?”

Mrs. Croaker chuckled, appreciating how he managed to use her own words against her, before continuing. Very well. Do you remember the Four Truths?”

“Hold your Tongue, for knowledge is power, and you must never give your enemies power over to you.” The boy nodded, listing the words that he now knew by heart, “Always be Watchful, to avoid missing any hidden threat to the ones you protect. Show no Face nor Give no Name, for anonymity is your biggest shield and your best weapon. Last, Show no Mercy, for your enemies are entitled to destroy you as you are to destroy them.”

To protect my friends, and the people of Wartwood, James thought in determination, May the Stars guide me.

(…)

“- must be swift as the coursing river, Be a man. With all the force of a great typhoon, Be a man. With all the strength of a raging fire, Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!” Amelia’s phone played aloud, as the girl in a samurai outfit moved and mimicked several martial art moves, while all around her, the former garrison of Toad Tower did their best to replicate her movements as best as they could. Unfortunately, many soldiers had a hard time trying to replicate her movements, some of them even losing their balance and falling to the ground.

“B-Braddock!” Percy gasped and panted, as he did his best to follow the human’s training moves. “How…how are you managing this?”

“It’s not too different from the training we did already with Anne and with Sasha.” His comrade in arms and amateur gardener replied, passing a hand over her forehead to remove the sweat dripping into her eyes. “Remember when we learned that Tai-Chi thing?”

“But-but this is way harder than Tai-Chi or Muay Thai!” The toad comedian and jester lamented, all the muscles in his body feeling sore. How I wish something would stop this…

“Hey, Amelia!” A voice called out from the side; the girl stopped as she recognized her cousin’s voice.

“Jacob.” The girl replied, turning to see him, the toads taking advantage of the distraction to rest their sore bodies, some even lying on the ground without shame. “What do you want? Can’t you see I am holding a training session?”

“With a song taken from Mulan?” The human boy chuckled, “Sasha’s right, you are a Disney nerd!”

“Coming from the guy who always uses Eye of the Tiger while doing heavy lifting. Anyway,” the girl spoke again, “what do you want?”

“Since I already finished packing my bags at the farm,” Jacob replied, a light note of smugness on his voice, “I wanted to do a last-minute check-up here at the Militia headquarter. Is Grimsey inside?”

“He is,” Amelia nodded, before facing the toads once again. “Well, looks you are in luck today, my attention is requested elsewhere. Dismissed!”

The two humans walked inside, and as soon as they disappeared from their sight, many toads silently thanked Jacob for coming right then. While the training they were enduring now was nowhere as terrible as Aiden’s, sometimes they had the impression the youngest human tended to forget that toads were nowhere near as agile nor flexible as humans or frogs were.

“So, wish granted huh?” Braddock mused as she and Percy left the training areas, taking the small path that would bring them back to Wartwood. “Well, that was a tiring, yet satisfying exercise.”

“I’d say, it wasn’t that bad, after all.” Percy lied, before hearing a grumble coming from his stomach, “Though it did make me hungry.”

“How about going to get us some lunch, then?” Braddock immediately proposed, “It’s been a long time since we last went to Stumpy’s, what do you think? My treat for today!”

“You took the words right from my mouth!”

“Percy, Braddock, welcome back!” Stumpy greeted them, as the two toads entered the restaurant, where many frogs were already sitting around and eating their Thai-inspired dishes “Hey, you arrived late: Sasha already left.”

“Sasha was here?” Braddock raised an eyebrow, her voice betraying the delusion of having missed meeting her. Even if their relationship wasn’t as strong as the one she had with the Captain, Sasha was one of the humans Braddock and many other former soldiers of Toad Tower were the closest to.

“Yeah, with Anne, Ivy and Sprig.” The chef frog nodded, as he accompanied the duo to a table that had just been cleared, “Still, they left a little while ago, said something about some bags they had to finish preparing back at Hopediah’s farm. Frog, I should prepare some meal-to-go for their trip: the Road to Newtopia is long!”

“Oh, right, they are leaving…” Percy commented, feeling sad hearing the news, as he took the menu and started to decide what some dish he felt like eating today.

But he had barely started to get an idea when, without warning, the restaurant’s door slammed, and a tall, slender figure in armor with a long tail entered, everyone else inside falling silent as they watched the latest arrival. Even Stumpy, who was heading back to the kitchen a few seconds before, stood motionless and looked at the intruder, his eyes nervously eyeing the closest item he could use as a weapon.

The unknown newt walked further inside and toward Stumpy, the frog with the chef hat’s noticing that she was dressed in a silver armor with two pauldrons patterned with swirling designs, a cape on her back, and several medals and military insignia pinned to her chest. Some of the patrons shivered, recognizing the Newtopia-issued armor the newt was wearing, and the rank of General that her medals indicated.

“You’re the owner of this place?” The unknown newt said, glaring at Stumpy.

“Yes.” Stumpy glared back at her, hoping to distract her long enough to switch the kitchen knife in her right hand with his battle hammer, “And you, who are you supposed to be?”

Before he could ever register her movement, the unknown newt took two long blades out of her right gauntlet, and with a quick movement of her hand, she cut his hammer’s handle, disarming the frog instantly and shocking everyone who had witnessed it.

“Me?” The Newt spoke again, putting away her blades as fast as she took them out before, “My name is General Yunan,” she made a pose, “Scourge of the Sand Wars,” she made another pose, “Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched,” she jumped on the counter, before making one last pose displaying a flag, “aaaaaand...the youngest newt to ever achieve the rank of General in the great Newtopian army!”

She surely runs her mouth a lot, Stumpy silently thought with a snarky voice. Some of the other patrons, however, were much more worried by the revelation: for Newtopia to send someone of such high rank to the Valley, it meant that Newtopia was very concerned about the events that were transpiring. Even if Wartwood had successfully managed to defend itself from the attack of the Toads, the night when Hop Pop had been crowned Frog of the Year, the Newtopian Army was a different story. And if this newt was the General Yunan…

More than one patron shivered in fear. While she wasn’t known as much as she hoped outside of the large capital city of Amphibia, some of them had heard of the exploits of Newtopia’s youngest general. How she put an end to the decades long Sand Wars by killing the infamous War Chief and scattered his followers, before turning back to Newtopia to deliver his foe’s detached head at King Andrias’ feet. How of all the soldiers who used to serve under her, many had died of exhaustion in long forced marches, or killed in one of the many bloody battles as they struggled to keep pace with their general, who thrived among violence and carnage like a frog in a pond.

Sitting at their table, Percy and Braddock exchanged one nervous glance: they had a feeling that the reason why she was here was closely tied to them, to the captain…and the six humans.

“And I am here on order of his Majesty, King Andrias Leviathan, to investigate the rumors about strange monsters dwelling among the locals, as well as the sudden disappearance of the whole Toad Garrison of the Southern Toad Tower, and that without talking about the destruction of the Tower itself. Tell me, people of Wartwood: what do you know?”

“Huh, nooooo.” Some frog, who had been sitting uncomfortably too close to the Newt general, stuttered. “T-this is a peaceful town, nothing ever…happens here-”

“Really?” Yunan quickly turned head and faced him, the poor frog shivering as he felt Yunan’s case over him. “Then tell me, why Mister…?” She looked at the cook.

“Stumpy, ma’am.” The frog chef replied, still looking in disbelief at the cut Warhammer now laying at his feet.

“Then why did Mister Stumpy over there try to arm himself when I confronted him? Are you always this hostile to your patrons, or only toward Newtopian officials?” Yunan pressed on, Stumpy stuttering as he could read the implied accusation hidden in her words.

Percy and Braddock tried to make themselves as small as possible, struggling to come up with a plan to leave, but too late. As Yunan kept looking around, he noticed both, and with a few stomps of her boots, she was already looming over their table.

“You two, you are toads!” Yunan smirked, realizing she had just hit the mark, “Curious: there aren’t many toads living in the Valley…except the ones that served in the Toad Army!”

“We were,” Braddock said with a nervous voice, trying to make her words sound truthful, “but we were left off on our own a long time ago. The captain said we weren’t good soldiers, and that we lacked discipline.” That wasn’t a lie, at least a month ago.

“You’re talking about the latest commander of the Southern Tower, Captain Grime, right?” Yunan’s smile grew, “He was the one that sent those messages informing us of those rumors in the first place. Perhaps you do know where he is at this moment?”

“Uh, nope. Sorry. We haven’t heard from him for a long time.”

“Oh, you know nothing about him?” Yunan raised an eyebrow, having caught on that the two of them were trying (and failing, badly) to lie on her face. “Then, what about Toad Tower? How was it when you left it?”

“It was…the same, I guess?” Percy looked aside, his trembling glare confirming to Yunan they were hiding something, “Tall, dark, intimidating-”

“And now it’s gone!” Yunan shouted, a part of her feeling tired of this charade. “I have seen the wreckage, on my road here: the whole tower had collapsed, the whole structure is in ruin, and the whole garrison that was supposed to guard it is gone! There are still bodies left to rot in the ruins, at least when I passed through there!”

Braddock felt a sting hit her heart as Yunan mentioned that last piece of information. How many comrades have died due to Aiden’s lie and deceptions, killed at once when the fortress they were supposed to garrison crumbled under their feet? How many friends had she lost because of the actions of one single human? How close had she and Percy come to being killed as well? No matter how much time had passed, she still felt unable to cope with all this pain.

“M-maybe it was some passing heron,” Braddock struggled to hide her emotions, “Maybe-”

“Even a flock of herons wouldn’t have been able to deal this much damage!” Yunan pointed out, “And I have seen what you have here in Wartwood: walls of solid rock, defense towers, ballista… It is quite strange that a village that’s supposed to be so quiet and peaceful has so many defenses, don’t you agree? Those rocks on the wall do look quite familiar…”

“We don’t know anything, we swear!” Percy said in panic. “Like Braddock said, it has been a long time since we last saw the captain!”

“But you were soldiers serving under him.”

“But we aren’t soldiers anymore! I am a jester now, and she is a gardener!”

“A jester and a gardener, huh?” Yunan leaned closer, an idea forming in her mind. “Well, I guess I've done all I can here. I will continue my search…elsewhere…” She walked out of the door, the various patrons (and Stumpy) taking a couple of seconds before breathing in relief.

“If she’s looking around, then Anne and the others are in trouble!” Stumpy said, his eyes filled with desire to protect, “We need to send someone to warn them, before she catches on to them!”

“And you should warn Captain Grime as well!” Another said, turning to Percy and Braddock. “How do you think she will react if she finds out the captain is now living among the people he was supposed to govern?”

“Relax, she believed us, didn’t she?” Percy answered, trying to minimize the seriousness of the situation, “And the Captain should be safe as long as he stays at our new barracks, at the edge of the town.”

Unseen by everyone, hiding just outside of the door and carefully listening to everything the patrons were now saying without fear, General Yunan grinned.

(…)

Back at the building that hosted the new toad barracks, as well as the headquarter of the Wartwood’s Militia, Amelia took a deep breath, tasting the warm kiss of the high noon’s sun filtered through Amphibia’s greenery, combined with the fresh air brought to her by the wind. Jacob was still inside, talking with Grimsey, and had asked her to wait for him before going back to the farm.

Thus, alone in front of the building, and with Akitsu nowhere to be seen, the young girl had decided to use the time she had to pursue the one goal that every honor-bound samurai should strive for when not busy fighting injustices and protecting innocents.

That is, meditating as she attempted to find her Inner Peace.

“Inner peace… Inner peace…” the girl kept repeating as a mantra, sitting with her legs crossed, her katana laying in front of her, as the wind brought a small quantity of pollen to her nostrils. “Itchy nose.” She grimaced, struggling to contain her facade before sneezing suddenly. “Finally, inner peace-”

Suddenly, she heard boots stomping on the ground, and a strange whistling noise filling the air.

“Now what?” Amelia moaned with an annoyed voice, realizing her meditation mood was gone, the girl getting back on her feet and searching for the source of the noise. At first, she could see nothing but trees, but soon, a lone figure walked out of the trees, whistling with a grin on her face.

“Stop where you are, stranger!” Amelia spoke, the figure stopping on her tracks as it heard the human’s voice and looked at her. “You’re not allowed in this place!”

“Oh, the rumors were true!” The stranger, revealing herself to be a pinkish newt with white-blonde hair and a long tail, darker pink spots on her back, wearing silver armor with large pauldrons and several medals on her chest, said in a rare moment of stupor. “This is…unexpected.”

“Oh, so you did hear about us?” Amelia grumbled, preparing herself to face the same prejudices she and the others had faced since they arrived in Wartwood, “Tell me, stranger, what is your name? You’re a newt, and you’re wearing armor: this tells me you’re not a mere traveler.”

“You’re right on this presumption,” Yunan smirked again, somewhat intrigued by the personality this new, strange creature was showing. “I am General Yunan,” she started to monologue while doing poses once more, “Scourge of the Sand Wars, Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched, the youngest newt to ever achieve the rank of General in the great Newtopian army!”

Oh frog, she’s doing a monologue, Amelia thought in amusement, and doing poses as well! Wait, she said she is a General in the Newtopian Army? She comes from Newtopia? Well, I won’t pass on this occasion!

“A General, huh?” Amelia retorted, doing her best to look like a badass samurai soldier, “My name is Amelia Matthews, Ronin of Los Angeles, Samurai of Respect, Rider of dragonflies and Sword of the Valley!” She mimicked Yunan’s own monologue, “If you wish to take one more step on this land, you must first get past me.”

“As you wish,” Yunan replied, before grabbing one rock from the ground with her tail, and throwing it at Amelia, the human quickly noticing and using her katana to deflect the attack, the rock smashing through a window to her right.

“Not bad, not bad at all!” Yunan clapped, genuinely impressed, “That rock wouldn’t have killed you, but surely would have knocked you out long enough for me to proceed. I am quite surprised that you managed to notice my attack, let alone intercept it.”

“I had a good master,” Amelia smirked in turn, before hearing two loud footsteps and the door behind her open suddenly.

“Amelia!” Jacob rushed outside, Grime just behind him, “What was that? What did you-” his cousin stopped, as he noticed the armored newt standing right in front of them. “Oh!”

“Oh, crud.” Grime grimaced as well, “That armor... She's Newtopian military for sure!”

“Another one?” Yunan commented, noticing Jacob. “Those rumors are getting more accurate every second.”

“Who the frog are you?” Jacob shouted, his hands holding onto his hammer, causing Yunan to sigh loudly.

“All right. Third time today. Let's do it! I am General Yunan, Scourge of the Sand Wars, Defeater of Rag-WAIT!” She stopped as something in her brain clicked, pointing at Grime, “You're Captain Grime? The fiercest fighter of the colosseum?”

“Another fan of yours?” Amelia grinned, causing Jacob to roll his eyes.

“I guess so,” Grime chuckled, “Yep, that's me. You're here for my autograph?”

“YES!” Yunan shouted excitedly, before correcting herself, “I mean, No! I mean- oh, forget it!” She passed a hand over her face, as she tried to reign in her emotions. “It doesn’t matter: I have some questions for you, and I am not leaving until they are answered!”

Frog, is she for real? Jacob mused for a second, impressed by her personality and way of speaking, No! Jacob, focus! She’s an envoy from a city of egoistic racists, so she must be as bad as the rest of them! Though her monologue was kind of cool, but frog, I never heard of someone with such a big ego since- he stopped, his eyes widening in realization. Oh!

“Now that I think about it,” The boy in armor spoke again with a soft, yet poisonous voice, as he remembered some rumors he heard second-hand. “I have heard about you before, General Yunan.”

“You have?” Yunan was stunned for a second by the unexpected response, “I mean, of course you have! Far and wide have Amphibians heard the tales of General Yunan, Scourge of the Sand Wars, Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched, the youngest newt to ever achieve the rank of General in the great Newtopian army!” She monologued once again.

“Yes, I have heard quite some tales about you,” Jacob continued, his lips now twisting into a cruel smile, “You’re the egomaniac narcissist whose obsessive hunt for personal glory almost turned one of the safest, risk-proof campaigns of Newtopia into the worst military disaster in all of Amphibia’s history.”

Yunan stood motionless, her jaw open wide in shock, while Amelia and Grime looked at him with wide eyes. The Toad couldn’t help but wonder if he should admire Jacob’s courage…or scold his foolishness.

“And that managed to cripple, exhaust and debilitate every soldier who ever served under her, with no care about them!”

“Ooooo, that cuts VERY deep!” Amelia snickered.

“At least, that’s how Toadstool put it.” The boy pushed on, failing to notice the popping veins in the newt’s forehead. “When Hop Pop told us about you, he was much more polite, though he basically said the same thing.”

“You-you-” Yunan trembled in anger, before the tone of her voice turned colder, “You know what? Change of plans: I’m taking you in!” She roared, jumping into an attack, only for her claws to clash with Jacob’s hammer and Amelia’s katana, unable to cut through both.

Wait, she has claws like Wolverine? Jacob’s eyes filled with gleam, Awesome! I’m fighting Newt-Wolverine!

“Wait, is that a sword from the Eastern Tower?” Yunan gasped again, “How-how do you have one of those?!”

“The sword of a samurai is an extension of them,” Amelia smiled, “Just like his companion!” She pushed on, the combined effort of herself and her cousin pushing Yunan back enough to give her the opening she needed. “By the power of Yamato! Akitsu, I summon you!”

Hearing the call of her companion, the giant white dragonfly arrived at once, Amelia jumping on its back while Yunan realized her enemies were much tougher than she assumed.

“Is that…a White Skies Dragonfly?! You have a legendary bug as a mount?” The newt said, before smiling. “Finally, this is a battle worthy of its name!”

And she jumped into an assault.

(…)

“Boom!” Polly announced, carrying her luggage (her bucket) inside the Fwagon, “All done! Hop Pop, I'm bored!”

“Well, I could use some help with these ascots.” The old farmer replied, making his own bags, “They require a very delicate fold.”

“Pass!” She quickly replied, jumping outside on the farm’s entrance, where the two Fwagons, connected to each other, were currently parked. All around it, Sprig and the Sundew were loading some of the smaller packages, while Sylvia and Felicia were sharing recommendations.

“Alright mom, since obviously no one can replace my tea-making skills while I’m away, the teashop must be closed for the meantime. Still, if someone is in search of a spare room to stay and can afford to pay for it, you can offer them the guest room. Be sure to lock both my room and Ivy’s, be wary of stranger and take-”

“Felicia, I know how to take care of myself, I did it for many years already.” The green frog chuckled, amused by her own daughter’s protectiveness, “And shouldn’t you worry more about yourself. From what I’ve heard, the road that leads to Newtopia becomes more and more dangerous with every passing year.”

“Mom, I am a veteran adventurer and I already traveled from and to Newtopia several times in my life!” Felicia shrugged, “Anyway, I packed up everything we could end up needing on our journey: light and heavy armors, in case we came across a nasty surprise, spare clothes, emergency food rations, a kit of medical supplies, one to detoxify water, some emergency money…”

“Huh, Ivy?” Sprig raised an eyebrow, “Are you bringing your bug net?”

“Of course I am! It's my most cherished item after all! And I’ve always dreamt about living to see such an adventure and collecting strange new bugs from beyond the Valley! Plus, if worst comes to worst, it can even serve as a backup weapon!” The yellow frog said, mimicking some attacks with the stick, before looking at her boyfriend, “Speaking about most cherished items, did you finally choose which slingshot you want to take?"

“I can’t! I mean…I’m still trying to figure out which slingshot to bring with us. I mean, Rocky's got the most launching power, but Slingerton's better for close-quarters combat. And Silver Bolt, he always has my back…”

“Then, maybe I can help you?” Ivy teased him, Sprig feeling his own face blush as she did.

“I…would appreciate that?”

“Here we are!” Anne and Sasha walked out of the farm, each girl carrying their respective backpacks filled with everything they had brought from Earth, plus some more luggage including spare clothes and items they felt the need to bring with them. ‘We’re done!”

“Remember to put all things together where they belong,” Felicia quipped, “The weapons in the weapon storage, medicines and other treatments in the medical cabinet…”

“Is there some place where we can put our most precious things?” Anne asked, moving to her backpack and showing the one object that, to her and the other five humans, was much more worthy than anything else they could have brought from Earth, the one and only Calamity Box that brought them here in the first place and was the only option they had so far to return home.

“Anne!” Sprig gasped, seeing the Box in her hands, “You-you want to bring that with us?”

“I just think it’s a good idea, Sprig. We don’t know if we may end up finding hints on the road, plus I feel safer knowing it’s here with us.”

“Moreover,” Sasha quipped, “if we do end up finding out how it works in Newtopia, we won’t have to come back to retrieve it!”

“I suppose that’s solid reasoning,” Sylvia commented, looking around, “Are your friends coming to join us? I believed you were going to leave today.”

“We’re here! We’re here!” Marcy announced happily as she, Maddie and James arrived, each one carrying a backpack and James holding the luggage Mrs. Croaker had prepared for him, while the two girls were pushing a small cart containing Maddie’s travel cauldron and several other items that were either too big or heavy to fit in their backpacks.

“Frog, are you seriously going to bring all that stuff?” Ivy commented, earning a scolding glare from Maddie, “This is going to be an adventurous journey, not a relocation!”

“Ivy Sundew!”

“The art of crafting spells is a very complex and delicate one, Sundew,” the local spellcaster replied, “the wrong ingredient or mistake made at the wrong time could jeopardize all of us. I need my books and proper instruments. And it’s not like they are going to take more space than your things.”

“Hey, I’m carrying jars to put all the bugs I’m going to catch. I need those!”

“And I need my magic equipment!

“Frog-fight, frog-fight!” Polly excitedly yelled, before someone put an end to her fun.

“Girls, girls!” Sprig moved between them, trying to play peacemaker, “There is no need to quarrel! I’m sure we can find a solution for everything if we look for it!”

“So, Mar-Mar, are you ready for this? To leave Wartwood and the whole Valley behind, and set off into the unexplored world beyond the mountains?”

“Sure I am, Sash!” The dark-haired nerd replied, fantasizing about what amazing new things she could see and note down on her Journal in the upcoming days, “I am so excited for the big journey in front of us. Just, what about Jacob-”

“Guys!” A frantic voice interrupted the idle moment, everyone turning heads to see Toadie running toward them with a distraught look on his face.

“Toadie, what’s going on?” James looked at him in confusion, “Is there another…emergency?”

“Ugh, Toadstool once again got stuck in the bathroom?” Anne grumbled, “This time, we are not rescuing him!”

“No, worse!” The mayor’s assistant said, the look in his eyes making James and Felicia realize this was a REAL emergency, “I was having lunch at Stumpy’s and, well…someone came to Wartwood! Someone from Newtopia!”

“Newtopia?!” Everyone gasped at once, the humans suddenly alert. A visitor from Newtopia could mean either a great opportunity or a terrible danger, according to who and why they were here.

“She says she was THE General Yunan! And with the armor she wore, I believe it! She also said she was investigating the disappearance of Toad Tower and-”

“Oh, frog!” James gasped with wide eyes, a cold feel of dread flooding in his veins, “Jacob and Amelia, they’re still at the Militia’s Headquarter!”

“And Grimsey’s there as well!” Sasha shouted too, Ivy gasping as she said so.

“Let’s go and check out on them!” Anne shouted, grabbing her sword and beginning to run in the direction of the signal, Sasha, Marcy and the others joining them one by one, until no one was left in front of the farm.

“Ok kids!” Hop Pop announced, walking out of the farm’s main door a few seconds after everyone had already left, “Sorry I took some time, but now we are ready. Let me give Chuck the keys and-”

He stopped, as he realized that, besides Liptea and Bessie, he was alone.

“Where is everyone?!”

(…)

Frog, they ARE good, Yunan thought as she kept pursuing her attack. She had so many advantages already: she could jump higher than those ‘humans’ could, and was more dexterous than them. And that without considering all the experience from all the fights and duels she fought before. Still, the adversaries she was facing were two, and they put their numerical advantage to good use, alternating between attacking and covering each other, giving the newt no chance of respite, nor any opening to exploit. Moreover, one of them had a White Skyes dragonfly as its mount, the flying bug making it impossible for Yunan to divide or even try to bypass them.

I didn’t think they would be better than mere bandit brutes. I guess I underestimated these two by giving them a head start to keep things interesting. Because these creatures have talent, even if raw one, Yunan moved back a couple steps, moving her claws into a defensive stance, the two unknown creatures doing the same as well. Well, I guess it’s time to up the challenge!

“Bri! Bru-bru-brunan!” The giant white dragonfly buzzed, its rider glaring at Yunan, the newt noticing the opening she was looking for.

Once again, the youngest general in Newtopia’s army rushed forward, but this time she attempted a trick. First, she moved like she was going to attack the one human to the ground, then as he prepared to her attack, she suddenly jumped in the opposite direction and into the dragonfly, its raider barely having the time to react as she pointed her claws at her. She didn’t know how long they could have kept fighting, but she had to close this clash as fast as possible, before-

The sudden strike of a sword broke her jump and pushed Yunan back to the ground, as she realized that someone else had joined her opponents.

“Please, General, stop this madness!” Grime said, as Jacob and Amelia rushed to his side, “We are not your enemies, we have no reason to fight!”

“No reason, Captain?" Yunan hissed, getting ready for another attack, "Toad Tower is in ruins, its army scattered, a village that was supposed to be peaceful now is more defended than a fortress, with strange creatures than no one has ever seen before! This, plus the fact that you seemingly failed to report all of this to Newtopia, is proof enough of your desertion!”

“Desertion?!” Now it was Grime getting angry at such an accusation, “Believe what you want, General, but I’ve always been loyal to Newtopia and our king! Ever since I was given command of the Toad Tower and its army, I’ve strived to shape them into soldiers worthy of such a name!”

“Then how is it that you’ve joined forces with the same creatures who destroyed it?!”

“WE DIDN’T!” Jacob and Amelia shouted at once, the boy shaking his fist.

“Buz-zumzum!” Akitsu buzzed angrily as well.

“They’re not the guilty ones!” Grime hurried to speak, as once again he tried to defuse the situation, “The truth is-”

“What’s going on here?!” Another voice intervened, Yunan turning around to see several individuals, all armed, gathering on her left. What’s worse about that, while some of them were frogs, many were creatures just like the two she was facing right now.

“Let me guess,” Yunan said in a bitter tone, realizing she was now surrounded, “Friends of yours?”

“And you must be Yunan!” A male human in a cowl, silver hair peeking from under it, shouted in response, “Youngest General of the Newtopian Army. Scourge of the Sand Wars, Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched!”

Yunan stood motionless with a stunned expression before her shock turned into enthusiasm.

“YES!” She shouted at full lungs, “Finally! Thank you! Almost makes me want to spare you!”

“How about instead you spare us the fight, and drop your weapons?” A female human in golden armor retorted, taking a fighting stance on the side of the first one. “You have nowhere to run!”

“Who’s running?  This should be fun…” Yunan challenged her, launching herself forward again. Anne noticed it and moved aside before moving to counterattack, the newt’s claws clashing with her sword on one side and Felicia’s weapon on the other. Yet, she had to move as Sasha and James moved to support their friends, while Jacob took advantage of the fact she had ‘forgotten’ about him to counterattack as well.

“Take this!” Maddie shouted as she threw a fire spell at Yunan, the newt moving just in time to avoid being hit.

“What in frogs’ name- they have witches and black magic as well?!” The young general gasped before covering, a crossbow bolt passing where her head was.

“Sorry!” Marcy smiled nervously; her bolt had been shot more accidentally than anything.

Yunan was one of the best fighters in the whole of Amphibia, she knew it, but her enemies were many and relentless. They were forming a net around her, forcing the newt to move constantly to avoid their enemies attack without a chance of respite. Yet, she kept fighting, and held her ground, even as a part of her started to wish she still had her old army to back her up.

Currently, Yunan was facing the human with long blonde fur on her head, that the others called Sasha: not only was her swordsmanship much better than the ones that many recruits of the Newtopian Army displayed, but the sword she used was a pink Heron Sword, a weapon that was known to rival in durability and strength even the best weapons made in Amphibia’s capital.

And less than a seconds later, that proved to be true as Sasha slashed forward, shattering the blades on her right gauntlet with a single swoop.

“Well, that can't be good.”

“Nope, it isn’t.” Sasha smugly said before retreating suddenly, “Ready, Boonchuy?”

“As always, Sash.”

Yunan had barely any time to see all her other opponents fall back before something happened to the two humans, the newt seeing their bodies beginning to glow, their eyes and fur becoming of blue and pinkish glamor, their feet detaching from the ground. And then, they raised their arms and the same light that was now enveloping them was fired on her, Yunan moving her remaining claws as she tried to reduce or deflect the upcoming blast.

In vain.

As the blast hit her, Yunan felt the air around her heating up and her skin dehydrate, as her body was rocketed backward by what felt like a powerful physical impact, her feet marking the ground. She could feel her own hair charring, the armor that she was wearing overwhelmed by the sheer amount of energy and starting to smolder, the claws on her remaining gauntlet ripped apart.

For a whole second, her entire world had gone white, and then gone black immediately after, the young general not even having the time to wonder what she went through as she fell on her knees, and then, she dropped face-forward, losing consciousness.

“She’s waking up,” James murmured, looking at his friends and companion, “Grimsey, are you sure?”

“I am,” the toad commander replied, earning a puzzled look from Toadstool and wary glances from Sasha and Amelia, “Even if Toad Tower has fallen, I am still the Captain Commander of the South Toad Army. It was my responsibility to properly keep Newtopia informed on what was going on, it is my fault that this… ‘incident’ happened.” He looked at the chair where the Newt General had been placed, sighing. “I just hope she will listen to me this time.”

“Ugh… did a herd of rhino beetles run over me?” Yunan asked, opening her eyes and shaking her head, before realizing her current predicament. She was in a chair, in the middle of the barrack’s courtyard, her hands tied just under her neck while her tail (charred, but still intact) was tied to the side. What’s worse, she could now see the full effect that strange attack had on her armor and weaponry: her silver body armor, that looked so shiny when she arrived in Wartwood, was now badly scorched and scratched, permanently bent and deformed on several points, a large area on the chest area (where she had been hit) now charred where the metal had been deformed. And her gauntlets…Yunan could barely express her shock as she realized they had been damaged beyond repair.

Frog, I’ll have to ask for new ones when I return to Newtopia…that is, if I will be able to return to Newtopia.

“Do your worst,” the newt said, facing her jailers. “I am not going to tell you anything!”

“Good, because we are the ones who are going to talk,” Grime walked forward. “General Yunan, it is my duty to inform you that this…unfortunate incident happened because of lack of understanding among us.”

Yunan eyes widened as Grime continued his explanation, from time to time being helped by one of those ‘humans’ or another toad who affirmed to be Toadstool, mayor of the town. They told her how the six ‘humans’ had appeared in the forest surrounding Wartwood almost three months ago, and they were taken in by a local farmer. How their actions eventually helped Wartwood become more thriving and flourishing, and eventually to reject the taxation of Toad Tower. How Grime himself was manipulated and lied to by a certain ‘Aiden’, who would be later revealed to be another human. How both sides had come to a clash… and how Aiden betrayed the Toads, having set up everything so toads and frogs would massacre each other, and attempted to rally the other humans to his cause.

The general was shocked as Grime recalled the moment Aiden backstabbed him (literally) before turning his own brutes on his troops, leaving only a few of the large numbers that once comprised one of the four Toad Armies; as general, and even more so as a frontline soldier and officer, she was used to violence and cruelty in battle, yet there was something…unsettling in how this ‘Aiden’ had acted.

Unsettling, and horrifyingly familiar.

“So, you moved the garrison to Wartwood?” Yunan asked, glancing over Grime.

“Yes. The locals had been unexpectedly friendly all things considered, and we needed a place to stay while we tried to reorganize ourselves.”

“And…this ‘Militia’ of yours?”

“We wanted to make sure Wartwood was protected,” Sasha spoke, “as people here had apparently been left to their own devices for a very long time. True, I wasn’t expecting Grimsey would join us, but-”

“You don’t have to sweeten this bitter cup, Sash,” Grime raised his hand, before turning his face to Yunan once again, “When Newtopia choose me to become the new leader of the Southern Tower, I wanted to prove they made the right choice by reshaping the troops I had been given command of. Making them into soldiers I could be proud of, but my obsession ended up giving Aiden a chance to infiltrate among our ranks. When I made him my lieutenant, he used that position to manipulate me into persecuting and maltreating my own toads, so we wouldn’t be able to resist him. I learned my errors the hard way, and I don’t want to repeat them!”

“Then, how about you start by untying me?” Yunan nodded, as she pointed at her constraints. “It’s getting quite bothersome.”

Jacob and Sasha nodded, moving toward Yunan and removing the chains that were restraining her, the newt taking a second to stretch herself before continuing.

“Now, since you already know who I am, would you please tell me who is who? I already heard your names during the fight, but I want to be sure. You’re the one called…Amelia, right?”

“I am,” the girl with the cone hat and samurai outfit replied, “and the guy who fought you alongside me is Jacob, my cousin!”

“Congratulations, you were a good adversary!” The boy thumbed up, “We had the numerical advantage, yet you were able to hold on for this long!”

“I am James, James Blueingham.” The other human boy presented himself, “Jacob’s shenanigans partner and all-time star enthusiast.”

“ Pleased to meet you ?” Yunan raised an eyebrow, puzzled by the human’s words. “And the others?”

“My name is Anne, and the blonde girl to my left is Sasha.”

“You’re the ones…who glowed .” The newt’s eyes widened in realization, “How did you do that?”

“It’s a long story,” Sasha looked aside, wondering how much would be safe to tell her.

“And you?” Yunan focused on the last human, a dark-haired female wearing what looked like a perfect copy of Newtopia’s Night Guard, a belt filled with spell bags around her waist and a crossbow at her arms. She wasn’t the most garish among them, yet the more she looked at, the more she felt captured by her appearance.

Why do I get the feeling that, when future historians look back to my life, they will pinpoint this exact moment as the most important event in my whole life?

“ I’m Marcy !” The human replied, “So, you’re from Newtopia? How is the place? What kind of social structure do you have? If the king lives there, where does he live? Does he have a castle? How is your government composed? Why-”

“Mar-Mar!” Anne moved in to temperate her usual over-enthusiasm, the cute nerd blushing as she realized that.

“ Whoops ! Sorry, Anna-Banana!”

“You are the strangest bunch of beings I’ve ever met,” Yunan said in amusement, a part of her fascinated by their personalities and bizarre aspects, “Well, I guess I should see more with my own eyes. Mayor Toadstool?”

“Yes, General?!” The Toad mayor replied, trying to stand in attention only to do a poor figure of it.

“Would you gently show me the town? I am curious to see with my own eyes what you did in the last months…”

(…)

“No way!” Yunan shouted, her eyes laying over the box full of feathers and the giant, fleshless bones in front of her, “You fought herons?!”

“Two herons,” Toadie immediately corrected her, “Yes, it was quite a surprise when Miss Boonchuy activated her powers for the first time. Yet, we can’t be more grateful that she did, for if she didn’t the damage would have been more severe.”

“And no one died?”

“No one!” Toadstool proudly said, “So, as I was saying, after we dismantled the bodies, we were left with a large stock of heron meat, plus their feathers and bones. By now, much of the meat has been used up and a couple of minor bones have been ground to be used as fertilizer, but the rest is all here!”

“That’s…astonishing,” Yunan smiled nervously, searching for the humans, who were still, sitting behind in silence. She made a sign to Toadstool and his assistant to leave to let them speak in private, then, as soon as she was sure no one else was listening, she faced them once more.

“So, you did this?” She pointed at Anne in disbelief.

“Well, I wasn’t actually expecting I could do that, but I did.” The girl replied with embarrassed expression as she held Sasha’s hands, the blonde girl looking aside as she did, “It took an emotional overload, but-”

“And you say that the item that brought you into this world…may be connected to it?”

“Well, we guess so,” Marcy took over, her inner guilt pushing her not to stand on the sidelines anymore, “We still have doubts and unanswered questions. But from what we were able to figure out so far, when we arrived the gems were emptied of their power, due to some process we can’t figure out, and imbued into our bodies. So far only Anna-Banana and Sash have been able to activate theirs. The best hypothesis we have, is that to activate them, it requires quite a powerful emotional meltdown.”

“The point is,” Jacob intervened, coming to Marcy’s assistance, “we have reason to fear the Box, and the powers it grants, are the objectives of Aiden’s madness. We don’t know the full details yet, but our research strongly recommended keeping it a secret to everyone else. So, when you will return to Newtopia…could you keep this a secret, at least for a while? Please?”

Yunan thought about it, “At this point, I think it's inadvisable to spread information that this item could grant unimaginable powers, nor that the psycho responsible for the destruction of the Southern Toad Tower and the attempted destruction of Wartwood is after it. All it's going to do is create unnecessary panic. Moreover, while I’m not particularly enthusiastic about keeping this a secret to our king, I agree with you that the risk of a leak is too high.”

“Agreed.” The six humans nodded.

“However,” Yunan quickly added, “I would be guilty of being derelict in my responsibilities if I try to keep this from the proper authorities for too long.”

“That’s not an issue,” James gets back on his feet, “We were already planning to leave for Newtopia, where we hope to find answers about the Box. As soon as we arrive, we’ll gladly share everything we know.”

“Then I wish you the best of luck. The road had never been an easy one, but in the last few years it has gotten worse.” Yunan sighed, “I guess I’ll stop here for a couple of days, to get note of everything that’s happened. Your mayor already promised me a fast mount and some token to prove the Valley’s loyalty to the King. Once everything is settled, I’ll hurry back to the capital. With some luck, I’ll return before you so I can inform our sovereign of your existence and prepare your welcome.”

“Then, I guess we’ll see each other again, General.” Sasha nodded, a smile forming on her lips. “See you in Newtopia!”

Yunan stood there, waiting, as she watched the humans walk out of the warehouse, Toadstool and his assistant still peeking as they were waiting for their chance to resume the conversation. When she arrived in this town, she expected to find only bumpkin farmers and civilian unrest; instead, she found a city now flourishing and prosperous beyond any wildest imagination, with defenses and soldiers equipped, trained, and motivated to defend it. All because, two months ago apparently, a portal opened, and such creatures appeared in the surrounding forest.

Two months, and this town (and the whole Valley with it), had changed more than it had ever done in the last century.

Would have this happened to Newtopia as well if they appeared there?

Shaking her head, Yunan made a sign to Toadstool to come back, giving one more glance to the large box where all the Herons’ feathers had been collected. Surely, his Majesty would have liked such a rare gift…

(…)

“Ok, Chuck. Here’s the farm’s key,” Hop Pop said, “There’s a list of all the things you need to do to take care of the farm in our absence.”

“I grow Tulips!”

“Pepo, we are going.” Marcy petted one last time the giant pumpkin creature. “Do what Chuck tell you, take care of the fields and keep away all the pest bugs. Can you do that?”

The large pumpkin purred, moving his body as nodding.

“I’ll miss you, Grandma! When we return, I’m going to tell you all what we’ve seen!”

“I don’t doubt it, Ivy. Also, Felicia, did you remember to take a supply of medicine for your boat sickness?”

“Yes, mom!” The teashop owner grumbled, “We are going to Newtopia by fwagon, not searching for a new continent by sea. How do you expect me to get boat sickness?”

“Better be prepared in any case,” Sylvia chuckled, before turning her attention to her adoptive granddaughter, “And you Sasha, keep an eye over Ivy, ok?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect her from whatever we may end up facing. After all,” she looked at Ivy with a heartfelt expression, “that’s what big sisters do, don’t they?”

“Take care of yourself, Maddie,” Farine hugged her birth daughter one last time, “And you too, Marcy.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad.” The dark-haired nerd replied, turning head just in time to trip on the fwagon’s footstep and fall inside.

“Don’t worry for us, dad. I’ve got my spell, my cauldron…and even the recipe to raise Marcy as a living dead, should that be necessary.”

“Master, are you really going not to bring us with you?”

“I’m sorry, young apprentices,” Amelia looked at the Flour triplets with a serene, almost teaching expression, “but the path before me is not a road you can take already, for it’s full of dangers and unknown enemies. This is a walk I must undertake alone, to master it so I can teach you as well.”

“You will teach us too?!” Their eyes, so filled with sadness at first, shined once again, “You promise?”

“Of course, I do. However, don’t be impatient, for like half-baked bread taste bitter and can make you sick, so half-baked training can cripple your skills rather than enhance them.”

“Enlightening words,” Farine approved, understanding better than anyone the metaphor.

“Take care of yourself, Jacob, and remember all the tricks and lessons I gave you.”

“I will, Soggy Joe!”

“You too James. You learned so much, but now, it’s your moment to shine.”

“I won’t disappoint you, Mrs. Croaker.”

“WAIT!” A voice shouted, everyone turning to see Grime, Percy and Braddock running toward them. Immediately Sasha’s eyes widened in fear: had something else happened again?

“Grimsey, what’s going on?” The blonde human said, the three toads stopping in front of her and breathing heavily for the run, “Did-”

“It’s not an emergency, if that’s what you’re asking.” Braddock pointed out, as he stopped panting. “It’s just, the Captain has one gift for you.”

“A gift?” Sasha, Ivy, Felicia and others shouted at the same time in surprise as the toad captain took something from his back before passing it into the blonde girl’s hands, Sasha realizing it was a Heron sword identical to her pink one, but this time, silver.

“Grimsey, you…”

“I can’t accompany you in your journey,” the toad immediately began to say, almost in apologizing tone, “however I can surely provide you with the right equipment to face and deal with every danger or menace you may end up facing on the road. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but…I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Also, he wasn’t sure it would be ready by the time you would go,” Percy pointed out, earning a slap in the back from Braddock and a nonplussed glare from Grime.

“Percy!”

“That’s ok,” Sasha chuckled, actually amused by the small gaffe of the past-time jester, “You don’t have to apologize for that. Wow, it is quite a nice gift: now I can wield two swords at the same time. A two-swords fighter!”

“I’ll make sure to change the training regime taking that into account,” Felicia rolled her eyes, yet showing a happy smile on her lips.

“Wow, Grime is so cool!” Ivy jumped in excitement. “When you’re marrying him, mom?”

“Ivy!”

“Wow, I don’t know what to say but…thanks!” Sasha moved forward and hugged the rugger soldier and officer, Percy and Braddock joining as well.

“Just take care of yourself and keep you and your friends alive,” Grimsey replied, his heart moved by the unexpected hug, memories of the pasts rushing into his mind as a lone tear ran down his cheek. “And thank you, for once again showing this old gladiator what it means to be a real leader.”

“All right, kids.” Hop Pop got on the driving coach, Felicia to his right, “It's a two-week journey to Newtopia so we better get going!”

“Whoo-hoo!”

“Yeah!”

Sasha smiled, walking over the fwagon and getting inside, the humans and their companions quickly gathering onboard, Grime and the others saluting as they did.

“To infinity and beyond, Akitsu!” Amelia jumped on her back, the white dragonfly buzzing as her wings once again started to flap faster and faster before getting on air, Hop Pop flicking the reins to give Liptea and Bessie the signal to move.

“Well, let's get this fwagon on the road.” Hop Pop announced, “No turning back now!”

Little could he know that, as he pronounced those words, that his old romantic rival and his new master were looking at them from afar…

(…)

“So, my brethren are going to Newtopia,” Prince Aiden said, looking at the whole situation with ill-disguised satisfaction. “Just as planned.”

“Master, if a filthy, disgusting beast like me is allowed to ask,” Monroe said, being careful to not raise his head and to use the right words, “shouldn’t you be worried that your future Queen and Courtesans are going to Newtopia. If K- if Andrias knows…”

“Even if that lizard would find out about the Box right now, it is too late: I already did all the preparations I needed.” The prince replied, his eyes instantly moving toward the mountains at the horizon. And I have new minions to bring to me what I need.

“D-does that mean we will return to your esteemed domain soon?” The blue frog said trembling in fear, he who once considered himself to be Wartwood’s elite now reduced to beg and grovel for a creature like the ones he looked down for so long.

“Soon, but not immediately.” Aiden’s smile filled with evilness, as his gaze moved again, settling on the blue frog that was the town’s baker, “I still have…one bone to pick in this place…”

Later that day, ignoring that his former lieutenant was still lurking in the countryside, Grime returned to his new ‘office’ at the Militia’s Headquarters, to check the work he would have to do the next day. There were so many issues he would have to take care of, now that he once again was the captain: training sessions to schedule, patrols to organize, which missions had the priority, how to allocate the available resources…and that was without mentioning the report he would now have to write to explain his position to Newtopia and King Andrias: even if General Yunan was a supporting voice to him now, he knew he would have to carefully choose every word if he didn’t want to look like a fool in front of the whole court, in the best of the cases.

He had just sat down on the chair that was his now, when he noticed the paper folder laying on the desk. And attached to it, a small note.

Just something I think it might help both Wartwood be more protected and defendable against large menaces like the Herons and promote your career as well. Marcy helped me a bit with the blueprints, I left the recipe for the black powder. Love, Jacob.

Captain Grime, former gladiator and commander of the Southern Toad Tower, now Captain of the Wartwood Militia, moved the note aside and carefully unrolled the papers, his eyes widening as he saw the blueprints in front of him.

A large barrel-

-either in a fixed position, or equipped with side wheels to be able to be moved, should that be necessary-

-new ammunition loaded by the rearward, on the breech end-

-rifling increases bullet speed and accuracy-

The Toad was left with his jaw hanging open, his hands trembling, as he realized that he was holding among them what could be summed up as a breakthrough technological revolution in the whole art of warfare.

A weapon strong enough to shoot large ammunition by virtue of the black powder Jacob had told him about, and whose explosive power was so great it could destroy the stone walls of a fortress or kill monstrous creatures like the herons in one precise shot.

“Cannons…artillery…field guns…” the toad read the words he had never heard before on the blueprints, his lips now twitching into a grin.

Chapter Text

Leaving Wartwood behind, the Fwagon was now making its way through the mountain pass. It was a narrow road between two walls of solid rock, so small that the Plantars’ fwagon barely fit, making Hop Pop drive slowly and cautiously. As Akitsu rested with Amelia on the top of the second fwagon, the girl nervously glared at some small signs they were passing, with the words ‘Now leaving the Valley’ and ‘May Frog help you’ written on them.

“That’s not very encouraging,” the girl commented, the dragonfly buzzing in agreement.

“Did you see that sign?” Sprig said with a voice full of excitement, “We've officially left the Valley. This is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to anyone. Are you excited? I'm excited! You all should be more excited!”

Felicia gave a chuckle in amusement from Sprig’s reaction, familiar memories rolling back in her mind. When she was a veteran adventurer, there was always newbies in the groups she traveled with, having the same exact reaction the first time they left behind the familiar places and faces they had grown familiar to.

“I am, Spriggy! I really am!” Ivy replied, Maddie giving her a scoffing glance as she did

“I am excited too!” Marcy confessed, to no-one’s surprise, “We are leaving the Valley at last, and now we are setting forth to Newtopia! This is going to be the greatest adventure of our lives!”

“Huh, Mar-Mar?” Anne patted her friend on the shoulder, trying to calm her down, “Look, I appreciate you’re happy, but maybe…we should keep our expectations in check, don’t you agree?”

“Boonchuy’s right, Marbles,” Sasha quipped while nodding, “It’s not like just out of the Valley is going to be a- WHOA!” She said in amazement, her eyes widening as she saw the majestic view just out of the Mountain’s path, everyone gasping in turn.

As the fwagon finally came out of the pass and their occupants could finally see Amphibia beyond the Valley, it was much more marvelous and wonderful than any one of them (even Marcy) could have ever imagined. An uninterrupted expanse of open fields and farmlands stretched all the way to the horizon, fed and replenished by the crystalline water of a large river and a lake in the distance, small towns and villages popping all over with green forests of wild flora growing freely. There were giant mushrooms of various colors and dimensions, a hill made of some kind of crystal material, they could even see a large volcano that blew smoke in the horizon.

In short, a sight so beautiful that none of the fwagon’s occupants could believe it truly existed.

“Incredible.”

“Wonderful!”

“I…it’s not bad.” Maddie genuinely smiled like a common kid for a brief moment.

“I’ve never seen such a wonderful landscape before in reality.” Marcy gasped, for the first time in a long time the enthusiasm she had felt on the first day they arrived here reappearing, “I feel like all my dreams are coming true!”

“Akitsu, can you believe this is real?”

“Bri-bri!” The dragonfly nodded to her rider and companion, she and the snails were amazed by the sight as well.

“It’s-it’s so beautiful.” Sasha said, her hand moving to her phone as she snapped several photos of the view, Ivy looking with an excited look.

“It's amazing. It's majestic. It's... hurting my eyes.” Anne admitted, rubbing them with a heartfelt expression.

“Felicia,” Jacob turned to see the teashop owner and former adventurer, Hop Pop and her being the only ones who weren’t apparently fazed by the view, “Did you know it would be so beautiful out here?”

“To tell you the truth, I had forgotten.” The frog lady replied, “It’s true that I used to travel the pass a lot in my youth, but… it’s been so long since the last time I have been outside of the Valley. Though I admit it is good to be back.”

“It's even better than I could've dreamed!” Sprig said, jumping on Bessie’s shell and making a pose, “Full speed ahead, Hop Pop! Keep driving and never look back!”

“Hold on, Sprig. Look back here for a second,” His grandfather chastised him, looking at him with a stern look, “I know that you’re excited to be out of the Valley for the first time, but just because it’s beautiful it doesn’t make it any less dangerous.”

“Mr. Plantar is right, kids,” Felicia nodded, “And I think it is time for us to have a chat…”

(…)

A few minutes later, the humans and their frog families were all gathered inside the fwagon, Hop Pop and Felicia standing up while everyone else was sitting down on the large collapsible table that was for their breakfast, lunch, and dinners for the next two weeks.

“Come on, Hop Pop!” Anne protested, “We have barely left the Valley, and you’re back to worrying about us?”

“Actually, this is something we always did when I was adventuring in groups.” Felicia replied, Hop Pop standing there motionlessly without saying a word. “Look, kids, I know you’re excited for the journey ahead of us, but don’t let enthusiasm lower your guard. The world outside the Valley is full of dangers, I know that from personal experience, and I have already seen many newbie adventurers who…” she stopped, her mind bringing back the faces and names of so many comrades who died out of recklessness and not knowing their risks.

“Mom?” Ivy asked, noticing the strange expression on her mother’s face, like she was struggling to repel bad memories from her brain, “Are you ok?’”

“Yes, I am!” Felicia nodded, turning to see Hop Pop. “Anyway, I think it would be best to set some basic rules for our journey. First of all-”

Everyone groaned as Felicia spoke the r-word.

“Seriously?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Bummer!”

“Kids!” Felicia groaned, feeling a deja-vu. Yes, this one as well was a familiar scene, “I know how you’re feeling, and I don’t want to be the spoil-fun, but-”

“Oh, let them be, Felicia.” Hop Pop murmured, “Kids will be kids, after all.”

“HUH?!” Everyone else gasped at the same time, looking at him with wide eyes. Hop Pop, the most paranoid, rule-fearing, safety-obsessed frog they’ve ever known, was now chastising Felicia for saying exactly that? Even the teashop owner and former adventurer was baffled as she heard that.

“I mean, we had so many adventures already…and we always survived,” the old frog continued in a meek voice, “Plus, we are twelve, I’m sure we are more than enough to manage whatever danger we may come across.”

“That’s right!” Jacob piped up, taking advantage of Hop Pop’s acceptance to speak as well, “Plus, we are all armed and trained with our weapons. I mean, everyone but you, James.” He said, with a voice a little too smug for the British teen’s taste.

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Jacob.” the British boy replied with a grumble, “Shouldn’t YOU be more worried about your own safety? I saved your life six times this week after all. Seven if we count the time you ended up lost in the rooms under the farm!”

“I told you those passages all look the same!”

“Anyway,” Felicia hurried to say, “I think we at least should make some kind of agreement. First, whenever you’re exploring somewhere, never go alone. Always in groups of two or three. At minimum.”

“That’s…reasonable.”

“Jacob! Aren’t you the one who always said that ‘rules are made to be broken’?”

“That totally different, Sash!” The boy replied, “That was before I became an adventurer, hadn’t trained with Soggy Joe, and learned valuable lessons about Amphibia’s crazy fauna! Going adventuring alone is basically an invitation for any predators hungry enough to attack you from behind the second you’re not looking in their direction. In groups, we can watch over and help each other, and if something bad happens, one of us could go and ask for help to the others...”

“Plus, it’s better if we are together!” Marcy gleamed up, embracing the boy’s suggestion, “And I’m not going anywhere without you, Maddie!”

“I…feel the same, Marcy.”

“Sash, don’t you want to go places with me?” The young yellow frog asked with an unhappy expression, prompting the human blonde to clarify that.

“Wha- of course I want to go places with you, Ivy!” Sasha replied, looking at Felicia (who gave her a chuckling expression) before continuing, “I just didn’t want for our fun to be ruined by a long-list of rules from a giant book!”

Anne didn’t reference it, but she did notice that Hop Pop was holding something in his left arm, a large book like the ones her friend was referencing. At first, she believed Hop Pop would show it to them and start to decant several made-up rules for the journey, yet somehow the old frog seemed…reluctant to do so. And why did he keep looking aside, almost as if he feared looking at her eyes?

“These are not rules, they are more like…guidelines.” Felicia replied, “You don’t have to follow them to the letter, but you should follow their spirit to the best you can.”

“Fine, what else?”

“Amelia, since Akitsu is the only one among us who can fly, you two are on watch duty. If you see anything that might be suspicious, report immediately!”

“I…guess I can do that?” The samurai girl responded.  

“As for our magical duo,” the veteran adventurer once again turned her attention to Maddie and Marcy, “while I don’t know the exact details of spell-making, I’d strongly suggest for you to limit using the cauldron when the fwagon is not moving.”

“Huh, can’t we make it so it’s safe when we are moving on smooth roads?” Marcy raised her hand, “We will be taking all possible precautions, and we would risk losing much needed time if we could do that only while stopped.”

“Also, we don’t know where we might have the time to make new spells.” Maddie nodded, “It would be a good idea to have a good supply for emergencies.”

“Works for me, I trust your expertise. Everyone else, Mr. Plantar and I are now going back to lead the fwagon. So be good kids, don’t drink or eat anything you’ve not checked for safety, don’t go rushing away without telling us, don’t make messes and especially don’t shout!” The yellow frog said while she and Hop Pop walked outside, closing the hatch behind them.

“This stinks!” Sprig protested, as soon as he was sure Felicia couldn’t hear him anymore, “We are finally going on the greatest adventure of our life, and we still have to deal with boring rules!”

“Well, mom said they weren’t rules in and of themselves” Ivy specified, before grumbling as well, “Still not fair!”

“She is worried for our well-being, and she is a veteran adventurer.” Jacob replied, “Maybe we should trust her for being more knowledgeable about what kinds of dangers may lurk outside better than we do? So far, she’s the only one of us who ever left the Valley before,”

“And these are guidelines, much more flexible than simple rules!” James pointed out, “That means she’s getting much laxer on us than we feared.”

“I know, it’s just…” Anne said, bad memories of the past coming back at her, “My dad was the same way back home. One time we drove to the Grand Canyon and didn't stop once.”

“My dad was completely the opposite,” Marcy responded, “When we went to Disneyland, he and mom stopped every twenty miles.”

“Hey, Jacob, do you remember when d- when uncle brought us on that trip all over the Western Coast?” Amelia piped out. “When we stopped at Gravity Falls?”

“You mean the place where they had that place called Mystery Shack, and there was that creepy guy in a tuxedo and wearing a fez?” Jacob grumbled, remembering that really weird experience, “I still don’t know if he was legitimately sinister, or was just playing the part for money.” Though I would say the latter.

“Mystery Shack?” Ivy asked, “Jacob, what was that?”

“Just some bizarre tourist trap that dad insisted on making us visit while we were there. Kind of like an old-style house converted into a museum, full of old stuff and creepy things that tourists go to watch. And, somehow, true taxidermies of fake monsters too? It was really that weird.”

“Taxi-what?” Polly asked.

“Taxidermies,” Marcy explained, “Basically, the body of an animal stuffed or mounted for the purpose of displaying. Just imagine someone taking large bugs, removing their exoskeletons and stuffing their bodies on some kind of mount to make them look like they’re still alive.”

Ivy, Polly, Sprig and even Maddie shivered as they heard that explanation. Would they risk something like this, if they went to the humans’ world?

“Well,” Sprig said, trying to banish those thoughts from his mind, “I am sure we are going to see even weirder things on our Journey. And that’s not even including Newtopia, our final destination!”

“Newtopia, here we come!”

“Hey!” The voice of Felicia resounded from above, “What did I say about not shouting?”

“Oh?” Amelia said with a teasing voice, everyone noticing her lips twitching into a malicious smirk, “Well guys, do you know what would make this ride go a lot quicker and is not forbidden?”

“What?”

“A song!” Amelia announced, jumping on the table, and beginning to sing the cheerful enthusiastic rhythm of a song she heard once in a movie about a bard and a thief going on an adventure on their own, in a quest for a city made of gold.

“Hey-”

Fruitlessly, Sasha tried to stop her, as soon the notes began to catch everyone’s attention, Polly being the first to join her, quickly followed, one by one, by everyone else.

“ Look out Amphibia, here we come, Brave, intrepid and then some. Pioneers of maximum audacity whose resumes. Show that we are just the team, to live where others merely dream. Building up a head of steam… on the trail we blaze!”

(…)

The fwagon was now moving down a road covered in both sides with heavy vegetation, Sasha, Jacob, and Anne walking slowly in front of the snails and cutting a path with their weapons, Ivy and Sprig looking outside from the side windows while Amelia, Akitsu and Marcy laid on the vehicle’s roof, the latter taking notes in her journal while Amelia snapped photos of the nature around them. Suddenly, a disgusting worm-like creature with a lamprey mouth emerged from the bushes and tried to attack Maddie, clashing violently on the window’s glass as the spellcaster frog turned around and, with quick movement of her hands, opened the window and ripped one of the creature’s teeth for her potions, the ugly beast running back to its hideout as she ‘cried’.

“Changing legend into fact
We shall ride into history.

Turning myth into truth
We shall surely gaze
On the sweet unfolding
Of an antique mystery
All will be revealed
On the trail we blaze…”

The group was now once again traveling through some large farmland area, Hop Pop driving and Felicia checking their position with James’ compass while Sasha, Anne, Ivy, and Polly sunbathed behind them, all wearing dark sunglasses. Suddenly, a shadow passed over them, Sasha moving her sunglasses only to see Akitsu flying all over them, Amelia waving her hand before dropping some green, slimy moss onto them, the girls screaming as the disgusting substance splashed onto them before running to grab their weapons, Amelia and Akitsu speeding away to avoid reprisals.

“Paradise is close at hand
Shangri-la the promised land
Seventh heaven on demand
Quite unusual nowadays
Virgin vistas, undefiled
Minds and bodies running wild
In the man behold the child
On the trail we blaze.”

The fwagon was now stopping in front of a large junction, Felicia and Hop Pop trying to discuss which path they were supposed to take, to the boredom of the children. Jacob and James stood silent for a couple of seconds before jumping out, HP and Felicia not noticing them as the boys walked over a small hill among the two paths and whistled at them, Jacob pointing with his hammer to the right. There was a flash-forward then, the fwagon being shown travelling on a makeshift bridge made with a large trunk tree in front of a majestic-looking waterfall with multi-colored and a rainbow arching over it. Sprig and Polly looked in wonder, the girls seized the chance for a group selfie, Jacob made his own photo and James took a sample of the waterfall’s water, using it to make himself a tea in the fwagon’s kitchen area.

“The trail we blaze
Is a road uncharted
Through terra incognita to a golden shrine
No place for the traveler
To be faint-hearted
We are part of the sumptuous grand design.”

It was now pouring hard, the fwagon having stopped on one side of the road to provide cover for the snails and Akitsu while, inside, the frog and humans reunited around the table were going to have dinner, Anne and Felicia bringing a well-done roast of mantises with a side of mushrooms. Before they could start eating it, however, Marcy realized with horror that the pot Anne had used to cook was the same cauldron she and Maddie had used before, rushing to stop her friend before some kind of soup blobs emerged from it, the family grabbing whatever weapons they could find to defend themselves.

“Changing legend into fact
We shall ride into history
Turning myth into truth
We shall surely gaze on the sweet unfolding
Of an antique mystery
All will be revealed
On the trail we blaze!”

Amelia was flying on Akitsu, the large white dragonfly buzzing excitedly as they kept moving forward, the red light of the twilight setting on their left, giving the landscape around them a rare cremation worthy of a painting.

“On the trail we blaze…” The girl sang one last time, taking a deep breath of the fresh air.

“Mr. Plantar, can I be earnest with you?” Felicia said, nudging the old frog’s shoulder, Hop Pop blinking for a second before realizing she was looking at him.

“Huh? O-of course Mrs. Sundew! What do you want to ask me?”

“I am curious as to why the most rule-abiding frog in Wartwood suddenly decided to leave his own grandchildren with no basic supervision for all this trip!  Not saying that you should oppress them with rules, but I have the impression you’re scared to stop them!”

“Scared?” Hop Pop chuckled, Felicia noticing he was sweating nervously, “W-what do you mean?”

“Guys!” Polly called with an excited smile, looking down from the hatch on the roof. Inside the fwagon, Jacob, Sasha and Felicia were playing cards, with Jacob clearly winning; Marcy, Maddie and James were working on their translation work, while Anne was showing Sprig and Ivy one of her favorite romantic comedy movies from her phone. “You got to see this!”

Intrigued, they put their game and movie on hold and went up to the ladder, popping out their heads to see the fwagon was now standing in front of a set of dunes set up like a racetrack, a large sign just above them.

“Zoom Dunes?” Sprig exclaimed, reading it.

“No Speed limit?!” Ivy gleamed.

Immediately after, almost to emphasize the meaning of such words, three racing snails, all wearing rad colors and big exhaust pipes, zoomed past them, their riders speeding down the track, jumping hills until they reached the finish line with a skidding stop.

“Awesome!” Sprig, Polly and Ivy said at the same time.

“These guys looks cool!” Jacob approved with a grin, accentuating his words with movement of his right fist.

“All right, girls!” Polly looked at Bessie and Liptea, “Let’s show the world how fast you can go!”

“Huh?” Felicia grimaced, looking at Hop Pop, “Should we…?”

“Please Hop Pop!” Anne looked at the old frog with an excited smile, begging for his approval. “Can we?”

“Well, it could be a nice idea to try and test how fast we can go if we ever come into contact with bandits,” he said, trying to justify his answer, “Plus, as long as we don’t lose too much time-”

“You heard him? Full speed ahead!” Polly grinned, without even letting him finish his sentence, “BESSIE, THINGS ARE GETTING MESSY!”

Felicia and Hop Pop had barely the time to hold on the fwagon as the two snails, revving up together, charged forward, the kids cheering in excitement while Hop Pop yelled in fear. “Who in Frog’s name taught you that?!”

“Hey!” Amelia protested, she and Akitsu rushing behind them, “No fair departing abruptly!”

(…)

“Aaaah!” Amelia rushed out of the small bathroom, her face and hair covered with red stingy ants, looking around in total panic for a way to cleanse herself, Felicia turning around to see Jacob attempting not to laugh.

“Ja-cob!” The tea-expert frog called him out, stamping her foot, “What did I tell you about pranking your cousin after dinner?”

“It’s the payback for spraying my shorts with itchy berries!”

(…)

“Wow! What is that thing?!” Ivy gasped, looking at the large animal standing a certain distance from the road, the Fwagon stopped as Felicia and Hop Pop were trying to fix a broken wheel.

“It looks like a tick,” Marcy murmured, checking the notes in her Journal, “but I’ve never seen one this big before!”

“That, is an Elephant Tick.” Felicia quickly explained, having met plenty in her adventurer days, “Big, powerful, and strong enough to have no natural predators. Usually, they live in herd but young males often wander their own path, looking for others herds to take over or travel with. Don’t get too close as young Elephant Ticks males are known to be-”

The wise frog’s words however were cut as the teens stampeded toward the beats and started to pet it at once, ignoring the fact that a large wild animal is NOT a puppy.

Especially a young male and very aggressive wild animal

“-extremely aggressive.” Felicia groaned as the Elephant kept getting angrier and angrier.

(…)

“What did I tell you about rushing off on wild explorations without even checking what kind of creatures or dangers you may end up facing?!” Felicia yelled as Sasha, Ivy, Sprig and Anne stood in front of her, all of them looking worn down and dirty covered in bugs’ guts, the two humans looking like they needed a shower, “Especially you two!” She exclaimed while pointing a finger to Sasha and Ivy “As my daughters I expect some more professionalism and wisdom when you’re going adventuring! Why can’t you be more like Marcy and Maddie?! I told them to stay inside and not do something crazy and look where they are!” She pointed to where the two should have been, but neither Marbles nor her friend/teacher were anywhere to be seen, “Where are they?!” Felicia groaned, feeling another headache incoming.

“Ahhhh!” The missing spellcasters rushed just outside of the window, as some kind of giant grasshopper ran behind them.

“Mr. Plantar,” Felicia asked with a calm voice, hiding the fury of the rightful storm behind it, as she remembered each time the kids had ended up in trouble ever since they started their journey, her overworn nerves now on the brink of breaking down, “is there a reason why you’ve been uncharacteristically permissive for all this trip? Why are you so reluctant to reign your grandchildren?”

“I’m…I’m not reluctant to lead them! Only, I did it so much already and-”

“Look, Mr. Plant-Hop Pop,” The yellow frog continued, tired of dancing around the issue, “I know you, and I’ve known you for several years already. And I know that you would never allow your kids to be this unruly…unless you have a very good reason for not wanting to rule them. So, I will ask you this only once: is this perhaps related to the Box?”

Hop Pop could barely hold back a wince after hearing that comment. For her part, Felicia’s lips twitched in satisfaction: gotcha.

“I…I broke their trust that day.” the old frog admitted, unable to keep hiding the utter shame he had been feeling for a long time, “I kept telling myself it was to protect them and my family, that I had to take it and dump it underground so no one would ever find it ever again. If Sasha hadn’t caught me that night, I might even have accomplished that, but…” he looked down again, tears falling down his cheeks, “You know, I thought I was ready when I attempted to do that, that even if they had found out what I did I could bear their scorn if it would protect them. But when they did… I have never felt more ashamed and disgusted in myself. It would have been only fair, if they decided to leave and never trust me ever again!”

Felicia rolled her eyes, “Look, Hop Pop, what you did… I won’t hide it, it was a complete breach of trust, but I don’t fault you for trying to protect your family. Ever since…Sally,” she looked aside, a shadow of sadness passing over her face as well, “I’ve known you’ve done everything in your power to try and protect your grandchildren, sometimes going ‘a bit’ overboard, but you let your own fear and paranoia dominate your actions. And paranoia is one of the greatest enemies of reason.”

“I realize that now,” Hop Pop sighed, “In my desperation to try and protect my family, I ended almost causing the very pain I was so determined to keep happening again. It is my fault that Sasha had left!”

“Sasha didn’t leave,” Felicia immediately corrected him, “she just decided to move in with me and my daughter and become part of our family. It’s not that different from when your daughter gets married and goes on living with her new husband. Plus, she has her own room and personal space now: you had all six of them in your basement.”

“Well, I admit it was a bit cramped,” Hop Pop replied, somehow regaining a little of his optimism. “To tell the truth, I had a whole book of rules for the trip I would have enforced, if-”

“You mean this one?” Felicia retorted, taking off a large book with the title ‘Hop Pop's Rules of the Road’ printed on its cover, “I saw you holding it when we went talking with the kids, just after we’ve left the Valley, though I was a little surprised you didn’t bring it up at all.”

“You…read it?” Hop Pop gasped, Felicia answering with a nod, “What do you think about it?”

“That you clearly were in one of your worst paranoiac phases when you wrote it,” Felicia chuckled, opening it, and scrolling through the text, “About ninety percent of the rules I can see here have good basics and concepts, but keep repeating them over and over, making them redundant. You could have spared a lot of time and paper if you simply generalized them.”

“For example?” The farmer frog asked, raising an eyebrow in interest.

“Most of the rules I can see are about summoning dangers,” Felicia pointed out, showing him the page describing Rule N.29, “But the real issue is not attracting danger, but to not keep watch over them. When I used to go adventuring, we always had a member of the group keeping watch, everyone having a turn as sentinel in rotation, so if we were threatened by something or someone, we would be informed in time and be prepared. But we already have the best of watchers,” she pointed at Akitsu flying all over them, Amelia patrolling over them with an observant expression. “Frog, sometimes I wish we had a flying mount back on my days: it would have made traveling much easier.”

“The kid sure has potential, right?” Hop Pop chuckled, feeling proud of Amelia’s accomplishment, “The first person in all of Amphibia to be able to tame a flying creature, and it’s a legendary bug to boot! Wait, what about the rest of my rules?”

“Complete paranoia without any connection to reality,” Felicia said in brutal honesty. “Seriously, ‘Never drive faster than a June bug can fly.’ The June bug, Amphibia’s slowest flying bug ever?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Hop Pop, a carriage needs to be fast to try to run from ambushes or natural disasters. And you need to do some check-ups to be sure it can travel fast if you need it. We have two snails, that’s enough power to drive faster than many carriages normally can, as you remember.”

“Then…it ended up being useful that I didn’t stop the kids then, huh?” Hop Pop scratched the side of his head with a nervous laugh, “Not going to ask for another ride soon, though.”

“Yup, me neither!” Felicia nodded solemnly, “Plus, even in the event we do end up being attacked, we are all trained fighters, you remember? They created a whole militia to protect Wartwood, they fought toads and large bugs together, they’ve grown a lot since they first arrived. And we are not that defenseless either.”

“Well, of course not. You’re a veteran adventurer, but-”

“I wasn’t referring to myself, Hop Pop,” Felicia interrupted him, the old frog realizing she was looking at him, “I told you I was there the day the Herons attacked out town. And while I may have not helped as I wished, I did see you face these beasts head on, and the scars you’ve left them.”

“It still wasn’t enough,” Hop Pop grumbled, a hint of anger in his voice, “I couldn’t save my daughter, nor could I prevent any towns from suffering what happened to us.”

“It is still much more than anyone else had ever done. Though, I guess Anne must have made you proud when she saved Sprig and Polly. That’s two herons that’s not going to hurt anyone else!”

“But they weren’t those herons! When I went to check them once again, they…they didn’t have the scars. That means that the herons that took my daughter’s life are still out here and are still a threat to all Amphibians!” Hop Pop yelled, before calming down, “Look, I…I didn’t want to put my kids in danger, if we ever meet those herons again, I’m planning to finish what I’ve started. Hope you’re not going to stop me.”

“I have no intention to stop you. Rather, I would help you put them down. For Sally.”

“For Sally…” Hop Pop nodded, a bittersweet mix of sadness, anger and determination flowing through his body.

(…)

“You know, sometimes I can’t understand Hop Pop,” Anne said, playing on her phone, “One second he acts all protective and worried everything you meet may end up killing you, the second after is all mellow and letting you do whatever you want.”

“I guess he is still struggling with dealing with his old paranoia, Boonchuy,” James replied, raising his eyes from the book he was reading, “I mean, he isn’t wrong when he says the world outside the Valley is quite dangerous, yet he hasn’t tried to enforce some strange rules once during the trip so far.”

“No strange rules?” Sprig protested, he and Ivy busy making a small diary of the adventures they were having together, “What about when he told us not to stop at that diner? It said it was ‘Amphibia's Best Diner’! And they have crickets and cream ice cream!”

“Huh, Sprig?” Jacob replied, doing some push-ups on the hard wooden floor, “Though I am still weirded out by that, I think Hop Pop was right on that account. Usually, when someplace claims to be ‘the best’, it means they are trying to milk whatever fame they may have to make money at the expense of newbie travelers.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s like he said, Sprig,” Anne quickly nodded, “My parents told me once that some restaurants try to compete not by securing a better service or doing good food, but simply doing some advertising to convince people they’re the best diner ever, when in truth you’re eating the same dishes you could eat on any other place, but at a higher price! In most of the cases, they try to cover for that by saying some famous dude ate there, hoping to cash back on their fame, but as much frequently… yeah, we could have stopped, but I doubt it would have seriously been ‘the best diner in all Amphibia’.” Though I felt tempted by it myself.

“Look on the bright side, Sprig,” Ivy tried to cheer him up, “We are having all these once-in-a-lifetime experiences, we are living adventures every day and we are having fun! I even got many new bugs for my collection!” She pointed to some jars she had secured in a safe box on the side.

“Huh…yeah,” Sprig blushed a little reminding himself of all the ‘hunts’ she helped her with. And how for every new bug added to her collection, Ivy had thanked him with a kiss on the cheek.

“The world outside of the Valley is so amazing!” Marcy cooed, checking the notes and sketches she had kept adding in her Journal with every new adventure they had, “Maddie, did you think we would have seen so many things in so little time?”

“I guess I didn’t?” The blue-skin frog replied as she wrote down the latest results of their spell-making of today, doing the best she could to ignore how lovey-dovey Ivy was getting toward Sprig, “I mean, Dad used to tell me some stories, but-”

“Red alert, kids!” Hop Pop’s voice woke up Sasha, the blonde human shaking her head in confusion, “We're coming up on the ‘Ruins of Despair’!”

“The what now?” Sasha replied looking outside, quickly imitated by everyone else.

What they saw filled their eyes and minds in amazement.

Stretching for miles on a green and lush plain, filled with giant flowers, large stone-made structures in shape of frogs, two big screws in bronze acting as their ‘eyes’ while a set of metal gates, in bronze as well, was their ‘mouth’. Each ruin seemed to just pop out of the ground and gave off the appearance to have been left untouched for a very long time, at least according to the moss and grass that was literally growing over them.

“Whoa!” Sprig gasped, “Oh, oh, oh. Ivy, do you see them?”

“I see them, Sprig!” The yellow frog replied, “That’s soooo cool!”

“These I ought to put on my Journal!” Marcy smiled, her eyes brightening as she started to draw more sketches of the strange ruins in front of them, “They remind me of Hobbiton and the Shire!”

“I…suppose that’s an apt description, Mar-Mar.” James replied, the British boy feeling an irk as he watched over those strange buildings, feeling like something important he had forgotten was now nagging in the back of his mind. But what?

“That’s more like it!” Jacob took off his phone and began taking pictures of the Ruins, “Unknown, mysterious ruins in the middle of nowhere with creepy appearance and vibes? This is so Thunderia!”

“My dad used to tell me about this place,” Maddie murmured as her gaze focused on the strange structures all around the road, “He said they are ancient, even more ancient than our oldest families’ histories.”

“So, what were they?” Sasha asked, somewhat impressed by how cool these things looked, and how much cooler they should have been in the past, “Were they frogs’ homes? Did frogs used to live in there?”

“No one knows, Sash!” Hop Pop commented from above, Akitsu lowering in altitude from aside while Amelia couldn’t help but snap photos of the place as well, “They've been here long before any written history. They are so ancient than no one even remembers what they were, or why they were built here in the first place.”

 “Then, how about we solve the mystery ourselves?” Jacob suggested, “Girls, are you in for another dungeon crawling expedition?!”

“I’m in!”

“Frog yes!”

“Huzzah!”

“Sorry but no.” Felicia said, shaking her head, “We’ve lost too much time already, and if we keep stopping everywhere you find something interesting, we’ll need years to reach Newtopia. Plus, I know of this place from my adventuring days: many teams or lone scavengers tried to explore the ruins, and all disappeared!”

“Oh, come on!” Sasha protested, turning her gaze toward Hop Pop, “We can do one last stop, can we? Not too long, just to see the place around!”

“Well-” the old frog replied, looking at Felicia nervously, conflicting emotions gathering on his head. On one hand, he wanted to allow them: they already did many things he personally disapproved of, ever since they had left the Valley, and contrary to what he feared, nothing bad had happened to them, or at least not yet. On the other… Felicia did have a point: they’d lost so much time already, and every extra day on the roads heavily weighed on his heart. Moreover, he didn’t have to be a complete pushover: sure, he wasn’t as strict as he would have been, but he could still say no when the situation looked too dangerous, could he?

Before he could reply, Felicia grabbed his hand, and with eyes filled with disapproval, she shook her head, Hop Pop nodding as his usual deep-grown protectiveness returned.

“We can’t do that,” the old frog finally announced, his voice once again stern and rule-abiding, thought he tried to mellow it down, “as Felicia clearly stated, we are already behind on our journey’s schedule, and while I wouldn’t be too opposed for you to have fun, we can’t afford to make yet another stop just to explore some scary place with unknown dangers.”

“Ugh!” Sasha grimaced, “I thought you were cool now, dude!”

“We’re not against you exploring this place, we’re just saying we can’t do that today!” Felicia admonished her, “Look, should we pass here again in the future, you’ll have a chance to do it.”

Miffed, the kids closed the top door and went back inside, some visibly more irritated by Hop Pop’s betrayal than others.

“Just when I was starting to accept that old people could be cool too!” Sasha lamented, fuming in irritation, “I guess it didn’t take much for them to show their true colors.”

“This place is the coolest thing I've ever seen.” Sprig lamented, for once agreeing with the blonde human’s affirmation, “If we don't get out and at least explore it a little, I'll regret it for the rest of my life!”

“Same here!” Ivy commented.

“Look, I don’t care if Hop Pop and Felicia will get angry at us,” Anne nodded, “We need to check this place out!”

“I guess I’m coming as well,” James sighed in acceptance. Someone had to watch over them after all; plus, those ruins intrigued him as well.

“I’m with you, but… how can we leave the fwagon without any of them noticing?” Jacob raised an eyebrow, “We are going a bit too fast to jump out like in one of those detective movies.”

“Maybe we have an idea…” Maddie smirked mischievously, Marcy nodding as she walked to the trapdoor and gently knocked on it, before peeking,

“What is it now, Marcy?”

“Hey, Hop Pop, Felicia,” the dark-haired nerd said with a worried voice, “if we can’t explore the ruins, can we at least decelerate the fwagon’s speed for a moment? Maddie and I would like to work on some spells of ours, and it would be safer if we slow down, just a little bit.”

“You can’t wait for us to reach our rest stop to do magic, can’t you?” Felicia rolled her eyes, “Fine. Traveling slowly is still better than stopping completely.”

“And we’ll reduce the risk of damaging the fwagon!” Hop Pop approved, holding the reins and making Bessie and Liptea lose their speed to a slower pace.

That was what the kids were waiting for.

As soon as they slowed down, Jacob moved to the very end of the two-carriages fwagon and quietly opened the back door, holding one sash in his hands while Sasha held the other, the humans and their friends quickly exited the fwagon and rushed over the fence and toward the strange mysterious ruins.

“This was your plan?” Sprig said in a confused tone, before smiling, “Maddie, you are a devious one!”

“Marbles, I am quite surprised.” Sasha commented, feeling impressed by her friend’s thinking and actions, “To think you would do something like that…”

“There, you see what you have done, Sash?” Anne pouted, fake-reprimanding her, “You’ve corrupted my Mar-Mar!”

“Hey, I helped!” Jacob replied in protest, only for James to look behind to the still moving fwagon, neither Felicia nor Hop Pop apparently having noticed the kids were no longer there.

“Huh, guys? Shouldn’t we worry that they…won’t notice that we’re gone? What if they leave, and we can’t find them anymore?”

“Yeah, I guess it is best to do this quickly, don’t you agree?” Anne took out her phone as the group reached one of their structures, stopping right in front of its mouth/ metal gate, “We do some small exploring, we take a couple of photos, and we get back on the fwagon before they notice we are missing. First thing, SELFIE!”

Everyone posed for the picture, but just as Jacob leaned against the door, it slid suddenly open, making the boy falling inside together with Sprig (who was sitting on his shoulder) and Marcy (who tried to stop them from falling, only to be pulled down by his weight), the trio sliding through some kind of smooth, wet passageway, pipes and overgrown mushrooms coming out of the walls, the rest of their friends rushing behind them.

Finally, the three of them came to a stop as the slide finished, Jacob grumbling as he struggled to got back on his feet.

“Marcy, Sprig, are you ok guys?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” the young frog groaned, laying still, as the boy went to assist Marcy.

“I’m…good. I guess falling so many times already- WHOA!” The girl gasped, her eyes widening in wonder as she and Jacob came to realize what kind of places they’ve fallen into.

“Marcy, Jacob, Sprig!” Sasha’s voice announced the arrival of the rest of them, “Are you ok? Did you br-wow!” The blonde human shut up as wonder took over her mind, and so did everyone else.

The chamber they were in now was massive, filled with what could only be described as advanced technology. Extremely advanced technology, years ahead of a medieval-like world of Amphibia. In the middle of the room, a giant frog-shaped computer; to the right, what looked like giant servers and a conveyor belt leading to somewhere else; to the left, another large electronic component somewhat resembling a power-production device. Everything inside the room looked abandoned and forgotten, covered by moss and small plants, the roots of a large tree creeping down from a crack on the ceiling, bugs and small critters having taken residence among the dormant machinery.

And yet, the light glowing from several electronics foretold that the whole structure was in stand-by, currently inactive but ready to be used again with the right inputs.

“By the frog!” Maddie said in shock, her mind unable to understand what she was seeing with her own eyes, “What are these things?”

“It can’t be…” Anne murmured, “Are those computers? I thought you guys were like pastoral or whatever.”

The shock was palpable, among all humans. While they did know what computers and other electronic devices were, finding advanced technology in Amphibia was something none of them expected to do.

“No way!” Sasha took a step forward and touched one of the ‘servers’, almost to be sure she was seeing right, “You have working tech here in Amphibia?”

“Huh, Sash, do you know what these things are?” Ivy asked, unsure of her adoptive sister’s reaction.

“Damn right we know, Ivy,” Jacob spoke in wonder, taking off his phone and snapping new photos of the abandoned tech around them, “These are computers and servers, technology! Things you were not supposed to have, at least not before an Industrial Revolution!”

“This is so awesome!” Marcy squealed in happiness, starting to move around in a hyperactive and over-enthusiast frenzy. Her hands moving quickly as she kept adding notes and sketches in her Journal, even taking out her phone to snap photos of the most interesting elements in the room. Of course, Maddie was rushing along, to assist her and to avoid tripping once again, “A hyper-advanced ancient lost civilizations, eons before? Maybe an ancient species who went extinct millions of years ago? Or maybe were they Amphibian as well? Did some kind of apocalypse happen? Amphibians had to rebuild their whole civilization from the ground up? Or-”

“I'm... going… to touch everything!” Sprig jumped up in excitement, before jumping around and starting to touch everything he could get his hands on, James looked at him in amusement as he reminded him of a small child checking his gifts on Christmas morning.

“We did a good thing,” the British boy said, his friends and companion starting to explore the mysterious technology as well…

(…)

“-you know? I am positively impressed that the kids are behaving in there,” Hop Pop said, noticing the strange absence of moaning and complaining coming from inside the fwagon, “I was expecting much more resistance from them.”

“I guess they’re still a bit touchy because we have refused to stop,” Felicia chuckled, “Now they are sulking a bit, but I’m sure they’ll have forgotten the whole issue by tomorrow.”

“It’s just…I’m still feeling guilty for that. Are you sure we couldn’t have stopped?”

“Mr. Plantar, you know how late we are on our schedule. One more stop, and we’d probably be forced to travel all night to make due to Newtopia. And…” she pointed to a large sign depicting another restaurant, a bit far from the road, with a simpler presentation, “I do remember that place. I guarantee we will be able to get a good meal for a very low price!”

“Great! Polly, go tell the others we can stop for a good meal! I guess they do deserve a reward for behaving so far!”

“Trust me, Mr. Plantar, we just needed to assert our authority, so now we don’t have to play harsh anymore. A velvet glove on an iron fist, that’s the approach to use.”

“Huh, guys?” Polly replied, looking down from the trapdoor and realizing why the fwagon had been silent so far, “I’m the only one here. The fwagon is empty.”

“Say what?!” Hop Pop and Felicia gasped at the same time, before rushing to check with their own eyes, Liptea and Bessie stopping as the drama unfolded behind them.

“Dang kids never listen …” Hop Pop grumbled, as he jumped down the fwagon and detached Bessie from the reins, “Polly, Mrs. Sundew and I are going to look out for them. Don't do anything till we get back!”

“I hope Ivy and Sasha are okay…because they surely won’t be anymore when I’m going to catch them!”

Felicia and Hop Pop jumped on Bessie’s back and rushed to retrace the path, as a familiar white dragonfly and their raiders landed back on the fwagon.

“They noticed it,” Amelia said with a smug tone, “I was starting to worry.”

“I guess you knew?”

“From the very moment I saw them leave from the backdoor, Petunia,” the human girl chuckled, the tadpole countering with an irked look as Amelia used her second name, “I’d give their plan a fifty-fifty chance, but they did fell for it.”

“So, while they go search for them, what do we do?”

Amelia smirked, an evil idea forming in her mind…

(…)

“Let’s take this too!” Jacob said, dropping yet another mysterious and shiny piece of hardware into his backpack, “Frog, I can’t wait to see what this stuff is for!”

“Huh, Jacob,” the only other human male in the ruins raised one of his eyebrows, “are you sure about what you’re doing? Maybe it’s just me but, so far, it looks like you’re scavenging everything you can from this place.”

“Trust me, I have a plan!” the boy in a horned hat replied with a laugh, too enthusiastic about his findings, “I’m taking everything that looks in decent condition, so later I can try to see if I can make them work again, or alternatively, resell them!”

You seriously think anyone in a Middle-Age world would be interested in technological gizmos, James rolled his eyes, moreover, ancient gizmos that may as well not work anymore due to weariness?

Still, the fact they were in an actual hyper-advanced hub of lost technology thrilled him as well, “It’s a good idea, but maybe, it would be better to look out for something that can help us understand how this tech works?”

“Good idea! Look if there is a manual, or something?”

James got up from where he was sitting, searching around while Sprig, Ivy, and everyone else kept exploring. Marcy was now looking at the inside of one of those machines while she tried to explain to Maddie the key difference between technology and magic. Where could they find a manual? Or even some instructions, maybe-

The boy stopped, his left boot hitting something on the ground, the silver-haired human kneeling down to see it was a bunch of metallic plaques with sentences written in Ancient Amphibian on them. The same language that Hop Pop’s family book was written in, and that Marcy had so painstakingly decoded in the months they were trapped inside the Valley.

“Maybe I’ve found something!” James exclaimed, making a sign for Jacob to come and see, “This looks like Ancient Amphibian. Still, we don’t know what may be written on them, could be some breakthrough discovery or just a grocery list, but…”

“It doesn’t matter, get in!” Jacob replied, taking the plaques and placing them too in his backpack. “Let’s take everything we can carry with us, I’m sure we can translate these later.”

“Sash, Anna-Banana, can you believe this?!” Marcy squealed for the -nth time since they entered the place, her pitch even growing an octave higher, “This must be the greatest discovery ever made in all of Amphibia’s history!!”

“That’s the point, Mar-Mar!” The blonde human replied, with a worried tone, “None of this makes sense! For the past few months, we saw that Amphibia is a classic fantasy world like one of your games, but now it turns out they used to have advanced technology? How did they lose all of this? Why did no one remember it?!”

“You think that this may connected to…you-know-who?” Anne piped in, referencing Aiden with the same nickname that Marcy knew it referenced another dangerous person from her favorite book series.

Yet, before Marcy or anyone else could elaborate on that point, they heard the sound of someone else sliding down the same passageway they came from, turning head just in time to see Hop Pop and Felicia drop in, the old frog landing on his back while Felicia managed to stay on her feet.

“Ivy Hibiscus Matcha Sundew and Sasha Waybright Plantar Sundew!” Felicia roared in anger, “You're in big trouble, young ladies!”

“Do you realize how many rules you just broke?” Hop Pop added, visibly upset as well, “I was trying to play nice, but this is too much!”

“Ugh, forget about those rules!” Sprig challenged him, spreading his arm out, “Look at this place instead!”

“Check what we’ve found, mom!” Ivy came in his support, “These ruins have everything! Cool atmosphere, unknown devices, implied historical significance-”

Sprig looked just above him, noticing something neither he nor anyone else had noticed before. A large, visible lever.

“Levers,” he smiled, mimicking the movement to pull it.

“Don't you dare!” Hop Pop yelled, trying to dissuade him, “Rule number 68: ‘Never, ever pull a lever’!”

The wrong choice of words and the worst possible moment, as Anne and the others realized as Sprig took Hop Pop’s words as a challenge, jumping on the lever and using his own weight to activate it.

“No!” The humans and their friends gasped at once, bracing themselves for the consequences. They had known Sprig and his lever-pulling stunt long enough to know that every time Sprig pulled a lever, something bad was bound to happen.

This time, however, nothing.

“Well, look at that,” Sprig rubbed on his smugness, “I just broke rule 68, and we're all still- Whoa!” He yelled, as suddenly the lever retracted into the machine, dropping him on the ground.

Immediately after, the lines on the floor started glowing in a bright, blue color, the various machinery and tech powering up.

“What the…”

“No way!” Sasha gasped, cutting James’ sentence in the middle, “It’s still working?!”

“Huh?” Maddie took a step back to Marcy, as the wall she was lining to suddenly revealed itself to be a roller shutter as it opened, revealing another, longer conveyor belt that ran all around the perimeter of the room, a thick glass dividing the two spaces while still allowing them to see. “This was…unexpected.”

And then, the machine behind Sprig opened, revealing a keyboard and computer screen lightening up, data and numbers appearing on the blue screen.

“START-UP ENGAGED.”

“Start-up?” Felicia said in a defensive mode, unsure of what that meant.

“Frog! Anne, you were right!” Jacob gasped, as he started to record what was happening on his phone, “It is a computer!”

“The building can talk?” Sprig gleamed up, only to retreat cautiously from the machine, “Not sure how I feel about that.”

“Sprig, what have you done?” Ivy gasped, unable to comprehend what was going on.

“ASSEMBLY LINE ACTIVATED. ROUTINE PROTOCOLS ENGAGED.”

“Assembly line?” Anne repeated in a puzzled tone.

“Routine protocols?” Sasha echoed her.

The girls turned around as they heard a mechanical sound, and noticed the conveyor belt behind the glass as it started rolling, carrying large components in front of machines stationed on both sides, at every machine the belt stopping to give them the time to work on the components.

“Guys, I think this is a factory!” Anne announced, as she realized the belt and the machines were a fully automated assembly line, “But what the heck is it making?”

“I have no idea, Anne!” James replied, his eyes widened as he too started to record the strange process.

“Huh, Sash?” Ivy asked, pulling her adoptive sister’s arm, “What is a factory?”

“A place where newly minted goods are produced, either by machine or manual assembly.” The blonde human replied, yet unable to look away from the assembling in front of her. “We have many of these in our world, but…I never guessed we would find one in there!”

“This…this is beyond any magic I have ever known!” Maddie gasped, pushing her face on the glass, “Yet, I feel no magical vibes coming from it!”

“Wow. It’s mighty impressive.” Hop Pop admitted, a spectacle like he had never seen unfolding before his eyes.

“I have never seen anymething like this, in all my travels,” Felicia nodded, all the anger she had felt before momentarily forgotten.

“ADDITIONAL MATERIALS REQUIRED.” The factory’s AI spoke again, “PLEASE PLACE THEM ON THE GLOWING ACCESS POINT.”

“Glowing what now?” Hop Pop asked, before realizing the spot where he and Felicia were standing started to glow even brighter, and a split second later, restraints laced onto their feet, “Help! It's got me!”

“Hey!” Felicia desperately tried to get free, only for the floor to sink and close above them.

“Hop Pop!”

“Felicia!”

“MOM!”

“And it tickles!” Hop Pop’s voice came from within the walls, alongside Felicia’s.

“No please, not there!”

The next second, both frogs reappeared behind the glass wall and on the conveyor belt of the assembly line, their feet still laced with restraints.

“See this right here, kids?” Hop Pop glared at them, apparently forgetting to check ahead, “This is why you shouldn’t have disobeyed us.”

“Come on, I faced worse restraints in my youth!” Felicia grumbled as she tried to get free, only for her adventurer’s gadget to break on her hands, “Frog! These restraints are harder than they seems!”

“Hop Pop?” James warned him with a pale face, pointing to something forward on the assembly line. The old frog turned his head, only then noticing the conveyor was bringing him and Felicia toward a vertical line of red lasers.

“Agh!” Hop Pop (who by now, thanks to the kids’ movies, knew very well what lasers could do) braced himself, only to realize he was still unharmed after passing them. “That wasn't so bad,” he said, before his clothes fell apart and left him in underwear, screaming as he struggled to cover himself, “I'm not beach-ready!”

“No!” Felicia shrieked as well, as the laser did the same to her, leaving her in very light undergarments and with visible embarrassment on her face, “Hey, that was a high-class dress!”

“Mom!” Ivy yelled, desperately trying to break the glass.

“Guys, we need to get them out of this thing!” Sasha spoke, once again her leadership tendency resurfacing, “Boonchuy, Jacob, you’re with me: we’re going to rescue them!”

“What about me?” Marcy asked, unsure of her role.

“Marcy, you try to shut this madhouse down. You’re good with computers, and you’re the only one among us who can translate Amphibian runes without notes. Do you think you can reprogram this thing, or at least turn it off?”

“I…I think it can be done!” The dark-haired girl replied, albeit still unsure about her chances of hacking an ancient computer system with an almost-dead language.

“Everyone else, go with Marcy and help her, or try to keep her safe. I don’t know what kind of defenses this thing has, but I doubt it would appreciate someone trying to hack it.”   

“Don’t worry, Sash!” James grabbed Marcy by the shoulder, adding emphasis to his own words, “I’ll keep Mar-Mar safe!”

“Me too!” Maddie nodded, “I have my spells, and I’m not scared to use them!”

“Good, let’s move then!” Jacob roared, moving toward the glass and hitting it with his war hammer, smashing a hole into it large enough for him and the two girls to rush inside. Landing on the same conveyor belt. “We’re coming, Hop Pop!”

“Take your time, kids.” The old frog replied, enjoying the fact he was being hosed with water, “This ain't half bad.”

“Speak for yourself!” Felicia retorted as it was now her turn to be sprayed with the water guns, “I already took my shower this morning!”

Meanwhile Marcy, James, Maddie, Sprig, and Ivy rushed to the computer that controlled the whole structure, the human girl smirking as she realized that the keyboard was completely done with Amphibian runes. So long as she knew what command to implement, she should have been able to write it.

“Ok Marcy, it’s all on you now.” The British boy said, his face now a mixture of confusion and panic, “What does this thing say?”

“Let’s see…” Marcy looked at the console screen in front of her, “System functionality on norm… no, this doesn’t help us… assembly line efficiency at twelve percent...wow, this much? And after so many years of abandonment too!”

“Marcy, focus!” Maddie, nervously looking between the console and their friends trying to rescue Hop Pop and Felicia, “Is there anything there to stop this thing?”

“IF YOU WISH TO CANCEL THE OPERATION, PLEASE INSERT NEW DISK.” The machine announced, opening a slot for them to place it.

“What in frog’s name is a disk?” Sprig yelled, not being able to withstand this stressful situation and being unable to help at the same time.

“That’s…a kind of item we used to have in our world,” James said, his eyes widening as he tried to look around, “kids, try to look out for something round with a hole in the middle, like a donut. But all flat!”

“A flat donut, a flat donut…” Sprig and Ivy started to look around with no result, finding nothing that matched the descriptions.

“Let’s try a different way!” Marcy announced, trying to type one code she learned at Saint James. Yet, as soon as she pressed the first key-

“SECURITY VIOLATION DETECTED.” The AI’s voice announced as the screen turned red. Before the computer itself opened two mechanical eyes and raised two giant robotic arms into the air, as it tried to stop them. James grabbed one of the hands and, using all the strength he had in his body, stopped it from moving while Maddie grabbed two of her spells and threw it at the other, the metallic hand melting in result.

“Ha ha!” Sprig laughed, before noticing yet another attack coming from above, that being a giant buzzsaw whirring at high speed from the spot where the lever that activated it once stood, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Sprig!” Ivy jumped and pushed him out of the way to avoid being hit by the buzzsaw, while around them Maddie and James struggled to protect Marcy from all the incoming attacks.

“Marcy, we can’t resist for long!” James yelled, still struggling to keep the surviving robotic hand immobilized.

“Sorry, sorry!” The black-haired nerd replied, pressing new keys as she tried to order the weapon defense system to deactivate. However-

“WARNING: MENACE THREAT LEVEL UPGRADED TO LEVEL 3. ACTIVATING PRECAUTIONARY COUNTERMEASURES.”

“That doesn’t sound promising,” Ivy said, as some glowing orbs were released from the roof just above the machine, shooting deadly lasers at her, Maddie, and Sprig. The three frogs now forced to keep moving to avoid being hit.

“Seriously, kids: take your time.” Hop Pop said, so far enjoying the ride, “There is nothing-”

However, his behavior did a one-eighty turn when the panel behind him rose and restrained his and Felicia’s arms as well. The conveyor belt now taking the two adult frogs toward a large hydraulic crusher.

“I take it back! I was a fool!”

“Stop this thing!”

“Hold on, we are coming!” Sasha yelled as the three of them rushed forward, Jacob and Anne hitting the lasers and destroying the devices, forcing through the water blast and reaching the crusher just a few seconds before the trapped frogs did, the human bracing together as they combined their physical strength to stop the crusher from killing their frog parents.

“Resist, girls!” Jacob said, grinding his teeth, “Frog, this thing is heavy!”

“I know!” Sasha replied as she struggled as well, “But if we let it go, even for a second, it will smash us flat!”

“Mar-Mar!” Anne yelled, hoping to be heard by the others, “How’s it going over there?!”

“Not good!” Marcy replied, now struggling to type on the keyboard while avoiding being hit by the lasers or the buzzsaw, “None of the codes I’ve tried so far works, and we don’t have the time to reprogram it!”

“Wait…Hop Pop’s book!” Sprig noticed the item laying on the ground, quickly grabbing it and beginning to flip through the pages, “Maybe there is something in here that can help us, This kind of thing worked before!”

“That’s a rule book, Sprig!” Sasha yelled, feeling the pressure coming from the crusher becoming more and more powerful, “It’s different!”

“INSERT DISK. INSERT DISK. INSERT DISK.”

“Marcy, what the frog is a disk?!” Ivy yelled.

“We told you, they’re small objects of round shape and with a hole!” The girl replied, “Just something we humans used once to store information!”

“Store information?” Sprig’s eyes widened, as he kept looking between the red screen and the book in his hands, “That’s it!” He then grabbed Hop Pop’s rulebook, and jumping beyond Marcy, shoved it in the slot, the machine quickly devouring it.

And then, error popups appeared on the screen, light turning back blue.

“INSERT- WHAT THE HECK? WHAT THE HECK? WHAT THE HECK? WHAT THE HECK?”

As the computer started to malfunction and crash, the defense mechanism stopped alongside the crushers, while Hop Pop’s and Felicia’s restraints deactivated.

“We’re free!”

“Let’s get out of here!” Felicia hurried, noticing that the machineries were beginning to fizzle, the building falling apart around them. Everyone was now running toward the exit at breakneck speed, Jacob, Sasha, and Marcy with their backpacks filled with what they had scavenged on their backs, not stopping until they were all the way up the passageway and out of the factory building.

“Who-hoo! We did it, fam!”

“Yeah!”

“Hey!” Hop Pop turned toward them with a scolding look, “Let’s not celebrate until we are completely out of danger!”

“Come on Hop Pop,” Sprig replied, “The danger’s clearly-”

At that exact moment, the factory blew up in a massive explosion, sending them flying away and then landing back on the ground, Anne and Sasha’s hair smoking, Marcy falling face-first onto the ground as her cape (once again) began to burn, Jacob, James, and everyone else remaining covered with burns and bruises.

“Levers! Am I right?” Sprig joked, trying (and miserably failing) to lighten up the mood.

“Girls, are you alright?” Felicia said in a calm, too calm voice, looking at Sasha and Ivy.

“We are mom.”

“Good… because you are in deep trouble!” She yelled all of a sudden, releasing all her pent up anger she had accumulated so far, “Do you have any idea how worried I was, when I found out you had left?!”

“We know, we know,” Sprig looked down in shame, as Jacob went to help Marcy, “We should’ve followed the rules and not ran off exploring without your knowledge.”

“YOU THINK?!” Hop Pop yelled, ready to give them the stern talk they surely deserved, “Do you have any idea how much danger you went through just this time? You should have done like Polly and Amelia: we left them to stay and watch over the Fwagon, and-”

“Who-hoo!” The group heard the unmistakable voices of Polly and Amelia and looked up, seeing the samurai girl and the tadpole flying at high speed, doing flips and spins into the air, before landing just beside them!”

“That’s what I call ‘travel with style’! Banzai!”

“Boom, baby!” Polly nodded with the biggest grin on her face, before the two of them heard Hop Pop fake-coughing, turning around to see the others staring at them, their smiles disappearing instantly.

“Polly blackmailed me!”

“No, it was Amelia that kidnapped me and made me do it!”

“Girls…” Felicia glared at them.

“All right, we are sorry!” Amelia looked away with a sad look, “that’s the last time we do something like this, we swear!”

“Yes, us too!” Jacob walked forward with an ashamed expression, scratching the back of his head in genuine regret, “Look, we…it was wrong for us to trick you and run away just to visit that place. We ended up putting everyone at risk, and we almost led you and Felicia to be killed by that assembly line of doom. I know that to apologizing won’t solve anything, but…I guess you were right in the end. Rules are supposed to be followed, not broken.”

“Yes, us too HP,” Anne nodded, joining in, “For the rest of the trip, we will follow all the rules that-”

“FORGET THOSE RULES!” Hop Pop yelled again, “It’s you I was worried for! Ever since we have left the Valley, I was scared to the bone that something bad would’ve happened to you, but I was still feeling guilty for…the last time I tried making a decision on your behalf,” he sighed, the humans’ eyes widening as they realized he was talking about the Box, “This is why, while I had my rulebook already, I decided not to enforce them. But, as we kept doing unnecessary stops, we accumulated delay upon delay and I knew that, unless we stopped, we would end up running into many unnecessary dangers as well.”

Ivy gasped, her eyes turning to her mother, “Mom, did you-”

“Of course, Ivy.” The former adventurer said, “Why do you think I kept trying to remind you to behave for all this trip? I wanted to give you the chance to prove you were ready enough to take care of yourselves, even if I didn’t want to ruin your fun.”

“Frog, I feel ashamed of myself now,” Sasha murmured, both her and her frog sister realizing that this was why Felicia didn’t consider Ivy to be ready to know the truth before she came to work in her tea shop. Even Maddie couldn’t help but feel shame for her actions: her dad allowed her to join Marcy on this trip, and how she reciprocated his trust in her?

“Felicia, we-”

“Not now, Marcy. First, let’s go back to the Fwagon, so we can probably discuss what happened today and what we’ve learned, so we can try to come up with good teaching out of this. Plus, Mr. Plantar and I need a new wardrobe now. Of course, we’ll also discuss your punishment later.”

“Ok…” Sasha looked down, feeling unable to protest, and rather, ready to accept whatever grounding or similar punishment Felicia would draw upon her.

Later, the gang was all back on the fwagon, Hop Pop driving as before, Akitsu resting on the roof while everyone else was busy eating the packed lunch they’ve taken at the place Felicia had suggested them. To everyone’s surprise, the adults even allowed them to take ice cream.

“How's the crickets and cream ice cream, kids?” Hop Pop asked with curiosity.

“Amazing!”

“So good!

“Wonderful!”

“I have to admit,” Maddie said before taking another bite of her cone, “this is good!”

"Mint chocolate cream with crickets is probably my new favorite!" Marcy added, earning an approving look from Amelia.

“Me too, Marbles!”

“I am quite surprised you didn’t have trouble with the bug bits,” Jacob commented, looking over Sasha and Anne.

“I know,” the blonde girl admitted, “there was a time I would have felt disgusted to eat ice cream with bugs, but that time has long gone!” she smiled before taking new bites.

“Hope you’re enjoying it, because it will be your last one for a good while!” Hop Pop added, his voice turning stern once again, Anne and everyone else suddenly feeling like it was her last meal.

“We can’t deny we didn’t deserve our upcoming punishment.” the girl said with a sigh before adding with a whisper, “Still, I’m going to miss you, frozen delight!”

“Welp,” James murmured, looking at the distance at the ruins they were leaving behind, becoming smaller and smaller in the horizon, “I'm still worried that we didn’t find out what that factory was making. You think the others may be the same?”

“Probably,” Amelia retorted, “You said that was a factory producing something. Maybe this place once was a large industrial area, making goods for people all over Amphibia.”

“But what kind of goods?” Anne grumbled, “we have no idea what it was producing!”

“I know,” Marcy sighed, her gaze moving between the ruins far in the horizon and the notes and sketches she had taken in her Journal, “If Amphibia really was much more industrialized and technologically developed in the past, I wonder what happened that make all of it disappear. Still, all those frog images suggest it wasn’t another sentient species…maybe the current development of Amphibians is because they ended up facing some kind of apocalypse in the past that forced them to restart from zero, and the memory of the event got lost? Just like in one of those post-apocalyptic works…”

“Who know, we still have too few elements to make solid hypothesis,” Jacob pointed out, checking the tech gear and pieces he had taken from the factory, his hands passing over the metallic plaques he had saved, “Maybe once we’re able to start translating these ones, we will learn more…”

“Yeah, but still… I feel bad about not knowing!” James stretched a little, “I mean, remains of an advanced civilization, and no records about it whatsoever? That sounds incredibly suspicious.” Plus, I can’t do anything to shake the feeling that somehow, a forgotten Amphibian society may be more than we know so far.

“Well,” Sprig smiled, “I guess we'll never know.”

“I won’t say that,” Felicia replied, “Sure, we have our own journey to do now, but what we’ve seen today is enough to warrant our attention. Maybe, someday in the future, we can return and do a more through exploration. Only, properly, this time.”

“We can?” Ivy gasped, her eyes once again filling with enthusiasm.

“Of course!” The adventurer turned tea-maker replied, “But not right away. We still have a long way to Newtopia. And, thanks to all the stops we did already, we’ll have to travel by night as well to make up for the lost progress. Plus, you are still being punished, young ladies, do you understand me?”

“Yes mom,” Ivy replied, accepting her fate while still smiling on the inside.

“Come on, Ivy, we have all the time in the world,” Maddie tried to cheer her up, “Besides, it’s not like those ruins are going to follow up to Newtopia, right?”

Maddie didn’t see it, and neither did anyone on the fwagon, but as she spoke those words, something burst out from the rubbles and debris that once made the factory. A large robot of frog appearance, with elongated gray metal arms, large metal pauldrons as shoulders and two brightly glowing optic sensors as its ‘eyes’. The robot looked around for a second, before his sensor spotted the figure of the fwagon driving away, the optical zooms bringing him the images of a several creatures on it, and by some ‘instinct’, started to move to follow it.

Chapter Text

Farine Flour, father of Maddie Flour and current baker of Wartwood, took another deep breath of the fresh morning air as he strolled around, saluting a couple other frogs who, like him, had woken early to tend to their daily work. Getting up before the Sun rose to bake fresh bread was well-ingrained into him now, and even if his arm was still healing, he couldn’t keep sleeping. Thus, he used the free time he had to take a walk outside and get some fresh air, to clear his head and prepare for the rest of the day. He was also thinking about his daughter who had joined Marcy and the others on their journey to Newtopia.

He sighed: Marcy…she was a rare soul. Ever since she had become part of their life, her natural cheerfulness and enthusiasm, as well as her innate intelligence had helped his family come to terms with many issues among them. Rebuilding the relationship Maddie had with her sisters, giving him the key to guarantee a better future to his family, even teaching them many new things he didn’t know before. Sure, Jacob was the first to suggest the pizza agreement that ended up making him and his family a small fortune, and the triplets idolized Amelia (they even called her ‘master’!). But Marcy was truly the one among the humans that he wouldn’t mind calling family.

And now that she was gone, and Maddie had left with her, his life had become much quieter, uneventful, and monotonous. Farine couldn’t believe he was thinking that, but for once he missed not having his eldest daughter doing strange magic experiments in the forest around the town.

I wish you could have met her, honey, Farine took another deep breath as he imagined his late wife’s spirit caressing his back, you would have loved Marcy, and everything she had done for us.

“I’m home,” he said as he went through the main door of the bakery, hoping for the triplets to be awake and having eaten their breakfast already. It took a few seconds before he noticed that someone else was standing in the middle of his shop, sitting on the chair behind the counter that he put there for Marcy.  Someone, dressed in a pitch-black uniform, and showing a grin and face that he could never forget.

“Good day, bread maker, I see your shop is open this time.” Aiden turned around to face him, the frog feeling his blood turning cold as he mentally asked himself how this monster had managed to come this far into Wartwood unnoticed. And then, fear: where are my daughters? What has he done with them?

“Aiden,” Farine said, almost spitting his name as he put himself on the defensive, his good arm left searching for something resistant he could use as a weapon, “You’ve come to finish what you’ve started?”

“Actually, I was mostly curious to see what the living quarters of a witch looked like,” the evil human replied, Farine feeling his anger rise once again as soon as he mentioned Maddie, “You know, it was quite surprising to find frogs that still practice the Dark Arts here in the Valley. You should have done your duty as householder and killed her as soon as she let herself be seduced by the sin!”

Farine grabbed one of his rolling pins and moved to attack the human, Aiden barely moving as he grabbed his arm and launched him toward the counter, the baker frog yelping in pain as he struggled to get back on his feet. He tried to attack again, but once more the human was ready. Every attempt Farine took to deal with the intruder, only ended with him only hurting himself more without being able to even scratch his adversary.

“Dad!” The desperate voice of Rosemary called out, the baker frog getting up to see the Triplets currently held in the arms of a frog he didn’t expect to see.

“Monroe!” Farine gasped, recognizing him, “What-what is the meaning of this?”

“Sorry, Farine, but I serve a new master now,” he replied, a small glance between him and Aiden more than enough for Farine to grasp the truth.

“You serve him?! Just when I thought you couldn’t sink lower, you managed to prove me wrong!”

“You stinking traitor!” Ginger tried to get free from Monroe’s grasp, only failing, “If master was there-”

“But she isn’t! So, stay silent now, parasite!” Monroe yelled at the top of his lungs at her, the tadpole doing the best she could to act brave against the verbal assault, even as the tears ran from her eyes showing she was at her limit. The same as Farine who was now struggling to hold the homicidal instinct screaming in his mind.

Once more, he tried to force his way through, to save his own flesh and blood. Only, Aiden blocked his way again, and kept hitting him with malicious efficiency, grabbing his rolling pin with one hand as he punched his guts with the other, and then crushing the baker’s weapon as Farine once again laid on the ground, struggling to breathe, the triplets letting out horrified screams and pleading to leave their dad alone, unable to help him as he was of helping them.

“You are tenacious, I’ll admit that!” Aiden grabbed Farine by his neck and raised him from the ground, the baker frog helplessly twitching on his grip as he realized his assailant was holding his life in his hand. “But a filthy mudbeast like you could never hope to equal a superior being like myself.”

Aiden moved one of his gauntlets on Farine’s forehead, releasing a multi-color bright light that ran through the baker’s body, the frog screaming as he felt like every part of his body was being burned at the same time.

“Dad!” The triplets yelled again, struggling to get free from Monroe’s grip, unable to stand and watch their dad being tortured in front of their eyes.

“G-go ahead you psycho!” Farine coughed, challenging his enemy with what may have been his last breath, “Get on with it!”

“Believe me, I am very tempted to do so,” the human prince said, the light coming out of his arm becoming brighter as Farine screamed more and more, “To kill you and free this world from yet another disgusting animal who dared to desecrate the role that God himself willed to Man.”

He let Farine go, the baker frog falling again on the ground, but this time, managing to stop his fall with his hands.

With both of his hands.

“But not today!”

It was then that Farine realized that not only was he still alive, somehow his body felt better than before. His broken arm had now fully healed, and he could move it with ease once again, his other wounds and scars had disappeared, like they had never been there at all.

“W-what have you done?” Farine gasped, touching his face in shock, watching his once-broken arm fully cured me. “You…you healed me?”

“Believe me, there are better things than understanding.” Aiden now turned to Monroe, still holding the triplets in his arms, “Release them.”

“Master?”

“I said release them!” The human thundered, Monroe quickly obeyed and let Rosemary, Ginger and Lavender go, the triplets rushing to their dad as soon as they could.

“Dad, are you ok?”

“Your arm…is healthy again?”

“I was so scared!”

“Stay back, kids,” Farine said, making a sign for them to hide behind him, as he turned once again to face Aiden and Monroe, “You…what have you done to my daughter?”

“Nothing yet,” the human said in false reassurance, “But I know where she is, who she is with, and I can promise you I’ll meet again with them soon.”

“But what do you have against her? She’s just a child!”

“What I’m doing concerns the whole world. Frogs, toads and newts, axolotls and olms, plants, and animals!”

“You’re sick! Just what are you doing here? Why did you tell me all of this? Why did you heal me?”

“Because I want you to suffer, but not before having a taste of all the pain I went through already, to lose everything you love.” Aiden finally confessed, all the hate and pettiness he was feeling seething from his words, “Consider this an advanced payment… for what I’ll do to your daughter!”

“You absolute…” Farine yelled as he finally grabbed his hammer and rushed to attack, hoping that this diversion would give him more than enough time to let his daughters out of the building and give them the chance to call for help. Yet, as he looked around once again, Aiden was gone, and so was Monroe, the baker frog and his daughters standing in the middle of their ruined shop.

“Dad?”

“We need to move, kids.” Farine turned around, holding all three of them in his arms as he rushed outside, running toward the Militia’s Headquarter. He could only hope that Grime would be there, and he would move fast enough to catch him.

Maddie, Marcy, wherever you are now, I surely hope you’re safe…

“This stinks,” Maddie grumbled as she, Maddie and Polly kept scribbling under the watchful gaze of Felicia, “Why must I do these lessons and exercises as well? I am not your daughter!”

“No, but you’re under my responsibility. So, I’m treating you the same way as my own child,” she looked at Ivy, the small yellow frog deciding it was wiser to focus on her test, “AND, you’re equally guilty of running off with both of my daughters to the Ruins of Despair.”

“But then, why must I do this?!” Polly protested, “I didn’t join them!”

“No, but you and Amelia left the fwagon empty and unsupervised. Do you realize that if someone came across it, we may have lost our traveling vehicle and our only hope to reach Newtopia?”

“At least, when you told us we were going to be punished, I was expecting to be grounded or something like that. Not to be forced to do homework and tests about Amphibia’s history!”

“Why? Doesn’t Farine have you study at home?” Felicia challenged her, knowing already the odds were in her favor, “The school is being rebuilt, that means you’ll be able to go back to it once we return.”

“But I don’t need to go to school! I am a mage! I practice magic every day! I am already smart-” Maddie tried to protest once again…until she saw the stare Felicia was giving to her, the young blue frog deciding it was better to focus on her exercises and not complain.

“That’s her mom power,” Ivy drily commented in a low voice, to make sure Felicia couldn’t hear her.

At that moment, the fwagon’s door opened and in came Jacob, Sasha and Anne, the three humans red in face and visibly drained of every last ounce of energy from their bodies.

“Oh, there you are, kids!” Felicia smiled smugly as she helped them get off their armors, “How did it go with your chores?”

“Hard.” Sasha replied laconically, as she moved toward the kitchen area and took what it looked like a full bottle of fresh water, gulping it all in one go and taking a deep breath before continuing, “Look, I know we are grounded, but aren’t you two going overboard? Making us pull the fwagon all this way!”

“So you burn off your excess energy without running toward danger into unknown ruins!” Hop Pop quipped from outside, the humans groaning as he did.

“Once again, we are not simply punishing you, my child,” Felicia nodded, “Many adventures await us, as well as many dangers we may be forced to face. I am simply giving you the same exact training I underwent in my youth.”

“That was training?!” Anne gasped, “How in frog’s name would anyone endure that?”

“I know, I used to think the same thing,” Felicia sat down, taking another sip of her tea, “When I chose this path, I solicited the help of a former adventurer who would later become my mentor. He didn’t want to help me at first, even calling me a ‘meek lady unprepared for the dangers of the world’!” She mimicked the deeper, grumpier voice of her teacher, before resuming her tale with a light chuckle, “In the end, I was so fed up with his refusal that I said I would do anything to become an adventurer. After that, the training I received was so harsh that I ended up regretting those words, but every time I felt like quitting, he reminded me that it was my own choice. A choice neither of you have here, because…?”

“Because we are grounded.” The three of them replied at once, in the same groaning voice.

Happy with the answer, the frog lady once again decided to focus her attention on the youngsters under her care, leaving the teens free to do what they wanted. At least, for now.

“I understand he was trying to make you quit,” Jacob grumbled, feeling every part of his body ache at once.

“Are you ok, guys?” Marcy looked up from where she was sitting, busy herself with translating more and more parts of Hop Pop’s book in search for hints about the Box and the powers imbued into their bodies, “Maybe, I can do something to help? Anna Banana, Sasha, how about a shoulder massage?”

“That would be appreciated!”

“Thanks, Mar-Mar!”

Marcy stopped her translation work and moved to help her friends, Jacob pouting in jealousy as she did.

“Just to ask, when are we going to stop for dinner?” The boy asked, looking at Felicia, “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“Guys, guys!” Amelia’s voice came from above, Akitsu lowering in altitude as the fwagon stopped, Hop Pop, Felicia, and everyone else listening to her warning, “There is something in front of us! It looks like an old fortress, or something like that!”

“Say what?” Hop Pop quipped, taking out a small telescope and looking with his own eyes while, sitting to his left, Sprig tried to sharpen his eyes as much as he could.

A few meters from where the fwagon has stopped, the road path divided in two: the main path stretching toward north-east, leading to Newtopia, and a smaller, long abandoned road departing to the left and rising through a small hill, over where stood the ruins of what once should have been a massive stronghold.

A tall tower with a pointed roof protecting the main gate, a second set of stone walls separating the external defenses from the main building at the center, where three towers of bright colors. For a long time, the building has been abandoned, and its walls and structures were covered in vegetation and small trees that, from afar, contributed to hide its presence to the travelers. Even Amelia riding on Akitsu, if she hadn’t looked in the right direction at the right time, would have not noticed it.

“Blimey!” James spoke, his British blood taking over once again, “That’s a massive castle! It reminds me of Windsor!”

“It…it can’t be!” Hop Pop gasped, realizing it was a castle he had already seen in one of his books, “That’s the Castle of the Three Princesses!”

“Three Princesses?” Anne raised an eyebrow, emerging from the trapdoor behind him, quickly followed by the others.

“Hop Pop, you know that place?”

“Sure I do, Amelia!” The old frog nodded, “The Castle of the Three Princesses, or The Three Sisters, as it’s known sometimes, is one of the most famous theatrical plays of all of Amphibia. One of my favorite plays too, I could say.”

“Wow, you ought to tell me about that someday.” Quipped James, already curious of the strange yet familiar stronghold.

“Hmmm…” Felicia murmured, studying the ruins with an experienced eye, “Sheltered location... we will see looming threats from the hill... far enough away from the forest.... Hop Pop, I think we found the perfect place to camp for tonight!”

“What?” Sasha asked, feeling a chill run through her spine, “You want us to sleep in the middle of the ruins of an abandoned castle?”

“No, I want us to camp in the middle of the ruins of the castle, you can sleep inside the fwagon like everyone.” The veteran adventurer replied, both Sasha and Ivy noticing the teasing, almost mocking tone in her voice, “Moreover, weren’t you so enthusiastic adventuring? I thought you would have appreciated exploring an old stronghold.”

“But it’s old and stuffy!”

“Come on, Sasha, we will be together!” Ivy reassured her older sister, “Plus, mom is right. It is quite a defensible position should something bad happen…”

“Still, better safe than sorry!” Hop Pop grimaced, “Amelia, can you and Akitsu fly over there and check if the place is safe for us to stop?”

“I can do that!” The wannabe samurai replied, turning toward Sprig and Polly, “You guys coming?”

“To infinity and beyond, Akitsu!” Sprig jumped just behind Amelia, repeating one of the many sentences she had heard her yell once. To the girl’s embarrassment, and Jacob and Sasha’s amusement.

“Huh, Hop Pop?” Anne raised a hand while the old frog pulled the reins to direct Bessie and Liptea off the main road and toward the abandoned fortress, “I know you’re supposed to be the worried one and I the reckless one, but…are we sure about this? I mean, this place looks creepy!”

“You said the same thing about me once.” Maddie rolled her eyes, earning a snicker from Jacob.

“We can agree on that,” Hop Pop nodded, “but we do need a good place to stop by and rest. Both Miss Sundew and I need a good night of sleep to replenish our strength. And besides…I am quite excited to visit the very place where the same events that inspired one of my favorite plays happened.”

“I must admit this is quite an interesting location,” Marcy nodded, adding an overall sketch of the castle in her Journal, “Felicia, did you know about it?”

“No, but I know the legend about the events that transpired into it,” the frog with long red hair sighed, “I even saw some representations of the play, when I was in Newtopia.”

“I bet it’s a story full of passion and awesome moments!” Jacob grinned, snapping photos of the castle as the fwagon passed over the main gate, a few fireflies buzzing away, disturbed by the flash.

“It’s a tragedy.”

“Oh.”

“Ding!” Amelia mockingly said as the fwagon reached the main courtyard, Akitsu resting just behind her while Sprig and Polly already started to look around. “Welcome to the Castle of the Three Princesses! Please pay your resort fee and give a tip to the bellhop!”

“Amelia, please!” Anne said as she walked out of the fwagon, her muscles still feeling sore from all the pulling from before, “I’m not in the mood for your jokes.”

“Sorry, but I am not exactly tired, since Hop Pop and Felicia didn’t punish me, James or Marcy-”

“Who said we are not punishing you?” The old frog smiled at her, blowing away all of Amelia’s confidence with just one sentence, “Jacob, Sasha and Anne already did their chores, just as Sprig, Maddie, Ivy and Polly were doing, but just because you didn’t have to do anything for now it doesn’t mean you’re getting out scot-free. Especially you, Amelia: tomorrow Miss Sundew and I have thought of something…special for you.”

Amelia’s eyes widened in horror as she saw Hop Pop and Felicia exchanging a devious grin, all the smugness in her body having evaporated as she felt cold dread replace it.

“I have some old school training, especially tailored for you,” Felicia said as she patted her shoulder, walking over the human with the cone hat, “something that I think an honorable warrior like you would surely…appreciate.”

I am dead, right?

(…)

“There you go!” Jacob announced with a tired, yet happy expression as he looked around, everyone sitting on the makeshift campfire they had prepared together, Sprig playing with his fiddle. “The fire is lit; dinner is cooking, and the camp is set!”

“We even took out some hay for Bessie and Liptea, and some fruit for Akitsu,” Sasha continued, “We should have done everything, right?”

“I see,” Hop Pop replied in a proud tone, “Hey, Anne, what are you preparing for us tonight?”

“Just something easy to prepare with basic ingredients during travel, Hop Pop. A soup of mushrooms and tomatoes with toasted ants.”

“Mhh, it smells good already! Anne, can I dare ask for a refill already?”

“One second, who is on dishwashing duty tonight?” Marcy said, raising her hand.

“I was hoping someone would ask,” Felicia said, turning toward her, the dark-haired nerd realizing she made a tactical mistake, “So generous for you to volunteer.”

“Why me? Is it because I asked?”

“No, it’s because you are among those who still haven’t received punishment for having disobeyed us and ran away exploring the ruins. And considering what your friends already underwent, I can say you’re getting it off easily.”

“Should've kept your mouth shut!” Sprig chuckled, only for Hop Pop to smirk as well.

“And have Sprig help you.”

“What? Oh frog, is it because I--?”

“Yes.” Hop Pop admitted, Polly, Anne and the others chuckling like he did a few seconds before. “Now, how about we eat?”

“Hey, Mar-Mar?” Jacob sat right next to the girl, a large wooden bowl filled to the brim with hot soup in his hands, “Look, I don’t feel too tired. Maybe I can, don’t know… help you?”

“Thank you for the offer, Jacob, but I want to do my part as well.” Marcy replied with a smile, still appreciating his kindness, “Plus, you should rest properly to regain strength by tomorrow. Maybe I can give you a shoulder massage as well, to help you rest tonight?”

“I-I would surely appreciate that,” Jacob stuttered, the dark-haired girl instinctively wondering why he was blushing now.

“So, Hop Pop.” James asked, “Can you tell us what is the story of this place? You said earlier that this castle is tied to a famous legend here in Amphibia, and that it even inspired a theater play. Can you tell us more about it?”

“Sure thing, James.” Hop Pop nodded, everyone stopping to listen to what he had to say, “You see, a long time ago, before this castle was abandoned and forgotten by everyone, was the stronghold of a great king. The king had three daughters, all of three princesses of outstanding beauty and great intellect, who attracted suitors from all over Amphibia. And each princess had one of the three largest towers as their own living residence,” he moved his hand above, to point to the large remains of the three towers, the walls worn down by the time and the atmospheric conditions.

“But it was the age of the Reunification and the King had sided, alongside many others, against the forces of those who wanted to reunite all the lands of Amphibia under one banner. To solidify this alliance, the king had offered the hand of one of his daughters in marriage to the son of another sovereign, a prince known for his good looks and worth as general but filled with ambition. Because of the occasion, everyone in the castle was busy preparing for the great wedding.”

“But then, what happened?” Anne asked, taken by the history. She had the feeling that a dark twist was now looming, and as sometimes happened, she was right.

“The prince…never reached the castle.” Hop Pop continued in a somber tone, almost relieving the same sadness he had felt the first time he experienced the story, “For their enemies had laid an ambush on his cortege and killed them all, before they could even arrive in sight of the fortress. His disappearance, as well as the news that a large army was marching toward them, set discord and strife among the three sisters, to the point they started quarreling against each other and dragged the whole garrison into a gruesome fight among themselves inside their very walls.”

“In truth, the enemy already had soldiers hidden among the guards and courtiers, and when the three sisters started to fight, they seized the chance to open the unguarded gate and allow the rest of their army to storm the fortress, killing everyone who was inside. The last scene of the drama depicts the three princesses who, after having fought so harshly against each other, join forces against the invaders, only to be massacred alongside their own servants.”

“Oh, that’s a sad and depressing story, Hop Pop!” Ivy began to cry.

“So, they just…die? No salvation, no good guys’ army coming to the rescue?” Amelia protested for the lack of a happy ending, “What kind of play even is?”

“A tragedy, a kind of story that never ends well,” James simply conceded, quite familiar with the concept, “Though I do have to admit it is quite dark.”

“Oh, but the legend is not over yet,” Hop Pop announced, prompting everyone to pay back attention, “You see, even after the castle was sacked and abandoned, travelers that used to stop among its ruins would report of strange unexplained events they witnessed. Some talk about shadows moving among the rotten walls, others talk about the sound of swords clashing where the battle was fought. But everyone agrees on one thing: whenever someone stops among the ruins in the darkness of the nights and tilts their head to listen, they may hear the wails and cries of those poor people, carried by the cold wind of despair…” he announced, moving his head almost to ‘listen’.

“So, you’re saying this place is haunted?!” Sasha gasped, looking around with a nervous expression.

“Could have told us before we decided to camp here for the night, Hop Pop!” Anne nodded.

“Come on, girls,” James began to say, hoping to reassure them, “I am sure those rumors-”

…spare us…spare us…

“Guys, please!” The British boy jerked up, “This is not the time to make stupid pranks. Jacob, if that was you, just know I didn’t like it!”

“Joke?” The other boy asked, genuinely confused, “I wasn’t doing anything!”

“James, what’s wrong?” Felicia got back on her feet, “Jacob was simply listening to the story and eating his soup, just like us. If he was pulling a prank, I would have noticed it!”

“What?” James asked, looking around with a suspecting look, “But then-”

…please, help us…stop the suffering…give us…rest…

“James, are you all right?!” Hop Pop gasped, noticeably worried about the behavior of the silver-haired boy, “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!”

“Hear me, guys,” James tried to reply, standing back on his feet and trying to locate the direction from where he heard those voices come, “I know you may doubt my words, but…I felt something. Like…a voice.”

“Huh, James?” Jacob spoke in a worried tone, “This is not you pulling a prank, right? Seriously, bro, is not cool to pull a prank after accusing someone else of doing so.”

No, my sisters! What have I done!

Your blood…is on my hand!

You’ve always been daddy’s favorite!

I always loved you, sister!

I-I didn’t mean to…

“Did you hear THAT?” Anne gasped, everyone jumping on their feet.

“I did, Boonchuy!” Sasha replied, quickly grabbing her swords, “I knew these ruins were haunted! I frogging’ knew!”

“Ivy, get behind me, now!” Felicia ordered, “We need to investigate, but we can’t separate.”

“Is that a real ghost?” Maddie grabbed one of her spell bags, Marcy at her side preparing her crossbow, “Time to test if magic spells can hurt them!”

“There is something over there!” Amelia pointed with her free hand, Yamato in the other, “Do you see it? Like a golden light, coming from the ruins?”

“Move with caution, kids!” Hop Pop warned them, “We don’t know what we are facing.”

The group marched forward, leaving behind their sleeping mounts, everyone on alert due to the situation, the environment around them and their ignorance about the possible threat. And then-

“Look!” said as she pulled out a large golden crown from the ruins, shining in the darkness of the night, “This… may be one of the crowns of the three princesses?”

“It’s…it’s so beautiful…” Ivy said, apparently hypnotized by the beauty of the object.

“Maybe we should put it back where it was?” Amelia suggested, still unable to look away from the crown, “You know, I feel kind of…strange.”

“I-I’ve never seen something like that before.” Sprig nodded, his mouth wide open.

“You know, I can agree with that.” Marcy said, strange spirals forming in her eyes, “Its is…beautiful-”

And then, the crown released a powerful blast of golden light, and everyone was engulfed by it.

“Your highness, it is time!” A voice Marcy didn’t recognize said, shaking her.

“Five more minute, please-”

“Princess Regina, the Sun has risen already! It’s time to wake up, your sisters Elizabeth and Savisa should be on their way already.”

At those words, Marcy’s eyes opened wide, the girl sat back and realized that something was strange. Like, VERY strange.

Anna-Banana and Sash were nowhere to be seen, just like everyone else. She was now standing in the middle of a large king-size canopy bed of aquamarine color, with large drapes covering it on three sides but open to her left, allowing her to see she was now standing in a large round-shaped room of incredible luxury, with a golden-looking chandelier leaning from the above, and for what she would see, a large writing desk and a library of precious-looking wood.

And looking at her, a female frog of green skin and long blonde hair, dressed in a maid outfit like the one she had been forced to wear after the talent contest in Wartwood.

“Huh, what?”

“There is no time to lose, milady. The hot water for the bath is ready!”

As the unknown frog led her to take her bath, washing her skin with warm water and rare perfumes, Marcy quickly analyzed the situation around her. Unknown place, unknown time, Anne, Sasha or any of her friends nowhere to be seen. And this girl that kept calling her-

Oh no.

“Princess Regina, can I ask you what kind of outfit you want to wear today?” The frog asked, other younger servants coming and showering her with much more princess clothes she had even seen before, no noticing the grimace on her lips.

“Huh, I’ll let you decide for me today.” Marcy replied, trying to sound as posh as she could, “I confess I have no idea, so I’ll trust your expertise.”

Had she perhaps reincarnated into the body of one of the three princesses? Marcy asked with a hint of horror. The maid had told her that the other princesses’ names were Elizabeth and Savisa, the middle names of Sasha and Anne, so perhaps…had they come with her as well?

But will they recognize me, or am I the only one who can remember?

“Princess Regina, how about this one?” The maid shoved a large, expensive dress in front of her.

“Or maybe this one, Princess Regina?”

“Princess Regina, this could be a good fit-”

Please, stop calling me Regina, Marcy silently pleaded, I hate my middle name! It makes me sound snotty and spoiled!

“Princess Regina, allow me to fix your corset.” One of the other servants moved behind her.

Fix my what? Marcy internally gasped, before she felt the piece of clothing she wore on her belly tightening, the poor girl yelping as it did.

“Come on, your highness. This is nothing new, I help you with this every day.”

You mean the princess suffered through this every day?!, Marcy felt the need to yell. How long it would be before this torture device disguised as clothes would rearrange her own bones and organs?

Finally, after what Marcy felt like a long time of suffering and painstakingly dressing-up, the servants finished dressing her up and Marcy could finally see the result of her own suffering in a large mirror placed just in front of her bed. She was now wearing the emerald silk dress with the absurdly large gown, the diamond collier around her neck, the white crown on her head, her hair tied down in a hairstyle that she recognized being the same one Padme Amidala wore in the first Prequel movie, and she wore white high-heeled shoes at her feet. From an outside view, she looked stunning, gorgeous, and graceful. Some could even say that the dress and jewels were highlighting her attractiveness and the shape of her body.

But, from Marcy’s own point of view…

I’m aching everywhere, the dark-haired girl sighed while her ‘servants’ marveled at once, this dress itches, the corset is basically splitting me in two, the collier is stinging my skin, the crown is so heavy it gives me a migraine and the heels are killing my feet! Is this how nobles were supposed to dress once? She mentally groaned, feeling yet another part of her favorite fantasies sinking.

“Princess Regina, you are astonishing. Your sisters won’t be able to ignore you, this time!”

“I…think that too,” Marcy said, “Can I…go to whenever we usually meet? I want to see them.”

“Sure thing, your highness!” The maid frog nodded as she bowed down, “The moving platform is ready for you to use it.”

Moving platform? Marcy wondered, looking around just in time to see the door of her room opening to reveal what it looked like a large lift, with enough space to host her (even in this large, bothersome dress) as well as her servants, some kind of analog system of levers and wooden clogs on the back. Immediately, her hands moved to take notes of the strange engine, only to grimace to realize that her Journal, and all her notes of Amphibia, were nowhere to be seen.

Sighing, she moved toward the lift… and almost face-planted on the floor as she tripped once more, the servants around her rushing to grab her just in time.

“By frog, your highness, remember you’re supposed to move with grace and elegance!”

You try to move with ‘grace and elegance’ wearing heels! Marcy internally yelled. She had never worn such shoes before, and being forced to wear them for the first time in her life accentuated her chronic tendency to trip.

In the end, she managed to walk on those ‘stilts’ and entered the lift, the maid frog just behind her while the other servant focused on cleaning her room, the frog playing a small bell and giving order to activate the lift, who started to move slowly and irregularly.

Finally, after multiple minutes during which Marcy kept nervously looking above, almost fearing the unknown mechanism would lock itself somewhere or some rope would snap, the lift stopped at its designated destination. The human and the frogs entering what was now a large room, big as the interior of a warehouse, with three thrones placed near the walls on one of the longest sides, a large door with tall white columns on its sides on the other, the floor of fine marble, the roof decorated with golden decorations and frescoes.

And in the middle of the room, stood a small group of people, some amphibians, other humans.

Marcy held a breath of relief as soon as she recognized Anne and Sasha among them, her two friends dressed in pimped-out dresses just like hers. Sasha was wearing a long, pinkish dress with ruby red giant poofy sleeves, another giant gown like hers, but this time, decorated with many small, shiny gems and white ribbons, a shiny silver pendant running around her neck and over her chest with a heron-shaped item at the end, a red rose tied on her dress just above where her heart was, a pink crown with large rubies encrusted into it over her head, her blonde hair braided in a long Chignon hairstyle. Behind her stood Felicia, the yellow frog dressed in a yellow-and-green dress with a simple collier of pearls around her neck, and flowers decorating her hairstyle.

Anne’s clothes were even more glamorous: her friend was now dressed in a deep blue princess dress with white decorations of flowers enchanted all over the dress and the down, a light silk cape departing from her shoulders, a glamorous crown of sapphires resting on her hair braided on two sides around her face, a golden necklace decorated with the Amphibia’s symbol on her chest.

For a moment, Marcy tried to calculate, based on what she could see, how valuable her dress was, and how valuable Anna-Banana’s and Sash’s were, but quickly she gave up. That was not important at this moment, even if she could assume it would cost much more money than they have ever seen at once (and that included Cousin Alfred’s hidden stash).

“Princess Savisa of the Sapphire Tower, Princess Elizabeth of the Ruby Tower,” her maid simply said, lowering her head, “I present to you your sister, Princess Regina of the Emerald Tower.”

“Thank you,” Anne said, in a tone devoid of any friendliness, Marcy’s heart started to beat faster and faster as she heard her. Had something happened to her friends that had erased their personalities completely? Leaving them to act and behave just like the characters of the story? Was she the only one to retain her memories?

“Is there anything else I can do-”

“Actually, yes,” Sasha nodded, with an arrogant, spoiled expression, her gaze moving between Marcy and her maid, the dark-haired girl panicking internally as bad memories of the past Sash played in her mind, “Leave us alone, all of us! We need to talk with our sister…in private.”

“As you wish, your highness!” A male frog, dressed as a majordomo, nodded, turning his head around, “Did you hear the Princess’s command? Vacate the premises at once!”

Every Amphibian in the room, from the guards to the servants, nodded at once as they began to move out of the large room. Only a few individuals, who were standing near Anne and Sash from before, made no attempts to move. Marcy quickly realized they were Hop Pop and Felicia, the old farmer frog now dressed in elegant, albeit old-style clothes with a large pocket watch emerging from his waistcoat.

“Hey, you two!” The majordomo said, pointing at them, “Are you dumb? Didn’t you hear the princesses’ orders?”

“The Royal Treasurer has every right to remain,” Anne immediately said, Hop Pop giving the other guy a smug glance as she spoke, “for he is the one that brought us the question we need to talk about.”

“And my lady-in-waiting will stay as well!” Sasha shouted, giving the poor servant in the tuxedo one of her famous death glares, “Are you trying to humiliate me by twisting the meaning of my own words?”

“N-no, absolutely no, your highness! I was just-”

“Get out, NOW!” Anne shouted, the majordomo rushing outside of the room as fast as he could, leaving Marcy alone with them. For a brief second, she struggled to think what to say, and then-

“Pff,” Anne sighed, her harsh expression relaxing suddenly, “What a dud!”

“Anna-Banana, Sash?” Marcy gasped, as she realized they still were her friends. “Do you-”

“Stay calm, Mar-Mar,” Sash smiled, and so did Felicia, “Yes, we still have our memories, just like you do. Sorry we couldn’t tell you immediately, but we needed to be sure we could play safe.”

“Though we did realize you were still you as soon as you walked in, kid,” Hop Pop murmured, from the looks you had in your eyes. Wow, can you believe it? We have basically been transported inside the story of the play!”

“Hop Pop, this is not a laughing matter,” Anne scoffed, before turning her gaze to a nearby chimney, unamused, “and talking about laughing… guys! You can come out!”

Marcy wondered for a second, before she heard some coughs coming from the flue, and a couple of seconds later, Sprig, Polly, Ivy and Maddie dropped out, apparently having hiding inside, all of them wearing clothes of servants: Sprig was dressed up in a buffoon’s outfit, with a neckband and a three-point hat with a small bend at the end of each point, Polly was wearing a storyteller’s hat, Ivy was wearing a poor scullery girl outfit and Maddie-

Is that a mage’s outfit? Marcy almost gleamed again, noticing the star-decorated clothes and the pointy hat her friend was currently wearing, making her resemble a classic witch.

“So… can anyone explain to me what in frog’s name is going on?” Sprig waved, “And what the heck is this outfit?!”

“Looks like when we approached the crown, something happened, and we were all pulled inside the events of the story Hop Pop told us about.” Felicia summarized, looking around, “So, this is the area where we parked the fwagon, or at least how it looked at that time.”

“How can you be so calm in a moment like this?” Anne said, her voice accentuated by the ‘outfit’ she was currently wearing, “We don’t even know if we ended up in the past or if we were sucked up in some distorted fantasy play!”

“Not my first rodeo, honey,” Felicia smiled, as Hop Pop rolled her eyes. “A stable magical nexus can’t muster enough magic force to physically send someone in the past. I guess this is more like a simulation of that past: the magic adapted us to fit as many roles as it could, so this is why you, Mar-Mar and Sash ended up in the princesses’ roles.”

“Did you have to wear the corset too?” Marcy asked, pointing to her still-aching belly as she felt the torturing cloth twist her own belly.

“Uh-huh!” Anne groaned, feeling the pain as well, “And I thought wearing those clothes my parents wanted me for the ceremony at the Temple were bad. Not only that, but the servants also had to braid my hair all together, and ripped a good chunk as they did!”

“Same!” Sasha hissed, looking with disdain and the huge, old, unsuitable gown hiding her legs and the lower half of her body, “At least I was lucky enough that Felicia was in the same room when we reappeared.”

“I found myself in some office, filled with coins, and now everyone calls me Royal Treasurer!” Hop Pop added, “Wait, but if I’m the Royal Treasurer, does that mean that office was mine! It was a shiny office, I am a successful frog now!”

“I was in the kitchen, but I left as soon as I could,” Ivy confessed, “There was a scary fat lady in there, telling me I had to peel potatoes!”

“I was in some kind of tower,” Maddie said in her usual toneless voice, before smirking, “It was filled with books of magic! Do you think I could borrow one when the whole things’ over?”

“Wait, where is Jacob? And James? and Amelia?!” Marcy gasped, looking around to see no trace of her friends, “Did any of you see them?”

“No, but if we are here then they should be as well,” Felicia thought about it, “I guess we just hadn’t met them. Yet.”

“Ok everyone is safe and we’re together, so... what do we do now?!” Sprig yelled, looking around with a scared expression, “We can’t be trapped in this story forever! Plus, Hop Pop said it has a tragic ending: everyone dies! I don’t want to die!”

“Me neither!” Ivy joined.

“Kids, please, calm down!” Hop Pop rushed in and grabbed both, “We have more than enough time to find a solution. So far, everyone’s assuming that the prince’s entourage is incoming, so until there is no news about-”

“Your highness!” One of the guards rushed in the room, everyone quickly moving to get back into a presentable posture as they took advantage of him panting and looking down, “There, there is-”

“What’s going on, soldier?” Sasha questioned him, internally cursing him for entering without warning, “Didn’t we tell you we had a very important discussion to do in private?”

“I know, but…the prince has arrived. His entourage has just passed the main gate!”

Everyone’s blood froze cold as that notion assimilated into their minds. Hop Pop in particular, was panicking: he knew the play well enough to know the Prince never appeared in the story proper, only being mentioned a couple of times before news of his death reached the princesses.

So how in frog’s name did the prince survive? And now they were toning to meet him?

He looked over to Anne, his adoptive granddaughter trembling, and he felt a resolution form firmly in his heart: no matter if he was a prince or not, if he attempted to do something to her or any other of his kids, he would have punched his mouth free of teeth.

“T-tell him to come as soon as he can.” Sasha hurried to reply, the guard nodding and getting out, while everyone else rushed to move, the three human girls sitting on their respective thrones (dull, as all three noticed. A wooden bench would have been comfier), the kids hiding behind them while Hop Pop and Felicia stood to their side.

But to their surprise, when the large door to the room opened once again, trumpets and pipes announcing the arrival of the prince, Jacob, James, and Amelia walked in, the boy devoid of his characteristic Viking hat, and instead dressed into a stylistic white uniform, with golden buttons and many medals over his chest, his hair greased, a long saber at his hip. Amelia was walking just behind him to his right, dressed in a violet dress quite like the trio’s ones, but with a large ruff all around her neck, a metallic headband just over her forehead, and a sword pendant around her neck, a colorful scarf over her chest. And to Jacob's left, stood James. The British kid was wearing a deep blue tailcoat with a white undershirt and black boots on his feet, a tie over his chest. And as their eyes met those of the girls, they saw a glimmer of recognition.

“Your highnesses,” Jacob said, his tone of voice clearly implying a ‘play it cool’ “I am Prince Oliver, firstborn son of King Egbert the Wise, and this is my dearest sister Priscilla,” Amelia grimaced as he called her that, “and our head vassal, Marquis Tyller. After a long and hazardous trip, we have finally arrived at this fortress to solemnize the alliance between our kingdoms.”

“We-we welcome you, Prince Oliver,” Marcy said, a little dazed by the sight. Frog, Jacob was a friend and nothing more, but…he looked good in that suit.

“I-I can say the same…” Jacob stuttered, as he could finally get a good look of the dresses the girls were currently wearing, especially Marcy. Frog, I always thought she was cute, but now…she looks gorgeous!

“Your highness!” A voice erupted to their left, the girl noticing that somehow, the Majordomo and everyone who they had forced to vacate the room had mysteriously returned, and was now walking right toward Jacob, “This is…quite a surprise. We weren’t expecting you nor your entourage to arrive this soon!”

“Fate blessed us,” James/Tyller replied, as behind them, other frog servants and guards (their entourage) walked into view, all carrying various gifts and items for the castle’s inhabitants, so many shiny things that Hop Pop had to control himself from gasping in awe. “Can we trust you to set off everything? My sovereign and myself are quite tired after such a long trip, and we would like to have a chat with your majesties to discuss our…future developments.”

“Of course, after all, since the Prince is already here, we can start planning for the great event!”

“T-the great event?!” All six the humans, plus Felicia, Sprig and a couple others said at once.

“Of course,” the majordomo said almost rhetorically, “To seal the alliance between our kingdoms, your Highness Princess Elizabeth is scheduled to marry the esteemed Prince Oliver.”

“Say what?!” Sasha and Jacob shouted at once, blushing, incapable of looking at each other, and so did everyone else. Hop Pop and Felicia’s eyes widened, as they realized that it was true. In the play proper, since the prince never arrived, the wedding would never be celebrated, but now that the plot had changed-would Sasha and Jacob be forced to play a mock wedding too?

“Huh, isn’t it a bit too soon to celebrate it now?” Jacob said, struggling to come up with an excuse to postpone it, “While we were en route here, our scouts reported of a large enemy army approaching the fortress. I think it would be a better strategy to focus on our defense rather than on the wedding. We can still plan for it after the battle is over!”

“Yes, the prince is right!” Sasha nodded, catching on his plan, “If an enemy’s army is approaching, we should-”

“Your highness, this fortress has tall, sturdy walls, excellent defenses, and a strong garrison.” One of the guards, dressed in a slightly more elaborate uniform that identified him as their commander, spoke up, “It has never been conquered nor its defenses had ever been breached. And they never will be!”

“He’s right, your majesty.” The majordomo nodded, “Plus, the marriage will symbolize the alliance of our two kingdoms against the army of the Leviathan king: the sooner it is done, the stronger our alliance will be!”

Perhaps I can come up with an excuse to have this idiot executed? Sasha mused.

“That said, to rush the preparations just because your highness the Prince managed to arrive early would spell misfortune on the wedding,” Felicia came into their help, “Your majesty would be wise to let the proceeding go as planned, without rushing.”

“I don’t recall a handmaiden like yourself has the authority-”

“Enough!” Anne muttered, glaring at the majordomo with a scornful glance. “You are acting beyond your limits; I remind you WE are the princess of this castle. And our wish is you command!”

“It is!” Marcy nodded, coming into her support, Jacob noticing how quickly her friends were adapting into their princesses’ roles, “And while to fulfill the alliance it is important, so is the wellbeing of all the people inside this palace. Captain of the guards?”

“What’s your order, milady?”

“I want you to inspect all defenses and check out any possible weakness the enemy might want to exploit,” she pointed out, “As for you, Prince Oliver, I think you and your companions should join us for a meeting…”

(…)

“I can’t believe you got actually cast as the prince!” Anne chuckled, as soon as she was sure no one would hear her laugh, “Thought it is a nice uniform.”

“Nice? I would feel more comfortable in a military school uniform!” The boy groaned, “Moreover, do you know how valuable this thing is? Just one button of the shirt is worth way more than I could afford in my normal life! I have spent all the time in the carriage worrying about losing one!”

“If you’re complaining about your clothes, what should I say about mine?” Amelia groaned with a disgusted expression, pointing at the totally impractical clothes she was forced to wear, “At least they could have given me a kimono!”

“I kind of like this,” James admitted, once again checking the clothes he ended in, “I feel like I could rule all over Downton Abbey dressed like this.”

“Seriously, bro?” Jacob raised an eyebrow, “You watch Downton Abbey?”

“Shut up, my mom loves that show. And it’s pretty good too...”

“Guys!” Sasha clapped her hands to gather everyone’s attention, “This is serious. Look, I am happy to see that you and Amelia are fine, but we are losing focus on the whole situation. We are trapped in some kind of magical fantasy, we have no idea how to get out, we are forced to wear those constraining garments, a frogging enemy army is approaching and according to the plot, I must marry him?” She pointed at Jacob, who replied in kind.

“Yeah, I’m weirded out by that too. Look, Sash, you’re quite beautiful, I won’t lie about it, and ever since we have arrived in Amphibia you have grown a lot mentally, but frankly? You’re not my type.”

“That’s my line,” the blonde human replied, covering her forehead with her hand, “Anyway, now that we’re all together again…what do we do?”

“The good news is, most of the plot focuses either on the princesses trying to outplay each other and the scheming of their servants.” Hop Pop said, showing off a large paper with notes he had made of everything he remembered about the play’s plot, “Since I doubt neither of you have any interest in that, I guess we are safe to skip that.”

“Let’s not forget that the plot may be off the rails already,” Felicia pointed out, “I mean, most of the plot is tied up to the various characters waiting for the prince’s arrival, only for chaos to break loose once the news comes that he had been killed on arrival.”

“He was what?!” Jacob gasped, looking around nervously, almost imagining hundreds of assassins coming in and attempting to kill him, “But…I am the prince now! Am I going to die?!”

“You’re not!” Hop Pop quickly reassured him, “Listen, kiddo, prince clothes or not, you’re still the same boy that I’ve looked over for the past months. No matter what’s going to happen, I’m not going to let you die. No one of you will!” He said with a voice full of determination.

“Don’t worry, Anne!” Sprig jumped on the table, still dressed in his buffoon’s dress, “We’ll protect you!”

“Maddie,” Ivy turned around to face her travel companion, “Is there anything we can do? Some magic we could use?”

“I don’t have my book nor ingredients at this moment,” the blue-skinned frog in a wizard outfit replied, “still, we could try searching the books in the tower. There are so many spells who were lost in the Age of Reunification, maybe I can find something useful.”

“Then is settled!” Marcy nodded, “So, I remember you said that the enemies have their own agents inside the wall, right Hop Pop?”

“Huh, yeah, kind off?”

“Then I guess our most important priority is to locate them! Anna-Banana, Sash, we will play our roles as princesses as best as we can, while the others will try to identify the spies of the enemy and neutralize them. If their army won’t have anyone to open their gates, they won’t be able to take over the castle so easily!”

“I guess that makes sense?” Sasha pondered about, positively impressed by the quick thinking of her lovable nerd friend.

“I’ll help you,” Felicia nodded, “Hop Pop, you in?”

“Damn right I am!”

“And what about us?” Ivy asked, raising her hand.

“You go with Maddie and help her search for any spell that we could use. Sprig, I need you and Polly to search around this place and find any possible hiding place or retreat route we could use in case of emergency.”

“Consider it done!” The young frog said in enthusiasm.

“I’m going with them, then!” Amelia volunteered, “I may be dressed like a doll, but I want to do my part!”

“Then James and I will come up with an excuse and do a check-up of the defenses and try to fix everything we can.” Jacob nodded, “Plus, there were many soldiers in that ‘entourage’ of mine, I guess using them to reinforce our defenses would be a good idea.”

“Huh, Marbles?” Anne asked, in hesitation, “Exactly what are we supposed to do? I mean, not that I’m not against enjoying some luxuries and proper manicure, but…how is that supposed to help?”

“If they have spies infiltrated among our servants, the fact that the prince did arrive will put them on alarm,” Marcy explained, giving a thumbs up to Jacob, “thus, if we keep the charade and try to collect information, we can pass that info to Felicia and the others, allowing them to stop them!”

“Wow, this is quite smart thinking…Regina.”

“Anne!”

“Yes, Regina,” Sasha smirked in a teasing voice, “That was quite a good strategy, and it even allows us to get some overdue skin care.”

“Girls, please!” Marcy wimped, ignoring the reactions her words were having in the others, “Don’t call me by my middle name, you know that I hate it!”

“Seriously, Marbles?” Amelia chuckled. “Your middle name is Regina?!”

“I won’t do that in I was you, Priscilla,” Jacob piped in, the samurai wannabe grimacing as her cousin and adoptive brother pulled out her middle name. “The same goes for you, Elizabeth and Savisa!”

“It was the name of my great-great-grandmother,” Anne shook her head, recalling as to why her parents gave her that name. “And while I’ll never admit to them, it’s not bad.”

“The same goes for your middle name, Marbles,” Jacob moved in front of her, “You know, ‘regina’ in Italian means ‘queen’.”

“But it feels like the name you would give to a kid that later turns out to be a spoiled brat!” Marcy explained the reasons for her disdain, “And it doesn’t reflect my personality at all!”

“It doesn’t?” Jacob challenged that, Marcy realizing he was giving her a heartfelt smile, “I think it is quite a nice name, one that puts a smile on everyone’s face. It symbolizes how precious you are.”

“P-precious?” The girl blushed, not expecting that adjective to be used for her.

“To all of us!” the boy quickly added after realizing what he just said in front of everyone “You’re precious, to all of us! Haha!” Jacob, you frogging coward, he chastised himself in his mind.

“He’s right!” Anne nodded, “And we would always treasure and cherish you, Mar-Mar. Forever and ever Mar-Mar!”

Marcy looked around, seeing how everyone was agreeing to what Anna-Banana had just said. She looked then at Jacob, the boy still dressed like a prince and looking at her with a delightful expression. For a moment, even a short one, she felt like in one of those classic ending scenes where the hero proposes to the princess.

This all make her determination and willpower surge once again, she replied:

“Let’s rock the play, Boyz and Gurlz!”

“I must say, Prince Oliver is quite a catch, don’t you agree? I think there would be many ladies in all the realms who would dream to get engaged to such a charming soul.”

That’s because you do not know him like I do, Sasha thought in resignation, still trying to enjoy the hot bath her servants were giving her. One of the upsides of being a princess was that no luxury was out of her reach now, and she intended to exploit her supposed role as ‘soon-to-be-married princess’ at its fullest.

“I wouldn’t say that. I mean, our…marriage is just a political one, to unify our kingdoms.”

“I know, your highness. The thing is, I heard that both your sisters, Princess Savisa and Princess Regina, were quite…taken by his good looks. And they were discussing how much better it would be if it were them to be the ones engaged to him.”

An alarm bell rang in Sasha’s mind, as she wondered why she said that. She knew that Marcy and Anne weren’t jealous (especially since they all knew this was fake), so what was this servant trying to do?

“Are you sure about that?” Sasha replied, being careful of her words and carefully listening to her tone of voice.

“Positive, my lady. A lady of Princess Regina said your sister was throwing quite a tantrum.”

That was the confirmation Sasha needed, to realize that this servant was lying to her face: she knew Marcy, and she would never throw a spoiled tantrum. Thus, if the servant was lying, it was probably because she was attempting to set her up against each other.

She remembered the plot of the play, or at least, what Felicia and Hop Pop had explained to her earlier, how the three princesses got into a fight so bad that it allowed the enemy’s spies to open the gates. Maybe this servant was one of them, trying to drive up the rivalry between the sisters to further their own plans?

“Is that so?” Sasha looked up, as she glazed over the servant, noticing the smirk to the very end of her mouth. Well, too bad for you, two can play this game.

“Now that I remember, can you do me a favor?”

“Of course, Your majesty!” The hidden spy nodded, returning to her dutiful servant façade, “What are your orders?”

“Please, look for my lady-in-waiting, and tell her I need one of her ‘red berries’ tea later on.”

“As you wish, your highness!” The servant bolted outside, ignoring the trap that Sasha was making her fall right into. ‘Red berries’ was one of the several codewords that Felicia had given her earlier, to identify those spies hidden among the servants of the castle. As soon as she uttered that sentence in front of Felicia (or any other of her friends) she would unwittingly expose herself as a spy, prompting them to neutralize them and lock her somewhere safe for the near future.

One down, Sasha sighed in her head as she focused once again on the warm kiss of the water on her skin, countless more to go.

(…)

“Now I know why the mage in the story gets killed without doing anything significant.” Maddie grumbled, throwing away yet another book, “He was a charlatan!”

“So, none of this magic actually works?” Ivy wondered, looking at how many books her friend had thrown into the ground, “They’re all fake?”

“Party tricks at best, used to impress royals ignorant of what real magic is. Frog, many books are filled with blank pages!”

“Blank?!” Ivy rushed to check with her own eyes and, to her horror, she found out it was true, “B-but why?”

“I told you, the wizard of the three princesses was a charlatan who could only pretend to do magic while having no real knowledge of how it works. I guess those fake books are only for show.” Maddie grumbled, giving a hateful glare to the many books she had looked so enthusiastically before, before her hopes were cruelly crushed as soon as she inspected them.

“This is bad, this is very bad! What do we do now?”

“Thankfully, I remember enough spell recipes of mine to improvise something,” Maddie moved to the opposite side of the library, where a small untouched lab stood, the equipment dusty after such a long time, “Ok, Ivy, if you help me, we can do this in time to help everyone, but I need you to carefully follow my indications little by little, step by step and without any question.”

“Wait, are you going to teach me magic too?!”

“Just what you need to help me while preparing the spells, since Marcy is unavailable. And for the love of Frog please be careful: we don’t need to blow up the castle...”

(…)

“Come on, boys!” Jacob hurried, doing his best to coordinate the reparation work to the walls and other defenses, “The walls of the castle won’t repair themselves!”

“My prince, why are you doing this?” One of the soldiers, a toad whose scars testified a lifelong story of battles and never-ending war, asked.

“An enemy army is approaching the fortress, soldier!” Jacob replied, passing a hand on his forehead, “It is our duty to make sure that the fortress is ready to repel any attack!”

“But why are you helping us, sir?” The soldier insisted, puzzled by the whole situation, “You’re betrothed with Princess Elizabeth, and today is the day you’re supposed to be wed! Why are you here helping us, instead of focusing on the preparations?”

“I am sure the staff inside can deal with that,” Jacob scoffed, still trying not to think at the fact ‘he’ was supposed to get married with ‘Elisabeth’, “And the whole point of today is to establish an alliance between our kingdoms to fight against our common enemy, the Leviathan king. Are you perhaps suggesting that we should forget our duties to be on guard, simply due to the wedding?”

“Well, of course no, but-”

“Even if the big wedding had to be postponed,” another voice said, foreshadowing James’ arrival, the other boy followed by a couple of guards, “it can be done tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. The safety of the castle, and all the people within it, are our highest priority.”

“Well said, Marquis,” Jacob almost chuckled with his words while James rolled his eyes in annoyance, “So, how did your inspection go?”

“I found several weak points that the enemy could use, but we’re already begun to work to fix as many as we can. The bad news is that all our catapults and ballista are almost out of projectiles to use.”

“What?!” Jacob fake-gasped, turning around with an inquisitive look, “How is that your main defenses are all out of munitions?”

“We…we didn’t think it was a priority. It has been a long time since anything or anyone tried to storm our walls, and we had to make space for new expenses,” the supposed commander of the garrison, a newt in a bright dress called Gerten, “You see, Princess Savisa requested a new marble floor for her own tower and-”

“I understand, thank you.” Jacob grumbled, adding yet another to his mental list of Princess Anne’s sycophants. Truly, if the castle’s servants and soldiers had been so divided among them in trying to curry the favor of the three princesses, it wasn’t difficult to understand how the fortress itself had fallen to in-fighting in the play itself. “Still, we need to replenish those stocks somehow.”

“Huh, about that,” James suggested, “I saw some old, unused small walls that we can tear down to make catapult projectiles out of them, and there is a lot of ruined furniture we can break in pieces to transform into ammunition for the ballista. We just need to-”

“Wait, are you suggesting destroying the walls and furniture of this castle?” The newt commander said almost in shock, “Your highness, this is… the Three Princesses’ castle…”

“I doubt the princesses even care for furniture and rocks they don’t even need anymore, captain,” Jacob replied, the newt gasping and his eyes widening as he saw the prince looking down on him in tranquil, silent anger, “And I don’t think they want to be disturbed while they’re busy preparing for the ceremony. Don’t you agree?”

“Huh…of course, your highness-”

(…)

“Frog, being a princess is exhausting!” Marcy lamented, resting her elbows on a small table in one of the back rooms of the castle, that their servants had described as the ‘communal tearoom’, Sash and Anne resting with her, all three of them showing worn down expressions and tired eyes.

“You know, girls? Those ladies of mine told me I had to choose the shoes for the ceremony, and I had to check one million pairs before I could finally convince them that I was sure of my choice.” Sasha mumbled, almost amused by her own predicament, “I never believed I would say this, but for once…I don’t want to see new shoes for a long, long time!”

“Wow, that has to be something worthy of recording,” Anne chuckled, even as she herself had her own experiences all day along. She had to admit that being treated as a princess had a lot of perks: enjoying good and carefully prepared meals, as well as rare healthcare pleasures; being allowed, or rather, incentive, to buy as many clothes and fashion items as she could. But after a bit, she quickly realized that all the luxuries and privileges she could enjoy for today weren’t for free. Like all things, they had a price.

A price that the real princesses, the one she and her friends were forced to play as today, forced on their subjects.

“Girls,” Sprig and Ivy moved to open the door and allow Amelia inside, the samurai girl herself feeling drained of all her usual enthusiasm and inner strength, “I can’t do this anymore! That…majordomo of yours,” she almost hissed, clearly showing a deep disdain for the frog, “he keeps trying to drive me away in private and make absurd suggestions!”

“Welcome to the club!” Sasha grumbled, too tired even to use her usual snark, “at least, Felicia and Hop Pop told us we could relax a bit here. How are Jacob and James doing?”

“I met them on my way here, they said they were going to talk with Hop Pop,” Amelia sat down, hissing as she felt her corset once again grip on her inner organs, “It seems like at least the external defenses should be done by now. This means-”

“-that we just have to finish exposing and capture the remaining spies inside the walls, and then we’re good!” Sprig announced, Anne smiling as his cheerfulness helped her mitigate the tiredness of her mind, “Ok, how many are left?”

“Who knows?” Sasha grimaced, “We keep finding them everywhere: one was disguised in the kitchen, you found the other two hiding in the stables, and I have lost count of how many of them were disguised among our servants! I really should ask Felicia about the total count on how many I’ve sent her so far, but I can guess it was a double digit!”

“I heard Jacob and James found as many while they were inspecting the guards on the wall,” Marcy spoke, turning toward Anne, “Do you think that maybe all the servants and guards here may be spies Anna-Banana?”

“I doubt that,” her friend replied, “I mean, if they did, why would they try to make us quarrel? Why not simply take over the castle and-”

“Your highnesses!” A familiar voice came from the outside, and they heard someone running around, searching for them.

“Ugh, it’s the majordomo!” Ivy groaned, rolling his eyes, “What does he want now?”

“Let’s find it out,” Anne quickly put together her ‘princess’ act, imitated by her friends, while Sprig and Ivy rushed to hide from sigh, “We are here! Introduce yourself!”

“Y-your highnesses!” The servant frog kneeled again as he entered the room, “It’s a catastrophe! It’s a tragedy! S-something has happened in the throne room, while we were busy preparing for the ceremony! You all must come at once!”

Worried, uncertain of what the servant was saying, Anne, Sasha, Marcy, and Amelia rushed as they followed him. Ivy and Sprig soon left their hiding places and rush after them, being careful not to be noticed. As the human girls finally stepped back into the large room, they were quick to see Hop Pop and Felicia, looking at them with gloomy, worried expressions, five amphibians standing behind them, each one of them holding a short blade in their hand.

The girls’ barely had the time to notice it, that they heard the sound of swords being unsheathed from behind them, Amelia turning around to see other three amphibians, all dressed in servant uniforms, holding them hostage with their blades.

And looking at them with a smug, victorious expression, there was the majordomo himself.

“So, it was you, the leader of the spies,” Amelia murmured, looking back at him with eyes full of scorn, “I guess I should have suspected, by how nagging and obnoxious you were!”

“Obnoxious?!” The fake servant replied, no longer hiding his anger and disdain toward her, “Do you have any idea how much time it took me and my agents to infiltrate among the retainers of this place? To work my way up through the ranks by lies and deceptions, to remove any possible threat to my sovereign’s plans? To force me to take you hostage, like a mere bandit?”

So, this is a desperation plan, Sasha thought as she looked around. The doors were blocked, and she could see several other servants tied up on the ground, evidently those who had nothing to do with the conspirators. It was clear, from what she could see, that this was something they had to improvise at the last minute. She looked at Felicia, the boss and adoptive mom nodding in return.

They just had to create a good opening.

“What, weren’t you expecting our father to propose such an alliance?” Anne mocked him, noticing how the veins on the majordomo’s face looked ready to explode.

“The prince was never supposed to arrive!” He yelled, “My sovereign had told me…a special squad of Newt soldiers would take care of him and his entourage long before he would arrive. Yet, not only had he managed to arrive, but he did so early! Implying that those soldiers either utterly failed or double-crossed us!”

So, Jacob’s presence did end up screwing up the plot, Marcy realized. “I assume his absence was part of your plan, to put all of us against each other, right? This is why all those servants tried to fill our ears with lies.”

“Oh, it looks like you finally realized it!” He replied, “Yes, this was the plan, to spread chaos and confusion and transform your simple sister rivalry into pure anger, so we could have a chance to open the gates and allow the army of our lord to conquer this fortress without the need to besiege it! But since that plan is now gone, I guess I’ll have to take you all hostage, and force your men to open the gates themselves!”

“Huh, are you sure you can pull this off?” Sasha replied with a mocking tone, to make the spies focus on them while Sprig and Ivy, unseen by them, got closer. “I mean, Prince Oliver and the Marquis are still free.”

“If you’re hoping for their rescue, I wouldn’t be that sure,” the majordomo said in a smug voice, “You may have tried to neutralize my agents, but before they will realize what’s going on-”

“We already know!” A voice announced, the main opening suddenly, Jacob and James standing side by side, swords in their hands, a dozen guards all holding pikes behind them, “I mean, ok, you weren’t expecting us to be here, but seriously? Is this the best you could come up with in such a short notice?”

“You!” The majordomo stuttered, “Don’t make a move! If you try to get closer, my soldiers and I-”

“You won’t do anything!” Ivy yelled, just as she and Sprig launched into the fray, jumping on two spies’ backs and having them drop their weapons. Felicia and Hop Pop taking advantage of the distraction to pull free from their captors, the girls joined them, punching and kicking anyone that got too close. Meanwhile, Jacob, James and their troops pushed in, quickly taking control of the situation, and making every spy their prisoner.

The majordomo looked around, seeing his comrades being neutralized and captured one by one.  He realized that everything he had worked so hard for, was now lost. The army on the outside would never be able to conquer the fortress now. The best he could do was try to bargain for his own freedom.

“Don’t come any closer!” The Amphibian yelled, grabbing Amelia, and holding his sword close enough to make his threat implicit, “Or I’ll cut her throat!”

“I guess this is your biggest mistake, then,” Amelia spoke, as her lips twitched into a smirk, “Thinking that I need them to protect myself.”

Before the majordomo could react, Amelia swiftly pushed her elbow into his stomach, cutting off his air flow. Then she stomped his foot with her heel making him yelp in pain and lose his grip over the girl. Finally, and with an elegant turn on herself, Amelia uppercut him, making the amphibian drop on the ground before an unnoticed spell bag hit him, enveloping him into a sticky substance and trapping him on the floor.

“Looks like my glue spell works just fine,” Maddie announced, walking holding Polly in her arms (the polliwog looking annoyed at not being able to join in), the majordomo looking at her in horror.

“No!” The spy master gasped “This cannot be! You’re not a real wizard! You’re a fraud!”

“Maybe, I was,” Maddie nodded with an evil smirk, “but I am the fraud that got you!”

(…)

“Ugh, do we really have to do this?” Sasha hissed, looking at Jacob in front of him, both of them clearly uneasy about the whole situation.

“Look Sasha, I don’t want to do this, but it looks like we must get this crappy happy ending for us to finally get free!” the boy hissed back before giving a nervous smile to the official in front of them.

After the majordomo’s conspiracy had been fully exposed, he and his acolytes had been thrown into the nearest oubliette. Treason of this magnitude didn’t need a judgment to be dealt with, not that anyone complained about their “princesses” decision.

Less than an hour later, the Leviathan King’s Army finally appeared into view, ready to take the fortress for their sovereign. When they found out that their spies in the interior had been captured and the whole garrison was united standing against them, their first action was to prepare themselves for a long and gruesome siege, in hope to wear down the impressive fortifications of the defenders…only to drop all preparations once yet another set of ill news reached them.

Turns out that Oliver’s father had found out about their movements and had sent an army of its own to reinforce to fortress, forcing the attackers to an immediate retreat to not be caught between the well-defended fortress and the enemies coming to its relief, fleeing back as hard as they could to their masters, all their plans for conquest vanquished at once.

The traitors had been captured, and the enemy had fled. The castle had survived, and all the people who lived in it were still alive. The plot of the play had been utterly subverted, so could this be an achievement enough to be called a happy ending?

Apparently, not yet.

“Remind me, why do we have to marry?!”

“Because,” Jacob rolled his eyes, doing his best to not show his real emotions to the castle’s servants and guards who were all gathered in the big room now, the maids cheering at once, some of the guard even sniffing in commotion, “our characters in the story are betrothed. And apparently we need a big wedding to fulfill the ‘happily ever after’ part so we can get free!”

“Is there no other way?”

“Well, look on the upside: it’s a fake wedding! So, once we’re out of this simulation, we won’t have to talk about it anymore.”

“Let’s hope so…” the blonde human girl grumbled again, giving an aside glance to the nearest chairs where Anne, Marcy and all their friends and families were sitting.

“So…” the old farmer frog said, scratching his head and looking at Felicia, “This doesn’t count, right? I mean, we are inside a magic illusion, this is not a real wedding.”

“Indeed, it doesn’t,” replied Felicia, before looking once again at Sasha at the altar, “Still, I’m feeling somewhat proud of her. I guess I’ll feel even better when she does end up marrying for real.”

“Just to clarify, we are not going to make business agreements based on this, right?”

“Right! Separation between work and private life, we should respect and enforce!”

“How long until it is over?” Sprig asked with a bored expression, having clearly lost all interest by now.

“Come on, Sprig!” Ivy replied, looking at him, “This is quite nice!”

“And quite fake!” Maddie rolled her eyes, “We know they are not going to marry for real, so why bother?”

“Because it’s amusing to see them,” Amelia replied with a smug grin, sitting in the front row to enjoy the humiliation her cousin and her best frenemy were forced to endure, Polly watching with avid attention as well “Oh, I wish I had a camera to immortalize this scene forever!”

“It’s…a joyous day.” James wept to her left.

“Huh, James, why are you crying?” Anne asked from the first row, where she was sitting next to Marcy, both girls dressed in gorgeous dresses just like their blonde friend, “You know that this is all fake, nothing more than a play like in theater.”

“I know! But I’ve always had a soft spot for royal weddings: I am a proud citizen of the United Kingdom, after all!”

Anne chuckled, amused by her friend’s reaction, “I guess it is quite a nice scene, Sasha’s dress is absolutely amazing. Don’t you agree., Mar-Mar? Mar-Mar?”

“Huh?” The dark-haired girl reacted, confirming she had slipped into ‘the Zone’ once again, “I guess that’s…right?” Though, I am still feeling weirded out by the whole situation.

As Marcy once again focusing on her friends forced to pretend to get married, she couldn’t help but feel a strange feeling in her. Like the more she kept watching, the more it angered her. And hurt too. She knew it was all fake, and that Sasha and Jacob hated doing this. Not even speaking about the two of them ever getting married in the future! But still…

Why do I feel like this? What is this sensation I keep having just watching them? Is this jealousy? Am I jealous of them?

“-and now, before you cross your vows, does someone among this audience-”

“Actually,” Sasha suddenly interrupted the official, her eyes brightened as she just had an idea, “I do have something to say. I wish to thank everyone who has gathered today to celebrate this royal wedding, and the birth of the alliance between our kingdoms. It will help both our nations and people to grow stronger together, against all our challenges!”

Everyone cheered at this speech, even James and Anne nodding. Yet, unbeknownst to them Sasha wasn’t done yet.

“But…this won’t be my wedding!”

“What?” Everyone gasped at once. Even Jacob, who was only playing the role, suddenly jerked back as he didn’t expect such a twist.

“The thing is,” Sasha said as she turned to face Jacob, giving him some small hand sign to tell him to go with it, “you are already part of someone else’s mind, Prince Oliver. She tried to hide it from me, but I couldn’t help but notice how much she loved you, and how much she felt tortured by her forbidden love after we were engaged. Thus, allow me to withdraw and instead, take for wife my sister Princess Regina-”

“WHAT?” Everyone gasped even louder, Maddie, Hop Pop and Anne looking at Marcy, the girl feeling her heart starting to beat faster and faster, her face blushing redder than a tomato, as she saw Sasha walking up to her and pull her from where she was sitting, and accompanying him toward the official…and Jacob.

I’m sorry, Mar-Mar, but I can’t stand to marry Jacob, even as pretend, Sasha though in apology. Plus, you are most suited for live-action roleplay, after all…

“-who she loves you very dearly-”

“I accept!” Jacob yelled immediately, his cheeks too having reddened quite a bit, grabbing Marcy’s arms and looking at her with a truthful passionate look, “I love her too!”

What? Marcy wondered why his sentence looked so sincere as her face kept getting redder as she realized everyone was now looking at her.

Isn’t Jacob overplaying the part? Anne mentally wondered, as the official struggled to resume while the crowd behind them began to cheer louder and louder, Sasha sitting where Marcy had been while Ivy and Maddie gave her a puzzled expression.

“So, Prince Jacob, do you accept-”

“I do!” Jacob replied immediately, Marcy still struggling to understand what was happening around her.

“Then, Princess Regina, do you accept Prince Oliver as your loyal husband and king, until death do you apart?”

“I…I do?” Marcy murmured without almost realizing.

And just then, another blast of white-golden light appeared, and everything around them disappeared once again.

“So…” Anne said, as he looked around, realizing that she and all her friends and families were back to normal, dressed in their usual clothing, “Are we all back?”

“Y-yes,” Sasha grumbled, moving toward the fwagon, where Liptea, Bessie and Akitsu buzzed, trying to understand why, for a single second, their families had disappeared from their sight.

“We’re back to normal!” Amelia announced rushing toward her flying companion, “Oh., Akitsu! I have so many things to tell you!”

“Bri-bri?”

“Huh, Jacob?” Marcy asked, looking toward her friend, both humans blushing as they still recalled the situation they had been in until a few minutes ago, “About the fake wedding, I just wanted to say…”

“Are you angry that we had to do it?” The boy asked, careful with his words, “Look, I know you weren’t expecting-”

“No! I mean, I admit I was quite surprised but… it was quite a nice scene, I suppose, just like the hero’s reward scene in one of my games. Though, I admit I never expected to roleplay one.”

“Yeah, me neither…” the boy shrugged, struggling to fight the assortment of all his feelings at once, as he started to feel the weight of the situation. Only for him to hear the girl snorting lightly.

“At least I would have preferred having the time to roleplay it properly!” she added with a chuckle. “All I did was babble some words! And the RP player in me hates how much I had to rush it!” Now the laugh in her voice was clearly perceptible and her cheeks started to become pinkish once again.

I could listen to this melodious sound every day, Jacob suppressed his thoughts, “Don’t worry, it was fine! Better than go overboard, don’t you agree?” his face slightly heating up as well.

Both teenagers were now uncontrollably giggling, giving each other encouragement about how they deal with this situation.

“Alright, enough fantastical adventure for today. Let’s go to bed, kids!” Hop Pop announced, ruining the moment and once again postponing the issue, as Anne and Sasha looked with an irked look at their conversation. Why suddenly, they felt jealous as well?

Little they knew that someone had been watching their whole shenanigans…

(…)

As the humans and their families went inside the fwagon to sleep, still thinking about the crazy adventure they just went through, the cold wind of the night, which hissed sharply through the castle ruins, gradually grew stronger, the ruins roaring, and then subsided almost completely. Of the group, only Bessie noticed it, and she raised one of her antennae with concern, then calmed down and went back to sleep as soon as she realized that no danger threatened them.

Of the group, no one knew, but that night, something was about to happen. Something that they themselves had made possible, making themselves participants, albeit unintentionally, in such reenactment of past events.

It was only when the moon disappeared, and the smallest light vanished, that it happened. The ruins seemed to shake, for a moment, and then from the ruins of the three towers, three figures emerged, semi-transparent but dressed in great fine robes.

The ghosts of the real princesses who, many years ago, had dwelt in this mighty castle.

“We’re free!” The ghost dressed in a pale, white dress said, dancing among the ruins of the castle while, on the faraway fwagon, everyone was by now sound asleep, “The bond that had trapped us in these ruins is finally gone! We-we can go now!”

“Yes, I feel that too, sister,” the second ghost nodded, giving one more glance to the small group of travelers who had unwittingly favored their liberation, “All thanks to them.”

“It had been so long since someone last decided to spend the night in these ruins,” the third ghost almost whispered, “I had now lost hope we would ever be free ever again!”

“Still, we basically had to kidnap them and trap them into a magic illusion of our doing. Don’t you think we should…reward them?”

“You took the words right from my mouth, sister. These young, brave children who free us deserve a reward. Even if they did so without their knowledge.”

“Then, we’re in agreement.” The ghost in white said, as he moved upward and started to fly in round shapes just over the fwagon, quickly followed by her sisters, “We will reward them, before leaving this place once and for all, by giving them our most powerful blessings.”

The ghosts began to chant, a bright azure light forming around the shape of the Fwagon and the animals, forming what looked like protective cocoons around them before disappearing.

“What is meant to be comes about because of what one does.” The three ghosts chanted together, before disappearing, their words lost into the wind, “And these young kids, their families and their friends are meant to be heroes…”

Chapter Text

“Focus, Amelia!” Felicia urged her, “Focus on letting yourself go.”

“Letting myself go?! I’d rather hold on if you don’t mind.”

The human girl was upside down on the roof of the fwagon’s rear carriage, holding herself on her hands. Felicia stood in front of her, explaining what she was supposed to do, to the amusement of Sasha and Jacob, who were watching the scene. Meanwhile, under the bright sun, the fwagon was traveling through a vast and arid desert with sandstone buttes in the horizon, devoid of any signs of life except for strange, red cactus-like plants growing here and there.

“Enough joking around, kid. Now focus: shift your weight so you can balance on just one hand rather than two.”

“I-I’m trying-” the girl replied through gritted teeth, feeling every part of her body screaming in pain. This wasn’t the first martial training she had received since she arrived on Amphibia, but none of her master’s teaching had been this hard before.

“Do or do not,” Jacob immediately shot back, “There is no try!”

“What does that even mean?!” Amelia protested with an irritated voice, “How can I even do something if I don’t try to do it?!”

“Well...” her cousin scratched the back of his head, thinking about it, “To tell the truth, this always confused me too. But Yoda kept repeating that when he was training Luke, so… I guess it must be an important lesson?”

“Come on, Amelia,” Sasha chuckled, unable to resist the chance to sass her bratty companion, “I thought this was supposed to be a piece of cake for a proud samurai in training.”

“Why don’t you-” Amelia replied with annoyance, and in that moment, her anger took over and vanquished her doubt, the girl at first not realizing she had let go on her left hand and was now holding herself completely on right hand before catching on, “WHOA!” She gasped, losing balance and holding once again, “Did…did I just do it?”

“For a few seconds, yes.” Felicia nodded, moving her head to the side and looking back at the two ‘spectators’ “Jacob, while those wouldn’t be the terms I would have used, I appreciate the analogy and the inner lesson contained within it. And, Sasha? You did that on purpose, right? Making Amelia angry enough so she would overcome her mental hang-up, even for a few seconds?”

“Guilty as charged!” Sasha chuckled. Wait, I just did that?

Felicia looked at her for a few seconds before her expression mellowed down and she gave her adoptive daughter a genuine smile “Well done.”

“Can you remind me what they are supposed to do?” Amelia asked, looking at where her cousin and best frenemy were sitting.

“They’re distracting you, of course.” Felicia turned again to face her student, “You’ll always run into distractions, one of your lessons for today is to focus through them.”

“I’d say, I was expecting more interesting stuff,” Jacob turned to Sash, “Don’t you agree Sasha?”

“Worst case scenario, we can propose she joins a circus.”

“HEY!” Amelia angered once again by the blond’s comment. Only this time, it didn’t benefit her in any way. As she just lost her balance and fell hard on the wooden roof.

“Looks like we’re going to restart your punishment training again,” Felicia quietly grumbled, shaking her head, Amelia groaning.

Meanwhile, inside the fwagon, everyone was doing what they could to pass the time.

Maddie and Marcy were sitting at a table studying Hop Pop’s book. The teen was working on her translation work trying to find out more about the Gem’s history and powers, while Maddie helped her the best she could. Ivy was cataloging some of her latest additions in her bug collection; Sprig was playing with his fiddle; James and Polly were watching an episode of Doctor Zone on his phone and Anne was lazing off the couch and watching the photos she had over her phone.

“Huh?” The girl said with a confused voice, as she noticed a photo she didn’t expect to find, “I don’t remember taking this photo of Hop Pop’s Frog of the Year’s party.”

“Oh, that was me.” Sprig confessed, “I wanted a little reminder of how amazing that time was.”

“No issue Sprig,” Anne replied as she focused on the photo once more, looking over the images of her friends and families having fun all together, Marcy and Sprig playing fiddles together in the background, “It was quite happy.”

“And then, the toads arrived,” James continued, with a bitter sigh, “and we had to defend Wartwood against them…and Aiden.”

As the boy pronounced that name, everyone in the fwagon shivered, remembering the other human who had revealed himself that night, just as he stuck a knife in Grime’s back and betrayed the same toads who he joined only to sabotage and destroy them from the inside. Where she was sitting, Marcy could barely keep herself calm as she remembered when he came forward and asked her and her friends to marry him, creeping her out, before she could ever grasp the hate he embodied. Maddie held onto her friend’s arm, remembering the brute, mechanical soldiers cutting a path among them and wounding many frogs, including her father. Sprig and Ivy stuttered, while Polly shivered, recalling her memory of that scary night. While Hop-Pop had managed to shield her eyes against most of the carnage the mechanical soldiers unleashed against the toads, his efforts couldn’t protect his granddaughter from hearing the massacre unfolding.

Anne stood still, her eyes wide open with a thousand-yard stare. Aiden… he was the shadow that had been looming over them, ever since they arrived on Amphibia. Stalking over them from afar, binding his time before revealing himself; planning to gain control over them and the Box.

What’s worse, even though Sasha had managed to destroy his monstrous robots during the battle, Aiden himself had managed to escape and now no one knew where he was. What was he planning? Did he have more of those robotic soldiers of his? If yes, how many? And what about the giant mechanical bird he escaped with, that time? It was at this moment that Anne regretted they had no safe way to contact Grimsey, to ask him if the Valley was still safe or if they had news they needed to share with them.

“Well, let’s try not to worry too much about him,” the girl finally said, doing the best she could to reassure her friends and family, “we beat him once, I am sure we can beat him again if we need to!”

“Indeed!” Polly eagerly nodded, ashamed for her earlier fear, “Let him try to stop us if he can, we will mess him up!”

“You know,” Marcy nodded, grabbing her fiddle, “Sprig and I have actually been working on a song based on the battle.”

“Oh! Am I in it?” Ivy asked, her eyes bright in excitation.

“We all are on it!” Sprig thumbed up, “Wanna hear the song?”

“Hey!” The hatch on the fwagon’s roof opened, Hop Pop looking down, “Sprig, are you seriously going to play it now, and you didn’t warn me? I told you I looked forward to hearing your music!”

“You…knew about it?” James asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course I did!” The old frog grumbled, turning his head to the back end of the vehicle. “Felicia, kids, stop with the training and come here. Sprig and Marcy’s are going to play their song!”

“Coming!” Several voices shouted at once, and less than a minute later, Jacob, Sasha, Felicia, and Amelia rushed back inside, the samurai girl showing a tired expression and barely able to move her arms.

“Are you alright?” James asked, noticing how much achy Jacob’s cousin was acting, “Was the training… harsh?”

“Not harsher than the other punishments we all went through,” Jacob was quick to reassure him, “She’s becoming a padawan.” He added with a hint of excitement.

“Jacob!” Amelia protested, mildly embarrassed by the comparison.

“So, can we hear that music?” Sasha looked at Marcy, the adorable nerd giggling for a bit as Sprig prepared his fiddle as well, the duo checking their instruments for a few seconds before starting to play, a bright, cheerful music filling the air.

“♪ This is a story

of family and love,

of three families

who lived in a town,

called Wartwood, ♫”

Sprig began to sing.

“♫More and more taxes would come,

until they couldn’t stand anymore.

Anne and Sasha, Jacob, and Amelia,

all together stood and said:

Revolution! ♪”

“♪To the mayor though,

a voice called out, ♫

and that was

Hop Pop the Generous. ♪”

Marcy continued, exchanging a heartfelt gaze with the old frog, Hop Pop smiling at her in turn.

“♪He liked justice,

but violence was not the way,

so for everyone he would pay.

♫ Frogs hero called him,

but the toads didn’t like,

so they tried to execute him!♪”

“♪But for tyranny,

no frog would stand anymore, ♪”

Marcy and Sprig were now singing together while many of their family members were caught in the rhythm of the ballad.

“♪ The Militia formed ranks,

and the wall manned,

to repel the Toads’s attack.

On the Bastion fought James,

the Child of the Star,

bringing hope and determination

to all near and far.

♫ Side by side,

Felis the Red and her daughter battled,

 repelling every attack with ease,

 while from the Sky,

Amelia and Akitsu

raining ruin on the enemy,

♪ Jacob cutting through them

with courage and ardor-”

As the song continued, Sprig and Marcy chanted passage after passage describing the epic battle against the Toads, the amazing feats each one of them had accomplished, the dramatic moment when Aiden stabbed Grime in the back before revealing himself, the desperate attempt of the Militia to stop his mechanical monsters to attack the town, the Toads joining forces with the humans and the frogs, Felicia and Grime’s last stand, Sasha’s activation of her powers and their final victory. And when the song finished…

“Whoo-hoo!”

“Great song, guys!”

“Awesome song, Mar-Mar!”

“Amazing, Sprig!”

“I have to admit, it was quite good!” Felicia commented, looking at Hop Pop. “Your grandson has a future as a musician, or as a bard should he follow a more adventurous path.”

“I couldn’t feel prouder of him,” the old frog replied with a chuckle, “Though I am a bit disappointed my part was too short.”

“Hey, it does say you tried to deescalate the situation,” James pointed out. “There is nothing to be ashamed of choosing peace and diplomacy over violence.”

“I guess I can’t protest that,” Hop Pop nodded, once again looking forward before noticing something in front of time coming closer, “Whoop. Heads up, gang! Looks like we're about to stop at our first town!”

Everyone watched outside, spotting a large sign with the name Bittyburg on it, the Fwagon passing right under it while Akitsu buzzed above.

“Our first town in Amphibia outside of Wartwood!” Marcy cheered, reassuming her usual hyper-enthusiastic tone as she took out her notebook, ready to fill it with sketches and info. “Do they have a rich story and traditions? What are the main local products? What’s the town’s economy based on? I mean, the area around us doesn’t look like it can be easily farmed, maybe they’re into mining or something else?!”

“Marbles, please!” Sasha patted her on the shoulder, prompting Marcy to calm down, “As long as the frogs are friendly and they have a decent bathroom, I’m not going to complain.”

“That reminds me, remember to cover yourselves with your hoodies,” Hop Pop warned the six humans. “The frogs living here probably have never seen something like you before. It would be prudent not to risk some… let’s say misunderstandings.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea,” Anne nodded, remembering the angry mob they had faced on the first day they met. Sure, everyone in Wartwood knew them by now, but that didn’t mean they could end up facing similar situations in the other towns.

“I am more interested to see what kind of natural ingredients I can find around,” Maddie said in a thoughtful expression, “This is a good chance for new exotic potions!”

“Huh, Mom?” Ivy asked, “Did you ever stop here? During your previous travels?”

“In Bittyburg?” Felicia asked, “Indeed, there was one time I stopped here. Though, I should warn you to not get too excited: It's just an average small town.”

“Pssh,” Anne scoffed, waving her hand, “how small can it be- Wow!” She gasped, as her eyes finally laid on the town in front of them. It was a typical Western-style town, with building including a saloon, the sheriff’s office, a small clinic, a boots shop, a windmill, and some other buildings who were dug into red cacti, yet it was literally a small town, with Bessie and Liptea towering even over the tallest buildings.

Besides her, Amelia heard James mutter the word ‘lilliput’, and she couldn’t help but agree with him. Was this how Gulliver had felt on his first (and most known travel), when he washed ashore on the coast of the island and met its tiny inhabitants?

Frog, there are tiny inhabitants, the wannabe samurai thought as she looked further, and saw many greenish-brown small frogs, all dressed in classic western outfits and dresses, going through their daily lives.

“Oh my gosh!” Sasha exclaimed, as she looked around, “It is a small town! Literally! They’re so smol!” she continued, quacking in excitement over the cuteness of the town inhabitant.

“Awww, it’s so adorable!” Marcy nodded, quickly drawing a sketch of the town and of her inhabitants on her notebook, feeling delighted by the sight. It was just like a child’s dream, to walk in a doll town where the ‘dolls’ were actually alive.

“Sasha, can you believe frogs can be this small?” Ivy asked her adoptive sister, who responded with a smirk.

“Actually, I can, Ivy. These people are just the same size as baseline frogs in our world.”

“Frogs in your world are this small?” The yellow-skinned bug hunter gasped in surprise, unprepared for such information.

“This is amazing!” Jacob exclaimed, “A small western town? When I was a kid, I’ve always dreamed of being a cowboy, riding in the sunset and fighting bad guys at high noon!”

“Jacob, wasn’t your kid’s dream to be an adventurer like Indiana Jones and venture into lost temples to find treasures and glory?” Amelia teased him, earning a grumbling from her cousin and an approving look from James.

“Of course I had that dream too!”

“And the one about building your own spaceship and exploring the Galaxy?”

“Look, I admit it, I had many dreams when I was a kid. But being the hero in a western was my favorite one!”

“I guess we can’t judge you for that,” James chuckled, patting his bro on the back, just as Hop Pop and Felicia signaled for them to gather around and listen.

“Ok kids,” Hop Pop announced, “we’re stopping for a couple of hours to feed the snails and relax a bit, as well as resupply of water and other amenities for the journey. Feel free to look around and have fun, but please, don’t harass the locals and don’t do something stupid!”

“Look, Hop Pop, if you’re still angry for the whole ‘mystery factory’ thing-”

“I’m not angry, Anne, I’m just… wary.” The old frog sighed, “Plus, we’re already quite late on our travel schedule without having yet another crazy shenanigan.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be careful!” Sprig said, turning to Ivy and Maddie, “Polly and I were thinking of exploring the outskirts and see if we can find something interesting. You two want to come?”

“Sure thing!”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll join too.”

“You’re free to have fun, as long as you stay prudent and don’t rush into the middle of danger,” Felicia looked at her daughter, “If any of you will be looking for me, I’m going to check on an old friend before we resume our travels.”

“Hey, boys?” Anne looked at James and Jacob, “Sash, Marbles and I are going to explore the town a bit. What about you?”

“We’re exploring the town as well,” Jacob quickly nodded, “With any luck we may meet some old, mysterious-looking frog that will give us a map for some old, buried treasure or a lost goldmine.”

“Huh, Jacob?” James raised an eyebrow, “Are you sure you’re not setting your expectations too high?”

“Hey, those things always happen in western stories!”

(…)

“So,” Marcy asked while taking notes, the small petite frog in ladies’ dress chuckling as she did, “most of the people living here are ranchers, raising and selling bug cattle?”

“Indeed!” The local frog nodded, apparently amused by Marcy’s thirst for knowledge, “This is something that many foreigners tend to overlook, but the caterpillars and other bugs of Bittyburg sells quite well in the neighboring cities, and the profits of such trade give jobs and sustenance to almost everyone in our town. Though I may be annoying you-”

“No, actually, this is interesting! Please continue!”

“Looks like the girls are having fun,” James said as he, Jacob and Amelia looked at the small plaza where Anne, Sasha and Marcy were busy ‘socializing’ with the locals, the small frogs apparently having no issue with meeting people much bigger than they are. “This was…unexpected,”

“Why, were you expecting for them to run away screaming?” The other boy replied, “We are wearing our hoodies, after all.”

“But we are basically kaiju for them!” Amelia grumbled, “I was expecting more surprise, but they are all like it’s no big deal- hey, please move, please!” The girl said, some of the town’s frogs moving aside to let her move.

“I guess they are already used to seeing big foreigners in their town. We may not see them today, but probably-”

They all suddenly stopped, as they noticed a ruckus ahead. A light green toad with dark green patches and a pale-yellow underbelly, dressed in a brown vest with a dark red belt and long, dark green pants with no undershirt and an eyepatch over his left eye, standing in the middle of the town. Many of Bittyburg’s inhabitants were gathered around him, and they all shared sorrowful expressions.

“B‐but, please. Just listen‐” as one of Bittyburg’s frogs tried to speak, the toad kicked him away, Anne quickly moved to catch him.

“Got you!”

“All right.” The larger toad said, “Y'all know the rules. Pay me, and no one gets hurt.”

The humans gasped, as they saw the Bitties reluctantly giving him their money.

“That's right, pay up, keep it coming.”

The bandit stopped, his attention now focused on the last frog in the line.

“Sorry, Mr. Judro, sir, but I need the money for my boy Bailey. He's been very sick and‐”

“I don't want your excuses! I want your money!” The toad replied, grabbing the father and shaking him like a rattle, coins falling out as he laughed, the humans scoffing as they watched the scene.

“Those poor Bitties.”

“That guy is a bandit!”

“Someone should do something!”

Jacob’s eyes widened, as he felt a metaphorical lightbulb turned on over his head, as she shared a glance with James and Amelia. He never liked bullying, no matter what universe was, and this guy had just given him a chance to do good and play the western’s hero role at once.

“Should we give this bully a lesson, cousin?”

“I couldn't agree more!” The samurai girl replied, feeling her muscles tense.

“I don’t like violence …but this jerk deserves a freaking spanking!” James glared at the toad.

“Marcy?” Jacob said, smiling at the girl, “Get your fiddle ready. I’m going to give you and Sprig material for a new ballad.” He turned toward the bully and started to approach him from behind.

“Should we get worried, Boonchuy?”

“Let’s wait and see for now, Sash.”

“Hey, toad!” Jacob stomped on the ground, grabbing his attention as well as his victim’s. “Why don’t you pick on someone on your own size?”

“I'm Judro Hasselback, and this here's my town.” The toad replied, “Who in the heck are you?”

“We don’t give our names to trash.” Amelia shot back, earning an irritated expression from Judro, “Do you pick on these people because you know you’d lose in a fair fight?”

“Give these people their money back and scram!” James seethed, cracking his knuckles, “Or we’ll make you.”

“You think you can threaten me?!” Judro almost laughed, “I am an Hasselback, and-” but before he could finish his sentence, James was now in front of him and suddenly shoved him, the toad falling onto the ground.

“Hey! You better-” the toad tried to reply to the assault, but again James rammed him to the ground, the blow so strong that the ruffian fell flat on his face, sand and dust getting on his eyes and making him yelp, while Amelia rushed to assist his previous victims.

“My eyes!” Judro desperately tried to clean his eyesight, while Jacob took advantage of the situation to kick his butt, again and again, until the toad was kicked out of the town.

“He who hurts by the kick,” Jacob said as he kicked Judro once again, “shall suffer by the kick. Leave these people alone, and never come back!”

“Y-You'll pay for this!” Judro threatened him, “When Mama finds out-”

“Oh, so now you’re going to run crying to mommy for help?” Jacob grabbed Judro, the toad unable to get free, “Then tell her that this town is under our protection.” He then proceeded to remove his hoodie and allowed Judro to get a full glance of him, the toad gasping in horror as he saw the human’s face for the first time. “And scum like you aren’t welcome anymore!” He then dropped him again on the ground, Judro crawling away in defeat as fast as he could.

“Not bad.” Sasha said, walking in with Marcy and Anne to her side. “Of course, I would have intervened too, but you three looked eager to prove your worth so… Not bad.” she finished with a curt nod.

“Hey, you know I hate bullies,” The boy nodded, feeling proud of what he had done, “especially if they are cowardly blowhards.”

“Boy, I have to admit, it does feel good to put such people in their place!” James chuckled, just in time to see Judro’s former victims gathering around them, Amelia taking a step back as she realized they had seen Jacob without the hoodie.

“You-you are monsters!” Bailey exclaimed, Amelia sighing as he said that, the crowd of Bitties around them looking at them in shock and beginning to murmur, as the other humans quickly got rid of their own disguises as well.

Anne rolled her eyes, ready to face the inevitable mob that was soon going to happen, “Let’s go back to the fwagon boys, before-”

“HOORAY FOR THE MONSTERS!” The crowd suddenly started to cheer, surprising the six humans, as they gathered around them and began to congratulate their saviors.

“You saved us.” Bailey’s father said, with a heartfelt expression, “What are your names?”

“Our names?” Jacob said, his surprise soon turning into smugness, “My name is Jacob the Norsemann, wielder of Ragnarök” he struck a pose raising his hammer, the Bitties looking in awe as he did, “and this are my cousin Amelia, the Samurai of the Rising Sun, and my brother in arms James, the Stargazer!”

“Jacob…” James shook his head.

“I am Marcy!” The dark-haired nerd presented herself, “And these are my best friends, Anne and Sasha!”

“Three cheers for our new heroes!”

“Hip, hip, hooray!”

“Wow, guys. I can’t say I was expecting this, but it felt good! Nice work!” Anne nodded.

“Boys, you did something good!” Marcy happily chirped, thumbs up.

“Nah, we just did what everyone would have done in the same situation,” James tried to minimize, “Plus, one bully taking advantage of being bigger? Compared to the time we fought off Bog and his tax collectors, it was nothing.”

“What?” Several bitties gasped again, “Tax collectors?”

“You’re talking about the rebellion in the Valley?”

“Oh, what did you hear about it?” Sasha asked, suddenly cautious. The fact that Newtopia knew about them was one thing, but…everyone else in Amphibia?

“Not much, mostly rumors coming from other places,” Bailey’s father replied while scratching his head, “They told us strange creatures had been sighted in Wartwood, with long spindly limbs and bumps in the middle of their faces, and that they helped the local people stand up to the Toads’ taxes. I admit I didn’t believe them as well…until now, that is.” He gave another glance to the blonde human, “You don’t look like frogs for sure. What kind of creatures are you?”

“We are called humans, and we come from… ANOTHER WORLD!” Anne announced with a dramatic wave of her arm. “Wow, I’m getting a deja-vu vibe about this...”

“Another world?” Many bitties gasped at once.

“You mean there are other worlds beyond ours?”

“What kind of creatures live in there?”

“Sirs!” One of the frog ladies Marcy was talking with earlier spoke, “You must absolutely tell us your story. Would you be so kind enough to accept our invitations?”

“Well, we don’t know.”  Amelia replied, thinking about it, “I mean, there's not much to tell…”

While the six humans were receiving hero treatment in Bittyburg, far from the small town was Judro Hasselback. The local bully and now desperate toad, was slowly dragging himself along the sand, trying to ignore both the pain and humiliation he had suffered. For generations, the Hasselback Gang had ruled over Bittyburg, exacting heavy tributes from its helpless inhabitants, and they weren’t going to leave their old turf just because some upstart decided to stick their noses in their affairs.

He kept limping forward, until he reached the Gang’s hideout. It was once a wealthy mining site until all the gold had gone dry, forcing its previous owners to abandon the site and leave behind empty buildings and the exhausted mine. Then, many years later, the gang had found the place and turned it into a veritable fort, with a wooden palisade delineating its boundary, and a watchtower. A clear symbol of the power the gang had over the region.

“Judro!” A female voice called him from the watchtower, recognizing him, “What are you doing back already? Mama told you it was your turn to go and extort money from Bittyburg today!”

“Ruth,” The toad replied, acknowledging his knife-nut half-sister, “Open the door and let me in! I got bad news from Buttyburg: I was kicked out!”

A few minutes later, Judro was now sitting on an old bench, the rest of his family and gang gathering around him, listening to his story. And looking over his wounds, her glare growing as she listened to his story, there was Mama.

“Those weak pipsqueaks dared to rebel against you? Against the gang? Against me?!” Mama shouted with visible anger, “HOW DARE THEY?”

“It wasn’t them, it was some kind of weird monster!” Judro pointed out.

“A monster?” Heathro raised an eyebrow, “Did you drink too much Bog Grog again?”

“I am not drunk, I know what I’ve seen!” Judro replied in defense, “It was monstrous: it had a huge head, long spindly limbs, and some kind of weird, stubby bump in the middle of its face! And it wasn’t alone: there were others with him!”

While her family was reacting in horror at the description of the creature Judro had met, Mama let out a low grumble as she started to think what could have possibly happened to her son. Were they another gang, one composed of weird creatures, trying to take over their territory? Or perhaps, mercenaries hired by the Bitties or someone else?

Whatever the case, it didn’t matter. Judro had been assaulted, and the whole honor of the family had been sullied. To avenge the offense they had suffered and reestablish control, they were to unleash a fierce and brutal retaliation against Bittyburg and those who dared to challenge them.

Yet, there was no such thing as having too many advantages.

“We must face them and show them what happens when you mess with the Hasselback Gang!”

“Indeed, Talbert, but first, I think it would be better to pay a visit to some old friends of mine and ask them to pay an overdue favor…”

(…)

Happy Harry’s Hovel was certainly not a classy place. Built in the midst of the stone ruins of a much older building, it was once a rest stop for travelers to and from Newtopia, but for many years now with the ever-decreasing number of travelers and the increasing isolation of Newtopia from the rest of Amphibia, a new type of customer had taken over the place, bringing with them the fruits of their hard work: coins and goods stolen in robberies, thefts and extortion, jewelries pillaged from naive travelers or defenseless families, a continuous traffic of plundered wealth that fueled the never-ending cycle. Here, robbers and bandits found a place where they could trade their money for good food and beverages, sell their illicitly-obtained assets to the only fence of the area (Harry himself), plan their new heists and raids, and much more.

It was a place where you could buy everything that money could offer, and yet where it wasn’t safe to travel to unless you couldn’t protect it yourself.

Yet, as Mama Hasselback slammed the swing door of the saloon and walked inside, her family just behind her, the chatter died out, and everyone looked at her with a nervous expression. All the local bandits and criminals knew who Mama Hasselback, matriarch of her gang and family, was and what she and her family could do.

“M-Mama Hasselback!” Happy Harry, a red-skin toad dressed in a bartender’s outfit, a gap between his teeth, exclaimed as he recognized her, “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, ‘Little’ Harry,” she replied, intentionally using the shameful nickname she had known him for most of their lives, her cruel smile making him shiver, “Yourself?”

“Huh! I’m fine! And I am glad you’re fine too! And that your family is fine as well. And-and…” his facade collapsed, unable to withstand the nervousness he had so desperately tried to hide, “Oh frog! Please, don’t kill anyone this time: I just replaced the counter!”

“I am not here for ol’ times fun this time,” Mama simply said, the rest of her family kept glaring at the other patrons with cold glares filled with killing intent, “I am here to call in that favor you owe me, ever since the whole Whoopy Willow Ranch thing.”

“Say what?” Happy Harry gasped, clearly not expecting that, “You’ve been sitting on that favor for twelve years already!”

“This is important. It’s about the honor of my family and the Hasselback gang. Some new…upstarts dared to intrude into our family affairs in Bittyburg, and I need numbers to match theirs.”

“Hey, you hear that?” Another toad sitting on a nearby table, laughed, “They managed to get kicked out of Bittyburg. Told ya the Hasselback’s are all talk and no guts!”

“For Frog’s sake, Ed, shut up-”

Too late, his companion realized while Ed took another sip of his glass, noticing Ruth Hasselback moving toward their table with a psycho look in her eyes.

“I-I’d better go take a leak…” He ran off, leaving Ed alone with Ruth just behind him. He knew it wasn’t going to be nice.

“Hey. I didn’t mean anything, for real!” Ed tried to apologize, turning around and feeling a shiver as soon as his eyes crossed Ruth’s, “Look, I just dropped off the Toad Army, hadn’t been here for too long and…wait, what-”

Ed didn’t had the time to finish his half-assed apology as Ruth grabbed him by the shoulder, before slitting his throat with a fast movement of her knife, Ed’s hand moving on his neck to desperately try to reduce his bleeding before falling onto the floor, dead, his blood spilling over the floor while all the other patrons gasped in shock and horror.

“Let this be a demonstration of what happens when you talk dirty about the Hasselback gang,” Mama smiled evilly, taking pleasure in the shock her daughter had created, “Now, Harry, as I was saying, I want to call in that old favor you owe me.”

“Believe me, I would love to,” the other toad replied, doing his best to be diplomatic as his eyes kept darting to Ed’s lifeless body, “unfortunately things have changed recently. You may not believe me, but…I’m not even the boss of myself anymore.”

“What does that even mean?” Heathro glared at him.

“Is like he told you.” An old patron of the place, who was present the last time Mama had come here, spoke. “We have a new boss now, name’s Rehys, he has been taking control of all gangs and bandit groups by any means necessary. Said he has plans for us, but in the meantime, we are forbidden to pull new raids against towns and villages unless approved by him.”

“What, you guys have a new leader, and he is an upstart as well?” Mama couldn’t believe it, “You’re already bowing to this new guy and obeying his rules?”

“This new guy made mincemeat of Tuz the Bloodthirsty, utterly broke Chaz the Bandit King, and killed or forced into submission every bandit leader from here to Newtopia.” Happy Harry said, “Personally, I am not a fan of defying his command, if that means being killed by him-”

“Would you prefer to be killed by me?!” Mama Hasselback moved forward and grabbed him with her "Eat your veggies!" arm and holding him by the neck, “You know me, Harry, and I’m not the patient kind of mama. Nor a forgiving one.”

“Wait, please-” Harry desperately pleaded, as Mama kept tightening the hold on him, “Fine! You win!”

“See? It wasn’t that hard.” She released him.

“I’ll let you borrow my men for…whatever you may need them,” Harry said as she struggled to get back on his feet, taking deep breaths to make up for the loss of oxygen, “But only a handful, and only for the time you will need them. I don’t want the boss to find out about me doing deals behind his back, and besides, I don’t think you will need them for much.”

“Normally, I would agree with you, but this time, we are facing the unknown. And against the unknown, there is no such thing as ‘too many advantages’.”

“Why? What kind of enemy are you expecting to face at Bittyburg?”

“Monsters,” Mama said as she walked back outside, loudly so everyone could hear her, “Monster with spindly limbs, big heads and bumps in the middle of their faces.”

Among the audience, someone’s eyes widened.

“…and so, after convincing the former Toad Army to join our side, we set off toward Newtopia, where we hope to find any hints for us to return home.” Anne concluded, the small frogs of Bittyburg listening in awe.

“Wow, this is an amazing story!” Bailey commented, holding close to his father. “So, you are now on a quest to return home?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Sasha nodded, “Thankfully, we are not alone on this journey. We have our families to support us.”

“You know, I should be angry at you for blowing your disguises this soon,” Hop Pop grumbled even if he couldn’t hide how proud he was of them, “However, I guess I can’t complain about the fact you choose to stand up against that bully. I would have done the same in your place.”

“So, you’re Hop Pop the Generous?” One of the small Bittyburg ladies said, “The one who paid the taxes for everyone in his town to protect them from an unfair raise?”

“Yup, that’s me! And these are my grandchildren Sprig and Polly!”

“Nice to meet you!”

“Bow to your new queen!”

“Polly!” Anne called the tadpole out.

“I can’t believe you’re among us again, Felis the red,” the saloon’s owner chuckled, looking at Felicia, “It has been a long time since you last came…and you brought your daughter too this time!”

“Oh, I could never forget the time I spent among you, no matter how much time has passed,” she replied with a smile, “Or the fragrant leaves you helped me find.”

“So, you knew about my mom?” Ivy wondered in curiosity, “Can you tell me some of her past adventures?”

“Oh, I could spend days telling you some of her adventures I was lucky enough to hear from time to time.”

“So, you’re a magician?” Another Bittyburg frog asked Maddie. “I thought that all practitioners of dark arts were supposed to be evil, or something.”

“Believe me, that’s a prejudice I ended up having to fight my whole life,” the azure-skinned frog with pink hair sighed, “However, magic is not inherently evil by itself. And I joined my friends in this journey not only to learn more about it, but to help transmit this message all over Amphibia!”

“Wow! So, will you use it against the Hasselback Gang, when they’ll return?”

The humans jerked up, the sound of a needle scratching a record playing in their head. From where he was sitting, Jacob turned around.

“W-what do you mean? We dealt with Judro already, remember? Ran him out of the town!”

“Indeed, and you are our hero to do that!” Bailey happily said, “But he will be back, and he won’t be alone: he has his whole family to support him, all of them nasty big guys just like him!”

“Yes, they harass us every day, demanding our money and punishing us if we don’t give it to them or if we try to refuse them!” His father nodded, “Good thing that now we have you to protect us.”

“Huh, can you…excuse us for a couple of minutes?” Anne suggested, sharing a look with Sasha and Hop Pop, “I think we need to…discuss a very important thing.”

“Huh, so soon? No issue, take all the time you heroes need.”

The humans and their frog families moved out of Buttyburg and near the fwagon, and quickly gathered into a circle. Then, as soon as they were sure none of the Bitties could her them, chaos erupted:

“What was that?!” Amelia was the first to speak, “I thought he was just some bully, but turns out he’s member of some gang?”

“Geez, this is bad!” Sasha shook her head, “That means that guy will probably be back with reinforcements.”

“Indeed! We must leave before they do!”

“We can’t do that!” Jacob protested at the suggestion, “Look, I know I am the one to blame for putting us in this mess, but now we can’t destroy their hopes and run just because Judro was more than a simple bully!”

“No, it’s my fault!” James protested, “If I hadn’t shoved him-”

“Boys, enough!” Felicia sniped, the two human males shutting up instantly, “Look, you may have acted on your own initiative, but that doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision. In fact, had I been in your place, I would have probably done the same!”

“Yes. I too have difficulty believing that I am saying this, but you guys were right!” Hop Pop grumbled, “We can’t turn our back on innocents suffering, even if that’s going to make us even later on our travel schedule!”

“Agreed, but what do we do?” Sasha asked, “I mean, we can’t simply set camp here and wait for those guys to show themselves!”

“What if we take the offensive and go looking for them?” Amelia suggested, her hand already moving to her katana. “Preemptive strike! We deal with them immediately, so we can leave without fear-”

“Amelia, no.” Felicia interjected, “Beside the fact that we don’t know how many members their gang has, we don’t know where their hideout is, or even how well-defended is. And rushing into action without proper reconnaissance or even without a plan is the fastest way to put everyone in harm’s way!”

“Hey, guys?” Marcy raised her hand.

“What’s up, Mar-Mar?” Sprig asked, holding Polly in his arms.

“Maybe I’m thinking a bit too naively, but… instead of simply waiting for them to show, why don’t we try to teach the people of Bittyburg to take care of themselves? This way, even if we were to leave, they would be able to protect themselves, and we won’t be hated for leaving.”

Everyone stood in silence as they pondered over Marcy’s suggestion.

“It’s…it’s not a bad idea!” Hop Pop thought about it, “Sure, I don’t know what we could teach them, but we have an expert here. Don’t you agree, Felicia?”

“It may be a bit complex, but I think it’s doable. Plus, if you’re going to help me, we could speed up the whole process without losing quality!”

“We could even set up some defenses, maybe with the help of Bessie, Liptea or Akitsu!” Ivy jumped excitedly, “Earlier, Sprig and I found some materials we could use to build a barricade around the town!”

“And I have new exotic ingredients for my spells!” Maddie offered, “I may need to rush preparation, but if you help me Marcy, we’ll may come up with something that will be useful for this situation!”

“I want to help too!” Polly roared, “You had fun earlier, but this time, I want to participate as well!”

“We all will help.” Hop Pop nodded solemnly. “Ok kids, you can start to go and help. I’m going to…need a minute or more.”

“Hop Pop, what’s going on?” Anne asked, raising an eyebrow. “Is something wrong? Look, not that we’re going to blame you if you want to skip the battle, but-”

“I’m fine Anne, and I absolutely do not want to run from the battle.” The old frog replied, looking back at the fwagon and, metaphorically, at the outfit he had hidden among the packages. “I just…need to get something ready.”

Or rather, to get someone ready.

(…)

The frogs of Bittyburg didn’t require much convincing to see the logic behind Marcy’s idea. While they did want for the humans and their families to keep protecting them, they were also aware they couldn’t ask them to stay forever and that they had their own journey ahead of them. Thus, when the humans suggested they would teach them how to protect themselves and their town, they eagerly accepted the offer, Sasha, Jacob, Amelia and Felicia taking care of putting together training and strategies for them to fight against much bigger enemies, while the others worked together to fortify the small settlement.

Of the trainers, Jacob and Amelia were the most enthusiastic ones, the two cousins able to work together without quips aimed at each other, both too busy living their own fantasies to feel animosity toward each other. For Jacob, he felt like the hero of a classic western movie, who after coming into town and driving out the local bully, using his expertise at service of the people of town to allow them to fight off the returning bandits, while Amelia couldn’t help but be reminded of some samurai movies she liked and imagine herself and her friends as the ‘ronins’ hired to protect the small village of farmers against the greedy claws of the outlaws.

“Frog, they are making fast progress!” Sasha said as she sat down, seeing the Bitties as they managed to work together as one, “I guess we are good trainers, don’t you agree guys?”

“Well, we don’t know how much time we have before Judro comes back, so any progress they manage to do before is important.” Jacob sat down, his blue armor feeling much heavier (and hotter) than before.

“Jacob, take that armor off, or you’re going to fry alive!”

“Never!” The boy responded, summoning all his energy, “I am the hero of this story, I cannot not look cool, otherwise-” but then, the combined weight of the sun, sweat, tiredness and metal fell on him, the male human dropping onto the ground.

“Jacob!” Amelia rushed to check on it, Felicia just behind her, while Sasha grabbed him and tried to assist, “What’s gotten into him?”

“I did tell him that armor must not be worn for long time periods under the sun,” Felica grumbled as she rolled her eyes. “Nothing too severe, just need to get off the armor and rest a bit someplace cooler. Sasha?”

“Yes, mom?” The human blonde replied, not a trace of irony in her voice.

“I’m going to bring him back to the Fwagon, and tell Hop Pop to help him get off this armor. The Bitties are doing some small exercise so they should be fine, still can you watch over them until I return?”

“Sure thing!”

“So…” Amelia asked as Felicia dragged her unconscious cousin away, approaching her best frenemy, “Are you excited? I am excited!”

“For what? We are just helping the frogs of this town to deal with future wannabe harassers, should they not come back before we leave.”

“But we are training them to resist those bandits! I feel like we are in the Seven Samurai!”

“Seven? We are twelve!” Not counting your dragonfly, and the snails.

“The Twelve Warriors! I like it!”

As she watched the younger teen using her pent-up energy to eagerly train the townspeople, Sasha could only think of one thing. I hope she never realized that of the Seven Samurai, only three make it alive at the end…

(…)

“Anne, look!” Sprig announced, pointing to a large piece of dried-up wood lying on the ground, abandoned from several years at least. “Another large piece of wood!”

“Good work, Sprig!” The Thai-American girl replied in a cheer, “Let’s take it too and use it as material to build our defenses.”

“Don’t we have more than enough already?!” Questioned Polly, leaning on Anne’s hair. “I do want to help, but I was hoping we would do something more exciting and important!”

“Well, this is important Polly. Bittyburg has no natural defenses against any kind of aggression: what will they do if we leave, and something happens once we’re gone?”

“Wow, Anne, you’ve…changed,” Sprig said in wonder, “You sound more decisive and responsible.”

“Believe me, I am surprised as well. But after what we went through, I don’t want the people I care for to be in danger ever again! Do you remember the time when we first met, and I pressured you into the lake with that humongous snake?”

“Hey, we survived!”

“Only because Jacob and Amelia crashed onto it!”

“You guys!” James grumbled, tapping with his foot, and looking at them. “Less talking, more scavenging!”

(…)

“Maddie?” Marcy asked, raising an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t we prepare some potions we already know?”

“We don’t have enough time nor the ingredients to prepare classic potions in such quantity,” her friend and magic teacher retorted. “So, drastic times call for drastic measures! We are going to do some experimentation and see if the local ingredients I’ve gathered can help us make something new. And hopefully...” She said as  a wicked grin blossomed on her lips “Something with really interesting results!”

“Are we making a new spell?!” Marcy gleamed, her eyes filling with enthusiasm, “One that had never existed before?”

“Well, yes, kind off! Now, we will start by basing ourselves on the recipes we already know, try to trade some of their ingredients for the ones we have and see if there are some results. We won’t risk using the cauldron as for now, but-”

“Can we try this?!” Marcy showed Maddie a spell bag with some reddish fragrance coming out of it, “It’s the same recipe as the Trapping Glue spell, only I decided to replace the Wartwood’s Bog Tree leaves with some of that spice and water of red cactus. I checked my preparation, and…there shouldn’t be any unwanted results, at least not dangerous ones.”

“…I believe you,” Maddie replied, almost lying when she said that but wanting to be as supportive to Marcy as she could. Moreover, it had been a long time since the last ‘incident’, so… maybe this time it would be fine.

Still, better safe than sorry.

“Ok let’s test it out.” The azure-skinned frog looked around, searching for a suitable test subject, until she found a small pile of rocks laying around. Being made smooth by the long work of wind and dust, who know for how long they had stood there? “Let’s test it on those rocks, shall we?”

Marcy nodded, moving into position (making sure her feet were equally balanced and she was standing right, to avoid tripping once again) as she held the makeshift spell bag on her hand, before throwing it. As soon as the spell bag exploded, it released a small explosion of orange light that envelop the small boulders. The rocks trembled for one second before moving on their own and staking one above the other to form the shape of a small tree, bothering the work of Mother Nature. The human and the frog stared at it intensively, the stone-made tree preserved by its own magic for a full minute, before come crashing down as soon as the levitating effect was over.

“Did…did you see that?!” Marcy gasped, grabbing her notebook an writing down the recipe she had used and the seen effects.

“Indeed, it was quite beautiful.” Maddie replied, “But, I don’t see how we could use it to protect Bittyburg. It’s useless!”

“There are no useless spells, master,” Marcy replied, her brain already starting to think of several applications, “It depends on how we use them…”

(…)

“Mama! Bittyburg in sight!” Heathro called, “And looks like they were waiting for us too! They got busy building some defenses!”

“You call them defenses? Hah!” Ruth laughed, pointing out how Bittyburg’s defenses were barely a picket fence all around the town, “It will take five minutes tops to run over it!”

“Hey, Judro?” Talbert mocked his sibling, “Where are those monsters of yours now? Or maybe you’re finally going to admit that you’ve drank too much?”

“Shut the frog up, Talbert: I know what I’ve seen!”

“Enough!” Mama Hasselback barked, stomping the conflict before it could escalate. “You’ll have time to fight once we’ve finished our business here!” She then glared over the reinforcements Happy Harry lent her, fifty toads all armed, some of them even having a past within the Toad Army. Veteran fighters that knew how to fight, unlike most of the bandits dwelling in those parts of Amphibia.

They weren’t many, but they were more than enough to crush this pathetic settlement to the ground and show them what happens when someone tries to defy the Hasselback’s Gang.

“Let’s try to finish this quick. Even if they had some sense to try and build defenses, we-”

“Stop where you are!” A female voice called out, Happy Harry’s toads and the Hasselback turning at once to see who dared to address them.

Mama’s eyes widened, and she could hear her children and temporary mooks gasp all together, as they saw some freakish, unbelievable creatures standing between them and Bittyburg, each one of them showing spindly gangly limbs, huge heads, and bumps in the middle of their faces.

“The Monsters!” Judro called out, pointing at them. “Told ya’ they were real, told ya’!”

“I-I can’t believe it…” Ruth replied, clearly not expecting this development.

“You know, in the past I would have felt quite angry for being called a monster,” Sasha said, dressed in a light armor and holding both her Heron swords in her hands, “but a long time has passed since then. I don’t care what you say about me, but if you want to do something to the town behind us…you’ll have to pass through us!”

“Did you hear the gal?” Jacob nodded, he too now dressed in lighter and more practical clothes, while retaining his wooden Viking-style horned helmet that Loggle had gifted to him. “Didn’t you get the memo, Judro? Scum like you aren’t welcomed here anymore!”

“So, you’re the one that dared to hurt my little boy?!” Mama Hasselback spit out, anger taking over her mind, “I guess I’ll have to whip some manners into you!”

“No way, that’s your mom?!” Jacob smiled, clearly unaffected by the threat, “You really came out crying for mommy?”

“Gosh, that’s beyond pathetic!” Sasha chuckled as well, earning more and more angry glances from the Hasselbacks.

“Look, I don’t care if you are real or not, you can’t stop us!” Talbert yelled, “Didn’t you notice? We are fifty-five and you’re two!”

“Are you sure about that?!” Another called out, the Hasselback seeing Anne, James and Marcy appear to Sasha and Jacob’s sides, Anne holding her sword with both hands, James grabbing some of Mrs. Croaker equipment while Marcy held a spell bag in her left hand and pointing at them with her crossbow on the right.

“Frog’s sake!” One of the toads warriors behind them said, taking a step back nervously, “How many of them are?”

“Five against Fifty-five?!” Mama said, trying to reassure herself more than the others, “Still manageable.”

“Six!” Another voice called out, as Akitsu lowered in altitude, buzzing just above them, Amelia holding onto her back with her Katana unleashed. “I am Amelia, Samurai of the Rising Sun! This town is under my protection, turn around if you don’t want to face my sword of justice!”

“And us!” Several voices shouted at once, as Maddie, Ivy, Sprig, Polly and Felicia stepped forward, each one of them ready for the fight, Felicia even wearing her adventurer’s armor.

“Wait, I know her!” One of the Toads yelled, pointing at Felicia, “By Andrias, she’s Felis the Red, the Legendary Adventurer!”

“Felis the Red?” The word ran by mouth to mouth, generating panic in the toads, “The Greatest Adventurer of All?”

“The one that defeated five mantises in just one fight?”

“The adventurer who is lethal just as she is beautiful?!”

Mama Hasselback gritted her teeth, realizing the situation was getting worse with every passing second, as more and more fighters joined their enemies’ side. First those monsters, now a legendary adventurer? What kind of people did Judro piss off to cause something like this to happen?

“And we will fight as well!” Other voices called out, the small inhabitants of Bittyburg gathering around Felicia, many of them armed with pins, needles, and other objects that they could use as weapons. “For too long we have stood passively and let ourselves be bullied, but no more!”

“Oh, so you small pipsqueaks now are trying to show attitude?” Ruth called them out mockingly. “And who else?”

“Me.” Yet another voice, a deep, gruff male voice called out, and suddenly, another large figure walked into view, the humans and their friends moving aside as he kept walking forward, until he now stood directly in front of Mama. A large figure belonging to a tall, muscular toad with brownish red skin, two large scars over his face, an eye patch and a large cowl covering the back of his head and most of his body. A scary, imposing figure that Mama had known once.

“T-the Wrecker?!” Mama gasped, unable to assimilate why he was here.

“Wrecker?!” Amelia gasped in turn, “You’re that guy everyone talked about at Bizarre Bazaar?”

“It’s good to know I haven’t been forgotten,” the Wrecker said, smirking at mama as he began to clench his fists, “So, you’re the punks I’ve heard about.”

He resumed his walk, stomping his boots on the ground with every step, while Mama was now losing all resemblances of self-control.

“Wait, just wait! I'm sorry, Wrecker! Just listen! I never would have thought you...”

“Shut. Up.” The Wrecker replied, moving his arm to punch Mama in her face, Ruth and Judro roaring as he did as they launched forward, trying to help their mother only for both sides to clash into each other, starting the battle.

“So, I suppose that idiot half-brother of mine was right for once,” Ruth said, facing Sasha. “I have never killed a monster before, guess you’ll be my first!”

“Oh, you’re quite full of yourself, don’t you agree?” The human blonde replied, taking advantage of her swords range to keep the knife wielder at bay, moving fast to keep her adversary at disadvantage, “Though I am a bit curious as to why you resemble a newt, but look like a toad. Does that mean toads and newts can cross breed?”

“Shut up!” Ruth yelled in anger, as Sasha unwittingly hit one of her berserk buttons, “I am Ruth Hasselback, daughter of Mama Hasselback, the cruelest toad of all of Amphibia! Who in frog’s name are you?”

“Me? I am Sasha Waybright,” Sasha replied with a smirk before counterattacking, Ruth barely moving to parry her pink Heron sword’s lunge, “Captain of the Saint James Middle School cheerleaders,” she struck again, “top scorer in Super Dance Fusion,” she now hit Ruth’s tail, the desperado crossbreed yelping as she did, “protégé of Captain Grime,” Ruth’s eyes widened as she heard that name, “and adoptive daughter of Felicia Sundew, alias Felis the Red, the greatest frog adventurer of all of Amphibia’ history!” Sasha made one final lunge, and finally, she hit Ruth’s hand and made her squeak, her knife dropping to the ground, the Hasselback lady holding onto her wounded hand.

Meanwhile, Sprig, Polly, Maddie, Ivy, Amelia and Akitsu were rampaging across the toad soldiers while the latter were engulfed by a pitch black smoke created by James’ gadget, Ivy and Sprig shooting at them with their slingshots and Maddie throwing spells from Akitsu’s back while, on the front side, Amelia and Polly were cutting through their ranks like hot knives through butter, scattering them and leaving them with their morale broken.

“What the-” one of the toads lamented, as he was hit by one of Maddie’s spells and his metallic possessions (armor and weapons) began to rust and disintegrate in a few seconds.

“They have a witch too?!” Another toad gasped, hearing an evil laugh and noticing a small figure throwing spells from above, “That’s it, I’m a goner!

“Maddie?” Ivy raised an eyebrow in confusion, “I though you didn’t like be compared to those evil witches of stories.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to play the part!” the azure skin frog kept launching spells whenever the toads attempted to resist, “plus if it helps against these bozos, let them get scared!”

“Where are you going?” Heathro yelled, noticing how many toads were already leaving the battleground and running away, “Get back here and fight!” 

“I’ll take that challenge, gringo,” Jacob replied, attacking the toad with his hammer., while not too far away, Anne was dueling with Talbert and Marcy was ready to face Judro.

“Your friend may have defeated me the first time, but you won’t be so lucky!” The old bully replied, looking at the dark-haired nerd with a grimace, “You are alone against me!”

“Alone?!” The Bitties shouted at once, “Didn’t you count us?”

“You think you can face me?!” Judro almost laughed, “You all are small and weak! Useless!”

 “Oh, do you think so?” Marcy replied with a malicious smirk, taking out the spell bag she had been keeping all this time and throwing in on the Bittyburgians. Judro, confused, could only stare as a magical, invisible force grabbed them and began to pile and stack onto each other, forming what could be described as a large frog figure.

“Oh.” Judro could only say as the large figure finished being assembled.

“What do you think,” Marcy said, controlling the figure made of Bitties with her hands, “It is beautiful…and I dare anyone now say it’s useless!” She moved her hand, and immediately, the large frog composite punched Judro in the face, the former bully spitting several teeth as its ‘adversary’ pressed on, hitting him on the face, in the guts, poking his eyes, before grabbing him by one of his legs and throwing him around with violence.

“Wait! Stop! Stop!”

“The people of this town are small, you are not wrong about that,” Marcy sighed, her hands kept controlling the large Bitties-composed frog mopping the floor with Judro, “but together, they can be much stronger than you give them credit for!”

The battle was by now undergoing for a few minutes only, yet already the humans and their allies were prevailing while the Hasselback’s were close to defeat, Judro pinned down by his former victims tied together with Marcy’s magic, Heathro on the receiving end of a beatdown courtesy of Jacob, Talbert unable to hold his own against Anne, Ruth already defeated by Sasha, while Mama was literally stomped by the Wrecker.

The Hasselbacks were at their breaking point, the Toads who followed them on the verge of panic. The humans only needed a something more to turn the panic into a rout and win the day.

“Boonchuy,” Sasha turned searching for Anne, “You ready?!”

“I was born ready, Sash,” the other girl replied, dropping the battle with Talbert and joining her friend, the two humans closing their eyes and focusing on their own concentration, focalizing through the words that Jacob had taught them.

“When peace is lost, when suffering has come,” Anne began to exclaim, her hair beginning to glow blue once again, the twigs and leaves in her hair growing into branches, “let all evil be undone. Accept your emotions and join our fight, Heart conquer it all, believe in the azure light!”

“«For everyone who can’t stand up and fight; For those who are alone and lost in the night.” Sasha began to speak as well, as she could feel her powers rush through her blood, her blonde hair turning into pinkish fire, her swords covering themselves in energy “Never again tyranny on you would befall, Strength is here, to protect you all!”

“W-what is…” Heatro gasped, noticing what was happening, all toads witnessing unable to hold their surprise.

“That, is true power,” Jacob took advantage of the opening to hit him in the stomach with his hammer, the larger Hasselback son thrown on his own half-sister, “Power that scum like you will never possess!”

And then, the two Calamity-powered girls hit at the center of the enemy’s formation, the Hasselbacks and the other toads blinded by the power of the two gems imbued into their holder’s bodies, as it disintegrated their armors, scorching the skin of those who weren’t protected enough, some of them losing every facial hair that wasn’t properly covered by the blast.

And among them:

“My mustache!” Talbert cried, his skin overwhelmed by the heat, as he realized his large mustache was disintegrated, holding on his face and crying like he had just lost an arm.

“What even are they?!” Ruth cried, her hair burning.

“They told you already, but you refused to listen!” The Wrecker said, grabbing Mama by her neck, the fat female toad’s face filled with bruises, all her fighting spirit broken into pieces. “Now, Mama: if you know what’s good for you and for your children…stay away from Bittyburg!” He threw her away.

It was then, that the Toad’s morale collapsed definitely, all the remaining warriors rushing as fast as they could, the Hasselbacks following then, Ruth grabbing Talbert, Heathro and Judro helping their mom as they limped away, until they were no longer in sight.

For a few seconds, no one said anything, to be sure they were really gone. And then, the humans and their friends, as well as all the frogs of Bittyburg, cheered at once.

“We did it! We beat the Hasselback Gang!”

“Our heroes taught us to fight!”

“Victory!”

“Zattenayo!”

Sasha hugged Anne and Marcy, Amelia rushed to cheer with her cousin, the frogs and the humans expressing their happiness to having driven them away, and with this victory, having secured both Bittyburg’s future and the path forward.

Only one said nothing, standing silently among them.

“Guess my job here is done,” the Wrecker said, starting to walk away, only to be interrupted by Jacob and Amelia.

“Wait!” The samurai girl called out, “They said you’re the Wrecker. I heard so many stories about you, at the Bizaare Bazaar, the one time I went to visit it. Those stories about you, are they true? You never lost a challenge?!”

“Frog, mister, you’re so cool!” Jacob nodded, his mind astonished by how badass their unexpected ally was, “You were here, and decided to join us? Why?!”

“Sorry kiddo, but you won’t find the answers you’re looking for today. You still have a long path ahead of you, but we will meet again, before the end,” the Wrecker said with a shrug, as he kept walking toward the setting sun, the two humans unable to say anything as they watched him leave, his shadow disappearing into the sunset…

(…)

“This is impossible!” mama Hasselback said, as they walked through the desert and back to Happy Harry’s hideout. “I refuse to believe this happened!”

“Mama, please, slow down!” Talbert cried out, one hand passing over where his mustache used to be, “We can’t keep up if you don’t slow down!”

“Ugh…” Ruth lamented, her body aching in pain due to the bruises received, holding her cut-off tail in her hands. “Those monsters…whatever it was, I’m going to make them pay!”

“That’s for sure honey!” Mama roared, the humiliation for their defeat fueling her rage. “Let those pipsqueaks and their freak protectors enjoy today. We will be back, with much more soldiers, and then-”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind.” A deep male voice called out, Mama, her family and all the toads who were limping alongside them stopping suddenly, as they realize they were surrounded.

Many toad warriors, all dressed in makeshift armor or bandit outfits had been waiting for them, each one of them armed with different weapons, from long pikes to rusty swords, and all pointing toward the Hasselback. In front of the Toads was Happy Harry, the fake bartender’s corpse laying on the ground, his lifeless body covered in bruises implying a painful death. And standing just above it...

Mama’s eyes widened, her children taking one fearful step back while the toads who were with them shivered in shock. In front of them, stood a large deep-green Toad, dressed in an orange heavy armor, a huge axe on his back, looking at them with eyes filled with contempt. Seeing at the sudden adversary, at his armor and weapon, Mama could barely hide her nervousness. For the second time today, Mama Hasselback was genuinely worried about someone else.

“So, you’re the one the local frogs call Mama Hasselback.” The large toad said, walking forward. “The one who barged inside Happy Harry’s hideout and forced him to lend you his goons, because this lousy son of yours came back crying pathetically after getting his butt kicked.”

“Hey, don’t you dare insult Mama, you ugly-”

Before Heathro could finish his sentence, the other toad punched him violently on his face, the Hasselback’s head making a quarter turn due to the violence of the impact. Teeth and blood falling on the ground, followed by the body of Heathro himself, wheezing as he realized his neck was broken.

“Heathro!” Mama and her other children called out in horror, only for the other toads to jump in action, quickly grabbing the three remaining Hasselback children and the toads who had gone with them, restraining them, and making them unable to resist or run.

“You-you…” Mama gasped, as the stranger turn his back on her dying son, now facing her frontally. “Do you know who am I? You’re dead meat, you understand? Dead!”

“Is there something more pathetic that empty threats?” The large toad scoffed, apparently unaffected by her threats. “I’ve heard them from any other bandit leader who refused to kneel before of me, and believe me, they all lacked creativity.”

Judro gasped, as he realized who Mama was facing. “You are that guy who had been fighting all gangs’ leaders, is that right? The guy Happy Harry was so scared about, Rehys!”

“Indeed. The poor fool believed I would spare him, if he confessed as soon as I confronted him.” He gave an unsympathetic glare to his body, “Still, in the end he got off easy. After all… my master is not as merciful as I am.”

“Master?” Ruth spoke in a low voice, wondering who could keep such a brute as a subordinate.

Less than a minute later, her questions were answered, as the crowd of toad bandits behind Rehys opened, and in walked another figure, a bit slenderer than his toad subordinate, dressed in a black armor with a gray cape running from his shoulder, the sheath of a long and sturdy sword on his side, some partly Ruth had never seen before over his chest. And his face… oh frog, his face!

Talbert left out a whimper, as he realized this being was a creature just like the ones they faced in Bittyburg, with blonde hair and a bump in the middle of his face.

“Rehys,” the armor-clad monster said, looking at Mama with eyes filled with hate.

“Prince Aiden,” Rehys said as he stepped back. “All preparations have been completed. The full might of the Army of the Hand is now yours to wield.”

“Excellent, my soldier. You have performed beyond my expectations.”

“You are one of those filthy freak monsters!” Mama called out, all the pain and anguish she had felt with the death of her son, the humiliation she had been forced to endure in Bittyburg, the still-fresh pain from the battle, condensing together as fury once again took over her mind, as she rushed forward, trying to hit that creature with her fists.

Yet, before her punch collided with Aiden’s face, the human prince moved, grabbing her hand with his own and holding it firmly, as he began to squeeze. Mama struggled, trying to free her fingers, before the pressure on her hand became untenable and she screamed, blood dripping as Aiden kept gripping her hand, her bones beginning to crack as metal pushed onto them.

“Yes, I already know.” Aiden said with a cold voice devoid of emotions, the grip of his hand becoming stronger. “I know about you, of what you attempted to do.”

With his free hand he punched Mama in the guts, before releasing her now useless hand, the toad taking a step back before tripping, falling onto the ground with her back.

“How you dared to hurt my treasures.” Aiden moved forward, until he was now just above Mama, his metallic boot kicking her knee.

“This is for getting into my plans.” He kicked her knee again, breaking the bone out of her flesh, her childen struggling as they desperately tried to free themselves, yelling at Aiden to let her mother go.

“This, is for the pain you’ve spread,” Aiden kicked her other knee, breaking it as he had done with the other.

“This, is for forcing me to come here just to deal with you,” Aiden lowered himself down and grabbed her left arm, cogs and engines turning and mechanical sounds being heard as the armor he wore began to enhance his strength as he pulled, mama Hasselback screaming in pain as the human ripped her lower arm from the rest of her body.

“This, is for not having known your place!” Aiden grabbed her other arm and did as the other, Mama yelling louder and louder as her adversary kept breaking her, piece by piece.

“THIS, IS FOR THE ATTEMPT YOU’VE PULLED ON MY WIVES AND COURTSANS!” The human’s fingers now moved to Mama’s head, grabbing her left eye and ripping it out of the eye socket before squishing it, repeating it for her right eye a few seconds later.

“B-bas…” Mama tried to yell, even among so much pain, only for feeling the human’s hand grabbing her tongue and slowly pull it out of her mouth.

“And this?” Aiden said once again, tearing off her tongue and throwing it into the ground, “This is for having called me monster.”

The matriarch of the Hasselback family, stripped of her limbs, her eyesight, and her speech, could do little now except lying on her back, as she felt Aiden get up from her body and address the others, the Toad’s blood dirtying his boots and gloves.

“Now, those of you who accepted to follow her will be punished, but as a show of my magnanimous mercy, I’ll offer you a chance to avenge your honor…as long as you will succeed the missions I’ll give to you. As for you,” Aiden said, glaring at the three survivors of the Hasselback gang, “I’m offering you a choice. Submit, and serve me as your new lord and master, or suffer the same fate as your brother!” He moved aside, letting the three Hasselbacks look over the lifeless body of Heathro, his blood pouring onto the ground.

For a moment, Mama hoped that her children would refuse the offer, stand together as a family as she had nurtured them. But then, her hopes were shattered as she heard them all beg and grovel, just like many of their victims had done to them once.

“My Lord, I’ll do anything if you’ll allow me to live!”

“Anything you will order, I will fulfill!”

“I will never betray you, to the end of the time!”

Mama tried to call them out, to yell at them for such a treachery, but she failed, her mouth unable to speak without her tongue, so the only sound that left her lips was an agonizing rattle of pain.

“Then, it is settled,” Aiden spoke again, turning back to his subordinate. “Rehys, I’ll entrust you with them. Don’t disappoint me.”

“I won’t sir! But, if I am allowed to ask…shouldn’t we give her coup de grace?” The large Toad pointed at Mama with his eyes.

“No,” Aiden replied, unable to hear the curses Mama was yelling at him in her mind. “We won’t give her… such mercy.”

As the toads and their monstrous master walked away, Mama Hasselback was left alone, lying on the sand of the desert, unable to move or even see the environment around her, her anger melting down and leaving dread on its place, while long-lost memories of a lifetime of crime and potency flashing before her now empty eyes.

She remembered of people long gone, her husbands who had died a whole generation’s length ago … friends who she turned against to gain leadership of the gang … a brother, who had been killed in a robbery and that she herself avenged by burning the whole town down. She remembered the first victim of her criminal activities, and the hundreds of others harassed by her own hands, and thousands more that had suffered by the hand of her family members and accomplices.

So much pain she had caused in her life, and now, as she lied on the ground of the land she often claimed to rule, with nobody left to bring her comfort in the perpetual night, she wondered if it was really all so worth it.

If she could have a chance to go back, would have she changed her path? Strayed away from her life of crime, and build herself a respectable life of honesty and responsibility?

As Mama Hasselback was left wallowing to the mirage of what could have been, she didn’t notice the slow, creeping thing which had picked up on her distress and approaching her, until she heard a metallic clicking growing louder by the minute, the scent of decay reaching her nostrils, her damaged body unable to move or resist, as she felt a billion tiny feelers all over her skin, walking over her body before beginning to feed. Mama tried to scream, but her airway was already clogged, as she felt inside her now a million little things biting, cutting, slicing her apart into so many minute pieces and building their own life from the dwindling essence of the once powerful bandit matriarch.

As the six humans had learned in the previous months, Amphibia was home of many bug species whose dimensions and aggressiveness made them dangerous enemies to any creature, yet as Nature was quick to remind, not always the largest creatures were the deadliest as well. And while the Silver Ants of Shoggoth didn’t reach the size of the Barbari-Ants or other ant species of Amphibia, their sheer numbers, their ability to work in group and the relentless will through which they hunted all creatures who weren’t fast enough to evade, made them worse predators than their distant relatives.

For it was no worse death, in all of Amphibia, than being ripped to shreds and eaten alive.

Silently screaming for assistance, Mama Hasselback, once leader of the Hasselback Gang and one of the toughest toad bandits of Amphibia, was now food for the ant colony preying on her flesh.

The largest predator here, humbled by the smallest.

On the road to Newtopia, having left Bittyburg and its grateful inhabitants behind them, the humans and their frog families were talking about the event of the day, while Hop Pop kept driving the fwagon toward the sunset.

“You should have seen him in action, Hop Pop!” Jacob exclaimed with voice full of excitement, “The Wrecker arrived all of a sudden, scared Mama Hasselback with a glare, kicked her in her a-” he stopped for a second, noticing the glare Felicia was sending him before deciding for a swap, “behind, and once the battle was over, he didn’t stop for celebrations and just left!”

“That’s true!” Amelia nodded eagerly, equally smitten with the Wrecker, “he just arrived, beat the bad guys and then left as fast as he arrived, just like a badass ronin!”

“Too bad you feel asleep before the battle, Hop Pop,” Anne said, “you truly missed something epic!”

Hop Pop chuckled, trying not to appear nervous. “Don’t worry about me, kiddos. You know I prefer peace and negotiations to violence. Still, if the Wrecker himself appeared, you had quite a powerful ally on your side.”

“I am sure they did,” Felicia said in a sweet voice, a smug grin on her face as she looked at him.

“Still, I wonder how he knew we could use some help.” Anne pondered about it, “Do you think he had followed us from the Valley? Like some kind of mysterious ally, watching over us from afar?”

“Do you think we will meet him again?!” Jacob wondered, his heart and mind eager to see the Wrecker in person once again. “He told me we will meet him again before the end! What do you think it may means?”

“I am sure that’s something you will eventually figure out, kiddo. I too believe this is not the first time you meet…the Wrecker.”

The kids nodded happily, tired but satisfied of themselves for having protected the town from the Hasselbacks, Sprig and Marcy taking out their fiddles and beginning to play a music that Jacob had told them about, the boy recognizing it and beginning to sing almost like a cowboy hero of a movie.

“I'm a poor lonesome cowboy
I'm a long, long way from home
And this poor lonesome cowboy
Has got a long, long way to roam.” The boy sang, Felicia, Polly, Ivy and Maddie looking at him.

“Over mountains over prairies
From dawn till day is done
My horse and me keep riding
Into the setting sun.”

“Lonesome cowboy, lonesome cowboy,” Anne and Sasha began to sing, eventually joined by the other humans,

you’re a long, long way from home
Lonesome cowboy, lonesome cowboy,
You've a long, long way to roam.”

“Yee Haw!” Everyone shouted at once, the snails whining while Akitsu buzzed loudly, her wings beating as fast as they could, the fwagon continuing its journey toward amazing new adventures in the horizon.

(…)

Unbeknownst to the heroes, to Aiden or to anyone else for the matter, something was walking on the road to Newtopia. Something whose first memory after being born was two wagons drawn by snails driving away; and since then, it had been following them over mountains and plains, walking day and night without ever stopping to rest.

Because, unlike any biological creature, it didn’t need any rest.

The large frog-shaped robot, born from the factory that the humans and their friends had visited during their time among the Ruins of Despair, was now walking through the desert, his long arms scraping the ground, when its optical sensor noticed something to his right, that quickly got its attention. Coming closer, he noticed that it was the skeleton of a large female toad, with chunks of flesh dangling from the bones to indicate she hadn’t died for too long. Crawling among the skeleton a dozen or more of silver ants, the last stragglers of the huge horde that gnawed the unlucky toad, were busy cutting off the last meat and carrying it away to their hideout.

For a few seconds, the robot looked at the skeleton, before resuming his walk, walking over the toad’s skull and cracking it open, the ants quickly moving to explore the cracked skulls, ignoring the giant robot just as he did with them.

For predators of Amphibia had no interest in a mechanical creature like itself.

Chapter Text

It has been two days since the group had rescued Bittyburg from the cruel oppression of the Hasselback’s gang; and now the fwagon trail was leaving behind the Western-esc desert to travel among a lush forest full of life and green plains rich in fresh grass.

Amelia was flying on the back of Akitsu, alert and looking for dangers or items of interest to report on. Hop Pop was driving the fwagon as usual, while chatting about theater with James, sitting to his right; Polly, Anne and Sasha were sunbathing, all with extravagant sunglasses and holding mirrors just over their chest. Felicia was checking their itinerary on her map and Jacob was lazing around, taking pleasure in the warm kiss of the sun over his skin. Meanwhile Sprig and the others were fighting their boredom the best way they could...

“I spy with my little eye...” Ivy said for what she felt like the hundredth time today, “something tall and green.”

“A tree.” Maddie replied tersely. To her, the game stopped being fun around an hour ago, but since there was nothing better to do in its place, she kept playing with them. “I spy with my little eye… something hard and gra-”

“The rock!” exclaimed Sprig, maybe with a little too enthusiastically. Still, playing the game was the only thing keeping him from falling into the madness of boredom. “My turn! My turn!” Ivy and Maddie groaned in agreement, feeling as if their brains were going into slow mode to preserve their energy.

“I spy with my little eye… something white that flies!”

“Too easy, Akitsu.” replied Ivy with all the boredom her body could express.

“Nope!” Sprig said with a full smug smile on his face, while both Maddie and Ivy suddenly became alert as they tried to think what else on sight could be ‘white and that could fly’. Finally, something interesting around here?!

“Huh, another bug?” Ivy tried again, the idea of capturing a giant flying white bug sounding really cool right now for the tomboy frog.

“Nope!”

“A ghost?” Maddie suggested, the young magic practitioner silently hoping for a chance to fight a paranormal threat.

“Nope again!” Sprig shook his head, loving the moment.

Ivy and Maddie kept looking around, becoming more and more confused by the minute. What could have Sprig seen? Surely he couldn’t have cheated, could he? Yet, after a full minutes of madly scanning the landscape around them trying to find what Sprig could have seen, they gave up

“Ok Spriggy, it’s not fun anymore.”

“What did you see?!”

“The clouds.” He finally answered, sporting a very smug smile on his face, earning a collective groan from Ivy and Maddie, and a snark smirk from Anne.

“Hey, guys?” Jacob yawned, looking around, “Did anyone see Marcy? I was expecting her to be here with us and take notes.”

“That’s because she is still inside,” Felicia pointed at the Fwagon under them, “I wanted to check on her a bit ago, but she’s very busy trying to translate as much as she can from that old book and didn’t want anyone to disturb her.”

“Wow, Mar-Mar is really working hard to help us find a way back home,” Anne nodded, genuinely impressed. “She’s been working on that translation ever since we left Bittyburg.”

“Maybe she’s just bored,” Ivy rolled her eyes, “it’s been days since we haven’t had an adventure.”

“Two days, Ivy,” Felicia was quick to point out, “and I can guarantee you that boredom is a luxury when adventuring. Don’t scoff at these moments of peace and quiet, but rather, treasure them: we don’t know how long it will last nor when the next one will be, or even if there will be a next one!”

“I’m not complaining,” Maddie replied, “I had more than enough time to write down all the new spell recipes Marcy and I came up with in the last few days, and I even took note of new ingredients to use in the future. If you’re bored, why don’t you go hunting for bugs?”

“I would, if someone hadn’t filled all my jars for their potions!”

Sasha, Anne, and Jacob all rolled their eyes, as Ivy and Maddie started to quarrel once again, with Sprig trying to play peacemaker. After two months of knowing each other better, you could have expected them to form a strong friendship by now. Only, it seemed they kept getting on each other’s nerves at the slight disagreement.

“I’m going inside and checking how Marcy is doing,” Jacob suggested, “You girls want to come?”

“Sorry, Jacob, too busy working on my tan.” Sasha replied, “Still, if Mar-Mar needs any of us, just say so and I’ll come.”

“Yeah, same for me,” Anne nodded. “Plus, I doubt I can help Marbles that much. After all, she is the smartest one among us, so she shouldn’t need our help…”

(…)

“Frog, I am so stupid!” Marcy wept, looking over Hop Pop’s book and her various translation notes, which by now were covering almost the entire surface of the latter Fwagon’s inside. Pages after pages of relentless translation work having taken a heavy toll on the human girl: she had conspicuous dark circles around her eyes, who were still bloodshot and steaming with tears, her hands and arms were trembling, her hair unkempt and dirty, her clothes were sweaty, her skin had become pale gaunt.

Yet, she still refused to take a break, to sleep, to eat something or even just to stop her work, just kept on focusing on the translation in front of her.

“I can’t stop, just…not now! I must restore the balance, fix…what I have done…” The dark-haired girl wept, shame and sadness once again taking over her mind as she looked to her left and saw the Calamity Box lying on the table, Anne having left it for her to study.

The Calamity Box that had brought all of them to Amphibia, months ago.

The same box that she manipulated Sasha and Anne to steal, when she found out her parents were planning to move.

The girl lowered her head, desperately trying to hold off her tears. She knew that she had made a tragic mistake, when she decided to tell her friends about it. How she got all of them stuck in Amphibia, a land populated by large bugs and other dangerous creatures. How she ended up taking Jacob, Amelia, and James with them. How she ripped them away from their families, on Anne’s own birthday.

She knew that, if her friends had found out about it, they would never forgive her. They would turn their back on her, leave her, abandon her just as she feared it would happen if she had relocated with her family. They would quickly forget about her and would go forward with their lives.

And she would have utterly deserved it.

I took them from their families…I have seen how Sasha and the others reacted when Hop Pop tried to hide the Box! How will they react should they find out I am the reason we ended up here in the first place?!

No, I can’t stay idle, my only hope to even out what I’ve done is to try to fix this as best as I can, and the only way I can do that is to find a way to move back the power inside our bodies back into the Gems, reactivate the Box and bring everyone home!

She looked forward to the text she was currently busy translating, and all the notes with the text she had managed to translate so far: until now, there was nothing that could help her. Rather, the more translated, the more she felt depressed:

“-it was now three months ever since the Gems had disappeared, and already the whole of Amphibia looked completely unrecognizable from how it was once,” she re-read the latest part she had translated, “With the Box having disappeared, and no alternative source to produce our power, all our tech by then had stopped working. The energy walls and other defenses we used to protect our settlements and ourselves were no longer available to us, as did many of our weapons. A group of Royal engineers desperately tried to reverse-engineer our tech to power it with other means, but it has been a very long time since it was developed, and they couldn’t come up with anything: the King himself was so angry at them he ordered their execution-”

“-With every new traveler reaching our settlement, the situation all over Amphibia keeps getting worse: already there is news that many creatures from the menageries had broken free and started to settle in our world, turning our beautiful cities into their new hunting ground. People are getting desperate, as they see their whole society collapse around them-”

“-I wish I had known before. I don’t regret my past actions, and I know if I was in the same situation as then, I would’ve done it again. Yet, I can’t help but feel hurt every time I hear news coming from outside the Valley. The situation has been steadily deteriorating. Land communications are virtually cut off, and so are almost all major trade routes. In just under six months, all the largest cities on the continent except Newtopia were abandoned and lost. Even here in the Valley, the most fertile place in all of Amphibia, life is now harsh and dangerous. Without adequate means to defend ourselves, Frogs are easy prey in this new world saturated with deadly predators. In this new world without the Gems.”

“Whoever wrote this passage must have done so while plagued with guilt,” Marcy nodded, “just like me.”

According to the Book, the Calamity Gems had suddenly disappeared a long time ago, and their disappearance caused the collapse of the old Amphibian society. This meant that probably those factories she and the others had visited at the Ruins of Despair probably dated to that period or before, and yet, with every question solved, new ones formed in the girl’s head.

“How did the Gems end up disappearing?” Marcy said looking at the book, “Why were they so vital to the old Amphibian society? And why did the writer keep claiming to be involved in that?” She sighed, her right eye twitching, “I must continue working, we need answers-”

“Marbe-lade!” Jacob announced with a boisterous tone of voice as he got inside, “sorry, I didn’t want to disturb, only- what in frog’s name happened in here?!” The boy gasped in shock, as soon as he saw the whole interior of the Fwagon covered in pages of notes, Marcy crouched in her chair, the book open in front of her, the girl’s face and mannerism clearly telling she hadn’t had proper sleep or relaxation for the latter couple of days.

“H-hi Jacob!” Marcy replied, quickly grabbing her closest note and then moving to gather the remainder ones, “S-sorry, it’s a bit of mess, now I’ll fix that and-”

“Marcy, what the heck happened? You look like a mess!” The boy moved forward and grabbed her, checking her face, “When was the last time you had some rest?”

“Rest? I can’t rest, Jacob, not now! I just take another sip of my energy drink and-”

“You’ve been drinking that non-stop for two days?!” Jacob’s shock was now turning into horror, “WHY?!”

“Because I need to keep working! I am so close now, and I can’t…I can’t…”

Yet, as Marcy kept rambling, the long hours of incessant work and the lack of sleep she was suffering made her trip once again and the dark-haired nerd girl fell to the ground, falling asleep as soon as her eyes were closed.

For a couple of seconds, Jacob stood where he was before moving, grabbing Marcy with both hands and slowly moving her to the nearest soft surface available, before moving to gather her notes and carefully place them near the book.

The boy in a Viking hat sighed, as he gave yet another glance to the sleeping girl, noticing how cute she looked when she slept. He wanted to do something to help her, to show her he recognized her effort, to tell her she didn’t have to push herself to the brink of exhaustion, but what?

Suddenly, an idea popped into his mind, the boys’ eyes widening as his mind started to elaborate it, his lips twitching as a determined smile blossomed through his mouth…

(…)

“I’m sorry Jacob, what did you say?” Anne asked, raising her eyes from her phone.

“I want to prepare a special gift for Marcy,” the boy repeated promptly, “I already have an idea for a gift I want to make for her, and the items we need to make it. I am asking you if you want to join me.”

The Fwagon Trail had now stopped, and the group was resting for a bit in a large clearing, Bessie and Liptea eagerly munching the tall grass surrounding their encampment, while Hop Pop and Felicia were busy setting up the campfire. The kids were supposed to be helping, but now everyone was gathering on the round table and listening to Jacob, ignoring their work.

“You want to give something to Marcy?” Sasha asked, disbelief in her voice, “Not that I’m against it, actually this is quite sweet. Only…why now?”

“Because I fear Mar-Mar is on the way to a nervous breakdown, if she hadn’t reached it already.” The human boy said with a solemn face, Anne, Sasha, Maddie, and many others quickly assuming a shocked expression full of confusion, of fear, sadness.

“Earlier, when I went to check on her, I found she was so buried in work that she had basically stopped taking care of herself! She’s not sleeping properly, she’s barely eating, almost like she is forcing herself awake to use every second she’s awake to do that translation.”

“She is?!” Anne asked, her voice now filled with horror, her protective instinct rising once again., “Frog, I appreciate that Marbles was so determined to help, but she shouldn’t sacrifice her own health to do that!”

“I agree, we must do something!” Maddie nodded, “Look, I know a spell that can put people to sleep. Maybe we could-”

“Maddie, no.” James shook his head. “Look, while we appreciate the support your spell can give us, magic is not a cure to solve every problem in life.”

“That’s right.” Anne sighed, passing a hand through her hair, “Mar-mar needs to rest, that’s true, but using a spell of yours to force her to sleep is not healthy!”

“…oh.” Maddie replied, for a moment feeling ashamed for having thought of that. To her side, Sprig and Polly grimaced, remembering the time they ended up tasting the humans’ energy drinks…and having so many crazy shenanigans they had to fix the next morning.

“Ok, just to ask,” Amelia, who until now had been silently listening to the conversation, piped in. “What kind of gift do you plan to make for Marcy?”

“Something that I think she will like, and that may help her in her current state of mind,” the boy grinned, taking out his phone and searching through his photos album, until he found the item he was looking for, turning the screen to show it to the others. Soon, Anne, Sasha and Amelia were gasping in awe, Polly and Ivy looked at the picture with emotional eyes, Maddie raised an eyebrow in surprise and James:

“You…you want to make her something like that?” The British teen asked, “I mean, nothing against it, it is quite a nice gift, but…are you sure you can do it?”

“I was hoping someone would ask, bro.” Jacob smirked, taking out a small sheet of paper with some writing of his, a list of the necessary materials to the left while, on the right, he detailed what to use for each one of them. “Like I said, and thanks to Soggy Joe’s…lessons, I have an idea overall of what kind of items we need to collect to make it and how to find everything. Still, as you can see, there is a lot to do and not enough time.”

“Wait, why not?” asked Sprig, raising a hand, “I mean, sure they are many, but I think in a couple of days-”

“We don’t have a couple of days!” Jacob interrupted him, pointing with his head toward the fwagon where Marcy was still sleeping, ignorant of the conversation going outside, “I want to have it ready for when Marbles wakes up, so we can give it to her and tell her why she shouldn’t overwork herself. She is catching up on sleep, but I doubt she’ll stay asleep for too long.”

“I agree, knowing Mar-Mar, she’ll awake in two, three hours at most.” Sasha did some math in her head, “Maximum five, if she was really sleep-deprived.”

“Then, we have no time to lose!” Ivy jumped on the table, “Let’s go gather the ingredients, and return before she wakes up!”

“I’m in!” Anne thumbed up, “After all Marbles has done for us, I think going on some adventure to make her a gift is a good way to show her our appreciation.”

“I’m in as well!” Sasha nodded eagerly. “Though, I already considered myself in the moment you said you were going to make a gift for Marbles.”

“Akitsu and I will participate too!” Amelia pumped in the air with her fist, “We can cover way more distance by flying than by foot, and we could see the dangers from above!”

“Bri-bru-bru-bru!” The giant dragonfly eagerly nodded, flapping her wings as almost ‘anticipating’ the endeavor.”

“Let’s go get what we need, and return before Marcy wakes up!”

“Huzzah!”

“Let’s go!”

“Ahem!” A voice called from behind them, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Everyone turned around, seeing Hop Pop and Felicia glaring at them, their arms crossed, Hop Pop even tapping on the ground with his foot.

“Please, Hop-pop,” Anne sighed, already anticipating the lecture, “I know we have work to do, but-”

“I’m not angry about the camp work, though I did tell you to do it and you didn’t,” the old frog said, rolling his eyes, “I can’t believe you are actually going to go into yet another crazy adventure through wilderness and nasty predators, uncaring about your own lives, all so you could get the items you need to prepare a gift for Marcy…without us?!”

“What?!” Sasha gasped in surprise, looking at Felicia, “You want to come with us?”

“Of course, Sash,” the veteran adventurer and tea expert replied with a smile, “beside the fact that I think it’s quite cute and heartwarming how you’re planning to go on a dangerous quest all for your friend? Hop Pop and I have survived enough of your crazy shenanigans to know that, even should we forbid you to go, you’d probably go anyway without our knowledge, and almost surely end up in some kind of danger that could’ve easily avoided if we had been there with you. For this reason, Mr. Plantar and I have an agreement to suggest to you.”

“We will allow you to go, but we will go with you and follow our direction until we are back,” Hop Pop said, looking at Anne. “That means, when we say no, it’s no. And when we’ll be back, you’ll do all the chores you were supposed to have done already.”

“Ok, I guess. Only…how do we do with Marcy? We can’t leave her and the fwagon alone and unguarded.”

“I may have a strategy to fix this issue,” Felicia proposed, “As you were already suggesting, we will divide in several groups, but while the others go gather the items we need to make Marcy’s gift, one group will stay here and watch over the fwagon and Marcy. Plus, I do remember something, back from my adventuring days, that may be useful to make this gift even more spectacular…” The teamaker smiled as he saw excitement shine in Jacob’s eyes.

“Ok, so… can someone remind me what we are supposed to gather?” Amelia asked as she turned her head to the side, looking at Felicia, Anne, Maddie, and Polly all holding on the back of Akitsu’s abdomen, the large white dragonfly buzzing as fast as she could over a wide expanse of trees.

“We need to gather some silk from the Weaver Caterpillars.” Felicia repeated. “These fascinating creatures live in the deepest part of the forest, and they can secrete a foaming liquid to build themselves a shelter where they can hide from many predators and keep themselves warm even on the coldest days. These caterpillars often use their own shredded silk to build their own refuges, so we probably won’t have to risk entering inside. Assuming whatever we manage to get on the outside is of good enough quality for us to utilize, of course.”

“Hey, Felicia?” Anne asked, “Why is that important to not enter unless necessary? I mean, these caterpillars are harmless, right? Even if we bother them, what’s the issue?”

“I said these caterpillars are harmless, not defenseless,” the veteran adventurer replied, “and while they can’t directly hurt you, the Dark Stalker can.”

“T-the Dark Stalker?” Maddie gasped, her voice trembling for a second, “What is that?”

“An ugly, monstrous centipede that can follow its prey for countless miles, thus earning the name of ‘stalker’. It’s a creature that only hunts in the darkest hours of the night, where there is total absence of any kind of light, be it natural or not. Its eyes and exoskeleton are so adapted to the absence of light that even the barest illumination could hurt him.”

“And it hunts Weaver caterpillars for dinner, right?” Polly asked.

“Wrong actually, the Weaver Caterpillars are the only creatures the Dark Stalker never attacks. This is why, in order to protect themselves from the light, solitary Dark Stalker individuals use to take refuge in their nest, whose inner rooms are completely covered in darkness even at noon, giving them a light-proof hideout to rest after a night spent hunting.”

“So, these caterpillars let those predators live in their house and freeload?” Anne asked, “And what do they get in exchange?”

“Besides not getting eaten themselves, you mean?” Felicia continued, “Well, to protect their hideouts and the caterpillars, the Dark Stalkers are quite aggressive toward any creature sneaking around, especially if they try to hunt the caterpillars or damage their refuge. So, taking some silk from the exterior of the refuge shouldn’t be too much of a hassle, but if you try to take those who compose the inner part… if there is a Dark Stalker in there, it’s the fastest way to make them angry and make them try and attack you. Thus, better play it safe, kids.”

“Hey, Maddie!” Amelia announced, remembering something, “Didn’t you and Marcy work out on those Light Spells? Could we use them against the Dark Stalker, assuming we end up meeting one?”

“That’s a good idea!” Their magician expert frog commented, her hands rushing to count the spell bags available for that specific spell and ingredients to make more, “We have more than enough to cover a retreat, if that’s necessary!”

“And don’t forget Anne’s powers!” Polly announced, “You said those centipedes hate all lights, then hers should work as well!”

“Yeah, though we should probably keep that as a last resource only,” the human girl replied with a shrug, looking far away and thinking back to Marcy.

“I guess that’s some good tactical thinking,” Felicia nodded, before once again turning toward Amelia, “Still, I suggest you and Akitsu remain on alert and watch from above as we try to remove the silk. There are some weak points in their armor, so your katana slash should be able to cut through them.”

“At your order, ma’am!” The samurai girl nodded with excitement.

Sleep well, Mar-Mar, Anne thought as she smiled, with any luck by the time you’ll awake you’ll have an amazing gift ready and waiting for you…

(…)

“There it is!” Jacob exclaimed as he crouched down and hid behind a large rock covered by moss, Sasha and Ivy imitating him, “The cave of Land Pearls!”

“You mean that ugly cavern with a scary entrance, with those Magpie Beetles resting just inside?” The blonde girl pointed out the crab-like bugs with black shells and gray skins visible on the entrance of the cave.

“Ugh, those bugs sure are ugly!” Ivy commented, “I want one for my collection!”

“Soggy Joe told me about them,” Jacob narrowed his eyes, as he tried to remember everything the survivalist frog has taught him, “Apparently, these beetles usually live underground, and they come to the surface just once every twenty years, stealing whatever objects they can find to use it as shell during a particular mating ritual called "the love-nado dance". Soggy Joe says the more extravagant and shinier the shell is, the more chance the Magpie Beetle wearing it has to attract a partner. You know, the next love-nado is quite close!”

“Ok, now I am quite happy that the Box is here with us and not dug up back in Wartwood,” Sasha grumbled. “I don’t dare to think what would’ve happened if some of these bugs ever found it…”

“You’re still angry about that, huh?” Jacob raised an eyebrow before sighing, “Can’t really blame you, though.”

“Ok, so…what is the plan?” Ivy asked, with a curious expression, “Do we attack the cave, defeat the beetles and walk inside to grab the Land Pearls we need?”

“No, because we have no idea how many Magpie Beetles may be in there,” Jacob scoffed. “Rule n.12 of Amphibian hunters: whenever dealing with small predators, if you see one, there are a hundred you cannot see. Plus, these creatures are often attracted by shiny objects: there would be a thousand, maybe even multiple thousands more magpie beetles hiding in that cave, ready to attack us the moment we get inside.”

“Then, I assume you have a better plan to deal with them?” Sasha asked, her voice devoid of snark, “Did Soggy Joe teach you how?”

“As a matter of fact, he did,” Jacob replied with a smug smile, his hands moving to his backpack and placing it to the ground, before taking out some yellow, smelling ball of spongy material, Sasha taking a couple of steps back as soon as its pungent aroma reached her nostrils, Ivy coming closer with curiosity before immediately retreat, grimacing.

“What is that thing?” The two Sundew girls almost said at the same time.

“This is a beetle bait!” Jacob announced happily, giving one more glance to the cave before continuing, “Soggy Joe taught me how to make these. We just need to pour some water on it, and it will draw out all the beetles currently hiding in the cave. While they’re outside, we move in, grab the pearls that we need for Marcy’s gift, and we full throttle away before the bait loses effect!”

“That’s a nice plan!” Ivy smiled, “Sash, do you think we will be able to capture one of those beetles for my collection?” She pleaded with eyes full of hope.

“Uh, sure, as long as we have the time,” Sasha said, ignoring Ivy’s getting cheerful as she faced Jacob, “Just to ask, how long this thing is supposed to last?”

“That, is difficult to know,” the human boy admitted, scratching the back of his head with his free hand, “Soggy Joe told me that it depends on several factors, including if it’s windy, the temperature, if there are other smells that may end up neutralizing its effect before time-”

“Jacob!”

“Anyway, it should last around twenty minutes, maybe half an hour if we’re lucky.”

“Then, let’s try to have everything done in fifteen minutes at most!” Sash said, her face filling with resolve. “Just to be safe, Ivy, you stay with me. As soon as Jacob’s bait manages to draw the beetles out of the cave we move to the entrance, I open a passage with my swords while you watch my back. Jacob, can you stay in the rear? If for any reason the bugs return sooner than expected, you do your best to give us a safe escape route!”

“Consider it done!” The boy nodded, holding the beetle bait in his hands, while the girls began to put together a small basin filled with water to sublimate it. “Are you ready for adventure?”

“I was born ready,” Ivy smiled, as Jacob dropped the ball-

(…)

“Uhmm,” Marcy purred, her body stirring as she savored the comfortable warmth of the bed where she was lying, her body savoring every second of rest after being pushed to the edge for so long, as the girl got to experience a peaceful sleep devoid of nightmares.

She would have probably kept sleeping for a good while, if one large fly hadn’t accidentally impacted with one of the wagon’s windows, the resulting noise loud enough to push her mind out of her dream, and fully waking her up.

“Uh…still five more minutes,” Marcy said, her mind still half-asleep, before she remembered she was no longer in her old room on Earth. When she did, she got up slowly, and looked at her surroundings, confused, her eyes adjusting to the light level inside while her brain tried to connect, the girl feeling a slight migraine as memories of the last few hours resurfaced. What was I doing again…?

“The book!” Marcy gasped, as she moved to sit down. I was working on the book’s translation, and then Jacob came inside, and then he asked me how long I had worked, and I was saying to him that I was fine and, and…

Terror struck her again, as she remembered her current predicament. How much time had she lost sleeping? She needed to get off bed and resume her work-

Yet, before she could move back to the table and try and resume her translation, she heard voices coming from the outside:

“-so, this is the item we will go and look for?” Hop Pop’s voice sounded incredulous. “I have to admit, this is something I’ve never seen in my life.”

“Not surprised that you didn’t.” James tried to explain, “The Blue Heron Gem is not like any other gem. According to Felicia, so much time has passed since the last time someone even saw one, that now everybody believes there aren’t any left.”

“But do we need it? Couldn’t we proceed with the original plan?”

“You know how Jacob is, when he gets an idea.” James grumbled, rolling his eyes.

“And adventurers once used these gems to make enchanted items?”

“They did. But it was a long time ago when adventuring was a much more common job. Mrs. Croaker told me-”

“What, Mrs. Croaker?” Hop Pop gasped. “How does she know about this?”

“Huh…let’s say she had a chance to learn many things in her… previous occupation,” the British teen replied. “Anyway, she told me such gems can still be found in some old ruins all over Amphibia, and even gave me a map to locate them. As you can see, there is one nearby where we have good chances to find one of such beauties. Then, once we bring it back here, Maddie can use it and-”

What are they talking about? Marcy thought with a puzzled expression, if they needed information about magic, they could just ask for Maddie’s or my help. We are the magic experts of the group after all- wait a second now, where is Maddie? Why can’t I hear her anymore? And Sash, Anna-Banana, Jacob? Why aren’t they here?!

“Hop Pop, are you ok?” James asked, sounding concerned. “Ever since Sprig and the others left on Akitsu, you’ve been pacing around the camp. Are you concerned about them?”

“Well, can you blame me? Of course, I know Anne’s with them, and so are Felicia and Amelia, but I can’t help but feel nervous. I mean, it’s been a while since they’ve left.”

Wait, they are already gone? They didn’t even wake me? Marcy’s eyes widened in surprise. 

“Maybe they’re just a little late because they are playing it safe, isn’t that what you recommended? Plus, someone must stay here and watch over the fwagon and Marcy,” James replied, the girl flinching for a second as the boy said her name, “Do you think she’s still sleeping? Maybe I should go inside and check on her-”

“No need for that!” Marcy came out of the fwagon in a rush, opening the door with a slam, scaring both James and Hop Pop. The old frog holding his chest from the fright.

“Marcy, for frog’s sake!” Hop Pop scolded, taking deep breaths, “Don’t scare me like this! Please think of my old heart, will ya? I’m not a youngster anymore!”

“S-sorry Hop Pop,” the dark-haired nerd girl apologized, standing there in meek silence.

“You’re already awake, Marbles?” James asked, “How do you feel? Are you ok?”

“Yes, absolutely!” Marcy replied lying through her teeth, trying (and failing) to appear like everything was fine, “Why do you ask?”

“Actually, we’re a bit concerned about you, kiddo.” Hop Pop said, looking back at her, “Did we wake you up with our chat? Maybe you should go back to bed, lie down and-”

“What?! Pfff, naaaah. I’m ok, don’t you see?” Marcy waved, trying to convince them. “Look, I was a bit tired, but…I’m ok now! Say, where is everyone?”

“Huh…” James and Hop Pop shared a glance, sweating a little as they tried to come up with an excuse. How could they stop Marcy from finding out the others were busy gathering the items needed to make her a gift?

“Guys?” The aforementioned girl raised an eyebrow, worried by their silence.

“They…went on a small errand,” Hop Pop said, the best he could come up with at this moment.

“There were a couple of items we needed for our trip, and so they went on a short adventure to gather them!” James nodded, trying to support the old frog’s version. “Don’t worry, they should be back quickly!”

“They went on an adventure of their own?” Marcy took a step forward, noticing how nervous both of them looked, “So, why didn’t you ask me to join as well?”

“B-because you were exhausted!” Hop Pop responded, trying to hide his nervousness by playing the parent, “You had overworked yourself, so we agreed to give you proper time to rest!”

“But now I’m awake, so I can join them!” Marcy clenched her fist in excitation, “Let’s just go now so-”

“NO!” James and Hop Pop shouted at the same time, the girl shutting up.

“Well, huh…I mean…”

“Please Marcy, just go back inside, lay back and relax. We have everything under control, right James?”

“Absolutely, Hop Pop! There is absolutely nothing going wrong!”

“But-”

“No buts, Marcy!” Hop Pop began to push her back into the Fwagon, “Now, go back to bed, or lie down, just try to relax, and restore yourself. Ok?”

“Ok…” Marcy nodded, feeling dejected, as she walked back inside the fwagon. She was going to lie down on the couch when she heard the two of them start talking again. Once more, she tried to focus on what they were saying, but she had a harder time listening to their conversation, as if they were whispering.

“This is bad…not supposed to wake up until…do now?” She could hear Hop Pop frantically whispering to James, even if she couldn’t hear the full sentences.

What, are they talking behind my back? Marcy gasped, beginning to hyperventilate.

“I know…we can do it without her…need to keep her ignorant…did you see her… tell the others?”

“Not now…once they get back…we will tell her…we mustn’t let her suspect anything…until the moment…I know she will be shocked… but everyone agreed.”

Tears began to fall from Marcy’s eyes, sentence after sentence, as her deepest, darkest fear began to rise from the most remote parts of her brain, surrounding her like a black cloud.

They think they can succeed…without me? Do they think I am useless? Did my attempts to prove myself fail?

“Anne and Sasha…get back with what we need…then we’ll tell Marcy…Maddie already agreed to help us.”

Maddie? Marcy’s eyes widened in shock, hearing the name of her magic teacher, her adoptive sister and best friend in Amphibia. Does that mean she is with them? But why-

…what if she told them? The thoughts seemingly formed by itself in her head, Marcy trembling as she felt her knees weaken, slumping down on the couch the simple idea had sapped all her strength. Did she tell them what I told her? That’s my fault that we are trapped in Amphibia?

Marcy shook her head, trying to deny it, swearing to herself that her friends would never abandon her…

…but she couldn’t.

Anne, Sasha, Amelia, guys, you…you don’t understand! She wept, covering her eyes with her hands, as she imagined all of her ‘friends’ glaring at her; I did it for us... my parents were going to tear us apart, I ran away from home and then I found the Box! And I didn’t know it would work for real, I didn’t mean to strand all of us in a world of large creatures and monsters…

She took another sigh, her silent plea crashing down as her guilt poured from her heart.

…but it did, Marcy admitted in her head, recognizing her own excuses. Because I didn’t want to lose you, I lied and manipulated you, and now we are here, and you’ve found out and you want to cut me off because I made a tragic mistake? Or is that because I hoped I would get away with it?

She looked to the table, to the Book she had been attempting to translate, her notes, every single word she had so hardly worked to decode in the last couple of days. Maybe, if I resume my work, and I get enough info by the time they’ll be back, I can prove to them I am not a burden. I don’t care if they hate me, as long as they- as they-

No, Marcy shook her head, if everything I’ve done so far won’t help me, then it won’t matter even if I manage to finish the whole book. I may have caused this mess, but sure as frog, I’m going to fix it!

She stood up, and walked to a small part of the fwagon where she was storing her spells. Silently, an idea started to form in her mind…

(…)

“Ambush!” Ivy screamed, as a dozen or more of Magpie Beetles rushed toward them, Jacob and Sasha fighting side by side as they tried to open themselves a way out of the cave.

“The bait must have worn off earlier than expected!” The human male yelled, hitting another beetle with his hammer and sending it crashing into other insects, “We must get out of here before the rest of the swarm cuts off our retreat!”

“Move aside, you bug-brains!” Sasha roared, rotating her heron swords in both hands, the Land Pearls they had gathered for Marcy’s gift dangling from her backpack. “Why don’t you-ah!” The blonde human yelled as yet another Magpie Beetle jumped on her, landing on her face.

“Get off my sister!” Ivy yelled in anger, using her bug net to capture the beetle and remove it from Sasha’s face. Yet, the assault didn’t stop, more and more beetles rushing back inside the cave with every second, to deal with the intruders who dared to violate their nest.

“ENOUGH!” Sasha roared, the pent-up frustration in her body activating the power lying within her blood, her iris and hair becoming pink.