Chapter 1: Welcome to Los Angeles
"What the..."
Loud honking blared all around her. The shapes of this world were too straight, too unnatural. Gone were the handcrafted marble buildings, beautiful in their imperfections. Instead, shooting up from the horizon were buildings of glass and metal reaching towards the clouds. The dirty black asphalt stretched out before her where the green plants and moss should've sky was muted in color as a brown fog hung over them.
"Oh my frog…" Sprig said as he gawked at the world.
Anne's breath caught in her throat. Even the air tasted stale and unclean.
"What is this place?" Hop Pop asked from beside her.
Her first instinct was that this strange, foreign place was wrong and they needed to get back home as soon as possible. Then, with a sudden rush of familiarity, the rest of her mind re-centered herself back into the world she used to know.
"Home," she said simply. She was home.
She felt three pairs of eyes on her as the frogs looked at her in complete bewilderment.
"You mean…" Sprig began before a loud horn sounded, causing the frog family to jump and then cling to her arms fearfully.
Staring down at her frog family, some sense of calmness began to fill her. As overwhelming as this world was to her after living in Amphibia for months, it must have been absolutely terrifying to Polly, Sprig and Hop Pop.
"Come on guys," Anne said, her voice sounded more assured than she felt. "Let's get somewhere safe first."
She climbed off the front of the car, motioning for them to follow. She tried to ignore the stares, honks and pictures she knew were being taken from the other humans inside the vehicles.
Other humans… she was really back on earth with other humans. It was strangely relieving to not be an "other" in the world. Instead, people were staring at the strange frog creatures in slack-jawed confusion instead of at her gangly form. Anne did her best to quickly usher her family between the cars and down the nearest off ramp of the 110.
Anne knew exactly where they were. They weren't that far from her school, Saint James Middle School, where she, Sasha and… and Marcy…
"Anne?" Hop pop asked, but Anne barely heard him.
Marcy's wide, terrified eyes… Her last few precious seconds she had as her eyes begged for forgiveness... The sword that had gone straight through her back and out the front of her chest...
Anne saw it all again in her mind's eye. She closed her eyes, tears pooling as she did so, but the darkness only made the image stronger. In the confusion of being back home, she had pushed the truth away, wishing desperately that it had been a nightmare. There is no way Marcy could…
"Anne!" She heard the voices of her family shouting her name. She felt them hovering around her shoulders.
The image of Marcy in her mind changed as she watched her friend fall to the ground helplessly. It was only then that Anne realized she had also fallen to her knees as her frog family called her name in concern. They sounded so far away as they attempted to coax her back up again.
She belatedly realized that she was still in the middle of the off ramp.
She knew she had to get off. She was in danger. Her family needed safety.
The rest was a blur as she felt her family help her up and she found herself stumbling into vegetation at the end of the off-ramp, just off the side of the road.
She collapsed onto her knees again and felt Hop Pop's comforting, cool arms around her and she leaned into him. She could feel the arms of Polly and Sprig hugging her, and the gesture only made her cry harder.
"We got you, Anne," Sprig whispered.
"She's… she's gone…" Anne croaked out. "She's really…" Her whole body shook with sobs.
Hop Pop rubbed comforting circles on her back. She could feel Sprig and Polly shaking with tiny sobs as they hugged her. Even though it was for a shorter time, they had been Marcy's friends as well.
Marcy had lost everything just to help them escape. If she hadn't grabbed the box, if she hadn't opened the portal, she might still be…
It hurt too much to even think about.
It felt like hours before Anne ran out of tears. The stale air stung her throat and she desperately wished for a glass of water. As her mind began to clear further, her thoughts started to race. Maybe… maybe it wasn't too late for Marcy? Maybe Sasha had done something to save her? It seemed like a stretch, but Amphibia was full of magic. Maybe there was a spell that could have healed her? She didn't dare voice these thoughts for fear that Hop Pop would tell her that such a spell didn't exist. For now, she needed the hope, as slim as it might be.
She wouldn't know for sure until she got back to Amphibia. Amphibia, the same place she left Sasha fighting for her life. The same place where King Andrias was still hellbent on using the music box to conquer worlds. And so, there was only one course of action left.
She broke her family's embrace and wiped at her eyes.
"We have to go back," Anne said, her voice raspy from crying.
"How?" Hop Pop asked. "We don't even have the music box."
Anne shook her head. "We'll figure it out. For now, we have to get someplace safe before it gets dark."
"Where do we go?" Polly asked. She peered out of the foliage hesitantly.
"My home is not far from here," Anne reassured them.
A car rushed down the street, and the frogs flinched at the roar of the engine; their eyes grew wide as they watched the speed of the car in transfixed horror.
"How are we going to get there with all of those metal monsters out there?" Sprig asked and Anne was surprised to hear a quiver in his voice.
"If only Frobo was here to protect us…" Polly said forlornly as she rested a flipper on the broken robot's head on the ground, which was peeking out from Anne's backpack.
Anne felt fresh tears sprig to her eyes and she thought of the metal member of the family. She hasn't known the robot long, but he had sacrificed everything for them, just like Marcy…
Anne shook her head to push away the thoughts.
"Those aren't monsters, those are cars," Anne explained rationally.
Her family stared at her blankly.
"They're like the carts or busses we used back in your world, but instead of being pulled by a snail or other animals, it runs by itself with a motor."
Somehow explaining her world to the frog family was helping her to collect herself.
"It runs by itself?" Hop Pop asked.
Suddenly, there was a giant shadow cast overhead and the entire family ducked, including Anne. Months of knowing that at any second you could get plucked up by a giant bird or bat was enough to engrain that instinct into her. However, the loud roar of the plane engine brought her back to her reality. Of course, there was an airport nearby. They used to get low flying planes all the time.
The frog family huddled together as they looked up in the sky in fear.
"Is that those flying metal machines you told us about, Anne?" Sprig asked.
"Is it going to fall on us?" Polly asked in hysterics.
Anne stared at her shaking and confused frog family and couldn't help but think back to the first day she landed in Amphibia. She had been terrified, especially after she learned of the blood thirsty, giant creatures that inhabited the world. Nothing about the urban city in which she grew up was familiar to the Plantar family. She recognized their overwhelmed and distraught faces and her resolve hardened.
"Don't worry, guys," Anne said. "I won't let anything happen to you. You took care of me when I was lost in your world, and now it's my turn to take care of you."
After working on my fic Difference Between Us, I really wanted to work on a multi-chaptered fic that wasn't just one shots! Let me know how I'm doing so far!
I'm not sure what this fic is going to be. Probably a prediction fic for season 3. I probably won't try and create the whole season, but I'll at least do the beginning of the Plantars getting used to Anne's world.