A.N.: So… I go back and forth on Amphibia's finale. Mostly forth. For the most part, I loved it. Yeah, I feel bad that the Trio are separated from their found families, but they're clearly happy and fulfilled people by the time we rejoin them and in the end, that's what really matters. I'd like to thank Matt Braly and the rest of the crew and cast for bringing the series to a satisfying (at least to me) conclusion.

Buuuut… the end isn't necessarily the end


FIND A WAY TO START AGAIN

Chapter 1: New Horizons

Amphibia, the newly-discovered continent of Boonchuya

If Sprig Plantar could sweat, he would be wiping it off his brow right now.

This biome on the new continent was completely different from anything he'd encountered throughout his travels on the main continent. Funny… they'd never even bothered to give the continent a name since they'd always figured it was the only one. It was now just called "Old Amphibia" by default.

Old Amphibia was mostly swampland. There were some more desert-like areas, some mountainous areas, and even a few icy climates (amphibians, naturally, tended to stay out of those due to being cold-blooded). But there was nothing there quite like this. Humid even for Amphibia, thickly grown with completely unfamiliar flora, populated by animals never seen on the main continent, including a species that almost looked like a furry, tailed human if you squinted.

Sprig had seen something similar – he was one of the few that had – when Anne had taken hm and his family to the LA Zoo and Botanical Gardens. It was called a "monkey" – Anne claimed it was sort of a very, very distant cousin.

Now that he thought of it, weren't there biomes similar to this one on Earth, too? He'd seen them in the movies and TV Anne had showed them. They were called "jungles".

Anne… his thoughts kept coming back to Anne, didn't they. Even now, even ten years later, his distant sister kept creeping back into his thoughts when he least expected her to. In that way, it was kind of like she'd never truly left.

Hop Pop had always said "family always finds each other." Somehow though, Sprig always figured it would be less metaphorical and more literal. Memories were nice and all, but it would've been nice to actually get to see and talk to his best friend-slash-sister.

He wondered what she was up to these days on Earth. Probably something amazing. Granted, it was hard to top saving two worlds, but she would find a way.

His attention snapped back to his surroundings when he nearly tripped on something. He cursed himself for letting his mind wander to such an extent. That's what he got for going out alone today. Usually, Ivy would be with him, but she'd been feeling funny this morning and he'd insisted she stay back at the camp with the others. He hoped she wasn't coming down with something. Who knew what kind of diseases had been brewing here on the other side of the world?

He looked down at what he'd tripped over. Some kind of creeping vine. On a hunch, he followed it.

What he found at the end of it was the last thing he expected.

Expeditions had been coming here for years now, and they'd never found any sign of civilization. But here, in the middle of this jungle, seemingly lost to the echoes of time, stood a massive pyramidal-shaped structure, nearly encrusted in growth. It reminded him a lot of the Temple of Wit from a decade back, though not without differences. How long had it been here, he wondered? Judging by the amount of growth, this temple – if that was even what it was – could even predate the Leviathan Dynasty.

He quickly took as many pictures as he could, from as many angles as he could. This wasn't just another beetle with sightly-different coloration (though there had been plenty of those), this was something huge. The others back at the camp would need to see this.


"GUYS GUYS GUYS!" he shouted as he reached the small encampment. "You won't believe what I've found!"

A coral-colored newt with messy brown hair looked up from her notes. "Another weird beetle?" she asked. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad my mountain of student debt for a degree in exotic entomology is finally paying off, but there's been a lot of weird beetles."

"Not this time, Bella. How does an ancient temple sound to you?"

"No. Way. You got pictures, right? Tell me you got pictures."

"Pfft. What do you take me for. Of course I got pictures." He looked around. "Where's Ivy? I bet she's kicking herself for missing this."

"She's in the med tent," the expedition's doctor, a toad named Garth Sludgebottom, informed.

"She is?" Sprig asked, his excitement melting into concern. This morning, she'd just been a little dizzy, but if she needed the med tent it could really be bad. "Is it anything serious?"

"Depends on what you mean by "serious," he remarked enigmatically. "I think this is something she'd want to discuss with you herself."

Confused, he pushed past the doctor through the tent's entrance, where Ivy was sitting on the cot. If she was sick, it certainly wasn't revealed by her usual impish expression. But there was something else in that expression… a sense of expectancy.

"Uh, Ivy? What's going on? Garth is being very evasive…"

"Well, uh… Sprig? I think I'm gonna have to cut this expedition short."

"What? But I just discovered a tem- wait, why are you smiling like you do just before-"

"My eggs are gonna drop soon, Sprig, We have to go home so they can be laid and… fertilized…" she teased, booping his snout.

"Wait, you mean I'm… I'm gonna be-"

"Ambusssssshhh…" Ivy whispered mischievously.

And with that, all thoughts of exploration were put on hold. They could always come back later. After all... the temple had been here for centuries, possibly even millennia. It wasn't gonna go anywhere.


Earth. Undisclosed location.

"What do you mean, you lost an entire temple?"

"Exactly what I said, sir… One moment it was there, and the next, it's like it never existed."

Mr. X rubbed his clean-shaven forehead in irritation. "Well… find it," he barked, disconnecting.

"Man, I tell ya, some days you wonder why you even get out of bed. Lord, send me some competent people!" He glanced back at his slender blond assistant. "Present company excluded, of course, Jen." Jenny Jenners blushed slightly, but otherwise their face remained neutral. "Aw, c'mon… don't be modest, this place would fall apart without you."

"This place" was the headquarters of "Project X" (named not-so-humbly by Mr. X himself), a new international agency formed in the wake of both the so-called "Frogvasion" and another paranormal event referred to only as "The Gravesfield Incident", in addition to further reports of unusual supernatural activity in the sleepy town of Brighton, Iowa, among others. Years before the Frogvasion, there'd been another paranormal event in a tiny lumber town in Oregon; the government had been able to cover it up back then since the town was so isolated, but an alien invasion in the middle of LA? Not so much. It had been clear that the government could no longer pretend such things didn't happen. But what they could do was make sure that they didn't, and if they did, that the general public didn't have to worry about it.

And so, Project X had been born. Mr. X had been put in charge due to his pivotal involvement in Frogvasion, and naturally he'd brought Jenners with him, as well as a few other trusted individuals he'd scouted.

He turned to one of those recruits right then. "So… any ideas where a thousands-year-old temple could suddenly vanish to?"

Terri rubbed her (this week) dark green hair. "I do theories, not ideas. And, theoretically, I'd say that the temple didn't so much disappear as… move."

"Move where, exactly?" asked Mr. X.

"Could be 'where', could be 'when,'" answered Terri. "I'd have to have to take some readings to be sure."

"Then do it. Take Jess and Ally with you. It'll be good to have some competent people on the case."


A.N.: And so it begins… What is the deal with this mysterious temple, and how does it link the two worlds? And how will Anne and the others get involved? You think I'm going to tell you that now? That's not how this works. You have to keep reading.

So, yeah, the location of Brighton is a guess. Iowa felt about right. Bella's major was also a guess, but I wanted to use her 'cause she's adorable, so here we are.

So… you know the drill. Read, and more important, review, because every little bit of feedback helps.

Next: What's been going on in Wartwood? And how's Anne, Sasha and Marcy's reunion going?