In the mere hours since Maddie completely lost it, Wartwood already changed into her new personal playground. Since everyone remained boxed in due to her barrier spell, nobody could possibly scurry off to safety under her watchful planet sized eyes. They already witnessed most of the buildings as they collapsed under her colossal fingers while she toyed with them in the multiple ideas her twisted mind concluded on. At that point everyone knew the Maddie they understood and cared for left them completely while a viler and dark persona took over that they never saw before. While the frog witch maintained a certain proficiency in the dark arts as her prime hobby, for the most part anything grim and grave usually sat on the wayside so she wouldn't completely scare everyone she came across. It made perfect sense to most since she also had a job at her family's bakery as a delivery girl, and if she acted out in a dark and moody manner on a daily basis most clients likely checked off the business as a viable service in an instant. However, a different palette painted over her face ever since she eclipsed entire villages in size alone. Such mysterious uncertainty became null to the terrifying masquerade deep within her that clawed its way to the surface. She dealt with everyone in the vicinity swiftly if they refused any of her fiendish activities, for she always had the door open to show any traitors her gut if needed. They simply suffered the same fate as Mayor Toadstool, Marcy, and many others and any sort of remorse completely left the building. Maddie made it perfectly clear that they either followed through with her demands or suffer her voracious consequences since she always had room for any loose appetizers. Wartwood had a new dictator in their midst, and its the giant witch girl Maddie.
She mischievously sat near the edge of the barrier as she watched all of the specks by her feet scramble for cover, which entertained the new persona underneath. She already finished through with another one of her sick activities, which involved her fists and massive divots, that left many greatly wounded and/or exhausted out of their minds. Her satisfaction remained pretty low at the time, but she still thought of plenty more to mess with the rest of Wartwood. As long as she held the height advantage she commanded everything, and she made sure the fact persisted longer than anyone thought possible. A faint thought in the back of her mind made a mental note that Anne still escaped and intended to end her reign prematurely, but for now she kept her focus on the sorry specks across her new tiny playground.
Her grim and dark voice bellowed overhead in her typical deep pitch. As much as she wanted her own voice back, it didn't deter her from her sheer domination over her toys.
"I can tell all of you had fun, and I just can't end everything there. I'm only getting started with my new playground after all, and I'm enjoying myself far too much to ignore all of you. So many ideas…and I'm loving every second."
Her creepy and grim smile pierced the skies and set the groundwork for all future games she had in mind, and yet only one sent the town into a frenzy. Even if they could run though, Maddie left them in shambles as they begged for mercy which fell on deaf ears. While they knew Maddie completely lost it, none of them gained insight as to the true culprit that pulled the strings. They endured the best the could, and yet the frog witch played rough as if their lives meant nothing. As long as her magic side overpowered her normal self, it gained control over everything and shafted her true colors into a corner.
…and it took advantage of everything Maddie normally went against.
"Hmmm, now what should I do with all of my toys next? Drive them into the dirt? Have them massage my feet? Stick them face down across my back? Naaaaaah, not yet! I think something ELSE would serve as something amusing!"
Her playful and deadly tone already forced most of Wartwood on their knees as they pleaded for mercy. They clearly had enough of her terrible games and desired to have their normal lives back, and if Maddie kept her normal mindset she probably would let them have it. However, the other side of the giant frog girl called all of the shots and refused to hear any of their petty begging. In fact, her irritation levels slowly rose as all of the constant rumblings hit her eardrums. Toys only served her after all and never thought for a second to go against her, and yet their incessant pleas stirred and boiled the pressure under her skin like millions of ants. Eventually, she had enough and instantly stood to her full height while she glared like something straight from the underworld.
"You can't convince me otherwise. Toys lack souls after all, so SHUT UP."
The sheer power of her voice shook the whole town and rattled the few buildings that still remained. A couple of windows even broke and shattered into glass while everyone else almost had their eardrums burst from their skulls. Even though her voice set everyone straight already, Maddie still went for one more extra just to hammer the points in. Right as she finished her last word in her powerful voice, the giant frog witch raised her left foot straight up and slammed it straight into the ground below. If her voice still left a few buildings left, her stomp left them in rubble. All of the frogs down below never stood a chance as her action tossed them into the air before they smacked against the ground in a loud thud. Some already fell down injured and couldn't stand back up, while the most unfortunate cases flew backward into piles of shrapnel that cut them up even further. As much as she dictated what the residents went through from now on, not a single flinch of regret passed through her eyes. To her, everything fell on them and not her for all of the happenings around them. For her, she saw herself as the perfect giant ruler of Wartwood and if they never lived up to her expectations they deserved no further reason to live. She held the power to determine such fates after all.
She didn't even give them a moment to get stand up and tend to their wounds before she got back to the specks around her feet again.
"Because I hear nothing but lip from your measly roaches, I think we should get started immediately with this next game. I can see the EAGERNESS across everyone's faces, so I won't delay any longer. Let's see if I can squash all of the JUICES out of you, and if I do, well, I guess you just didn't get away fast enough. LET'S BEGIN!"
The complete lack of empathy in her deep tone hit everyone deep, especially ones that knew Maddie more closely than others, but the unlucky frogs barely had enough time to think about it before the giant frog girl made her first couple of steps into the town that shook everything. She set foot in the playing field where nobody could escape, but they had no choice but to participate if they wanted to keep their lives. Maddie's grave and creepy smile hit the skies as the townsfolk put their long frog legs to use and dashed off for any available space away from the spell caster's enormous feet. Because of how big she stood just one step could completely eliminate several acres of land, or entire districts if Wartwood became a city at some point, and it left almost next to no wiggle room to possibly get away. Even if they could the massive tremors every time she pressed down sent all of the frogs into the air for a split second that left them with no footing. Every precious second lost became almost a death sentence as death crawled across their backs, and yet Maddie held the only "larger than life" immunity along with the reaper's scythe. She put everyone's life on the line for a sick and twisted activity, much to the delight of the demon underneath.
She started off slow just to see all of the specks squirm and scramble before she finally put her foot down. As she raised one of her feet high in the air it cast one of the darkest days above the small town that caused immediate panic for the terrified frogs. One even stood almost too stunned to move and required another to pull him out of the way, which became a blessing in disguise when Maddie eventually stepped on the spot. Anything underneath the bottom vanished from existence while the following quake resonated a damaging boom that rocked what remained of the town. The hex user held back dozens of underlying laughs when all of the dots made haste in every direction but where her foot ended up, and yet she desired more entertainment from their pains. She lightly shook her head and kept her foot down while she went for her next attempt, which sent all of the tiny frogs in different directions yet again. Because one of her feet blocked off major portions of the town, they had even less room to work with as they dodged the biggest guillotine over them. Her other foot lingered over the small town for a few seconds to all of the panicked frogs below, and once the time ticked to zero she lowered it down inch by inch. Various streams of dirt fell from under her soles that inadvertently knocked a couple of frogs upside the head as they hopped to it, and yet that became the last part to worry about when death literally hovered over their heads. Before she made contact with the ground once more, Maddie suddenly increased the speed and sent her foot down in one massive stomp, which devastated the surroundings down below. Entire buildings disappeared off the map along with everything around them, which even included the town statue in the center. They never stood a chance against Maddie's cataclysmic step, but despite the even stronger tremor that let loose a loud boom she never crushed a living soul yet. All of the targets she wanted to flatten either hopped like mad out of the way or hid out of her sight, which warranted changes for her satisfaction. If she didn't see a drop of liquid burst from any of the indescribably dots no such feelings whizzed through her head. She wanted them, and she wanted them now more than anything from the specks that evaded her titanic steps.
Maddie followed up with another series of steps that sent all of the frogs scattering again. From her gargantuan toes to the strong tremors it only became a matter of time until one of the specks missed the mark. To her delight, she didn't have to wait long when one particular frog slipped up and fell to the ground after one of the powerful quakes. As much as she wanted to snicker under her breath, she didn't want to give away her next moves from facial expressions alone. She went for another one of her steps and stuck her heel into the ground while her foot hung right over the unfortunate frog's sorry body. A dark shadow cast over him as another frog attempted to pull him away to safety, but as Maddie's foot lowered closer he couldn't wait any longer and bolted. The injured one screamed as the bottom of the giant girl's sole grazed his head, and soon after he couldn't help it. Right before impact he closed his eyes as the skin pressed him into the ground until his body completely gave out and Maddie gave the final blow.
Her foot crushed him into the dirt.
Everyone else watched in horror while Maddie's expression never changed. She stated how everyone in Wartwood existed for her needs and her needs only, and if they never lived up to her expectations they suffered for it. To her, as long as she still had specks standing the ability to play rough always stood out as an option, which she took to the fullest effect. Just to rub it in the onlookers faces and set an example, she even grinded her foot left and right much to the terrors of everyone who witnessed the heinous act. Maddie didn't saw the demise of one as something to cry about, but someone else took the reigns that nobody else around town knew yet. Little did they know that a different side of Maddie usurped her typical personality and replaced it with something, much, MUCH darker. It barely started to rule over Wartwood after all, and one innocent frog's demise served as a warm up to the other troubles around the corner.
She kept her foot in the one spot for a few more minutes before she had enough. The eagerness to see everyone's faces upon her actions poured over the giant frog witch's face like Christmas morning, but even so she started a bit slow before she completely lifted her foot. After all of the negatives that plagued the town since Maddie snapped their expectation appeared on the deep end. Not a single twitch, wiggle, or any minor movement became the most likely outcome, which already scarred any innocent children that witnessed the worst of the worst. Any amount of resuscitation likely never had a chance after she practically transformed the frog into a pancake, although the pearly gates welcomed anyone with open arms. To think such a girl resorted to the certain extremes hurt everyone in Wartwood but the one who started it, while it also set an example to stay clear of her at all costs.
…and yet his soul never left the planet.
The others nearly felt their hearts stop as they the one that Maddie supposedly bulldozed under her foot lived to tell the tale about his brush with the end. He shuddered and shook all over while his head hunched downward and eyes stayed shut, but he survived. Some of the other frogs ran up to snap him out of it, which eventually forced his eyes open. He almost cried as everyone else he cared for still stood by his side while his brain caught up to the times. As much as wanted to believe that they just witnessed a miracle, in reality Maddie played them for the hollow minds they had on a daily basis. She never actually fully pressed down upon the sorry dot, for she wanted to keep her toys plentiful for now since she wanted to have high numbers. The less she kept in her possession the less she had to play with, and she still desired the deep satisfactions of domination. Besides, the fact that she planted the sense of false hope into the seeds of stupid tickled her fancy. It only made the hammer of truth that much harder to bounce back from, and if they stayed down she tossed the responsibility out the window. As much as they wanted to believe in the illusions, the giant Maddie still controlled their lives as long as she kept them boxed in.
She played along with the charade anyway.
"So, you somehow managed to survive that. How…interesting. I guess that means you've won the whole thing and I'm actually the loser here? You must have durability beyond my expectations…"
Maddie's creepy smile slowly formed into a sarcastic and obvious smirk that made the other frogs down below shudder as she loomed closer. The frog she talked about even tried to run off to safety only to fall back down. As he hustled to get away he twisted something in his leg before Maddie pressed her foot on him, which left him downed for the moment as the giant dark minded witch specifically picked him out over the others.
Her sinister nature dripped from every crack in her face before it basically plopped right in front of him, which provided a very close up view of how much growth she took.
"You must feel really special to think you finally got the best of me. You've backed me into a corner and I have nothing left to show for. I'm done with all of my tyranny…
She then shook her head lightly.
"Too bad you LOST!"
The instant Maddie finished her final remark she reeled back which sent everyone running for the hills again. The one frog couldn't get back up, but Maddie still had her eerie eyes on him like a predator. Before anyone else knew what happened, Maddie shot her tongue forward in one instant motion straight toward the one she had in mind. The one frog only managed to catch a split second of the sticky menace before he immediately found himself stuck and bound in more ways than one. He never saw the next part coming as the moment his body became immobile he suddenly careened upward into the air at blistering speeds which deformed his face into a flapping mess. Even so, it wouldn't have mattered much since he lacked the perfect sight from where he found himself stuck. However, from the few glimpses through the rushing winds the giant frog girl's never ending gaze skewered his soul as she brought him in closer. Before his mind could catch up he saw one final dark stare from the ruthless girl before the lights went out and shrouded him in darkness. He tried to wiggle free but failed to do so in time, and before long he suddenly tumbled downward into a chasm he couldn't see to begin with.
Maddie gulped him down soon after.
After that disappointing set of circumstances in her eyes, it ended with the consumption of another one of her toys. As much as she wanted to keep the numbers high, when push came to shove she had to act on it. If one of them went defective she just found herself an extra snack to deal with. She dealt with dozens already, but if things progressed down the same road she might only have a few left to mess with. Such outcomes remained in the back, but she'll whip them out if needed. Any amounts of uncooperative natures against her standards required immediate terminations of lives, because traitors only desired to ruin her reign which could cut short at any moment.
The dark persona didn't want the fun to end.
"Let me grind this into your microscopic brains, you dumb bugs. He deserved all of it, and I'll do it as many times as I want if I deem any of you as losers. Lose a game? Then you lose your life! Simple as that, but don't for a second think I'll go easy on any of you specks. I won't act so graciously next time. Understand?!"
Her voice boomed one final time, and while she couldn't see any major specifics down below she knew that most of the dots below shook their heads rapidly. Just to reinforce the point into their noggins, the giant frog witch stomped one time in place which sent her prisoners airborne for a brief moment. Her teeth gnashed for a split second as she felt them nod even quicker in her direction, which soon turned her frown slightly upside down. For now they seemed to have gotten the message, but any further disruptions contributed to Maddie's fury even further. Anything out of line deserved the worst, whether they wanted it or not, and if any juices came out of her victims it became their fault for their unfortunate decisions.
At that point her sinister smile slowly showed up again before she lightly snickered.
"Heheheheheh, your obedience is priceless. You deserve a little something extra from me, for I'm certain you'll enjoy what I have in store for the future. How about I put you on the right track to start, hmmm?"
Her words confused the tiny frog down below at first, but they never found the time to think further when they saw Maddie suddenly drop to her knees as she stared at them. Her actions provided another series of quakes that scattered the townsfolk in multiple directions, even straight into the air at times, and provided more worries than before if the previous incidents didn't hammer the facts in. Her smile never left her face as a dark shadow covered the town of Wartwood like it just became the evening, and it only required one glance up to figure out the culprit. The townsfolk fell into a worried frenzy once Maddie's massive digits loomed closer to the ground, and she clearly had certain sections in mind even as the dots ran amok. Several frogs completely zipped in the opposite direction once one of the giant girl's huge fingers stuck into the ground before them, but by then another blocked their escape routes and any amount of exit points. Before long they moved inward and caught several colonies in the center which bunched them together into one packed clump. Once they found themselves trapped their legs completely left the ground as the world below fell lower and lower, although none of them became gutsy enough to wriggle out into a free fall to potential freedom. Soon enough, they came face to face with Maddie's colossal eye, since she always kept one hidden behind her pink blob on her head, and the sweat across their foreheads poured buckets while their teeth chattered uncontrollably. Some even screamed for mercy that fell on deaf ears, and yet it changed nothing. She had plans for her captives, and participation stood out as the only option or they risked her unbridled wrath.
Even with all of the chatter between her fingers, Maddie maintained her menacing new mindset.
"I know dozens of you wanted to figure out what I always have on my head, since no one else in town ever saw one before until I arrived. I can tell you have been DYING to know, and I can't deny such an…interesting set of expectations. If you wanted to determine such a question yourself…then allow me to give you an experience first hand."
The perspective quickly changed soon after for the ones she held, as they elevated even higher than the giant girl's grim expression. They witnessed her massive forehead at first until they came across the part she spoke about, and it stretched along in pure pink glory. They couldn't deny that many of them questioned the form of such an enigmatic blob, which provided assumptions of plausible to outright dumb. Despite them though, nobody ever contacted Maddie about it, likely to not offend her, and over the years it always stood out as a bit of a trademark for the young girl. To many, it added to her mysterious and mellowed persona she had on a daily basis, which she took as a complement so she wouldn't have to think about it too much. Her sisters also appreciated such uniqueness and added it to the list of qualities they loved about their eldest sibling. All in all, Maddie's pink blob helped paint Maddie's identity further even if nobody understood the actual meaning behind it.
So many rushing thoughts plagued the bound frogs, but right as their thoughts reached an apex Maddie plopped them right on top of the long pink mass. Certain conclusions flew out the window the instant their feet touched the surface, for they sank a bit but never breached the surface. It almost felt like rubber in a certain sense, although it lacked the elasticity to launch them up like a trampoline. Some sections had something sticky across the surface which didn't surprise the frogs at all since their skins basically felt the same way daily. From where they stood the immense and long pink stretched for miles and miles and never seemed to end, which only provided another example as to how much growth Maddie went through since all of the troubles started.
Before any of them had any bright ideas, Maddie's deep voice boomed below.
"You want some alone time? Fine, I'll let you have it…but give my head a nice smooth rub down. I'm yearning for something fancy and calm, so a massage will do so nicely. You better get going with those hands unless you want to JOIN YOUR FRIEND."
No reiterations became necessary for all of the tiny frogs as they immediately got to work across the blob on Maddie's head. Even though they would rather not place their fingers on it, Maddie never offered a second option and left them with one remaining choice. They hesitated at first, but after they heard her threat throughout their hearing they pretty much set their bodies across as much space as possible. Despite the scope compared to Maddie's blob and the tiny frog, as they rubbed their hands across the minuscule amount they could provide the pink underneath them rumbled and shook for a few split seconds and seemed to react in intervals. Similar to how they saw their feet as they made contact, the pink blob stretched and wiggled in a playful fashion. If it didn't constantly feel like something rubbery, at least to most of the townsfolk on her head, such a punishment appeared not so threatening at first. If the shakes indicated anything, Maddie probably enjoyed their contributions to the masseur and masseuse community despite their inexperience in the field. To them, as long as Maddie maintained a low blood pressure their lives stayed out of trouble.
"Ohhhhhh, yes. I'm definitely feeling that. Yeeeeeeesssss. I'm loving every second of this. Keep going, keep going…"
All of the tiny fingers across her head pleasured Maddie as if she just waltzed into a massage facility. Her bones shuddered all over until they couldn't hold her up any more and gave out, which forced her to sit down. Aside from the number of quakes she caused from the action alone she never paid attention to where she did so, but before any kind of realization hit she already caused more chaos below. The numerous houses and acres of trees became dust in the wind under her massive form, and yet she never cared about such accidental casualties. It never concerned her so such topics failed to reach any amount of humanity left in her. As long as she prospered off of everything she dictated with an iron fist, such matters fell to the wayside for more important ones…like a good massage.
They almost soothed her so much that she almost missed all of the other small dots by her feet as they attempted to hide away from her watchful eye.
"Hey, where do you think you're going, specks?"
The giant girl frowned and slammed one of her feet down which tripped them up a bit and caught their attention.
"Just because I don't have YOU on my head doesn't mean I'm letting you off the hook. Let's see… How about you dots down there rub my feet? Since I have my head occupied, you deserve somewhere low to work on. You better get going, or else I might change my mind to somewhere else!"
Her final words alone got the frogs hopping toward her in droves. The threat of something terrible happening to them from Maddie's new take on life spooked them into submission. She very well had their heads on the menu if they disagreed with anything she said, and the less they hear about what she went through with Marcy the better. To her, such standards became commonplace when it came to her exponential rule over Wartwood. Only followers deserved to live in her mind, and any traitors received a one way ticket into her gut. She adored it, and everyone else didn't.
"MADDIE FLOUR!"
Such a disruption hit Maddie's ears like an alarm clock going off. The dozens of tiny frogs by her feet never got the chance to begin their forced labor before the voice rang through town, which to them became a blessing in disguise. Out of everyone in town that she kept under her control, one stood out as a potential game changer in her eyes. She counted Anne and Sprig as dead meat already, but a small ounce left in her kept a certain specific accountable if they ever butted heads. In retrospect, she probably had to deal with the one sooner or later as her size made her the talk of the town overnight. As much as her dark side wanted to act solo, one piece of the chain around her neck pricked into her skin and required a firm tug to finally remove. She just needed to pull harder until she finally broke free from the reigns around the last possible one that kept the slightest of dominance over her.
No one other than her own father could stare her down and get away with it. She knew that upset gaze from anywhere, despite his miniature status that covered more distinct details.
"What have you gotten yourself into?! I didn't raise you to act like this!"
Maddie's visible eye narrowed while she watched her father stand firm by one of her humongous feet.
"I'm not doing anything rash DAD. They just volunteered to play with me and nothing more."
The other frogs, including the ones atop her head, instantly turned to face Mr. Flour and rapidly nodded their heads in a very nervous fashion. The fact that some even went as far as to audibly mutter and sweat across their foreheads told him that she definitely dominated them in every possible manner, which he didn't take too kindly.
"I'm not seeing any playful expressions around here, and from all of the buildings destroyed I know for a fact who to blame for such destruction."
"Hey, I can't exactly walk around all willy-nilly without some indirect damage." Maddie nonchalantly stated. "Nothing to worry about here."
"Yeah, I'm not buying it." Mr. Flour answered. "I can read you like a book Maddie, and you know full well that I'm not as stupid as you think. Now WHAT HAPPENED?"
Such powerful words from her father, and yet they only annoyed the giant girl before him. The more he talked down, or in more specific terms up, the more her blood boiled in the steaming pot. If her regular mindset had a place in the conversation she more than likely would have followed him instantly, but that side of her left a while back for a more deadlier one. Even so, the fact that he didn't fall back like all of the others showed his dedication to control his daughter so nothing crazier happened in the future, and yet she already laid waste to a majority of the town from her presence alone.
Her eyes never left the spot where her father stood.
"I'm taking as much fun time at this size as I can, DAD. This only happens once in a lifetime and I can't waste any more time just talking. Scurry on back to the bakery and once I change back, maybe I'll-"
"Excuse me?!" Mr. Flour interjected in pure shock and anger. "I think you got your priorities and standards backwards! Look at what you did here! You do NOT take fun and games to those extremes as my daughter! You even scared off your sisters, and I CAN'T FIND THEM ANYWHERE!"
"Ain't going to bother me." Maddie answered while she blatantly rolled her eyes.
She might as well cut her father off by the knees with that last statement. For such an innocent sounding sentence the power behind it resonated waves across the whole town. Bystanders that watched from the sidelines nearly froze in place as their eyes glued to both Maddie and her father. Such a tone completely flipped the tables on how some initially saw the girl and her creepy tendencies. The more they gazed at her the empty shell continued to exemplify how much it never contained a particular feature. Maddie's empathy evaporated into nothing to the soulless demon that called all of the shots and commanded her to go through with everything without a second thought. If she wanted to wipe anyone off the map no such hesitation became necessary for what once stood before them as a creepy yet relatable young girl. She readied all of her daggers straight at everyone she outright hated, although one gleamed a sharper edge for one certain frog that annoyed her to no end. To her, they deserved the fiery depths while she became perfect in every possible definition.
Her father never budged, and Maddie never batted an eye in his direction. Even so, the astonishment almost paralyzed certain frogs into petrified statues, which included the ones atop the giant frog girl's head.
"HEY! I never said you can stop rubbing! KEEP GOING!"
They got the message very quickly and accelerated the pace in an instant. The more they pleased her the less likely she would go harsh on them, at least from what they assumed. Anything to potentially get her off their back became a primary motive to keep at it, which upset Mr. Flour a bit. Maddie's attitude continued down the wrong path, and he didn't like it.
"Maddie…stop this nonsense NOW."
He spoke with the highest of authorities a parent could give, and yet Maddie shrugged them off like gnats.
"Hate to break it to you dad, but you hold no more power over me. I've pretty much claimed Wartwood as my own and petty words won't hurt me. Now run along and get back to the bakery before you annoy me even further."
Mr. Flour shook his head while his intense gaze never left.
"Don't you DARE talk back to me in that tone!"
"Shut up dad. You've already ticked me off to a certain degree."
"Excuse me?! Did you just tell me to shut up?!"
"Yes, and I'll say it again if I have to."
"Alright, that's it! I'm disposing your spell books when I get back!"
A statement like that hit Maddie's last nerve. She may not have the size to read over them, but she put a lot of time and effort to catalog and test certain hexes and spells in her free time. To hear her father go against her wishes pretty much painted the biggest bullseye between the eyes to her, and she wouldn't have it. Her frown dipped so low that it reached the underworld, and the frogs atop her head bolted themselves to the pink blob for some sort of cover from the firestorm that stirred underneath. Mr. Flour may have the parental authority over her, but she kept the size advantage which became the only factor for her.
"You…wouldn't…DARE."
The giant frog witch dug her fingers into the dirt next to her in a deadly grip which destroyed multiple houses that got caught in the crossfire. He lingered extremely close to the burning depths and she readied a strong push from behind as her ears heard her father's next words.
"You brought all of this onto yourself. I didn't raise you as a gigantic jerk, so maybe now you can think about what you've done and learn in the future."
"You BETTER NOT."
She saw his beating heart as the flames stoked her further.
"Sorry Maddie, but you can't act this way."
The cliff crumbled slowly under him as she watched him turn away to head back to the bakery. The manic laughter practically left her breathing down his neck under severe temperatures, and yet the darkness smiled.
"One step further…"
Her father turned back to her one final time as she basically steamed in pure rage and fury.
"You know better Maddie, and if discipline is the only way to possibly get you to understand…so be it."
Before anyone knew what just happened, everything ended. Such rashness usually only happened with some of the younger ones, but to see it from someone of a somewhat older age lived in an age as old as when Wartwood was first built. Even the ones that stood atop Maddie's head went clueless, and they already had it rough from the manual labor forced on them. A flash of pink, a streak of blue, and some low rumbling became some of the only parts anyone remembered, and yet everyone already wanted to forget such details. In the aftermath though, they certainly concluded on one aspect that went missing after such a brief occurrence. A split second ago the baker that operated the only respective establishment in the town completely left existence behind, but no body remained where he once stood. The apparent nature of his disappearance came to a certain conclusion the moment they heard a particular noise from Maddie and her massive body, which painted certain dread over all of the frogs around her. If she acted out such a terrible fate against her father than nobody carried a certain importance that kept immunity to her shenanigans. To her, such characteristics went null the moment she snapped and they could fall to her next.
Authority didn't control Maddie, because she controlled with authority.
"Anyone else want to join him? I'm ALWAYS up for seconds!"
Everyone still around her immediately glanced up and shook their heads rapidly.
"Good! Now make like followers and GET BACK TO IT!"
The rest of the day went by completely in Maddie's favor. Whatever sick and twisted activity she desired to smite all of the miniature specks against the ground with always went through with no opposition to speak of. At least she never settled on any "raunchy" details since limits existed in her messed up mind, but even so that meant nothing in the grand scheme of her dominance over Wartwood. From head massages, foot rubs, and even the occasional finger wrestling she always kept a stash of ideas for times such as her reign over the town. At one point she even managed to stack almost every single villager atop each other as if she played a living version of Jenga, which left many near the top sick to their stomachs from acrophobia. Even with the tall stack though, it never reached the top of her toes and before long they collapsed in on each other. Maddie instantly blamed the failure on a frog with an itchy nose and snatched him with her tongue before she gulped him down. Even though nobody went against her ideals for a perfect playdate, because of her standards anyone she deemed as a "loser" during her games instantly met the center of Maddie's gut of no return. She already dealt with several already, including Marcy and her own father, and yet they still kept coming when they didn't live up to their "toy" status. So many games, and yet so many losers to swallow whole added up to a pretty eventful day in her eyes, and her dark mind eagerly awaited what tomorrow had in store. The entire town of Wartwood became hers after all.
The end of her terror seemed infinite, but the frogs found a brief break once they witnessed the sun dip over the horizon. Eventually the lights overhead faded into little ones to the giant white disk in the sky, which meant only one thing. Despite her tyranny, even Maddie required some shut eye or else her crankiness exploded through the roof. They stayed silent about the facts just in case, but they didn't need to say anything since she spoke for them.
"Urgh, the night ALWAYS ruins the greatest of times!" Maddie said before she angrily stomped a few times and sent the frogs through the air.
Despite the darkness that settled in, Maddie still kept a close eye on all of her tiny toys by her feet. While they couldn't escape thanks to her barrier, she took no chances and made it perfectly clear to them as she expressed one of the meanest and grave smiles she ever displayed.
"Don't think for a second that I'm through with all of you. I'll make sure to come up with some EXTRA SPICY activities for us to play tomorrow, and you know what happens if you refuse…"
Buckets of sweat poured from the tiny frogs as the deadly giant frog girl slowly licked her lips in a threatening manner. Some even took a dozen or so steps back just for some kind of way to get further away from her, and yet her size and the fact that she boxed them in with her barrier meant it proved useless. In the process, Maddie's dark mindset reveled in the sorrows below to a degree that brought immense joy to all of their suffering. It wanted more of it than anything, but for now she had to call it quits for a good night sleep.
After the final warning given to all of her tiny subjects, Maddie pivoted around on the spot so she could get back to her makeshift destroyed area where she called her sleeping grounds, but immediately after she diverted her attention away from the tiny frogs her eyelids suddenly took a million weights and fell downward. Despite the fact that all of the dots by her feet performed most of the heavy duty work, her duties as dictator of the town quelled any form of fatigue from pure delight and enjoyment alone. Because she set her standards to barking orders and instilling fear into the hearts of her small servants, the instant she pulled away from her new normal everything behind the doors instantly burst out. Her legs wobbled and shook while the rest of her body drained of activity, and in the end she never made it to her "comfortable bed" that night. She pinned the blame on everyone but herself as she shut down, but before her brain thought of anything further the sheep started to jump over the fence. Her head hit the ground in one final loud boom, which also destroyed about a dozen acres of land, while the villagers around her bolted at the sight. After everything they went through from her they certainly wanted nothing to do with her in their brief time away from torture. While most of the town died down into a desolate wasteland of rubble and shrapnel, they had to deal with it. Some already had spaces picked out, but most equated to a few rocks and blankets of grass. Not the most comfortable, but better than changing into an insomniac for the rest of their lives. For that night, both sides finally found a moment of peace…and bugs across their legs from their sleeping spots.
The stillness of the night served as the perfect cover for the only ones that eluded Maddie's control. They waited around inside the tea shop, which ended up as one of the only structures that still stayed intact, before they split into two groups. One traversed the outskirts of the town until they came across the barrier while the others stayed behind and took cover behind some destroyed piles of rubble. They made extra sure that everyone else sawed logs before they proceeded, for a cranky Maddie became the last thing anyone wanted to encounter. Despite her tall height over everyone compared to the citizens of Wartwood, Anne kept a low profile when it came to most of her hiding spots. Some became a bit of a squeeze, and she even stepped on a few of the sleeping frogs, but she managed for the most part. She handed the bee communicator over to Flint before they went their separate ways since she wouldn't need it from where she had in mind. They needed to act now more than ever, as the entirety of Wartwood rested on their shoulders.
She kept her lips shut as she peeked over the edge of her hiding spot, and she shuddered at the sight. While she initially planned to have Flint break them out of the barrier at first then head on over to Maddie, because the giant frog girl exhausted herself out so quickly she never fully walked back, let alone a few feet, from the town she ended up halfway out and halfway in by the time she knocked herself out. To add to her light lucky streak, Maddie's entire front side stayed within the confines which Anne needed so she didn't require Flint's help for the moment. Because of Felicia's tenacity and diligence to keep everything in check she stayed behind in the shop while Anne headed solo for her mission. Only she could possibly go through with getting Marcy back.
…and her other stricken friend.
She kept her focus up so high that she almost never heard the light muffling from her cupped hands. Once the wires connected, she immediately looked down and opened up her hands as the tiny one gasped for air.
"Whoops! Heheheheh, sorry about that Sprig." Anne said while she rubbed the back of her head in a tepid fashion. "I almost forgot about your condition."
He took a moment to chug on mounds of air before he glanced back up to his giant friend.
"I'm…fine! Don't worry…I'm okay!" Sprig answered between gasps of air.
It took a couple of extra seconds to finally clear his head of hot air, but once he finished he got back up and glanced at his humongous buddy above him. For the first time since Maddie cursed him and no stress coursed through his veins, he actually got to see Anne in all of her gigantic glory which nearly stunned him. His pupils expanded as her massive face stretched across entire skies and her bushy hair covered the cosmos. He never knew someone like her had the capabilities to undergo such a herculean feat, but he still had plenty of time of understand before she finally powered up the music box to get home. He wouldn't blame himself if something went wrong and she maintained such a titanic scope when she does achieve that goal, which probably won't end well back home. He almost completely forgot that he currently stood in one of her massive hands from the floods of thoughts that surged through his mind. In the end though, no matter how big or gigAnnetic he saw his best friend, he felt glad to know someone like her.
"Sprig? Uhhhh, hello? You okay there, buddy?"
Her loud and tall voice boggled his mind back to the current times, although it also provided a small migraine. He cupped his ears for a moment before he stabilized his body and answered back to her.
"Errr, ummm, yeah! Nothing wrong down here!" Sprig replied. "Just…still trying to take in the, well, gigAnnetic facts before me."
Anne raised her eyebrows a bit while she carefully held Sprig.
"You still haven't gotten over it, huh?" Anne said. "I have to hand it to you though, for you've taken the whole new perspective changes pretty well without any freak outs."
"I'm…taking more of a hit on the inside more than anything." Sprig answered. "Because I pretty much deal with all of the weird and crazy on a daily basis…"
"Yeah, I get the picture there." Anne replied. "You almost look like something straight out of…"
Something else suddenly hit her mindset before she finished her sentence, and once it happened her eyes narrowed a bit.
"Did you just call me gigAnnetic?"
The tiny Sprig immediately perked up and began to sweat bullets.
"Uhhhhh, well, I thought I was being a little clever there, so…"
He never got to fully answer when something very faint hit their hearing. While faint at first, such sounds indicated that they didn't pick up someone's cacophony of snores from a frog near them. If anything, it bared not a single claw or talon in their direction but still put the two on edge. It took a moment to figure out the location of such noises, and once they concluded on an answer Anne instantly got to her feet. Too bad she acted a bit too late as she toppled over and almost lost Sprig in her grasp. The tiny frog himself even took hold of one of the tween's massive fingers to avoid falling off, which did the job but left him shaken up a little. Anne eventually fell onto her backside and didn't suffer any injuries in the process, but once she glanced up the perpetrator revealed itself.
…or in that specific case, perpetrators.
"Blech! I chewed on a root back there! Yuck!"
"Well I don't see anything wrong here."
"Take the rocks out of your eyes."
"Oh, okay… I still can't see anything!"
"Take the OTHER ones out, old man."
"Okay, okay."
Leave it to the rest of the Plantar family to barge in when the situation acted against them…which became pretty commonplace for them. They even brought their large metal companion with a compassionate heart along for the ride, although his eyes whirred for a few seconds after he made use of the drill atop his ahead.
Of course Anne and Sprig became ecstatic at the sight of them. After everything that went on with Maddie and her tyranny their expectations fell upon their possible defeat to the giant girl. However, their assumptions went void once they witnessed them literally pop out of the ground. Maddie's twisted games never reached them yet, although some questions still stirred in their minds. Even so, to see them out of Maddie's reach sparked a brighter glimmer of hope for Wartwood much to Anne's and Sprig's courage.
"Oh my gosh, you guys got away from Maddie too?!" Anne exclaimed as her upbeat energy spiked.
"Shhhhhh! You'll wake everyone with that large mouth of yours!" Polly replied.
Frobo nodded slightly in agreement and made a zipper motion across his mouth before he silently beeped a few times. The tall human girl got the message and turned her volume a bit lower as a few sleeping frogs nearby stirred in their sleep.
"Sorry, very sorry!" Anne said at a lowered tempo. "I'm just happy to see you after everything that happened with Maddie…"
"Yeah, we saw the writing on the wall pretty quickly." Hop Pop said. "Almost broke a hip from all of that running but threw out my back instead."
Polly instantly turned to Hop Pop and put on a flat face.
"You do realize you put us at risk with that stunt and almost got us caught?"
Hop Pop glared back.
"Well excuse me for getting older with brittle bones at every corner!"
"Guys, guys! Not so loudly, remember?" Anne said.
Her interjection quickly got both Polly and Hop Pop to shut up before they woke anyone around them. At worst they caused some eyes to twitch while shut, but for the most part they stay out of the public eye. They would probably never hear the end of it if Maddie ever caught them after, and with numbers at an all time low for the ones against the giant hex maniac any further decrease might spell their ends at any moment. No hesitation became necessary when Maddie introduced anyone to her stomach after all.
"Okay, okay. We get it." Polly said before she continued. "Anyways, luckily for us Frobo understood the situation the moment she snapped, so the instantly he saw us he came up close and embraced us for a moment. Soon after, he dug underground and kept us hidden until his sensors indicated a period of safety. I got to hand it to him, for he practically saved us!"
Frobo's lit and illuminated eyes widened for a second before he suddenly faced everyone and rubbed the back of his head in a slow fashion. The fact that he sounded out a few low spurted beeps in a certain pattern spelled out one particular emotion that Anne and Sprig couldn't blame him for. He still lacked some social skills due to his type, but the fact he pulled it together to rescue the ones he cared about spoke volumes about his future potential. The burly robot had a heart deep down, and he just took another step to understand it. While far from perfect, his AI gained more insight as the days went on which further benefited and shaped his character.
Sprig didn't quite get a certain aspect though.
"So…you stayed embedded underground for hours and only surfaced right now…without food and water? Sheesh, that sounds brutal."
At first nothing seemed too out of the ordinary, but as Sprig finished his sentence both Polly and Hop Pop perked up more than usual. Even Frobo turned his head and beeped a few times with question marks in his eyes. While some could attribute such actions as if they had just heard a ghost or specter, it failed to define the true nature behind actions of the other Plantars.
"Did…did I just hear Sprig?" Hop Pop asked in slight confusion.
"I…think so?" Polly answered before she put her focus on Anne. "Hey Anne, I assume you have Sprig nearby? He pretty much hangs with you on a daily basis after all."
Anne almost locked up on the spot while her pupils contracted a bit. Even though Maddie's actions pretty much became common knowledge due to her growth, she never ruled out the possibility that some might have missed certain occurrences. From Polly's choice of words they ended up on the unaware side of some pretty nasty situations, which included the horrid hex Maddie cast on Sprig earlier. From all of the panic and chaos soon after their ignorance became reasonable in the grand scheme of it, and yet, as she knew all too well, reactions varied from entire rainbows of personalities. If she play it wrong he might end up in a worse position, and a squashed Sprig equals a perished Sprig. Still, she basically knew both Hop Pop and Polly like family, and despite their shortcomings they only switched gears for drastic measures. A shrunken Sprig became the last thing on their minds at the moment due to Maddie and her giant antics, but her assumptions lead to a conclusion that stood out as obvious. Any extra help to deal with all of the craziness became highly appreciated in her eyes.
Her worry simmered down a bit, but it never fully left her despite her decision.
"Well, you see, he…sort of crossed paths with Maddie at one point while he tried to escape from her. Because he never fully got away in time, well…"
Polly, Hop Pop, and Frobo tilted their heads at Anne before she took a step forward with her hands behind her back. She bit her lip and took a deep breath as she slowly brought her arms forward. She kept her hands closed for a moment until she slowly opened them up and revealed the tiny frog underneath, who suddenly got an eyeful of the other three. Initially nothing too serious occurred, but Anne and Sprig knew better, especially with the unpredictability of the other family members. Polly and Hop couldn't clearly see the full picture of him in Anne's palm, but Frobo's high tech gadgetry left such downsides as his eyes swiftly changed pure red. For most large mechs of his kind it usually meant they switched into some sort of high armored overdrive beyond normal protocols, but because of his newfound outlook on life plus the friendships made along the way such instincts fell into insufficient programming for his kind of circuitry. Due to his changed demeanor, instead of hails of bullets from his eyes, a large red grid shot out and illuminated the tall tween before him. While it spooked both her and Sprig for a split second, once they noticed the harmless nature behind it they calmed down as it angled itself down to the small dot. It took a couple of extra seconds as the red lines moved all over Sprig like someone gone blind before the grid vanished and Frobo beeped a few more times. Something whirred in his head as his eyes went blank, but before long his pupils returned in a personal boot sequence. Once most of the obtained data processed through his circuits, he immediately stood firm and shuddered before he finished a series of low dipped creaks. Once they saw his smile dip down a bit Hop Pop and Polly saw the red flags in the air. Suffice to say, Sprig's reveal left many scratching their heads and one unnerved it his own mechanical way.
"Whoa there, Frobo! Got something on your mind? You almost freaked me out for a second!" Polly said.
The mechanical bot stiffly nodded, which made him squeak and sputter a few times, before he slowly whirred back up and pointed one of his metal claws right at the small speck in Anne's hand. However, when Hop Pop and Polly glanced back at it, which spooked Sprig a bit as they loomed in up close, it befuddled them more than anything.
"I don't quite understand. What am I seeing here?" Hop Pop asked. "My peepers ain't like they used to be, so… Yeah, I don't get it."
"You're not alone old man. I still have a life ahead and even I can't see anything!" Polly replied with a slight pinch of frustration.
Anne understood their problem and knew how to get the message across more easily. She used one hand to keep her hold on Sprig while she reached into one of her pockets for one specific item. While she gave herself multiple pats on the back for her unintended foresight to bring it before her sudden transportation to another world, it also contained another extra function that greatly benefited problems like images invisible to the naked eye. The Plantars actually used it on multiple occasions when it interested them so for the most part they learned how it functioned, although they almost shattered it a few times out of habit for foreign stuff. Even they needed to learn certain tidbits from her world just so they wouldn't pester her about them on a daily basis.
Once her fingers touched the certain sleek surface, Anne grinned. In one single pull later one of her most prides of joy made its appearance before everyone as if it became a town celebrity. She fought tooth and nail to get it to function outside of her own world, but she found a way…in a rather unorthodox fashion involving electric centipedes and a television show. She wouldn't leave it alone for two seconds outside, and she couldn't blame herself. If you were just reaching your teens, you also probably always held a cellphone on you at all times.
"Here, use this." Anne said as she handed Hop Pop the device.
Due to his experiences with a certain show Anne kept on her phone at all times, the old frog understood the basics and how to navigate to certain apps. One stood out among the rest in terms of clean pictures, which Hop Pop swiped through on the touch screen until one specific icon displayed. It retired only one single push to activate, and once he did so the image instantly shifted to the tall girl in front of him. He fiddled around with certain options as it zoomed in and out and shifted through dozens of filters, but he eventually got the hang of it. He brought the phone to an angle where it aimed directly at the dot in Anne's hand, and one instant zoom later the visuals finally revealed themselves as if he peeked through a magnifying glass. While at first he got an extreme close up view of Anne's skin, he quickly angled the phone to the small speck, and once he saw the light in front of the camera glimmer a familiar sight got picked up by the lens. Right in the center of the screen, a particular frog boy jumped up and down while he waved his hands in the air, seemingly to catch their attention, but at that point they saw everything they needed to know that something terrible happened.
Hop Pop almost had a heart attack once the phone's camera picked up the sight of the incredibly tiny Sprig.
"What the…SPRIG?!"
The shrunken frog nearly fell over from the sheer volume as it overloaded his eardrums. He shut his eyes for a moment as he cleared a massive migraine, although he still heard a bit of ringing a bit after.
"Ummm, yeah. I'm the tiniest frog imaginable now, heheheh…"
His lukewarm tone did nothing to ease the feelings of the other two. In fact, as they kept a close eye on him through Anne's phone, he pretty much saw them as the froggy deities that held the moon in the sky with their bare hands. They still required a few moments to catch up with the times, and yet the fact that his little sister now changed into a round young behemoth probably took a few extra seconds to completely understand from her infant mind. Just from her galaxy eyes alone he could tell that she held back a lot of her destructive mind for the sake of her brother, and yet a single flip of one of her stubs potentially meant the end of him in one fell swoop. She probably had the potential to house entire civilizations on her body while her bow served as the planet's extra moons. Of course her usually personality shaped her actions to possibly end entire planets in an instant, and yet because he stood before her, despite his miniature appearance, her will to destroy never stepped over the line. While his appreciation toward her for such decisions knew no bounds, he knew her infant status meant such a thread kept back so much. If she wanted the pearly gates awaited his arrival, and yet she chose not to even as the "bigger" sister for once.
Both Hop Pop and Polly gave their own takes while Frobo only utter a couple of extra beeps.
"Holy frog biscuits, boy! What in the name of flies on high happened to you?!" Hop Pop exclaimed.
"Hey, hey! Keep it down, remember?" Anne said in a cautious manner.
Some sleeping frogs around them stirred in their sleep, which would have meant something if they actually woke up. Since they wanted to keep themselves out of the public eye for now, the others set their voices down a couple of notches to play it safe.
"Oops, almost forgot." Hop Pop replied before he went back to the phone screen. "Even so, what happened to you? The fact that I have to use Anne's phone at all speaks to how barely I can see you."
"Yeah, I've kind of had to adapt on the spot with this whole business." Sprig answered before he shifted gears. "When Maddie snapped I may have gotten myself unintentionally caught in the crossfire from a previous incident. Because she still contained some umbrage from then, she retaliated with a downsizing curse which, well…you can see for yourself."
"So that crazy girl SHRANK you?" Polly said while she also gazed through the zoomed in camera. "While I'm appalled of the injustice behind it, I have to say…I like being the big sister for once."
"Not helping Polly." Anne said. "Unfortunately, I don't think Maddie will have a change of heart anytime soon to reverse it. Not only that, because only the caster can lift a curse…"
Nobody needed to say or hear anything to understand what she meant. Maddie made her mind up already and placed the entire town in her own "playground lock down" unless they subdued her new dark persona. If nobody dealt with her in time they would serve the giant girl for the rest of their sorry lives, which a tight selection of escapees aimed to fix. The town went through tough and crazy times before, so it almost seemed natural to hear about yet another dire situation that required their attention. Maddie needed her proper mindset back, but it wouldn't happen instantly.
Hop Pop took the news rather well.
"Waitwaitwaitwait, you're saying I'm going to have a tiny grandson for the rest of my days?! I CAN'T DEAL WITH THAT!"
The frog's sudden freak out lead Frobo to conk him on the head to remind him about the volume issue so they didn't wake up anyone. The mech pointed silently to all of the other ones asleep and beeped a few times before Hop Pop dialed himself down into a much calmer position. He still couldn't handle what he just heard, but the threat of an angry Maddie meant nobody would have a chance to change her back.
Of course Polly handled the information her own way.
"As much as I feel about the critical circumstances right now, I have to admit…I wouldn't mind it too much."
"POLLY!" Sprig exclaimed.
"Hey, I'm just giving what you paid that single copper for!" Polly replied. "It's not everyday the once older brother suddenly shrinks below my nonexistent feet."
"Okay, okay. We get the point there Polly." Anne stated. "Anything else you want to add?"
The other three rummaged through their heads and came out clean.
"No, I don't think so." Hop Pop said before he shook his head. "We avoided detection and now found ourselves in another grave hassle with you at the forefront. I guess that means you have a plan to solve everything?"
Anne trembled a little which shook up Sprig in her hand.
"Well, sort of. We collaborated with Flint, Felicia, and Ivy on certain aspects, since they seem like the only ones left that avoided Maddie, so while they've gone off on one excursion for something to help we've stayed back. He didn't give the full details, but-"
Her explanation of the current plans never finished as she suddenly found herself face to face with a frantic and desperate appearing Hop Pop that almost made her drop Sprig. The capillaries in his eyes went pure red while he gripped her by the shirt collar, which even got Polly and Frobo to recoil back a little as if he just downed a high energy drink.
"You managed to talk to Flint the collector…in private?! WHY DIDN'T YOU INVITE ME?! DID HE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT MY PRODUCE?! ANY IMPROVEMENTS TO SPEAK OF?! COME ON, YOU GOT TO TELL ME! TELL ME, TELLMETELLMETELLME!"
"Hey, easy there HP! We have more important matters to worry about!" Anne stated while Hop Pop nearly choked her dry.
As much as he wanted the infamous collector to notice him, Anne clearly made a point. The lives of the ones he cared about became more important over an obsessive behavior over a minor celebrity. He already dealt with some losses he desired to forget, and if he went through more he would never live it down fully. He may not have the youth he long since lost, but he still have a few good bones left to help in any way possible. Urgency really screwed with the mindset when you least expected it.
After he realized the mistakes in his behavior, Hop Pop paused for a moment before he settled down and got off of his tall adopted daughter.
"Okay, I guess you have a point there. Like always, we have your back to get this town back in order."
"Thanks everyone. We really need all the help we can get." Sprig said…only to suddenly find himself on his back after someone poked him. He rubbed his head for a second before he glanced over to the side and saw Polly close by.
"Seriously Polly?"
"Hey, I'm taking as much as I can with your shrinkage problem! Something like this only happens once in a lifetime!" Polly said as her looming huge eyes gazed down at the tiny brother.
She couldn't help herself any further and instantly poked him a few more times with her short stubs for arms, which basically equaled Sprig's entire body plus hundreds more. The young polliwog smiled and giggled at the great reversal she found herself in which entertained her to no end. The more she continuously touched her tiny brother the more she wanted such a situation to stay permanent, or even better. If she slipped through Maddie's guard and learned the growth spell for herself she would finally have the critical moment in her life where her true crazy side can flourish just like many of her dream jobs. While high class weapons of mass destruction fit her fancy and personality almost perfectly like a glove, transforming into a behemoth over everything followed close second, although on a much lesser scale. She initially thought such fantasies remained impossible to reach, but after Maddie's display and instant growth suddenly such ideas became possible again. In only a single hop entire civilizations and communities fell to such a destructive judgment, while any oppositions merely rebounded harmlessly off her skin like insufficient flies. If she had any further developments and didn't current stay in her young form a long tongue served as the perfect solution for anything that dared to fly in her face, which upset her to a certain degree to where she wanted to grow up quicker. In many ways, she related to Maddie's dark mindset and even desired to an extent to find a way to gain such heights herself. If the stars aligned and granted a such a deep wish for the young polliwog, Amphibia better watch out for when she transformed into the continent's deity.
"Okay, I get it Polly! Yeesh, not so hard!"
She became so enamored about how she eclipsed her brother in size that she almost completely forgot about the whole Maddie situation. Once reality came back to her, the young girl pulled back so Sprig can have some space. She put a pin in it for later though in case such an opportunity arrived on her front door again, for she deserved a lot more than just a handful…both figuratively and literally.
"Errrr, I can see he's, umm, durable like that! Heheheh!"
Despite her tepid smile and tone, which rubbed everyone the wrong way in a sense, the fact that Anne set the stage to possibly set Maddie back to normal maintained a higher priority and left everyone to focus more on that. Even so, Frobo uttered a few conspicuous beeps in her direction as if it understood her more than anyone else.
"Ohhhhhhkay." Anne said before she continued on. "Anyways…with Flint and Ivy gone I'm pretty much the only one left to possibly get Marcy and the others back. She messaged me through radio and said that she's still alive with the others taken away and-"
"Wait just a minute there." Hop Pop interjected. "Marcy still lives? As much as I am to hear such great news, the last I have heard of her she…"
Everyone within the small group glanced at each other for a brief moment and then over to the giant sleeping curse user as she lightly snored. Both Hop Pop's and Polly's pupils contracted into dots for a split second before they shuddered and shook once the realizations hit. Frobo acted out in a different manner as he lightly frowned and hummed in a computerized way before he dipped his body down a bit. While he lacked certain communication methods and didn't quite understand common social skills yet, for the most part when it came to what Anne had in mind it learned enough to conclude on its own assumptions, and the unique signs pointed in a direction similar to Hop Pop and Polly. Between the living and artificial, they each reacted different upon their conclusions about the situation ahead.
"Well…I've pretty much lost my lunch for the rest of the day." Polly said pretty bluntly. "While I'm for rambunctious and demented plans, even I have my limits."
"For once I'll agree with you. I haven't gotten sick to my stomach from words alone since the stories about Aunt Gertrude's modeling career." Hop Pop said as he winced and held his stomach.
Frobo whirred and spun his head a few times, but for the most part he never fell to the bars set by Hop Pop or Polly. Even so, he didn't act up as much but seemed to understand the ramifications behind what he heard and reacted in his own unique way, almost like the Spudley in a certain sense.
Anne frowned for the most part, but kept her demeanor pretty normal.
"Yeah, it won't go by without…those particular factors." Sprig stated. "I mean, we've went through a lot worse and in that case it might just go by as a drop in the bucket. We see no other way."
"I think we've pretty much agreed on that front…if you couldn't tell." Polly answered as she stirred herself back into a somewhat better mood. She still held her stomach slightly though.
"Even so…you want us to, yuck, come along just in case?" Hop Pop uneasily asked while slightly muffled.
Anne shook her head, but lightly smiled in their direction.
"You know…you don't have to come along if you don't want to."
Hop Pop and Polly shot straight up and straightened their backs right before Anne and Sprig. It almost seemed as if she just showed them a giant doughnut that meant they never had to eat anything again. From just a few statements alone she instantly brought them from complete misery to utter astonishment, which she never thought they had it in them. Out of the three, Frobo remained as the only one somewhat sane to not devolve into a moody one that shifted constantly to different emotions on the spot, and yet his methods differed on the scales. In some ways she should have expected better, but she never dabbled in babysitting work before and the more she thought about it the more she wanted out of it. They really kept their sights away from Anne's current task and acted as if it never existed, which she couldn't blame them for.
Despite the massive relief over their faces, they still put up the facade of uncertainty.
"Oh, ummmm, really?" Polly asked as she brought up her baby doll eyes. "You…don't want us to come along…and help?"
Anne held back the massive urge to giggle under her breath from the terrible acting.
"I…think I have the upcoming problem handled." Anne said. "However, now that I know about your escape you probably have a better chance assisting Felicia back at her shop. She'll need more helping hands to prevent any casualties while Flint gets certain materials and I rescue the others Maddie captured."
As much as she didn't want to command others, she had no other option for them to help out while the others performed their own duties. Even so, they clearly wanted no part in Anne's side of the spectrum after their assumptions hit. The less that accompanied her Maddie's suspicions dangled in the low numbers. After all that had happened so far the Plantars became the last ones to possibly rile her up on account of all the insanity the followed them, and she had bigger fish to fry from all of the disobedient ones against her. She couldn't just leave them out after they revealed their freedom from Maddie, and while Felicia meant well she definitely required some extra hands.
Frobo beeped and whirred a few times before he appeared to want to say something, but before anything came out Hop Pop instantly covered the mech's mouth, which meant very little since he spoke in a different manner, in a frantic way.
"Okay, okay there! No need to add anything Frobo, for we'll gladly help out back there…AWAY from all of the gross stuff! Heheheheh… Right Polly?"
The young polliwog caught on pretty quickly and chimed in her own two cents.
"Oh, right! Yes, definitely! We, ummm, will happily help out in that way! Uhhhh, yeah!"
Frobo twisted a few gears in his head as he glanced over to the two and lightly beeped a few times. His eyes narrowed for a split second before he whirred and silently rolled his eyes in their direction. To see the robot serve as the sane one of the bunch made Hop Pop and Polly appear like they lost millions of brain cells, and yet they acted as such on purpose. In certain ways it amused Anne to see what she considered her family away from her actual family devolve into fools in the middle of a king's court, although it provided the signs that they really didn't want to fall into the same duty that she put herself in. They may have the smarts when it came to certain topics, but they would completely steer off course just to slack off work if their futures appeared bleak from them.
Anne and Sprig practically saw the cheesiness drip from their smiles, minus Frobo since he thought things differently, but hesitated to answer at first. While a clear picture over Sprig served as a near impossibility, from the near microscopic speck in her hand she barely distinguished the tiny frog as he looked up at her, and she understood Sprig pretty well to come up with certain hunches about what he currently thought. If he stood dumbfounded from his family members from their attempts to cover up their intentions then they really acted in sync with each other, and yet she needed to call it right for them. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
She still decided to play along anyway to see how far they would go.
"Well, since you seem so into hanging out around here…I don't see anything wrong with that. Try to act cautiously though, for we have limited numbers and any losses will only hurt us. Got it?"
Two entire piles of dumbbells lifted off of Hop Pop's and Polly's shoulders. The intense masks across their faces fell to the ground as their acts came to a close. She made a mental note to never accept them into the hands of professional directors, for they probably wore shoes and shirts in all of the wrong places like amateurs. If they found themselves sitting in a dumpster somewhere after a single act they more than likely had it coming, although they hit it lucky a few times in the past. As actors, their chances pretty much relied on the ineptitude of the ones in charge so they kept their lives out of the streets as if they depended on it.
Polly became the first of them to answer while she genuinely smiled in Anne's direction.
"Ummmm, thanks Anne. We'll do, errrr, whatever we can to help…in certain topics."
"I may not have too much compared to my younger years, but I can't ignore you Anne. We'll do what we can while you take on your duties."
Frobo didn't speak up, but he waved one of his claws in the air and uttered some processing noises with a friendly grin. Despite his lack of words, such communication became unnecessary for what he meant underneath.
They left Anne with one of the most compassionate smiles she ever mustered, although Sprig spoke up first.
"Thank you guys so much. I wish I can help more like I usually do, but Maddie sort of planted a number on me if you couldn't tell. I may not have the height, but I have the heart."
"It's also really nice to know that you have our backs no matter the circumstance." Anne said soon after.
"Hey, what are families for?" Hop Pop said with a smile. "We always stick together and support one another when a member needs it, for it's pretty much the golden rule of families."
"I've pretty much learned that since day one…and ignorance comes with the territory in my country." Polly said. "I've pretty much lost count with how much I've went through because of one slipped detail. Let's see, that chasm over blades, the large angry snake, insulted a small girl with glasses…"
"We get the message there, Polly." Hop Pop said before he turned back to Anne. "Even so, you sure about this? I mean, if our assumptions-"
"Yes, Hop Pop. I'm set." Anne answered.
The others across from her paused for a bit, but soon after some lighthearted smiles came up across their faces. To think they completely rejected her idea and even warded such thoughts away a few minutes ago, but after some heartfelt words they no longer mattered. Hop Pop even nodded one final time before he eventually opened up a bit more in a relatable manner. Clearly Anne finally got through to them and she couldn't have felt happier.
"…then we're all set as well. We'll do our part around here while you two rescue the others." Hop Pop said with a light smile. "You know this task won't go by easily compared to what we've went through in the past."
Anne lightly chuckled and grinned.
"It comes with everything Wartwood has to offer. I'm certain we'll solve all of this mess."
After everything said and done, one of the group took more of the emotional hits than everyone else. Even so, he never displayed his feelings in a way similar to everyone else, but out of everything he could have possibly done one of them went through everyone's heads in a stereotypical manner but in a positive light. Such an action universally became a certain symbol, and he took it for all of its worth. Before anyone thought further, the large mech in the back cheerily smiled and embraced everyone in one gigantic hug from behind where he clearly meant all of the positive vibes he couldn't show for. Even though it possible came in out of left field, it retrospect Hop Pop or Polly probably would have done the same if he never stepped in. He creaked and squeaked in one large group hug that left everyone with a warm feeling in their hearts, and all of them enjoyed every second of it. He even made sure to not place too much pressure across his hold just so everyone could soak in the happiness. A family always stuck together in one cooperative package after all.
"Thanks Frobo. We really needed this." Polly said to her large metal friend.
"Friends…stick together…" Frobo uttered in his low audible voice.
While he understood speech for the most part, the mech usually remained mute so his actions spoke for him. However, he still contained the certain functionality and put it to use on occasion when he wanted to. It added to his overall uniqueness and added to his relatively hidden personality that others needed to figure out for themselves…even his closest friend Polly.
As a tightly knit bunch though, it served as an utter nightmare for the tiny one. Finding himself as the smallest creature in existence served as a kick to the midsection enough, but the clash of multiple surfaces took his suffering to another level. From Anne, Hop Pop, Polly, and Frobo above him he took most of the punishment in the center of all of it. His lungs nearly flattened themselves out along with the rest of his body, but he found just enough to sound out a minor squeak that barely got picked up by the others. The instant everyone realized the issue, Frobo hastily released his grip around everyone which finally gave the shrunken frog a chance to breathe. He may have survived worse, but one second too late would have ended disastrously for him.
Anne instantly brought Sprig up to her face while he stood dazed next to one of her fingers from the lack of oxygen.
"Oh shoot! Sorry about that Sprig!"
"I'm…fine. Just…give me a moment…" Sprig muttered as he leaned on one of her digits and held his head. They knocked the windbags out of him from that particular stunt.
"I'll…keep that in mind for later." Anne stuttered for a brief moment.
Once the whole group separated, Hop Pop, Polly, and Frobo glanced at Anne one final time with determination in their eyes. While not the most apparent, they clearly wanted to help out with the current crisis they averted by the skin of their teeth. Anne mirrored something similar back to them, as she stated and explained everything they needed to know if they wanted to continue down the particular road. They kept themselves close just in case, but they still had different duties to attend to. Any further help provided extra effort to solve everything with Maddie and her takeover.
Hop Pop said one final statement to Anne before they started.
"Anne…good luck out there."
"You too, HP." Anne answered while she nodded in his direction.
"We'll handle this the best we can." Sprig added soon after.
With everything finally wrapped up between all parties involved, the other turned around and head off in the opposite direction, likely to a safe spot where they can elude Maddie's capture much easier in a less stuffy manner than underground. They had to hurry a bit in case anyone around them suddenly shot up with their eyes open, and the less Maddie knew of their existence the better. Frobo hesitated further down the path at first until his head swiveled backward toward Anne and showed a frown across his face. His lack of features painted a certain enigma around him, but for the most part Anne and Sprig made their guesses with typical results. He had no intentions to hurt anyone he cared about, but before they could think further the mech uttered some low hard metal creaks and picked up the pace behind Hop Pop and Polly. Out of everyone to possibly care for the two's safety the most their expectations never fell to the large armored robot, and yet he subverted them yet again. The community around them cared for them just like any other…including someone drastically different.
Anne took a couple of deep breaths soon after and put her attention on a certain figure in the back. She required no such reiteration to understand what she must go through next, and Sprig knew it too well on a more serious note. Even so, she then looked down at the shrunken frog in her grasp for a second.
"Sprig, I'm probably going to need both arms for this. I'll need to hide you somewhere else for a bit."
"Yeah, I kind of figured that you'd say that." Sprig answered as he leaned on one of her huge fingers. "I don't recall you having any pockets though…"
"I don't." Anne stated. "If I had any I'd resort to placing you there in an instant, but since I lack any…I had to improvise."
Sprig stayed a little bit stumped at first with what she meant, but once she began to tilt her head down she soon revealed the obvious truth to the matter. From the place he saw as an entanglement of various galaxies and solar systems, he only dabbled in such a spot when he stood at his normal height. However, after his curse from Maddie such changes left different thought processes which provided goosebumps across his back. If he took one step too many he might as well claim the planet as his new home since such searches became a "needle in a haystack" situation. She clearly never had a sliver of a chance to possibly determine where she found himself if he ever strayed too far into the beaten path, especially at his current tiny size. He really wished he took a dive into a plate of spaghetti instead just so his hunger never died into the famished territory, and yet such dreams always flew out of reach. If she intervened and moved entire galaxies with only one digit he'd never live to tell the tale, but he pretty much missed all of the other choices as they fled the scene. He saw such a daunting place as one small step for a tiny frog, but also one giant leap for all of the strange areas he found himself in.
…and even then millions of other stranger areas existed where not a single frog leg made contact.
"You…really can't think of any other way? In there seems a bit…endless." Sprig asked while he slightly shuddered.
"Sorry Sprig, but I can't think of another safer option." Anne answered.
Sprig slightly frowned a bit before he took a couple of steps forward over to a couple of tree sized strands. He didn't want to admit it to Anne, but she made her point about no other option which reinforced the weirdness behind the offer. He cringed for a moment at first before he firmly grasped one of the strands and lifted himself up, and in the process it grossed him out pretty badly. Some very disgusting splotches dotted around thousands of the strands ahead, from ugly white to foul brown, and yet such hiding spots became essential until the first part of Anne's plan finished. He shuffled across carefully while he tried to avoid all of the gross up close details before he finally leapt forward and into the endless jungles of Anne's head, which he regretted instantly the moment he landed into some white gunk. Suffice to say, he never wanted to go through such a place again.
"Yuck! Do you ever clean in here at all?! I think I stepped in something…and I don't want to find out what!" Sprig asked as he attempted to brush himself off.
"Sorry Sprig, but I find it rather impossible to keep clean around here." Anne responded while she reminisced for a split second about all of the mucky bogs and contaminated swamp waters. "Just hold on tight and I'll get through this before you know it."
"Blech, and rather quickly…" Sprig said as he almost lost his lunch from more grotesque spots in the girl's hair.
After the small banter between the two, Anne finally began her trek to rescue Marcy and everyone else taken. She pinched her forehead and glanced down as if to think about what she gotten herself into, but for the most part she continued forward and avoided most of the sleeping frog around her. For a decent way through she found no trouble as all of them counted sheep and sawed logs peacefully through dreamland, but at one point she failed to thoroughly check the ground below and accidentally stepped on a stray frog's legs. She jolted upward and shrieked for a split second, but Anne acted instantly and zoomed straight behind her like lightning. In one swift action she clamped the frog's mouth shut and slowly groped her slimy head in a soothing way. Before long the frog's open eyes diverted in separate directions until her eyelids closed, which gave Anne an opportunity as she carefully placed the knocked out frog back to soft solid ground. Anne nearly had her heart burst from her rib cage while her teeth gnashed together, but due to her quick thinking nobody suspected anything amiss throughout the sleeping grounds.
"Whoa, nice reaction time." Sprig said at a lower volume to not wake anyone. "How'd you know how to do all of that?"
"Certain parts just click in your mind when you try to snag cookies from the jar at night…such as your sleeping cat." Anne responded.
Sprig would have asked further about such an issue if Anne never immediately ran off in a silent fashion. Clearly she wanted her whole five star wanted rating to vanish instantly, so the faster she sneaked through without detection the better. Sprig held on for dear life from a strand of hair while his gigantic best friend performed most of the heavy duty work. While far from any elite thief or burglar, compared to a novice she basically became into the next Einstein of tactical maneuvers. Quick on her but also sloppy around certain turns, she hung around the border and didn't take a step over it yet. Aside from the one incident, she kept her cool and only focused on the goal ahead, for Wartwood needed her help more than ever. While she watched some spy movies back home, she considered herself far more as an agent than a "Sneaky Sneakerson". Even so, she got the basics down and it proved enough to avoid any detection on her end.
While it took almost no time at all to reach the spot, as she drew herself close the unnerving tension started to settle in. Part of her considered the coincidence as a stroke of luck, as if her target wandered any further away then Anne required some assistance from Flint to move in closer, but on the other hand any further delays from the inevitable potentially provided time to cope with what she quickly gotten herself into. Her deep and obnoxious snoring reached decibels that irritated Anne's hearing like no tomorrow, and once she arrived closer it really sounded like high rush hour traffic. Her fingers twiddled a bit in her sleep, but she otherwise conked herself out pretty deeply. A thousand trucks served as nothing but slight irritations as she wandered throughout slumber land peacefully. Whatever the case, Maddie wouldn't awaken anytime soon.
She absolutely staggered Anne from how gargantuan her complete scope overshadowed the tween by an immeasurable margin. While Anne had her moments up close with the behemoth girl, she still found it hard to believe something like a massive growth spell existed and splashed all over Maddie. The frog witch's entire face became only a fraction compared to Anne's perspective, and the drops of mucus that remained invisible to the naked eye took center stage in full high definition. Even something like a minuscule bump nobody ever witnessed before immediately became apparent the moment Maddie expanded to new heights. Her blue and sleek skin took to the skies and replaced it while her pink blob contained the cosmos, and yet one flick of a finger basically equaled the next apocalypse and the end of everyone's lives. Of course her new mindset practically relished the thoughts every second to the determent of everyone else like a queen straight out of a fairy tale, and her size absolutely provided the message that everyone served her and only her. Someone could easily mistake her for a series of mountains and get away with it like any other common stereotype that believed instantly.
Anne held back buckets of bile as she walked up close and personal, and Sprig ducked behind multiple strands of her hair just so the visuals scrubbed from his head. Despite the action though, it still stuck firm and required a few extra moments, although Anne had no choice but to continue forward. Maddie's sleeping body didn't sit in Anne's head as the end destination, for something else stuck out for her to do. In such haste to get the whole thing over with though, she failed to take into account one particular factor until it literally smacked her right across her entire body. Sprig also never saw it coming and braced for impact since he already grasped one of Anne's strands of hair as she rocketed toward her left. The tween felt her backside once it hit sort of a cushy surface, and yet her limbs refused to work at all. While she struggled to move and wiggle out of her bind, she glanced down and figured out how she ended up in yet another predicament.
Maddie still slept overhead, but she unknowingly moved one of her hands and caught Anne in the crossfire.
The sliminess of her fingers smothered Anne all over and left her as if she just waltzed out of a crowded pool, which she didn't fully appreciate, and yet out of everything she learned about frogs since she arrived one of the least memorable aspects became the saving grace to find her way out of Maddie's firm grip. She needed some light wiggle room to work with, and while she attempted to find some free space something slowly hit her senses, almost in a stunning fashion at certain points. For a gigantic tyrant bent on sending the entirety of Wartwood to its knees she slept in a rather calming fashion. While she snored over the whole town at high volumes, it possibly became a side effect to how massive she grew and provided nothing as to how she truly slept at night. Her breathing slowed to a crawl and the faint thumping from behind almost lulled Anne to sleep. In some ways it reminded her of parts of her younger years where her mother loomed by her side and hummed a low lullaby all while she embraced her across the chest. Anne always cherished those moments with her parents and even as she grew older certain moments always stayed and help shape her into the person she acted as today. Even the sliminess of Maddie's fingers heavily reminded Anne of all the times she fell asleep in her parents' arms, even when Sasha tried to have her forget to "mature" her in a specific sense. A few tears fell down her face and she never attempted to wipe them away, and yet the memories of her mother and father remained strong. She wanted nothing more than to return home, and to know that Maddie out of everyone else pried such feelings out became a complete enigma to the young girl. Despite the facts though, it helped reinforce the notion to help out the ones she cared about, and Maddie needed it more than ever.
The torrents of thoughts brought a weightless feeling across her body, but only for a few brief seconds once the situations reared their ugly heads back to her. Maddie's ginormous fingers bound her tightly, and yet provided the slimy substance to wriggle free. Even though her back planted firm against Maddie's chest like some type of makeshift teddy bear, she found just enough to barely wiggle one of her arms free. She pushed a couple of times upward until her other arm came out followed by her midsection, although by that point Maddie's grip on her tightened. Despite the setback, Anne still found the strength and slimy surface when she finally pried herself loose from the young witch's fingers without too much trouble. It knocked the wind out of her in a few places, but for the most part everything remained intact and she never needed to resort to certain extremes. The one survival story she saw on TV about a guy trapped in a cave who chewed off one of his arms to escape still haunted her at nighttime, but such a circumstance failed to cross Anne. She escaped with all of her limbs in one piece and didn't suddenly change into only a head with a couple of toothpicks to spare.
When she finds her way back home, she needed to tell Sasha to choose certain movie nights wisely so nobody emptied out their stomachs early.
While pretty much futile from how much she found herself in, Anne still attempted to wipe some of the excess mucus off of her as he headed upward towards Maddie's face. In a miraculous turn of events for the one hoarded away in her hair, Sprig suffered next to no side effects from the brief occurrence. Although, since he also excreted mucus across his body on account of also being a frog it would have dealt the bare minimum. He already had enough time as the smallest frog in the universe, and anything basically desired his neck until Maddie reversed the process. He kept quiet for the most part so he could focus more on survival than anything, as even his bushy hairy safety net served as buffer more than anything. As long as his huge best friend kept at it a faint light shined at the end of the tunnel for him to reach. Like they always said, "Spranne against the world!"
From where they ended up after all of that, it took a couple of minutes to finally reach Maddie's slumbering head. The deep snoring still rang through Anne's and Sprig's craniums as if some planted a million alarm clocks in there which they really unappreciated to the tenth degree. To see that her head completely overtook basically everything below cast a very unnerving shadow over the two, and yet they still couldn't get over all of the facts laid out before them. The giant frog witch's eyes stayed heavily shut while she counted miniature sheep and their juicy remains over her deep sleep, which benefited Anne and Sprig over a furious and angry Maddie. Even with the looming presence of her colossal head and deep snoring however, her huge and menacing maw caught their attention more than anything. Entire boatloads of droll dripped to the ground in a sticky heap while her teeth served as the gatekeepers to the path of no return to the darkness behind. Various waves of hot and wafting air escaped to the miniature specks down below despite the loud noises it brought with them. From their angle Maddie's eyes and upper parts of her head stayed hidden behind the upper parts of the dark and deadly abyss, which would have eased the tension a little if Maddie's normal personality never left reality. While up close such assumptions provided monstrous conclusions, on the contrary Maddie was one of the friendliest frogs Amphibia had to offer…if her mind never ended up usurped by a darker force.
The sightings on their own sent chills down Anne's and Sprig's spines.
"You…really sure about this?" Sprig asked nervously. "I mean, this seems like the complete opposite of-"
"I can't think of any other option Sprig." Anne answered in a pitch of valor. "We have to go through with this. I'd rather go for something else, but I can't think of anything without wringing my brain out. Just…hold on tight and hope for the best, okay buddy?"
"Oh man, I feel like something bad will happen with this…" Sprig replied.
Just to shield himself partially from the visuals ahead, he withdrew himself back a bit further into Anne's messy bustle of hair and held on tight to one of the strands. As for Anne, while she wanted to haul her butt over to safety as much as her instincts constantly nagged her to she saw that particular outcome as the wrong answer to the problem. She mustered forward in a light walk until she reached one of the sides of Maddie's head. In another stroke of luck for the duo, the giant girl frog slept on her side which minimized the distance required to climb up by a decent margin, but even so it still provided a challenge. Even with all of the drool and slimy skin, Anne had to made do as she slowly put her hands on the slippery blue skin. She let her touch lead the way for any potential dry spots to grip on to, and even though she didn't find them immediately, once she recognized a certain pattern across her fingertips she knew she hit gold. She breathed in deeply for a split second before she hoisted herself up and gripped the workable parts like a professional mountain climber. Her feet followed soon after although as she climbed up she grazed her fingers for a few moments for any workable surfaces just so she wouldn't accidentally slip. Maddie's loud and warm snores didn't help her ascent and provided a bit of a hindrance in her endeavors. They almost completely blew the tall girl off and left her to hold on for dear life just to stay attached. As her fingernails dug into Maddie's skin, the sleeping giant one never stirred or awoke in any capacity much to their benefit. If Maddie never shot up in the height department Anne probably would have never known about the slight dry spots across her skin, and yet they ended up crucial to possibly save Wartwood from her tyrannical reign.
While it took some muscle and elbow grease, after one grueling climb Anne finally pulled herself up to the edge of one of Maddie's lips. Since she fell asleep onto her side both sets of teeth appeared like two long square side doors that opened to the room in back, and yet more awaited in the darkness before her. She positioned herself more on one of the sides since drool fell near the center to the long drop below, and she wanted none of those troubles. The long wet pink slug for a tongue laid dormant higher up across a section that thankfully Anne didn't need to tread across, but even then the path ahead wouldn't become a cakewalk for the young tween. Even though most of the harder portions hung on the side, they left the inner circle of Maddie's teeth as the only option left. While not on the same level of slipperiness as the tongue, Anne still had to tread carefully so all of her bones remained intact in the end. No such TV documentary required for her as long as she kept up her caution and never threw it to the wind.
Sprig dug himself deeper into Anne's hair before Anne shuddered and made her first crucial step. Maddie threw a snore soon after that nearly knocked her off of her feet, and it probably would have occurred if Anne went across the tongue instead. While the inner ring of teeth still kept buckets of saliva across the surface, she knew it would have gone much worse if Maddie slept flat across her front. The less she had to deal with that slimy pint serpent the better, although she still had to avoid some large loose drops of drool to keep her position upright. It still lingered to the side as if it could act at any moment, but for the most part Anne focused more on her careful steps than anything else. Because she couldn't take her eyes off of them, she found it somewhat surprising that Maddie maintained some kind of personal hygiene since all of her teeth showed no signs of damage, cavities, or dark plaque from what her eyes scanned across the surfaces. Since she dealt with everything related to the dark arts and stood out as the only curse user of Wartwood, clean teeth never passed through Anne's head as something she went for. If anything, from what she saw in popular media back home, society labeled her kind as the polar opposite of clean and tidiness. Despite all of the stereotypes brought upon her hobby, she managed to defy the odds and into someone that one could relate to…if they managed to look past the creepy exterior the common folk saw her as.
Out of everything in the end though, it became quite ironic in a sense that a young witch dealt with hygiene better than her or her other friends Sasha and Marcy when they were tots. Marcy sometimes went for days chowing on sugary goodness and never suspected anything wrong with her chompers. She blamed her deep love for a certain licorice brand that covered their entire sticks with the small crystals of corrosion, which Marcy pretty much snacked on daily. Both Anne and Sasha maintained a somewhat better mentality, but when it came to events like birthdays they burst out of the gate until their stomachs cramped. For the most part it lead to multiple cavities within only a few weeks of each other, which made one dentist a very happy guy. For the most part none of them appreciated any kind of visit to the office of some dastardly profession, and yet their parents took them there regardless. The fact that someone willingly probed inside their mouths for a job oozed stranger danger to the kids, and every single time they worried that one less tooth would vanish under their noses. In all fairness though, they pretty much got their eye candy from a small toy train near the ceiling that moved from room to room which eased tensions by a microscopic amount, but in the end they dreaded the visits. Sasha even walked out at one point with large bruises over one of her cheeks, and after that moment they switched to a different dentist and never looked back. Suffice to say, dentists secretly held torture chambers behind closed doors which ironically made the trio brush and floss more often than they needed to.
They still pester their parents about a ceiling train to this day.
She spent a good few minutes across some of Maddie's molars, and she probably would have went through without too much trouble. However, because she was Anne Boonchuy, nothing became that simple for the tween. A few good steps in the whole area around shook and rumbled while Maddie's snoring reached higher decibels. Anne and Sprig covered their ears, although the shrunken frog still kept hold of a long strand of Anne's hair, but it became the least of their worries once light slowly faded everywhere. Once they quickly glanced back they witnessed the last few moments of sweet illumination before Maddie completely closed her mouth and left them stranded inside. While such a happening served as a determent to their current mission, it added to the immediate shifts in gravity everywhere. While she lacked the sight to witness everything, Anne instantly felt her weight leave the planet regardless and soon hit one of the squishy walls of Maddie's mouth. It a single puddle of drool drenched below her waste an entire lake completely covered her in the viscid substance like glue, and she fumbled around at every turn while Sprig held on for dear life. She never considered that someone made a pinball table the size of a giant frog witch's mouth, and yet after that moment she wouldn't blame herself if she completely missed the fact after her head bashed in countless times. From the inner cheeks, teeth, and tongue she made her wild guesses that she probably hit every single part that composed of Maddie's mouth and at least grazed every single portion once. While she more than likely tilted the table too much at one point, Maddie still made the world record in Anne "painball" without ever hitting the flippers.
Anne and Sprig only held themselves on for dear life as they never had a chance to control the situation in any way, but as soon as the whole predicament started all of the motions ceased. They found their final resting place atop some very squishy and slimy, which pretty much ruled out absolutely nothing. Anne's eyes shuttered open and stayed that way while Sprig contained truckloads of anxiety that he calmed down from in a periodic steady pace. If their hearts stopped at some point they wouldn't blame themselves if they saw the pearly gates early, and yet it seemed like it at first when light poured in. However, the familiar sights confirmed that such a fate missed them by inches. The deafening snores helped reinforce the idea of their survival, which almost astounded them to an extent. The fact that Anne suffered no broken bones, only a couple of harmless bruises, became miracles in disguises especially after the impacts against Maddie's teeth. They've brushed against the underworld multiple times, but not in a manner that involved a friend of theirs after she became the biggest girl in Amphibia…while she rolled around in her sleep.
After yet another death defying experience under their belts, Anne and Sprig finally had enough light to figure out where they landed…and their luck just so happened to smile in their direction. They didn't just avoid the pit below, but they dangled straight above it. To think what dozens of cartoons classified as a punching bag somehow captured the two in its stickiness and prevented their untimely fall to the depths below, and due to Maddie's gargantuan size they had plenty of room to sidle and stay safe for a brief moment. Even so, despite nodding off a couple of times during school, Anne understood anatomies to a certain extent and if she attempted to move too much she basically booked a one way ticket on the bile train. The pit below them lead to an eternal darkness of no return, and yet the muscles oscillated and wiggled in an organic fashion. One drop down there and they'd probably spelled their end in an instant, which their instincts heavily advised against in every regard.
…and yet Marcy and many others stayed trapped in its depths.
Sprig poked his small head out of Anne's hair for a second and almost felt his eyes bulge out upon the sightings below them.
"Oh man. Never had I ever thought that my end was being a snack to Maddie." Sprig said very nervously. "I guess she never kidded around when she saw my death in her mind…as the most horrific and ironic fate."
"Relax Sprig, we'll find a way out once we rescue Marcy and the others. We'll get through this…from Maddie's stomach…" Anne answered. She also spoke nervously, but not at the same level as Sprig.
"You'd sing a different tune if you had to go through this with one of YOUR friends." Sprig said in a shaky tone.
He pretty much guessed correctly with that last statement. Because Maddie ended up as the one with the massive growth spurt the queasiness became more neutral and not the most awkward thing in the world…in terms of Amphibia's craziness daily. She knew Maddie pretty much since she found herself in the strange world, but in terms of Sasha and Marcy the roots dug much, MUCH deeper. If either of them went through the same process that made Maddie grow Anne already had pretty decent estimates of their initial reactions and how they would act. Even so, if everything progressed the same and she had to take a plunge inside them then the demons of hesitations crawled across her back like armies of ants. She already went against one of them and nearly lost it in the end, but at least she never went through an intentional spelunking trip just to ease the situation. While she related to them on the inside, she definitely kept the literal sense out of the question. In a certain way the relief that neither Sasha or Marcy changed into the biggest girl in existence brought ease to Anne and left her in a more manageable mood with Maddie. They deserved none of the treatment Anne was going through with Maddie, and the frog locales likely required at least two massive tanks to pry Anne from the ground if such a method ever became the only choice to solve their unintentional growths.
Besides, Amphibia barely kept a giant Maddie in check, so a giant Sasha and Marcy stepped cleanly over the line into "everything smaller is dead on arrival" territory.
The lingering pit created so much dread in the young girl that she almost couldn't find the courage to potentially do the deed, but the ones trapped counted on her, especially Marcy. With all of the overbearing thoughts that surged through her brain, Anne took one more deep breath before she closed her eyes and jumped. Sprig's mentality hit a breaking point enough so that he completely dug himself back into Anne's hair completely, and the tween easily wished she had the luxury at the moment. She bit her lip at first the moment she felt her body impact against the constricted muscles, and immediately they dragged her down like the fastest pit of quicksand imaginable. Before long, her entire body lacked any free space and became instantly sticky and slimy as the Maddie's throat pulled her further and further downward. The large thumps she heard from earlier echoed throughout her hearing which reminded her of the stakes set from her current stunt. To think she once heard such sounds from the outside creeped her out more than usual. Back home during one of her classes one of her assignments ended up as the typical annual frog dissection, but after today such methods became meaningless. While she barely stomached the sights back then, now she wanted absolutely none of the disgusting visuals. She definitely made such a project unnecessary, but she never expected to be part of the anatomy in the first place.
The fact she managed to persist through such an experience without puking served as an accomplishment in an of itself, she saw no end in sight until the tract around her slowly began to open up. Before she even knew what had happened, the muscles released her and sent her into a long free fall. While still coated in stink and slime, all amounts of sight failed her to the darkness everywhere. With nothing to rely on her mind failed to compute how long such a fall would last until she literally crashed onto a rather uneven surface. She winced on impact, but otherwise she made it through unscathed.
"What the…"
She tried to get on her feet, but lost her balance and fell backward. The fact that she heard a couple of splashes near her gave off certain indications that lead her down a certain path, and yet she still required more answers.
"…errrm, ugh. Turn down the dials there, muhmmuhmmuhmmuhm…"
The slight mumbling nearby sounded familiar, and yet her sight still failed to pick anything up. In an attempt to figure something out, Anne slowly crawled forward a bit until she eventually stepped on something with one of her hands. Something jolted in front and nearly spooked her backward.
"Ow! Heyheyhey, I already claimed this spot as-"
The reassuring statement immediately helped determine who she accidentally came across, and out of everyone she knew…she placed the money grubbing lout near the bottom. Still, she attempted to talk back just to make sure.
"Uhhhhh…Mayor Toadstool? Am I hearing things right? I can't exactly see anything."
She reached out for a brief second before she eventually touched something soft and slimy, which immediately ended up followed by a response.
"Ow, hey! Not in the eyes, okay?"
"Oops! Sorry there." Anne replied before she pulled back.
She heard something shift in front of her, and a few seconds later she finally found the light she desired. While a no brainer that someone went for a jar of small fireflies for light, which required a few kicks to get up and running, the one who held such a helpful tool fully came into view. As he bathed in light, Anne finally figured out who she talked to, and her hunches hit the center of the targets expertly.
"Frogs on high… Anne Boonchuy?! How…how did you you…"
"Got willingly eaten by Maddie." Anne answered before he finished.
"You…you crazy girl…" Mayor Toadstool mumbled. He almost lost his footing for a second before he turned around in the opposite direction.
"EVERYONE GET UP! WE GOT ANOTHER ONE THAT DROPPED IN!"
At first she saw next to nothing due to the limited light from the jar of fireflies, but she definitely heard some more ruffling and movements in the background. She became confused at first until another figure slowly stirred behind Toadstool and slowly crawled carefully over to him. While it became obvious that his right hand lackey would answer the call first, soon after some other notable townsfolk came into the light nearby. She heard some grumble a little before they woke up, but soon after they arrived with no issues. Her expectation set on the one area around her, but soon after not just one light became apparent near her. Off in the distance a few more extra lights illuminated certain places, and some familiar faces became instantly recognizable by the young girl. Mayor Toadstool wasn't the only one trapped after all.
Out of everyone that made an appearance though, one clearly stood out over everyone else in Anne's eyes.
"Anne? Is that you?"
Just the sound of her voice lifted her spirits, and yet she knew it all too well.
"Marcy?"
The two girls laid their eyes on each other before the two of them went ecstatic. Anne would have rushed on over if her footing never wobbled all over the place, but once she saw Marcy as she moved she decided to play it safe. While her inhibited sight restricted the full view, she made out that Marcy, and some others behind her, tried to get over by paddling with something she couldn't fully see. It stumped her a little, but in the end none of it mattered at the moment. As long as she finally saw with her own two eyes that Marcy never left for the paradise in the sky her outlook stayed positive and happy.
Even though only a few minutes passed, for the two girls it seemed too much until Marcy finally made it over. The two squealed with glee before they immediately exchanged heartfelt hugs like the lifelong friends they were.
"I…I'm so happy to see you still alive." Anne said with small tears in her eyes.
"It'll take more than just someone swallowing me to put ol' Mar Mar down." Marcy answered. "Glad to see you still up and running too."
"Thanks Marcy." Anne replied back.
Of course, just as their heartfelt feelings hit a breaking point, a certain tiny frog boy popped his worried head out straight from Anne's bushy hair. After all of the commotion from Anne's trek and now the eventual meeting it stirred his curiosity enough as he finally pulled himself out of his comfort zone.
"I'm hearing some grateful words out, so does that mean-"
Anne almost completely forgot about her small stowaway that it almost spooked her to an extent, but such a reaction screeched to a halt as he unintentionally locked eyes with Marcy. The two exchanged emotions in silence before Sprig shuddered from Marcy's newfound scope compared to him.
Marcy acted first though.
"Oh my flipping frog…is that Sprig?! What happened to him?!"
Anne glanced upward for a second to see the frightened frog in her hair.
"To make a long story short, Maddie cursed him into shrinkage."
"Yeah, and I'm REALLY understanding the changes in perspective, thank you very much!" Sprig added before he glanced back over to the behemoth girl in Marcy.
The excitable girl took the news rather well…in her own Marcy way. Her pupils dilated before she put her hands on her cheeks.
"Ooh, I can't believe it! He looks…SO CUTE LIKE THAT!"
Before anyone could think for a split second, Marcy immediately snatched the tiny frog from the confines of her friend's hair and kept him bound between her fingers. She instantly drew him up close to her chest and before he even knew what she had in mind, the ditsy girl placed him against her in one of the most joyous hugs imaginable. Everyone else stood befuddled as the young girl nearly crushed him while Sprig nearly lost all of the oxygen in his lungs. The moment Anne saw his face turn blue it suddenly went from innocent to serious. She wanted Sprig to live after all.
"Okay, okay there Marcy! I think Sprig gets the point!"
Anne's final statement snapped Marcy back to the reality around her. She paused for a moment and glanced at Anne before she looked down at Sprig, who almost changed into a Marcy pancake from her firm grip on him. Once the reality of her action settled in, she immediately loosened her grip on him to let him breathe.
"Oops, heheheh… Almost forgot about strength in size! Sorry there, Sprig!"
The tiny frog's legs wobbled and wiggled all over as he got to his feet and sluggishly gave the giant tween a thumbs up. From all of the pressure one of his eyes remained halfway open while he also missed some of his teeth, but overall Marcy provided nothing too harmful to the young frog.
…even after he comically fell onto his front from exhaustion.
"I…think I'll take him back for now." Anne said as she reached out to grab her friend. Marcy pretty much got the message and let Anne take the shrunken frog back. He still lived, but at least he learned to let Anne handle him instead of her clumsy friend.
"Okay, while I find this reunion heartwarming we still need to get our points across." Mayor Toadstool said. "In case you haven't forgotten, Maddie ate us and we need to find a way out."
Anne kept Sprig safe in the center of her palm as she listened in on the others. She admitted to herself that her meetup with Marcy boggled her mind out of the situation, and with all of the lights centered in one place she finally found clear visuals of the slimy prison around everyone. She almost fell sick to all of the grotesque imagery and lingered on the border of puking or not. Maddie really expanded in scope all right, and it also included her internal organs. The whole area everyone became stuck in encompassed an expansive range akin to some of the largest football stadiums, although no such round rooftops helped decorate the playing field. The pink beating walls oozed disgusting juices Anne wanted no part of, and they seemed to stretch for miles both horizontally and vertically like a bloated balloon. The humongous circular enclosure extended at such a long scope that she almost never noticed the brief hole near the top that opened and closed, which Anne remembered from anatomy classes as some type of sphincter. Even so, with a frequency of motions at erratic times an escape through there became next to impossible, which was probably one of the reasons why everyone haven't escaped yet. Not like the wide open space provided much leg room, for no such flooring or ground existed for their comfort. Instead, an entire lake of yellow hot sickly thick acid took place of anything remotely hospitable where one could stay low, and Anne knew from previous incidents that one dip in there basically changed anyone into a skull and bones for next Halloween. From all of the combined factors it seemed like a miracle that no casualties happened behind her back, and yet time winded down for their survival. One couldn't live their entire lives in Maddie's stomach unless they desired to have a timer across their foreheads at all times. Either they acted fast, or Maddie's digestive system would get to them first.
"Errrgh, yeah." Anne answered as she held back piles of bile. "We should…definitely figure that out…"
"We've brainstormed a few ideas, but nothing conclusive yet." Marcy stated. "A lot have remained stuck in here for days and haven't figured anything out. Even I'm stumped!"
After she finished, the exhausted Sprig slowly got back on his feet in a shaky manner, and while he found most of the wind knocked out of him he wouldn't stay down for long.
"Wait, some have stayed stuck in here for days? But…but how exactly?"
"Not easily, we'll tell you that."
The two girls and tiny frog faced the other crowd behind them as they paid attention. Mayor Toadstool and Toadie took up the front while the others stayed put behind them. The discomfort over their faces told them everything about their terrible stay in such a horrendous environment, and yet they had more to share. The information wouldn't go through calmly from what the girls saw.
Mayor Toadstool spoke up for everyone.
"First off, have you noticed how we kept ourselves afloat? Looks a bit unorthodox, doesn't it?"
Anne didn't understand the implications at first until she glanced down for herself and realized the oddities that surrounded them. One expected such normal sightings like a boat or canoe as if it became a common stereotype, and yet such modes of transportation never left the premises. Instead, for some bizarre reason, something flat and crimson set under everyone like large patches in the acid and no such corrosion littered the central portions where it mattered most. While the edges seemed to have lost a bit of their luster, in terms of weird usability one could easily substitute anything that lingered on the surface of the water for such a substance, even if it sagged downwards a little as someone sat in a spot. It even stretched to extreme lengths that allowed more than a couple dozen to sit on one and even then not just one populated the area. Anne currently sat on one with Mayor Toadstool and many others, but she also saw Marcy on one with her own crowd. Once she saw one more that loomed in after the announcement of her arrival she likely saw all of the devices and everyone that Maddie swallowed so far, and yet she still pondered about the unlikely saviors that left them clear of the gastric acids…at least for a time. One clearly thought ahead to supply such help after all.
Anne and Sprig raised their eyebrows quite a bit.
"Ohhhhhkay. While I knew the possibility of a boat would never happen, your substitute seems…flimsy at best."
"I'm more surprised that whatever they came up with actually worked." Sprig said. "Ummmm, what exactly am I seeing here?"
Even though Sprig shrunk to tiny bug level, nobody else seemed too surprised about it. After everything that went along with Maddie and her craziness, Anne concluded that they already put their hands up and left everything on the table of possibilities.
Toadstool shed a few tears before he answered.
"I…spent so long on those…only to see them wasted…for this stupid survival crap…"
"Uhhhh, what?" Anne asked.
Toadie intervened for a quick moment.
"His Greediness intended to cash in some extra dough from those stretchy garments, but now…"
"Wait, are these shirts?!" Anne asked in slight astonishment.
Marcy silently rolled her eyes and grinned.
"I pretty much thought the same thing once I also heard, Anne. Yes, you heard it right, we're floating on elastic shirts made of gum."
Anne's train of thought went into a nosedive yet again. Never in all of her time stuck in Amphibia the term "shirts made of gum" hit her eardrums. Toadstool kept some screws loose in his head, but usually his schemes lead in a way one can comprehend without much thought. However, she completely missed certain tidbits she refused to look into in the first place. The mayor thought of a lot more with many tricks up his sleeve, which completely flew under Anne's radar.
One of her eyes twitched while her mouth hung slightly ajar, which mirrored over to Sprig in a certain sense.
"I feel like I can't understand anything anymore." Anne said in a rather static fashion.
"You and me both." Sprig added.
"Hey, I had plans for them and it's a lot better than you think!" Mayor Toadstool said. "I wanted to bide my time with them first, but then…"
"Yes, yes, sir. We fully understand." Toadie said while he silently nodded. "Anyways, you see, during the initial meetup with Flint during, well, the scuffle with that asp, these long shirts fell out of his bag. While we at first wanted to give them back after everything finished, we later decided to hold them back to potentially, well…"
"Don't beat around the bush Toadie." Mayor Toadstool said. "To make a long story short, we wanted to make some serious cash off of them, but when Maddie swallowed us these actually saved our lives in the end."
"I…find that hard to believe." Anne said. "Those things seriously saved you from digestion? Sounds like something you hear in folklore and not real life."
"Actually Anne, they speak the truth." Marcy said. "Have you ever heard of those weird rumors that chewing gum doesn't digest well? Why do you think people spit them out instead of swallowing?"
She almost couldn't believe what she heard. While she may have learned about such a tall tale from the playground at one point, for it to suddenly become a line between life and death sounded almost preposterous. It seemed like something you learned for fun and not crucial by any means, and yet Amphibia threw her another curve ball yet again. While she wondered where the mayor and Toadie stashed all of the garments at first and how the gum substances in Amphibia functioned differently than back home, her brain went into thought overload which required a swift shutdown. The more she tried to make sense of all of it the better, and even then most of the heavy thinking became more of Marcy's thing anyway.
Anne slightly frowned but went along with it anyway.
"I'm just going to leave it at that so I don't have to wring my brain out. Fine, you survived thanks to some magical gum shirts, but what about food? How have you survived under that restriction?"
"Umm, well…" Toadie started. "You see, we, uhhhh, kind of have you to thank for that."
"Uhhhh, what?" Sprig stated as he looked on from Anne's fingers.
Toadie muttered some nonsense under his breath before Toadstool came forward and rummaged through his pockets for a quick moment. After a few more seconds he perked up a bit and brought his hand back out before he opened it up. It it revealed something Anne hadn't see since the Spudley excursion, and she felt pretty sure she left most of the extras up with Maddie. Even so, somehow she missed a certain part in the end, and even then some questions remained.
"Hold on a sec. How in the right mind did you snatch that from under our noses?" Anne asked. "I thought Maddie kept all of it to herself."
"Well…" Toadie stated in a rather guilty tone while he rolled his eyes.
"Quiet Toadie, I still got some 'splaining to do." Mayor Toadstool said before he got back to Anne. "You wanna know how we got this? Well, I kind of snatched a piece from behind your backs."
Both Anne's and Sprig's expressions went flat.
"Let me guess. You wanted some easy moolah?" Anne asked.
"Ummm, I guess you can say that." Toadstool answered. "Even so, like the shirts, we had a change of plans pretty instantly…if you couldn't tell already."
"I've pretty much gotten used to them, even with my brief stay in here." Marcy said.
Another revelation down, which meant only few remained behind closed doors. If Anne and Sprig had the time to ask they probably would have done so, but once one particular dangerous noise hit their ears in required their full attention. They almost felt their chest stagnate into irregular intervals as the signs trickled down their spines, and the terrifying nervousness soon spread to the others around them. If a large whale somehow found itself beached and in pain both noises pretty much synchronized into split images perfectly, and yet everyone knew better. The flabby and muscle ridden walls that made up the chamber around them jiggled and oscillated as the grating moans rang throughout the area once again, which faintly rippled the acid underneath. The sounds alone nearly made Anne's hair stand on end, and she required no further clues to figure out where their situation headed next.
Everyone else, minus Marcy, felt their pupils contract as their skins went pale.
"Oh no, oh nononononono!" a miscellaneous frog in the group stated.
"Not now, NOT NOW!" another frog said in slight panic.
The others soon followed into very unnerving reactions as the sounds went louder, and yet Anne and Sprig were also caught in the middle as well.
"Please don't tell me we just hit THAT period." Sprig said as he nervously shook all over.
The ones before them shut their mouths tightly while Marcy's worried expression didn't help calm them any further. Even so, it didn't stop Mayor Toadstool too much as he turned back around toward everyone else and gave his two cents as if their lives depended on it.
"Maurice, you still have the other shirts?"
"Errrm, uhhhh, yes. Never left my sight." the common townsfolk frog named Maurice replied. The neutral nondescript frog swiftly pivoted to the side and grabbed an entire pile of the gummy shirts for everyone. He placed them in the center of their makeshift raft before everyone progressed to the next step.
"All of you know what to do." Toadstool said.
The rest of the townsfolk nodded before they wasted no time and each grabbed a single gum shirt and shook them loose. Marcy followed soon after, which Anne mimicked even though she still had no idea what everyone had on their minds. While clueless for the most part, she understood that they knew best and should also pay close attention to their example.
"Anne, you'll need one of these." Marcy said before she turned around with an extra shirt in her other hand. "Trust me."
Out of everything Anne learned from her friendships between Sasha and Marcy, the fact that Marcy knew best stuck out the most when it came to emergency situations. Since reiterations became unnecessary, Anne swiped the shirt in an instant and stuck the shrunken Sprig in her hair for safety. As much as he wanted to stay out of extreme close ups of his best friend, out of everywhere else to possibly stay out of trouble, as much as he wanted to not admit it, Anne jungle of hair became his best bet. He gripped one of her long strands as Anne awaited the next step, since she still relied on Marcy to relay the information over before…whatever the others panicked about started. Better stay safe than sorry.
Both Anne and Marcy watched everyone else around them as they immediately placed the shirts over their heads and bodies as much as possible, which informed them of the next step. Marcy proceeded to do so soon after followed by Anne, and not a moment too soon when the signs pointed in a more dangerous direction. The moment the two girls covered their bodies to the best they could the pure gastric muscles wailed once again followed by some intense gurgles from the deadly acid as bubbles slowly surfaced. Soon after everything broke loose when the walls spewed huge amounts of acid that sprinkled the area like one of the worst rainstorms, and Anne saw the results pretty instantly. She took into account everything about her body other than a small portion of her legs, and once the acid hit it the burning sensations took over. She yelped before she instantly withdrew her leg and surveyed the damage, which ended up as one large red spot across the stricken area. They made it perfectly clear as to why the shirts served as the undisputed live saver, and even though she only suffered a small portion of damage an entire bath basically changed anyone into the next skeleton on campus. Never in her life had she expected rain to become the deadliest substance known to man and frog, and yet she saw it with her own eyes despite the difference in chemical makeup.
Time to survive the first stages of the digestive system.
Despite the shirts and how resistant their outer coatings repelled the drops of acid, they still displayed some steam upon contact with them. All of the frogs, plus the two human girls, stayed put and covered themselves as the hazardous gastric juices performed their job. It probably would have progressed in a rather uneventful status if the second factor didn't show up just to complicate the situation even further. While subtle at first, once the makeshift raft of shirts slowly picked up in speed the obvious signs blared their sirens in full swing. Anne's skin went clammy as she turned her attention to the center of the whole area, and from there it almost seemed like a shot in the dark. She only heard about the monstrous phenomenons in novels and tall tales, and yet her eyes never deceived her before. The acids swirled and spun in a counterclockwise fashion, and as the speeds picked up the gaping hole in the middle made its menacing appearance that ultimately served as a final resting place. One quick drop in there and not only will her body never survive getting ripped apart by the gastric acids but cease to exist through Maddie's intestines. It made her queasy and terrified all in one, and she found herself on the menu as Maddie's body acted against the tween in every way. Never in her life had she thought that getting swallowed alive was the most horrific fate imaginable, and yet she saw the worst with her own eyes.
"Alright everyone! Get those arms working as our lives depend on it!"
Anne and Sprig watched as the others immediately brought out some kind of black ripped cloth, possibly more leftovers from the shirts, and set them into the acid like crazy. As they ever so slightly stuck their hands out from under their abridged "umbrellas", they hastily brought them in the opposite direction of the current and paddled like no tomorrow. Marcy even joined in the best she could and put her own strength to use for assistance, and once she glanced up at Anne the other girl knew what to do. Marcy handed her an extra piece before she cautiously set the piece into the gross liquid and joined everyone else with paddling, which at first seemed like they went into a failing battle. The "raft" ever so loomed closer as they slowly got sucked in to the center, and any further would result in their untimely demise. If she just walked into a typhoon of some kind she probably would have easily mistaken the situation as such if the visuals didn't exist.
"Keep paddling and put your backs into it!" Toadstool exclaimed.
While easy to assume that he barked orders and did nothing else, the fact that he appeared to put one hundred ten percent into his paddles indicated the seriousness and dedication of his will to live further than what Maddie's digestive system dictated, and yet Anne couldn't focus too much on other factors when literal acid rain poured everywhere. The center of the whirlpool glared in her direction as it splashed burning liquids that required her to pull her gum "shield" down. For once she wished she laid hidden somewhere like Sprig since his size basically meant any help became the bare minimum in the loosest terms. After all of the craziness she experienced since her stay in Amphibia even she desired such relaxation time for once, and yet reality denied her desires. Her destiny spelled complete insanity in the future, at least to her, and while she became somewhat accustomed to such troubles even she lacked a few smooth edges to round out her adaptability of somewhere outside her comfort zone. Just another day in Anne Boonchuy's life around free willed frogs.
Their efforts left them around the inner rims of the large hole that lead deeper into Maddie's guts, and the speeds of the acid slowly picked up over time. One large wave nearly encompassed the entire raft and sent everyone tumbling backward, which caught one particular frog off guard. Before he even knew what hit him, he careened into a spin and lost his footing straight into the acid. In an instant he yelped and cried out for help which caught everyone's attention.
"Frog overboard! FROG OVERBOARD!" Toadstool exclaimed. "Someone let up their paddling to help him out before he melts away!"
Because of all the hazardous conditions around them, initially nobody wanted to undergo such a task. They risked the same terrible fate smitten across the helpless one's sorry body, and the acid that poured from above didn't help. One mistake was all it took before two suffered the first parts of the digestion process, and nobody wanted lesser numbers than they had at that moment. Despite all of the odds against them, someone needed to play the hero in one daring rescue.
…and one eventually stepped up for one grueling showdown.
After everything that occurred up to that point, a certain bushy haired girl stood higher than anyone else on the courageous ladder, so to hear the smart and ditsy one volunteer took some by surprise. The moment she saw an opportune moment, she ceased her paddling before she shouted out toward the downed frog who flailed about for some type of leverage through the currents.
"We'll get to you! Just hold on tight!"
Her gaze pierced the others around her and told them everything they needed to possibly follow. While the currents controlled most of the makeshift raft's direction, what very little percentage they kept under their belts became their best bet to rescue one of their own. Mayor Toadstool headed the pack and paddled his hardest followed by the others behind him, including Anne. The loomed ever so close to the pit in the center while the acid rain charred at their only "umbrellas" above them, and time winded down for a successful rescue attempt. Fire burned in Anne's and Marcy's eyes while Sprig did his best to survive under his tiny inhibited restrictions in Anne's hair no less. Only a small glint in Marcy's eyes provided the crucial details where she thought everything through to a certain extent.
They couldn't bare to look too closely at the stricken one's flailing body since they knew the acids chipped away at it bit by bit, which left Marcy as she faced Anne like she meant it.
"Anne, I need you to hold me back while I try to get a good shot in."
"Got it." Anne said with a determined smile.
The two girls exchanged looks before Marcy glanced at the one drowning in the acid and took a different position. The frogs kept paddling against the forces against them but at a slower pace which Marcy appreciated as she lingered closer to the edge. Just like her friend instructed, Anne stuck close until she suddenly witnessed the inevitable lean and gripped Marcy's shoulders in an attempt to maintain balance for her. She klutzy one nearly kept her heels as the only parts that connected to the somewhat stable raft while Anne used up the remainder of her strength as the last resort for her safety. Despite the odds that weighed against them, Marcy leveled her mind into a hypnotizing zen for maximum concentration while she carefully aimed her hookshot and took a few breaths for the extra insurance. She left Anne in a pretty frantic state since she also had to shield her from the acid rain with another one of the gummy shirts, but as long as Marcy made it count none of the troubles mattered.
"Come on Mar Mar, you got this…" Marcy thought as she stuck her tongue to the side.
She shook a few inches off track from the sheer pinpoint accuracy she heavily desired, and yet she couldn't hold such concentration for too long. Before her brain fell flat, Marcy shot her hookshot from atop her hand which sunk into the acid immediately. Her dedication and craft paid off in the end, for it landed right in the line of sight for the struggling frog and before long she had it hooked. It gripped the end tightly while it avoided the pointy bits which provided enough and let Marcy know to pull it in.
"Heave in Anne! We got a live one here!"
"I'm trying… I'M TRYING SO HARD!" Anne replied while her limbs felt like jelly.
The girls gritted their teeth while Anne winced like she towed a truck with her bare hands. The rushing winds and constant splattering off intestinal fluids served as some of the largest hurdles required for success, which clearly brought the two to their limits in several aspects. Throughout the gastric storm they pursued the destined outcome and pulled back with all of their might. They barely saw the picture of the one suffering as their priorities hinged somewhere else, and yet they required none to understand the severity of the situation. It almost seemed like they fought against a legendary whale from all of the circumstances that surrounded their actions, and any witnesses probably compared them as perfect parallels…if they knew about whales in the first place. The more they reeled it in the forces of Maddie's stomach continued to bat at their helpless bodies, but their wills kept them afloat. No matter what, they wouldn't let the problem persist until they arrived at the end.
…where they succeeded.
They seriously thought a few more tugs became the final push required, but thanks to their tenacity the loose frog finally surfaced before them and sluggishly climbed aboard. Instantly the relief overwhelmed them, especially for Anne and her exhaustive arms, and yet it felt well rewarded. The two never went through a full jar of heroics as more cropped up every second since they found themselves in Amphibia, and for someone like Anne such duties never finished much to her tiring exhaustion. Just another day in the life of tweens trapped in unknown territory away from home.
The one frog crawled to the center of the raft for safety while the other frogs did their best as they paddled against the acid. Despite their strength in numbers they still lingered dangerously close to the pit that lead to Maddie's intestines, and they wanted no part to figure out what happened next. Luckily for them, after what seemed like an eternity against bodily functions of a giant frog girl the forces lessened as the seconds rolled by. Once they noticed the impending signs they slowed down their actions until the gastric acids that pelted them from above slowed and ceased. The currents below followed soon after until the large hole filled up and left everyone on the surface to the sudden aftermath. As if it went by in a flash, the whole storm left all of the survivors to themselves like it never happened in the first place. Even though reality had it out against them, somehow they mustered through the whole process and never became digested inside Maddie's terrifying stomach.
Nearly everyone collapsed onto their back after the whole ordeal, which mostly consisted of Anne and her jelly arms. All of the gummy shirts they used for survival fell to the side as everyone caught their breath and wiped sweat off of their brows. The one frog that dipped in Maddie's stomach acid took a breather while it tended to the dozens of searing burns across its skin, which stirred next to nobody due to their sheer exhaustion. After such trials of teamwork and strength, they deserved it more than ever.
"…and that…is what we've dealt with…for more than a week…" Mayor Toadstool said through deep breaths before he choked on his own breath for a second. "Had your…fill yet?"
Anne sweated buckets as she barely turned to face him.
"I have to give you mad props…because I never would have thought…out of everyone here…"
Her weary bones capped off her statement prematurely, but Toadstool understood the gist of it. He slightly grinned at the tween before he answered.
"Expectations…took a nosedive again, huh Boonchuy? I still have…some burliness in me…"
"Duly noted…" Anne stated.
Everyone clearly had so much air in their heads from the chaos that nobody appeared to notice a certain tiny frog as he slid out from the endless jungles that encapsulated him. Despite his contributions of the lower variety, all of the constant grip from strand to strand took a massive chunk out of his stamina which eventually lead him out of his hiding spot while Anne's sweat did the rest. Soon enough, the shrunken frog came to a halt right atop his best friend's nose as their heads cleared for a second.
"I don't think…I can handle that again…" Sprig stated. "I can't do anything…and even I'm exhausted!"
"Just…give me a moment Sprig…" Anne said as she held her forehead.
Marcy chose to utter nothing to catch her breath easier, and clearly everyone else got their workout for the day in one fell swoop. To think she only just found herself with everyone else eaten by Maddie and even the method to avoid digestion still knocked the wind out of her. One glance at her hookshot and it pretty much suffered severe corrosion that likely made it unusable for future endeavors unless she fixed it up. At least it performed its duty to save the one frog who slipped and even though it may have suffered some nasty burns it will have another day to tell the tale. The stricken frog itself sat near the center of the raft and due to the chaos that subsided she finally got a good look at the victim. She needed to survey the damage done after all.
It almost stunned her to see someone Maddie once closely followed stuck in the same smelly prison.
She let a few moments pass before she gathered enough to address her concerns.
"Hey, you okay there?"
The frog perked up for a second as if he didn't expect anything to come his way. She seemed to have stirred him out of some deep thought from his body language alone, but soon after he turned back to face her. Right as he did so, Anne somewhat followed Marcy's example and brought herself out of her tired funk. Comically, she never bothered to pluck Sprig off of her nose, which pretty much went unnoticed by others due to his size, and whether or not she forgot about him never caught anyone's attention for the most part. They wanted to figure out what went through with the frog after all.
Of course first impressions left a pretty horrific indicator on such damages. His normally wet and slimy skin sagged downward and deepened in color from the dip into the gastric acids, which nearly made the girls lose their lunch. While one could associate such a spectacle as one who just emerged from a hot tub or Jacuzzi, the frog never stood a chance against possibly the last hot bath of his life if Anne and Marcy never stepped in. The constant wincing in his eyes left an impression that he took quite a beating, and if they acted a second too late he probably would have lost his skin. While his ruined skin related to third degree burns in a similar fashion, Anne and Marcy didn't know of any remedies or cures for deep burns from stomach acid. Their lack of knowledge on the subject left them with little to possibly help out, and yet someone suffered before them. One could not describe an alternative meaning to "intestinal distress" than Mr. Flour's horrid fate.
"Oof, that doesn't look too good." Anne said while she recoiled back a bit.
"Yeah…it hurts a bit…" Mr. Flour answered while his teeth clashed. "At least…I'm still here."
"At least we haven't succumbed to any casualties yet." Toadstool added. "We busted our humps back there! At this rate…I don't know if we can hold out much longer."
The other frogs looked over each other and all of their tired muscles before their expressions dialed down into southbound territory. Many refused to speak and talk and secluded themselves into their own spaces on the raft that spelled the dire states ahead. Anne, Marcy, and Anne may not have professions in rocket science or any of the high leveled jobs, but they understood the writing on the wall if things progressed the way they did. The gummy shirts may hold back gastric acids for now, but even then their edges slowly disappeared inward and the open space to move became more and more difficult as the days passed. Survival may have stood out as the one goal for the most part, but it didn't become a case of will they perish to Maddie's systems. From all of the factors placed on their sorry selves, it's only a case of when.
"You know for a fact that I won't let anyone perish while I'm around." Anne said as a bit of courage stirred in her. "I willingly came in after all of you to get out in one piece!"
"Well, we don't exactly have much to work with." Sprig said from atop Anne's nose. "I mean, I haven't stayed in here for that long, but I'm pretty certain that most of your options melted away at some point."
Anne plucked Sprig off of her nose while the others knew what Sprig talked about. When they first found themselves inside Maddie's stomach, most of their belongings fell into the gastric acids where they melted very quickly. Even Marcy's hookshot when she shot it out to rescue Mr. Flour suffered similar damages when she drew it back, for what started as sharp dulled into round nonlethal arches. If it stayed any further in the acid it likely would have evaporated completely, which pretty much left it as near useless. An escape route wouldn't occur without an extra factor.
…which Marcy concluded on after some deep thinking.
"Oh my frog, I think we may have stumbled across a breakthrough with your arrival Anne!"
"Umm, what?" Anne asked as she tilted her head slightly. "My appearance here…changed something?"
"I'll talk about it further once we get closer to one of the stomach walls." Marcy said. "I just struck an epiphany and I'm going along with it!"
"Wait. Not just yet."
Everyone soon turned to face the source of the voice, only to find a very disgruntled and worn down Mr. Flour near one of makeshift raft's corners. While visuals remained a bit murky from the darkness, he seemed to still have multiple burned parts across his body from his dip into the stomach acids earlier. However, the look in his eyes told a different tale that some didn't fully understand, and yet he singled out Anne. He apparently wanted her more than ever.
He glanced over to Marcy for a second before he spoke again.
"Hey Marcy, may I speak with Anne for a bit before you head off? It's…a bit personal."
"Oh, umm, okay. I don't see why not." Marcy said before she turned to the side toward another frog. "Hey Marcel, can I have some extra gum shirts, please?"
The one frog of the bunch named Marcel nodded his head before he rummaged through the pile that the survivors held onto. Once he obtained a few handfuls of the shirts, Marcy set them into the stomach acids and merged them together to form her own makeshift raft. She used another one of the shirts as a paddle to traverse over safely, and she aimed for a certain spot against one of Maddie's intestinal walls. While Marcy maintained some minor impatience on occasion, she made exceptions for friends like Anne.
The other frogs saw the writing on the wall and understood the circumstances.
"We'll give you two some room to yourselves. Even I know certain serious natures when the air gets tense." Toadstool said.
Everyone else seemed to agree and carefully made their way to the opposite end of the raft, which made it a bit lopsided but still stable. Even in the face of imminent demise in the form of Maddie's digestive system, they still kept their manners.
Of course, the tiny Sprig in Anne's hand couldn't help but roll his eyes at what he heard.
"Of course, they completely forget that I still exist. As if I needed more reasons to get my original size back…" Sprig muttered.
"Not the right time now, Sprig." Anne said before she brought her attention to the ruined frog.
Upon first glance, he didn't exactly appear too positive. His eyes stared down as he tended to all of the burns across his body, and yet after all of that he still kept the little white hat atop his head. From the brief times Anne witnessed him up and about, he usually never resorted to grave sadness. She understood that he looked out for Maddie despite her creepy tendencies, and to see him in the depths of her belly meant a lot in terms of their relationship. She gobbled him up just like any other frog that defied her, and it possibly took a hefty chunk out of him. While he may have still lived on the outside, deep down his own daughter ripped out portions of his kindly soul and left him to fend for himself as he wallowed the rest of his days as nothing but a little snack.
Anne almost didn't know how to start, since anything could have upset him further at that point, but eventually she broke the ice.
"Umm, hi there, uhhhh, Mister…Maddie's dad. You, errrrrr, called me for something?"
He lightly moved his head toward the tween and sluggishly moved his eyes to her.
"Please Anne, just call me Mr. Flour. You don't have to act that formal."
"Oh, uhhhhh, okay then." Anne answered. "So, ummm, Mr. Flour, you wanted to talk about something?"
Both her and Sprig watched as the burly and stout frog glanced down at the makeshift raft and frowned deeply. He let loose a deep sigh and clasped his hand together before he sat back down.
"Anne…do you have anyone you care about so much?"
His question ended up as a no brainer for the girl.
"Well, yeah. Of course I have others that I love dearly. Why do you ask?"
Mr. Flour deeply sighed again.
"Do you have anyone you love…that suddenly disappeared before your very eyes?"
"I'm…a bit confused about this." Sprig muttered before Anne spoke again.
"Uhhh, of course I do. I haven't seen my family for months since I found myself here, and…I miss them every day. Every day I wake up and hope to see them by my side with large smiles…only to have another reed smacked in my face. It…hurts to think about in depth."
She actual held back on shedding a few tears from all of the facts set in stone before her, but Mr. Flour seemed even worse than only a few sniffles. To think what once stood as a jolly and happy baker now sat as a shell of his former self, all from his daughter after she went berserk. It must have really hurt to know someone you loved and cared for instantly went dark, no matter where they headed off to, to the point that Anne could relate to. While she may stand as the hero of Wartwood on a daily basis, she still desired to find her way home no matter what. Families looked out for one another after all, even when one turned against everyone else.
Mr. Flour mustered up another glance at Anne, but didn't move all that much.
"…then you must know how hard of a blow it feels to see someone else through their own eyes."
He wriggled and sputtered but still sat in a depressing manner. It almost hurt Anne and Sprig to just look at him as a shell of a man that once baked for his community of friendly frogs.
"You're…you're sad about what happened to Maddie, huh?" Sprig said at a slightly deeper pitch.
Despite his tiny stature in Anne's hand, Mr. Flour still saw Sprig and slowly nodded in his direction.
"I just…can't believe it. The one that I loved and cherished for so long…only to see her like…a beast of some kind. She always understood and kept that unique personality that makes me think of her mother, which warms my heart to hear her voice. Heh, I still remember when she wagged her little tail the moment she first tasted fly jelly in her youth. She never shut up for days after that moment, but nowadays her maturity…really shapes the bakery into a souffle fit for Wartwood. I can't thank her enough for becoming part of my life, and someday she'll take up the bakery for herself. The young triplets already talked day in and day out about what will happen when their big sister takes charge, but now…it seems impossible."
He sniffed a few times before he turned to the side of the raft in a sad fashion.
"I seriously thought I could get through to her from authority, and now look at what happened…"
He reached into the remains of his apron and brought out what appeared like a small piece of bread from one of its pockets. Before Anne and Sprig could ask him what for, he extended his arm forward and dropped the piece right into the stomach acid below. It steamed and broke down into even smaller pieces before they disappeared into the smelly liquid, which sent chills down Anne's and Sprig's spines.
"She thought of me as nothing but lunch, and to think we spoke at one point about how voracious she got around jelly toast. I guess you can call it karma in a way, heh, and yet…it still hurts. The Maddie I knew and loved in a father daughter way completely vanished and left me to her own digestive system. It just…it just really hurts, you know?"
Both Anne and Sprig understood from what he stated. At one point she went about her duties and hobbies like any other day, and the next day her magic side usurped her mind thanks to sets of circumstances. They could easily blame it on Wartwood's tendencies for the unpredictable, and yet now it seemed too little too late. Maddie already sent the small town into a frenzy while she left the place as her new personal playground, and even he couldn't reach her. The bakery he ran even shared part of its name in her honor, and in the end she bit the hand that fed her. His own daughter left him to digest in her belly, and she most likely would head after her younger sisters next, which really brought her dark mind into the deep end. Heartbroken and shattered, Mr. Flour had nothing left in him as long as Maddie ravaged Amphibia into her own stomping grounds.
Sprig almost couldn't find it in him to speak, but Anne gathered enough to reply back.
"I…I understand. You care so much for your daughter, and now she completely turned on you. You've done so much, and now she's gone. I may not carry any parental controls yet, but even I know that you've taken all of this rather hard. You know, I always think of my parents every day and how they must feel as they never saw their own daughter disappear under their radars. My heart aches to see them again, and their absence makes me yearn for their happiness again. Nothing makes me feel better than seeing my mom and dad smile upon my arrival."
Mr. Flour put his attention on Anne again.
"I guess…we really can relate to each other."
"And yet I never lost hope."
Mr. Flour raised his eyebrows a bit after he heard Anne say that.
"What? You have me asking questions now. I don't quite understand."
Anne smiled lightly in his direction before she continued.
"Once I found myself in this strange, unknown world I fully thought that I had no chance to get back home. I'd probably end up stuck in a ditch somewhere before my remains would get picked apart herons if I never came across Sprig and the rest of the town. Let me tell you, having only a rock for a friend…not the most pleasant of thoughts."
"Oh, right. Almost forgot about THAT one detail." Sprig added. "Heheheh, you drew a smile on it like a large snake with-"
Before he could finish, Anne instantly put one of her fingers in front of his face to shut him up, which basically meant his entire body from the reduction he took.
"Despite all of the odds against me, deep down…I knew I still had a chance. As the days passed, low and behold, I possibly found the one big break to get back home. While the situation with Maddie might not fall in the same boat as my problems, I can say…don't lose hope just yet. To tell you the truth, I've talked about it with others and we've learned that something took over her mindset, but underneath all of that darkness…she still lives. Just give it time for now and we'll figure out how to bring her back. Don't lose hope, okay?"
While the signs didn't become apparent immediately, as she looked closer she noticed some very faint changes in Mr. Flour's demeanor. His deep frown lightened a little and the tension in his limbs loosened as his body healed from all of the insidious burns smitten on him. He didn't completely open up, but underneath all of the disappointment and sadness his rather upbeat nature stayed back for the right moment. He cared for Maddie like any father would, which also included the young triplets, and if she went after them next his heart would shatter even more than it did when the giant frog witch swallowed him. Such care and attention wouldn't go to waste just because a magic side beyond their control usurped her mind and drove her crazy. They still had a chance, and Anne, along with the others that escaped capture, knew just how to bring Maddie back to reality.
"You…you lightened my mood a little." Mr. Flour answered after a brief sniff. "I never knew she went mad against her will. I guess I should have expected it sooner, for I know my little girl would never-"
Just before Mr. Flour could finish his statement, a loud echoing rumble rang through their ears that sent clear warning signs throughout the inside of Maddie's belly. Anne, Sprig, and Mr. Flour all glanced at each other in the eyes like incoming headlights, which sent chills down their spines. It meant one deadly incoming situation, and they just got done surviving one of them. If Anne and Sprig didn't act quickly and head off to Marcy soon they'd have to muster through yet another untimely period, and they wanted none of it.
"Okay, okay, I understand for the most part about how to hold hope for my daughter!" Mr. Flour said in a panicked rush. "Do what you can to bring her back! I'LL GET SOME OF THOSE STICKY SHIRTS!"
"You probably should before the acid rain!" Anne said while Sprig jumped onto her nose again before he stuffed himself back into her hair.
The others close by seemed to have also gotten the memo and quickly grabbed their respective gum shirts while Mr. Flour grabbed a few small piles. He handed Anne a couple while he tossed the rest into the acid, where he expected the girl to hop on. She made extra sure she wouldn't accidentally fall in from a misplaced step, and once the numbers added up Anne leapt straight onto another makeshift raft made from multiple gum shirts. It wobbled once she got on, but for the most part it remained steady from her weight.
"Please save my daughter, Anne! She means the world to me!"
"Don't worry, I will!" Anne said while she waved to the baker.
The entire stomach rumbled again which rang through their ears. Mr. Flour nodded before he turned back around for his own safety, where he probably informed the others about what Anne and Marcy had in mind…despite the fact that Marcy still left Anne in the dark about the plan. With a trusty gum shirt in hand and a tiny Sprig in her bushy hair, Anne paddled to the best of her ability in the direction she saw Marcy head off, even though she never considered herself an expert in canoeing. Sprig even stuck his head out carefully and latched himself to a long strand of Anne's hair as his bigger than life friend put her back into it. Even though the darkness inside Maddie's belly shrouded the "waters" around them, Anne knew as long as she headed in the right direction she'll most likely come across her ditsy friend. She carried an extra shirt just in case the acid rain abruptly started, but for the most part she kept her mind straight. As long as Marcy's idea provided a chance at escape, Anne would go for it.
After a few extra moments of lurking through Maddie's stomach acids, Anne barely noticed a faint light in the distance. A closer look revealed the overzealous and fascinated girl of the trio as she stuck around a grotesque pulsating portion of a stomach wall that left Anne on the fringe of puking. Sprig even took a few steps back as he also held back buckets of bile, and yet Marcy never noticed the changes. Even so, she waved toward them for attention anyway.
"Hey Anne! Over here!"
Anne heard her loud and clear as she practically changed into a triathlete and paddled like mad toward her close friend. Luckily for her, it only took a short time to reach her although the constant rumblings of Maddie's internals left them scrambling for cover. Once the two makeshift rafts of gum shirts collided, Anne carefully crawled across to reach Marcy which caused some low dips but otherwise nothing too terrible. With all three together, they now needed to understand the plan moving forward.
"Alright Marcy, we made it." Anne said as she held back buckets of puke. "So you have a plan to… Uhh, Marcy? You okay?"
Anne would have listened in on what her friend thought of for a plan of escape, but as she glanced into her eyes she noticed a very obvious sign that she set her attention somewhere else. Her eyes glistened as she gazed slightly above Anne toward her thick round hair, which required next to no thinking at all to figure out what she focused on.
"Hello? Mar Mar?"
Her last statement seemed to have stirred her mind back to normal as she shook herself off.
"Oh, ummmm, sorry Anne. I still can't get over how small Sprig shrunk! You know me and my fascinations, and when something catches my eye I pretty much find myself glued to the sight."
"I think we've learned that since we first saw you." Sprig said as he held onto a strand of Anne's hair firmly.
"Pretty much." Anne added while she shrugged her shoulders. "Now that we've all huddled up, what plan have you thought of Marcy?"
"Oh, right! The plan!" Marcy said as she perked up more than usual. "I almost forgot! Heheheheh, sorry if I'm acting a bit scatterbrained."
"Don't worry, we understand." Anne replied.
"Yay! Good!" Marcy replied before she started. "So Anne, do you still have that sword you carry around?"
"Umm, yeah?" Anne responded while slightly confused. "I've always carried it with me. Why do you ask?"
"May I please see it for a moment?" Marcy asked.
While Anne and Sprig wondered to themselves about her true intentions, Anne couldn't deny the sweetest cream puff she knew since childhood. It seemed like a reasonable request after all, so the tween glanced toward the hold she usually kept her sword in. Even though she kept it sheathed, it sometimes poked at her leg harmlessly but also required some readjusting when it happened. Since Sasha and Marcy carried their own weapons ever since they warped to Amphibia, it sounded not too far fetched for Anne to also maintain one personally. She carefully took it out of its sheath and held it in both hands before she handed it over to Marcy, who eyed it down and scanned over it. If she required her sword for anything, she had it on standby.
After a couple of seconds, and another echoing rumble across Maddie's stomach, Marcy grinned from ear to ear before she got back to Anne.
"Yes, yes, YES! Not a single scratch or melted portion! Anne, you provided the ticket out of here!"
"I…did?" Anne asked. "I'm still left in the dark here…both figuratively and literally."
"I'll explain later." Marcy said. "For now, just know that you gave us a method to escape."
"Later?" Scratch asked. "What for exactly?"
Marcy's mood dipped a little while she looked at the two before her. It set off a bit of uncertainty for both Anne and Sprig that stuck with then like glue, which provided goosebumps in the process. Marcy already locked them out of other tidbits that painted a sour taste in their mouths, and if she loaded up a bombshell under the warhead they clearly never saw it on their radars. At that point she could have easily passed off as a creepy storyteller, and yet they already experienced at least one or two in the past which left them worried sick for their own safeties. Suffice to say, top secrets left them anxieties that tore them apart from the inside.
After a few more seconds, Marcy finally set the records straight.
"Anne and Sprig…I think we shouldn't escape Maddie's body just yet."
The two took the news rather well…if they followed the completely dumbfounded stereotypes portrayed in media.
"Whaaaaa…WHAT?!" Sprig exclaimed, which almost made him lose traction off Anne's head.
"Marcy, I've heard some really stupid stuff over the years, and yet those came nowhere near to what you just said!" Anne exclaimed with her mouth agape.
Marcy instantly raised her hands up near her face and scooted back a little.
"Easy, easy there you two! Hear me out first, okay? I have my reasons!"
If Anne and Sprig conversed with anyone else they knew nothing about they probably never thought about any types of reconsidering, but because Marcy spoke with them they gave her the benefit of the doubt. While she considered herself more of a supporting role over leader, when plans and ideas mixed through everyone's heads she usually amalgamated a set of circumstances which lead to hers as superior. Anne liked that particular trait about her friend, and Marcy enjoyed her stance as a working cog in the machine that moved the group of girls forward. She stuck her nose in so many notes and letters that it became difficult at times to follow her example, and yet it made her special. None other than Marcy Wu could concoct such elaborate plans that benefited the ones around her, especially to someone like Anne.
As the two settled down somewhat, the smart one laid everyone out once more.
"You see, as much of a plan in motion that Flint may have concluded on, I'd guess it won't take only a couple of minutes. Even though I still don't know the full plan-"
"He went off with Ivy in search of a particular object to craft into…something." Sprig interjected. "He said it's required to help Maddie."
"Oh, ummmm, okay! I'll go with that!" Marcy replied while unfazed by the interruption. "Anyways, that excursion won't last for only a few minutes at best, and the longer it lasts the more time Maddie gets to play around as the biggest girl in existence…to the detriment of everyone else. If we want to assist in the most optimal way possible, then we can at least stall her until they get back. Besides, we have the most advantageous position for now since Maddie thinks we've perished! As long as she thinks that, we can do something she would never see coming! Come on, you understand, right?"
While at first they may have taken Marcy as a blithering idiot that sniffed too many mushrooms, once they actually heard her explanations they realized that such weird circumstances made her out as a genius prodigy instead. Even though they couldn't stand all of the intestinal distress brought by their arrival into Maddie's digestive system, she most likely never thought about them any further than that. If she truly thought that they've met their end, then they wouldn't have to worry about her fury from the outside. Despite the digestion periods, they'd rather deal with Maddies innards than her rage outside of her body.
Anne and Sprig shuddered a little, but after a couple of seconds they pretty much came to an agreement.
"As much as I hate to admit it…you bring a rather insightful point." Sprig said as he held his own stomach.
"I couldn't agree more…in the grossest way possible." Anne added while she held back buckets of bile. "So Mar Mar, I assume…you have a plan to stall then?"
"If I didn't, then I probably wouldn't have called you over." Marcy replied before she explained further. "I initially considered on stomach troubles for obvious reasons, but the more I thought about it…I considered something else. What if we instead get out of here…and head straight to her own thinking chamber?!"
"You mean…her brain?" Anne asked. "Sounds…a bit too much."
"But Anne, we can potentially take control and hold her back!" Marcy responded in a tone of excitement. "I've learned a lot from the dark arts, and one of the special mixtures I've learned happens to directly take control of the stricken target as long as you apply it around the head. I'll temporarily replace her will with my own until Flint comes back, and in the process we'll also get more insight into her current destructive tendencies. The more we know, the more we'll understand about her problem. So…you with me?
Anne and Sprig had a lot to unpack from Marcy's words. Not only did she want to stay inside Maddie's body to avoid detection from her, but also travel through her systems to reach her brain for temporary incapacitation. While Marcy may have acted like she went around with a few screws loose, out of all the crazy antics she could have concluded on…their current status left them in a prime position for such a plan. They've gone through much worse trials and tribulations, but none where they willingly took on the roles of spelunkers through someone's innards. Anne still remembered the day where she got out of frog dissection, and now she couldn't escape to save her skin. No amount of Sasha's complaining would swindle her way out of class when it came to Maddie's systems, and no such choice left them with better odds. It inner workings of a body provided grotesque visuals, and yet it became obvious about what to go for.
"I may want to steer clear of such an idea, but I can't deny someone like you Marcy." Anne stated. "You know best when it comes to plans after all, and I can't ignore the fact. If we have to travel through Maddie's body to help her…then I'll do it."
"You can count me in as well!" Sprig added. "I may not have the size to back it up, but I'm with both of you all the way! WOO!"
Marcy smiled at them both and nodded happily.
"Thanks for the help. I want to do everything I can to help out Maddie, even if it requires rather unorthodox methods."
"Sooooooooo…how will we get from here to up there exactly?" Sprig asked while he pointed upward.
"Glad you asked, tiny one." Marcy replied. "We'll use a combination of Anne's sword…and these bad boys."
Before anyone knew what hit them, Marcy grinned and whipped out two medium sized brown sacks from her equipment stash. The darkness may have covered them up at first, but once they made out further details their eyes nearly burst from their sockets. Sprig especially obtained a grave sense of deja vu which made him recoil back in slight terror before he grasped one of Anne's long strands of hair for safety. To think Marcy mixed up enough and created such concoctions of smelly ingredients and fumes may have seemed not too out of place for someone with her types of knowledge, and yet one slip up spelled dire consequences all over. Anne and Sprig wanted nothing to do with such creations despite Marcy's unknown intentions behind them, and yet she laid them out front and center.
"Aah! Get that cursed cursing curse away from me!" Sprig exclaimed while he fumbled his words out of sheer worry. He then took cover behind one of Anne's long strands of hair…which basically did nothing.
"Marcy…did you actually make…" Anne stuttered while she pointed at them.
"Yup! All packed up and ready to use!" Marcy replied with an ecstatic smile. "I managed to read the instructions and concocted these in my downtime while I worked on an antidote for Maddie. Let's just say…I became fascinated with yet another subject, and you know me when I get lost in notes, hahahahahah! How will we get from here to the brain? The Interstallar Red Highway!"
"So you automatically settled on shrinking us?" Anne asked. "Can't you think of something else that doesn't involve size changing for once?"
"If I did, I probably wouldn't resort to this. I've mentally gone through other options after all." Marcy answered. "Besides, it would add another weird phenomenon to the whole Amphibia train, and I LOVE ME some unexplained phenomenons to research! Either this or we rot in stomach acid."
Both Anne and Sprig glanced at each other for a brief moment and bit their bottom lips. They understood why Marcy of all people may have some excitement, but for them it seemed like a no brainer. It almost sounded too preposterous to imagine, and yet Sprig already succumbed to one of them. To get willingly diminished just to ride along the red blood cells seemed straight out of a cheesy science fiction movie, and yet the option gazed at them all without a pair of eyes. As much as they wanted to admit that such a tactic never had a chance…every other option stretched out of reach. If they wanted to travel through Maddie without detection or something that eluded Marcy's attention, only a single response stood out for them.
Anne took a couple of deep breaths while Sprig closed his eyes and calmed himself a little.
"While I would appreciate a more straightforward and easy method that didn't require reductions…I said I would do anything to save Maddie. If I have to shrink…then I guess I'll do it."
"Hey, look on the bright side Anne! At least I won't end up as the only one reduced anymore!" Sprig added. "Now we can be, ummmm…the tiny Spranne against the world! Not even height will stop us, right?"
"Heheheh, of course so!" Anne said with a smile. She lifted one of her large fingers toward the tiny frog in her hair where he instantly smacked it with his own tiny hands.
"SprAnne against the world!" the two of them said in unison before they laughed it off like close friends.
"YAY! You have no idea how excited I feel to FINALLY use this!" Marcy said. "Oh, but first I have to add one final extra to the mix."
Before the two could ask what she meant, Marcy reached into her pockets and rummaged through them for something specific. Her eyes narrowed while she stuck her tongue to the side as her fingers felt nearly everything she kept on hand. Eventually, after a couple of seconds, she grinned and reached down before the image hit Anne and Sprig. While on first glance it seemed like just a clear bag with some type of blue powder inside, they understood that basically anything in Amphibia could become disastrous in an instant regardless of form, so they stayed back to allow Marcy some space just in case. They watched as she opened up a small portion of the top and dropped a small bit into each of the sacks that contained the special curse. One small nod later to herself later, Marcy then opened her pockets up once more and placed the bag of powder back inside. They set their chances that she likely thought of something at the last minute, but they couldn't rely on them one hundred percent.
"So, you almost forgot something?" Anne asked.
"Well…I guess you could say that." Marcy answered. "I just needed some inactive spores from a boom shroom which should add to the curse and allow us to breathe throughout all of the red juices. Don't ask why, because even I don't understand half of the ingredients required for some of these curses."
"I'd…rather not question it then." Sprig responded while he shudder a bit.
Marcie's smile soon extended even longer while she shook all over. It became pretty obvious that she overflowed with pure excitement all over, and yet Anne and Sprig didn't quite understand why. Her eyes lit up while another loud echoing rumble hit everyone's hearing, which indicated that they probably should hurry up before the "acid rain" occurred again. Even so, Marcy held the sacks in one hand while she placed the other near her cheek, and her feelings completely took over certain judgments. She couldn't let the moment pass easily.
"Okay Anne, you ready?"
Anne slightly nodded while her look of determination kept her straight.
"Yes. Do it, Mar Mar."
"Ooh, yay! I can hardly contain myself! I've always wanted to say this ever since I made these curses! ANNE…SHRINK!"
Right as Marcy prepared to throw, a realization hit Sprig right at the last possible moment. He shot straight up and attempted to stop everything, but he just missed his chance. Marcy already tossed one of the bags right at her determined friend, which bopped her right in the face before it blew up. Before long, Anne's entire body became covered in light blue dust that almost left her sneezing, and she would have covered her eyes for better visibility if the cloud ended up any thicker. She coughed a few times as the particles dissipated into thin air, but instantly she saw the rather drastic changes. While both her and Marcy stood at around the same height normally, as the seconds passed the young prodigy seemed to gain more and more height right before her eyes. As it happened she placed her hands across her cheeks while her pupils dilated and sparkled as she kept her sight on Anne. From there she appeared to shoot further and further up while her complete fascination kept her in place, and yet Anne knew better. If Marcy truly became huge she wouldn't have done so in rather gross conditions, which meant the one opposite happened to Anne. Her friend didn't grow, she just shrunk her thanks to a curse.
Anne tried to keep her cool and she reduced further and further in height, but the sights of her rather gigantic friend shortened her breath at times despite her intentions laid out beforehand. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, even though it lasted for only a short while, she felt her reduction as it ceased and set her to a new perspective. Almost immediately she noticed that she didn't even reach the bottoms of Marcy's boots, and once she gazed up she understood just how much reduction placed on her.
Marcy reached the stars from Anne's new view.
She couldn't underestimate just how colossal she saw the prodigy of a friend. If she wanted her hands could basically hold the entirety of Amphibia and even more. If she wanted, just one press of a curious finger spelled the end for everyone that existed there, and her constant fascinations with new sights and experiences seemed to fit such a grim scenario perfectly. Her dazzling eyes and puffy cheeks set in a galaxy not so far away, while stray stars littered across her skin to where her obliviousness cast their attention aside like they lacked importance altogether. The endless black holes of her mouth and nose served as a final resting place to those unfortunate enough the stray near them while her endless Andromeda above of her hair laid out as new territory unclaimed by mankind. New galaxies and solar systems hovered in the void of her abdomen and arms where endless googol amounts of living beings called home, all within the span of her clothes and robe that served as separators of worlds. Her arms contained millions and millions of new continents to explore separated by endless bodies of water all while her legs kept the dark underworlds from clashing with the world of the living. Anyone could have guessed that the insides of her boot contained the demons in their prisons, and yet nobody knew for certain from the pure darkness inside. Her feet possibly kept numerous demon realms across their surfaces while the worst set underneath where they get crushed endlessly. The seas of magma flowed underneath her toenails as the continents of volcanoes spread over the hard surfaces, and yet she never felt a thing. Those unworthy found themselves in the lands of her feet, and nobody wanted to find themselves there. All of it came together and formed into the omnipotence behind the immeasurable scope that went into the being known as Marcy Wu. She was nothing but a deity under the guise of a giddy and smart girl, far beyond the reaches of reality itself.
She couldn't take her eyes off of the tiny speck of Anne near her boots, and her emotions reached a fever pitch from her sheer amazement.
"No. Froggin. Way. Anne, I…I can't believe it finally happened. You look…SO TINY AND CUTE!"
Before she even knew what hit her, Anne saw the titanic goddess of a girl as she reached down with one of her gigantic hands and snatched her right into the encompass of her gargantuan fingers. She immediately found herself in the grim dark constraints from all over until she finally poked her head out and saw the light above. Marcy bound her pretty tightly in place, and yet she instantly noticed the looming presence of her genius friend with the biggest smile in existence. Even though her barely matched up to her in size, Anne knew she wouldn't hurt her in the slightest. Marcy understood despite being the bright marshmallow between the three of them.
"I can't help what I'm looking at right now. Here I am, Marcy Wu, standing with my tiny bestie…as a speck between my fingers! You have no idea how ECSTATIC I feel to actually feel like I'm the BIGGEST girl between us! Thank you so much for the opportunity Anne! I can't contain myself, and you're SO DARN ADORABLE AS A DOT IN MY HAND!"
She provided no opportunities for Anne to speak as her emotions took her for a ride of happiness and excitement all over. Anne could only stay wrapped in her friend's digits while she kept her like the hottest toy off of the block. The shrunken girl's mind never fully caught up with the times as Marcy brought her in closer and rubbed Anne against her massive cheeks in a very overjoyed manner. Even though the motions left a few rough patches, for the most part it almost stunned her to feel the smoothness of Marcy's skin against her own. Even though the murkiness and dirty nature of Amphibia's swamplands left most of them in rather disgusting heaps, especially when it came to incidents at Wortwood, but surprisingly Marcy maintained cleanliness across the board. It made the heartwarming rubs more satisfying and provided Anne a moment of calmness she never thought would happen anytime soon. Leave it to her larger than life friend in Marcy as she brought some joy in Anne's life even in the worst of scenarios. She took one major fact out of everything she went through with her though. Marcy enjoyed her time being the biggest girl of the group, or at least to her best friend in Anne, and would likely do it all over again for her enjoyment. Anne mentally prepared herself for the future if Marcy would smack her in the face again with a shrinking curse, and since curses can only be lifted by the caster…
She would likely go for weeks as a dot in the presence of a gigantic Marcy.
Eventually, she rubbed Anne a bit too hard and at one point dug one of her behemoth fingernails into Anne's back, which made the tiny one slightly yelp.
"Yeeeoow! Watch it Marcy! Not so hard!"
Marcy's eyes widened a little before she pulled her back.
"Oops, heheheheh, sorry Anne! Kind of got carried away with, you know, acting like the BIG GIRL for once."
From that, Anne pretty much learned that Marcy added something extra to the curse so she could hear her similar to how Flint did so for Sprig. Even so, her excitement lead her to underestimate the fragility behind Anne's shrinkage, which, out of the three girl, easily fit her more than Anne or Sasha. She stood out as one that may accidentally trip from a distraction and crush an entire city in her fall like the ditsy klutz the other two saw her as sometimes. She greatly enjoyed her time with a tiny Anne in the encompass of her palm and fingers, but one slip up basically spelled disaster for anyone unfortunately in her grasp. She preserved a rather extravagant height compared to a shrunken Anne, but not so much a cautious mindset.
Anne stayed still while Marcy brought her back and away from her massive face. She opened her fingers outward to give Anne more room, which left the tiny one in the center of her palm. Even with all of her caution though, she still expressed the widest of smiles and shook uncontrollably which made Anne lose her footing a couple of times.
"I'm still in awe at this phenomenon in every single way possible…and I can't get enough of it! Come on Anne! Am I the biggest girl you've ever seen or what?!"
Marcy uttered a short high pitched squeal and lightly hopped up and down before Anne responded. Her giddiness shot higher the more time passed as she held her tiny best friend in her palm.
"I mean, I can't say no now, can I? It really feels like you ingested too many shrooms there Marcy. I pretty much understand how Sprig feels ever since Maddie-"
Two wires suddenly connected in the two girls' heads. Anne's pupils contracted before she instantly reached into her hair for one specific someone. While it took a bit of digging eventually her fingers felt something very familiar, which prompted her to bring it out swiftly. Lo and behold, her heart sank the moment the familiar sights hit her eyes. In Marcy's haste to reduce her she completely neglected the fact that the one person already stricken with a miniaturization didn't get out in time, and since the Marcy's curse hit both of them…
He basically went stiff as a statue the moment the surrounding areas changed again.
He sat in Anne's palm and refused to move an inch while his eyes remained wide.
"Sprig? Hey, Sprig! Get up buddy! You okay?"
He never budged, and yet Anne could tell he sat in pure shock. As much as she would have liked to not stir him awake, they ran on a strict time schedule before the next digestion period started. Just to quicken the process, Anne used her other hand and set two fingers before the dot and then snapped them right in front of him. The force of the volume from his perspective jolted him awake as he leapt up briefly before he settled back down. His eyes still stayed wide open, but at least he now became active.
Almost immediately, he turned his attention toward the larger than life Marcy.
"MARCY! YOU COULD HAVE WAITED JUST A FEW EXTRA SECONDS FOR ME TO GET CLEAR! LOOK AT ME NOW!"
Even with the size differences even further enforced between Marcy and Sprig, she could still hear him loud and clear. Her smile slowly fell into tepid territory while she scratch the side of her head with one finger.
"Heheheheh, sorry there Sprig. Completely forgot that you existed."
"THAT WON'T SOLVE THE FACT THAT I'M EVEN SMALLER NOW!" Sprig exclaimed. "I CAN'T GO ON LIKE THIS, SO CHANGE ME BACK!"
"Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaah, about that…" Marcy answered in a lukewarm tone. "You see, because I hit both you and Anne with the same curse, errrrrrrrr, I've basically tethered you to her. If I undo your reduction now, well, I'll also reverse Anne's. Because I also only have one more shrinking curse on hand, you see…"
Sprig pretty much put two and two together before she could finish, which spelled his fate in big bold letter. Almost immediately he put on a comical and cheesy frown before he sat back down and crossed his arms in Anne's hand. A really shrunken Sprig sat in the grasp of a shrunken Anne, and the shrunken Anne stood in the palm of a normal sized Marcy. If it didn't spell "sizeception" then nothing else fit perfectly.
"You mean to say…that I'm stuck like this and can't help out?!" Sprig exclaimed. "But I'm tired of staying on the sidelines! I want to help too!"
"Well, uhhhhh…" Anne stuttered. "We'll try to-"
She suddenly felt a huge bop across her back before she could finish. Her back went stiff before she turned around to see the culprit…only to see one of Marcy's gargantuan fingers before she bopped her again. Before long, Anne found herself constantly poked from all angles by the gigantic digit from her giant friend, which soon got on her nerves.
"Marcy!"
"Sorry Anne, but I can't help it!" Marcy replied. "My infatuation and fascination with your tiny body exceeded my expectations! I'm taking every moment I can get and cherishing every second of my moment as the giant girl of your dreams!"
Both Anne and Sprig held back boatloads on rolling their eyes at her, and yet she probably wouldn't have seen Sprig's reaction anyway. Even so, Anne got back to Sprig instantly.
"Anyways, I'm really sorry about your newfound status as the smallest one here, and while I know you want to help…I don't think we have anything else to reverse it other than Marcy's word."
"Gee, how thoughtful." Sprig replied in a rather sarcastic manner.
"That doesn't mean you shouldn't stick with us though."
Sprig perked up more than usual and tilted his head in a confusing manner.
"Uhhhh, what? Hate to break it to you Anne, but if you bring me along I'll just weigh you down…in a figurative sense obviously since I'm pretty sure increased weight doesn't come with the diminishing side of size manipulation."
"Yes, I understand that." Anne replied. "However, even with the increased difficulties…I can't become Spranne against the world without my froggy buddy. We always handle the hardships ahead together, remember? No matter what size…you mean a lot to me Sprig and I can't leave unless you stand with me."
For such a brief exchange of words, Anne made sure to lay everything out for Sprig to take in. While it seemed almost hopeless for him to assist in any possible way for the excursion ahead, as it turned out he still had a purpose. Even though she appeared complete on the surface level just from Marcy's presence, she still missed a piece that kept their group together. She may have missed Sasha for now, which meant others needed to pick up the slack in the meantime and out of everyone she knew deep down Sprig stood out as a prime contender. He stayed by Anne's side the moment he found her in the murky depths of the wilderness, and since then they became inseparable. She considered him not as an object to leave behind, but a friend to cherish even as a near microscopic dot in her hand. His presence alone held up the group and kept the backbone in place, which meant if he stayed behind everything would fall apart. Even though his size told him otherwise, he still carried importance and couldn't leave Anne and Marcy without severe compromises.
The tiny frog boy stared into Anne's planet sized eyes for a second as the realizations hit.
"Oh, uhhhhh, wow. I…guess I should have come to that point sooner. We've stayed together and never separated since we discovered each other, and out of everyone in the world to find…I'm glad you arrived into my life."
Even though his size left him barely visible, or completely unseeable in Marcy's case, he still brought a fist upward for Anne to see.
"Spranne against the world?"
Anne slightly nodded and smiled down at the dot in her hand.
"You bet."
Before long she matched his expression and brought one of her huge fingers forward toward him. She lowered it down until she thought that she hit the safety line, which basically left Sprig against one of the largest digits he'd ever seen. Even so, he knew what to do and instantly clashed his fist against the never ending wall of dark skin.
"SPRANNE AGAINST THE WORLD!" Anne and Sprig both exclaimed.
The two laughed it up even with the obvious difference in size, but before long Anne suddenly felt yet another series of large pushes against her body. She didn't need to turn anywhere to figure out what curious giant girl continuously expressed her fascinations and endless enjoyment through such mundane actions. Even though Anne eclipsed Sprig in height, someone else stood even higher.
"Hey, hey, hey! Easy there Marcy!" Anne exclaimed as Marcy's gigantic finger poked her all over.
"So tiny…AND I'M THE STILL THE BIGGEST ONE!" Marcy said as her eyes dazzled.
Her face gleamed with so much joy and happiness, and all because she held an incredibly shrunken Anne while she towered over her like a mythological titan. However, her time in the spotlight shortened as another loud rumble rang through everyone's hearing. Sprig jumped back into Anne's hair while the tinier girl gazed up at her gigantic friend.
"Alright Marcy, I think you should take your dosage before it gets even murkier in here."
Almost immediately part of Marcy's smile faded.
"Awwwwwww, do I have to?! I'm can't get enough of staying as the biggest one of the bunch! Come on, you understand, right?"
"Yes, I do know how exciting it must feel to someone like you." Anne said. "However, we have to go through this for a reason, remember? You know, to stall Maddie?"
Marcy went silent for a moment while her planetary sized eyes looked down at the tiny dot in her hands. She shuddered and took a couple of breaths, which almost sucked Anne inside, as the reality of the situation finally settled back into her head.
"I…I should have concluded on that sooner." Marcy replied. "I let the facts just zip by my head, and I'm supposed to act as the smart one around here! Forgive me Anne, for I let my excitement get to my head."
"No problem Marcy, for I understand!" Anne replied.
"But I don't want stuff like this to end anytime soon."
Anne and Sprig stared at her for a second before she added more to it. Almost instantly her excited smile returned and her eyes glistened again.
"After we get through ALL of this Maddie stuff, I TOTALLY WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN! PLEASE ANNE, YOU GOT TO GIVE ME ANOTHER MOMENT!"
At that moment Anne and Sprig couldn't hide it any longer and rolled their eyes while they playfully smiled. Marcy really got taken for a ride by her fascinations and excitement, which prolonged the process behind shrinking Anne and not herself. When it came to new experiences and discoveries she wanted to go at her own pace for the most part, which came up short due to the circumstances. Because she didn't have too much time she likely had another session scheduled in her head for research purposes, and yet she still required Anne's permission to seal the deal. She always had the ingredients to concoct another shrinking curse after all. Nothing but a giddy and excited Marcy could possibly sway Anne toward her future ideas.
"Well, I can't exactly deny a face like that Mar Mar. So, even though I'm not completely used to this whole diminishing deal…"
"OHMYGOSH, THANK YOU ANNE!" Marcy exclaimed before she brought the shrunken tween up to her cheek again. Her signs of appreciation rubbed all across Anne's body once again, which caused Sprig to dive deeper in her hair for safety, but unlike last time it only lasted a short while. She seemed to have understood the current reality of the stakes set in place, which prompted the premature end.
"You won't regret it Anne! I'll create another shrinking curse ASAP, and when you least expect it…POOF! I'll get to enjoy your tiny self all over again!"
"Yeah, uhhhhh, okay then…" Anne replied in a lukewarm and uncertain tone.
Before long, Marcy poked her a few more times across her shrunken body, which gave Anne a few headaches after she hit her head with one of her hard fingernails, before she reached down and picked up Anne's sword that she left behind. Because of that, it remained normal sized which provided the opportunity Marcy looked for. She still kept Anne in her other hand just in case, which stumped the girl and the frog in her hair.
"Uhhhhh, Marcy? You have to shrink too you know. We can't delay this forever." Anne said from the center of Marcy's fingerless gloved hand.
"Yeah, I know about that." Marcy answered. "Still, we need to open up the escape route in the first place. Remember when I said that your sword will provide the way out of here?"
"Errrrrrr, yeah…" Anne answered while slightly confused.
"Ummm, what exactly do you plan to use it for?" Sprig asked in a similar fashion to Anne. "You…never provided certain specifics behind the plan."
Marcy closed her eyes and took a couple of extra deep breaths just in case, which rubbed Anne and Sprig the wrong way. If anything, they knew she could swap emotions on the fly, and yet they still didn't like the signs. She wielded a hookshot like a pro, and yet they never fully realized her potential when equipped with a sword. Something didn't sit right with them.
Finally, after a few moments with herself, Marcy opened her eyes and responded.
"If you still feel a bit queasy from earlier…you may want to look away. It will…get quite messy."
More dangerous signs lit up over their faces, and yet they still needed one final confirmation…which they obtained soon after when they heard Marcy one final time.
"…I'm very sorry about this Maddie, but I see no other way."
The next series of actions nearly tore Anne and Sprig apart. Her intentions became instantly clear once Marcy grasped Anne's blade with all of her might…then drove it forward. It seemed almost too painful to watch, and in one fell swoop the tip sank into the pink until only the hilt stuck out. Marcy's breathing accelerated as the color drained from her face, and yet she gripped the sword and brought the blade down downward which instantly sprayed red all over. Anne's sword went further and further down as the gash stretched longer and longer, which coated all of them in red at various points. For Anne, the drops sometimes fell at even larger sizes that required her to book it or find herself drowned in them, which sounded quite ironic a certain senses. Marcy basically ended up coated in it across her front and even then she still needed to push her strength even further for an even bigger opening. If they ever went through the same procedure their nerves would have probably given up at that point while certain feelings spiked through, and yet it happened to Maddie and not them. They hoped she still sawed logs from the outside while they forged an escape route, although Anne and Sprig didn't know how much Marcy would continue until the end. It hurt all parties involved, and yet the requirements kept it listed as urgent for certain parties as a last resort. Marcy never desired a doctor's degree, and yet she performed some of the first steps.
After what seemed like an eternity of pain and suffering, even though in reality it lasted for around half a minute, Marcy left one large hole in Maddie's stomach wall with red all over to prove it. She left it at a size decent enough to crawl into if anyone stood at a small enough size, which the shrinking curse accomplished perfectly. It left Marcy and others drenched in red, along with Anne's sword, but she accomplished what she set out to do.
It almost stunned Anne and Sprig just to see what she went for, and yet only one thought settled in their minds.
"MARCY, WHAT THE HECK?!" Anne exclaimed.
Marcy gazed at the speck in her covered fingerless gloved hand.
"We had no other option Anne. I couldn't think of anything else to possibly provide an opening into Maddie's circulatory system. Just toss the thought to the side and focus on saving her, okay?"
As much as Anne didn't want to admit it, Marcy made a point. Even after all of the graphic imagery, in the end she managed to open the only way out of Maddie's stomach and still remain in her body without suffering digestion. While she wanted to not resort to such methods, in the end they found their escape route out. Sprig stayed quiet just so he wouldn't hurl buckets after all of that, especially into the stomach acid below. Anne provided the exit point from her arrival alone, even though it was rather…extremely gruesome.
The three took a moment to relax a bit before Marcy started to lower the tiny Anne toward the makeshift raft. She tried to stall as much as possible with sluggish movements, but Anne caught on rather quickly and shot her a serious glare. Almost immediately, Marcy understood and placed her hand on their lofty support so Anne could make her way off of her friend's fingertips. Once she made extra sure the tiny speck landed, she brought out the other curse she kept on hand and took a deep breath.
"Well…only one thing left to do then. CHEEEEEEEEEESE!"
She wasted no extra time as she threw the curse at herself, where the changes immediately became apparent. Her body stayed shrouded in smoke for a few seconds, but soon after her height slowly dialed downward toward the speck she set down before. Her boots appeared not so lethal and dangerous anymore while the sweet and sugary smile across the sky compressed into beady dots down under. Front one foot, to five inches, and then half an inch she fell further and further into miniature territory until Anne finally saw her face to face relative to her own size. For some reason her shrinkage progressed rather quickly while Anne's took a little longer, but she'd rather not question it and leave it to Marcy and her kooky methods. From massive to mini, Marcy finally joined her friend in the small size club.
"Whoa! These perspective changes… I actually kind of like it!" Marcy said.
"Yeah. Great to see you here Marse." Anne responded. "Now let's get out of here before-"
Anne never finished when a giant drop of sickly green fell from the skin and left a splash that almost left them burned on contact. The two girls leapt back just before any part of them made contact with it, and yet more drops followed soon after.
"Oh shoot! The digestion period!" Sprig exclaimed. "Let's book it!"
"You don't need to tell me twice!" Anne exclaimed while she ran over to the open gash left by Marcy.
"Wait, Anne! Hand Sprig over to me first!" Marcy said.
Anne briefly turned back toward her friend while more acid rained from above.
"Uhhhhh, what? Why?" Anne asked.
"I don't think the confines of your hair will cover Sprig that well. It'll probably fly everywhere while traversing through all of that red, and we can't risk a slip up. I have deep pockets, which makes it a much safer option."
She thought ahead right at the most crucial of moments. She spoke the truth after all, and wet hair underwater pretty much stuck all over the place which provided inconsistencies which Sprig wouldn't easily control throughout all of the strong currents. She wanted to keep Sprig as much as anyone else, and she wouldn't forgive herself if she lost him at any point. At his even worse diminished size, he most likely never had a chance to escape Maddie's body if he somehow broke from the group. An intact Sprig was a happy Sprig, and that counted for everyone that cared.
Both Anne and Sprig shot a very quick glance at each other before they nodded in agreement. Anne quickly placed her hand near her head and allowed Sprig to hop on before she handed him over to Marcy. She lightly grasped him between her fingers then brought him downward toward one of her pockets which Sprig took. One safe hop inside later then Sprig stuck his head out and gave a thumbs up to both of them. The two girl smiled and provided their own thumbs up back as the hurried up toward the open gash right as the acid drops picked up the pace. With all preparations in order, it became time to head off.
"You ready for this Anne?" Marcy asked.
"As long as I'm with you, I'm ready for anything." Anne responded.
"I still have a shrinking curse with your name on it for later." Marcy replied. "I'm serious! I won't miss it for the world to act like the big girl of my dreams once again!"
Anne held back a couple of light chuckles and a roll of the eyes.
"Of…course you do. I'll keep that in mind."
"I'd like to stay out of the shrinking business for a while, thank you very much!" Sprig added.
With that said, the two girls leapt into the open cut and dived into all of the red right as the next digestion period began once more. While the other frogs dealt with all of the stomach acids, Anne, Sprig, and Marcy started their journey through Maddie's veins to reach her brain…
