Swapped Deaths
Chapter 7: Marcy Vs The Museum Part 1
{ Okay, pause, I need to explain why this update took so long and the answer is well…
It was a combination of writer's block, some real-life stuff and me thinking my writing was absolute dog shit. I'm not gonna lie, I almost deleted this fic quite a few times while trying to write this chapter because, and I quote, " Someone out there is probably gonna write this concept better " and every time I stop myself by simply thinking 'So what? This is MY STORY and thus I WILL finish it ", it's worked every time so far. I'll try to update this fic at the max every two weeks.
Signed, The Author }
It took a lot of convincing and bargaining for Marcy to be able to go alone to the museum, completely alone, there were no Plantars, no Boonchuys, no Anne or Sasha.
Just Marcy and her thoughts.
So Mrs B took her there, Marcy fidgeted a bit in Anne's shirt while waiting to get there, gosh, how long has it been since she went to the museum?
Half a year really flies by when you're in another dimension. ("And betraying your friend's trust" a small part of her said)
Mrs. B said she was going to return in an hour, hour and a half at the worst, after saying that she finally left Marcy to enter the Museum.
The Museum, with people, lots of people, some of which she will definitely have to interact with. Good thing she chose her comfort hoodie for this otherwise she would have already asked for Mrs. B to take her back home.
Okay, she can do this, she's Marcy Wu, she survived as a Ranger in Newtopia for six months, she can definitely survive a Museum… Right?
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This is horrible, not like it was worse than she thought it was going to be, it was just like she thought it was going to be.
Straight up horrible.
Which is why this part of the exhibition is so interesting.
She found an ancient pot, looking at the illustrations it seems to have come from the vikings or at least their era.
The interesting part is that everyone seems to be dodging it like it has some kind of disease.
The other interesting part is what the HECK was an Amphibia Frog doing in there? WITH THE CALAMITY BOX?
Was that the so-called thief of The Box? Why were they here? Were they trying to hide the box here, if so then uh… Woops, kinda sent the box with all three gems back to where it was supposed to not go by accident I guess?
I mean, it's not like she did it on purpose! She just wanted a way out of her bad situation and The Box seemed to be the answer to all her answers!
It's not like she actually wanted to hurt her friends. She's not a bad person, ?
"Hi, would you like to know more about that ancient pot?" Marcy yelped, jumped out of her skin, metaphorically AND literally.
And after recovering her metaphorical breath in Phantom Mode, returning to her body and doing her best to not attack this random woman Marcy answered:
"Uh, yes actually. Best I could tell from just a glance is that it's from the Viking's era, not much more than that." Marcy half-lied, she noticed the Frog and kinda knew what that meant, but she could not tell that to this woman she knows for quite literally 3 minutes.
(She is getting better at lying/hiding the truth, what does THAT mean?)
"Well, you're kind of right about the time period, it's more like the middle ages, close to the dark ages but not quite there yet and definitely nowhere near the steampunk era." The Guide explained, "We have guessed that the frog illustrated here," she points at the Frog in the pot, "is some sort of deity giving a gift to humanity, we just don't know what the box means." Well, she's sort of right about the gift to humanity and the era, not really anything else.
"Huh, I see, the more you learn I guess." Marcy said that, genuinely surprised at what she learned, maybe if she stole it and reverse-image searched it she could find ANOTHER pot/ancient artifact that shows this Frog, but she would need her- Anne's frog family to help her first.
Who knows, maybe The Pot holds more secrets than it lets on.
After that and asking a few more questions to The Guide, who's apparently called Dr. Jan, Marcy decides to wander a bit more around the Museum, dodging the areas with a high concentration of people, Marcy receives a message from Mrs B saying she's coming to pick her up which makes her beeline to the exit managing to only bump into one person as she writes into her notes app about her little heist.
After getting outside she sees Mrs B's car and beelines to it as well, and hops onto the passenger seat.
"So Marcy, did you have fun in the museum?" Mrs B asks as she turns on her car and starts driving it home as calmly as she can.
"Yeah, I think I found something that may be interesting, not really a lead, just something interesting." Marcy explains as she details better her plan in the notes app on her phone.
She'd need Hop Pop's accuracy, Sprig's great vision and Polly's chaotic little brain(affectionate) to find a stealthy way to grab that pot, and she would need different disguises for The Plantars and a disguise for her, because imagine seeing The Wu Kid who got A+ grades in everything except P.E because she was studying/In The Zone, stealing.
That would be outrageous, and would taint her reputation, if she had a reputation to be tainted of course.
… Ok, self deprecation aside, her plan is done and basically ready to begin, now all she needs to do is convince Anne's frog family to commit a heist…Ok no, she needs to convince Hop Pop and Sprig to commit a heist, Polly would accept instantly, so two thirds of the fam. Not too bad, maybe Polly can help her convince them to follow her plan, who knows, maybe that pot holds more secrets than she thinks.
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After a few more minutes in the car, they finally arrived at the Boonchuy's household.
After getting inside and surviving Frobo's 2.0 hug, and right after that trying to not fall when Sprig and Polly tackle-hugged her.
"You're finally back Marcy!" Sprig said as he spun around Marcy's neck, somehow.
"I was only gone for an hour, jeez." Marcy said as gravity finally decided to appear and attack her, she fell, that's what happened. Sprig fell right after she hit the ground.
"Well it was a really boring hour, I almost died while waiting for you to come back. Do you know how hard it was to NOT keep watching that dumb anime you reccomended? The answer is A LOT." Polly said, she had detached herself from Marcy after she saw she was about to fall.
"Polly, you do know I already watched GoldBody Engineer a bunch of times already right? I can literally sing the first opening by heart." Marcy said as she tried to get up, and she succeeded somehow without falling flat on her face.
"Yes I know, you bragged about that once, and then sang it at the top of your lungs, it was pretty surreal not gonna lie but also kinda the only reason I started watching it." Polly said, looking for the tv remote to put back on GBE.
Guess the heist discussion can wait.
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Somehow, they binge watched the entirety of GBE and did nothing for the rest of the evening. While Marcy is not as emotionally destroyed after the finale, since she has watched it a bunch of times, Polly and Sprig were not as lucky.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE GAVE UP HIS ALCHEMY POWERS?!"
"DID YOU WANT HIM TO GIVE UP HIS BROTHER?"
"NO! BUT THERE HAD TO BE ANOTHER WAY!"
"ALKORE WAS ABOUT TO DIE FOR REAL! THERE WAS LITERALLY NO TIME FOR HIM TO THINK OF ANOTHER WAY!"
Ah yes, the discussions from Post-GBE!Finale, she remembers when her, Sasha and Anne finished it for the first time, she literally forced them to actually watch it with her for the first few episodes, after episode 4 they decided to keep watching by their own free will.
"WHY DID HE DO THAT TO HIS OWN DAUGHTER?!" Sasha yelled after the episode ended, "I GET THAT HE WANTED THAT PRIZE AND FAME BUT THAT'S JUST FUCKED UP!"
"At least he got what he fucking deserved by the ending." Anne said with a "drop" of venom in her voice.
"You girls wanna keep watching after that?" Marcy offered, she is curious about how they continue the story but she also knows that that whole episode was an emotional gut punch followed by an emotional kick to the head.
"Nah, after that I'm gonna go sleep because FUCK THAT EPISODE!" Anne said, quickly preparing her little 'nest' to go to sleep.
Good times, good times, shame she had to screw it up by lying, transporting them to another dimension, lying even more and then killing her best friend. she really should have been able to see that something was off about Andrias sooner.
I mean, one of the biggest red flags was that, the further away you got from Newtopia, the worse everything got.
More Giant Bugs attack, lower quality of buildings, more toads extorting towns for most of their money and then doing nothing to protect those towns, it smelled of some corrupt hierarchy and yet, she denied it because she wanted it to be like her games, and her par- Mentor being evil would go against that, so he couldn't be evil right?
She was a failure at being The Wit of the gems, Sasha would have been a better Wit than her while Anne took Strength and she took Heart, that could work right?
But what if her being another gem screwed with her final battle with Andrias? Well, guess the final result would change, she'd still fail her, Sasha would still get stuck in Amphibia while she would get stuck with the Plantars here on Earth.
Marcy hadn't noticed when she had retreated back into her- Anne's shirt, that was a habit of hers that her parents had tried to make her lose, but she couldn't lose it for some reason, she only ever did it in front of other people when she was really upset, and now that she was out of her own head, she felt the sides of her eyes burning and how wet he- Anne's shirt felt.
"Hey Marcy, you good?" Polly said after noticing how Marcy had stopped giggling at her and Sprig's argument for some time.
"Peachy, just missing my girls y'know? Just remembering how it was when we first watched episode five. Heh, Sasha wanted to jump into the TV and kill that dude before Scar killed him." Marcy told a half-truth, they did not need her to bring down the mood right now with her intrusive thoughts ('Not like they'd care anyway' a small part of her that sounded like Sasha said ('They'd do and you know that' another small part of her that sounded like Anne said)).
"Sounds like Sasha all right" Sprig said, shrugging.
Not much happened after that, at some point Hot Pop joined them watching some random cartoon that was recommended by Netflix, about a cute kitsune fox that could shapeshift.
After some time, while waiting for the next episode to begin, Marcy decided it was time to make her offer to Anne's frog family.
"So, I didn't tell the Boonchuy's this but…" Now's your chance Mar-Mar "I think I found a clue of a way to get you guys back to Amphibia''
"WAIT WHAT?"
"SERIOUSLY!?"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US SOONER?" Were the reactions from The Plantars, in that order.
"It's because the only way I could think to get closer and investigate the clue is kindaa…" Marcy waved her hand in front of her trying to remember the correct word "Illegal?" She finished.
There was a thick silence in the room, the only sound being the now forgotten cartoon on the tv. All three frogs were now staring at her, all three having different reactions to what she said.
Polly, obviously, was ready to cause some more chaos with a fire in her eyes that said she was waiting for this opportunity for quite a while.
Sprig had a conflicted expression on his face as he debated if he should or not do this.
Hop Pop, on the other hand, had a very stern face that basically already told her how he felt about that, which was a resounding 'No'.
Welp, at least she had one part of the family on her side, that's at least something, even though it's the easiest one to convince to do anything illegal.
Now to convince the rest of the family to commit this heist with her, she needed it to be perfect otherwise she would taint her family's name.
"Why not do that then? Didn't they almost tear your friend group apart? They don't deserve your mercy! JUST STOP THINKING HOW YOUR ACTIONS AFFECT THEM BECAUSE THEY DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT YOU!"
Wow ok, Intrusive Thoughts, what the hell? You normally just say stuff like 'jump out the bridge to feel how it feels like to fall so far down' or 'drop your phone in the sink just to see what happens' not this
Holy Frog, when did this development happen? Like, she knew she didn't like to think about her parents, but that never happened. Weird.
Whatever, whatever… She needed to focus on the task at hand or else she would forget about it, convince the Plantar family to join her in a heist, easier said than done.
But Marcy could do it, all she needed was to give them a reason to steal.
And she definitely could do that.
End Of The First Part Of Chapter
{Ok, so I know what you're thinking.
" A whole month for less than 3k words wtf Author ", and I agree, I also wanted to make this chapter extra long for you guys but, I simply couldn't, I kept losing motivation to write this chapter and basically rewrote it like, 3 different times.
And this is my best result, so far, anyway.
Next Chapter, Marcy tries to convince the Plantars to commit a heist
The Author/Writer}