Attack of the Giant Maddie

by birby6

Maddie never wanted to experience something like that day again. When a painful migraine leads to a full on bodily surge, she immediately finds herself back in a stature she desired to forget...but on a grander scale. Now it's a mad scramble to find a cure for her titanic growth before she has to live as a colossal giant forever, but something doesn't seem right...

4. Chapter 4

Close…

…

Yet so close…

…

…

…not now…

…soon…

…

Wait and see…

…

They will know…

…yes, definitely…

…

…

Grrrrrrrnnnnnn…

…yeeeEEEEEEEEEES…

---

Due to all of the dirt and wreckage under her, Maddie expected to completely miss a single wink of sleep. While it lacked essentials that made mattresses the go to for a good slumber, at least her skin suffered no cuts or injuries even as she wriggled around. Any slight moment possibly provided disasters for the ones down below even if she kept her distance from Wartwood, so she tried her hardest to maintain them to an absolute minimum. It also applied to her snoring, if she ever got to that point, which gave her even more restrictions to follow or risk any type of collateral damage. Despite the dozens of restrictions set in place from her massive size alone, nothing too damaging occurred in her sleep. Before she even knew what happened, she eventually lulled herself to sleep even as an overgrown titan. While she shifted around slightly, her movements ended up nowhere near the town she called home and the less they occurred the better. They caused a couple of loud booms and quakes though, which surprisingly never left the townsfolk on the floor with large headaches. In fact, none of them even remotely found themselves jarred awake from Maddie's unwilling actions. Wartwood has always had its share of strange and delusional occurrences, which mostly came from the Plantar family, so one giant young girl never stirred them in the slightest. If anything, it pretty much became routine at that point to expect the unexpected. Suffice to say, one night in and nobody found any troubles.

…at least most of them.

After all of the hassle brought on her ever since she grew, Maddie deserved a good sleep even with the setbacks. Once the sun hit her eyes she fidgeted around a little but eventually opened her eyes. Her mind pulled pranks on her before, so after everything said and done it wiped her slate clean. She wanted to pull over the covers of her bed and pretend that night still occurred, and yet she only managed to grab air in the process. Her mind remained a bit hazy and fuzzy from initial fatigue as her body slowly came to terms with the world around her, which included her sight. She stretched her legs and heard a couple of harmless cracks, but it also resulted in dozens of collapsed trees that stood no chance against the girl. Her mind didn't fully catch up to the occurrences yet, and she probably would have wanted it to stay that way so the reminders never came up for their turn in line.

Her larger than life self took a few minutes to awaken, but it instantly came to when Maddie uttered the next few words.

"Urrrgh, what a night. Did I just dream that I suddenly grew back to that-"

In those few moments, once she heard herself she jolted up almost in a flash and covered her mouth. The particular deep voice always loomed like a roach in the recesses that she dared to not gaze in even if she only heard in for a single day. Only one outcome steered forward to her, and once her eyes reverted to their normal state all of it came back in a resurgence of the worst.

The battle of emotions waged against each other for dominance. She didn't want to believe at first that she somehow managed to return to heights she desired to leave to the wayside never to rear their ugly faces in her direction again. No matter how much she possibly pinched herself nothing woke her from the terrible fate imposed on her like a harsh punishment. The area she flattened to make space for herself almost had the appearance of a jail cell that bound her to a reality far beyond her normal reaches she desired. From Marcy and her insistence to solve the trouble, the hidden civilization of potato creature that made everlasting potatoes for gluttonous bellies, and her destruction so she would have a place to sleep surfaced through her mind despite the fact that she would have never wanted such memories. She nearly quivered uncontrollably while her heart rate accelerated at the sight of the endless sea of miniature trees and small establishments in the distance that represented Wartwood, and if she took one wrong step it would place destruction on many innocent bystanders that she never intended to harm. No matter how much she tried to keep her cool, the fact remained that she really managed to gain all of the extra height back from the one growth curse, plus over double the previous increased size, and basically had to rely on Marcy and her beginner skills to concoct a shrinking curse to undo the damage. She didn't want to accept it, and yet everything lined up so she wouldn't forget from a single night of sleep.

No need… Not the worst… All fine…

It got uttered like a whisper. It echoed throughout the hollows of her head and it resonated with her as if she heard it before. She nearly stared off into space from such power yet it treated her like a being with a soul. Such tones never hit her hearing in such a long time, and it broke a bit of her from the inside. Her thoughts from when she still had her small wagging tail hovered around her and it nearly soothed her into submission. Those moments when she laid down in her crib worried sick about a monster in her closet continued when she eventually heard her father who eventually cooed her to sleep. She lacked her legs during those times, but from such a pitch it hit all of the right places to wave the nostalgia beacon across her face and body. From a few moments ago when she began to panic, it only required such tender and care from very choice words to send her to her knees. It became the tool to quell the startled behemoth.

"Easy Maddie, keep it together. Just because you have a stature completely over everything doesn't make it the end of you. Just hold it in for a bit longer…and if everything goes well…you'll find yourself back with everyone else shortly. Marcy has everything under control…"

She found it very hard to ignore the different voice that came out of her mouth while she rubbed the sides of her head for some kind of comfort. The more reminders that she got about her mysterious growth put more fuel into the fire, but after she took a couple of deep breaths and reminded herself of the calming voice she settled down into a better state even if the worries didn't completely leave yet.

A few moments passed so she could recollect herself, and in that time she saw the miniature town of Wartwood in the distance. While she still had her own flattened space to call her temporary home until Marcy made the antidote, she couldn't exactly leave the other to the wayside…even if she obviously couldn't set foot in the town's grounds. With the dire thoughts out of the way, she made up her mind and stood up to her full gargantuan height, much higher than when she manually put the growth curse on herself, and cautiously lifted a foot. Soon after she took her first step, which came at the expense of dozens of plant life below as they crumbled under her foot, before she carefully went for another…

---

Anne really should have thought things through when she temporarily took over Maddie's job with Sprig.

The instant Marcy provided her with the schedules for each individual step for the frog girl's job, which Maddie told her about in the times they got together, Anne's mouth basically hit the floor followed by Sprig's. The two had no idea the dedication Maddie took for such a simplistic appearing occupation and the lengths she went to for the bakery. Marcy stated that she always had the lists on standby in case her mind wandered somewhere else and she forgot a certain step, but after years of experience she almost never needed it. Just from her handwriting alone her seriousness under the words spoke volumes that made Anne's and Sprig's skin crawl from underneath, and they knew they had to go through all of it to make up the slack Maddie's absence brought to the establishment she worked for.

First off, the two worked on a time schedule they had never gotten used to. While Anne said that she worked on occasion at a restaurant her mother owned back home, for those times she signed in much later than what Maddie gotten used to according to the provided schedule. By the time the bakery opened Anne and Sprig still counted sheep, but after Marcy discovered an alarm feature on Frobo he became their wake up call…except on a more lethal level. By the time his alarm went off, the mech immediately set off one of the brightest light shows in history, which would have ended up harmless if he never used actual lasers. It woke up Polly and Hop Pop in the process, and once the tadpole laid her eyes on the carnage she laughed her tail off that went on for a while. Anne and Sprig almost had their butts charred off and singed into ash if they didn't react in time, and by the time their got on their feet their eyes shot open and seemed to pulsate at times from the sheer redness around them. Once she stopped laughing, Polly eventually got Frobo to stop and whir back to his normal mindset while Sprig and Anne bolted to the kitchen for a couple rounds of coffee. The young tadpole still kept her eyes on them for more hilarity, but their broken down appearances provided more than enough from just a simple morning wake up.

The drive over didn't fare much better. Even after they chugged down their coffee the two dipped low into fatigue and nearly collapsed onto the ground in dreary states. Anne insisted that she knew how to follow through with Maddie's wishes, even when her eyes had bright red capillaries on display and her face appeared very crusty, and before Hop Pop and Polly knew it she already got on Bessie's shell, the Plantar family's driving snail, and stepped on the gas. Because her brain took a vacation the moment she woke up, she completely missed the fact that she also needed to have Sprig with her, and by the time Sprig woke back up after he never finished his coffee he nearly got the jumpstart of his lifetime. He dozed off halfway through the drink and placed his head right into the cup…which somehow never woke him sooner, but he couldn't dawdle any further once he noticed his drowsy friend put the pedal to the metal. He basically had only a split second to react, and as if he acted on instinct he shot his tongue forward with perfect accuracy despite his dozy mood and stuck it right to the back of Bessie's shell. Unfortunately for him, just like Anne, his hindsight of the situation never fully clicked at the time and he never thought things through to the best of his abilities, so he only got about a split second on his feet before he got taken for a ride across the landscape…in a very literal sense. From grass, dirt, mud, and everything in between his body took a really rugged and robust beating all over and his tongue remained so sticky that it wouldn't let go. He tried to yell out to Anne, but with his tongue to the snail shell he could only utter some muffled speech and even then the dozens of ground that ran across his face gave him next to no time to possibly do so. Even if Anne could hear his pleas though, not a single care ran through her ditsy head. Bessie drove all over the place with Anne at the helm, and she left a trail of destruction behind. From picket fences, old outhouses, and weak trees the teen's mentality knew no bounds to where she could go. She even drove through One Eyed Wally's bathroom while he scrubbed himself behind his head, and as quickly as they went in they already disappeared over the horizon. A few moments after such an occurrence, Wally couldn't take his eyes off of the two holes left behind and slowly sunk himself into the bathwater until only his eyes showed above the surface.

"Ohhhhhhh, not again…"

Also as Anne drove Bessie everywhere and left Sprig to fend for himself behind her, she went through another spot that had millions of flowers on display. It didn't take a genius to figure out who maintained such beautiful gardens, especially from his signature statement, but Anne drove Bessie like a makeshift bulldozer in her deluded mindset. While she mowed down hundreds of helpless flowers, the infamous frog eventually found himself in the crossfire as he watered his flowers. He never saw it coming, even with his absentminded smile and comfy overalls, and by the time he managed to look ahead Bessie already screeched to the skies above.

The snail's large body plowed over him like a steamroller.

Such a devastating drive could have been fatal under different statistic, but in a miraculous twist the tulip loving frog remained not too shaken up and went to get back on his feet.

…only for Anne to drive Bessie over him for a second time.

…and again soon after.

…and again.

…and again.

…and again.

…and then one final time.

Anne steered Bessie off the grounds like she went mad and continued down the road, all while Sprig held on for dear life by his tongue. In the aftermath of such a run through, hundreds of rows of the frog's tulip collection lay in complete ruin and desolation, and many contained leftover trails of snail slime. If it happened to anyone else they would have acted furiously at the two hooligans, but for the tulip loving one he remained optimistic despite that he got ran over by a snail multiple times in a row. Even after all of the damage put on his, he still managed to muster up a single phrase everyone heard all too often.

"I grow…tulips!"

He gave a thumbs up to absolutely no one in particular before some of his teeth broke off while he happily fell comically unconscious.

By the Anne steered into Wartwood, the townsfolk already went through their daily schedules and minded their own businesses while they walked about. For the most part they remained calm, but when a screeching snail drove its way into town they put their legs to use and scattered out of the way the best they could. Sprig took the brunt of the dirty road as it sprayed all over his face from behind, and Anne probably would have started more chaos if it didn't end prematurely. Before she could start a potential rampage, her droopy nature steered Bessie straight into the constable's building in an ironic twist of fate. Sprig hit the back of Bessie's shell which finally dislodged him and forced him to the ground. Before Anne and Sprig could even think for a second, around dozens of police frogs dog piled them on the spot and bound them there while they slapped the cuffs on them.

Despite all of the weirdness and destruction Wartwood went through on a daily basis, Anne and Sprig still got slapped with some hefty fines…which they routed over to one of Hop Pop's credits cards.

After all of that got sorted out, which simultaneously jarred Anne and Sprig out of their sleepy behaviors, Anne parked Bessie close by and finally made their way inside the bakery with Sprig close behind. From there they learned that not only did Maddie wake up at the specific time earlier, but she actually had a bit of time after to relax a bit before she headed off for deliveries, which they wasted as they drove around and set carnage in their wake. Because of the rough start, by the time they set foot inside they pretty much had deliveries on standby ready to go. Maddie's father already got informed about the situation with his daughter from Marcy, which didn't immediately click at first until he reminded himself that Maddie had a deep devotion to her hobby of dark arts. From there he accepted the facts and let Anne and Sprig fill in for her, but due to their inattentive start of the day they had no extra time to dawdle. To put even more on their sorry hides, their first day started with what the baker called "a morning rush". He already had orders arrive in droves that put his baking duties through the roof, and while he maintained efficient methods that kept pace from his experiences n the kitchen, for Anne and Sprig they basically went into all of it completely blind. By the time they heard what they were in for, they already found themselves out the door with large baskets in their hands.

While first impressions were very important with jobs, Anne and Sprig sure gave a "unique" approach.

They scrambled all over the place and split up to cover more ground. They hastily took glances at their lists for each recipient and their orders, and since they missed a lot of time they pretty much had to conclude on paths on the fly. From bread littered with delicious cherries to donuts filled with jelly, which the latter made Anne visibly frown as she read it, they had a lot of ground to cover for a few specific orders that would haired teared their hair out if they ever concluded on such an action. They rushed by Stumpy, Mrs. Croaker, to even a couple of frogs they never learned the names of until then, Anne and Sprig put their legs to work and went to each of them. None of the orders became too out of order despite their on the spot directions, but Sprig did take a pie to the face from one frog even if she deliberately paid for it. Turned out she placed her order specifically for that outcome, which Sprig didn't appreciate to the highest degree. Even during the actual job portion the two never prepared for such a rush of adrenaline on the spot.

Anne's legs ran on their last amount of juice by the time she eventually made it to the final delivery listed. While she also had the Sundew family on the list, everyone pretty much left them alone after she insisted, with one of the most stinging gazes anyone ever saw on her, that she handle Flint alone and that anyone "would get it" if they interfered. Because of that, even Maddie's father told Anne and Sprig to stay away from their establishment to save the skin on their bones until Flint left, which they understood instantly. Even so, with them out of the picture she only had one more delivery and she could finally put her legs to rest after the insanity brought on her by one simple job.

She glanced one final time at the list for reassurance and once she came across the last entry she lightly frowned.

"Mayor Toadstool, huh? Why would he want anything from the bakery in the first place? Oh well, can't think of questions now."

She gripped the last basket and took a deep breath before she walked up to the doors and gave them some good knocks. Only after a couple of them they creaked and slowly opened on its own, which would have spooked her if she never gotten used to the weirdness of Wartwood already. Her limbs shuddered for a second, but she became more curious than anything since Mayor Toadstool never had it in him to scare any of the townsfolk.

"Hey mayor, I got your order here from the town's bakery!"

Silence.

Anne's curiosity stirred to an unsatisfying degree that required her to eventually step inside the building. For the most part the mayor probably would have exclaimed to keep her voice down, especially when he "counted the valuables" in the back, so to hear absolutely nothing stuck warning signs all over that she couldn't ignore. While the intrusion of property pretty much spelled all over her face the moment she found herself in Amphibia, it still placed a sour patch in her mind. If she performed the same acts back at home she would easily find herself in juvenile court with a heavily crooked jury…who probably had some pitchforks at the ready just in case.

"Mayor? Are you in here?"

She took her time to each room in case something did happen around her, but even then she found nothing. From his kitchen, bedroom, and even his office it felt as if he ended up instantly evicted and left no trace behind. Many scenarios played out in Anne's head as she discovered nothing about where the greedy toad headed off to without her knowledge, and most of them leaned heavily toward outcomes she watched on the big screen straight from horror movies. From a cannibalistic demon to dead girl coated in intestines, she really wanted to leave those memories out of her attention and yet everything added up in the house from the thousands of tropes played out when the camera rolled. She wanted to believe she never stumbled into one of those flicks, and yet the moments lingered in the back of her head ready to strike at any moment.

Despite her thorough searches through every single room, even rooms she never knew about until she set foot in them, Mayor Toadstool completely vanished off the face of Amphibia without a trace. Not even Toadie had a presence in the building, although he basically stayed around the mayor twenty four seven, which only made Anne's curiosity hit the roof. Nothing quite added up to her, and yet she already stood on the verge of collapse from all of the running around with deliveries. As much as she want to keep her nose out of places it didn't belong, she heard screams in her head about the status of everything about the mayor's whereabouts. Despite the circumstances though, the less she thought about it the quicker she could finally get her deliveries over with.

She couldn't find the mayor anywhere, so to wrap things up quickly she just placed the delivery basket of whatever pastry he ordered and exited the establishment rubbing her forehead. So much occurred the moment she prematurely opened her eyes from Frobo's lethal alarm system, but her fatigue told her everything about what to do next. Before she could act on the idea though, once she got back outside she noticed a gathering of townsfolk near the center of the town square. They seemed to have formed while she searched around the mayor's building, so she never caught on at the time. However, that didn't mean her interests remained somewhere else, and if anything something happened behind her back she wasn't aware of.

As she moved in closer her ears picked up some low mumbling she couldn't understand from such volumes. The faces of the frogs ranged from confused and stumped to nervous and panicked, which painted certain pictures that failed to meet Anne's expectations to determine cause without more details. While experts on social gatherings possibly contained conclusions the moment they saw the clues, Anne lacked the skills of such communication methods yet. Her priorities leveled toward different interests, so if she needed more information asking questions became the simplest and most straightforward for someone like her.

She backed up a little once she saw a local frog almost fall out of the crowd, but otherwise she remained level headed and content.

"Hey, did something happen around here? All of you seem a bit skittish from what I'm seeing."

A frog near the outer portions of the crowd turned back and addressed her, and her observations took a different turn after what she heard.

"Didn't you take part in the searches around here?"

"Searches? What for?" Anne asked.

"Mayor Toadstool, of course!" the frog answered. "He just outright vanished from his home and now nobody knows where he went. We searched everywhere, but nope, nothing."

"Wait, so nobody knows what happened to him?" Anne said. "I looked into his place myself and found no traces of him at all!"

"Yeah, we searched in there earlier today and ended up with the same result." the frog answered. "We went through everywhere around town. Wartwood has an established community after all, so if one of us goes missing we do what we can to find them…no matter how crooked."

"I've known that since I arrived here." Anne replied with a small smile. She heard the facts straight from the horse's mouth, and she understood instantly. For such a small town every inhabitant treated each other like family and formed a tight community that always looked out for one another. Large cities usually never had such luxury due to large numbers, which Anne took note of the moment she took refuge with the Plantars. Of course cities had perks over small communities, but for Wartwood they almost completely left her brain for a more relaxed personality…if it didn't regularly have troubles every single day. To know that the small town looked beyond the personalities and appearances of everyone that lived there and focused on the positives really kept it distinct from others and provided many incentives to live there despite the craziness. Anne chose to stay there after all, and she couldn't feel more proud of herself.

However, that still didn't solve the problem with the mayor's disappearance. To hear that the entire town did their work and came out empty painted certain vibes across her face that she shuddered to think about. It played out exactly like all of the horror movies she watched with Sasha and Marcy, and she ended up in the middle of it. If she didn't tread carefully she could end up springing daisies next to Chuck's tulip garden, and the less she thought of that the better. While she maintained a courageous attitude when it came to certain subjects, everyone had limits and Anne wanted to remain under the line as much as possible. If Marcy had a presence next to her she wouldn't hesitate to comb through every inch for a sliver of any type of clue, but she already had her hands full with Maddie's antidote and now a Spudley to look after so Anne ruled her out pretty quickly. So many possibilities as to where Mayor Toadstool went flowed through her mind in intervals like clockwork, but nobody concluded on anything decisive yet due to the lack of evidence.

It didn't take long after until the crowd, plus Anne, began to feel low tremors under their feet. They turned their heads all over the place to pinpoint the source until the whole area around them went slightly darker. One glance up and suddenly their worry about the cause fell to the side once they saw the respective frog witch girl and her grown proportions. She had to get on her knees to see everything better, which brought up one huge quake in the process, but other than that she didn't make too much fuss from her presence. Like everyone else that lived in town, they saw past her massive size and saw her as just another resident…even if nobody had any idea how she grew to that size in the first place unlike the last time.

Her voice unintentionally rattled through everyone's heads at a deep pitch.

"Sorry for the interruptions everyone, but I can't help it when I'm like this."

"You're okay Maddie, we understand!" one frog exclaimed while some others chimed in after. They stayed content for the most part, although some showed some slight unnerved tension which Anne and Maddie understood. Some still haven't gotten completely used to having a massive behemoth of a young girl after only a single day, but like anything weird that occurred around Wartwood they eventually get the ideas behind them nailed down so they won't worry about them any more. Time acted as the best medicine for those circumstances after all.

Maddie seemed to get such methods as well, so once she heard the positivity thrown in her direction she lightly smiled.

"Thanks for the support. I find it really nice to know that even at this height I'm still considered part of the community. Really makes me wish I could get my size back sooner."

"I'm sure Marcy knows a thing or two by now to get your antidote on track." Anne replied. "Just stay like that for a bit longer while she figures things out, okay?"

"Pffft, as if I have anything else to go on right now." Maddie replied while she silently rolled her eyes. Before anyone else could address that, Anne spoke up.

"Say, have you seen the mayor from up thereby any chance? I mean, you can pretty much scan over entire acres at that size!"

She caught Maddie's attention again.

"Ummmm, no. Just because I'm bigger than nearly everything doesn't mean I have picture perfect sight. Heck, I can barely see Wartwood from up here thanks to the smaller statures of everything, which includes you and the townsfolk. Why do you ask?"

"Because he suddenly went missing since last night, according to what I've heard." Anne answered. "He wouldn't just completely-"

The girl never got to finish her statement. After the disappearance of the grubby lout and his dedicated assistant, chaotic occurrences that Wartwood dealt with daily became the last thing anyone wanted to deal with. Unfortunately, the town couldn't do much to lower the odds and typically needed to adapt on the fly for a chance of survival. While terrible for the inhabitants, it basically became a way of like they needed to learn about or risk any potential harm against them. The quakes stood out as yet another way of life for Wartwood to get through.

Attention immediately gravitated toward Maddie, but they didn't need any words to get a response out.

"Okay, I know I inevitably cause tremors while I move around like this, but before you point fingers I want you to know that I'm NOT making them now. Even I can feel them under my knees!"

"I can pretty much tell…just from the look of you…" Anne said as the quakes made her voice stutter. "So who…are we dealing with?"

It didn't take long before one frog in the crowd concluded on something while she also stuttered from the movements below

"Hey, since Mayor Toadstool…missed getting the rocks last time…shouldn't he still have the responsibility…to hoard the large rocks?"

"I'm pretty sure…we have always had…that rule in place!" another frog answered. "Too bad he suddenly…disappeared off the map!"

"So if his duty remained…but then he vanished without a trace…that means-"

The rumbling continued from under them and accelerated at worsening speeds. Before long, various cracks and crags formed on the surface which zipped along while more followed behind. They made the ground uneven and barely made it possible to stand, but it didn't last too long. The cracks dug into the dirt and clashed with the pieces next to them until it became too much which destroyed ground and split them into huge crevices. The townsfolk screamed while they tried to keep their balance only to fall back down, which hampered any ability to dash off to safety. One almost tripped and fell into one of the large forming fissures before another desperately pulled him back and saved him, while Anne herself lacked much stamina in the first place to stay on her feet after all of her deliveries. Of all the times to finally get a relaxing moment, it had to start during one of the most powerful tremors she ever felt. Whatever the case, they continued on and nobody knew how to deal with such damaging landscapes.

Too bad it only started.

Nobody saw it coming. As everyone went into an utter panic mode, the perpetrator burst from the cracks with incredibly loud pitched screeches. One glance at the creature and nobody felt too surprised to see its return, but they still rushed out of the way of its deadly presence. The gazes of its three heads remained as lethal as ever, and everyone knew what it wanted the moment it furiously hissed in their direction. One large thump from its coated and long body resonated across the town and its serpentine slides vibrated loud hollowed out pottery sounds while it searched the premises. As if the incident a day before didn't drill the facts into the frogs' empty heads, they now had to deal with such a slithery reptile once more. If they didn't quell it quickly, it would leave a path of destruction in its wake.

But it arrived not on a solo demolition spree. As the large rocky reptile slithered off into an open area while it kept its eyes glued to the town around it, right from another open fissure a second figure shot itself into the world above. It maintained a similar display to its brethren, if not identical, and supported just as much deadliness with its rugged body. Another of its kind crawled out from the craggy crevices followed by another, then another, and then one more to top all of it off. All of them had equal amounts of fury in them and soon after they appeared they wandered off into their own accords while they spewed deadly acid in every direction. If one Petoskey Asp proved cumbersome for Wartwood, an entire bed of them brought the town to its knees.

One single thought pushed itself into the minds of everyone who witnessed all of the asps break out of the ground.

Darn it Toadstool.

Anne barely had enough time to pick herself up and move out of the way before one of the asps bulldozed over her. She took refuge next to one of the house while she helpless watched the bed of snakes make Wartwood their stomping grounds. One mindlessly ran through a fruit stand and melted it down with its powerful acid from its three heads, while another thwacked the side of the Sundew's establishment with its body as it weaved in and out of thin alleyways. The others had their own schedules for destruction, and most of them used their three heads to spew as much of their corrosive acid that melted down everything it contacted. Wartwood's inhabitants couldn't do anything but run away to safety and hope the asps don't notice them and melt away their hiding spot. Everything the large snakes ran through either became completely destroyed by their burly hard bodies or dissolved by their lethal acid. Their "hangry" attitudes knew no bounds when they lacked their choice of food.

Due to what happened the day before Anne knew what the asps wanted, but not a single large rock had a presence around where she frantically searched. During that time another large rock snake slithered over the rooftop of the house she hid behind and coiled around it. All three of its heads glared down the helpless teen like dedicated predators, and if she never took a glance up at the last possible second she would have definitely suffered some lasting injuries. For a split second when she glanced up she saw the three heads as they opened their mouths, which meant one definite action would proceed after. Her mind raced while she screamed and bolted from the spot right as the acid flew from the snake's maws, but she didn't get out of it unscathed. The acid hit the ground and melted away the stricken spot into a deep black hole, but one small droplet spattered away and lightly struck the teen at the bottom of her left leg. She yelled in pain and collapsed to the ground while the asp leered at her from afar. It struck her like a million concentrated bee stings, and one glance at the spot revealed one of the reddest gashes her eyes ever witnesses. The creature would have dealt another angry blow across her helpless body if another asp didn't tread in front of it which made them angrily hiss in each others direction and bared their fangs in a threatening manner. With the distraction between the two, Anne slowly mustered her way to the side of another house that currently had no asps near it. She barely managed to take on one of those huge snakes, but a whole pit of them reigned havoc she couldn't handle.

She never heard from Sprig since he went off to deliver his side of the list.

Marcy had her head in the spell books while she concocted a shrinking spell for Maddie in private.

Everyone else either ran around panicking or stayed hidden to avoid any injuries like she took.

The Petoskey Asps made Wartwood their own angry stomping grounds.

…but one of the four focused on her current troubles still had her presence in the skies above.

Maddie saw everything from overhead and knew she held all of the power to help. With her massive scale she had all of the capabilities to put everything back on track in an instant and send the snakes packing. However, all of her immense strength that came with her size came with one major caveat that brought some hesitation to the young witch frog. Back at the Spudley's habitat the small creatures provided some wiggle room once she figured out that they contained astounding regenerative abilities. She still proceeded with caution with every one of her steps, but at least she knew no accidental crush against them would become fatal. With Wartwood though, no such safety net would catch any unintentional destruction from her actions. If she did anything that brought harm to the ones she cared about, which included everyone in Wartwood, it they stayed cold under a pile of rubble it could remain that way. Her mind potentially remained forever tainted if such tragedy occurred because of her. Her fingers set at such height and width that she found it impossible to interfere unless she destroyed multiple buildings if she decided to help out. She teetered between two scenarios and both had bleak patches that bound her to her own thoughts and held her back from any actions.

Toss them to the side… You can deal with this…

The softness and tone of such kind mutters struck Maddie in a way that provided ease that lulled her into a certain calmness. From the words she heard last night, it always made sure to stay by her side like a guardian angel. From everything her ears took in she could never get enough of it, and it piled on extra weight to certain sides that helped the giant frog decide on such heavy decisions. Soon enough, she let the presence into her humble abode once more while she smiled to its embrace. She already knew to follow such advice, and now she would go to any length to do so.

For now, the microscopic specks below needed her help.

She got on her knees, which sent a powerful tremor across the ground, and set her sights on the offending snakes. One still had its coiled body around one of the many buildings around the town square, which she immediately took care of with one of her titanic fingers. In one fell swoop, a huge wall of blue smacked the asp's body clean across the town and into a tree at breakneck speeds. Parts of its slated rock that displayed its three heads and the hard rocks that covered its body shattered on impact, which left the creature against the ground while it writhed supposedly in pain. It cried out for a bit but never moved too much, and part of her wanted to finish the deed and end it already. She probably would have done so if more of its kind still didn't run around town, so she left the downed creature there while she steered her attention to the others.

She held back the urge to put on one of her wicked smiles once she saw the next two. While one single flick of a finger sent one of the snakes on the brink of death, along with the decimation of most of Stumpy's restaurant, if she put more into it she could possibly force them to never bring havoc to Wartwood again. The next two Petoskey Asps had their heads inside Mayor Toadstool's establishment after they broke in through the roof, and each of their three heads spewed acid in every direction in an attempt to find something on the same level as their favorite large rock delicacy. Since the mayor disappeared without a trace nobody currently inhabited the place, which meant Maddie didn't have to worry about any unintentional aftermath that involved lives. She could go all out on the snakes' sorry hides and they would never see it coming.

Just to taunt them a bit, she provided a very chilling statement.

"You shouldn't have upset me to this degree…and I'm VERY upset."

The asps heard her lethal threat, but they never had a chance to gaze up and witness such anger behind such a facade of Maddie's blank face. Before they could turn their heads upward, the giant frog brought two fingers above them and immediately slammed them down upon their rugged bodies. Mayor Toadstool's abode collapsed in a huge dusty heap and sent everyone around it packing. At that point no such care in the world about collateral damage on households fazed Maddie to the point where she kept her eyes glued to the destruction she caused below. To hammer in the fact, she could have easily used only one digit to get her point across, but she found it more enjoyable to inflict more pain into the helpless reptiles with a second one close by. Anyone potentially caught up in such an act from the massive girl would have perished instantly, and yet she barely used any strength in the process and lacked the care to understand such ramifications.

Once she felt like she grinded the viscous snakes into the ground enough, she lifted her two fingers to survey the damage. Next to nothing of Toadstool's home remained from such power, but she only cared about the lifeless bodies of the asps. Even though the wreckage covered up most of the destroyed objects underneath, it didn't take long once she used her colossal fingers to move most of it away. Right at the bottom where the floor would have stayed it it remained intact, Maddie saw something that made her deeply frown. Two large holes big enough for the snakes to escape through embedded through the ruined floor and left sheets of darkness in their centers. Not a single loose piece of the reptiles got left behind and they made their hasty retreat in the nick of time, which provided no clues as to whether she imposed anything that grinded their remains to smithereens. She wanted to hunt them down and make them pay for what they brought to the Wartwood table, but she still had one more to take care of.

While most of the inhabitants already found some place to lay low until everything passed over, Anne remained at the scene. As much as she wanted to bolt at the sight of Maddie's tactics against the creatures, her injured leg meant she wouldn't get too far. Even then, she put the safety of the others before herself even if the odds leaned in the opposite favor, so she stayed behind in case anything went awry. Maddie went through most of the trouble with no sweat, which would have given Anne a reason to celebrate if she took her eyes off of the giant frog witch. Ever since she met up with Maddie and got to know her she learned of her true personality behind her supposed creepy mask. She learned magic in the first place because of her interests and she wanted to use ones she learned to help everyone around town even if the concept remained alien and creepy to common folk. While she liked to express herself as someone who reveled in the dark arts, she truly had the mentality of a friendly girl to anyone that looked past her hobby. When it came down to it, she got along with anyone and used her abilities for the ones she cared about.

…but the entire concept of Maddie went hazy as she stared at the frog's enjoyment.

She witnessed someone on the other side who pulled the strings even if the giant girl didn't know it. She may have tried to effortlessly crush a Spudbug in an ancient coliseum filled with potato people, but at least she saw her with her trademark blank face and pink blob for hair. She acted out as the creature Anne initially thought of before she got to truly understand her. From the confines of a burning furnace that cooked them into flames and from the strength of her grip as she piled a jagged nail into her chest, all of it poured back to her senses as the giant frog set waste to the town in her pursuit of the deadly asps. She really wanted to take her eyes off the grave digger's action, but even she required some safety from everything since she clearly kept a crippled status from her leg which still burned against her skin. In some ways she wished she had some kind of divine arrow to pierce through and force the doppelganger out, but it sounded a bit to absurd to go for on the fly and she wanted to keep such abilities to other forms out media out there.

Her train of thought went off the rails the moment she heard something that made her skin crawl. Her pupils contracted into dots while her lips went south which forced her back into a stilted steel pole. If she didn't have bushy hair each individual strand would stand on end as the monster's breath wafted across her neck. She immobilized her eyes as the muscles pointed the certain sense forward, and her will to stare the creature in the eyes dwindled to nearly nothing. For such a blaring reptile that uttered clanks as it moved it rendered itself outside her point of view for the most inaudible crawl up to her that shook her to the very core. She knew it saw her as a potential substitute and it prepared to sink its teeth in her.

She endured for the worst as three loud hisses shook the world around her, and all three heads reared up to douse her in the hottest of acids. She covered her face in an attempt to shield herself from the sight of her deterioration, but right before the sensations burned her to the ground, the entire area shook around her. For some reason it felt like some weight lifted off of her chest, which boggled her mind back to reality and eventually provided enough to turn the other direction. In some ways she probably expected such a surprise, and yet she still felt some portions from how close she sat away from the long blue wall.

A blue wall that saved her life in an instant.

She didn't only notice that certain oddity, as close by she saw the perpetrator and its three heads while they stuck out of the wall like a carnival game. From such close proximities the details remained scarce at first, but once gravity trembled under her and the wall raised high into the sky the picture became clear. Anne couldn't forget the lethal dose in Maddie's visible eyes as she dangerously glared at such a being that pleaded no contest to its colossal foe.

For Maddie, everything fell into place perfectly. Only one snake remained and it impotently dangled upside down between only two of her fingers. No matter how much it defensively hissed while it tried to wriggle free, she called all of the shots and reveled in the power brought from her surprise stretch to the skies. It even rotated the slab that showed its heads like an old fashioned rotary phone and hurled buckets of acid in her direction, but every time they fell short which delighted the giant frog girl even more. It almost reminded her of the incident with the Mantisroach from last night and how she dictated everything for it to please her. She clearly heard the message and now she wholeheartedly took it in like a close friend.

Perfect… Completely perfect…

Reminders stayed unnecessary for her to comprehend to the fullest. She took it upon herself to go for it in any capacity.

"To think a complete role reversal would render a deadly opposition to such foolery. Go on, entertain me further."

Her signature creepy smile displayed in full while the Petoskey Asp continued to utter some dangerous noises back. All of its efforts failed to reach Maddie and her new mentality, so to reinforce the notion that she remained in control she vigorously shook her fingers that held them which bobbed them around all over. The reptile hit its own body while Maddie made them out like jingling car keys and kept at it for at least an extra minute just to hammer the points in. From such a simplistic notion, the enjoyment Maddie saw couldn't compare to anything noteworthy. She could do it all day and never feel tired since she her ideals held priority over anyone else due to her massive scale. For once she didn't mind the sudden growth she went through, much to the detriment of anyone smaller.

She bellowed one final threat to the miniature worm.

"NEVER…COME…BACK."

To reinforce the seriousness behind her words, she increased the grip around her two fingers that held the tail end of the asp. Once she heard the cracks she lit up and grinned, while the snake uttered a deafening screech while it flailed about as it tried to break free. Anne's chest had a spinning drill practically against it that dug into her as she witnessed the gruesome scene before her, which almost made her want to turn away. She couldn't stand such a terrible set of fates that befell upon the town of Wartwood and the ones that stuck around to the terrible aftermath. Maddie understood none of it and focused only on what she wanted out of it, despite the fact that she dealt with the trouble in the process. While the reptiles had cranky moods that made them rampage when they didn't get their diet of large rocks, they never deserved such harsh consequences from a girl that wanted to hear their pain. A judge like her shouldn't dictate such inhumane outcomes to her particular degree.

The lone teenager on campus kept her distance while she watched Maddie finally release the damaged snake from her deathly hold, but with a major catch. She never set the creature on the ground, but instead sent it into a free fall the moment her two fingers let go of the creature's tail. Its helpless body sank like a cannonball from Maddie's full grown height and only increased in speed as it tumbled through the air toward the ground. Anne half expected the fall to last a few minutes at best from the sky high drop, but in the end her mathematics never came close to such an assumption. Only after a few seconds of the snake's fall from high above it hit the ground in a massive wave of dirt and mud. She nearly mistook the impact for actual meteor strikes she heard about in movies and television shows, which kept her behind the building as it sent a loud sonic boom across the ground that shook her immensely. Clouds of dust and mud flew everywhere and if Anne didn't shield herself she would have taken a hefty beating. She didn't see anyone else nearby that possibly got caught in the deadly crossfire, and she wanted it to remain that way by the time it ended.

It only lasted for a couple of seconds, but after everything she had seen from Maddie's twisted mindset her mind told her that it lasted for much longer. Her bones rattled like she took a nuclear missile to the face, and she refused at first to place her eyes on the damage inflicted on Wartwood. Eventually, she built up the courage to poke her head out to see the dreaded outcome. She put her hands to her mouth as the dust settled and the visuals became more apparent. Nearly the whole middle part of the town square disappeared off the face of the planet while one huge crater took its place. Clumps of loose dirt and destroyed brick littered the ground in absolute ruin that made it seem like Maddie just took one massive step in the middle of the whole town. Her lips remained sealed in case the thought would provide Maddie any sick ideas for the future, but her eyes stayed on the wreckage everywhere. It seemed like forever until the clouds blew away around the square, but once they did she saw the impact spot and nearly felt her heart skip a beat. It appeared like a land mine blew up from such density and depth from the asp's impact, and she fully expected to see a corpse at the bottom. However, in some miraculous and twisted set of circumstances, the large Petoskey Asp trudged right near the out parts of the large hole, but it came out in an imperfect shape. Almost the whole slab that displayed its three heads either ended up cracked in over a dozen places or showed dozens of chipped parts that possibly still laid at the bottom of the hole. Two of the heads had their large fangs crooked and bent at angles she never knew became possible, while the final one on top refused to open its eyes and silently hissed under its breath. They possibly ended up too injured for it to open them, or the impact even made the head blind in the worst scenario, but once she glanced on top she cringed uncontrollably. Right on its large noggin one large chunk of it remained completely missing, and it never had that oddity before. Her gaze couldn't make out any possible brain matter or anything of the sort, and frankly she didn't want to find out. Either way, its three heads suffered rather drastic damages across the board, although its body didn't fare much better. All of the hollowed stones it wore across its lower body either had small pieces that remained or absolutely no remains at all, and while they would have taken the full force of the attack, which was why the asp bared such plating in the first place according to Marcy, to see its lower exposed body completely out of them brought harsh implications behind such a fall Maddie put it through. Even so, she saw deep indents and gashes all over its exposed body and even the very end took a deep ninety degree angle that remained that way likely on impact. Millions of injuries littered all over the snake and it appeared like it didn't want to look back at its tormentor. It never had a free mind like humans and Amphibia's frogs, so it couldn't think for itself when Maddie held it to her own sick ideas and paid the price for it. Just because it acted to its own instincts didn't mean it deserved such harsh punishments, especially from what she heard from Marcy and the other frogs about its true nature when the conditions hit perfectly.

It almost appeared like it hurt to move, but the large snake uttered one final screech before it swiftly dug into the ground and got away from the whole town and its gigantic frog witch. After the abuse it took it Anne couldn't blame it if wanted no more to do with anything about the community. Maddie clearly went too far and yet she saw nothing wrong with what she did.

The Petoskey Asps have left Wartwood permanently.

"Well, we won't have to worry about those threats ever again." Maddie's deep voice bellowed.

Anne hobbled her way out from behind the certain house to converse with her and survey the damage. From everything brought upon the town in the scuffle she lacked the knowledge to understand whether certain parts collapsed from the snakes or Maddie, but even so Wartwood became left in shambles. Very few buildings sustained less than spotless damage, and even then it didn't matter much compared to everything else. In an ironic twist, the Sundew tea shop remained mostly intact and upright with next to no lasting damages. Nobody else learned about what occurred inside ever since they took in Flint, and after Felicia's threats they didn't want to.

If only they knew.

Anne took to Maddie almost immediately.

"Yet you almost destroyed Wartwood in the process. You couldn't have at least tried something safer?"

"I quickly found that impossible." Maddie answered. "Either I helped out and accidentally destroyed stuff or left you to fend for yourselves. You know I couldn't just watch on the sidelines especially while I'm this gigantic."

"Then why didn't you just get the large rocks and plop them right down before the snakes?" Anne stated in a slightly more serious tone. "It would have easily gone by without a hitch if you did that instead, and now we don't have them anymore to help with farming…at least from what I heard about them. They only required large rocks because it's their diet…and yet you've driven them away forever!"

If Maddie maintained the mindset everyone expected of her she probably would have taken the news more seriously. She cared about Wartwood as much as anyone else that lived there, so anything that would lay harm to a place she loved never passed through under her normal ways of thinking. However, once she embraced her newfound size to the fullest she basically wore a filter over her head that rendered any sort of worthwhile sense futile. No such force pushed her through the borders, as her curiosity did the work for her and she adored every second of it. Not a single worry coursed through her mind, and if Wartwood ever ended up caught in the crossfires of such incidents it became known for she wouldn't hesitate to use her size to assist…but all bets were off when it came to her destructive capabilities.

Even so, it didn't faze her.

"Hey, I solved the issue, didn't I? You should thank me for intervening in the first place or else the whole town would have went under. You think you could have done it yourself with that injured leg of yours?"

Anne frowned from the fact that she took notice of her injured leg. While hard to not have it completely stick out, Maddie could have at least kept it under wraps to not rub in the fact that she took a loose hit from one of the snakes.

"Low blow there Maddie, low blow." Anne replied. "You would probably feel the same way if you stood in my shoes. I had to-"

"Shoe."

"Excuse me?" Anne asked the titanic frog girl after she interrupted.

"You've only had one shoe the whole time since you arrived here. I'm just correcting you there." Maddie answered. The appreciation stirred through Anne's head but never came out on account of more pressing matters.

"Okay, okay, if you stood in my shoe. I get it." Anne replied before she continued. "Anyways, from shots of acid to frenzied destruction, I've went through so much down here and my efforts had the potential to go even further if this stupid injury never happened."

"And yet you took one which left you to the sidelines." Maddie answered. "Face it, without me when things got tough Wartwood never stood a chance. If it means I have to destroy stuff to save the town…so be it."

If Anne required one final piece of proof that something changed in Maddie's state of mind, she finally got it from that very last statement. Before she could ask about it though, she heard some loud puffing in the distance before her frog friend Sprig made his way onto the scene. One glance over him revealed that something happened while he went over his deliveries. From legs that shook uncontrollably to a twitchy eye with buckets of sweat around it she sworn that if she didn't recognize him right away she could've easily mistaken him for some type of marathoner that ran millions of laps around the globe and back. She had no idea that frog like him could sweat to that kind of extreme degree, but the frogs in Amphibia didn't exactly function completely identically to what she knew back home.

She never got a single word out before Sprig held up a hand which stopped her in her tracks.

"So many mistaken identities… So much running… I took so many bullets in my heyday…and yet not to the extent that I just went through… Hand me a thousand buckets of water…for I cannot take any more punishments… I approve…everything…"

The instant his small rant finished he fell face first into the dirt. The other two stood dumbfounded at what they just heard, and yet they didn't seem too surprised especially from Sprig of all frog kind.

"You're not even going to ask what happened around here and just-"

"Give me this one moment!" Sprig interjected in a muffled voice from the dirt.

---

Wartwood's repair wouldn't go by in a couple of minutes. Even after a scuffle with the Petoskey Asps, along with Maddie's interference, the damage brought by such incidents resulted in spots of desolation and ruin that required immediate attention. She only moved her hands and fingers to the ones tinier than her, but the differences in scope magnified into problems more serious than she saw. After she subdued the snakes Maddie's mellowed mind didn't think too much about the drastic consequences she had done to the determent of the specks below her, but because of her capabilities while huge she decided to help out anyway. Chuck typically stood out as the villager with a knack for housework and thorough establishment maintenance, which included repair, despite what he normally stated on a daily basis, but after Anne's "dreary snail joyride" he had next to all of the wind knocked out of him. He even got multiple skid and tire marks over his back from her carnage…even though Bessie lacked any of the sort to do so. Because of that, his involvement winded down to a minimum which only made the process much longer than everyone expected. Every single building except the tea shop sustained some kind of casualty on the outside, whether drastic or negligible, and everyone pitched in to help the town heal from its wounds.

The whole recovery phase lasted the entire day. The entire brawl brought that much damage to Wartwood and nearly exhausted everyone. Some could barely stand on their own two legs, despite the fact that frogs normally had strong ones, and left them sawing logs while their faces laid in the mud. Eventually the rest of the Plantar family showed up, including Frobo, and once Polly set her sights on the destruction around her her disappointment fell to new lows. Whenever carnage and fights took place around town she loved to drop everything just so she could get even a slight glimpse at the action, so when she found out that she arrived late it didn't sit well with her. Even so, she at least got to help with repairs even though she still lacked a certain age threshold to handle some of the more "dangerous" duties, but she always had Frobo on standby to at least pretend like she carried abilities that went far beyond everyone's reaches. Despite the fact that he ended up with labor duty for the town, because he handled certain chores back at the household it never fazed Frobo and he helped certain problems with a smile on his robotic face. With his stretchy arms and burly body he sped up the process of recovery while Polly sat on one of his shoulders along for the ride. Maddie even pitched in with her massive presence in case things got a bit too dicey, and with her humongous fingers anything deemed too heavy for the townsfolk became something she easily took with no effort at all. She even dealt with everything while she laid on her side and only with one hand, which painted a picture for what she gained since she obtained her titanic stature. The process probably would have dipped into the night if Wartwood didn't have the unorthodox series of characters it became known for.

But for one certain teen, her dedication and honed attention span managed to keep her on track through all of it.

To those that knew Marcy on a very close level, they understood that when she delved into something that snagged her attention she basically pushed everything out of the way so she could remain focused on her newfound hobby. For the most part it became a detriment to the ones around her, but in terms of avoiding a pit of snakes and repairs to Wartwood her ignorance steered around all of it. One could assume such a catalyst that triggered her devotion became such a herculean task that even the dauntless heroes never considered to write on their schedules. Possibly the worst of the worst required her calculative and explorative mind beyond the reaches of common folk. For such a task to bind the attention of such a girl, the assumptions of one's mind wandered aimlessly for such an answer.

Too bad most of them possibly never came close to the actual truth.

Marcy had her head lost in notes and writings as she mixed and matched various chemicals to potentially conjure up the antidote Maddie required to regain her normal height. She stayed at the special conjuring grounds Maddie isolated herself to when she needed to concentrate on more difficult spells, which conveniently remained covered by dozens of trees so it stayed out of the public eye. For the most part Maddie typically concocted various hexes and curses in her personal bedroom for convenience, but when push came to shove and the stakes rose higher she required full concentration which meant distractions ended up as the worst possible outcome before she fully tested certain contents. Of course ones close to her, such as her younger sisters, knew of the location and while most respected her privacy some never quite understood the memo. Her sisters in particular loved to interrupt whatever she had in mind, which usually resulted in very horrendous results…and not in the typical dark witch way Maddie went for. She even considered a hidden laboratory at one point just for the extra security, but she quickly turned that idea down since it would likely end more disastrous than her usual spot. If anything, her sisters would most likely mess something up and put her at the forefront of the whole thing.

…like what happened a few days ago.

Suffice to say, she made sure most of the important stuff remained in the special area. She set a giant black pot, straight from the types seen during the night of the blue moon, right in the center which she used for some of her more extreme cases like a "young pink moon girls" serum. Even though it contained multiple hexes during concocting and testing period, Maddie always made sure to clean it at every possible spot so any future spells never suffered accidental contamination. It became crucial when it contained in progress heavy curses and the metals that made up its outsides prevented it from taking anything unintentional in case it ended up with a hex or two across it. She almost never ended up short of ingredients either, for Maddie always had a couple of shelves nearby that hung from a couple of nearby trees. Nobody completely understood how she obtained each specific object for certain spells, and even though Marcy went on a couple of outings with her she never got the full picture. It became one of many traits that made Maddie the creepy witch from the general consensus around her. While she never cared too much, she expressed on certain occasions that she didn't appreciate the spread of negative feelings toward it, as she wanted to use her talent to help the ones around her. Since she currently stood as a behemoth of a girl she couldn't conjure up spells without the possible risk of crushing everything, so Marcy became the next best caster even if she just started a few days ago. Despite everything that hinged on her, she comprehended the choice of locale to set the moods straight, especially the gloomy vibes that surrounded it, that Maddie created specifically for pristine curse creation.

Too bad Marcy hadn't come up with anything worthwhile since the previous night, and she ran on backup fuel at her current rate.

She couldn't let it escape her mind. She cared for Maddie ever since they became friends, so the concoction of a possible antidote by her hands became a herculean task for the measly teen. All of her efforts progressed from night to broad daylight and not a single wink of sleep passed through her. Every single inch of her body became dedicated to the task at hand, and the weariness showed from her face alone. Bright red lines of capillaries stretched across her eyes like infectious worms and millions of wrinkles dotted around her cheeks like the life got sucked out of them. Her hair remained all over the place like she just rolled out of bed while everything else stayed tense with pinpointed focus. From bottles, loose appendages, to even a kitchen sink or two, Marcy attempted next to everything for some type of positive results. Unfortunately, unlike Maddie, she lacked multiple factors, such as time and experience, which impacted her success rate and tipped the scales in the opposite direction. From creating a living sentient pile of leaves, millions of tiny colorful maggots that nearly made her heave, to an angry crocodile hungry for revenge against a family of frogs, Marcy attained notable achievements in her personal notes but the recipe for a shrinking potion for Maddie. She didn't even have the alone time every time she failed either, as the living potato she took in for herself always kept its adorable eyes on her. While it squeaked and flailed its feet around while it hopped into the air, it didn't do much to help. If anything, it probably still lacked complete trust in her after its supposed accidental trip to Wartwood. She never even got the time to understand its squeaky language since her attention honed in on Maddie's antidote and nothing more. Fatigue, circumstances, and the lack of knowledge added up for one heck of a problem to solve, and she became the sole answer to undo all of it.

The lack of sleep hit her in more ways than one, and after another failed outcome after she followed the instruction perfectly she almost completely lost it. Her fingers gripped the sides of the pot like she became the strongest person in existence while her frustration levels rose to ascending height, much to the determent of her Spudley companion beside her.

"No, no, NO! Not like that! Grrrrr, every single time I get a failure after failure…and then one more just to rub it in! I'm THIS close to bursting a blood vessel at this rate, and I can't take it anymore! How can I make an antidote even after all of the correct steps?!"

She emptied the harmless contents of the pot before her legs gave out on her and she slumped next to the large container. Her head sat on the lip while she rubbed her forehead multiple times for some kind of comfort. Her groaning reverberated off of the insides of the pot like bullets while she desired some type of positive result even if it also slipped out of her grasp like it dangled from a string. Even the Spudley's innocent bumps against her while it cutely squeaked didn't stir her out of her deep grief. Nothing worked and her outburst did nothing to help her progress further through the pages of Maddie's spell book. No matter how much she mixed and matched, the end results usually killed off most of her expectations. It seemed next to hopeless for the young teen to discover some kind of breakthrough.

Her hands banged against the pot out of crankiness and exhaustion while she threw a miniature tantrum to herself. She normally never drove herself to the particular lows as she maintained a collective mind that focused on the devoted hobbies she cared about. Even so, out of her and her other two friends, most of the time they would point to Sasha as the one with the hot head hen she got down to it. However, after all of her failures and the long lack of sleep, she cracked under all of the pressure and snapped. Even the Spudley next to her took a couple of steps back to remain on the safe side once it saw her lit fuse, and it already had immense worry under its skin. Her mindset nearly devolved into that of a toddler, even though she stood at an age better than that. Never once had anyone expected to see a teenager like Marcy drive herself to new lows in pursuit of a potential cure.

She squealed and slammed her fists against the pot for minutes on end until she calmed down some and went back to the book of spells. She tried a couple of deep breaths for some kind of comfort while she flipped through the pages for potential answers. Her eyes skimmed through each one multiple times before, but her frustration levels meant she didn't cleanly glance between the lines until that moment. While she remained somewhat level headed, she had enough to concentrate as she ran her fingers through the paper. Eventually she reached a certain topic, but not the one she expected early on. Due to the images she instantly recognized what she came across right away, and Maddie certainly related to it in more ways than one.

How could forget the curse that started the whole fiasco in the first place?

To think the whole situation began because Maddie shirked responsibility from her three younger sisters, which lead to the execution of a particular spell that expanded her scope to new heights. She only had the status for a couple of minutes before Marcy brought her back down with an antidote. Due to the supposed differences from the new growth she suddenly underwent that nobody expected the previous antidote failed to leave any impact against her, which brought Marcy into the whole thing as no one else understood dark arts to the degree Maddie had. While Marcy only just started with spell creation, she became the next best candidate to conjure up a new shrinking spell for Maddie's sake. The images and description alone spelled the origin of all the hassle and sent Marcy to her breaking point on many occasions, so it only reminded her of what she already knew.

However, her eyes never left the spot. Something kept her attention on it, and soon after her frustration and anger transformed into undeniable curiosity. While Maddie certainly ended up as the one that took the spell and expanded to the size of titans, Marcy's fascinations lit up in her head about millions of other possibilities. The reminders alone brought images into her head about the moments during her previous growth, and she wondered what would have happened if things went a bit differently. She didn't fully understand the depths of what the serum offered, and once she saw the effects with her own eyes by that moment she wished that Maddie would have saved at least a mall portion left for her to replicate later on. She wouldn't want to do so immediately, but later on she definitely wanted to go for it.

Her fascinations would explode through the roof once she finally grew for herself.

As she reminisced about the moment Maddie took the growth spell, the more she wondered how things would have went if she took it instead, or better yet, during a free day. She only managed to get a couple of glimpses at the outlooks of such scope, whether by the initial time when she climbed up to Maddie's shoulder or when she directed her to the spot to find the living potatoes, and even during those times she never took the moments in as more pressing matters occurred then. From the angles that made everything much tinier from above to all of the different sights it changed perspectives that Marcy never thought possible. Her encyclopedias and personal notes would go through heydays of vastly different scenarios while she made sure everything got written down to the best of her abilities. She cracked a smile at the thought of Anne as a small dot near her shoes, which immediately would set off another studying session, and the fact that she finally became the tallest of the group if she ever went that far. Sasha always joked around about how she held the power to lead an entire colony if given the chance, which by her personality seemed to have some truth to it, but Marcy always had her ideas in the back. Her serious demeanor became pointless the moment she feasted her eyes on the marvel that became Marcy's massive growth spurt. While she considered herself the intellectual type, one simple flip of the size switch changed roles completely in her eyes. If she ever managed to make the growth formula and use it for herself during a free period…

She felt jittery from the mere thought of such an occurrence.

Her train of thought got sidetracked when her ears picked up the squeaky sounds of the Spudley next to her. While her lack of sleep meant her mental priorities ran all over the place, at least she comprehended the fact that company now stood by her side, even if it became accidental. Once she placed her eyes on the small walking potato she didn't need any further indications as to its current thoughts. One glance at its uncontrollable shaking as it poked its head from the side of a large rock told her everything she needed to know about its condition. She even heard a couple of light squeaks as she came in closer to it, which prompted it to hide itself away further. Clearly her cranky and upset mood worried it greatly, and yet it couldn't stray too far from her unless it wanted to make itself lost.

Even though she still lacked her forty winks, she tried to coax the critter back out.

"Oh no, no, no, I'm not angry against you! You alleviate a lot of pressure off my shoulders from your presence alone! I just…I just have a lot going on right now that requires attention. Please, you must understand what I'm talking about, right?"

The Spudley stared at her for a couple of seconds pretty blankly before it shuddered again and took a few more steps back. While it stayed with her for only a single day so far, it still remained on edge and didn't fully trust her yet. It reacted as if she morphed into a monster bent on destroying its body, and even though it could regenerate like the rest of its species showed earlier it still refused to wander near her. She never considered herself a monster, and her other two friends embraced her with open arms from her loving personality alone. While dog training never crossed her mind, the Spudley's actions reminded her of how trainers crafted young puppies into loving obedient ones. One time she even took a trip with Sasha and Anne to a local dog park, and during those times they witnessed tons of young pooches as they wagged their little tails and rubbed their bodies happily against their trainers' legs. Both herself and Anne gawked at them in utter cuteness overload as they watched a select few take a few treats happily from their owners' hands and even licked them on occasion, which indicated a bright future for a healthy relationship, although Sasha never thought too much of it and wanted them to not stir up "another guinea pig incident". However, while they adored the loving obedience of such dogs they also witnessed the contrary in select spot. Dogs that rebelled and barked continuously while they backed off came around when certain times hit, and from there she couldn't forget the one face from that angry golden retriever. Teeth bared, eyes locked tight, and angry stance added up to one peeved pooch, and to seal the deal it even snapped its jaws at the owner a couple of times. She always remembered the face ever since, and she took it to heart as something she never wanted to see from others when they met her. Her friendliest lead to the trust of her close friends and they've held onto it ever since, and every other person she came across fell for her personality in an instant. Despite the special ability though, it hurt to see something actually REJECT her even though she put all of her quirks on the table. Everything trusted her once they got to understand her, but not to the creature that she took in even though she provided all of her friendly terms.

Something about her turned the Spudley away, just like that dog in the dog park, and it chipped at her heart.

She didn't know how the Spudley currently saw her, but she never got to think fully about it when its gaze steered in another direction. The instant its eyes turned to a space next to her, it squeaked at a higher pitch and hastily walked even more steps backward until it tripped and fell on its backside. Marcy wanted to help put it back on its feet, but it batted her away immediately with its round flailing feet which forced her back. She slightly panicked before she turned around herself to see who made their way onto the spell testing grounds, and once her eyes hit the spot her panic quickly left.

"Hey, ummm, old lady? Did we interrupt anything?"

Marcy quickly recomposed herself before she answered.

"No, not at all. Just dealing with chemicals here…and my name's Marcy."

"Oh, okay."

The three small polliwogs hopped out of the bushes and stared that the teen with their small infant eyes. While the presence of Maddie's younger siblings didn't strike out as anything out of the ordinary, from what she told her about them they should have been tucked into bed by now. While she didn't want to dwell on the fact for too long, for them to go against the rules of their ages they definitely had something to share.

From the glances of their worried faces, Marcy could tell they came out to the personal spot to see her for a reason. The Spudley though completely covered itself from the rock in front of it and stayed there while it shuddered and squeaked at a near inaudible volume.

"Whoa, you three really look run down with something. Did something happen?"

"I can say the same for you and your baggy eyes." Ginger replied. "You really stayed up all night for a witchy spell?"

"Hey, the process requires a lot more than it looks…and I have a lot going on right now." Marcy answered before she diverted the topic back to them. "Anyway, shouldn't all of you have the covers over your heads by now? I'm pretty sure at this point Maddie said you go to bed at this hour."

Rosemary twiddled her stubs for arms while her mouth stayed shut. The other two shared similar expressions, but eventually Lavender spoke up next.

"Well, uhhhhh, we kind of had…a certain issue since last night."

"Yeah, and since Maddie trusts you the most, well, ummmm…" Ginger added before she too went quiet.

"Well I can't help if I don't know what's going on." Marcy explained. "If you have something to talk about when it comes to Maddie's growth-"

"WE HEARD A MONSTER OUTSIDE!"

The exclamation took everyone, including the hiding Spudley, by complete surprise. She remained quiet until that moment, and even though she didn't appear to have anything bottled up at first the picture changed once Rosemary shouted. The pressure even got to her once she realized what happened, as once she finished her pupils contracted while she placed her stubs over her mouth. It took a lot out and overwhelmed her emotions, and she clearly wanted no more of it.

Once the dust settled, Ginger and Lavender hopped over to Rosemary for comfort while she silently wept to herself, which Marcy took pretty at face value first until she began to ramble off

"Ooh, I know that feeling. That happened a lot when in my youth, especially about my closet and that dastardly pile of sheets in the corner. Always glaring at me with those cotton eyes and pastel smile that always brought misfortune and-"

"No, no, we heard something much worse!" Lavender interjected. "We don't want it to go after you next because… Well, just look at our sister!"

One glance over at Rosemary showed just how shattered the young tot felt. It almost hurt too much to see, especially from someone like her. Her eyes remained mostly closed but did slightly open on occasion, but most of the time they stayed filled with tears which obscured them to the point that it became harm to fully notice. Her sobbing even came with a couple of weak hiccups while she refused to glance at anything other than the darkness of her eyelids and the tears that flowed out. The other two understood their sibling clearly even though the signs on them remained hidden. For Marcy, it tugged at her heart strings and she couldn't ignore such innocence, especially ones related to Maddie, and yet it she heard an echo in the space of her mind. Wartwood got into the crossfire of multiple creatures that threatened the town's decimation, and even though Maddie's sister stayed out of harm's way and never wandered on scene they seemed perfectly fine even with the immediate danger. In many ways it reminded her of Polly who actively desired such insanity, but the other polliwogs that Maddie watched over had personalities away from the Plantars. To know that the previous creatures didn't bother them but one that potentially showed up recently managed to crack them painted a bleak picture that indicted terror if she took it to heart.

While the sights of Rosemary shook her up a bit, she tried to keep her cool to the young kids to not ignite things further.

"I can see the…dreaded terror across her face from a mile away." Marcy replied. "Well, errrrrr, you sure you didn't just imagine things…or something?"

To the astonishment of the other two, Rosemary immediately got back up and took a stance while she deeply frowned in Marcy's direction.

"Are you completely disregarding what I FELT that night?!" Rosemary questioned with vigor. "You have no idea the kind of DARK TERROR cast such EVIL in my general-"

"Easy, easy there sis! Hold yourself together!" Lavender interjected while she lightly patted Rosemary on the back. While it calmed her down a little bit, it still left her panting deeply which put her out of commission for the moment. Because of that, Ginger explained everything in her place.

"All of it happened last night. It started off light with the shaking, which we understood from everything that happens here, but once they became stronger over time we couldn't ignore it. Rosemary even took a glance out of the window for a moment, and she saw, ummm…"

"A MONSTER! IT WANTED TO BURN THE SKIN OFF OF ME AND-"

"We know, sis! Just let us tell everything to Maddie's friend first." Lavender interrupted. It managed to make her quiet again before Ginger continued on.

"Anyways, she stayed up there for a few seconds and in that time we noticed her nearly freeze in place. Before we could ask what's out there, she bolted under the covers and refused to come out for the rest of the night. We went up to look through the window soon after, but by then…it seemed to have disappeared."

"We wanted to tell Maddie about it, but since she spent most of the day rebuilding houses we couldn't reach her." Lavender said after while she kept Rosemary close. "You became the next thing since she trusts you so much."

From such importance to the Flour kids, they sure brought the broadest of explanations with them to distinguish next to nothing about what they felt, so in a way it left Marcy grabbing straws from a much bigger haystack. They had next to no reason to lie straight to her face, and the reactions from Rosemary told her how serious they were about the situation. However, with such little information given she couldn't exactly figure out too much about it, although it seemed to have occurred during the same night Mayor Toadstool went missing. She wished they had more to tell her other than the broadest of terms, but she had to make do with what she had for the sake of the kids.

She didn't want to leaving them hanging though.

"Well, that sounds pretty messed up. I still have some work to do here, but if I ever come across that thing I'll make sure to let it know to never come across Wartwood again. I can handle it easily."

"R-r-r-really?" Rosemary asked in a stuttered voice. Marcy smiled in her direction and gave her a thumbs up.

"Trust me, no one messes with ol' Marcy and gets away with it! You have nothing to worry about as long as I'm here. One single strike of my hook shot and I'll send them packing."

"Thank Marcy, it really means a lot." Ginger answered with a smile of her own. Marcy actually felt more impressed that one of them finally stated her name instead of other terms even if they still had much to learn as little kids.

They would have left it at that if they never noticed the one behind the rock.

"Hey, do you have someone else here?" Lavender asked. The eyes of the Spudley widened before it hastily withdrew itself out of sight behind the stone. At first Marcy didn't understand what they referred to, but once she heard the squeaks of the potato it became clear. Even though the girls had their worries lowered to a degree thanks to Marcy, that still left one more. It managed to get its sleep in on the sidelines while Marcy worked exhaustively on the spell, so it stayed up and about but not on the emotional side. It needed her help as much as the Flour kids.

A part of her wanted to keep the public out of the knowledge of its existence, but Wartwood remained as a knit community and hardly anyone visited the place anymore. Besides, it needed some company to hang around until it found a way back to its enclosure.

"Oh, that?" Marcy said before she explained in a friendly manner. "Well…we may have picked up a stowaway on our travels to get those potatoes."

"Really?" Ginger asked as her eyes widened with intrigue. "Who did you find?"

"Something you probably wouldn't expect." Marcy replied. "It doesn't exactly trust anyone fully though, which means…well…"

The instant everyone turned to face the potato, it squeaked at a higher tone for a second and ducked back behind the rock. Marcy shuddered its way while the three polliwogs hopped over to the spot for a closer look. They saw the Spudley as it cowered in fear with its back to them, and it even created some small divots into the ground with its feet. They didn't know why, but they had a more pressing issue to pay attention to.

The kids' eyes gazed with intrigue and amazement at the creature, which even stood around the same height as them. Rosemary even seemed to wipe some of her fear away once she saw the critter before her.

"Whoa, a potato with feet?!" Lavender said. "Am I seeing things right?"

"Looks like it!" Rosemary answered. "You came across it on your travels, Marcy?"

"Well…not exactly." Marcy replied. "I told you earlier that it stowed away with us on accident. It hasn't exactly warmed up to everyone else if you couldn't tell."

"Then let's give it some friends to play with!" Ginger said with a smile. "Having friends always makes everyone feel better. I learned that when I…ummmmm…"

She took a moment to try and remember the specific time, but it got cut short by Rosemary.

"It doesn't matter, sis. I am one hundred percent behind that idea, for I always wanted to have a friend that looks so, uhhhhhhhh… Darn, I can't think of a word…"

"I understand what you mean there." Lavender replied. "Don't judge a book by it's cover, right?"

"Right, right! I definitely meant that!" Rosemary said. For only a bunch of young kids, it impressed Marcy to see that they had some good ideas in mind. It showed that they already knew how to look out for others and take matters for themselves. While not always the right answer to go for, in terms of putting the Spudley in good moods they had the right context to possibly solve the issue. It likely never had other different species than its own as friends before, which worried it to no end and sealed the lock away. If Maddie's younger sisters carried the right key the door to the Spudley's kindness had a chance to go beyond the walls of its enclosure.

Marcy kept quiet as the three young girls approached the living potato slowly. It slowly turned to peek out at them, but it only lasted for a moment before it hurriedly looked away from them.

"Hey mister, uhhhhhhh… What did you call it again Marcy?" Ginger asked as she glanced over to her.

"A Spudley. I learned that it's called a Spudley." Marcy answered while she silently nodded. The young polliwog nodded back before she got back to the scared critter.

"Mister Spudley, mister Spudley? Do you want to be friends with us? My name is Ginger!"

"I'm Rosemary!"

"And I'm Lavender! Nice to meet you!"

Their introductions seemed to impact the creature a bit as its shaking lowered to a much slower speed. It still refused to face them and kept its face in the rock, but they made progress with such simplistic words.

"So, ummmmm, you came over here on accident? That seems…pretty harsh." Lavender said. "I understand why you feel like you can't trust anyone."

"Yeah, especially since you got taken from your home and everything." Rosemary said after. "You need comfort or anything?"

The Spudley didn't even flinch and remained with its back turned. It painted a picture that it really wanted time alone away from everyone around it, but if it stayed there it would only slow down progress to get it back home. Because it didn't want to listen to anything they wanted to say, the three kids took a gamble to calm it down. Since it couldn't see behind it, they advanced slowly over to it while making sure to not leave any loud noises in their wake. Marcy stayed quiet and let the other girls do their actions while the got within arms reach of the Spudley's body. It kicked up some dirt as if it wanted to dig into a hole, but it only sprayed the substance in the girls' faces which lacked any offensive capabilities. The three girls took a few glances at each other and nodded in unison before they extended one stub each forward. The potato never saw it coming, and before long it found three small hands against its back while it still shuddered everywhere.

The girls spoke up again.

"Come on, you don't need to fear us. We're only children after all." Ginger said.

"We'll show you that our place has a lot more good than bad, I promise!" Lavender responded while she slowly caressed the Spudley's back. "Ooh, how about we play a game of tag later? Yeah, that would work perfectly for someone like you!"

"Marcy helped us a few days ago, so I'm sure she'll find a way to bring you back soon!" Rosemary said while she followed Lavender's actions. "Until then, just stick with us and we'll turn that frown upside down! Well, uhhhhh, I know you don't have one, but you understand what I mean, right?"

The Spudley still kept its back to the others, and while signs remained scarce the fact that it slowed down its shaking provided a glimpse into a nature behind its fear. The Flour kids never decided to undergo such a task, and yet they went through with open arms even though their opposition maintained a static opinion. Every crack against its shell made progress to uncover the one beneath, and Marcy could tell they went for every inch as if they became paleontologists that discovered a never before seen fossil. In many ways, as she witnessed the Spudley and its worried breakdown it reminded her of herself when she first arrived in a vast land she never set foot in. In fact, she still had plenty to learn even as she had her feet in the mud and dirt. She freaked out at first once she found herself in the streets of Newtopia, and it took a couple of days for everything to settle in to comprehension. Of course, after she found out about where her friends Anne and Sasha ended up she quickly learned that she got off easy compared to them. Out of a small town of frogs to imprisonment in a town of toads Marcy went through the best outcome and suffered next to no negatives. She even became one of the royal guards to the king of Amphibia that Anne or Sasha would have dreamed of, and yet her lucky streak still continued at the very moment. Even so, to see someone start from rock bottom and as an unsteady worrywart gave her a wave of nostalgia she related to in a heartbeat. It had to start somewhere, and only when it decided to dive in would it find out about the life outside of a comfort zone it went through its whole life.

Rosemary tried to hop to the side for a better look at the Spudley's face, and while she got a glance from its terrified eyes it only glimpsed at her until it covered itself back up.

"You don't have to get used to us right now. We fully understand that." Ginger said. "Just know that if you ever need someone to become friends with, well, we'll always be here if you need us."

"Give us a holler and we'll show you how to have LOTS of fun around here!" Lavender stated. "Don't forget us, okay?"

The Spudley never answered and stayed away from them, although something about them slowed its shaking down almost to nothing. The three polliwogs took it as a mild success while they got back to Marcy.

"I think we got through to it little by little." Rosemary said. "Even we understand that friendship doesn't happen overnight."

Their innocent expressions gave Marcy a heartwarming smile.

"I appreciate the help as it stays here. I'm sure that with enough effort you might finally get it to warm up to everything around here. I already have a lot on my plate thanks to your sister's growth…which I'm sure you've noticed by now."

"Those bags under your eyes pretty much told us everything immediately." Lavender answered while she slightly giggled at the sight.

It didn't take long after until realization hit one of them and made her panic a little.

"Oh no, we stayed out here for FAR longer than we thought! Daddy will kill us if he finds us not under the covers!" Ginger exclaimed.

The other two took the news in the same way.

"I completely forgot about that!" Rosemary said. "We have to get home fast!"

"I agree! We better book it!" Lavender said before she turned over to Marcy in a bit of a haste. "Sorry we can't talk more, but we kind of need this! Make sure to stay away from that monster, okay?!"

"I'll make perfectly sure it doesn't get me." Marcy said before she nodded and confidently smiled. With that said, the three young girls zipped away into the brush near them that lead back to Wartwood. Rosemary held her head for a moment supposedly to keep her cool after the reminders about what she saw last night, but before Marcy could conclude on anything further she disappeared along with her other sisters. Clearly the need to get in bed before their dad found out stood at a higher rung on the priority ladder than anything else.

Once she made sure they left the premises, Marcy couldn't help but lightly chuckle and shake her head.

"Heheheh, young kids. I remember those times…" Marcy muttered. She turned back around to the large cauldron so she could get herself back on track with spell creating, but right before her eyes set on the spell book she took notice of the Spudley as it slowly came to and faced her with its worried eyes.

"You can't help but make things difficult on yourself, huh?"

The Spudley uttered a couple of indescribable squeaks that completely flew over her head.

"I figured as much." Marcy stated. The little potato then witnessed as she walked over and placed one of her legs on the stone it hid behind and pumped up a fist above her. The Spudley even took a few steps back as she struck a valiant pose to the skies where nobody noticed.

"For the sake of everyone and the safety of the Amphibia, I, Marcy, shall work upon the grandiose tasks bestowed upon me to the infinite degree! From tracking down the last two temples, shrinking Maddie back to size, getting a Spudley home, and now the hunting of a viscous beast no huge task is big enough for me to handle! Blood courses through my veins and the yearn for new discoveries awaits, which fuels the need to go all out and lead myself to victory! Yes, perfect! I'll personally knock down every single problem in no time flat and show the world that I'm their new protector! In the name of the valiant and courageous might of the great Marcy Wu, I shall smite the worst of the worst as if they were made of-"

…she then instantly collapsed to the ground below and counted sheep.

The Spudley gazed at her snoring body in the dirt for a couple of seconds and squeaked a little in response, but Marcy laid in the ground out cold. After one strenuous sleepless night it finally took a toll on her, which the small potato seemed to take into account as it dug its feet into the ground near her. It nudged her a few times but never got anything, so it silently placed itself near one of her unresponsive hands and dug itself a deep hole, all with its round feet. Once it became a decent pit of darkness it hopped right in and placed itself firm while it seemed to hum a low audible tune in its squeaky language. Soon after it used the top of its heads to fill the hole back up which left it completely buried, but the Spudley didn't mind. It gave out one final elongated and deep squeak before it put its eyes to rest and soothed itself into a peaceful sleep. Marcy had no idea that the living potato decided to sleep underground next to her, and if she did it probably would have warranted more notes in her creature encyclopedia since she desired to put everything on paper.

While that happened though, some deep quakes shook a lot of trees in the distance. Because of her deep fatigue, Marcy paid no attention and slept through all of it while the Spudley already locked itself into dreamland pretty deeply.