A.N.: So, who saw that clip from Comicon? Yeah, seems like Anne's actually in pretty deep denial about Marcy at the start of the episode, which kinda contradicts my portrayal in chapter 1… what the hell, I'm gonna roll with it and try to play it off as Anne sorta going back and forth between denial and acceptance. In any case, this chapter'll build on that. On we go!

Chapter 2

SHHHH!

"So, what's the adventure for today?" Sprig asked hopefully. "Drift racing? Parkour? Surf contest where the beach bully doesn't respect us at first but eventually comes to accept that we have the better skills?"

"I'm beginning to think I've been showing you too many movies," remarked Anne. "Eh, no such thing. No, today we're just going to the library."

"Oh, boy," interjected Polly sarcastically. "Books. Exciting."

"I will not have you badmouthing books," scolded Hop-Pop, adjusting his disguise, which consisted of a pair of old Groucho glasses. "I for one am looking forward to seeing what a human library has to offer. I wonder if they have an 'old ways' section."

"They do. It's called 'periodicals'," Anne explained. "Anyway, this was Marcy's favorite library. So, I figure it must be where she found that book with the picture of the Calamity Box. Which means maybe we can find it too. If we're gonna find a way back to Amphibia, this is the best place I can think of to get started. Plus," she added brightly, "I wanna see if they have any volumes of 'Doki-Doki Love School' that I missed. Oh, one thing you should know… you need to stay quiet in there. Make noise and they will crack down on you."

"I officially hate everything about this," Polly commented. "Maybe I should just hang out here…"

"Oh, no you don't," Hop-Pop scolded. "You are a magnet for chaos and I'd rather have you where I can keep an eye on you than out in the open."

Polly shrugged. "Can't argue with that. You sure got my number."

The quartet entered. "Whoa, this place is actually clean and well-lit!" exclaimed Sprig.

"SHHHH!" a librarian hushed angrily.

"See, this is what I'm talking about," whispered Anne. "You gotta whisper or the librarians get angry. And it's gotta be the least funny running gag ever."

"I swear, even in your own world you never make sense," muttered Hop-Pop. "OK, now how do we find this book?"

"That's the easy part," Anne answered. "The LA public library has one thing your town archives didn't have. The Dewey Decimal System."

"Who's Dewey?" asked Polly.

"No one knows," Anne replied in a mysterious voice. "But he was the reason you can actually find stuff here. So I'm gonna check the computer catalog and see if I can locate it."

"Hmmph. Sounds too easy," Hop-Pop scoffed. "Ain't no fancy 'com-poot-er' gonna compete with good old-fashioned nose-to-the-grindstone research. C'mon, Polly, we're gonna do this the old-fashioned way."

"I dunno, seems like the magic thinking machine is the way to go here," Polly suggested. "It'll be faster at least. Besides, in case you didn't notice, I'M A BABY!"

"SHHH!"

"See? Never funny," Anne repeated.

"Oh, right," realized Hop-Pop.

"Don't read so good," Polly explained further.

"Yeah, kinda forget sometimes. Well, then, I'll take Sprig instead."

"This won't be so bad. I can parkour the bookshelves." Sprig concluded.

"They are so gonna revoke my library card," muttered Anne.

"Hmm… maybe we should have stayed and had Anne explain Mr. Decimal's system to us," Hop-Pop realized as he stared uncomprehendingly at the bookshelves. "There aren't any labels on these shelves. Just numbers. Now, the numbers clearly mean something, but for frog's sake, what?"

"Let's just pull books at random!" Sprig suggested. He whipped out his tongue and snagged one from the upper shelf. "Jacques LeGrande's guide to French Cuisine," he noted, briefly thumbing through it. "This section must be cookbooks. Let's keep loo-" He froze, quickly slamming the book shut and shoving it back on the shelf.

"Sprig, what's wrong? You-"

"Nothing let's move on next section hurry!" he urged, pushing Hop-Pop onward.

"Okay… let's see…" Anne considered, her fingers hovering over he keyboard. "The thing about searching is you have to be very particular with what you search for or you could get some very unwanted results. It's not so bad on the catalogue computer, but trying that on the Internet could lead to-"

"Eh, I've seen you use these things, how hard can it be?'

'I thought you were bad at reading," Anne questioned.

"That's what I told Hop-Pop so he wouldn't drag me along. Now let's see… Hidden… magic… box…" Polly's flippers danced across the keyboard the next computer. "Hey, there's pictures. *shrug* Anne, I think you're too worried, what could possibly OH MY FROG!"

"SHHH!"

"That's what I'm talking about," Anne warned, hurriedly closing the window. "There's supposed to be a 'safe-search' filter but I have a feeling someone disabled it."

"I just learned more about humans than I ever wanted to know," Polly stated, a shellshocked expression on her face.

"Yep, we humans can be pretty gross. Right, let me do the searching. Let's see… start with 'unexplained phenomena…' 'mysterious artifacts…' 'interdimensional travel…' and if we get too many results, we can narrow it further." She clicked "search" and waited. She didn't have to wait long; the library computers were a bit out of date, but still returned results within moments. "Now, let's see what we've got… huh, looks like most of this is just fantasy and sci-fi books." She scrolled onward. "Hold on… this looks promising. 'Dr. P's Extraordinary Guide to Magic and Mystery.' Looks like it hasn't been checked out… you wanna give it a shot, Polly?"

"Will it hold the secret to unseeing what I saw?"

"Maybe. More importantly it's our first lead. C'mon!"

"Well, this isn't the right section either," Sprig noted. "It's just books on needlepoint. Have you found anything yet?"

"Say, this Shakespeare guy does some pretty good work," Hop-Pop remarked from an aisle over. "I wonder if anyone's heard of him?"

"Sprig! HP!" whispered Anne. "We found the book."

"And lost my innocence," Polly added. "Suppressing… suppressing… and gone. Now we're denial buddies, Anne!"

"…anyway. The book."

"Wha… oh, right, we were looking for something!" Hop-Pop realized. "Sorry, it's just that I found the most wonderful section. Why didn't you tell me your world had a tradition of fine literature?"

"Huh, I guess it's because I don't read enough. Maybe I need to rethink that," Anne considered. "Anyway, let's go check this baby out."

The four took a seat at one of the reading tables set up. Anne began to thumb through the book, passing by an image of a top-hatted pyramid with a single eye and a Vitruvian-Man-style diagram of a bat-winged humanoid creature. "Some crazy stuff in here, right? Here's the page on the box."

"Doesn't seem to be anything here we don't already know," remarked Hop-Pop. "This really doesn't help us much."

"Yeah, but if this is here, maybe there's something else useful too…"

"Worth a shot," agreed Hop-Pop. "Besides, we don't exactly have a lot of other leads right now…"

"Well, there we go," Sprig said optimistically. "Let's keep going."

"Hmm…" Anne regarded an image of a tall green hat decorated with a star. "Hat you can pull random stuff out of… nope." She turned the page to a magic wand, also marked with a star emblem flanked by wings. "Not this either." Another page. "Huh… this could be something…" She examined a drawing of a door marked with an eye emblem, accompanied by a matching key.

"It doesn't say it goes specifically to Amphibia, but it's the closest thing I've seen so far," agreed Hop-Pop.

"It doesn't say anything about where to find it though," Anne continued, disappointed. "Still, something to keep in mind." She turned the page again.

"Who-ho, giant flaming sword!" Polly declared. Now we're talkin'!"

"SHHH!"

"Wait, this isn't just any sword…." Anne realized. "I… I think this is the same sword that…"

"Sword of Salamandrius," Hop-Pop read. "According to Amphibian mythology, he was the ancient founder of Newtopia."

"So Andrais's… what, grandpa? Great-Grandpa?" asked Sprig.

"Possibly even older than that," replied Hop-Pop. "Much of Newtopian history is shrouded in myth,"

"A weapon that pierces the soul without piercing the flesh." Anne read. "Does that mean it doesn't actually damage the body?" she asked.

"Well," Hop-Pop said nervously, "I suppose that's one interpretation…"

"You know what that means…" Anne whispered hopefully.

"Now, Anne, I don't know if you should get your hopes up. You've been making a lot of progress…"

"But if the sword doesn't actually damage the body, Marcy could still be alive!"

"SHHH!"

"She's right, it never gets funny," Polly remarked. "Get some new material, lady!"

"Anne," Hop-Pop began patiently.

"Look… I know I was kind of in denial those first few days, and I know that it's taken me awhile to come to terms with what happened, and I still kinda backslide from time to time, but… HP, this is the first tangible bit of hope I've gotten, so forgive me if I want to grab on to it as tightly as I can."

"*sigh* Okay, fair enough," Hop-Pop conceded. "Just… we don't know exactly what 'piercing the soul' means. It could be something even worse."

"Maybe." Anne conceded in turn, "but if she's still alive, we at least have a shot of getting the Marcy we know back. And I don't have to think about how she died thinking I hated her," she added sadly.

"Anne-" Sprig attempted to interrupt.

"It's okay Sprig, I know you're going to tell me she could never think that, but my heart keeps telling me different. I just want the chance to tell her I forgive her in person. And now… it looks like I might actually get it." She closed the book. "You know, I think it might be a good idea to take this home."

"They just let you take the books here?" Hop-Pop asked. "Awfully trusting."

"No, we're just borrowing it," Anne explained.

"Right," Sprig responded conspiratorially. "'Borrowing.' I gotcha. *wink*"

"No, really," Anne continued. "They let you take books home as long as you bring 'em back in a month."

"Sure, sure, As long as you bring it back, nobody has to know it's gone. *wink*"

"No, Sprig, they really do let you – ah, I'll explain on the way out."

"Do they let anyone take out books?" Hop-Pop asked hopefully. "Because I saw a few I'd be interested in…"

"Sure. You could use my library card for today," Anne suggested. "And maybe we can see about getting you your own. In fact, let's go look around, maybe we can find something for Sprig and Polly too…"

"Yeah, and then we can get some of those mangos you were talking about. I am a little hungry…" suggested Sprig.

"Manga," corrected Anne. "Actually, I think there might be something for you there…"

"Who knew there'd be a book about talking frogs from space?" marveled Sprig as they exited the library.

"I figured you'd like that one," Anne replied, smiling. "Sorry you couldn't get everything you wanted, HP, but we're kinda limited to what Bessie Two can carry."

"Ah, well, we can always come back for more," Hop-Pop agreed, placing his stack in Bessie Two's storage compartment. "I'm just happy you were able to find what you were looking for."

"Yeah. Maybe just maybe, this book'll get us one step closer to saving our worlds." She pulled on her helmet and saddled up on Bessie Two, her mind subconsciously registering an ice-cream truck that looked oddly familiar.

"Uh, Anne…" Sprig asked. "You wouldn't let anyone fry and eat our legs, would you?"

"Of course not, why would you think th – you found a French cookbook, didn't you."

"I found a French cookbook, yeah."

"Don't worry, Sprig. They'll get your legs over my dead body."

"OK, we have eyes on Boonchuy and the three ETs again," "Rocky Road" informed his partner. "Looks like they're leaving, Butter Brickle."

"Do we have to use those stupid codenames?" "Butter Brickle" asked. "It's not like Director Powers has to know."

"Well, this is kinda embarrassing… my real name is actually Rockwell Rhodes."

"Brickle" stifled a chuckle. "You're kiddin'. That is… damn."

"So what's yours?"

"Paulsen. Rupert Paulsen. Well, now that we're on a real name basis, where you from, Rockwell? Got any family?"

"Just my ma back in Minneapolis. You?"

"I got a husband, daughter…. Actually, we live pretty close to here."

"Cool, guess that's why they put you in charge. You know the area."

"Basically. Well, back to business… what do you suppose our POIs were up to in there?"

"If she used her library card at all, we can find out." He tapped away at his laptop. "Most of this seems pretty inconsequential. A selection of kid-friendly manga, collections of Shakespeare, Ibsen and Tennessee Williams plays… and something called Dr. P's Extraordinary Guide to Magic and Mystery."

"…run a search on that last one."

"Huh… says here there's no record with any publisher. In fact, the only mention of the book is this library's catalog." Rhodes looked up from the screen. "Dr. P… you don't think he wrote this book, do you?"

"Pines? It's a possibility. The question is, what could they want with a book like that?"

"You think it's time to bring them in?"

"No. Not yet. I want more evidence. But we will be speaking to Ms. Boonchuy and her new 'friends' soon enough."

A.N.: So, again, when Season 3 launches all of this will probably be obsolete but in the meantime, all's fair, right? A few little Easter eggs in here, mostly in the book. And I figured Sprig would become a Sgt. Frog fan.

Jose: Thanks, hope you like this chapter.

Next: Anne and the Plantars at Comicon! 'Til then, read and review!