Chapter 68: Toad to Redemption

Ugh, what a day. I can't believe I actually got roped into helping Mayor Toadstool.

I'd just come in to his office to deal with a bunch of parking tickets (and when I say a bunch, I'm talking enough to fill a trunk) that Hop Pop had gotten while we were out on our roadtrip… you know… parking tickets that we couldn't possibly have earned since we were, you know, not around to park. A little investigation showed that they were actually for Mrs. Jonkins' slug, Jessie. Which is actually kind of ridiculous Jessie was bright yellow, not to mention the part where she doesn't have a shell. No one would mistake them for each other – well, no one competent anyway. I wouldn't put it past our miserable excuse for a police force to pull that sort of mix-up.

I mean, Hop Pop borrowed her, like one time while Bessie was laid up with the Snail Sniffles, and he did get a parking ticket, but that was months ago – the day I first came to Wartwood, actually. Never since then.

So there I was, all set for a lovely afternoon of trying to explain all this to the mayor, but when I get there, he's like all lost in thought and stuff, and questioning life choices. Like he's…. ugh… some kind of normal person or something. You can't do this to me, man! You can't make me feel sorry for you! You're upsetting the natural order!

So, like, remember when we, and by "we" I mean One-Eyed Wally, blew up Toad Tower? Yeah, I guess it was too much to hope that Newtopia would write the whole thing off as a loss and just sorta leave the Valley alone to do its own thing. The government sent this emissary to oversee the rebuilding of Toad Tower, and for some inexplicable reason they chose Toadstool as the new head toad. So, he gets a cushy job where he can embezzle from the whole valley and Wartwood actually gets a decent mayor. Win-win, right?

Only… he doesn't want the job. He's actually gotten attached to this little mudhole. Weird, right? Almost like he'd gone through some kind of… character development or something. Been there.

Come to think of it, things have been getting done around town lately. Like, on my way here, I saw them actually starting to rebuild the schoolhouse. The funding for that's been held up for months. And somebody other than Marcy and me has been filling potholes. Maybe he actually is taking mayoring seriously?

So, he doesn't want the job. Slight problem, the emissary doesn't want to take "no" for and answer and threatened to throw Toadstool in a dungeon if he turns the job down.

…yeah, I have several questions…

So, we get to the part where he asks me for advice. Well, that's easy… just prove you're terrible at the job. I can guarantee it works. After the third time I ruined the laundry, Mom never asked me to do it again.

…and I feel bad about that now…

So get this, he starts begging me to teach him how to pretend to be incompetent, because I'm the most incompetent person he knows. Way to sweet-talk me, dude. I was going to tell him where he could stick it, when he tries the puppy dog eyes on me. *shudder* Stuff of nightmares. I finally agreed to help him just so he'd stop.

This is no doubt going to suck.

Okay, so after gathering the fam (minus Marcy, who locked herself in a shed with Frobo hoping to figure out what makes him tick), I came up with two plans to make sure the emissary (whose name I can't remember, so I'm just gonna call her Lady Questionable Fashion Choices)

[sketch of Jacinda]

What is with that headgear?

sees Toadstool as a total screw-up. Well, originally three plans, but I decided to scrap Plan C, as it involved using the NecroFrogicon to summon an ancient dragon. There was far too much risk that all would be laid to burnination. Seemed like a bit of overkill.

The first plan was to stage a fake robbery at the market in front of Toadstool and Ms. QFC and have him act too cowardly to do anything about it. It probably would have worked if Mrs. Croaker hadn't intervened and caught us. Instead of thinking that Toadstool was a coward, Ms. QFC decided that he was a crafty leader who knew how to delegate authority. Strike one.

Plan B was to make Toadstool look like an idiot by having him show off the fence he put up to keep moles out… you know, moles… they dig… so fences are useless… you see where we're going, right? Especially when you get Soggy Joe to herd the moles in our general direction. Unfortunately, through one of the most bizarre strokes of good/bad luck, when the moles attacked, Mayor Toadstool climbed up on a stack of barrels, which rolled out from under him and somehow knocked out the moles. And Ms. QFC thought he did that on purpose! What is even happening?

Well, unless we wanted a dragon burninating the countryside, that was it. The mayor was off to Toad Tower… and he didn't even get to keep Toadie. Ms. QFC decided that she was going to be his assistant Man, Toadie isn't exactly my favorite person but I could see how heartbroken the guy was.

Well, anyway, it was at that moment that Wartwood suddenly found itself under attack by bandits, led by Bog, Fens, and that creepy guy in the mask. Remember them? We haven't seen them since last season! You know, winter. The season before this one. They had us surrounded before any of us could even react.

So how did we get out of this? The Mayor did what he did best… lie like a rug. He just strolled up to Bog, told hm he was going to hire him as his second in command, and offered him this huge chest of gold and assorted other treasure, and when Bog leaned in, he slammed the lid down on his face! Not gonna lie, it was kind of impressive to watch.

Anyway, that was just enough distraction for the rest of us to kick the bandits' butts. And you'd think that would be the end of it… but then Ms. Questionable decides that Toadstool cares too much about Wartwood to be head toad… but that Bog has the right amount of ruthlessness for the job.

Starting to think that the Toads might not be the only problem with Amphibian society…

So I guess Toadstool got what he wanted, but now we have a whole new headache to deal with. Because Bog boasted that he was gonna make Grime look like a sweetheart… and Grime was just the worst.

This is totally gonna come back to bite us.

[And the Trogdor comes in the NIIIIIIIIIGHT!]

A.N.: And then it didn't. Seriously, this plot thread went nowhere. I know the season was almost over and there really was no way to fit it in, but we could have at least had an episode with Sasha dealing with these guys during the Earth arc… or have them be in charge of the marauders in "Sasha's Angels" instead of Barry…

Gloyd: They probably just found it hard to believe that the robot would have followed them all the way to Newtopia and back.

Matt: Mistaeks will hadplen.

Jose: Thanks!

MarMarFaAnne: Yep, next one might be the shortest one yet! And I do have plans for the Barrel's Warhammer chapter, and yes, it will be a Sasha chapter. That's Anne's business, I won't tell. The Owl House finale? I cheered, I cried, my heart died, then got better… honestly, I think this was the best ending we could have hoped for after Michael Rodent kneecapped the show.

I originally used "The Kerminator" as a name for what eventually became Cloak-Bot in "Frog Kids in a Human World", my abandoned Season 3 fic. I wonder how that worked. Could the machine actually read?

So that's three seasons ending with our heroine going through a portal and getting stuck in another dimension (though at least Anne and Luz were fortunate enough to be on Earth with friends and family and not alone with a psychopath in a hell dimension. HOI looks… interesting… at the least, it might give us that serialized storytelling we've been lacking. Not that those other shows haven't at least been good.

Ashley: The secret is to never be mature.

Next: Maddie and Marcy