(Alex's Pov)
I woke up some movement on the bed so I opened my eyes and saw Anne getting up and so I get up as well. I stretch a bit and hear all my bones crack a bit especially in my back. I look at her as she looked at me and I smiled a bit at her and nod then get up from the bed.
"How was the sleep?" She asked.
"It was actually good." I say and head over to my desk and looked at the notes I made.
"So, anything you need the planters and I to do?" She asked and I think and look at her.
"Polly is good with robots, right?" I asked.
"Yea why?" She asked and I think.
"Maybe we can get some parts for her, hell even get a robot." I mutter and then take some notes.
"That seems like a good idea." She says and I nod and then get up from my desk.
"Need to go talk with her." I say and Anne follows me out the room and we go look for Polly. We talked with other people as well as we searched around the caverns.
"Lieutenant." I hear and look to Grime.
"Hey what's up?" I asked.
"The Planters were looking for Anne, they're over by Stumpy's." He says and I nod.
"Oh, good we were looking for them." I say and he nods and we all head over to Stumpy's and see the planters sitting at a table.
"Anne." The little pink frog says and he hops over to us and climbs up to Anne's shoulder and he glared at me a bit which I didn't care for, I just needed to talk to his sister.
"Hey Sprig, what's up?" She asked and they get to talking and I go over to Polly.
"Hey could we talk?" I asked.
"Not going to try and assassinate me?" She asked and I rubbed my neck a bit.
"No, I just… I heard you were really good with robotics, and we could use that." I say to her and she looked to me and smiles.
"Yea, whacha need help with?" She asked.
"Well, we want to try and get some of Andria's robots to work with us, but we all know nothing about uh… changing them?" I asked.
"Programing them… hmm might be a little tough, I worked on Frobo so maybe I can work with that." She says and I nod.
"Whatever you need we can get it, we have some parts of robots if that helps." I say and she nods and I go and take her to where we stored the parts. She looked like a kid in a candy shop and got right into work and I rubbed my head and she told me she needed to work on it herself. I leave the room and I see the pink frog and Anne walking around and Anne sees me then walks over.
"So still want to ta-."
"Anne, look." The pink frog says as he points to the toad and newt who was sparing and Anne looked back to me and I shrugged my shoulder a bit.
"It's fine I have work to do." I tell her and she nods and I go talk with Grime as we make some plans. I explained to him that Polly was working on the robots a bit so we worked on a plan that would work with having a bigger army. It wasn't until we heard the ground shaking that I look to Grime and he nods as we hurry to the middle of the hideout and everyone was looking around as well and the ground stops shaking for a bit. I look around and head up the steps and placed my ear to the secret door. I hear some movement on the other end and I back up a bit and then I feel someone jump on me.
"What's going-." But before they could finish the door was busted down and I was flung back a bit and hit the other wall.
"YOU IDIOT!" I yelled as I looked to the stupid pink frog and I turned quickly to block the robots arm. But sadly it was able to grab my foot and I look to it before it lifted me up and it scanned me and flashed red then threw me to the other side of the caves.
"ATTACK!" I hear and look to see everyone going after the robots and I get up quickly to help them out, I see a flash of blue and turned to see Anne as she punched a robot in the face and I go and help Maddie as she threw a potion bomb at one of the robots melting the eyes and I sliced it in half and looked to her. She nods and runs to the others and I look over to see Grime as he bashed a few of the robots heads in and I go after any of the other ones.
"HEADS UP!" I hear and a robots head flys past me and I look to see Anne as she looked to me and I nod as we finish taking out the last robot.
"That was close." I hear and I grip my hands into fists.
"YOU IDIOT, YOU JUST GAVE THEM OUR LOCATION!" I yelled at the pink frog as I glared at him.
"Alex-."
"NO DON'T GIVE HIM AN EXCUSE HE SHOULD HAVE KEPT HIS MOUTH SHUT, NOW THEY KNOW WHERE WE ARE!" I yelled at Anne and she looked to me as I seethed with anger.
"Alex he didn't know." Grimes says and I glare at him too. I took a few deep breaths and clenched my hands a bit.
"The Lieutenant is right though, if he didn't speak, we wouldn't have been found." Percy says.
"Thank you, someone at least understands." I say.
"Hey now don't get mad at sprig." The old orange frog says and I look to him.
"He… you know nothing of what's going on." I say to him.
"Well we just got here." He argued back and I was about to strangle the old frog but Grime held me back.
"Your grandson just cost us a place to stay hidden, the lieutenant knew what he was doing." Ms. Croaker says and I look to her then back to the old frog.
"Sprig didn't know." He argued.
"God fucking." I mutter and sighed.
"We can head back to Toad Tower." Grimes offers.
"Can't the place was obliterated a few months back by Darcy." Ivy says.
"What about…. No, it's no man's land at this point." I mutter as I think.
"We could head to where Valariana is." Anne says and I look to her.
"Can't Darcy has a full blown army waiting near your old temple, they're afraid that you might be back… which now they know." I mutter.
"How would they?" She asked.
"Darcy was able to find us every time Sa- Sorry Alex used his powers, that's why he isn't use to them as much because they could track him that way." Ivy says as she comes over to us.
"That's why I didn't use them here." I explained to Anne.
"Wait could they track me too?" Anne asked and we shrugged.
"No clue, but I don't want to test that out." I say.
"I'm sorry." The pink frog says and I look to him and shake my head.
"Sorry isn't going to cut this." I tell him and I go over to Maddie and Ivy.
"We can try and set camp near Toad Tower, maybe go through the underground like last time." Ivy says.
"Seems like the only plan we do have." Maddie says and I nod at this.
"Ok, get everyone ready, we're going to have to go by nightfall… I don't think Darcy will be coming by soon." I say and everyone goes and gets ready.
"Alex-."
"Not now Anne." I say as I helped get any supplies ready for the trip.
"Look I'm… Sprig is sorry-."
"He's only saying sorry because everyone was arguing, look, things are hectic here, this is life or death Darcy and Andrias don't care who they kill or who they let live." I tell her.
"I know, I know it's just… he's upset at himself for it, I told him to try and talk to you, you know… bury the hatchet, I… it was partly my fault as well." She says and I look to her and sighed.
"Look… I get it… maybe we can talk later but right now we need to get ready to move out." I say and turn back to my work. Polly and I were able to get some of the robot parts into a wagon for her to work on and I went to my room to grab any of my things, I put all my papers and books into a bag and just as I walked out I saw Grime talking to Yunan.
"What's up you two?" I asked.
"Nothing just making sure we have everything we need… are you ok?" Yunan asked and I nodded.
"Yea, I'm fine." I state and she nods and we all head out as night fell. I was walking next to Grime's cart chatting with him and I see pink frog and Anne talking to each other. I would see the frog boy looking at me then looking away quickly and I looked to see Anne looking at me then wave a bit and I turned back to look in front of me.
"Maybe you should talk to them?" Grime says and I shake my head.
"Not now." I tell him.
"Explain to them what's going on, they haven't been here for ten years." He says and I groaned.
"Will you shut up if I do?" I asked and I saw him smile.
"Maybe, maybe not, looks like you'll have to talk to them to find out." He says and I glare at him and then I sighed.
"Fine, old man." I mutter.
"I am not that old." He says as I walked backwards a bit till I get to Anne.
"Hey, want to talk?" I asked as I kept looking forward.
"Oh uh, I'll-."
"You too frog boy." I say to him.
"It's Sprig." He says and I nod.
"Ok, pink dude." I joke and look to him.
"Look, things are just… a lot scarier right now, and what you did was stupid." I say to him.
"I didn't-."
"I know you didn't mean to do it… we should have told you guys that at some points we have to keep quiet and I didn't think at the time to say anything on it… I was use to everyone already knowing that it just slipped my mind." I explain to him.
"But yea… still stupid of you." I muttered.
"So, are we good?" He asked and I look down to him.
"For now, yes." I tell him and he looked happy as he hopped over to his grandfather and Anne and I were walking together.
"I'm sorry-." She tried to say but I held my hand up.
"Nothing for you to feel sorry about, or say sorry at all, I messed up, it's my fault I take responsibility for what happened." I tell her and she punches my shoulder and I look to her.
"When did you get mature dude?" She asked.
"Oh, about ten years ago… or five if you count me still trying to get everyone to work together." I shrugged and looked to her. I see a leaf in her hair and chuckled a bit.
"What? Something on my face?" She asked and I shook my head a bit.
"Nah, you got a leaf in your hair… and maybe a twig or two." I joke and she sighed as she went to pull the said items out her hair.
"Seems like this is going to happen any time I return." She says and I laughed a bit.
"Hey if you need, we can make you a pair of shoes, it's got to hurt walking with only one shoe." I tell her.
"Nah it's fine, trust me, it was way worse when I was in the swamps, a snake almost bit my toe." She says and I look at her.
"Speaking of your job, how were you able to come back here if you were so busy with work?" I asked.
"So funny story." She says and then explained to me that a bunch of government workers had been following her and the Planters for years, they even caught them once trying to ask if they were trying to take over the world and I laughed at this.
"So, they thought that frog people wanted to take over earth?" I laughed and so does she.
"I know right? Anyway, once we really got to talking and after I was able to beat a few FBI agents with a toy lightsaber mind you, we came to an agreement that they would help the Planters get back so long as we can keep this whole thing on the down low." She explained that they had to make the portal in secret because the Agent didn't want the government to have any access to this world.
"I don't know how we're going to do that later on though, now that you're back Darcy is going to do as much as they can to try and gain the full power of the music box." I explained.
"I was hoping we could try and avoid that, but in all honesty, I'm not really letting it all out if Andrias uses the box." She says and I shake my head a bit as I chuckled.
"So, what happened in school… people ask about us?" I asked and she looked to me then to the ground as we walked more in the back so no one could hear us.
"People kept asking where you and Marcy were… people blamed you for us disappearing, your mom mostly blaming you." She says and I rubbed my neck and sighed.
"Bet she still made it all about herself though, right?" I asked.
"Yea… I don't know how she could though, your dad though… he seemed so worried when we actually did talk, I tried to explain that you were ok but… he's worried." She says and I nod.
"Yea dad worried a lot about me growing up… it's part of the reason I fought a lot, to show him I can take care of myself." I tell her.
"Remember when we were little and you tried to help us with those bullies at the playground?" She laughed and I groaned.
"Don't remind me, I was so… cringy." I say and she laughed.
"How could I forget that? It's how we all met and became friends." She says and I nod a bit.
"Yea… but I was still weird… that's why they didn't do anything they felt sorry for me." I say making Anne laugh more.
"You're realizing that now?" She asked and I look to her.
"I've been busy." I say and she laughed some more and I couldn't help but smile at this.
"Dude, the fact that it took you… so long." She laughs and I shake my head.
"Ah, screw you Boonchuy." I say.
"Hey, it's Boonchuy-Planter to you." She says.
"Might as well add your boyfriends last name too." I joke and she punched me.
"I'm single dude." She says and I laughed.
"Same." I joked and she turns red and looked away as we walked. I felt a bit bad for talking about that.
"Hey I didn't mean to bring that up you know… it was a joke." I say to her but she doesn't answer me and I rubbed my neck as I tried to think of something.
"I don't know why but I just couldn't date anyone, I guess I was so worried about studying and trying to get back to you and Marcy that it just never… happened." She explained.
"Well, we will get Marcy back… now that I think about it, what am I going to do about school, I mean I'm way to old to go back to Saint James." I say and look to Anne.
"You could get a GED." She says and I think.
"You know… I still don't know what I want to work as though, I mean I could be a great commander but… I'd like to do something else you know?" I asked.
"Yea I get that, I didn't know what I wanted to be when I was in high school, at first I was thinking about being a teacher, but then I got to thinking about how I changed from someone who didn't like frogs to loving the idea of working with frogs… and I still teach kids who come to the aquarium on field trips, so that's a plus, I even got the nickname Frog Lady." She says and I chuckled.
"Frog Lady." I mutter.
"Hey, I'm proud of that nickname." She says and I nod.
"Sorry I didn't mean to sound rude." I say and she nods.
"It's fine." She says and I looked to the carts ahead of us.
"It's still so weird though, you and the Planters being back and all." I say.
"Yea… I'm sorry we couldn't get back sooner." She says and I wave it off.
"You don't need to be sorry about that, besides we should have gotten the box by now but still haven't." I say to her.
"Have you guys even gotten close?" She asked and I nodded.
"Yea, one time it's when I gained my powers and used them for the first time, I went all berserk and destroyed a lot of robots and got into the castle… Darcy was apparently waiting for me and had this big scythe made of flames and well… let's just say they were able to get me in the back." I tell her.
"Wait what?" She asked.
"Oh yea, huge scar apparently from my neck down my spine." I say.
"Can I see it?" She asked and I nodded as I took m shirt off, thanking whatever deity out there that made the temple do this to me or I would be embarrassed from all hell.
"Holy shit dude how are you still walking?" She asked as I felt her hand trace the scar a bit and I stiffened up at the contact.
"I uh… have no idea, but at least I didn't bleed out." I joked and then hurried to put my shirt back on and kept walking.
"That… I just." She says and I see her hold her own head in worry.
"Hey maybe it was because I had my powers, I have no idea but this is why I said that this is a life-or-death situation." I explained to her and she nods.
"Has… has Marcy." She tried to ask something.
"If you're wondering if Marcy knows, then no she doesn't, the core said something about keeping her locked in her mind… I just hope she hasn't seen anything that's happened but… to not know anything that happened, to not know about your life for ten years it's got to be hell."
"I didn't think about that." She says and I nod.
"Yea… I haven't been able to talk to her at all, it's… frustrating." I looked to see the carts have stopped so Anne and I head up to the front.
"Maddie spotted a few robots this way." Ivy says and I nod as think.
"Ok, Maddie, Ivy and I will head up and take out the robots, Maddie got any invisibility on you?" I asked her and she nods as she hands the potions to Ivy and I.
"Grime, Yunan and Ms. Croaker you make sure no other robots are in the area, if there is take them out, if you think you can't fight them off head down to the swamplands." I explained.
"What about us?" Anne asked.
"You guys stay here and help them if needed, we just need three people to go." I tell her and she nods and Ivy, Maddie and I drink the potions and head out. The good thing about Maddie's potion is that we are able to see each other but no one could see us, so it was the best to use in a fight.
"I Should have made more when we were back in the secret base, if everyone had their own bottle." Maddie says and I look to her as we ran to the robots.
"Don't dwell on it, we didn't think something like that would happen, let's work on taking these guys down." I say and she nods and we head up to the robots and take them out as best as we could. There were a few that were hard to get to the point where it was able to grab me and throw me into one of the rundown buildings. I hurt like hell when my back hit the wall and as I was getting up one of the robots aimed its laser guns at me and I tried to block it with my arm before I hear some metal break. I look to see the robot was taken down by Maddie and I nod to her and tried to get up but my back hurt so I sat back down.
"Are you ok is your back hurting again?" Ivy asked and I nod.
"I'll be fine in a bit; you can go tell the others it's ok." I tell her and she nods as she leaves Maddie and I here.
"Here I have a potion to help you." She says and I nod as I sit up a bit and she hands me the vile and I took a drink and shook my head.
"Bleh, still nasty." I mutter.
"Well, it's got swamp water in it." She says and I laughed a bit as I tried to get up just as Grimes and the others came over the hill.
"Alex are you ok?" Anne asked and I nodded.
"Yea I'm good nothing to worry about." I wave it off as I get up fully.
"Are you sure?" Grimes asked and I nod.
"Yes, I'm good stop asking." I say and begin to walk. No one said anything for a while but we finally got to Toad Tower the parts that still stood at least and we all get inside and I took a seat by the gate after Percy and I closed it.
"Ok everyone, head down to the cellar and through the underground tunnel we can build from there tomorrow but right now we all need some rest." Yunan says and everyone went to do just that.
"Ivy told me your back hurts?" I hear and look up to Anne and wave her off.
"It's fine, not as bad."
"Not as bad?" She asked.
"Sometimes I get a pinch here and there… I just want to know how the robot was able to grab me." I mutter the last part and I look to Anne who took a seat next to me.
"Let me see." She says and I look at her confused.
"Your back dummy." She says and I nod and pull the back of my shirt up and I hear her hiss a bit.
"How bad?" I asked.
"Bruised but no bleeding or anything." She says and touches my back a bit.
"Does that hurt?" She asked and I shook my head.
"Nah, feels nice." I say quietly.
"Well, that's good, no significant damages." She says and I nod as she stopped rubbing my back and I lower my shirt back down and lean on the wall a bit, just being careful of my back though.
"Didn't that one robot scan you or something?" Anne asked and I think a bit.
"Yea but I don't see… oooh." I mutter and grabbed my journal and took some notes on it and Anne laughed a bit.
"What?" I asked as I wrote some more.
"You once told Marcy about her constant writing." She says and I look to her.
"Well, I told her she didn't need to write everything in the moment, I mean could you see me writing stuff down while fighting an army of advanced robots?" I asked.
"I could actually." She says and I shake my head and wrote some more.
"So, you write only in amphibian?" She asked and I nodded.
"Yea, it's just… ever since I missed what the other temple had written before it turned to rubble it's been bothering me you know? And if I know how to read the language faster, I won't miss anything important." I explained.
"So, you don't know what the temple said exactly?" She asked and I shrugged and went to the first page and showed her.
"The only sentence I could get was 'This form will change you-.' And that was it, that was all I could remember… maybe it meant the whole physical stuff like getting the deeper voice, growing a beard and… yea so I don't know." I shrugged it off and went back to the previous page and wrote some things down.
"Could be… what exactly happened in the temple?" She asked and I look to her then to the journal.
"It wasn't physical like the first one I went into, it was more mental, it just messed with me a lot." I say as I finished writing and closed the book and looked to her.
"I don't bother with it anymore, not like it's a bad thing." I tell her.
"Could it also be dealing with everything you had to do in the past ten years?" She asked.
"Well, it was five years ago when we went to look for the temple, so it had to be for the last five years, but again it doesn't bother me anymore, I'm actually a bit happy with what happened." I tell her, though I didn't want to tell her what the temple had really done to me, I didn't want her to think I thought badly of them, or that I actually believed the temple when it made them say those things about me. I know they loved me no matter what I decided to do.
"There has to be more to it though." She says.
"Hmm, no just what I told you." I lied and she looked to me.
"So again, the temple did this to you?" She asked and I nodded.
"Don't know how and I could care less, feels great and it feels like me." I tell her.
"That's actually really cool that it was able to change you physically, and you do look happier." She says and I nod.
"Yea… uh so anyway, why don't you tell me more about back home." I say and she looked to me but nods and I listen to her as she talked. I watched as she moved her hands around to emphasize how she and Sprig took a hot air balloon on his birthday, and how in the middle of falling she mentions his birthday gift and they both stopped screaming when it was mentioned. It was funny to hear how she had made cookies as well to try and make the Planters happy and her mom had asked how she was able to get them to be crunchy.
"She ended up spitting the cookie in my dads face once he asked if he smelled cookies." She says and I laughed.
"Oh, and don't get me started when we went to the temple." She says.
"Oh, damn I forgot about that place." I say and she laughed.
"You know the sad thing is, I didn't really like going there a lot as I grew up, but after I went missing I didn't realize everyone there helped my mom and dad out, I forgot that we all treat each other like family and not just some people, the temple really liked the Planters too, and I want to go again when we get back, I can bring you and Marcy and we can have so much fun, Sprig and Polly had been taking lessons there and HopPop loves the theatrics." She says and I smiled at this.
"You'd really want to bring me along?" I asked and she nods.
"Yea, I mean if you want too that is." She says and I nod.
"That seems nice." I say and closed my eyes a bit.
"Getting tired?" She asked.
"Nah just resting my eyes."
"That mean you are tired."
"Nah."
"Uh yeah."
"I'm not though."
"Sure, you aren't." She says and I opened one eye and looked to see her crossing her arms as she looked at me and I sighed.
"Ok maybe a little." I mutter.
"Knew it, it's all those years of babysitting." She says and I chuckled.
"Anne Boonchuy a babysitter?" I asked and she nod.
"I mean working at the aquarium with a fieldtrip involved kind makes me a babysitter, but I did use to babysit the kids at the temple for a while." She explained and I nod and close my eye again.
"You matured a lot." I say quietly with a yawn.
"You did too you know."
"Hah, I'm still the same old person sometimes, though now I'm not manipulating people." I joked.
"Did… did you think you were?" She asked and I shrug a bit.
"Somedays I do, that's why Yunan, Grimes and Ms. Croaker take charge sometimes when I can't… its best to have multiple people in charge from each group that way we can all hear each other out and not have one person be over worked." I explained.
"Seems like a good idea." She says and I nod.
"Best one I've had in a long time." I yawned again and shook my head at this.
"What do you mean by that?" She asked.
"Hmm, sometimes I messed up and I had to be corrected, I once forgot we didn't take back the power grids the robots took from us and suggested that Grimes and I could camp there and keep heading to the castle that way to try and sneak up on Andrias, though it was a good idea it's just I forgot a detail." I explained to her.
"So, it wasn't so much a bad plan just that you forgot a small detail." Anne says.
"Hm yea it can be put that way." I say and opened my eyes and looked to Anne.
"You know if you ever need to talk to someone about anything I'm here for you." She says as she placed a hand on my shoulder and I look to the floor.
"Yea, I know." I say and get up.
"Well time to hit the hay, we got a long day ahead of us." I say and we both headed to the cellar and down to the underground tunnels. Anne goes over to the planters and I head over to Grime who was reading over some papers by the lantern.
"Have a nice talk?" He asked in a whisper and I nod.
"Yea a little." I whispered back to him and he nods.
"Tired?" He asked and I nod.
"I'll keep watch you get some rest; we'll have Maddie look at your back tomorrow." He says and I just nodded as I was finally able to sleep. Hours would pass and I woke up to some pain in my back mostly due to how I was laying in a sitting position rather than laying down.
"Morning, we have breakfast ready." I hear and look to see Grime as he hands me a plate and I nod in thanks and we ate together.
"Was thinking about going to get some wood to make the tunnels more reinforced, that way the walls won't come down on us." I mention to him.
"Sounds good to me, we can work on digging a bigger cavern system and make rooms for everyone and a bit of a workshop too for the uh… little pink one." He says as he looked to the Planters.
"Polly." I say.
"Yes, that one." He says and I smiled at him and we finished eating. I head up and out the underground and went into one of the wagons to borrow and axe from them. I hear someone behind me and look to see Anne and the squeak toy.
"Did you need something?" I asked.
"HP told us to help you while Polly worked on her robots, she's still working on Frobo though." The frog says and I nod.
"Alright, well I can put you two to work." I joked as we opened the doors slightly and I don't see anyone or anything in sight. I motion for them to follow me as I grabbed the abandoned wheel barrel and we headed into the wooded area and I found some fallen trees and got to work as the frog boy grabbed some twigs and other things like leaves and such. I marked on the logs where I was going to cut with my pencil and started to chop away. Anne helped him and they set the stuff in the bag just as I was able to get some logs cut.
"I'm going to take these to the others and then I'll be right back." The frog says and I nod.
"Alright, be careful squeakers." I joke and he looked to me and I looked at him and he hops away.
"Need help?" Anne asked and I nodded.
"Want to take some of the logs and place them in the wheel barrel?" I asked. She nods as she picks up only half of the log and I see she is struggling a bit so I set the axe down and I grabbed the other end lifting it up with ease.
"Got some muscle there Waybright." She says and I chuckled as we set the log in the wheel barrel.
"Got to keep my strength somehow." I say and flex a bit and she laughed at this.
"Woah put those guns away." She joked and I laughed at this and got back to work. We would take the logs back to the tower and set them to the side and then head back out to the woods to get some more. I made sure we didn't get any of the trees close to the tower and went for the ones that were already knocked down. At some point we went deeper into the woods and I was beginning to sweat a lot so out of habit I took my shirt off and got back to work. It wasn't till I hear Anne's breath hitch that I turned to see her staring at me with a red face before she quickly looked away and grabbed any debris on the ground. I shrugged it off and got back to work.
"So…not much to talk about anymore hu?" I asked as I moved the log onto the wheel barrel and looked to Anne.
"No not really it was pretty much repetitive back home… though I'd like to hear some more stuff about what you and the rebellion were doing." She says.
"Hmm, not much on that either other than training and making plans, nothing really new happened." I tell her as we take a break.
"Seems that Maddie is getting better with her potions." She says and I think and then laughed.
"Oh right, she use to make curses, well she still does, one time she cursed Yunan to squawk like a crow for three days because she kept bothering her." I say as I remember that day.
"Oh dude, that reminds me when we thought that Maddie had cursed Sprig and I after I sent her a message saying that sprig wanted to break off their engagement." She says.
"Woah hold on, they were engaged?" I asked and she nods.
"It was a small price for pizza dough." She says and I laughed at this.
"Oh my god, you gave up his happiness for pizza dough?" I asked and she nods.
"Yea I realized I was selfish but I really wanted them to try pizza and to win the contest at least once, but it turned out it wasn't even Maddie that cursed us, we thought it was her but we were wrong… I miss Kurt." She says and I raised a brow at her.
"Oh right, I was cursed to turn into a bird monster, think big bird but with my hair color and thinner." She says and I think and smiled a bit.
"So, you could speak bird?" I asked and she nodded.
"Yep, Kurt was my crow buddy… I even said 'I'll miss you Kurt I don't know if it was a blessing or a curse.' Of course, Sprig had to bring up that it was literally a curse." She says as she looked to the sky a bit.
"Well knowing you, you were too emotional at the time to really think it was a curse." I mentioned.
"Oh yea, I most certainly was… but I do know that Sprig has a crush on another girl." She says and I look to her.
"Oh yea? Someone in our world?" I asked.
"Oh god no… it's Ivy." She says and I look to her in shock.
"He likes her?" I asked.
"Yep, big old crush on her, he still likes her." She says.
"Hmm, you know Ivy did keep bringing up squeakers a lot when she was younger, I mean she still did wonder how he was and such." I recalled as I got back up from sitting down.
"They would be perfect for each other." She says and I shake my head a bit.
"Still a hopeless romantic Anne." I say and get back to work.
"How are you still single?" I asked.
"Again, I just didn't feel like it, I mean I've had a few crushes but none of them clicked." She says and I look to her.
"Oh, so Anne did have a few crushes, do tell." I say as I cut the wood again.
"I don't want to talk about it." She says and I look to her.
"Would it make you feel better if I told you mine?" I asked her. She looked to the side a bit but nodded and I smiled.
"Well, I once had a huge, and I mean huge mando crush on Marcy." I say and looked to see her reaction.
"WHAT?!" She yelled and I covered her mouth and looked around. When I didn't see any movement and removed my hand and looked to her.
"You had a crush on Marcy?" She asked and I nodded and got back to work.
"But to be fair I don't think she would have liked me if I was still the way I was… and she was way to invested in her games, I think I would have been jealous." I explained.
"Damn." She says and I look at her.
"That doesn't weird you out, does it?" I asked.
"No, I mean I read somewhere that people who have been friends for years could develop crushes on their friends, I just didn't think you would have a crush on Marcy… or she would have a crush on you." She says and I shrugged.
"The world may never know, to bad though we would have caused a lot of problems if we did get together, I mean with her skills and my planning we would have been arrested at least ten times by now if they could catch us." I joked.
"I just didn't think you would have a crush on a girl you know?" She asked and I laughed.
"I'm bisexual Anne, I just went to guys more because my mom, but I really like girls." I tell her and look at her red face.
"I didn't mean… I mean." She says and I laughed.
"It's fine Anne." I tell her and she nods.
"I mean I won't lie girls are pretty." She says and I nod.
"Yea… they are." I say and then get up and get back to work and Anne helps me. we loaded up the last of the logs into the wheelbarrow and I put my shirt back on before I pushed the cart to the tower.
"I mean… you're handsome too." She says and I stop and look at her.
"Just saying." She says and walks off more and I shake my head but smiled as we got the logs into the tower. I helped them set the logs in place to keep the walls stable and we got almost to the halfway point before we all decided to stop and take a break. Anne was talking with Polly and Sprig as she rambled on about how she can change the robots programming.
"So, I just need to get ahold of the memory but I need to go to the computer." She says and I was confused.
"We don't have computers." I say as I walked up to them.
"Technically we do, HopPop do you mind if we take Bessy to the valleys?" Anne asked.
"Sure, just be careful." He says and I look to them.
"Alright, Alex are you wanting to come?" Anne asked and I look to Grime as he nods.
"I can handle it from here." He says and I nod and look to Anne.
"Alright, when do you want to head out?" I asked.
"We can leave tonight after dinner." Sprig says and I agreed. We got everything for dinner and I watched as Anne made some of the food that was at her family restaurant.
"Looks like a mix between your parent's food and Amphibia food." I say to her.
"Oh yea, Stumpy and I fixed up his restaurant and we made a mix between the two." She says.
"Woah, wait I didn't hear about this." I say and look to Stumpy who nods.
"Yea she sure did, all because Duckweed was being a jerk and she didn't like it." He says.
"Well, more so with the fact that he doesn't know how hard it is to run a restaurant, but yes he was a jerk and I didn't like it." She says and I laughed a bit at this.
"I bet he loved the food." I say.
"Funny thing is, he had a full-on disguise so we didn't even know he was here… also I may have made a dish that almost killed everyone but hey we handled it and he thought it was amazing." She says.
"Food that kills? Challenging." I say and she laughed.
"I am not going to try and recreate that; one killer squid dish is my limit." She says and I watched her.
"Want to learn? I don't think you'll like the spice." She says.
"Oh, I ate one of those peppers in the Planters house.
"Oh my god not HopPops pain peppers." Anne says and I looked at her.
"Pain Peppers?" I asked.
"Yea dude, they even have a saying for them 'so hot they'll make you wish you were dead' you tried one?" She asked.
"No… Yea." I sighed in defeat.
"And yet you live to tell the tale." She joked.
"I didn't know they were pain peppers, I thought they were just like those peppers at home, they look hot but they're actually sweet?" I asked her.
"Oh god no, Sprig just touched it with his tongue and he was asking for someone to kill him." She laughed.
"It's true, I asked for someone to kill me… they're still good though." He says and I nod.
"Yea after the burning goes down, I ran out screaming my whole mouth was on fire, couldn't feel it for a month." I tell her.
"You ate the whole thing?" Polly asked and I nod and she laughed.
"You have more guts than I do, I wouldn't even touch those." She says and I smiled a bit.
"I think I'll make something plain for you." Anne says.
"Nah I need to get use to spicy food, haven't had any in a long time." I say. We get to work and we made some Spicy Thai noodles and Anne put some to the side that were plain for the ones who couldn't handle the spice as much. We all ate and I was looking at my food a bit.
"Dude, you don't have to have the spicy noodles, you could just eat the plain ones." She says and I shake my head.
"I ain't scared just… I don't know makes me miss home." I say and ate some of the noodles. It was really good and not as spicy which was great for me.
"Have you tried to recreate any foods from home?" She asked and I shook my head.
"Couldn't really, my mom never made anything and my dad mostly got take-out… also I know how the tomato plants are here and I am not going to go near them." I say and Anne giggles.
"Yea they are scary." She says and we just eat in silence for a bit. Everyone was getting settled for the night and I went to help Polly with bringing all the memory cards from the robots and I looked to Anne as she pet Bessy.
"Oh, I missed you so much girl." She says as she hugged the giant snail.
"You know when I first came here, I slept with her and the little snail." I say and she looked to me and laughed a bit.
"You did?" She asked and I nodded.
"First thing he said when he woke up was 'of course this is my natural hair color.' As if I asked." Grimes says and I turned red and looked to him.
"Well, it is." I mutter.
"Mhm, explain the roots." He says and I covered my head.
"New look." I say to him and we laughed as I moved my hands down.
"Be safe, Alex you know what to do if anything happens." He says and I nod.
"Yep, if I get captured, don't say a thing, also don't die." I say and he nods.
"Also, if you go near the old library, I suggest getting a few books there if you can, maybe we could find out more about the core." He says and I nodded and the Planters along with Anne were heading out and I quickly follow them.
"So, let's play twenty questions." Sprig says.
"Sure, but how long will it take us to get to the robot place?" I asked.
"Sadly a few days, luckily we can go through the mountains unlike the first time we were here." Anne says and I nod.
"I forgot that was a thing, we mostly stayed in Wartwood, plus the castle moves around a lot." I mutter and think a bit.
"Ok let's start the game." Anne says.
"Hmm, while in the human realm did you or Polly learn Thai?" I asked.
"I did, let's just say I was the best in the class, thank you, Thai romance shows." She says and I laughed.
"Hey you still speak German, right?" Anne asked.
"Ein bisschen, ich bin allerdings ein bisschen eingerostet, ich lese heutzutage meistens Amphibien." I say to her.
"ยังไม่รู้เลยว่าคุณพูดอะไร." She responds.
"Of course, you don't." I laughed as she looked at me in shock.
"Wait when did you?" She asked and I look to her.
"I assumed you might have said you didn't know what I said in German, I remember you saying something like that once when I was talking to my grandmother on the phone." I tell her.
"Oh right." She says and laughed a bit.
"It's fine." I say and think.
"You still playing tennis?" I asked her.
"Eh sometimes, I got a scholarship for it, but I was so focused on my work and assignments to the swamps that I just didn't play it anymore." She tells me.
"It's true, we went to a few of her games in college, not many people showed up though." Sprig says and I look to Anne.
"Did you ever travel out the country?" I asked her.
"Once, to South America, but something happened that we had to leave early… I was so hyped on trying to find a new species though." She sighed and I laughed.
"Don't worry you have all the time in the world when you get back." I say as I pat her back.
"What… are you not going to come back?" She asked as she stopped walking and so did I as I looked to her.
"Eh I mean I've been thinking on it, come on Anne, I didn't finish school, I don't want to get a dumb GED, I mean I've been gone for ten years my mom and dad probably have other kids." I ranted.
"But you said your dad-."
"Just because he looked happy at my choice doesn't mean I was going to be his only kid Anne; they probably have a whole new family anyway." I say and walk again.
"I mean… they still have to miss you even a little, at least let them know you're alive." She says and I look back to her.
"And then what? Where would I go?" I asked her.
"You could live with me till you could get a job." She says and I laughed at this.
"You try to see the bright side of everything Anne but honestly, I didn't think much has changed since I had left, they won't accept anyone with out some sort of degree and work experience, and what do I tell them? Oh, I use to lead an entire army of toads, newts and frogs… they'll throw me into the loony bin." I tell her.
"I just…they have programs-."
"That you would have to pay for." I say and look at her.
"I mean I would-."
"No, you won't because I'll be staying here." I tell her.
"It's just… I just." She tries to say and I see tears in her eyes so I place my hands on her shoulders and she looks at me.
"Why are you crying?" I asked.
"I missed you and Marcy every day, for the past ten years I've missed you two so much and I just…. I just don't want to lose you two again, I was scared that the Planters and I would never get back, that I would never see you again…. And Marcy, you and Marcy." She says and I looked to the side a bit and I let go of her shoulders.
"I just… there isn't really anything for me to do back home and even if I did come back would my parents even care? I mean look at me, my mom hated the fact that I didn't feel right as a girl, she'll just yell and scream at me." I tell Anne.
"You don't have to talk to her you know." She tells me and I nod a bit.
"I know but knowing her she'll find out one way or another." I mutter and walk again. We were miles away from the tower and we decided that we should rest up for the night. Polly and Sprig slept in the fwagon as they called it and Anne and I were sitting by a fire I had made and she had a blanket wrapped around her and I look to her.
"I'm sorry if I upset you with what I had said earlier." I say to her and she looked to me.
"No, no I get it you… you are right." She says and I look at her more.
"I don't… want you feel bad for not coming back home… maybe we can get the music box back and I can come back to visit all the time." She says excited and I look at her smile.
"Yea… that would be great." I say and think a bit and grabbed my journal and start writing and then I just start to dry and I would look to Anne from the corner of my eyes and trace out some of her features.
"Whatcha doing?" She asked.
"Taking notes." I tell her and looked to my book again.
"Ah." She says and I look at her.
"We just got to get Marcy back." I say as I placed my pencil in my book and looked to Anne.
"Honestly she would be more helpful with all of this." I muttered and placed my hand on my head.
"What are you saying?" She asked.
"I'm saying Marcy shouldn't have to… Andrias is a fucking prick, all because Marcy was better than him, smarter than him, he does this to her? Why? She was vulnerable and he took advantage of that." I said getting angry and I clench my hands together and I felt hot.
"I get it you're mad." She says.
"I'm more than mad, I'm pissed, all of this was because that giant lizard is pissed off that he was outsmarted by a teenage human girl?" I asked and sighed.
"I think you should get to sleep." She tells me and I look at her and then to my lap.
"Yea… yea." I mutter and looked to the wagon.
"I am sorry for yelling at Sprig." I mutter.
"He understands, I do too and I'm sorry if I was sounding like I was trying to give him a reason to act like that." She says and I chuckled.
"It's fine… alright, you get some sleep, I'll take the first watch." I tell her.
"Uh no, I'll take first watch." She says and I laughed a bit.
"We really going to argue over this?" I asked her.
"Yep." She says and I look at her.
"Rock paper scissors?" I asked.
"Nope, you get some sleep." She says and I rubbed my face.
"I'll sleep with one eye open." I joked and she laughed a bit at this.
"Whatever dude." She says and take a breath and looked to the fire. I then feel Anne lay her head on my shoulder and I look at her.
"Get some sleep Anne." I say and she nods a bit and I hear her yawn just a little. I place my arm around her shoulders and kept her close to me as I just kept looking into the flames.