(Marcy's Pov)
Alex had pushed Anne and I back into our own world, why would he do that? Why would he make a deal with Andrias knowing full well how evil he is, after all the things I went through he knows that anything Andrias does is evil. The Core is no better, the Core was the cause of all of this. And yet he made a deal with them?
"ALEX FUCKING GOD DAMN IT, GET THE PORTAL OPEN AGAIN!" I could hear Anne yell as the scientist was working as best as she could.
"Anne, you need to calm down, Terri is trying her best." This man says to her and I see Anne glaring at him.
"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP I NEED THAT PORTAL OPENED NOW GOD DAMN IT!" She yelled at him and he seemed a bit taken back by her outburst and she looked to the machines frantic and then to the scientist known as Terri. I get up from the ground and place my hand on Anne's shoulder and she looked to me, her eyes a flaming blue color and she looked back to everyone in the room.
"Please… please I need to get him back." She whispered as she seemed to have calmed down just a bit.
"What happened?" I hear and look to see Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy.
"Alex… we need to get him… we didn't… he… we need to go back now." Anne says and I see the tears in her eyes as she wiped them away and she looked to her parents and I kept my hand on her shoulder.
"We'll get him back, we will save him and everyone we just need you to relax ok Anne, yelling and freaking out isn't going to help him." I say and she shakes her head.
"I was gone for ten years…. Not again… not again." She says and I look to her parents as they come and give her a hug.
"With the Data I have on the portal we can try again in a few hours, there is still some problems with the machine." Terri says and I nod to this and look to Anne.
"Anne it's going to be fine, Alex… he has to have a reason for this, he knows what he's doing." I tell her, though I don't believe it myself. I'm still having a hard time believing that Alex has changed, but for now I need Anne to calm down.
"No…. he… betrayed us again." I hear her hiccup and I rubbed her back gently as her parents let her go. She took a seat on the ground and I took a seat next to her.
"He said nothing bad would happen and now look… what if we can't get back?" She says panicking and I pulled her into a hug as I feel her tears hit my shirt.
"He promised." I hear her mutter. I look to her parents a bit and then down to Anne's shoulder. I felt bad for her, she got her trust back in Alex and he does this to us. I would feel heart broken too if someone I loved did this to me.
"It's ok, we will get back, Teri just said a few hours, right?" I asked and she nods as I look up to her.
"Right just a few hours." She says and Anne pulls away and looked to the machine that had apparently helped Anne get back to us.
"Right exactly what happened?" The strange man asked and Anne just kept quiet then looks to the ground as she pulled her legs up to her chest.
"I just need to get him back." She muttered as she looked to the machine some more and I look to the Man and then Anne's Parents.
"Marcy… how are you?" Mrs. Boonchuy asked.
"I… don't know." I tell her honestly and looked to Anne as she just kept looking in front of her. As if the portal would magically open if she glared at it. I pat her shoulder a bit as I get up to go and talk to her parents in private.
"What happened?" Mr. Boonchuy asked.
"Uh… Alex… or uh… we don't know everything, all we know-."
"Alex?" I hear and looked to see the strange man and I back up a bit.
"Oh sorry, I'm Mr. X, I sort of tried to kidnap the Planters thinking they had a huge plan to take over the world." He says and I look to him.
"You thought that farmer frogs wanted to take over the world?" I asked and he looked to me.
"Well, I didn't know that before." He says and I nod.
"Alright, I'll give you that." I say.
"Anyway, who is this Alex person?" He asked and I looked to the Boonchuy's.
"It's fine he's not going to do anything since we threatened him." Mrs. Boonchy says and I nod and looked to Mr. X.
"Alex is another member of our friend group that was sent to Amphibia with us." I tell him.
"Oh, well Anne did say something about another person in this missing group but when I looked up for an Alex their name didn't appear anywhere." He says and I rubbed my neck.
"Though there was a Sasha." He says and I glare at him.
"That is not the right name, it's Alex… or well Alexander but Alex for short." I tell him and he nods.
"Got it, he/him pronouns, right?" He asked and I nodded.
"Alright, didn't mean to be rude, it's just all the information I got they mentioned his dead name." They say and I nod.
"Your parents are going to be surprised to know you are back." Mrs. Boonchuy says and I hear Anne scoff from the side.
"They left the state remember mom… they didn't care… Alex's parents don't care either." Anne mutters and I look to her sadly then to her parents.
"It's fine… I'll give them a call or something." I tell them and they both nod.
"It's best to call them as soon as you can… Anne didn't really… like them after she wrote to them." Her mom says and I nod at this information. I pull out my phone and look to find a charger and they let me plug it up. I hope they still had the same number. But as I waited for my phone to charge, I see Anne get up and pace around the room a bit, as if it would make time go faster or something.
"Hey why don't you take Marcy to get something to eat, we still have a few hours before we can try and open the portal." Mr. X suggests. I suppose he was getting tired of her frantic behavior. Though I don't blame her at all.
"Fine but the minute you guys are ready you better call me, I swear-."
"We know Anne, we will make sure to call you when we have about ten minutes left ok?" Terri suggested and Anne nods at this and look to me.
"I'll let you call them on my phone." She mutters and I see her mom hand her a set of keys and she nods as we head out the building, or in their case the secret hideout.
"Anne… do you want to talk about it?" I asked as she gets over to the van and she looks to me.
"Hmm… sure." She mutters and I follow her and look around the old van.
"Man, still can't believe your parents still have this old thing, it should be in a museum." I comment and I look to Anne but she doesn't smile even a little. She starts to drive and I fiddle with my thumbs a bit and I tried to say something but I couldn't. I didn't want to set her off, I didn't want her angry or sad.
"Anything you want in particular?" She asked and I look to her.
"How about your family restaurant?" I suggested and she nods as she drives in that direction. She handed me her phone and I look at it and went to the contacts to see if I could find my parents' number. I see the familiar numbers and I just look to the contact information.
"You don't have to call them… at least not now." She says and I nod as I shut the phone off and set it on my lap. We get to Anne's parents' restaurant and we walk in and I looked around to see that it was still the same but I notice some changes, like some photos and I look to see Anne with Sprig, Polly and Hop-Pop as they did some silly pose and I smiled at it for a bit and I look to Anne as she looked to the photo as well.
"I'm glad you were still able to have a life… I hope that didn't come out wrong." I try to say to her and she laughed a little.
"Yea… I just wish you and Alex had come back though… I mean don't get me wrong I'm happy with all the time I spent with Polly, Sprig and HopPop I just… missed you two so much." She tells me and I look at her then to the photo.
"Alex… he thinks he can't come back home." She says quietly and then I hear her sigh a bit and I look at her.
"Have you tried talking to him about it?" I asked and she nods.
"I said I would help him anyway I could… but you know Alex." She says.
"Doesn't want help but will help others… in his own way." I say and she nods.
"But I don't know how everything has been, I had just been living in a fantacy world for the past ten years… I thought it was real I wanted to think it was real… so I don't know Alex anymore." I say as I see a photo of all of us when we were younger.
"He's changed a lot Marcy… from what I had seen." She says and I look to the other photos.
"From what you have seen… wasn't much time." I say quietly.
"He has though Marcy… he might seem like he hasn't but he's working on it." She tells me.
"How so?" I asked.
"He got everyone to work together at least to try and help you… he was so worried about trying to make sure he didn't make a mistake to keep everyone as safe as he could, he was really sweet to me… He understood his mistakes he admitted that he had made mistakes he tried everything to try and get you." She explained.
"Yea he got angry sometimes… he got angry at Sprig a few times but that was because Sprig… I don't know he still didn't trust Alex." She says and I hear her sighed a bit. I look over to the other photos where Polly was working on a robot with two other women, then there were photos of Spring and the others at a temple.
"They loved it there." She says and I nod and sighed. We went to the back and Anne started working on the food and I lean on the counter a bit watching her.
"But Alex… he just." I tried to think of something.
"You don't have to forgive him for all that he did… I still don't but I was getting to know him… the new him." She tells me and I look at her a bit then to the wall.
"I… I get that." I say and then look to Anne as she nods and then grabbed her phone to call someone. When she was done, she handed me some food and began to work on more.
"Bringing the others some food too." She says quietly and I nod and eat my food.
"Did… Alex really change?" I asked.
"Yes, he has." She says and I watch her a bit.
"We will get back in a few hours, we can help him." I tell her and I watch as she stopped working on the food and I see her wipe her eyes a bit.
"I just feel… what if we don't get back in a few hours?" She asked.
"What makes you… oh." I stopped once I realized what she was talking about.
"I felt like hell when I couldn't get to you or Alex… I still feel like hell." She tells me as she gets back to work.
"I'm sorry for not getting to you two faster, I feel like crap but I just…. I just… don't know what to do or what to say to make it better." She says to me and I looked to my bowl a bit and then to her.
"Anne… you tried and life got in the way and that's fine… I mean we didn't have the recourses to travel to different worlds, it's fine I get it." I tell her honestly.
"Alex… was there though." I say.
"He tried… I saw his journal." She tells me and grabbed something from her side pouch. I just noticed we hadn't changed and I chuckled a little at this and then look to see a book in Anne's hand and I look at it and then to her.
"He let me read it." She says and I grabbed the book gently and opened to the first page. It had the title called Strategies and Battle Plans. I looked through the book a bit and, on every page, he mentioned what he had seen after the plan failed or succeeded to work on it. He mentioned me a few times, he was able to describe my armor that I had to wear for a while and how he described the weapon I would carry.
"He… has a huge scar on his back when he got close enough to you." She tells me and flipped the page and I saw some blood here and there. I read that he had wrote down that he was able to get into the castle with Yunan, Grime and even a few frogs from Wartwood. He was able to get into the main room of the castle and had seen me in the room. We had apparently fought for a good while before I was able to get him from behind and cut the length of his back.
"The doctors we have were surprised I was able to still walk, with how close the cut is I'm still surprised myself that I was able to walk as well when I was able to look at the injury myself." I read out loud and I look to see that Anne was packing some of the food.
"You saw it?" I asked and she nods.
"Yea… I mean it doesn't look bad given the fact that it happened years ago, he says that it's just sensitive still… I mean with a wound like that I would be surprised if it wasn't… He tried Marcy… I think you'd have to listen to him about it rather than me." She says and I nod.
"I would like to talk to him but what if… what if he doesn't want to talk to me? I know we talked before he shoved us back here but… was it just so he could get home faster?" I asked her.
"He isn't like that." She tells me.
"How would you know though? It's not like you can read his mind… know what he's thinking all the time." I tell her and she looked to me as she worked on more of the food.
"He's talked to me… the week we waited for the letter from Andrias before we went to my temple… he would talk about many things." She tells me.
"Anything you can share?" I asked and she thinks for a bit and sighs.
"He would tell me about all the nightmares he had." I tell her.
"Nightmares?" I asked and she nods at this.
"Sometimes he would… die… in his dreams as he tried to save you… before he could get you back." She tells me and I look down.
"He was afraid of failing… he's still afraid of that… heck right now he might think he has failed us." She tells me and I look at her.
"He… he doesn't want to fail us?" I asked and she nods as she worked some more.
"He wants to look good to us… I mean now he just… I don't know he's put his body through so much he's had moments when he wasn't sleeping for days, making plans trying to make people happy, he's tried talking with Sprig, and getting to know the planters for me… he's trained with Yunan and even Lady Olivia." She tells me and I laughed a little.
"Lady Olivia?" I asked and she nods.
"Yea, her and Yunan are a great team, I would not want to fight them if they worked together, it's scary." She tells me and I look to the floor a bit.
"He's gotten everyone to work together." She tells me and I nod as I get to work and help her grab the rest of the food and we head back to the hideout. Once there we gave the people their food and I went over to my phone and I see that it's fully charged up and I pick it up and look at my parents' contacts. I look to the side to see Anne as she sat on the ground looking at where the portal should appear. I then looked back to my phone and took a breath as I saw my phone still had service so I make a call to my mom.
"MARCY?!" I hear and pull my ear back a bit.
"Hi mom." I say.
"Where have you been what's going on are you ok?" I hear her ask a bit panicked.
"I uh… I'm ok, I'm with Anne and her parents right now." I tell her.
"We are coming to get you right now." I hear my father say.
"No, it's fine, I probably won't be here." I tell them.
"Not be there? Are you kidding us? You went missing for ten years and you don't want to see us?" My mom asked and I look to Anne a bit.
"I do I just… right now I need to help Anne-."
"Help Anne with what? She doesn't need any help." My mom says and I look away from Anne.
"Mom, listen I know you-."
"We will be there tomorrow." She says and then hangs up and I rubbed the bridge of my nose a bit and sighed.
"Something wrong?" I hear and look to Mrs. Boonchuy.
"No just… I called my parents they said they'll be here tomorrow." I inform her.
"They aren't going to be taking you away, are they?" I hear and look to Anne as she looked at me.
"I'm not to sure but we won't be here long." I say and look to the machine.
"Sooo we have a bit of a problem." Terri says and we look to her.
"What?" Anne asked as she goes over to them a bit worried.
"It's the coding I think I messed up." They say a bit panicked.
"No, it's ok, don't stress out, I'm sorry." Anne says and I go over to them.
"It's fine I get it." They say to her and I rubbed Anne's back a bit.
"It might take me a bit longer I don't know what's going on." Terri says and I look to Anne who looked crestfallen at this but nods anyway.
"Ok is there anything we need to do?" She asked.
"Other than use your powers again like last time, no." They tell Anne who nods and looks to her parents. I go up to try and help Terri but even I was stumped.
"It looks like it's corrupted." I say and they nod.
"Seems so, it's going to take me weeks to fix this." They say quietly and I look over to Anne and then back to Terri.
"I'll help as best as I can, I might only know about how the music box worked but I can try." I tell them and they nod.
"Any help with this is good help, hope you're ready for a few all nighters." They say and I nod and go over to Anne.
"Hey I'm going to try and help Terri while we get this fixed… mind if I borrow Alex's journal?" I asked and she hands it to me.
"Why what's going on now?" She asked.
"Nothing I just… you noticed Alex did something with the box?" I asked her.
"No why?" She asked.
"Nothing just asking if you saw anything." I tell her and she nods and I look through the journal to try and find anything. When night had come Anne and the Boonchuy's offered to take me home and I look to Terri who said they were ok and that I should get some sleep. I tried to argue it but Anne told me to just come and get some rest before my parents were to come over. I was freaking out a bit, what do I tell them, how do I go about all of this.
"I still don't like your parents." Anne mutters and I look to her as we sit in her room.
"I should have known." I say as I lean my back to the bed as I sat on the ground.
"They left." She mutters and I nod.
"Yea… but I don't fully blame them, maybe dads' job wouldn't give him an extension but yea… I get it." I tell her and she sighed.
"I'm sorry it's just… I'm not sure." I hear her mutter and I nod.
"Let's just get some rest." I say to her and pat her leg again and I look to her and she sighs and nods and lays back on the bed and I lay on the floor as I looked up to the ceiling.
"I'm sorry… I was being honest when I said I was sorry for everything… I made a rash decision and it cost us many things… I just didn't want to leave you two, you were my best friends… you still are I just…. I was scared of everything." I tell her honestly.
"It's ok… I don't blame you I'm not angry or anything… you were right, I got to meet Sprig and the others… but I wish it could have been different." She says and I nod. We finally get some sleep and it wasn't until a week later my parents had finally come to the Boonchuy's home as Anne and I were looking at notes. She had just come back from her shift back at the aquarium and I was scratching my head with a pencil as we sat in the living room. Papers were all over the place and we had a paper visual board with some drawings and math.
"GAHHH this is so…. I don't know." Anne tries to say and I look to her and there was a knock on the door. I hear Mrs. Boonchuy answer the door and then I hear my parents as Anne and I scrambled to put the papers away and we set them in her room.
"Where is Marcy." I hear my mom say and I rubbed my face a bit and looked to Anne as we head out the room and I see both my parents.
"Marcy." My dad says as he comes up to me and hugs me. I don't hug him back but he pulled away.
"Ok get your things-."
"I am not leaving." I tell them.
"Excuse you?" My mom asked.
"I'm still busy I just-."
"What do you have to do? You went missing for years, you basically dropped out of school." My mom says.
"I bet it was that Waybright kids fault, she's not here still running away." My dad says.
"It wasn't HIS fault." Anne says as she comes up to my side and I look to see her glaring at my parents.
"Our daughter wouldn't have done this unless that kid told her too, now Marcy let's go." My dad tells me.
"It wasn't Alex's fault, it was mine." I tell them.
"You don't have to lie-."
"I'm not lying, it was my fault that we were gone, I caused all of this." I tell them.
"You-."
"I think you should hear Marcy out, it's best to communicate then to cause a fight you'll regret." I hear Mrs. Boonchuy says and I looked to the ground a bit then to my parents.
"I didn't want to move away, I loved it here, my friends were here, and you just tell me that we have to move… you didn't even stay when I went missing." I tell them.
"We had to go or your father would have lost his job." My mom says.
"And I get that… I'm not angry but I haven't seen any missing persons poster I looked up online and they stopped looking for Alex and I… I'm not mad anymore." I mutter and I feel Anne touch my shoulder.
"Then why run away?" My dad asked.
"Because I was mad at the time, I was a kid and I will admit that I did stupid things just cause I'm smart doesn't mean I can't do dumb things, and even if I told you where I was you would think it's all in my head, but it's not." I tell them and they looked to each other than to me.
"Tell us what happened." They say and we all take a seat and Mrs. Boonchuy went into the kitchen. I go with Anne to go and grab my journal and other papers then I sat next to Anne as my parents sat on the couch.
"Please believe me." I say quietly as I explained to them about how I found a book at the library and I even showed them the photo in my phone of the music box that I took. I showed them pictures of my time in Amphibia and even photos of Anne and I in Newtopia and even showed them some of the notes in my journal. I kept some of the stuff from them but I gave them the basics of where I was for so long. I even told them about the core but I didn't tell them what had been going on with me and the core for the past ten years.
"Alex, Anne and I finally got back together after… Anne's second temple and he… shoved us through the portal back here… and here we are." I say as they handed me my phone back and Mrs. Boonchuy sat in the recliner chair after she set us a bowl of fruit and I look to them.
"It's all real I… I don't know what happened for the past ten years I had been there since… the Core incident… Alex would know more about it." I mutter and I looked to Anne who was looking at one of Alex's Journal and she just rubbed her thumb against the cover.
"So, you were in another world?" My dad asked and I nodded.
"I can show you pictures of my time there too." Anne says as she looked up to them. She still held tight to Alex's Journal and I see it crumpling a bit but not to much since it wasn't a hardcovered book. I look to my mom and dad as they sit back into the couch a bit they looked as if they were thinking how crazy all this was how this isn't real and how I was making it all up. Just as Anne was about to pull her phone out to prove it was real my mother waves her off a bit stopping her from grabbing her phone.
"I think we can believe Marcy with her notes." My mom says and I nod.
"So, Alex is still in that world Amphibaland?" My dad asked and I wanted to laugh a little at this.
"Amphibia is the correct name for the world we were in." I corrected him and he nods.
"Ok so he is in Amphibia… right now? Why isn't he here his parents must be worried about him too." My dad asked and I looked to Anne a bit as she responds to him.
"Not by choice, he… The Core did something and we just want to get him back." She tried to explain as best as she could and I look at them.
"And you're saying that a bunch of dead… people possessed you?" I hear my mom ask and I nod a bit.
"A hivemind of the smartest minds in Amphibia… though now that I think about it, it was mostly Newtopians that were there though then again they have been around for a LONG, long time." I say as I try to think.
"And you don't know how to get back?" My dad asked us this.
"We do and don't, I was able to go back not that long ago but we didn't really have much to go on… it was dumb luck honestly." She tells them.
"Ok what can we do to help?" My mom asked and I look to them.
"You want to help?" I asked.
"Yes… we shouldn't be hard on you and we shouldn't be angry at you… we should have talked about it instead of just telling you we had to move as soon as we did." My dad says and I nod a bit at this.
"I think Anne and I can figure something out; we're working with some really cool people that had helped Anne before." I explained and they nod at this.
"Alright um… do you want to stay here if that is ok with Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy?" My mom asked and Anne's mother nods.
"It's ok if Marcy stays here." She tells them and they nod and I look to Anne and we talked for a bit. When my parents had left, we got back to work and I would eat some of the fruit with Anne as I looked to any old notes we had.
"Hey do you still have your powers?" Anne asked and I look to her from my paper and think.
"I don't feel like I do… honestly." I tell her.
"It doesn't feel like I have as much as I did after my temple… did Alex mess with the box?" I hear her has and I look to the paper.
"How though… why would he?" I asked.
"I don't know… we can ask him when we all get together." Anne says and I nod in agreement. Weeks passed us by till we were almost at the two-month mark and we were in the secret hideout working with Terri and I met with the historian Dr. Jan who also helped Anne on getting back to Amphibia. I even met Jess and Ally who talked about Polly when they all worked together on Frobo and other gadgets as well.
"Oh, yea Polly is amazing with robotics when she first talked to us we tried to warn her not to plug the robot in and then she did." Ally says.
"Yea she felt so bad though." Anne says as she brings in some food and I nod and helped her.
"Hey something is happening on the news." We hear and look over to the TV as Mr. X turned it on and we see Andria's castle and I spit out my water as I look to see that it was here in our world.
'Uh… I'm Alex Waybright, and um… the king… and kings of Amphibia are here to try and make a deal with this world.' We see Alex on the screen and I look to Anne as she kept her eyes on the screen and I look back to the TV as many things started to happen. The military shot at the castle and Alex is off the screen and I feel Anne move away and I follow her as we ran out the hide-out. Anne hurries into the van and I quickly get in as she speeds out the area and I hold on to the door closing it.
"Anne slow down." I say as I buckle myself in.
"No, he's here, we just need to get to him." She says as she drove to the center of the city.
"I know but we need to get there alive or at least not getting pulled over-." I say and stopped as she made a sharp turn and the van skid a bit and she stopped the van before we hit into a bunch of people as they ran. Anne hurries out the car and I followed her quickly as we had to run in the opposite direction of the people trying to get away from whatever is going on.
"ANDRIAS GET OUT HERE YOU COWARD!" Anne yelled as we get close to the castle and I look up at it then to Anne as I see her fists turning blue. I quickly look up just as the tanks fired another shot at the castle and we see Alex on the screen again. This time he was struggling to take the helmet off of his head as he was being electrocuted as well.
"STOP THIS, STOP ALL OF THIS, NONE OF THIS IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!" We hear him yell on the screen.
"Anne." I say as I grabbed her.
"He's hurting him, he's hurting Alex like he hurt you god damn it let me go." She says as I pull her back a bit.
"I get it I do but you need to think logically not rash." I tell her as we see Andrias pop up on the screen.
"It seems that our little negotiator didn't do his job well, seeing as you humans have the idea of being rash first ask questions later, so we shall be introducing the Core to all of you." He says and Alex appeared on the screen, helmet on his head cracking his neck a bit and he smiled at the screen.
"Hello humans of this world, we are the Core we are a combination of all the greatest minds in Amphibia and your world is just one of many that we will be taking over, it's impossible to stop us since at this point we are a god." They say as they look to Andrias as he pulls some lever. Something launched from the castle and landed by the tanks blasting them away from the area and Anne and I covered our faces from the debris and I look up to see two giant eggs.
"What the-."
"ANNE, MARCY GET OUT OF THERE!" We hear and turn to see Anne's parents as Jenny was driving a van and I hurry to try and pull Anne back but she stays in place.
"Anne, we need to think rationally, for Alex please." I begged and she looked to me and then back to the castle as she grabbed my hand and we hurry to the van and we see Mr. X along with.
"Grime? Sprig, HopPop, Polly?" Anne says and I see General Yunan and Lady Olivia.
"We were able to get the portal open with the help of Polly." Mr. X says and I hug Yunan and Olivia.
"How?" I asked confused.
"Turn out when Anne used her powers it was WAY more than when she was thirteen, so we were able to pin point it and Polly here made her own machine too." Jess bragged and Polly looked happy.
"Ok what do we do? The lieutenant needs help." Grimes says and I look to him.
"ARE THOSE GIANT BIRDS!?" We hear Mr. Boonchuy yell and turn to look and see the giant Herons.
"Herons, giant herons." Grimes corrected him.
"Now's not the time to correct on bird types right now we need to figure out what we need to do to help Alex… Help Alex." Anne says and she gripped the bridge of her nose a bit and I rubbed her back gently.
"Sorry, right we need to find a place to plan out the attack and rescue of Alex." Grimes says and I think.
"The school." Anne suggested and I nod as we head in the direction of the school. once there we all hurry inside and head to the old science lab and I look around a bit.
"Still the same hu?" Anne asked and I look to her and nod a bit and looked around the lab.
"Yea… I wonder if I could still open my old locker but I think they might have changed the combination." I say and Anne leaned on one of the lab tables and thought a bit.
"Yea… I was able to grab your stuff before the year ended… I think they were hoping you would be back soon too." She tells me and I look at her. I then go up to the whiteboard and I erase whatever was on there and started making some plan.
"What if I try and fight Andrias." Anne asked and I think a bit.
"Yunan, Grime and I can try and get to Alex if you can hold Andrias off." I think and looked to the two amphibians and they nod and I look to everyone else.
"We can try and take care of the Herons so you are able to get to the castle." Anne's parents say and I see Mr. X handed Yunan some type of blaster and she accidentally fired it but she was smiling at this.
"Ok, so Marcy, Grime and Yunan will go into the castle to save Alex, I'll keep Andrias away from the castle as best as I can till, they are able to get him, Mom, Dad, Mr. X and the planters can try and fight the herons, is everyone ok with this, any inputs?" Anne asked.
"I'll join Yunan and Marcy as well." Lady Olivia says and I look to her and I nod at this.
"Alright if you want, I can't stop you." Anne says and Olivia nods and I look around the room a bit.
"I'm going to the robotics lab, see if I can upgrade Frobo." Polly says and we let her go.
"Ok we will let Polly do that, while we wait, we can figure out a plan B." Mr. X says and we all agreed. I look over to Anne as she looked out the window a bit then to the board as Mr. X tried to make some plans with Grime who was arguing a bit with him. I go over to Anne and place my hand on her shoulder and she looked up to me and then back to the window.
"Alex is going to be ok right?" She asked and I nod.
"He's tough you know this… we know this." I tell her and she nods and sighs and looked back to his journal.
"You carry that thing everywhere?" I tried to joke with her and she nods.
"Some of his personal thoughts are in here… I know I shouldn't have read them but… he didn't say I couldn't when I picked it up but I don't think he realized it was the wrong one… or he forgot he wrote some personal thoughts in it." She says and I look to the book in her hands.
"He mentioned you." She says and I look to her as she opened the book and I saw that indeed he had written about me. Anne laughed a bit at this.
"He wrote how we first met, he wrote how he was ready to play creatures and caverns but got sick… he says he's sorry for how he treated you he didn't mean to sound rude with you… how he missed the both of us." She says and looked through the book a bit.
"How he wished he could save you." She says quietly and I gently grabbed the book and read it a bit.
"Sounds like someone who has a crush." I joke and looked to Anne as she kept looking out the window.
"He would have to tell you." She says and I keep looking at her.
"Wait… hold on." I try to say something but I don't know if I'm right in my assumption.
"Does he?" I asked and Anne looked to me then turned a few pages and I read it.
"I don't think either Marcy or Anne would like me, stupid teenage dream to just be with your friends forever but, in a romantic way? I doubt they would feel that way about me, I mean I was rude to both of them, I was a manipulator and once they realize that they'll leave me… God even as I write this, I feel like it's me being manipulative and they aren't even here, regardless I would understand if we don't stay friends, I still need to save Marcy, that's at least one good thing I can do for her before we never speak again… why am I having these thoughts?" I read quietly to myself and flipped to the next page.
"Is it bad if I want to still talk with Marcy and Anne? But I'd be happy if they never talked back to me? does this have to do with how I grew up? Mom and dad didn't talk much during the divorce, even after the divorce, I'd go over to dads and see my dad's new wife and her kids… am I a big brother? Would I be a good brother? Or sister if my mom had her way… I think I read somewhere that kids act up when their parents separate maybe because they don't want their parents to split and all that junk… I wonder if that's all I'll know." I read again as he just writes anything random, as if he was just writing in the moment and not what he really wanted to log in this book.
"I don't think I'd be a great parent if I feel like I'll end up like mine, I'm just writing whatever I can since nothing important happened today, honestly, we finally got a bit of a break, it's like the frogs and toads and newts' version of a Christmas, though they don't know what that is, it's a little hard for me to explain to them that a fat man breaks into peoples homes and leaves gifts, so I just tell them that it's a day where everyone gets together, has a big meal, opens gifts left under a tree and just to have fun with your friends and family, Grimes made a joke about how we should leave this 'Santa' person some cicada cookies, I think he just really wants cookies." I read and smiled a bit and look to Anne as she looked to me and listened to what I was reading. I take a seat and looked to the next page and I would look up to listen to Mr. X and Yunan as he tried to teach her how to fire the blaster correctly as to not take her own head off.
"You should read how he tried to cookie." Anne says and I looked to the book and read a bit.
"Oh god I will never get use to the taste of bugs, but it was ok… a bit crunchy though, it would probably taste better with some milk but I saw what their version of a cow is, and no I will not be risking my neck trying to wrangle it… ok for Ms. Croker I would, she's made some cheese with it and that's good too… man it's making me hungry, I wonder if I should go back to Tai-Go when we get back home, Or get Mar-Mar a Boba… actually I should get her the newest game system and any game she wants after all this, I owe her about six Christmas gifts at this point, and Anne too, I wonder what she would like, she might have changed by now… though I don't think she's over K-Pop, girl loved that stuff… oh Creatures and Caverns I should try and make a campaign but I'd need Marcy to help with that." I read and laughed a bit as he talked about all the math, how he would just attack and kill the beasts in one swing if he could.
"I would have loved to see how he reacted to eating that cookie." Anne says and I smiled a bit.
"He's going to be ok. and we can all sit down and just talk it out." I say and turned the page to the last one. It looked like it was torn from another book and just placed in here.
"Sorry for not writing in a while, but Anne is back, she's back and we talked for a bit, I told her something I never wanted to tell anyone out of fear but I think as friends we could talk about whatever we could, it feels like none of this is real but it's real, it's real that she is here, and we're going to save Marcy, and I will tell them both… if they want, then I can ask them if they are ok with all of us being together, not just a friends… and if they say no then I'll be ok with it, but it's better to ask then to never know right?.. ok I have to go Anne just walked in I'll write in a new journal with a green cover after this…. Seems like I already wrote in it, I'll put this in the book I was suppose to write in… why am I apologizing to a book? Something is wrong with me." I read and laughed a little and wiped my eyes a bit.
"Stupid man." I mutter as I closed the boo and held it tight.
"But he's our stupid man." Anne laughed a little and wiped her own tears and sighed.
"Alright everyone we will go through the plan once again and then head out since Polly is done, are we ready?" Mr. X says and we all nod and listen in on how we were going to save our world.