The core was furious. Whoever had brought the music box back to Amphibia was able to use the calamity power of the gems. The one thing that could stop them as foretold by the prophecy was already a threat.
King Andrias had just returned to the castle after visiting the Newtopian hospital where a human girl named Marcy was staying after falling down some stairs and breaking her leg. Andrias was the largest newt in Amphibia, standing many times taller than any other. He has light blue skin and was wearing purple-gray armor topped with a large crown. He had learned from Marcy that she and her two friends had been transported here after they opened a strange music box, after Andrias had heard that he quickly bid her farewell and made his way back to the castle to relay the information to his master.
"My lord, the box has returned. A human girl and her two friends have returned the box to Amphibia after one thousand years." Andrias said after bowing down to a large orb with many wires coming out of it.
"We are aware." A loud voice boomed. It was echoing around the room, but it appeared to be emanating from the large orb. Large orange eyes started to open on its front as if it had just woken up. "Earlier today we detected a large energy signature coming from the south, the same energy signature as the gems."
"Someone was using the Calamity Powers, this could stop our plan just as the prophe-" Andrias droned on before being cut off by the core.
"SILENCE! We must know who this person is, how many frobots do we have?"
"Twenty still functional my lord."
"Send one as recon, we must know what we are up against."
"Understood."
Anne woke up in the Planter's basement, the sun had just risen so it was time to get up.
"HI ANNE!" a pink frog yelled as he appeared beside her. Anne yelped in surprise at the sudden loud noise beside her falling back over onto her bedroll.
"Careful boy, it could be hungry."
"For your guts!" Hop Pop and Polly chimed in respectively.
"Guys relax, I'm not going to eat the frogs who saved me." Anne reassured them as she stood up.
"See, told you she's harmless." Sprig said.
"Well, all right then. Come on up, breakfast is almost ready" Hop Pop said as he went up the stairs with Polly in his arms.
Anne and Sprig followed him up the stairs and into the kitchen where breakfast was being served. Anne sat down at the table to wait for the food to be served, when Hop Pop dropped a large stack of what appeared to be pancakes with beetles in them in the center of the table. Sprig instantly grabbed a couple of pancakes and began to eat them while Anne was hesitant. She had never eaten bugs before but had heard they were disgusting.
"You gonna have any Anne?" sprig inquired wondering why you hadn't taken any yet.
She was going to decline saying that she wasn't hungry when her stomach let out a large growl. Remembering that she hadn't eaten since before she arrived in this new world, she suddenly felt extremely hungry. Anne slowly reached into the center of the table and grabbed a pancake for herself. She took a small bit out of the edge of the pancake, which she made sure didn't have any beetle in it before, and it tasted delicious. She quickly ate her single pancake before she grabbed another and started to chow down always making sure to not eat any part of a beetle. Anne may have been extremely hungry, but there was no way that she was going to eat a bug.
"Thanks for breakfast Hop Pop. Now do you guys have a map I could borrow so I can go find my friends?" Anne asked after she finished her third pancake.
"A map not going to be enough, this here valley is surrounded by mountains that are impenetrable this time of year." Hop Pop said pulling out a map of the valley from his coat.
"Do you always have that in your pocket?"
"No comment"
"Anyway, that's no problem, I'll just fly over the mountains."
"YOU CAN FLY! But I don't see any wings?" Sprig exclaimed.
"I don't need wings I'll just use my blue powers."
"Blue...? must be painful to make such little sense." Anne heard Hop Pop whisper to himself.
"Here I'll show you." Anne told them before trying to force her powers to come forth, but not even a hint of her powers was seen. "Come on why isn't it working!?"
"Anne, are you sure you didn't just dream up these supposed blue powers?" Hop Pop asked very confused at what she was doing.
"I DIDN'T!" She yelled before walking back down into the basement. No one had seen it then, but her eyes had flashed blue.
Back down in the basement, Anne sat down on her bed. She knew these powers were real, not only had she been flying with them, but she also used them again before falling asleep.
"Hey." Sprig said coming down the stairs. "Could you tell me about these powers of yours they sound really cool."
"Well, when I woke up here in…" "Amphibia, it's called Amphibia" "Here in Amphibia I had this blue Aura around me, and my hair was also blue. With this power, I learned I could fly so I did that until I eventually passed out and woke up in a cage." Anne told him leaving out some of the finer details.
"That sounds super cool! But if you passed out maybe you can't control it, so stay here until you can!" Sprig said with a big smile.
"That sounds like a good idea, I just really miss my friends."
"I already asked yesterday so I'll ask again. Why don't we be friends!"
"Uhh…sure."
"So, what do friends do together?"
"You don't have friends?"
"Frogs around here don't really get me."
"I see. Well, we did everything together. We went shopping, watched movies, and went to the beach."
"We have a lake! Want to go there?"
"Yeah, that could be fun."
On that note, Sprig ran upstairs to get ready, leaving Anne in the basement so she could put on her swimwear that she had in her backpack for some reason. They met back in the living room ready to go, Anne had on her black and blue swimsuit and purple shorts while Sprig was wearing the exact same thing he always wears. They both started heading to the front door excited to go to the lake when Hop Pop stepped in front of them blocking their exit.
"Where do you think you two are going?" Hop Pop asks.
"We're going to the lake, wanna come?" Anne responds with an accusing tone thinking he doesn't want to miss out on the fun.
"Absolutely Not!" Hop Pop yells back, making both Anne and Sprig flinch at the sudden yelling. "Listen, Anne, you're a new, unsettling, strange, bizarre, gangly, HORRIFYING!"
"Thanks! I got it." Anne said with a smile, although she was quite hurt by that description.
"The point is that frogs in this town can be pretty small-minded, so I think it's best if you stay inside today."
"But we're not even going into town." Sprig chimed in.
"NO BUTS, and that's final." Hop Pop said before he padlocked the door closed and walked away into his study.
"So, we can just go out the window, right?" Anne asked Sprig while looking towards the window that was wide open.
"I don't know Anne, maybe we should listen to Hop Pop and go a different day."
"Come on man, I thought you were my friend, and friends help each other get what they want."
"You make a convincing argument… okay let's go!"
Anne and Sprig sneakily left through the window being careful not to make any sound until they were outside and jogged off toward the lake. It took around half an hour to walk to the lake making it a fair distance away from Wartwood. The lake was large, so large that Anne could barely see to the other side. Around the bank lily pads and water lilies sat on the top of the water, overall, it was beautiful.
"You ready dude!" Anne said with excitement in her voice.
They both charged forward ready to leap into the lake but slowed down to a stop when they saw a wooden sign saying don't swim. The words were painted in red and were drawn very messily with the last M trailing off as if whoever wrote it ran away the moment they finished writing it.
"This wasn't here before." Sprig said.
Anne was looking at the sign and then back at the lake, the lake looked perfect, as if it was straight out of a movie or animated cartoon. There was no danger in sight making her come to the conclusion that the sign was a lie.
"I see, someone put up this sign so they could have this lake all to themselves."
"Anne, I don't think that's right. Someone wrote this sign fast as if they were scared to be here."
"Or they just have messy handwriting. I'm going in." Anne said before walking toward the lake. A tongue latched around her arm stopping her in her tracks before she could step in. She looked back and saw that Sprig had used his tongue to stop her.
"Somethings not right here, we should leave." Sprig said, worry laced in his voice.
"Ugh, I thought you were my friend." Anne said with annoyance.
"I am your friend."
"Well, friends help each other get what they want. If a friend likes a pencil case, you get it for them. If your friend likes your new shoes, you give them to her. And if a friend wants you to steal a crazy music box from a thrift store, even if you don't really want to, you do it, okay?" Tears were threatening to fall down her cheeks.
"That doesn't sound like a friend to me, that sounds like a bully."
This made Anne freeze. was Sasha a bully? Sasha made her do things she didn't want to do and used her to get what she wanted. No Sasha was her friend she was just doing what was best for Anne.
"What would you know?" she asked Sprig. "You didn't have friends before."
Sprig saw Anne getting sadder and sadder about her friends by the second and needed to be cheered up. They were going swimming no matter what the sign said. He jumped high and did a cannonball into the lake making sure to splash Anne. His plan worked wonders as her face lit up with a big smile before doing her own cannonball to splash him back.
Anne and Sprig Swam further away from the shore splashing each other in the process. They had fun playing in the lake all day. during the day they had jousting duels with giant cattails, saw who could hold their breath longest underwater (it was Sprig), and even managed to ride a water strider by sneaking up to it from behind. Once they were all tired out, they decided to relax and sunbathe on a large lily pad.
Anne was sitting up on the lily pad admiring the lake when she spotted the water strider they rode on earlier in the day, it appeared to be eating something when it suddenly got pulled underwater.
"Uhh… Sprig, did you see that?" Anne asked not taking her eyes off where the bug disappeared.
"See what?" He responded sitting up and looking at where Anne was looking.
A large ripple in the water appeared when the bug had been, something large was under the surface and it was moving toward them. As suddenly as it came the ripple disappeared, making both Anne and Sprig think they were safe as they let out the breath they didn't know they were holding. Suddenly the lily pad they were on launched into the air knocking them both off to the side. A giant sea serpent rose out of the water where the lily pad had been.
"Hey! I think I know why the sign was here." Sprig said, excited that he had figured it out.
"Not the time! Swim away!" Anne yelled before swimming in the opposite direction Sprig was going.
The sea serpent watched them swim away, since they were going in different directions it had to choose which one it wanted for a snack. It had no idea what creature Anne was but I know what a frog was so it chose the safer option.
The serpent swam after Sprig lunging at him with its mouth open to swallow him whole. Sprig was able to dodge the serpent, but he could only keep it up for so long.
"Anne! Help!" Sprig yelled.
Anne turned around and saw Sprig about to be eaten when he swam out of the way, but the serpent did not stop its attempts to eat Sprig. Anne felt helpless what could she do to help her friend and the one person she felt had her back in this crazy world. She didn't know what she could do to help but she had to do something.
Filled with determination to save her frog friend her powers flared up coating her in blue. Power flowed throughout her body and with a one-track mind she rocketed off toward the serpent. To the non-existent onlookers, she would have disappeared from sight with how fast she flew. Sprig watched as a fist impacted the sea serpent's face and launched it away with overwhelming force. Sprig looked back to where the serpent had been moments before and saw Anne covered in a blue aura with her hair also being blue with even more sticks and leaves in it than before. Anne asked if he was okay, but he was too stunned to speak, so she flew down to Sprig and gently picked him up and brought him to shore. Back on solid ground, he was finally able to find his voice.
"OH! MY! FROG! YOU DO HAVE POWERS! THAT WAS AWESOME!" Sprig yelled, stars in his eyes looking at her with awe.
Anne powered down back to her regular look stumbling a little as she did. "Whew… that must drain a lot of stamina." She said to herself before looking at Sprig. "Wait you didn't believe me this morning?"
"Well not entirely, I just wanted to cheer you up." He said looking away sheepishly. "But now I know that you definitely do and it's awesome! Can you take me on a flight around town?" he asked looking back at her the stars still in his eyes.
"Maybe once I am able to control this power more. For now, I think we should head back home. I've had enough of this lake for a long time."
"I agree"
Both Sprig and Anne made their way back to the Planter farm, through the window they left from. Once they got back Anne asked Sprig if she could be left alone and Sprig obliged. Anne made her way down into the basement alone determined to figure out how to activate her powers at will. Unlike yesterday when the first time she used it, she thought it was a dream and the second time, she was barely awake, so this time she could actually analyze how she used it. Thinking back to the morning when she tried to force her powers to work versus at the lake where it felt like her powers flowed through her. The difference between the two times could not be clearer to her, you can't force it, but you have to let it flow, like a river. Concentrating her mind she focused on her power, letting it flow out of her covering her whole body, it felt amazing. Unknown to her a pink frog was watching in awe at what she was doing.
At the same time Anne was figuring out her powers, Hop Pop woke up from his nap in his study.
"ZZZzzzzz- I'm up! I'm awake!" Hop Pop exclaimed suddenly waking up from his slumber. Hop Pop walked over to where he set down his jacket and checked the pockets, seeing that the key was still there he walked out of his room unaware that Anne and Sprig did, in fact, sneak out. He walked into the living room and saw Sprig crouched down sneakily looking into the basement.
"Sprig, what's going on?" Hop Pop questioned.
"Shhhh." He said putting his finger up to his mouth. "Come look."
Hop Pop peered through the opening into the basement and was shocked, Anne hadn't been lying this Morning. "SAY WHAAAT!" Hop Pop screamed out causing Anne to notice both him and Sprig.
The loud yell from Hop Pop caused Anne to whip her head around and spot Hop Pop and Sprig watching her from the trapdoor. Her surprise at their appearance caused her to lose her concentration causing her to deactivate her powers. With her powers deactivated she fell on her butt exhausted but with a big smile on her face.
"WOOHOO! I used it deliberately!" Anne cheered.
"What the frog was that?" Hop Pop asked shocked at what had just happened.
"That was my blue powers I told you about this morning, I just finally figured out how to use them intentionally."
"Well, I didn't think you were telling the truth."
"Now you know that I was, but I should not use those more than once a day. I'm going… to take… a… nap." Anne said as she walked over to her bed and flopped onto it falling asleep almost instantly.
"Well, that was something else. Come on Sprig let's leave her to rest."
"Night Anne." Sprig said before leaving with Hop Pop.
