(Sasha's Pov)
Anne has been gone for a while now, I can't really remember how long it's been. Between fighting Andrias's robots, training the people of Wartwood, and trying to get all the amphibians to try and work together… it's exhausting. The sleepless nights, the constant fighting, the bickering, newts, toads and frogs not getting along just because they all think they're better than each other. I wish Anne was here, I wish Marcy was here.
"It seems they aren't cooperating again." I hear and sigh as I look to Mrs. Croaker.
"Of course, because why would they?" I groaned as I get up and set the pencil down on the map. We had been pushed back a bit by the robots, losing some of the power grids that we captured last month. I head out to see Grimes arguing with the frog I know as Wally, and General Yunan was arguing with Loggle.
"I think we should just charge in there." Wally says.
"You stupid frog we can't just charge in there." Grimes says.
"Well, I don't see you coming up with anything." Wally says.
"Because we need to think about what we will do, how else do you think that the lieutenant and I were able to take over newtopia." Grimes argued.
"Because your lieutenant is a manipulator." Lady Olivia says.
"Had she not taken over none of you would have known about what your stupid king had been planning to do with the music box." Grimes says and I look to Mrs. Croaker and then sighed as I whistled loudly. It seemed to have worked.
"Alright, you all need to work together." I say.
"I ain't working with no toads." Wally says.
"It's been ten months." Grimes says.
"What was that? Sorry I don't speak brute." Wally says.
"ALRIGHT ENOUGH OF THIS!" I yelled and everyone looks at me.
"Who the hell cares if you're a frog, newt, or toad, the only thing we should all be worried about right now is how to defeat Andrias and get Marcy back along with getting that music box away from him." I say to all of them.
"Look human, you have no-."
"I don't care what you all have against each other damn it, we can all deal with that later but right here right now we need to help each other or none of you will have a home, for…. God damn how did Anne work with anyone here?" I grumbled as I think a bit.
"You ain't Anne and to be fair I wish she was here and not you." I hear and look to see the people of Wartwood all nodding and I rubbed my head.
"I never said I was-."
"You caused all of this." Loggle says and I glare at him.
"The hell she did." Grimes says but I stop him.
"You think I gave Andrias the box? We took over Newtopia, why the hell would I give the box back to the king? Last I checked Grimes and I tried to stop Anne and Marcy from listening to him… but regardless, Anne is not here and Marcy is trapped with that psychotic mess… and we need to focus on getting her back and away from him." I state.
"All we know is that Marcy is in the rejuvenation tank, we tried to get her out but… things didn't go so well." Yunan says.
"That is true." Lady Olivia said and I think.
"It's strange though." I muttered and looked to everyone.
"It's been ten months since Anne and the Planters were sent back home, why hasn't Andrias used the box himself yet?" I asked.
"Didn't Anne freak out and go all… blue magic on him?" Yunan asked.
"Maybe all three of you need to be together in order for it to work?" Lady Olivia said.
"But his castle is still floating, the box seems to be working just fine." Grimes says.
"Maybe it's because Anne didn't have a fully charged gem? I remember her saying that she had to hurry to help Marcy and the others, that could be a reason why." I suggested.
"So he can't travel to other worlds because Anne didn't finish letting her gem charge?" Yunan asked.
"I have no idea, but right now it's best that it happened the way it did, sorry if it sounds bad but it's a good thing Andrias can't go anywhere else right now." I say and rubbed my head a bit.
"I have to agree to that, if he did have the ability to travel between worlds we could never get to him." Mrs. Croaker says and I nod in agreement.
"Look, like I said we all need to work together on this, we need to get Marcy back, and we need to stop Andrias… at least until Anne and the planters come back." I say.
"What if they never do?" Grimes says.
"Then they're safe, and don't have to deal with this." I say.
"So you'd rather have you and Master Marcy stuck here for frog knows how long?" Wally says.
"If we get Marcy back maybe she can find a way to help fix this, but yes, it's better this way, only thing I don't like is if we constantly have to keep fighting." I say to them.
"Alright… I think I can work with the frogs and toads until then." Yunan says and I nod and look to everyone as they agree. We all head to the planter house since Loggle said there was a hidden underground room there. We take the time to make plans, as time passed us by months turned into years and we still haven't gotten Marcy back, but we had to deal with this so-called Darcy.
Five years would pass us by and I was starting to get tired. Lack of sleep, constant planning, training, taking back lands and defeating robots here and there was a lot of work but we still managed after so long.
"We should just give up." I hear as I drink some of the coffee they had.
"That is a coward's way." Grime says and I looked over the map of Amphibia.
"I'm getting tired, we can't keep doing this, it's been ten years and we haven't made any progress." A newt says and I look to them.
"Of course, the fucking nerds don't want to fight anymore." Another toad says and I groaned a bit.
"Excuse me? We never fought-."
"And that's the problem, you haven't pulled your weight around here." A frog says.
"We make plans."
"That you say will go good but fail regardless."
"Well Darcy is way to smart especially with that hive mind." A newt says and I get up and take a seat with them.
"Look we may have a way to even the playing field." I say.
"Oh, great the human wants to try another dumb plan." The newt says.
"Hey you will respec-."
"Grimes stop." I tell him and he looked to me and I nod.
"I've been reading up on any books we could find on the music box, the gems are connected to Anne, Marcy and I, if we can find out how I could tap into the gem meant for me then maybe I could do what Anne did." I suggest.
"That's a stupid idea." The newt says and I shrugged.
"It's a better plan than letting more people get injured or worse… besides the temples haven't been destroyed so maybe I could find something there." I say and grabbed a paper from my side pouch and show it to them.
"I remember seeing these letters, but honestly I might have messed it up." I say and the newts read it.
"You copied it perfectly it says 'The one with strength can take back what is theirs but they must go to another place untouched by frog toad or newt.' But… what does that mean?" A newt says.
"Does she need to go to a different dimension?" Yunan says and I took a drink of my coffee.
"Or to another continent." I say and they look at me and laughed and I raised a brow at them.
"You think there's other places besides Amphibia?" The newt laughs and I was confused.
"You're telling me that with all that sailing you've done you guys never discovered any other islands or continents at all? Like never?" I asked.
"Well of course not because there is none, Amphibia is the only place in the world." The newt says with a snobbish attitude and I looked to all of them.
"I'm guessing no one has ever done any real traveling here?" I asked.
"Please you mean to tell us that there are other places in your world?" The newt says.
"Hey I may have been stupid in school but yes we have other places in our world, my country isn't the only place we have seven other continents many islands and hell there are places we haven't even discovered, we haven't even explored all of our oceans so it's a possibility, besides why would the temple have that wording if it didn't mean there was other places to explore?" I asked them.
"She does have a point, we didn't travel far out to the seas when Marcy and I were on the war ship, no one went any farther than maybe two hundred miles." Yunan says.
"This human knows nothing." The newt says and I groaned.
"Look I'll be willing to go on my own at this point if it's to find a way to help everyone." I say.
"You can't just go on your own lieutenant." Grimes says.
"You guys don't even think there could be new places to explore." I say as I look to the toad and I sighed as he looked to me.
"We can attempt to look." He says and I nod.
"Alright, we need to steal one of Andrias's ships." I mutter.
"I can help with that; I can take you to them." Yunan says and I nod as we begin to make our plan. We decided to head out early in the morning, I left Ms. Croaker in charge since she seems to be the only frog, I could trust to keep the others in line while Grimes, Yunan and I headed to the ship. There were a few problems when we did get to the waters, much of the robots were on the ships themselves but we were able to take them out quietly and quickly. Once we got the ship moving though that's were the problem lied.
"I say we head north." Grimes says.
"We can't just keep heading north though." Yunan argued and I rubbed my head.
"Sasha, what do you think?" Grimes asked and I looked to both of them.
"Hell, if I know, you'd think you guys would have tried to see if there were other islands or something." I mutter a bit.
"We weren't really keen on trying to find other landmasses kid." Yunan says.
"Why though?" I asked as we took a break and sat down to talk.
"We had no reason too, King Andrias probably doesn't even know about this either." She says.
"He's lived for how long and hadn't even tried?" I asked.
"Well not after his friends… once they were gone, he just stayed in Amphibia, no reason to travel, and after his fathers passing well." She says and then kept quiet.
"But he has all these war ships, you'd think he'd let his own people go and try to discover any new places." I suggested.
"That may be true but again he saw no reason for it." She says.
"I don't know it just sounds dumb, but where I live it's fascinating to find a new place, untouched by people, new wild life, new plants and so on." I say.
"People enjoyed that?" Grimes asked.
"Well… in a way yea, but greedy people would want the place to themselves and try to buy the place and basically say 'well this is my property and no one can come here, I'm going to destroy the ecosystem as well to make a profit' blah blah blah." I say and look to them.
"People sound terrible." Yunan says and I nod.
"Dumb rich people that want to make a quick buck." I state and she nods.
"Heck there's some places that have people on it, I remember one island where people were in a tribe and they killed a man." I say.
"Oh I like that." Grimes says.
"That's horrible though." Yunan states and I laughed a bit.
"No actually it was sorta ok." I tell them.
"How is that ok?" She asked.
"They wanted to be left alone, the guy kept bothering them, even gave him a warning shot until he went onto the island and then people never saw him again, though to be fair he wouldn't stop bothering them, they just didn't want any outsiders… besides the man could have had some disease they were never exposed to and could have wiped the people out, then what? He would have killed hundreds just by being there." I tell them.
"What like frogpox?" Yunan asked.
"We call them chicken pox but yea, or other diseases they haven't been in contact with, I know it's weird but some people don't want others, heck that could happen with us when we get to one place… I mean if they fire a warning shot, we're just going to head home." I say.
"And not try to get your so-called calamity power?" Grimes asked and I nodded.
"It's not worth hurting people for, besides we're doing ok right now." I state.
"Then there was no point-."
"At least we can say we tried, that's all that matters right now." I tell them.
"I get that, but we need to get your powers in order to help Marcy." Yunan says and I nod.
"I know, it's the best option we have but what can we do if we aren't welcomed?" I asked and we all just kept silent. It was days before we finally saw some land so we docked the ship and got onto the sand and i looked around a bit for any form of life but saw none. We walked around a bit even grabbing some supplies like food.
"Hmm never seen something like this." Yunan says as she picks up something round and brown and I smiled as I come up to her and look at it.
"In my world we call those coconuts." I say to her.
Co-canut?" She asked.
"Coconut, if you break it open it has coconut water and you can eat the white stuff inside… strangely people call it flesh." I laughed and she looked to it.
"How would you open it?" She asked and I grabbed the coconut from her and show her.
"Some people poke a sharp tool into these holes to drain the water, and then take another tool like a hammer, knife or rock to break the rest of it to get to the food inside." I explained.
"Maybe we should take some?" Grimes asked and I nod as we do just that. Once we got things onto the ship and looked around and grabbed my sword.
"We can make a path and head more into the island, then follow the path back so we don't get lost." I say and they agreed. As we make our way into the island forest we looked around a bit to see some strange plants and I think to myself a bit.
"Master Marcy would love to be here." Yunan says and I nod.
"She'd be taking notes like crazy in that book of hers." I say as we keep searching. As we go deeper into the island I see some stone building and we head to it as it's covered in the vegetation.
"You think this is it?" Grimes asked.
"One way to find out." I say as we walked in and I look to the writing.
"Hmm, damn it." I mutter as I grabbed my book and wrote down the words and translated it.
"It says 'though the heart and brains of the gems aren't here you'd be wise to use strength in this temple.'… this has to be it Sasha." Grimes says.
"But it also says 'beware, the tasks in this temple are worse than the last." Yunan states.
"I think you two shouldn't come." I say.
"WHAT?!" They both yelled.
"Grimes in the last temple you and the planters almost shriveled up, maybe it's more heated or something." I suggest.
"It can't be that bad." Grimes says and I crossed my arms as I looked to him.
"Fine but the first sign of trouble you call for us." He mutters and I nod. I head through the temples doors but as I do the stone wall behind me slams down quickly causing the ground to shake and I turn quickly to see my only exit gone.
"Damn it." I mutter as I hurry through and looked to the walls and translated them.
"Strength isn't just from the body but also the mind, brains aren't always going to be by your side." I read out loud and groaned.
"What so some psychological bullshit?" I asked and heading into the temple more. I have no idea how long I had been here but I was starting to worry a bit. I haven't seen anything new just the same words flashing in the red hue and it bothered me a bit.
"I get it, I can't have Marcy here, fucking stupid temple." I say and looked around when I hear something. I turn around but saw nothing at all and looked back to the wall I was looking at but in front of me was Anne and I backed up.
"What's wrong Sasha?" She asked and I rubbed my eyes a bit and shook my head and laughed.
"Nice try but Anne isn't here." I say and looked to the copy as they frowned a bit.
"But I am here, the planters and I came back and the rebellion told us you were looking for a second temple." She says and I look at her and think.
"What's your favorite type of music?" I asked.
"K-pop." She says.
"Who was the last person to write their name in the book of losers?" I asked.
"Marcy, Sprig, Polly and I." She says and I shake my head a bit.
"I also know you like to be called Alex instead of Sasha." She says and I look at her more.
"How-."
"Because I'm Anne, your friend." She says as she walked up to me.
"I should know about my best friend, right?" She asked and I shook my head.
"I know this isn't real, the temple is messing with my head." I mutter.
"How come you don't believe me?" She asked as she got close to me and placed her hand on my chest plate and I backed up.
"Because Anne wouldn't have waited to come to me in a temple, she would have gotten me before I went in." I say.
"I just wanted to surprise you." She says and I shake my head a bit and closed my eyes. Once I opened them, she was gone and I looked around to see nothing.
"HA! Can't fool me." I say and look around more. I kept hearing whispers at first it wasn't coherent but as they got louder, I could hear every word.
"Can't believe Sasha wants to be called Alex it's stupid." I hear and turned around.
"Yea, I mean wanting to be a boy? Gross." I hear then there is laughter and I look around the room some more and shut my eyes.
"I raised a daughter not a son."
"How could you do this to us?"
"I'm your friend."
"You're sick in the head."
"No wonder you can't find anyone to be with, you're a weirdo."
"Freak."
"You should just disappear."
"Lieutenant?" I hear and turn to see Grimes.
"How'd you get in?" I asked.
"I busted the door with the hammer." He says and I looked to see no lights.
"We're is the entrance?" I asked and he pointed in the other direction and I glared at him. It wasn't the real Grime so I ignored him and walked away from him.
"Imagine if he knew?" I hear and look around.
"He would disown you too if he knew."
"Such a shame, isn't it?"
"The strength not having HIS way." I hear and I grabbed my sword and flung it into the dark.
"SHUT UP!" I yelled and looked around.
"I think we should just leave her, I mean we can't be friends with someone that thinks that way, what if they try something?" I hear in Marcy's voice and I turn to see both Anne and Marcy looking at me.
"To think we were friends with that thing." Anne says.
"Shut it." I mutter.
"Imagine, they were just trying to be with us because they think we would accept them." Marcy says.
"I SAID QUIT IT! THEY ACCEPT ME I KNOW THEY DO!" I yelled and then something came to face me and it was me, but as a male.
"Do they really? If you looked like me, they'd think otherwise, they wouldn't have been your friend because you couldn't relate to them anymore." He says and I look at him.
"They would be ok with me… I know they would." I tell them and they laughed.
"Come on Sasha, you're fooling yourself." They tell me as they walked around me in a circle, like a predator taunting it's prey.
"They'd still be my friends." I tell them.
"Marcy brought you here because she was moving, Anne gave you this scar because you were being manipulative to her again like always, they would think you'd be manipulating them again if you were to become Alex." They say as they pointed to the scar on their face.
"They didn't care how you felt, they probably only stayed with you because you did manipulate them, and once they find out, poof… no more friends for you… Alex." They say and I swing my sword at them but the block it with their own.
"I'm not though." I growled out and we fought. I would swing my sword and they would block; they would swing back but I had to dodge the blade a few times. It went on and on before I was finally able to get a hit and they laughed.
"Killing me won't change the fact that you'll be alone once everyone finds out that you Sasha, want to be a boy." They say and then they vanish. The flames come on and it's just a small square room, I looked around to see the entrance behind me and I place my hand to my head and shake it as another door opens and I walk through it. It seems that this temple only has one task instead of three since I saw a platform in the middle of the room and I walked up to it. I saw some more writing and tried to translate it.
"The task is always different for each person of strength, some it may be physical but others it's mental, you can be who you want for your task alone, but once you finish, you'll be changed from who you are to who you will be." I read and thought a bit on it as the platform turned red, green, blue then back to red and I place my hand on the pillar.
"I still don't understand." I mutter as I felt something shoot up my arm and I backed up from the shock and looked to see a sharp stone had sliced my hand and I look to see the room turn blood red instead of the bright reddish pink. I looked around as the temple shook a bit and I hurried out when a door opened there was some words that shined but I didn't have the time to translate it. As I exited the temple it seemed to crumble to the ground and I hear some yelling and I hurry over to the sound and looked to see Yunan holding Grimes back.
"SHE IS IN THERE!" Grimes yelled and I run up to them.
"Look there she is." Yunan says as I get to them and I take a bit to breath.
"Well?" Grimes asked as he placed a hand on my shoulder and I moved back a bit.
"Are you ok?" Yunan asked and I nod a bit.
"Yea just… fucking tired." I laughed and sat on the ground.
"Your voice changed." Yunan says and I look to them.
"What?" I asked and covered my mouth quickly. The voice wasn't mine, I mean it was deeper and I look to them a bit and take a deep breath.
"What happened in there?" Grimes asked and I move my hand away to speak but I put my hand back and shook my head.
"Kid?" Yunan asked and I take another breath.
"I have no idea." I finally say and they looked to each other than me.
"What do you mean?" Grimes asked.
"I don't know, it just… look I'm fine, you guys are fine." I state and cover my mouth again and then look to the rubble of what was once a temple.
"I think you need to rest." Grimes says and I nod as they helped me up and we headed back to the ship. We ended up leaving the island by nightfall and I looked at myself in the mirror a bit in the captain's room. I looked a little different but not much, a bit of a sharper jawline than what I had and my voice had gone deeper but that seemed to be it. I looked to my hand that was now bandaged up and clenched it into a fist and I went back to my book and tried to write down the words I had seen. I got a few letters down before I stopped trying and I groaned a bit then looked to the door as I heard a knock and I go over and opened it.
"Yea?" I asked and I went to go cover my mouth again but stopped myself and just looked to see Yunan.
"Grimes told me to tell you it's time to eat." She says and I nod and we head down to Grimes and ate some of the food he had made. As the days passed us by, I noticed I had some hair growing on my chin but I would shave it off before I would go talk to Yunan and Grimes and some other issues that happened below the belt, it was bothersome at some point but I did my best to hide it. I kept trying to remember the words I had seen and would write them down but I would stop after a few letters.
"We're almost home lieutenant." I hear and nod.
"Ok." I mutter and looked at the door. When the ship was docked, we exit out and I see we aren't anywhere near Newtopia.
"We had to dock here, no point in giving the king his ship back." Grimes says and I nod. We exit off the ship and headed towards Wartwood to find the Rebellion still in order, but I didn't speak, I was afraid to speak.
"How did it go?" A newt asked.
"Went fine, we found the temple." Grimes says.
"So, there was new lands… sorry for doubting you, Sasha." The newt says and I just nod at this.
"Did you gain your powers back?" Another newt asked and I shrugged a bit.
"Why doesn't she talk?" The newt asked.
"She doesn't want to, she's tired." Grimes says and I felt sadden. I know he doesn't know; I know I didn't tell him but how could I? What if the temple was right?
"Tired? She must have had plenty of time to rest." A newt says and I glare at them a bit.
"Just leave them be." Yunan says and I look to her as she looked to me then back to the newt as she gave them orders. I head into the planter house but I didn't go into our headquarters, instead I went into the old basement and looked around a bit. Anne had showed Marcy and I where she had been sleeping, though it didn't look comfortable to me Anne seemed ok with it. I go and take a seat on the final few steps of the stairs and I look around a bit at the room. It seemed nice, you can tell Anne lived here with how everything was placed and designed. I look to the side a bit to see a book so I go over and pick it up. 'Property of Anne Boonchuy, DO NOT READ!' It said and I look at it a bit.
"I just have to know." I say as I opened the book and it seemed to be a diary so I shut the book and just looked at the cover a bit. I take a deep breath and opened it to a random page.
"Dear diary, Sprig and I had disobeyed Hop Pop and left the house, we were able to get the key from him, he sleeps really weird like his eyes are opened and he doesn't look like he's sleeping at all, I guess he's just weird like that but hey, anyway we went to the lake and there were warning signs but of course I didn't want to listen, I guess I picked that up from Sasha Alex, he always wanted Marcy and I to try something daring." It read and I noticed how she marked the name out. I place my hand on it and took a breath and read some more as I turned the pages.
"Dear Diary, it's been a while but I got to see Sasha Alex again, I still can't believe it, but I don't know why he didn't tell the toads he went by Alex, I had to say his other name and sorry for writing it, I had to say it so many times I forgot and I'm sorry… does he think they won't accept him because he sounds like a girl still?" She had written and I look at the words.
"Dear diary, he betrayed me again, Sprig was right, doesn't matter anyway the toads tried to kill HP, all he was trying to do was make people happy, who cares if HP is a frog, he's kind in his own way, but I can't believe Alex and I had fought… I ended up cutting his face, is it sad that I hope it doesn't leave a scar? I know how much he liked his image, his mom made sure of that, would she freak out when we get back?" I read and I touched the scar on my face a bit and read some more.
"Dear diary, we found Marcy and I'm so happy."
"Dear diary, Marcy and Alex came to HP's house, Sprig was a bit jealous when I talked to Alex a lot, I get it he's mad that Alex and the toads tried to assassinate his grandfather but I was hoping he would have changed, everything seemed nice, that is till Grime's cake, though it was pretty cool, I mean if we had cakes like that in the human realm what would it be? Not wasps of course and I don't think anyone would really eat bugs but I've gotten use to it, also HP has been teaching me a lot about his farming business." I read and I chuckled a bit.
"Dear diary, Sprig and I had stolen Bessy, though we just wanted some fun it could have ended badly, I ended up reading all about Bessy's history in that HUGE book HP had, I won't lie but I did cry a little… ok I cried a lot, now I know that Bessy isn't just some version of a car but a majestic creature… ok I've been here to long BUT IT'S TRUE maybe mom and dad can trust me with driving, I have become a pro with driving Bessy." She had written and I smiled a bit.
"Dear Diary, we had the battle of the bands, Alex tried to change my song, I felt like he doesn't appreciate that I can do stuff on my own, that I have my own feelings, that I'm my own person, but after tonight he proved me wrong, he sang the song I had made even if it took him a while to finally know I don't need to be in his shadow. After tonight we will all be home, I hope Marcy, Alex and I can still be friends, we all changed since being here but I think we changed in a good way, welp that's all for now." I read and I closed the book. It was the last entry anyway and I rubbed my face and looked to the cover a bit.
"Sasha?" I hear and look up to see Grimes and I set the book down.
"Are you ok?" He asked and I could hear him walk down to me. I decided to stand up and look at him as he looked to me and I think.
"Grimes… I…" I stopped talking and he looked to me and I shake my head and walked past him as I went up the stairs. I headed to where the rebellion was staying and I head to where I slept. I felt tired, I felt sad, I had all these emotions and not just from reading Anne's personal thoughts, I shouldn't have read them, was I feeling guilt now?
"Lieutenant we-."
"Can't I just get some sleep?" I groaned as I looked to see Percy.
"Sorry I-."
"No… no I'm sorry Percy I'm just… I'm sorry." I tell him and he looked at me.
"Are you ok? You know I can make you some tea to help your voice." He says and I couldn't help but laugh a bit as I got back up.
"No, it's fine just… what's going on?" I asked. He told me that some of the newts and frogs were arguing again and so he took me to them.
"She put me in charge." I hear Ms. Croaker say.
"She put a stupid frog in charge." A newt says and the frogs gasped.
"How dare you, she's the best fighter we got." Wally says and I rubbed my head.
"Sorry." Percy whispers.
"It's fine." I say to him and walked over to them and picked the newt up.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"They're being mean to Ms. Croaker." Wally says.
"And why are you being mean to her?" I asked the newt as I glared at him. He gulped a bit and I raised a brow at him.
"W-well they didn't want to follow-."
"I put her in charge because I know she can fight and plan out great strategies, Anne said so and I trust her opinion, so if you have a problem with how I run things say it to my face or you can go and fight the king yourself." I threatened and the newt looked down and I set him to the floor.
"Alright, Ms. Croaker, did you have a plan for all of us?" I asked and she nods as she points to a location on the map.
"Ivy said she had seen some robots leaving this area, we don't know why but it's best to check it out." She says and I nod. When we finished planning out the attack just in case, we had to fight any robots. As everyone left the area, I looked to see and. Croaker looking at me and I rubbed my neck.
"You feeling, ok?" She asked and I shrugged.
"Wanna talk?" She asked and I think and nod as we head to her room. It was nice and cozy, and she goes and puts something on the makeshift stove.
"Some tea to calm ya down." She says and I nod and scratched my head a bit. The long hair was starting to bother me, I haven't cut it in so long.
"Need a haircut?" I hear and looked to see Ms. Croaker looking at me and i shake my head quickly.
"Are you sure? It seems to be bothering you." She says and I fiddled with the ends of my hair.
"It's not weird?" I muttered and looked to her.
"Why would it be weird?" She asked.
"My mom always made me keep my hair long, never ever cutting it short." I say to her.
"Well, you've been here for so long it's got to be bothering you." She says and I nod a bit.
"I could cut it for you." She says and I chuckled a bit at this and looked to her and I think. I mean its hair, it can grow back, so no harm in getting it cut.
"Can you?" I asked and she nods as she goes and gets some scissors and she comes over to me and I removed the head covering and untied my hair for her. She begins to cut and asked me if it was fine and I would ask her if she could cut it shorter. She does and when she finished, I run my hand through my hair and I smiled a bit as she showed me a mirror and I smiled and nodded.
"Thanks." I say and she nods. She then goes and grabbed the tea and we shared a cup and I look at her.
"Did something happen at the temple?" She asked and I nodded.
"Something strange but… I'll get over it." I tell her.
"Are you sure?" She asked and I took a drink.
"I've had a problem for years and it just came up at the temple." I explained.
"Problems like?" She asked and I rubbed my neck.
"I uh… I don't want to talk about it… I'm sorry." I tell her.
"It's fine, we all have our secrets." She says and I nod and thank her for the tea and she nods and I head out. I go back to my room and I go lay back down. Another few years would pass us by and we were at the ten-year mark since Marcy and I had been here. I had stopped trying to shave the hair on my face and I was just tired and exhausted, I was able to tap into my gem about a year ago but it's still taking some time getting use to it.
"You ok Lieutenant?" Grimes asked and I place my head on the table.
"Just tired that last fight took a lot from me." I mutter and then lift my head up and look at him.
"Want some Boggrog?" He asked and I laughed.
"Finally letting me drink?" I asked.
"I think you deserve it." He says and I nod as we head out and over to the makeshift bar that was made. Stumpy was in charge as he handed us the beverage and grimes gave him some snails and I look at the drink a bit.
"You still missing Anne?" Grimes asked and I nod.
"I mean it's been ten years… I'm twenty-three almost twenty-four… I missed a lot with her and Marcy." I say and take a drink from the mug. It was nasty but to be fair this is my first alcoholic beverage but I wasn't going to waste it.
"Who is Alex?" Grimes asked and I spit some of my drink out and looked to him.
"Uh what?" I asked and he wiped the beer off his face and I apologized to him to which he nods and looks at me.
"You said the name Alex a lot… he a boyfriend?" He asked and I laughed and looked away and kept quiet.
"Sasha?" He asked and I looked into the mug.
"Alex is… my other name." I tell him and looked to him.
"Other name?" He asked and I nodded.
"I uh… ehem… Marcy, Anne and I uh… talked for a while and we um… we learned about people and… let's just say they gave me the name Alex and I really liked it." I say and rubbed my thumb on the mug.
"Why didn't you say anything?" He asked.
"I honestly don't know… my mom I guess." I mutter.
"What does she have to do with this?" He asked and I look at him.
"She made me feel ashamed for wanting to be different… my dad was I guess happy; he wanted a son and when I told him he was cool with it but my mom… she got mad… really mad." I say and take another drink and looked to him.
"I was scared to cut my hair; I was scared to tell people the name I wanted to go by and I didn't know how things were here… when I went into the temple it just brought it all back and it did something to me." I tell him.
"That why you have whiskers?" He asked and we both laughed and I nodded.
"Yea… I don't know what it did but… I'm a bit happy." I tell him.
"Well, that's good." He says.
"Yea." I mutter and drink the rest of their version of beer and I set the mug down.
"GUYS! GUYS THE PLANTERS AND ANNE!" I hear and I look to Grime and we hurry outside to see the planters and Anne heading to the house but there were some robots. Grime and I hurried over and I grabbed my sword and we attacked the robots.
"HURRY INTO THE HOUSE!" Grime yelled and I kicked one of the robots from Grime and sliced it with my sword.
"SASHA LOOK OUT!" I hear and turned quickly and blocked one of the robots from attacking me. I was angry, I was tired of all this but I felt my powers activate and I punched the damn robot in the face blasting it into pieces and I look around as I hear some robots but they cloaked themselves so I couldn't see them. I feel something grab me and I grabbed the item on my shoulder and flung the robot to the ground breaking its cloak and it to pieces. I finished off the last robot but I was still pissed as I looked around to see nothing but it's all a trick, there's always a trick, Darcy wasn't stupid.
"Sasha?" I hear as I panted and looked around to who called me and I shake my head and gripped it.
"ANNE STEP BACK!" I hear Grime yell but I felt something crash into me and I look down and see someone. A human had grabbed ahold of me and I tried to move them but they wouldn't move.
"Alex it's me." I hear them whisper and I see their face. I take a few breaths and I shake my head as they wouldn't let me go.
"Hey we're ok." They say and I look to grime who looked calm and so I take a few deep breaths and I was finally able to calm down. I felt a little sick and my head was pounding a bit.
"Are you good?" I hear and looked to see Anne. She looked older, she was wearing a green polo shirt and some kaki shorts and I look to her and I hugged her tightly.
"Holy shit dude miss me that much?" She asked and I nodded. I couldn't speak, this had to be a dream.
"Sasha, we need to head back." Grimes says and I nod quickly and let go of Anne and we head to the Planter house and we took them into the hidden room. I kept looking at Anne, I felt like she would just disappear if I looked away and she talked to the other frogs and I feel a hand on me and I look to see Grime.
"So, who is in charge?" Mr. Planter said.
"Sasha is." Ivy says.
"Well, I mean, I get other people's opinions." I mutter.
"Dude your voice." Anne says and I cover my mouth quickly and looked down a bit.
"Ah yes the effects of the second temple caused this." Yunan says and I nod at this.
"Oh wait, second temple?" Anne asked and Yunan looked to me and I look back to Anne and I clear my throat a bit as I moved my hand away.
"I uh, was able to gain my gem powers, we found another island so there has to be more for you and Marcy if we lost them." I explained.
"Wait does that mean-."
"Andria's castle is still high up so I don't think I have much of my powers back… or Darcy did something." I say and Anne nods. The planters go and talk with everyone and I looked at Anne as she goes and takes a seat and I look to her feet and saw her shoe missing and I chuckled.
"What?" She asked and I pointed to her foot.
"Shoe is gone." I say and she looked to it.
"Ah frog not again." She says and I laughed a bit.
"I mean you haven't been here for so long." I say as I take a seat on the ground.
"I mean I kept losing it at work too when they send me to the swamps, I'm the only one who would really go out there." She says.
"You work?" I asked and she nods.
"Yea I work at the aquarium mostly with the frogs, toads and newts." She says and I smile at this.
"How is everything back home?" I asked and she looked at me.
"Everything is ok, lots of people wanted to talk about the girls that went missing and I just… I didn't know what to say so we just kept away from media a lot." She says and I nod.
"I wrote to yours and Marcy's parents." She says and I look up at her as she looked to the ground.
"Marcy's parents moved away still… and your parents." She says and I lean my cheek on my hand.
"Got divorced finally?" I joked and she nods and I shrugged.
"What about you?" She asked and I patted my chest.
"Changed a lot actually, look I grew a beard." I say as I run my hand through it and she laughed.
"You mentioned someone named Darcy?" She asked and I nodded.
"Yea so… Marcy is being controlled by the core as they called it, it's basically a bunch of dead smart dudes in a hive mind and well… they decided to call themselves Darcy, like Dark Marcy but together." I explained and she nods at this information.
"Lot has changed." She says and I nod.
"Yea… but I finally got everyone to work together… even if it was for a short time." I say to her and yawned a bit.
"I think you need some sleep." Anne says and I shake my head as I yawned again.
"Nah, I'm good I want to talk to you more." I say to her.
"Come on where is your room?" She asked and she helped me up and I take her to my room. I walk in and lay face first into my bed and groaned a bit as the door closed.
"You good?" She asked and I nod and moved my head to the side so I could speak clearly.
"Yea just feeling sluggish, before you guys showed up I had already used my powers and I'm just tired." I explained and I get up a bit and watched as she looked around my room.
"Taking lots of notes?" She asked and I nodded.
"I don't know about you but I can read Amphibia." I joked and leaned back onto the bed and she looked to me.
"That's great." She says and I nod.
"So, how's it like working at the aquarium?" I asked and she smiled.
"Dude it's so cool, I get sent to go to see any new wild life, my dad made a joke saying I should name the frog after us, the Bounchuy frog." She says and I chuckled and smiled at this.
"Oh, oh I also changed my last name." She says and pulls something out her pocket and it's her name tag.
"Boonchuy-Planter." I read and look to her and she nods.
"My parents were cool with it too, HP also-." She kept talking about her time back home, Polly was really good with robotics now, Sprig had tried to be a superhero at some point when they first got there, she even said that they had lost domino for a bit and I laughed.
"Your cat is just a trouble maker." I say and she nods.
"Yea it was sad when she passed… but hey it happens." She says and I nodded.
"So, what exactly happened?" She asked and I think and explained everything as best as I could, I didn't tell her I read her diary but I did tell her about how the temple was weird and I still don't understand it.
"Woah Ms. Croaker being nice?" She joked and I laughed a bit and yawned.
"Yea, she even made me some tea… actually I should ask for some." I say as I clear my throat a bit and stood up.
"Can I come?" Anne asked and I nod as we head over to Ms. Croaker.
"Alex, nice of you to drop by, and hello Anne, I talked to Hoppidia already." She says and we both nod as she let us in.
"She knows?" Anne asked and I nodded as I take a seat and so does Anne.
"Tea?" Ms. Croaker asked and I nod a bit.
"So how are you feeling today?" She asked me as she handed a cup to me.
"Tired, had to use my powers again but I'm fine." I explained.
"That's good, need me to get Loggle to make you a razor?" She asked and I shook my head after I took a drink.
"Nah, I'll use my sword." I joke and she hit me with her cane.
"Not unless you want your head lopped off, I'd rather you use a knife." She says and I laughed and so did Anne.
"How are you, Anne?" She asked her and Anne told her as much as she could and I took a drink of my tea and listened.
"You work in an aquarium, that's amazing." Ms. Croaker says and I finished my tea once we finished up, I felt even more tired so Anne and I decided to head back to my room, that is after I helped Ms. Croaker clean her cups and I opened my door and let Anne in.
"You can lay on the bed." I yawned and sat as my desk.
"Dude, you need to sleep, you look like you're going to collapse." Anne says and I shake my hand a bit.
"It's fine, seriously, you got to be tired too." I tell her.
"I'm fine, get some rest." She says as she points to my bed and I look at her.
"I'm fine Anne, seriously." I say.
"Alex, please." She says and I looked to the side a bit and then to her as she didn't budge and I groaned as I get up and get on my bed. I had moved over a bit and looked to Anne as she takes a seat and I looked at her.
"So… got a boyfriend?" I asked and she groaned.
"Not you too." She says and I laughed a bit at this.
"HopPop said the same thing, I kicked him off a cliff for it." She muttered which made me laugh some more.
"Oh god, that's brutal." I say and she nods at this.
"But no, I don't… couldn't really date… don't know why." She says and I shrugged.
"Dating sucks." I say and she laughed.
"And that's why I'm the break up queen." She says and I laughed a bit and closed my eyes a bit.
"I'm going to go to the planters." She says and I moved my hand a bit.
"You can stay here longer…. Up to you." I yawned and felt the bed shift a bit and I opened my eye a bit to see Anne laying on the bed with me.
"We can talk more in the morning." She says and I closed my eye and nodded at this and finally fell asleep.
