Chapter 17
Toad Trap
It's been a few days since Matt's confession, and he and the Amphibians have spent those days preparing for a road trip to Newtopia.
Catherine rented a snail and wagon and spent the first couple days reading the manual on how to take care of the snail.
Matt and Aaron also spent the first couple days packing for the trip. They didn't bring much.
Matt just brought everything in his backpack, which were some extra clothes, his phone, and his switch.
Aaron just packed some extra clothes and a rusty sword that Dareth gave to him to defend himself.
With the packing done, Matt and Aaron spent another couple of days sparring with Dareth, as a way of preparing to defend themselves from any threats coming their way.
Once the group was done getting ready, they got their stuff on the wagon and they took one last look at the town before Catherine snapped the reins and the quartet left the town.
After driving out of the town, the quartet remained on the path out of the valley and to Newtopia until…
At some point, their snail just stopped.
The quartet approached the snail to investigate what happened. Dareth noticed that it's caught in a snail trap. He realizes what's happening, and turns to the other three.
"Get down," he ordered them.
They did as they were told, and as Dareth suspected, it was an ambush. Arrows launched in multiple directions but they all missed the quartet.
A bunch of toad soldiers appear out of random places and start to attack. The quartet all bring out their weapons and prepare for battle.
Matt had a rusty spear, Aaron and Dareth had rusty swords, and Catherine had a silver spear.
"Stand down," one of the soldiers demanded. "Just hand over the toad and you'll be fine."
"If you wanna get to him," Aaron replied. "You gotta get through us."
"Suit yourselves," said the toad, before the soldiers charged into battle.
The quartet duel the toads and try to take down as many as they can.
Matt and Aaron fought side by side, balancing offense and defense until they found openings and struck. At one point, one toad attacked Aaron and he wasn't prepared. However, Matt saw this and pulled Aaron out of the way, however, he pulled Aaron a bit too close to him. They stare at each other and blush for a second before they realize they're still in a fight and keep fighting.
Catherine is quickly disarmed of her spear, but she's able to use her fists to take down toads with ease.
Dareth dueled toads coming towards him until eventually, they disarm him and topple over him, but he gets angry. He channels that anger, his face turning red, and he uses that anger to take all the toads down.
"ENOUGH!" a voice shouted.
The toad that was leading the ambush jumped down and sent a shock wave that knocked the quartet to the ground, rendering them unconscious.
The soldier grabs Dareth and tells him, "It's finally time to face the consequences." before walking off.
Matt comes to and sees the soldier carrying Dareth away.
"No," he muttered to himself as his eyes flashed teal.
Matt got back up and grabbed his spear. He charged towards the toad to make one last ditch effort to attack him, but it was fruitless. The toad saw his attack and summoned his sword, slashing Matt in the stomach. He screamed in pain as he fell to the floor.
The toad walked away, knowing that the creature won't be a threat anymore.
By the time Aaron and Catherine woke up, Dareth and the soldier were gone, and Matt was lying on the floor, crying in pain. They ran over to Matt to help him up.
A.N.
Only one chapter left before Part 2 is done.
I know I'm ready to be done with this.
Now it's all hands on deck. I'm going all in on the final chapter. I'm dropping everything and getting to work on it, and I'm gonna do my best and make sure this whole story was worth your time.