Chapter 18:

HVXIVG LU GSV DZC

It was the middle of the night. Inside of the fwagon stationed just outside of the gate, the Plantar family were currently sleeping, each taking up a spot to sleep in. Anne occupied the bed on the top platform, Hop Pop was on the bed on the bottom floor, Polly was resting peacefully inside of an open drawer underneath the bottom bed, and Sprig had settled with the sofa.

It should have been a quiet, peaceful night where everyone slept undisturbed. But then…

Creeaak… Thud…

Sprig woke up from what sounded like a door opening and closing. With a tired groan, he slowly sat up from the sofa while rubbing his eyes. After blinking his eyes a couple of times, he slowly looked around the inside of the fwagon, wondering where he heard the noise.

His sights eventually fell on where Hop Pop and Polly were sleeping, with the purple tadpole bundling up nicely under the covers, and the elderly frog sleeping soundly with his eyes opened. Creepy, but he made for a good scarecrow.

Sprig then looked at the top bed above.

"… Anne?"

He noticed that the human girl was not at her bed. He looked around the room once more to find where she might be, feeling a bit more awake as a result. Scanning the room a few times did not give him much of anything, and thus he came to the conclusion that Anne was no longer inside of the fwagon.

He wondered where she might have gone. His first thought was that she might be taking a late night stroll outside. It seemed reckless, but he thought that it made sense for her to do that instead. After all, it had a been a few nights that she had nightmares, presumably about that dreadful night at Toad Tower.

But then, he thought of another possibility. One that he was very afraid of.

He got off the sofa, walked towards the door and opened it just a bit so that he could peak outside through the gap, all while being careful not to wake up his grandfather and little sister.

He looked around the outside area, where he located the brown-haired girl sneaking towards the gate of the town, looking around herself as if to see if anyone was watching her before she continued onward.

From the direction that she was going, it was most likely that her destination was the Curiosity Hut.

"Oh no. Anne!"

The boy feared for her safety. He had to stop her before anything bad happens to her, especially if the museum is involved.

He looked over to Hop Pop and Polly, thinking that he should wake them up and inform them of the situation. But after seeing them looking peacefully in their slumber, he decided that he should go at it alone to hopefully resolve the issue at hand before they even realize something was amiss.

He quietly got out of the fwagon, slapped his cheeks a couple of times to get himself fully awake, and ran to go after Anne who already went deep inside of the town.

Unbeknownst to him, a pair of eyes was watching the two humans from a distance…

Anne managed to enter the museum through the front door, surprised to find it unlocked, as if someone was expecting her to come. Then again, the hut's lights were still on, so it probably meant that the museum was still open around that time. Although, who would visit the museum this late at night? Besides her, of course.

"Curator? Yo! Curator! You in here?!" she shouted out for the museum owner, walking through the main lobby and looking around to see if he was nearby.

As she continued to check her surroundings, even going as far as turning herself around to expand her search range, a source of light suddenly illuminated from behind her.

She turned towards the light source and was met with the sight of the Curator, holding a torch in his hand while standing right next to the door with the red curtains and hanging beads located at the end of the lobby. The eyepatch-wearing frog was looking at her with a creepy, toothy grin on his face.

"Oh, there you are!" she said with a smile, seemingly unfazed by him suddenly appearing when she least expected it. "That's not creepy at all!"

"Welcome, welcome!" the Curator welcomed the human girl with his arms spread open. "So glad that my little star is here!"

"Were you waiting for me this whole time?" she asked.

"'Course I did! 'Cause I had a feeling that you would show up here at this exact spot, at this exact time! I even timed when I'll light up this torch and the lightshrooms here to get a reaction out of you!" he replied.

"Yep! Still not creepy at all!"

"Anyway, I've been preparing something special for you, my little moneymaker!" the Curator said as he leaned to the side and grabbed the far end of the red curtains and beads. "You kids like a flashy show, right? Then what do you think of this?!"

He slid the curtains and beads open, revealing the room behind for the human girl to see.

"Whoa! Fancy!" she said, impressed by what she was seeing. She went inside of the special room, followed by the Curator who then closed the curtains and beads behind them.

A second later, the front door creaked open a bit and an orange-haired boy peaked his head through the gap, looking around in search for his best friend. The creepy monster statues were still there and stationed at the same spots that he last found them, hopefully. But he found no sign of the girl.

He slowly pulled the door wide open and snuck inside, tippy-toeing through the lobby while being careful not to make any noise or bump into things that would attract unwanted attention towards himself.

"Anne! Anne, where are you?!" he loudly whispered for his best friend, looking around the room to see if he could spot even a single strand of hair belonging to her.

No luck. Even as he searched the entire lobby, looking at every nook and cranny, Anne was nowhere to be found.

Just as he was about to consider going through the entire museum, his eyes were being drawn by a peculiar door with red curtains and beads, telltale signs that it was hiding something important behind it. He recognized the door as the one where the huge, two-legged monster statue was standing on top.

Speaking of which, he looked up and saw the aforementioned statue exactly where it should be, its huge eyes looking like they were staring right at him.

He shuddered, looking away from the huge statue afterwards. He still could not figure out where he saw that monster last and how.

He made his way towards the door, positioned himself next to it and had his hand grip onto the closest side of the curtains and beads. He slowly pushed them open a tiny bit, just enough so that could he peak through the gap to see what was inside of the special room.

The first thing that he saw was a large stage located on the back of the room, complete with big, fancy red curtains that hanged over not just there, but every corner of the room. The stage was all lit up with balloons and arrows pointing towards it, as well as a neon sign on top that says 'NEW.'

Besides the stage, the rest of the room was filled with picture frames hanging on walls, each depicting different odd creatures, from the least odd like a butterfly, to the most odd like a shell with a face.

There were even pictures of clowns. Lots of them, for some reason.

There was also a door leading to the storage room located on the left of the room.

And finally, just as he feared, he found both Anne and the Curator in the middle of the room, standing on a large round carpet and looking at the stage in front of them.

Examining the room in its entirety after a couple of glances, there were two things about it that the boy found strange.

The first thing was the large X symbol marked in red, located in the middle of the stage. The X had no reason to be there, unless it served to spring a trap for anyone foolish enough to step on it.

The second thing was some kind of furniture found next to the stage, completely shrouded in tarp. It was a mystery as to what the tarp was hiding underneath. But when he focused his eyes on it, he noticed that some kind of tube was sticking out of the tarp and it went straight up into the ceiling.

He did not like the look of things one bit.

"Man! You really went all out on it, huh?" Anne said, appreciating the look of the extravagant stage.

"Sure did! No reason to pass up on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" the Curator replied.

"Well, you're right about that!" She turned to look at the fez-wearing frog. "So, about the Skipman-."

"Bup, bup, bup!" He shushed her while moving his finger over her lips. "All in good time, kid. You'll get what's coming to you."

"Liking the sound of that!" Anne said, content with following his words for the time being.

Sprig, on his end, did not like the sound of that.

"Say, why don't you stand up there? Soak it all in!" the Curator suggested, as he pointed at the stage.

"Sure! Why not!" Anne happily obliged, as she began to walk towards it.

"No, no! Anne, don't!" Sprig whispered in fear, gripping hard against the door frame as he watched his best friend walk towards an obvious trap. He feared so much for her safety that his body was feeling pretty heated in the process.

He did not notice that it was due to the hot wind blowing down on him in a slow rhythm. Nor did he hear a low growl.

Just as Anne was about the climb up the stage…

THUD!

Everyone got startled by a loud noise sounding like a wooden object dropping to the floor, and they all turned their heads towards the source of the sound.

One of the picture frames featuring a clown had fallen off the wall. The fez-wearing frog had a vexed look on his face, as he moved towards the fallen frame.

"Geez! What is up with this thing?! This is like the fifth time this month that this stupid picture fell like that! Gonna need to sue whoever made those faulty pins, or that faulty picture frame. One of the two. Maybe even both. Definitely both." he mumbled.

Anne stood where she was, inches away from the stage, as she looked at the fallen picture just before the Curator reached it. She then moved her gaze up to the wall, wondering where the picture had fallen off from.

Then, when she presumably found the spot on the wall where the clown picture was hanging on, she was surprised to find another picture frame hanging on that exact spot. For reasons unknown, it was hidden behind the clown picture until it had fallen off the wall.

And that picture depicted three people with cheerful expressions on their faces. They were a short-haired boy wearing a cap, a long-haired girl wearing a knitted sweater…

… And the Curator himself, standing right in the middle and pulling the two kids together in his arms.

Anne gasped at the sight of the hidden picture.

Before she had the time to view it a little more, the Curator hanged the clown picture over it, obscuring the family picture once again.

"There we go! Good as new! At least, until I find something better to replace whatever that keeps causing the problem." he said. He turned around towards Anne and flashed her another toothy grin. "Now where were we? Oh yeah! You're about to climb up the stage and appreciate the view from up there! What are you waiting for? Get to it, superstar!"

Anne, however, remained where she was, looking at the Curator with a concerned expression on her face.

Before, she was all too willing to follow everything he said, as she found nothing out of the ordinary since she stepped into the museum. Not to mention that she was too eager to get the Skipman as soon as possible. But now, she found herself hesitating, having second thoughts about everything.

And it was all due to the hidden picture from a moment ago, giving her the opportunity to compare two faces from different times. Namely, the Curator's face from the time that the picture was taken and the present time.

From the brief glimpse of the picture, the Curator's face was full of genuine joy, and not just because of the expression on his face. His eyes, lacking any eyepatch, were noticeably bright, full of life and gratitude. From what she had gathered so far, it might be because he was with the two kids in the picture.

But when she looked at the Curator now, she found none of that on him. The grin that he was showing to her was insincere, hiding his true intentions underneath. His eyes, with one obscured by the eyepatch, were dark, lifeless, and most of all, bitter.

She recalled the conversation that she had with Frog Soos. About how the Curator used to be a relatively good person, rough on the outside, but soft on the inside. But he changed for the worse, keeping secrets from even his most trusted associates. And the catalyst was the two kids leaving Stony Gulch.

It was at that moment that Anne finally became aware of the situation that she was putting herself into.

"What's the matter?" the Curator asked, noticing that the human girl remained still for an unnecessarily long amount of time. "Getting stage fright or something? Hah! Of course not! You haven't even gone up on stage yet! So what's the holdup?"

Anne shifted her eyes to the side, wondering how she should proceed from there.

"Hey, Curator?" she spoke. "Don't mean to snoop around, but there was another picture hidden behind the one that you just put up. What's up with that?"

"Oh, this?" The eyepatch-wearing frog briefly glanced at the pictures in question, his face adopting a sour look for a very short moment. "That's just nothing. I've been meaning to get rid of it for a while, but didn't really have the time. Especially since I've been busy setting all of this up for you."

"But why do you wanna get rid of it? I mean, you're in that picture." The human girl said. "You kinda strike me as a pretty prideful guy, so I would've thought that you like putting a pic of yourself up for everyone to see."

"Well, you're not wrong there." he replied. "I'm not acting professional here, but just between you and me, I always hated that one. I had to put up with a couple of stupid tourist kids who were being annoying about wanting to get a picture together with the master of oddity himself."

He shook his head at the thought. "Heh. They should've spent their time messing around in the mud instead…"

"But… They're your great nephew and niece, aren't they?" she pointed out.

The Curator widened his eyes.

"… Where did you get that from?" he coldly asked, displaying none of his previous theatrics.

Anne believed that she had hit a nerve.

"I've been talking with some of the townsfolk earlier today." she explained. "And they told me a little bit about those 'stupid tourist kids,' Flipper and Schmable. The twin siblings who supposedly changed Stony Gulch into what it is now."

The Curator scoffed at the mention of the twins' public reputation. "So that's the story that they're giving you, huh? Bunch of oblivious, gullible idiots…"

"Idiots? Why did you call them that?"

"Because they only see what's on the surface, what those brats want them to see." he replied. "The truth is, those two are just a couple of ungrateful, backstabbing children who couldn't wait to ditch this stupid town as soon as they have the chance. And I'm the only one who sees them for who they are."

"So why did you look so happy in that picture?" she asked, pointing at the hidden picture frame.

"That's just me putting on a face to make them think that they got me!"

She crossed her arms. "Somehow, I doubt that."

The Curator growled under his breath, becoming increasingly annoyed by the brown-haired girl's interrogation. "Okay, what's with all of this? This isn't about those two twerps! Right here and now, it's all about you! So get up on that stage and fulfill your end of the deal!"

"The deal, huh?"

Anne looked over to the stage, specifically where the red X symbol was located. At first, when she saw the X, she thought nothing of it, except that it was simply a fun way to help her be perfectly presentable as an attraction. But now that she knew better, the X seemed much more sinister in hindsight.

"One more thing," she spoke, turning her head towards him. "What exactly are you planning here?"

"What do you mean?" he asked her with a question of his own, getting very impatient.

"I know that we made a deal that, in exchange for the Skipman, I'll be your special attraction for the day. But you never really told me how you're going to make me a special attraction. And from what I heard, you never told anyone else about your plan either."

"Okay, I'm thinking that you've been talking to either Gwendy or Frog Soos!" the Curator remarked. "But either way, it's a surprise! You'll find out what it is as soon as you get up there! Think of it as an early look before the big reveal for your eyes only!"

"You know, I'm down with a surprise reveal and all if it's for fun, but not when it puts me in danger."

"What are you suggesting?" he asked, getting more irritated by the second.

"I'm thinking that you're not being honest with me and our deal here." she replied, glaring at the eyepatch-wearing frog. "And if that's the case, then there's no way I'm getting up there."

"What?!" he shouted in shock while stomping forward with one foot. "Don't be silly! You really think I'm secretly scheming behind our deal?! That's just your teenage mind telling you stuff that ain't real! So put a sock in it and just get up there already!"

Not getting any clear answer from him, Anne turned towards the door leading to the lobby. "Look, man. If you're not gonna tell me what your real game is, then I guess the deal's off." She began to walk forward.

"Wait, are you kidding me?! Don't you turn your back on me, little missy!" the Curator yelled, trying to grab her attention to hopefully get her to stop. "What about your Skip thing?! You're just gonna leave it behind?!"

She ignored him and continued her march.

"I'm warning you, you little freak of nature!" he yelled once more. "If you walk out of this room, even putting a foot out, I'll make sure that you'll never get your meaty hands on that thing ever again, for the rest of your life! Are you seriously going to give it up so easily?!"

Anne stopped walking, standing right in the middle of the room, as the thought of the Skipman came into mind.

The Curator smirked after noticing a clear hesitation from her. "Hehe! That's right. Don't pretend like that weird-looking artifact isn't something that you've been dying to get your hands on. I can see it in your eyes. You'll never get another chance like this ever again, unless you do as we agreed upon, superstar."

Anne bit her lower lip. He was right. Ever since she found out that he had the Skipman, she became obsessed in obtaining it as soon as possible, no matter what. It was the very first object from Earth that she had encountered the whole time that she was stuck in Amphibia, and it could explain so much about her dilemma. She was willing to take the risk associated with the deal between her and him, at least at first.

But in the process, she brushed off her family who wanted to work together with her, and who told her many times how dangerous her endeavour was and especially how menacing the Curator really was. She made a promise a while ago that she would never carelessly put herself in danger where she might not leave unscathed. And yet, that was exactly what she was doing.

Is it really worth getting a single item?

She turned her head back towards the Curator with a resolute look on her face. "You know what? You can keep the Skipman. I don't need it anymore. Besides, we're going to Newtopia anyway. I'll find my answers there instead." she said.

"Say what?!" The Curator was shocked to hear straight from a teenager's mouth that she was abandoning her desires. It was unthinkable.

"So long, Curator." She resumed her walk towards the door, waving her hand goodbye as she did so. "It's been fun while it lasted."

The fez-wearing frog watched his biggest moneymaker walking away from him, gritting his teeth in seething anger. "So this is the thanks I get for being nice…"

When Anne returned to the lobby, she was then taken by surprise by the sight of a familiar orange-haired boy standing right next to the door on her right.

"Sprig?"

"Anne!" exclaimed the boy, pushing himself off the wall.

"What are you doing here? Have you been following me?" she questioned him.

"Yeah! I was going to save you from whatever danger that you're about to put yourself into! What happened to us working as a team?!" he replied, glaring at her.

The human girl looked down in shame. Her friend came all this way to stop her from going through her reckless, lonesome plan. He would not have to do that if she had been patient from the start.

"I'm sorry." she apologized. "You guys were right about everything. I should've listened to you. I was so obsessed about the Skipman that I almost walked right into an obvious trap."

As he listened to her apologies, Sprig's face softened. "Well… I'm just glad that you're safe, Anne. That's all that matters to me." he smiled.

Anne looked at her friend straight in the eyes and a smile of her own appeared on her face. She definitely needed to make up to them, and that was a good first step.

… She felt something wet on her arm. When she looked down, she saw that a long tongue had wrapped itself around her wrist.

"Huh?"

Before she had a second to process what was going on, she let out a yelp when the tongue immediately yanked her off her feet and back inside of the room.

"ANNE!" Sprig screamed, as he tried and failed to catch her as she got pulled back.

Anne was being pulled around in the air until the tongue let go of her wrist, resulting in her falling right in the middle of the stage, where the X mark was located. She groaned as she sat up and rubbed the back of her head.

When she looked around, she caught sight of the tongue retreating back inside of its user's mouth. The user turned out to be the Curator himself, sporting a wicked look on his face.

"What the heck, dude?!"

"Sorry, sugar! But there's no way that I'm letting you go that easily!" the Curator said, as he made his way towards the tarp-covered furniture. "You made a deal with me! If you're not going to withhold your end of the deal, then I'll just have to do it for you!"

He grabbed the tarp and pulled it off the furniture, revealing some sort of a large machine consisting of a pump unit and a chamber containing a brown liquid substance. He then pulled one of the levers down, causing the ceiling above Anne to open up to make way for a glass barrel connected by a tube descending down until it trapped her inside.

"What the-! What is this?!" Anne shouted, standing up and banging her fists against the glass container in a futile attempt to break herself free.

The Curator laughed. "There we go! Exactly as it should be!"

"Let her go!" Sprig yelled as he charged at him.

"Wha?! Who's there?! Is that the cops?!" The eyepatch-wearing twisted himself around in alarm, pulling his cane out and holding it up defensively. "I ain't going back to frog prison!"

Sprig screeched to a halt upon seeing the Curator armed and ready.

"Oh, it's just another hideous-looking creature. That's a relief." the Curator sighed, as he lowered his cane once he saw that there was only a lone boy standing before him. "… Wait a minute. A hideous-looking creature?"

"Let go of Anne now!" Sprig yelled while pointing a finger at the fez-wearing frog.

"Who? The freak-show right there? Hah! Fat chance!" the Curator scoffed. "You're crazy if you think that I would let her slip from my fingers! Not when there's money to be made here! She'll be the perfect, new wax statue for all the dumb customers to throw their coppers at!"

"Statue?! What're you talking about?!"

"Okay, I've just about had it with all the secrets and stuff!" Anne said while banging her fists against the glass prison. "What exactly is your game here?!"

The Curator turned his head towards her. "Well, I guess there's no point hiding it, so I'll tell you everything! I heard you earlier today saying that all of my stuff here is fake. Well, until about a year ago, you'd be right about that."

He pointed his cane towards the door leading to the lobby, where the monster statues were. "But all the monsters that you see over there? They're no fakes at all! They're all real! Real and frozen in wax! Which is what you're going to be!"

He then placed his hand on the second lever of the pump machine and pulled it down. The machine started running as a result, with the pump unit moving up and down, blowing air into the brown liquid compartment until the fluid began to flow into the tube, going straight up into the ceiling.

Anne heard a swishing noise coming from above. She looked up to the hole of the tube located at the centre of the glass barrel and saw some sort of substance rushing down towards her. With a gasp, she quickly pressed herself against the wall just before the brown solution fell to the floor. It then began to slowly fill the glass prison up.

"Oh crud." Anne said, realizing what was going to happen to her soon. "Sprig! Get me the heck out of here!"

Sprig looked in horror, as he too realized that his best friend was about to be submerged in wax. He shifted his gaze at the pump machine, guarded by the Curator.

"You psycho! Turn it off right now!" he shouted.

"Hahaha! Not a chance, kiddo!" the Curator fiercely declined. "She's the main attraction, remember? Not just for tomorrow. She'll be here FOREVER! There's no way I'm stopping this now!"

Sprig growled at the eyepatch-wearing frog, forming his hands into fists.

"Hey, here's an idea!" the Curator said, once he was being reminded of what he was speaking to. "If you care about her so much, why not join her? You're an ultimate oddity creature yourself, right?"

The boy gasped, as he came to realize that he had his hood down the whole time, thus revealing his human form to the Curator. But that was the least of his worries at the moment.

"This is perfect!" the Curator expressed his excitement while rubbing his hands together. "What are the chances that I get to catch two freaks for the price of one? The folks are gonna eat up whatever names and stories that I come up for you two! The Twin Freaks of Amphibia! The Otherworldly Duo from the Weird Swamp! The Forbidden Ship that Sails Against Nature! Hmm… Ok, the last one ain't exactly winning any awards…"

"You're not getting the both of us!" Sprig declared as he raised his fists up in front of him, preparing to fight the Curator. "I'm shutting that machine down! I'll get Anne out of here, and we'll escape this museum-disguised trap together! I'm not letting you have your way!"

The Curator smirked. "So you wanna try fighting me for it? Fine by me!" He raised his cane up while adopting an offensive fighting stance. "At least it'll give me a reason to punch a teenager in the face! Well, what're you waiting for, kid?! Come and get some!"

Sprig let out a battle cry, as he charged right at the Curator, pulling a fist back to strike at him.

The grinning Curator kept his ground, swinging his cane as soon as the boy was within reach.

Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock!

Hop Pop and Polly had been sleeping peacefully inside of the fwagon for some time until a series of door knocks pulled them out of their slumber. They briefly looked around, wondering what was going on, before they tried to go back to sleep.

Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock!

Another series of door knocks was heard, keeping them awake.

"Mmph...! Get lost already…! We're trying to sleep here…!" Polly groaned as she twisted around in her drawer bed and put the pillow over her head to shut out the noise.

"Hang on, Polly… I'll get it…" Hop Pop yawned, as he reluctantly got off the bed and slowly walked towards the side door. He opened the door while rubbing his eyes to make himself slightly more awake.

"Mm… Can I help you?" he asked, looking up at the person and blinking his eyes to get a better view of who he was speaking to. "… Wait. Aren't you Frog Soos?"

"Uh, sorry, dude. Didn't mean to wake you up in the middle of the night." apologized the large frog, looking a bit nervous.

"What brings you here?" Hop Pop asked.

"Well, uh… I wanna talk to Anne about something. It's really important." Frog Soos replied. "Is she here?"

"She is, but can it wait until morning? If it wasn't obvious already, we're all trying to sleep here. And I wouldn't want to pull Anne out of her bed just for that…" Hop Pop said.

"Uh… Hop Pop? Anne's not here." The purple tadpole pointed out.

The elderly frog widened his eyes. He turned his head towards the two beds and saw a concerned Polly standing on the bottom bed, pointing at the top bed which was empty.

"Wait, where's Anne?" He looked around the fwagon interior to find where the human girl might have gone. But in the process of doing so, he noticed that a certain person was also missing from the sofa. "And where's Sprig?!"

"You don't think that they went back to the museum, do you?" Polly asked.

"Oh dear frog, they probably are!" Startled at the thought, Hop Pop quickly went to the corner to quickly dress up in his usual attire.

"Oh no! I should've come here sooner!" Frog Soos said, feeling as worried as everyone else. "I wanted to stop Anne from going to the museum because, well, there's something freaky going on there, especially when Mr. Ponds is involved."

"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Hop Pop shouted as soon as he put on the last bit of clothing on him. "Anne and Sprig are in trouble! We have to go to the museum to save them!"

"At night? Um, maybe I should sit this one out." Polly said while she shuffled away from the door, still feeling scared at the idea of going back to the Curiosity Hut and all of its creepy statues, especially during night time. "I can hold down the fort or something. Sounds like a good idea, right?"

"Not when your brother and sister's lives are at stake!" Hop Pop quickly grabbed the purple tadpole and ran out of the fwagon with her through the side door, with Frog Soos moving aside to let them pass. "Hang on, you two! Hop Pop and Polly are coming for you!"

"Wait up, dudes! I'm coming with you!" Frog Soos yelled as he followed the two of them from behind.

Hop Pop, Polly and Frog Soos all ran towards the Curiosity Hut as fast as they could to rescue Anne and Sprig from whatever danger that they might encounter.

A good wack from the 8-ball cane sent Sprig rolling across the floor for a second before stopping with his stomach on the ground.

He groaned in pain while clutching the side of his ribs which took the full blunt of the attack. Looking up, he saw the chuckling Curator slowly walking towards him, twirling his cane in sadistic delight.

"What's the matter, kid? That all you got?" the Curator said, swinging his cane down against his open palm, ready to strike the poor boy some more.

Sucking up the pain, Sprig stood up from the floor, glaring at the eyepatch-wearing frog. He wasted no time to run at him before going for a tackle.

The Curator easily dodged his tackle by simply hopping over him, causing the boy to crash and slide across the floor.

With a groan, Sprig got up on all four while shaking his head. Turning his head back, he was met with the sight of the fez-wearing frog hopping from one place to another, clearly taunting him with his natural hopping skill that was impressive for someone as old as him.

"What? Don't wanna jump? I thought kids like you like to jump around!" he taunted. "Or wait! Maybe you can't jump! Makes sense, since you and that girl over there are odd creatures, after all! Guess I'll add that to your oddity factor!"

"Grr! Shut it already!" Sprig yelled as he stood up once more. The last thing he wanted to hear was a bad guy mocking him for not being able to do ordinary frog feats as a human.

"Hah! Fat chance!"

The Curator leaped forward with his cane raised in an attempt to strike Sprig down in the process. The human boy quickly dodged out of the way of the attack, and when he turned himself towards the Curator again, the latter had already jumped off the floor and was moving towards him.

The second that Sprig realized what the fez-wearing frog was about to do, the Curator landed right behind him and swing the cane against him, sending him flying away until his back hit the wall.

The boy's crash caused some of the clown picture frames to fall off the wall.

Anne was watching Sprig's fight against the Curator unfold before her inside of her glass prison, banging with all of her might against the wall to no avail. Looking down, she noticed that the wax liquid had gone up to her hips, a clear indication that her fate of becoming an unwilling wax figure was close at hand.

"Sprig! Forget about me! Save yourself!" Anne implored him.

"Ngh! No way!" he strongly declined while standing up from the floor for the umpteenth time. "I'm not leaving you alone with this guy!"

"Heh! You better listen to her, kiddo." said the smirking Curator, tapping his palm with his cane with no apparent rhythm. "You know better than I do that I'm way out of your league. You might as well run back home, wherever or whatever that is. Not that it'll do you any good, 'cause I'll chase you down all over the land, just like with all the monsters that I caught so far!"

Sprig growled at him. He was fully aware that he was no match against the Curator, but that was because they were fighting in close combat. If he was using his trusty slingshot, their positions would have been switched, or at least even. The problem was that he found no suitable object that he could use as ammo inside the room. So he was left with only his bare hands.

Sprig wiped some of the dirt off his face with his hand before he walked towards him defiantly.

"Oho! So you're approaching me instead? You got spunk, kid!" the Curator complimented him, at first. "Or maybe you're just dumb. Either way, mind if I close the gap?"

He lunged towards Sprig with his cane raised once again to swing it down at him.

Sprig stopped walking at that moment and in a split second, he thought of numerous actions that he needed to choose from to hopefully escape harm and at the very least deliver a counterattack at last. He settled with one action, even though he was entirely uncertain on how effective it would be.

Against everyone's expectations, he stood his ground even as the old frog was rapidly closing in on him.

"Sprig, look out!" Anne yelled in fear for her friend.

Once he was within range, the Curator eagerly swung his cane down.

In a dire move, Sprig quickly moved his hands up and caught the cane mid-swing, surprising its wielder. The Plantar boy then used the opportunity to spin around, pulling the Curator along with him.

The old frog screamed as he was being spun around and around with no sign of stopping from the boy, until his hold on the cane slipped. What ensued was the Curator being launched away and crashing into the wall located far away from where Sprig was standing. As the Curator slid down against the wall, a couple of clown picture frames fell on his head, to his misfortune.

Sprig stopped spinning and looked at where he sent the Curator flying, surprised that his desperate counterattack worked.

"Okay…! That was pretty lucky…!" he said.

"Dude! The machine!" Anne reminded him, pointing at the pumping machine next to the stage.

"Right! On it!"

Sprig tossed the cane aside and quickly went over to the machine, intent on turning it off and freeing his best friend.

"Uh… Which one turns the wax off?!" he asked both himself and Anne, unsure which of the two levers does which.

"Does it matter?! Just pull both up!" Anne shouted.

"Okay! Doing it now!"

Sprig moved his hand towards the lever. But just before he could even touch one of them, a long tongue suddenly wrapped itself around his wrist.

He turned his head back and saw that the tongue belonged to the Curator who already recovered from his crash against the far wall.

Raising his eyebrows a couple of times to let the boy know what he was in for, the Curator yanked him off the floor and spin him around in the air.

Sprig screamed as he was being spun around in his turn, unable to free his hand from the fez-wearing frog's surprisingly strong tongue grip.

The moment that Sprig became disoriented as a result, the Curator slammed the boy down hard in the centre of the room, the crashing sound booming across the room. He then let go of his wrist.

Sprig moaned in pain, lying with his abdomen on the floor, his head spinning and his body aching from the slam-down. Just as he was about to barely raised himself off the ground, a knee suddenly pressed itself against his back, and his arms were being locked behind him by a pair of hands.

"Heh! That was some stunt that you did there, twerp! Almost got me down for the count!" the Curator said, complimenting the boy's efforts. "Too bad that you're dealing with me, and not some other poor schmuck!"

"Ngh! Get off of me!" Sprig yelled, struggling to free himself from the old frog.

"No can do! Can't have you running around while a masterpiece is being made right before our eyes!"

The boy moved his head up just enough to see Anne still trapped inside of the glass cylinder on top of the stage. He widened his eyes in horror, as he realized that the wax liquid had already rose up to Anne's chest with no sign of stopping.

The brown-haired girl became painfully aware just how close she was to be drown in wax, looking at her struggling friend with terror in her eyes.

"SPRIG!"

"ANNE!" he screamed for her in sheer terror, as he was about to watch the demise of his cherished friend.

Sparks of electricity formed around his hands.

"Huh? What's up with your hands?" the Curator asked, noticing something strange going on with the boy's hands.

Before he realized what was forming down there, electricity shot up across the old frog's arms.

"AARGH! LEAPING GRASSHOPPER ON A POND!" the Curator yelped, as he hopped off and away from the boy, shaking his arms furiously in an attempt to remove the shock that he had received.

Realizing that he was free, Sprig wasted no time to quickly stand up from the ground without question and ran straight at the machine, extending his arm out to reach for the levers.

He managed to get his hand on one of the lever before he pulled it up. The machine slowly powered down as the pump unit slowed to a stop and the wax chamber stopped bubbling. As a result, the wax liquid stopped flowing down into the glass prison, just as the flood rose up to collar level.

Anne looked down and noticed that the wax flood stopped rising. With a relieved sigh, she looked at the boy standing in front of the machine and gave him a thankful smile.

"Sprig! You did it!" she said.

Sprig turned to her and smiled in his turn, relieved that he was able to help her narrowly avoid a terrible fate.

"LEFT HOOK!"

Inadvertently turning his head towards the shouting voice, a fist struck him right in the right eye, sending him tumbling down on the floor as his sight became full of stars.

Anne gasped as she witnessed the Curator punched her friend in the face after approaching him in his blind spot.

The Curator rubbed his knuckles against his open palm, standing over the dazed boy who lied on his side, barely moving an inch.

"That was some magic trick that you just pulled there, kiddo." he said. "You're getting more odder by the minute. I think you might even be a tad more dangerous than all of the monsters that I've faced."

He grabbed Sprig by the collar and proceeded to pull him along towards the door leading to the storage room.

"But hey! That means that you'll pull in a lot more money from customers than all the rest! Nice of you to show up to save your friend just so I can turn you into another moneymaking attraction!"

Once they reached the storage room, he opened the door wide open and tossed Sprig inside.

Sprig had just begun to recover from the sneak attack, with his sights slowly going back to normal. The first thing that he saw was the grinning Curator standing in front of him with his hand on the door.

"But first, I'll need to take care of our latest star over there! You'll get your turn next, kiddo!"

"W-wait!"

The Curator slammed the door closed, pulled out a key and locked the storage room with Sprig inside. He chuckled as he put away the key back in his pocket and headed towards the stage.

"Well, now that he's out of the way, there's nothing else that's gonna stop me from turning you into a state-of-the-art wax statue at last!" he said as he stood in front of Anne still imprisoned in the glass chamber. "Don't worry! You're just gonna be frozen in wax! It's not like you'll suffocate or anything!"

"Uh, news flash, dude, I won't breathe if I'm frozen! In wax or otherwise!" Anne angrily told him.

"Hah! Like it matters to me!" he laughed. "As long as you rake in the cash, I don't even give a toad's butt about what happens to you!"

"You're messed up! Is money really all that matters to you?! Do you even realize that you're talking to an innocent person that you're going to turn into a statue?!"

Anne tried to move her arms up, but she found that they were frozen in place under the wax pool. The petrification process was already well underway, much to her distress.

"Oh sure, you're an innocent person, alright." he sarcastically said. "That's what all the weird creatures say before they came at my throat. Granted, most of them don't talk, but you get the idea."

"Curator, I haven't even done anything wrong to you! I've been enjoying your museum up until a few minutes ago! What part of me screams 'I'm gonna rip you to shreds' to you?!"

"True, you don't look like the usual monstrous kinds of creatures that I've dealt with before. Then again, who cares?" he shrugged. "Instead of wasting your breath fogging up the glass, you might as well start savouring your last moment. It'll make you feel better about facing your death. Or not. Not like it matters."

He turned his back to her. "Anyway, I'm gonna start the machine up again! Better decide fast on what to do with your precious last minute, honey! Trust me. It'll be worth it."

He began to walk away from her, as Anne looked at him in shock, unable to comprehend what was going on in his head.

"I don't believe it… This is the guy who Frog Soos looked up to?" she asked him and herself.

That prompted the Curator to stop in his tracks.

"Frog Soos told me that you're the kind of guy who acts like a jerk, but is actually a sweet guy once you warm up to people. He really believes that you're a really good guy. But you're acting like you don't care about anything or anyone, except money. Heck, you'll even go as far as killing someone if it helps you get the money that you need. I don't believe that you're the same guy that he was talking about…"

She thought back to her conversation with Frog Soos, as well as the hidden family picture from earlier.

"And to think that it all started when Flipper and Schmable left town with your twin brother…"

BAM!

Anne got startled when the Curator bashed his fist against the glass barrel. The old frog, with his eyepatch up, looked at her with sheer bitterness in both of his eyes.

"What do you know about me anyway? Or my nephew and niece? Or my brother? Or any of my family?" he coldly asked.

Anne could not find the words to reply to him.

"You think just because the guy who's been around for a decade or two told you some stuff about me that you know everything that's been going on in my life, right? Well, you're dead wrong. Maybe you're just saying that because you have a loving, supporting family. Well, if you'd experienced what I've gone through, maybe you'll understand why I do my business this way. So don't act like you know me, brat."

The human girl was really not expecting such cold hostility from him when she brought up his family. But at the very least, she was able to see what was hidden behind the mask that he had been wearing up until now.

"Mr. Ponds… You're not a bad guy." she said. "Please. Don't do this. To yourself."

Stan scoffed, as he took a few steps away from the glass prison. "Still don't get it to the end, huh? Sounds like you just wasted your last moment with your little character study." he said.

He put the eyepatch back on his eye.

"Better get ready, superstar! Because everyone is going to see the ultimate oddity in the world that they're going to throw all of their money at! Every day, you are going to suck in all the money from their pockets until they decided that they've seen enough of you! But when that time comes, I'll have enough money to go big with the Curiosity Hut! It won't be just the main tourist attraction in Stony Gulch! It'll be the biggest attraction in the region! The whole world, even! I'm going to be swimming in money all the way to Heaven!"

The Curator cackled as he thought about the future, willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to get his way, no matter how many boundaries he was willing to cross. There was nothing that would stop him from completing his first step into building a monopoly, and all that was left was to finish covering the odd girl in wax.

Clink!

… The sound of a lever being lifted up was heard throughout the room.

A second later, the glass barrel slowly lifted itself up from the stage, allowing the excess wax solution to flow out from below, sparing Anne from a wax-related demise.

"WHAT?!" The Curator exclaimed, wondering what caused the glass cylinder to raise up from the floor.

Both he and Anne all looked over to where the machine was, and there stood a tall person in a familiar green flannel shirt, with her hand on the lever that she had just pulled up.

"Gwendy?!" They both shouted the person's name.

"What the heck are you doing?!" The Curator yelled at his cashier.

The long-haired frog looked at her boss straight in the eye. Her eyes were filled with both determination and sadness for one person in particular.

"I'm stopping this, Stan."

End of Chapter

Hey, everyone. HiddenKurogawa here with more stuff related to ciphers.

As with last time, I'll reveal to you the title of the last chapter, which is encoded with the Caesar cipher.

The Cool Girl and the Soos

Now, for the cipher of the current chapter's title... I'm gonna stay quiet about it this time. You'll have to figure it out on your own which cipher that I used for it. The only hint that I'm going to give you is that the ciphers that I chose for this chapter and last few are all used in Gravity Falls.

That's all from me. As always, feel free to comment, follow and/or fave this fanfic, though I would appreciate these very much. Until next time.