Our second chance is called Amphibia - Road to Newtopia (Season 2)

by JokerandHarley4Ever

Two months have passed ever since the six humans ended up trapped in Amphibia, and they are now ready to set on a new journey out of the Valley in search of a way to return home. On their journey, they will face old and new enemies, uncover hidden secrets and conspiracies, make new friends and allies and experience shocking revelations.

12. Quarreler's Pass

Quarreler's Pass

---

After their battle with the Roaring Roosters, Jacob and Marcy's awakening of their calamity powers and Marcy's confession about her role on the Box, the journey to Newtopia became surprisingly uneventful and peaceful. Apart from a few angry bugs on the road and a couple roadblocks the fwagon had to circumvent, the journey had become quite peaceful.

Right now, the Fwagon was traveling through a narrow and winding road that passed amid high rock formations, time and atmospheric elements having carved numerous caves in the stone that gave shelter and comfort to the animals living in the area. Large yellowish mushrooms with red spots grew here and there among the crevices of the rocks, the only form of vegetation visible in the landscape. Hop Pop once again was at the reins, driving at a slow pace while Felicia, Anne and James sat next to him, the veteran adventurer watching the landscape while the two humans were checking the map. A little detached from the others, Marcy sat next to Akitsu, the large dragonfly sleeping while the human girl kept adding more sketches of the landscape in her Journal.

"Hey," Anne said, pointing out in the map, "looks like we're almost halfway to Newtopia, HP."

"Yep, we're making good time." The old frog replied.

"Great, I can't wait for us to reach our destination," James commented, once again looking at the narrow path they were going through. "This place gives me the chills."

"You're not the only one," Felicia rolled her eyes before focusing again on the road ahead. "And yet, if Marcy's research is correct, this place was once a world-renown panoramic route… now it's abandoned, and almost no one dares to travel through it."

"This place was a panoramic route?" Anne asked dubiously. The bleak and gloomy scenery around them looked anything but picturesque.

"That was… a long time ago, Anna-Banana." Marcy timidly spoke, still having issues looking her friends in the eyes. While the wounds the revelation had caused in their friendship had been healing quite fast, the dark-haired girl still felt nervous about it. "Apparently, from what I've been able to translate, this area was once a quite famous scenic route, lush and covered with green, almost like Carpinteria Bluffs, but it got abandoned with the fall of the Old Amphibian civilization" The girl looked at the scenery around her, sadness in her eyes as she wondered how such area could have changed so much. "The good news is, we shouldn't be facing too many threats as for now."

"That's good, Mar-Mar!" Anne smiled at her, "I got to say, this trip has been a lot smoother than I thought it'd be."

"Smoother?" James piped in, "With all the crazy adventures we had ever since we left the Valley, I wouldn't call this journey 'smooth'."

"Hey, we survived and we're still together!" Anne countered, "It could be worse."

"I guess Anne is right on that," Felicia mused, "we faced many hardships, but we triumphed every time, just like my old companions back when I was an adventurer. Though one thing I'd change…"

"Stop pushing me!"

"NO! You stop pushing ME!"

"…is that." Hop Pop groaned, as he heard Sprig and Polly fighting for the -nth time today, Anne and James giving irked looks, their eyes twitching in sufferance.

"Biz! Buz-buz!" Akitsu grumbled, realizing her nap had been abruptly interrupted once again, Marcy giving the giant dragonfly a sympathetic glance.

"Get that stupid stuff out of my face!"

"Well, sorry for showing you all this cool moss I found! Ow! What was that for?"

"I saw a punch bug! Punch bug!"

"For the last time, I'm not playing punch bu... Ow!"

Felicia rolled her eyes in exasperation. What had been a small disagreement over Frog knows what had turned into a series of ferocious back-to-back quarrels for the stupidest reasons. Sprig and Polly would fight over anything, and as soon as one argument was over, another would start immediately after. But that was not the worst part.

The worst part is that apparently, the quarrel was contagious.

"Could you not?!" Sasha's voice roared from inside. "There is plenty of room here, do you have to violate my personal space every single time?!You're worse than a flea!"

"No, it's you that's been interrupting my meditation!" Amelia's voice countered. "You've been ruining my mood!"

"Stop moving around, you're annoying!" Maddie shouted at Ivy, only for the young yellow frog to retort.

"And you're creepy!"

The Fwagon's trap door opened all of a sudden, and Jacob came out, the human boy covering both of his ears with his hands, his eyes bloodshot. He too was at his breaking point.

"I can't take this anymore!" He finally said, venting all his frustration, "It's been two weeks they've been arguing non-stop!"

"Tell me about it," Anne replied, digging her pinky into her ear. "It's starting to wear on me!"

"Back off, you failed samurai! You're just an obnoxious brat who knows nothing!"

"And you're just a blonde, spoiled bimbo!

"Ivy, give me back my spell book, now!"

"No, I need a spell to make you less scary!"

"There must be something we can do to make them stop!" James pleaded, "I'm at my wits' end!"

"Maybe, we could try to mediate among them…?"

"Sorry, Marbles, but I don't think it's a good idea," Jacob pressed his right hand on the forehead, as he tried to cradle away the headache he felt coming. "When two dogs barks at each other, the worst thing you can do is put yourself between them."

"Plus, even if we did successfully manage to break their current arguments," Anne explained, "they would be back at it in less than five minutes and everything we would have done would be for nothing!"

"At least they're keeping their quarrels inside the fwagon this time." Hop Pop spoke, trying to comfort them, only to be proven wrong the very next second.

He had just spoken those words that the hatch opened again, and Polly came out, wearing Sprig's hat and taking a deep breath.

"Look everyone," Polly said, in a perfect impression of her brother's voice, "I'm Sprig. Look at all this dumb moss I found." She then proceeded to throw the moss right in Hop Pop's face, before starting to scream in his ear. "Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Woooooooow!"

"Oh, yeah?!" Sprig replied, following Polly outside, starting to do an impression of his sister as well. "Well, I'm Polly, and I decided we're all playing punch bug. Punch bug!" He began to hit Anne's side.

"You've sullied my honor, you brainless wannabe Karen!" Amelia and Sasha came out as well, both engaged in a violent catfight.

"I can't sully what you clearly don't have, obnoxious moron!"

"Girls, please, don't fight like this!" Marcy protested, only to end up tangled in the fight as well, "Help!"

"Mom!" Ivy rushed to Felicia, "Madie's bullying me with her scary looks and harsh words!"

"No, it's Ivy who keeps touching my stuff! And she's been unbearable too!"

"Frog, you two are going to be THOSE kinds of kids, I know already." Felicia hissed under breath, as she came to face one of the worst sides of motherhood. "Dealing with humongous monsters was easy compared to this…"

"Wow! Wow!"

"Punch bug! Punch bug!"

"This is incredibly annoying," James commented, "but I have to say, their impressions of each other are spot on."

"Yep, always had a knack for that." Hop Pop replied.

"Psycho blonde!"

"Graceless disaster!"

"You're ugly and mean!"

"And you're ugly, mean and annoying!"

"Frog, I can't stand the rest of the trip to Newtopia like this!" Jacob said as the quarreling around them got worse, feeling himself on the brink of madness. "I don't think I can stand another hour like this!"

"Same here!" Anne retorted, "If only there were some way to get them to stop fighting-"

"Ya!" Hop Pop shouted suddenly as he pulled the rains, making Bessie and Liptea and making everyone who wasn't sitting lose their balance, throwing them on the fwagon's floor.

"What the frog, HP?" Anne lamented, "I almost bit my tongue."

"Hop Pop, while I do understand your irritation, stopping the fwagon without-"

"Felicia, look!" The old frog simply said, as he pointed forward. A few meters ahead of them, there was a fork in the road: on the left, it was the path they've been following so far, large and sturdy enough to allow the passage of vehicles like the Fwagon; on the right, it was a narrower, crooked passage, barely enough to allow people on foot to travel through it, and a large sign pointing at it.

"Quarreler's Pass?" Marcy read aloud, as she got back on her feet.

"A road to reconciliation for weary travel-mates." Amelia continued, "Wait, is that a thing?"

"It is," Felicia nodded, a smile blossoming on her lips. She remembered this place and realized why Hop Pop had stopped all of a sudden.

"Okay, so what?" Sasha asked with a bored tone, before realization hit her, her eyes widening. "Wait, you guys aren't planning to-"

SBAM! Before Sasha could even finish her sentence, Anne, Marcy, Jacob, James, Felicia, and Hop Pop dumped the three quarreling couples (Sprig and Polly, Sasha and Amelia, and Ivy and Maddie) on the ground directly next to the sign.

"What?"

"Really, Mom?"

"This is not fair!"

"Anne? Marcy? What the heck?"

"Et tu, Akitsu?"

"Bre bre!" The giant dragonfly nodded with a huff.

"You're seriously leaving us here?"

"Calm down: we are not abandoning you! Look," Marcy flipped the sign, showing a map drawn behind it, showing that the two paths would eventually merge back later. "It says right here that the paths will meet up again. We'll get you back, only after you've stopped fighting!" She gave them a tired, almost stressed expression.

"Sorry sweetie," Felicia looked at her daughters, "but you kids are going to make my hair go gray prematurely with your pointless arguing!"

"Your fighting is driving us nuts!" Anne pulled her hair to emphasize her words, "You brought this upon yourselves!"

"You need to do some team-building exercises to rebuild your bonds," James muttered. "And should that fail, at least we'd get some peace and serenity!"

"This is all Sprig's fault for being so zippy and obnoxious all the time!"

"Me?! You're the one who's always punching everyone!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"Great!" Sasha hissed, turning toward Amelia once again. "Once again you end up making me pay for your bumbling, you useless fake ronin!"

"No, it's you that's always being angry and yelling at everything! You promised to be the best version of yourself, yet you keep acting just like your old manipulative self!"

"Leave my sister alone!" Ivy rushed to Sasha's support. "It's your fault that you always end up irritating everyone around you, and Maddie's fault for spilling her potions on me!"

"I didn't! It's you that keeps waltzing among my stuff, even after I told you not to do it several times!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!

"NO! I didn't!"

"YES, YOU DID!"

Hop Pop, Felicia and the four humans still onboard exchanged expressions, as the litigants kept quarreling with each other, each side blaming the other for the whole situation.

"Mm-hmm." The old farmer frog nodded, "See you kids on the other side and good luck."

"Sasha, Ivy," Felicia warned them, "just remember what I taught you and watch each other's backs."

"Come on Sash, I promise I'll make up with you. Oh, and if you get in trouble, just call me!" She made a call sign with her right hand.

"Wait, call you?" Sasha stopped quarreling for a second, realizing something that Anne obviously didn't. "There is no-"

"Heeyah!" Hop Pop pulled the reins, making the two snails zoom forward, leaving the six quarrelers alone, Sasha watching silently at the dust cloud they had left until it settled down. Then, her hand ran to her forehead, as Sprig looked at her.

"Oh, Boonchuy!"

"Call me?"

(…)

As Bessie and Liptea drove down the road, Anne, Hop Pop, and Felicia were laughing madly, already tasting the freedom to have peace and quiet, far away from any more pointless fights and yelling. Behind them, Marcy, James, and Jacob all shared a knowing look.

"How long until Anne realizes it?" The British kid asked, with a deadpan tone of voice.

"How much do you want to bet?"

"There is no need for that, Jacob." Marcy waved her hand, looking at Anne and counting almost undertone. "Three...two...one-"

"CALL ME?" Anne yelled in anger as she hit her forehead, realizing how much of an idiot she was. "There is no signal in Amphibia!"

(…)

"There is no signal in Amphibia." Sasha repeated, almost word by word, the same sentence Anne was yelling in that exact moment, as she still went to check on her phone. All her apps were working, but there was no way for them to contact Anne or the others if something did happen. Still, her phone was working, and Amelia's was probably as well, so… maybe they could come up with something?

"Alright," the blonde girl announced. "We're not going to join back with them by standing there and playing the blame game, so I suggest we should simply get it over with. The sooner we finish this pass, whatever it may entail, the sooner we get back to the Fwagon with the others. Ivy' you're in?

"I was born ready, sis'!" Ivy jumped on Sasha's shoulder, giving a smug glance to Maddie, the spell-maker frog simply snorting in irritation.

"Try to keep up, slowpokes!" Polly shouted, hitting Sprig in the back of his head and trying to hop away, only for him to grab her by the tail and throw her back.

"Oh no, you don't!"

"You two, stop!" Sasha reprimanded them, "It's bad enough we have to do this pass without you fighting the whole way!"

"Looks who's talking! You too were kicked out of the fwagon with us!" Amelia called out, "And besides, who decided to make you the leader?"

"Hey, I'm the one with more fighting experience here, so it's my responsibility to make sure everyone of you return intact!" Seeing Amelia's expression, Sasha could only snort and add "What? Are you suggesting that you should be the leader of the group?"

"I can fight and protect you just fine! Plus, with the training my master gave me-"

"Here we go again..." Ivy rolled her eyes as Amelia once again started talking about her 'master' who was supposedly training her hidden away from anyone else. And yet no one (not even Polly, who among them was the closest to the Japan-obsessed girl) had ever seen, leading them to theorize it was just some fantasy of her. Besides, Ivy didn't need to search for a master. She had the best one already, and she was her mom.

"Would you stop living in your fake Japanese fantasy?!" Sasha roared in frustration, "This is serious, and I don't have the time nor the nerve to listen to your baseless ramblings!"

"They're not baseless-"

"Enough!" Maddie suddenly yelled, everyone shutting up and turning their heads, surprised by the spell-maker's unexpected outburst. "We have a long walk ahead, so how about we start moving instead of trying to settle who's got the boss hat? I for one don't want to still be here when the sun sets down: we can resume our quarreling once we're back to the Fwagon."

"Great idea, you gloomy sorcerer."

"After you, you ambushing hyperactive nightmare!"

---

"Finally," Anne said as she leaned back in the seat, placing her hands behind her head, and closing her eyes with a smile as she focused on enjoying the quarrel-free peace, "Peace and quiet."

"It's amazing how some absences can make such a visible difference. Don't you agree, Akitsu?" Jacob nodded, patting the large dragonfly on her head.

"Biz-biz! Buz, buz bru-bru?"

"Come on, don't be anxious. I am sure Amelia's fine! While I'll never admit it in front of her, her fighting style is not so bad after all."

"That, I can agree with," Felicia promptly replied, still giving a nervous glance aside. "Still, I must admit I'm feeling a bit worried as well at the idea that Ivy is all alone on the pass."

"Hey, she was the one who kept quarreling with Maddie," Marcy retorted, raising her eyes from her own Journal. "I am quite confident once they'll reach the end of the pass, they will be all made up and not fight for the rest of the trip. Moreover, she's not alone, there is Sasha with her. And Amelia too. And Maddie as well. Also Sprig and Polly…"

"I tremble for any threat that may stand in their path," James said with a chuckle. "If they can fight against anything just as they were fighting among themselves, they'll slaughter any opposition in their way."

"Are you humans always this bloodthirsty?" Hop Pop scoffed, rolling his eyes. "But I have to say that, while I appreciate the new quiet, in their absence the travel is quiet now… Almost too quiet. Hey, don't you-"

"Help!" A high-pitched voice suddenly called out, Hop Pop pulling the reins and stopping the fwagon while everyone rushed to see. In the middle of the road path, a toad in worn-down clothes, dirty with blood, and holding his right arm on his stomach, as he appeared he was keeping a wound closed. The toad was now walking erratically toward them, gesturing for help. "Please, help me!"

"Wolly molly," Jacob seethed under breath, his eyes focusing on the pleading figure while Felicia and Hop Pop shared a knowing glance.

"We need to help him!" Marcy exclaimed, already preparing herself to jump down and assist the toad, only for Hop Pop to shake his head while Felicia's hand moved to her sword.

"Hold tightly, kids," the old frog simply said, a serious expression on his face. "We're going to move at high speed very soon."

"Wait, what about him?" Anne asked, surprised by how callous Hop Pop seemed. "Are you going to go and leave him alone?!" The girl was now totally astonished, never would have she believed the older frog to be this heartless.

"He ain't even hurt." Felicia answered, the humans' eyes widening at the same time just a second before Hop Pop flickered the reins and yelled.

"BESSIE, THINGS ARE GETTING MESSY!"

The two snails, hearing Hop Pop's yell, zoomed forward, and as they did, the toad' behavior did a 180° turn: he stopped holding his stomach, revealing he was hiding a crossbow in his right hand, and pointed it at them, while other toads, who were apparently hiding nearby, jumped into view. Some had armor, most of them only had worn-off clothes like their bait, but they were all armed: James could see wooden clubs, rusted spears, and swords, others had large rocks and started to throw them at them.

Just as the fwagon rushed forward, running over the first toad and knocking him aside, while his comrades tried to attack the fwagon (countered by Felicia and Marcy), Anne realized the situation they were in.

It was an ambush, and they were right in the middle of it.

(…)

Meanwhile, unaware of the unexpected threat their friends and families were facing on the main road, Sasha, Amelia, Ivy, Maddie, Sprig and Polly kept walking on the road of the Quarreler's pass. Everyone present just wanted to get over with it and rejoin the others as fast as they could rejoin them. Yet, they were also apparently unable to let go of their own enmity with each other. Sprig and Polly were so focused on hitting each other they didn't even notice the rest of the group had stopped and bumped into them.

"Hey, don't stop in the middle of the road!" Sprig protested, only for Amelia to point out a large sign.

"Looks like we've arrived at the first challenge we're supposed to pass."

"The…Beam of balance?" Ivy read aloud. "What the frog is that?"

"This!" Sasha pointed forward, where just a few meters in front of them, was a large gorge with a log going across it acting as a makeshift bridge. As they looked down, they felt their blood chill as they saw hundreds, maybe thousands of sharp rocks below, meaning that anyone that would fall would be impaled with extreme prejudice. "Looks like the objective of the challenge is to cross over the gorge without falling, 'death' being the obvious fate of those who fail."

"Let me check…" Amelia walked toward the log, and unsheathed her katana, tried to push it a little bit, her eyes narrowing as she saw the log rotate on itself. "Just as I feared: the log is not fixed in place, that means that it will turn and make us fall at the slightest movement."

"Couldn't we simply try to pass over the gorge without using the log?" Sprig proposed, "Maddie, can you make a spell that makes us light as feathers and weigh nothing? So we can just float on the opposite side."

"I don't have my ingredients with me," the light blue frog apologized, "and even if I had, there is not a spell that grants such an effect. Marcy was working on one, but… let's just say it will be a long time before we'll be able to show tangible results."

"Then, our only option is to use the log as a bridge," Sasha rolled her eyes with a 'I knew it' expression. "Look, there is a way to reach the opposite side without danger, but we need to be careful, wary of our own balance and-"

"Enough chatting!" Polly suddenly yelled, pushing past Sprig and Ivy, and zooming onto the log. "See you on the other side, slowpokes!"

"Polly!" Sasha, Amelia, Ivy, and Maddie gasped at the same time, as they saw the young tadpole run across the beam without a care in the world.

"Hey!" Her brother yelled, before sprinting behind her, "Get back here, you dang cheater!"

"Guys, stop-!" Sasha began to yell, but she realized it was already too late, and she began to chase them with Amelia, Ivy, and Maddie just behind her.

"Eat my dust, lame-os!" Polly yelled back with a cocky aptitude. Yet, she was barely a quarter of the way across when she felt the log move under her, just like Sasha had foreseen it would happen. Behind her, Sprig quickly hugged the wooden log while Amelia and Sasha, using their feet to balance themselves on the turning wood, managed to establish their own equilibrium, Maddie and Ivy instinctively holding on to them. Yet the tadpole, with no legs yet, and her hand-flippers too short to be of any use in this situation, couldn't grab on anything and ended up falling down, right toward the sharp, flesh-piercing spikes.

"POLLY!" Amelia and Sasha yelled once again, but this time, their voices were filled with horror.

"Help me, lame-os!"

"Hang on!" Sprig yelled at her, before sticking out his tongue and launching it toward Polly, grabbing his sister just in the nick of time, bringing her back onto the log.

"Thanks."

"That was the dumbest thing you could do, Polly Petunia Plantar," even Amelia couldn't help but scold her. "If Sprig hadn't caught you on time, you'd be a goner!"

"But-"

"NO BUTS!" Sasha joined in the act, surprising her current quarreling rival (Amelia) in the process, "If you ended up squashed down there, how do you think Hop Pop would have reacted when we'd told him? His own granddaughter is dead because she zoomed out on her own and couldn't wait five freakin' minutes?"

Polly looked down sad, feeling the glares of the two human girls onto her, as she turned around to face her brother. The one who, less than a minute ago, ended up saving her life after she mocked him for the -nth time.

"Sorry I did that," the youngest member of the Plantar family murmured. "And… I apologize for calling you lame-os."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Sprig responded before looking forward. "Guys, I think we're supposed to go across slowly."

"No joke, that's what we were going to tell you this whole time!" Sasha groaned, "This is why it's called the 'Beam of Balance': to cross it, we must be mindful of our body balance and move it in harmony with the log, to avoid falling from it."

"Do you have experience in this stuff, Sash?" Ivy asked with a curious voice.

"Yup," the blonde girl smiled with a half-smug smirk. "My…parents made me take some lessons to be a ballerina when I was a child, just because my mom liked to show off what her daughters could do. Well, that was before she wrote me off completely and focused on my sister." She gritted her teeth, before managing to push those thoughts away. "Still, all those dance lessons ended up turning out to be useful for when I became a cheerleader, and I know how to balance my own weight."

"I can do that too!" Amelia's eyes seemed to brighten, as realization struck her as well. "I may not have taken dance lessons when I was a kid, but the martial arts training I shared with Maddie's little sisters helped me to understand how to flow in battle, knowing exactly how to move."

"I can confirm that," the spell-maker frog added, before Sasha or anyone else could cast doubt on it, "I witnessed a couple of lessons myself. Never understood what she was teaching them, but she was doing something."

"Then, let's work together, shall we?" Sasha looked at Ivy and thumbed up. "Ivy, I need you to play counterbalance: if I tend too much on one side or another, I want you to move in the opposite direction to reestablish my weight balance. You think you can do that?"

"Of course I can, big sis!"

"Ok, I'll go first. Amelia, Sprig, you come after me, while Maddie and Polly help you balance as well. Ok? Slow and steady…"

Sasha moved forward, tiptoeing across the beam, eyes fixed forward and down, moving slowly and with carefulness, wary for any sudden movement of the log, Ivy on her back as she kept moving on her right of left shoulders to help her counterbalance, while a few feet behind them, Amelia & Maddie and Sprig & Polly did the same. Still, to Polly's annoyance, the slow speed they were going meant they were less than a quarter of the way there.

"Slow and steady," Sasha repeated like a mantra, focused on the task. "Slow and steady…"

"Step after step, walk the thousand-miles road." Amelia murmured as well, the words she kept repeating helping her concentrate and not think about the spikes under them. "Calm, but alert, relaxed but ready. Smooth but sharp, relaxed but confident."

"This is going to take forever." Polly lamented, "Let's just jump on the other side."

"Didn't your little stunt of a while ago teach you anything?!" Sasha called out, not even daring to turn her head in fear of upsetting her balance. "We are going slow because it's safer this way, as you demonstrated a few minutes ago."

"Plus, we can't 'just jump'," her brother pointed out. "Do you see how wide this gorge is? It's wider than Croaker's Creek!"

"Yeah," Polly began to chuckle, "Remember when you tried to jump over Croaker's Creek? You landed right on a cactus flower!"

"Yeah, don't remind me."

"Oh, come on Sprig." Ivy tried to console her boyfriend, "I did patch you up, even removed those spikes."

"If you had come to me, I could have reversed the effect in a few minutes with one of my potions," Maddie grunted, earning a scornful gaze from the yellow frog.

"Most frogs don't have spells readily available; they're forced to do without it!"

"That's because no one ever seeks the help from a spell-caster!"

"Girls, please, calm down!" Amelia hurried, surprisingly rational and wise in her words. "We can happily be at each other's throats, but only after we've reached the end of the rolling log."

"Come on guys," Sasha nodded, "let's focus on our balance and move…step by step…life a leaf dancing in the air…" she hummed as she walked slowly, her feet moving to counter the rolling of the log, Ivy moving across her shoulder to stabilize her balance, as the group kept moving forward, reaching a third of the log, then halfway, until…

"We did it!" Sprig and Polly cheered at the same time, as they finally arrived on the other side of the gorge, Amelia and Sasha painting with tired, yet satisfied expressions.

"We all did it," the blonde human nodded, internally happy to see that they've all made it safe and sound. "I guess you do have some athletic skills under your belt, Amelia."

"Swift as the coursing river!" Amelia muttered with a chuckle, "Though I guess I should recognize your skills as well: you did manage to keep your balance all the way."

"Well, I did have help," Sasha smiled at Ivy, her younger adoptive sister returning it. "Still, I guess I should congratulate all of you: that moving log was quite a challenge!

"Hey, you know, maybe this is a bad moment to ask," Maddie said as she raised her hand, looking at the two humans, "but if the issue was that the log kept rolling, couldn't one of you hold the log so it couldn't move while the other reached the other side to do the same? Sure, we would have had to cross the log the same, but if it couldn't move, it would have been safer, and we'd probably traversed it in less time."

Sasha and Amelia, plus everyone else, stopped cold, their eyes widening as they pondered about Maddie's suggestion, as they realized it was a good idea…after they no longer had use for it.

"Ugh!" Amelia facepalmed, "Yeah, that could have worked, and it would have made traversing the gorge much easier."

"Ok, now I feel stupid." Sasha agreed.

"You're not the only one, big sis."

"Maddie, if you had such an idea," Sprig asked, "why didn't you say so earlier?"

"Sorry, we were already all on the log when I had it. Plus, we were all focused on traversing it without falling-"

"I guess we can call this a valuable life lesson: to think and plan before doing anything may spare us hardship." Sasha groaned, the words 'stupid blonde' hammering in her head. "Now, let's breeze through this thing so I can give Hop Pop a piece of my mind!"

"I support that!" Ivy announced.

"Agreed," Polly spoke in turn. "The faster we finish this stuff, the better."

"You know, I'm worried about how they are doing without us," Sprig murmured, with a shadow of worry on his face. "What if they ended up in trouble?"

"Come on, Sprig!" Amelia did the best she could to cheer him up, "It's just some boring path across the mountains, what kind of trouble they may end up in?"

(…)

"Are they still running behind us?" Hop Pop asked, driving the Fwagon on the narrow mountain path, Felicia and the kids holding as best as they could with James watching from the back.

"We've lost them!" The British teen replied, no longer seeing the toad bandits on the road behind them. "I think we're safe! For now at least."

"Good!" The old frog nodded, pulling the reins and giving a signal for the two snails to slow down.

"So…he wasn't really wounded?" Marcy said while the Fwagon returned to its usual travel speed, "That was just a trick to con us?" The girl had a worn look on her face, feeling bad for having fallen so easily for such dirty trick.

"Sad but true, Marbles." Felicia said with an understanding expression. "That's a cheap trick, but quite common among small-time crooks or criminals who aren't famous enough for their face to be on wanted posters. They appear suddenly, they pretend to be in some kind of emergency situation, so you feel the need to stop and help, and when you're close enough they drop the trick and turn vicious."

"But then, how did you two recognize it then?" Jacob asked, "I had no clue it was all a trick!"

"Oh, there are always some small details that allow an expert eye to recognize a serious emergency from a fake one," Hop Pop calmly explained. "First, the pose that fella was keeping his arm in was all wrong, he was obviously hiding something. Then there is the matter of his 'wound': If it had been real, his clothes would have been much more stained than they were. Plus, some guy appearing in the middle of the road, with no one else in sight, conveniently moving to block the path of any incoming traveler? Yeah, that's quite a red flag."

"Wow…I admit I am impressed, HP." Anne said, her hands moving to comfort Marcy with a hug. "I guess this isn't the first time you and Felicia have met such tricks."

"Kiddo, before focusing on raising Sprig and Polly, I was quite a traveler." The old frog scoffed, "And I've learned to know all the tricks and traps nasty people use to prey upon the defenseless."

"Same as me," Felicia nodded. "While I was quite surprised that bandits have taken residence in this region, I am optimistic that we won't face situations like that for a while."

"Huh, are you ready to vouch for it?" Jacob asked with a worried tone, as she noticed something a few feet ahead, that the others hadn't seen yet.

"I could bet my best silverware on it!"

"Hands up, reach for the sky!" Another voice called out, the Fwagon stopping to see yet another group of bandits, this time made mostly of frogs (though there were toads and axolotls mixed with them), surrounding them, swords, batons, and short pikes in their hands. This time, they couldn't zoom away like they did earlier, for these bandits had blocked the road with a stack of small rocks and sharpened sticks, and if Hop Pop had launched the fwagon toward it at full speed, he would have succeeded only in irreparably damaging the wooden vehicle and seriously injure the two snails pulling it.

"Oh, no!" Anne groaned, realizing they had fallen right into another ambush.

"You lost your silverware," Jacob bitterly said as he looked at Felicia, the veteran adventurer staring at the other bandits with a nervous look. "Guess we're jinxed."

"I said hands up!" Shouted what seemed to be the 'leader' of the group, a small frog with a reddish skin, and an arrogant tone in his voice, "Drop all your weapons and valuables on the grounds, as well as any food- BY FROG! What even are those beasts?!" He pointed at the four humans.

"Here we go again…" Anne rolled her eyes in irritation.

"They have spindly, gangly limbs, sir, and huge heads to boot!" One of the other bandits, maybe the second-in-command, quipped. "Are they some new kind of newt?"

"No newts would look that ugly," one of the newts felt the need to protest.

"We are called humans," Jacob replied, jumping out of the fwagon, holding his hammer in both hands, "and you just did a big mistake today, bud."

"Oh, the beast wants to play big? How about-"

Jacob hit him on his jaw with his hammer, knocking out more than half of his teeth in one single strike, his helpless comrades stricken by shock while Marcy took out her crossbow and began to shoot at everyone in sight. The others quickly rushed to assist Jacob in the melee, Anne wielding both her tennis racket and her sword while Hop Pop grabbed a sturdy hammer. Meanwhile, James threw a couple of smoke bombs into the bandit's line, adding chaos to the fray and giving Felicia the perfect opening to disarm them fast and silently.

In less than five minutes, the fight was over, the bandits defeated and lying on the ground, the humans quickly gathering their weapons and whatever useful things they had before forcing them to clear the pass for them to proceed…

(…)

"This reminds me of something…" Amelia said as she looked up the wide hole they were supposed to go up through, its curved walls devoid of any handholds they could use to hold on while they climbed.

"So…how are we supposed to go through it?" Ivy asked curiously. "Sasha, what if you try to launch me up and then I try to find something you can use to come up as well? Like a rope!"

"While I don't doubt this is a good plan, the hole is too deep for me to launch you all over it," the blonde girl retorted, "In order to throw you all that way, we'd need something like a cannon, and I'm not willing to risk your life on something like that!"

"But what if we use someone smaller?" Maddie pondered, her gaze falling on Polly, the tadpole still resting on Sprig's hands.

"No matter how small or light, we couldn't throw anyone all that way without much more power than we actually have at our disposal," Amelia shook her head. "Unless of course, Sasha Waybright here, uses her awesome cool superpowers to solve this undramatically easy!"

"I told you, I won't use those powers unless I am forced to!" The other human answered, "We still don't know enough if using them too often wouldn't lead to some…unpleasant consequences. Plus, I'm not sure that I couldn't hurt you by accident. What if just touching my aura is enough to hurt you?"

"Ok then, brainstorm time!" Polly said. "If anyone here has an idea to climb through there, please say so!"

"Maybe…I got one!" Amelia suddenly gasped, "Remember when we were gathering the ingredients for the pizza? And you all ended up eaten by that giant tomato?"

"Please, I don't need you to remind me of that too!" Sprig lamented, shivering as he remembered those dramatic moments in the giant tomato's throat, when he thought they would die for real.

"You were eaten by a tomato?" Maddie raised an eyebrow, "Cool."

"No, it wasn't." Sasha replied with irritation, she too remembering too well about that time, "If we hadn't manage to stop our fall by pushing our backs against each other-"

"That's what I was trying to say!" Amelia interrupted her, "We can push our backs against each other and climb our way up step after step, like Kuzco and Pacha in the Emperor's New Groove when they must avoid falling in crocodile-infested water."

"The…Emperor's new Groove?" Sprig asked, looking at Sasha. That wasn't a movie he remembered having seen on any of the girls' phones.

"Just some kid's story about a spoiled royal brat who got turned into a llama for his trouble," Sasha replied, eyeing Amelia. "You're still a Disney nerd, aren't you? Yet…I guess that does sound like a solid plan."

"Indeed, the hole is deep, but not too wide," Maddie looked at it once more, trying to calculate by eye. "You and Amelia put together back-to-back, then I and Ivy support on the side, Sprig support the cohesion while Polly-"

"Wait a second, are you really suggesting crawling the wall using a plan you've seen once in a children's story?" Ivy gasped, before her stupor turned to cheerfulness. "I like it!"

"Is this the part where we do something incredibly stupid and reckless?" Sprig asked, "If so, count me in!"

"We won't have to pull levers, if that's what you're hoping for," Amelia retorted. "Ok everyone, here's how we should do it: Sasha, come here and give me your arms. Put your back against mine and push as hard as you can!"

"OK…" The blonde human linked her arms with Amelia's. "I hope this plan works, because I'm feeling a bit stupid right now."

"Now, Maddie, Ivy, you link with our arms. You must keep us linked together and assist us in the ascend. Can you do it?"

"Right on that!"

"Roger, roger!" Maddie confirmed using a line she had learned from one of Jacob's movies, making Amelia roll her eyes in annoyance for a second.

"Sprig, you put yourself there." Amelia continued to give everyone assignments. "Polly, you're the lightest, so you go on top! Ok, we're going to have to work together to get out of this, so let's follow my instructions step by step. Sasha? Right foot."

"Who's right? Mine or yours?"

"Doesn't matter, yours is fine. Ready? Right. Left. Right." They began to walk up the steep walls.

"Hey, it's working!" Sprig announced with an ecstatic tone, as he realized they were moving upward, his brief distraction making them lose cohesion for a second before he focused again.

"Don't get distracted!" Amelia reprimanded, "We must stay focused! Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right-"

(…)

"So much for not having to face a similar situation for a while," Jacob repeated with a loud tone to be sure Felicia could hear him, the yellow-skin frog replying with an irritated glance. "It seems like all the bandits of Amphibia had set their own operations on this road."

"Bri-bri bram bram!"

"Look, to tell the truth I am quite surprised by how many ambushes we've faced already." The veteran adventurer said, scratching her chin as she tried to think about the odd situation. "Sure, I could say one or two ambushes would be realistic, but seventeen?!"

"Hey, look on the good side," Anne intervened, showing off some of the gear they'd scavenged from the last group of bandits who tried to attack them. "We kicked their asses and got so much stuff in return."

"Not sure we should keep all of that," Hop Pop rolled his eyes. "It's weighing us quite a bit, what if we must move fast to avoid some other kind of danger?"

"We can still drop it if the situation calls for it," Marcy clarified. "Plus, even if cheap, it's quite a lot of weapons and armor parts that we can resell for scrap on our next stop. Either in exchange of supplies or for some extra cash to use on the journey."

"I guess that's a good idea." the old farmer said with a sigh.

The caravan continued its travels in silence for a few seconds before a strange wrinkle appeared on Hop-Pop's lips, all the five humans' eyes opening slowly and focusing on him as they realized something was brewing inside of the old frog. Something the human kids sensed would offend them greatly.

"So," Hop Pop started, "Do you-"

"Hey!" A voice called out and gained everyone's attention, as they saw a group of adolescent toads stand in the middle of the road. The oldest one, in the middle, was a young male toad with dark brown hair, dressed in a brownish cheap armor made of leather, and a bow in his right hand. He was surrounded on both sides by a female toad with red hair and an ax (but holding it the exact wrong way) and a smaller toad with black hair and with nothing but a pebble on his hand. The trio was standing in the middle of the road with absolutely no camouflage, no cover, no reinforcements in sight (and from what Felicia could see, it was clear they had no one else on their side but themselves) and they clearly had no weapon experience, judging by how they held their own the wrong way.

"Um, surprise!" The toad with the unloaded bow said, trying to appear more intimidating than he actually was. "We're, um, bandits, come to rob you of your valuable possessions."

"Hand it over." The female toad nodded, making it clear this was not a joke.

"Huh, what they said," the last toad added, prompting the Fwagon's occupants to look at each other in stunned silence, as they needed to elaborate what they'd just heard.

"Was this supposed to be yet another ambush?" James asked, raising an eyebrow with an incredulous look.

"That was just lame." Anne harshly replied, the toad's expressions turning sour as they heard her.

"More sad, actually." Felicia nodded.

"Did we finish all the competent bandits back there?" Jacob didn't even move to grab his hammer, unfazed by the 'threat'.

"Bri-drin!"

"Yeah, that was quite pitiful." Hop Pop shook his head.

"Hey, I worked hard on this ambush!" The 'leader' of the group protested.

"Listen," Marcy quipped, stepping down from the fwagon and approaching him, "you look like a nice enough kid. Let me guess, it's your first day on the 'banditry business'?"

"Actually, it's our second week..." the young toad replied while looking at his feet.

"Second week, wow!" Marcy said with genuine enthusiasm. "I remember how it is when you're just new in the whole 'make a living as an adventurer'. Everything is collecting herbs and hunting kobolds; you struggle to avoid being stuck up with ditch cleaning and you get excited over a Potion of Barkskin or some Bracers of Archery! Good times!"

"Potion of…Barkskin?" The smaller toad asked the female one, receiving a shrug in response.

"But, let me tell you," Marcy assumed a more serious tone as she put a hand on the toad' shoulder, talking as they walked forward. "We've been through a lot of ambushes by now, some clearly done by very professional bandits, and yours- well, I won't lie to you, it can't compare to theirs."

"I was afraid of that," the toad confessed with a heartfelt tone. "Just…I just got in the business, and I really wanted to get some recognition."

"I can understand that. So, in the interest of giving any future adventurers a real bandit ambush experience, and help you get better, how about I'll offer you some pointers?"

"Oh, yes!" The toad seemed almost elated at Marcy's offer, "Yes, any advice you could give me would be mostly appreciated!"

"Ok well." Marcy nodded with a dramatic tone of voice, "You use bow and arrow, that makes you a support-class, so here is my first tip for support-class fighters, learned from years of adventuring: never allow yourself to be led in the middle of the enemy's melee fighters."

The Toad had barely any time to wonder what this tip could mean, when he realized that by walking side-by-side with Marcy had led him right next to the Fwagon, and he was now surrounded, Jacob holding his hammer, Anne her tennis racket, Felicia her sword, Hop Pop a smaller combat hammer and James simply cracked his knuckles. And as he saw their smirks, his eyes widened in horror.

BONK!

"Ow!"

THUNK!

"Owww!"

DONG!

"OW!"

"I have to admit, it is a good tip." The female toad said to her smaller comrade, writing it down on paper to not forget it.

"Ask her if she has some advice on how to run away."

(…)

"What the heck?" Sprig lamented, realizing that the end of the pass was just some crude drawing on some wooden planks, placed on the rocky wall. "Someone blocked off the pass and painted it to look like the end? Weird."

"I don't understand," Amelia said with a surprised tone, "is this another test?"

"I doubt it. This drawing hasn't been here long." Maddie replied, passing a couple of fingers on the drawing. "See? The paint's still fresh. Whoever did this mustn't have painted it more than six, maybe seven hours ago."

"So, this clearly is not supposed to be a part of the test," Sasha rolled her eyes as she took one more step and knocked on the planks, "Yeah, no real passage hidden behind. Whatever must be going on, this is not the way to go."

"But then," Ivy asked, "where are we supposed to go?"

"How about we take," Polly pointed at something, "that tunnel over there?"

Everyone turned around, seeing that Polly was clearly hinting at some dark, dirty, and dangerous-looking cave, with some red-glowing mushroom growing just inside the entrance. Whoever painted the fake end of the pass had also painted some large red arrows pointing at it, alongside the words "THIS WEIGH ALSO GUD" in light blue paint.

"This weigh also gud?" Amelia read aloud, realizing that the whole situation smelled fishy. "Ok, this looks like a trap."

"Yup!" Sasha felt in need to agree, "Bad grammar, plus an attempt to lead us into some scary, dark passage? This has 'red flag' written all over. Maybe we should skip that and look for another way around."

"We don't know that for sure!" Sprig countered. "What if whoever made that sign had a good reason to direct us that way?"

"You know, he's actually got a point," Ivy nodded. "Sasha, you remember when you two, plus Anne and Marcy went to the lake and you ignored the sign telling you not to swim… and ended up facing a giant water snake?"

"Water snake?!" Polly repeated, "You fought a giant water snake, and you didn't invite me?"

"That was when you still thought we wanted to eat you," Sasha replied with a scoff. "Your point? Sure, that was scary, but we managed to escape unscathed and Hop Pop never found out."

"That was only because Jacob and I were gathering food for ourselves and ended up driving a rock right into that huge snake's snout!" Amelia pointed out, "That was luck, not skill!"

"The point is," Sprig continued, "we don't know the reason why this sign was put up. What if the usual way is blocked with something dangerous and going that way we can avoid it completely?"

"Well, it has some logic on it," Maddie looked at Sasha. "Plus, we don't know if there is another passage, or how long it will take for us to find it."

"Fine," Sasha conceded, after grumbling a little more, "but if we're going that way, we're going to do it my way. Amelia, take out your phone."

"I thought there was no signal in Amphibia!"

"There isn't, but you do have the 'flashlight' option on your phone, right?" The blonde human said as he activated it on her own cell with a smug grin. "It'll help us see where we're going in this dark, narrow passage and avoid falling into traps."

"Oh…yeah, that's a good idea!" The samurai apprentice conceded, taking out her phone and activating the flashlight app in turn.

"You guys," Sasha now looked at Sprig, Polly, Maddie, and Ivy, "stay behind us. We don't know what kind of dangers we might face inside that, so we'd better put our better fighters in the front."

"Hey, I can fight too!" Polly protested.

"We know," Ivy rolled her eyes as all and six walked through the cave's entrance, Sasha and Amelia on the front, both girls using their phones to illuminate the path ahead of them, Ivy and Maddie just behind them, looking around with wary expressions, ready for anything, Sprig and the end of the row, with Polly in his hands.

However, it didn't take long for Sasha to hit her head on the roof of the cave, as it kept getting narrower the further they moved inside.

"Ow! What the heck!"

"Looks like it's some kind of trick using perspective, Sash!" Amelia touched with her free hand. "It makes the path look bigger and longer than it actually is: quite clever, I should say!"

"That's because you weren't the one who ended up face-first into it," Sasha replied with an irk. "Ok, let's keep going."

"Actually," Maddie said all of a sudden, "maybe it would be better if we change the order on the line, and you go last."

"What, why? I am the best fighter-"

"But you're also the largest among us," Amelia pointed out, noticing the difference between the blonde human and everyone else. "If you keep going first, you may end up stuck somewhere in the passage, and blocking us inside."

"End up stuck- Hey!" Sasha roared, looking back at Amelia. "Are you suggesting that I'm fat?! I'm not fat!"

"Of course you aren't." Amelia nodded, giving a side glance at Sasha's b-side. "At least, not everywhere."

"Now you listen, you stupid bootleg of a-"

"Sasha, Amelia, calm down!" Ivy tried to mediate among them, "We don't-OW!" She yelped, as someone else stepped on her foot. "Maddie, why did you do that?"

"Oops. My bad!" Maddie apologized, struggling to see where she was walking without the light of the girls' phones.

"Watch where you're putting your feet!"

"And you watch where you're putting that smelly hand of yours!" Maddie countered, "You almost put that on my eye!"

"Your eye? I doubt you even have eyes under that freaky hairdo of yours."

"Maddie, Ivy, please!" Sprig failed to calm them down, as both Sasha & Amelia and Ivy & Maddie resumed fighting against each other. "You're acting like tadpoles!"

"What is that supposed to mean?!" Polly reacted with an offended tone of voice, kickstarting yet another fight.

"Ugh! You're so annoying!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"NO, YOU ARE!"

"NO, YOU ARE!"

Alone in the dark, narrow path, the six members of the group were fighting once again, shoving and shouting in each other's face, their irritability worsened by the situation they were and the limited space they were currently forced to share, as the antagonism between them resurfaced in full strength.

"The only reason why anyone at school wanted to date you is because of your fat ass!"

"And the only reason why Jacob ever tolerates you is because you're living with him!"

"You're an aggressive bruiser!"

"And you're an annoying witch!"

"You should stop taking anything I say as an offense toward you! I was trying to stop their fight!"

"By using me for a degrading comparison? You think all tadpoles are stupid and childish?"

"You surely act like one!"

"Hey, look!" Ivy announced, "Two tunnels! Sprig, Sasha, how about we take this one and we let Miss Scary Magician with Amelia and Polly?"

"That's a good idea!" Sasha immediately joined, giving Amelia a smug stare. "I'm sure they will appreciate being with someone on their level of intelligence!"

"Believe me, nothing makes me happier than being anywhere without you!" The samurai girl countered, "I'll even bet five coppers that we can find the exit faster than you!"

"Ah, challenge accepted! Get ready to pay!"

"See you at the exit, witch!"

"Don't get lost in the darkness, hyperaggressive fool!"

"Maybe you can find someone else to offend your tunnels!" Polly said to her brother.

"And maybe you can find someone else to shout at in yours!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Thus, the group divided itself in two, Ivy going with her adoptive sister and her boyfriend into one while Amelia led Polly and Maddie in the other one, the crouching humans keeping using the light of their phones to illuminate the narrow passages while each Amphibian grabbed a glowing mushroom from the wall. And since the clash was still fresh in everyone's mind, they kept venting their respective frustration.

"That stupid blonde!" Amelia gritted her teeth. "I just wanted to be careful, because I was worried if she could fit in the narrow passage, and she went on and insulted me! I should've let her get stuck and embarrassed in front of everyone!"

"What in frog's name does Sprig see in her?" Maddie fumed, "The only thing she's good at is assaulting people against their will!"

"He thinks I'm annoying?" Polly scoffed, "He's the annoying one."

"Hey, newsflash dorks: we still can hear you!" Sasha's voice came beyond the rock-made wall.

"Yeah," this voice was Sprig's. "These rock walls are surprisingly thin!"

"YOU'RE surprisingly thin!"

"Good one." A deep, unknown voice spoke suddenly, Amelia, Maddie and Polly widening their eyes in shock as they slowly turned around, and they saw…

"Hi."

A scream erupted from their throats, Polly jumping on Amelia's hands while Maddie grabbed on her right leg, as they saw some kind of giant white snake/worm creature, so big that it occupied all the passage, big spiky teeth emerging from its reptilian-like mouth.

"Whoops, didn't mean to frighten you." The giant creature apologized, the trio smiling nervously. Maybe beyond its appearance, this monster was actually friendly?

"That's okay." Amelia replied, her muscles tensing at once.

"I meant to EAT you!" The nightmarish mouth added lunging forward, Amelia jumping back just in time to avoid the first strike as she turned around and ran as fast as she could, Polly and Maddie holding on as strong as they could on her arms and leg, respectively.

(…)

Meanwhile, back in the other tunnel with Sprig, Ivy and Sasha:

"What was that?" Sasha murmured a split second before they heard Polly screaming, and she realized the others were in serious danger.

"THERE'S A GIANT SNAKE-WORM THING!" Polly yelled from the other tunnel in a frantic tone. "IT'S TRYING TO EAT US!"

"Resist, we'll save you-" Sprig began to speak before he noticed something was now blocking the path behind them. Something resembling a giant hybrid between a worm and a snake with pale skin and blind eyes.

"And I'll save you for dessert." The monstrous creature replied with a male-ish voice prompting Ivy and Sprig to jump back on Sasha's arms, the human unable to compensate for the inertia and falling through a hole covered in frog bones, landing them in a large, bright cave with the floor covered in frog bones.

"What the- ok, THIS is a definitive Red Flag." Sasha muttered still in shock, Sprig and Ivy holding onto her.

"What-what in frog's name was that?!" Ivy almost screamed in fear, as she noticed the giant mountain of bones where they ended in.

"I don't know, but I don't want to find out!" Spring replied, "There is no time to lose, we have to find Polly, Amelia and Maddie as soon as possible and-"

"Waah!" Amelia landed on the giant bones mound as well, Polly and Maddie still holding onto her. "Sasha! We must get out of here! There is-"

Too late, Sasha realized as the two giant creatures arrived from above, the one who they had met earlier was pale pink while the other one (the one Amelia had run from presumably) was purple, both showing glowing branched gills-forming tufts atop their heads and bleached blind eyes.

"Ah, good catch, Lysil."

"Yes, Angwin, and they sound juicy."

"Just how many of you are here?!" Ivy gasped, prompting the two creatures (Lysil and Angwin, as they'd called themselves) to laugh, Lysil retreating inside the tunnels while Angwin slithered out, the six of them backing up against the wall as the giant worm/snakes revealed they were united at the end, the color switching from pink to purple in the middle of their length.

"Only one." Lysil and Angwin spoke at the same time, revealing themselves to be conjoined twins.

"What the-"

"Shhh, don't you see their eyes?" Amelia put her hand over Polly's mouth, trying to low her voice as much as she could. "They're blind because they live in the darkness. That means they can't see us."

"No, but we can hear you." Explained Lysil, who apparently had clearly heard the human's words. "And it's only a matter of time before my bro and I find you!"

Polly tried to counter, but Amelia didn't remove her hand from her mouth, stopping the tadpole from accidentally revealing her position by sound.

"That's how we Olms do." Angwin added, Maddie's eyes widening in surprise, her mind running wild to some old tales she found in her books, about an ancient fifth population of Amphibia, comprised of huge serpentine yet sentient creatures, who dwelled in the darkness and were claimed to live for hundreds to thousands of years.

Are they really Olms? The one legendary race who dwarfed all the others in terms of dimensions and lifespans? Whose knowledge of magic was said to eclipse anything that frog or even newts had ever achieved?

Still, even if they were Olms, they were still intending on eating them, thus, getting to safety was the priority. As she shared a look with Sasha and Amelia, the spellcaster's hands moved to her belt, as she grabbed some spells she had prepared using boom-shroom parts, designed to clear the road of heavy obstacles.

Potions that she knew were the loudest she had.

"Come on, don't you just stand there," Lysil teased them, trying to scare them into revealing their position, "Even if you stand still, that won't save you. We can search every area, one after another, until-"

Before she could finish her sentence, however, a sudden explosion overloaded her and her brother's hearings, quickly followed by a dozen more, the commotion making them shriek in pain and making them unable to locate their would-be prey, giving them a chance to move to a safer position.

"Now!" Sasha yelled, running as fast as she could followed by everyone else, Maddie throwing her spells around the 'Olms' to disorient them. "Quick, get in there!" The human pointed to a crack in the wall, a small one, barely wide enough to keep all and six safe from Lysil and Angwin's voracious mouths. Sprig and Polly went inside first, but as Sasha tried to follow them after Ivy, she ran into come…unexpected issues.

"I'm on my last ones!" Maddie warning, realizing she was going to run out of already prepared spell bags

"Come on, fast!" Sasha struggled for a brief second to pass the track, just as Amelia shoved into her, Maddie running behind her, avoiding Angwin's mouth just in time.

"Oh, great." Angwin groaned, gnawing without success against the crack. "We lost them in the crack because you were dragging your feet!"

"Okay. A, we don't have feet." Lysil pointed out in response, "And B, I could've helped if you'd bothered to communicate at all."

"I said 'Over here!' Try listening for once."

"Ugh! Just help me find a stick to pry them out of the crack. You are literally a pain in my backside."

"Ugh! I'm a pain? You're the pain!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

As the two parts of the same conjoined creature started to argue with each other (and from what it could be heard, it wasn't the first time it happened), the group of six began to feel more and more frustrated and annoyed by the shouting.

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"Ah! All this bickering is driving me nuts!" Sprig lamented, earning several approving glances from the others.

"I agree, this is unbearable!"

"It's like wearing a beehive on your head."

"More like someone stepping on your feet all day along!"

"With no pause, day or night!"

"Can you imagine how annoying it would be to be forced to hear this for a whole day?"

"A whole day? Imagine how obnoxious it would be to have to hear that for one week!"

"How about two?"

"From the back of… a fwagon?"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

Slowly, while Lysil and Angwin kept quarreling in the background, the group came to a collective realization: THIS what how the other must have felt during the never-ending quarrels.

"Wow, I guess Boonchuy and Mar-Mar were right to ditch me with you here." Sasha finally spoke first, after a few seconds of tension-filled silence. "Like they should have done a long time ago."

"No, it's my fault!" Amelia interjected, "You were right, I was bothering you all the time. I accused you of being unable to keep up with your promise, yet it was my own interference that made it harder for you. In hindsight, I guess I could have done my meditation someplace else."

"I guess I should apologize as well," Ivy looked at Maddie. "I called you scary, and I made you angry."

"A lot of people called me scary in my life, I got used to it." Maddie answered immediately. "And as much I was annoyed that you kept waltzing among my magic equipment, I have to admit it's difficult to respect boundaries where you're forced to live with someone in a limited living space for a long journey." She took a deep breath, the truth she had tried to hide pouring out of her, "If I have to be honest with you, the reason I was angry with you was…different."

"Different how?" Ivy raised an eyebrow, suddenly interested on what issues could be among her and the spellcaster. "What could be the reason why you were feeling all that resentment toward me?"

"Him." Maddie replied, her visible eye pointing at-

"Me?" Sprig gasped, just like Polly did, Ivy looking at him with surprise, while the two humans exchanged a nervous glance.

"You remember how I told you that I thought you were cute? I wasn't lying." Maddie confessed, everyone looking at her with their mouths wide open. "All the other frogs of my age thought I was weird, yet you were one of the chosen few who kept treating me like everyone else, and little by little, I may have developed… a crush on you."

"Huh?!"

"Oh, looks like you were right in the end, Sash!" Polly called out, "My brother is a ladies' frog!"

"Look, after you two got together, I knew I had to settle on it, but…I can't. My mind is ready to give up, but my heart cannot."

"Who said you have to give up?" Ivy replied, surprising everyone else in turn.

"Huh?"

"What?"

"Heh?!"

"Look, Maddie, I appreciate that you were willing to try and suppress your feeling out of my happiness, but if you do have a crush on Sprig, that doesn't mean you have to give or steal him from me." She came closer, giving Maddie a strange smirk, "How about we share him?"

"Say what?!" Sprig yelled, caught by surprise by how the conversation was currently going.

"Wait, share?!" Maddie asked, "You mean like in a-"

"Polyamorous relationship, yes." Ivy continued. "What's wrong? Weren't you the one who kept saying there was enough of Sprig for all?!"

"That was not what I meant then!" The aforementioned pink frog reacted, still having issues to process the idea that Maddie had just confessed to having a crush on him. Meanwhile, his tadpole sister wondered if she should envy him or feel pity for him. Shouldn't they ask him how he felt about the hole situation?

"I-I guess this is something I never considered before…" Maddie confessed, her face now showing a slight hint of pink "and I think I'll need some time to ponder about it."

"I guess it's my turn to confess then," Amelia said with a dry smirk, the attention of everyone focusing on her. "No, I'm not going to confess I have a crush on someone, I'm too young to get into love already!"

"But then, what are you going to tell us?" Sprig asked. "Is this something like… what Marcy told us?"

Amelia shivered, and so did Sasha, as they thought back to the revelations of the dark-haired girl. Two weeks had passed, and both had come to terms with that, Sasha even refusing to hate Marcy; yet, both humans almost felt pain as Sprig unwittingly rubbed into it.

"No, nothing like that," Amelia was quick to disavow such thinking. "Rather, is how I felt about you Sash. How, back at Saint James I used to…look up to you."

"Really?" The blonde raised an eyebrow. "Well, I can't say you really show it. Ever since we arrived here, you wouldn't stop pestering me!"

"Yeah, I guess we could say I was…a bit of a tsundere on that issue." Amelia confessed, an embarrassed chuckle in her voice. "I mean, maybe I was also jealous? Or something like that? I don't really know. Just… You were so cool! The most popular girl in school AND the head cheerleader! You had a literal court of girls surrounding you all the time! One word from you was enough to make anyone either an outcast or a VIP! And that without considering all the boys that were at your feet!"

The girl stopped talking for a few seconds. Trying to take back her breath after her enthusiastic confession and without looking at everyone. She was a little too self-conscious after her little outburst to look at any of them in the eyes. Ivy, Maddie, Sprig, and Polly were nonplussed by the whole situation. The social order within school life flew over their head, but they keep it quiet out of respect for Amelia.

As for Sasha… Well, she too was embarrassed, but also very proud of herself after hearing such praise from the younger girl. She WAS that cool after all! The blond was about to say something comforting to Amelia, but she had locked eyes with her, a sad expression on her face.

"But me?" she said while patting her chest, trying her best to empathize their difference. "I had no one at my side. Heck, even my cousin used to see me as a nuisance at best!"

"That's because of how you kept acting!" Sasha counter-pointed, the four frogs still listening silently to the conversation, only now a tad more attentively. The dialogue between the two humans, feeling too much like a drama scene from some kind of play, and they were huge fans. "You just barged into people's private space and started talking about things you clearly had no real knowledge of. You even refused to take any hint that you should leave them alone. Instead, you just kept buzzing around and irritating them. And that would've been considered a major social faux pas not only at school, but anywhere!"

"I had no way to know that! Ok, I admit, I was maybe too eager to interact with everyone. But that was only because I really wanted someone I could relate with! I tried to get close to Anne and Marcy, but-"

"Oh no, don't even try to put the blame on them!" Sasha exclaimed, shaking her head and pointing a finger right at the girl's nose. "YOU! Ended up burning any bridges with them, yourself! Because you were making them uneasy about you. And that when you didn't outright hurt them with your words! You want to know why I didn't try to get closer to you? Because you keep trying to play Japan's expert, only to keep failing at it and mixing the names and facts about Japan. This! Is what I found the most irritating about you!"

"I- was I really that bad?"

Sasha took a deep breath before continuing. "You know, there is something you and I may have in common, though."

"Oh?" Amelia raised an eyebrow, "What is it?"

"Yeah, Sash!" Ivy spoke as well. "What is it, big sis?"

Sasha looked around, at the eyes of everyone focused on her. She took another deep breath, and then, she started talking again.

"Tell me Amelia, do you know 'The Rose of Versailles' ?"

"Yes, of course!" Amelia replied immediately, "That's one of the anime I promised myself to watch whenever I have time…once we get back to Earth."

"Well, let's just say that just before we got stranded in Amphibia, and listen to me carefully, I was in the middle of my thirteen rewatch of the series."

"Wait, thirteen rewatch?!" The samurai girl gasped. Not only Sasha had just admitted she had watched it, but…twelve times before already?

"And not just that," Sasha continued her confession. "I was rewatching 'Handa-Kun' for the third time too. As well as starting 'My Daughter is a Music Genius'. I was at the seventh episode."

Amelia stood silent, her mouth agape, as the gears inside her brain began to roll and work in accordion with each other, as she started to analyze each one of the titles that Sasha had just nominated in front of her. Handa-Kun, was the spin-off of another much widely known manga series, depicting the same protagonist during its turbulent high school years, but it was a niche story that not many people knew. As for the other, it was a brand-new show that had just been released a few days before they ended up in Amphibia thanks to the Box and the seventh episode was released…the day before.

Suddenly, connections formed between all the dots, the girls' eyes widening in surprise, her lips grimacing before blossoming into a cheerful smile, stars appearing in her eyes as the truth appeared in front of her.

"No way… You're a neet?"

"I'm not a neet!" Sasha yelled back, blushing at the accusation. "Stop using words at random if you're not sure what they mean! But, well…yeah, I'm into anime and manga, and I may be some kind of Japan nerd. That's why I was the most irritated when you kept going with that nonsense of yours: I knew all the details you were doing wrong, but I couldn't say anything to not expose myself."

"Huh, Sash?" Ivy raised her hand. "Actually…I knew that already."

"You knew?! How?"

"Mom told me. Apparently, she caught you when Amelia showed us that movie about Gorisilla. When you started to talk about it, it was clear you knew more than you were willing to admit."

"That's true!" Polly said in realization. "One second you were all explaining stuff, and the next one, you acted like that was nothing.

"I guess I can't keep anything from Felicia, huh?" Sasha facepalmed for a second, with a frustrated, yet amused smirk. "Anyway, Amelia, as you can see-"

But her words stopped, as she once again looked at the girl with the cone hat, and noticed that Amelia was smiling at her, with an expression that reminded her a lot of Marcy's, enthusiasm pouring out from every cell of her body.

"You like anime."

"Well, yeah. Of course, not all genres, but-"

"You like Japanese things!"

"Only a few! Ok, I saw most of the Toho's movies, but-"

"Why didn't you tell me before?" Amelia moved forward and hugged the blonde, the shiny light of excitation burning bright in her eyelids.

"I told you; I have an image to maintain! I hang out with the popular crowd, I have a clique composed of people who may have never read a book in their whole life! I feared what would happen to me, but also to Marcy and Anne, if someone found out that I, Sasha Waybright, the coolest girl of Saint James, was an otaku!"

"You never ever told Marcy too?" Maddie asked, "She is your friend, she could keep the secret. And I know she would be delighted to find out you share a common interest."

"Hey!" Amelia protested, "Don't keep me out of this!"

"Well, I guess I never supposed Marcy could keep a secret like this…before," she looked aside, as she remembered the emotional turmoil they just went through, after she found out all that Marcy had kept a secret from her and the others. "Still, before doing that, we should focus on how to get out of this situation."

"Huh, can't you simply punch them with your Calamity Powers?" Polly proposed, "I know you said you wanted to keep them as last resorts, but I think this looks like a good time to use them."

"Yeah, plus they're blind, aren't they?" Sprig nodded. "That means you have good chances to hit them before they can counter it."

"It's not that I'm worried about," Sasha peeked out of their temporary hideout, as she looked at the two still-quarreling conjoined, mostly blind, argumentative siblings, and the cave around them. "If I use my Calamity Powers to hit them, I fear I also may start a massive collapse of this cave. What the point of punching them in the schmooze, if we end up buried deep under frog know many tons of falling rocks?"

"I think the exit is over there." Ivy spoke with a low tone, pointing to an opening in the cave in the opposite direction. "However, to cross it we would have to pass over the massive bunch of bones, and we can't do it silently."

"I could move silently enough," Amelia volunteered, "but I can't carry everyone at once, nor I can watch out for falling rocks at the same time."

"Wait, maybe I have an idea," Sasha said, turning around to look at Sprig and Polly. "It is a plan that requires good timing, Amelia's speed and your talent at imitating voices…"

(…)

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"Okay, whatever." Angwin conceded with a groan, "Let's just eat these kids and get back to never talking to each other again."

"Ugh! Finally, a good idea out of your mouth." Lysil replied, "Now, let's find that stick already."

None of them could see it, because of their blind eyes and the overall darkness of the cave, but as Lysil turned head, Amelia emerged from the crack in the wall with Polly holding on to her hat. The young samurai moved fast and silently wherever she could put her feet without risk of causing sound, bypassing Lysil and Angwin until they reached a spot on the other end of the cave. Amelia put herself in position to move fast, while Polly took a deep breath, before speaking in Angwin's voice.

"You can't even find it yourself, you smelly dum-dum?"

"Hey!" Lysil gasped at her brother "Who are you calling dum-dum? Yeah, I found your stick. Right here!"

She hit him on the forehead, making him yelp.

"Ow! Hey!" Angwin massaged his forehead with one hand, "That wasn't me! Someone said that like it was me, but I wasn't insulting you…this time!"

"Don't try it!" His sister clearly didn't believe that, "If that wasn't you, who said it?"

"Us!" Sprig said in Sasha's voice, hiding on the opposite part. "Hey, you ugly invertebrates, we can imitate your voices now!"

"You small-" Angwin rushed forward, trying to attack only for Sprig to jump away while Polly and Amelia were ready to take his place.

"Miss me!" Polly said in Amelia's voice, the two olms kept attacking whenever they heard their voices come from, only to be led further and further away from the exit and on the opposite deep end of the cave.

"Hey!" Lysil shouted once again as she and Angwin slammed onto each other, led by the voices "Look where are you going!"

"For the last time, I can't see, just like you! Where did our snack go?"

"Here," Sasha (the REAL Sasha) said as she recited the Oath in her head, her hair and eyes rapidly beginning to glow in bright pink before she jetted forward, hitting Lysil and sending her to crash on her brother, both Olms crashing on the wall of the cave and making it fall upon them.

"NOW!" Sasha yelled, as she zoomed toward the exit, Ivy and Maddie (who had been waiting near the entrance of the small hideout) rushed as well while Sprig and Polly held onto Amelia. The samurai girl rushed behind Sasha, the six of them leaving the two Olms in the cave collapsing around them. But instead of trying to get to safety as well or rush behind their prey, the two olms were once again fighting against each other, blaming the other for what had happened.

"This is your fault, for not realizing it wasn't me!"

"No, it is YOUR fault for being a pain in my back!"

"I don't need you!"

"No, I don't need YOU!"

And then, the passage behind the six collapsed on itself, causing a small burst of dust and small debris that sent them off the ledge and landing them on the mountain road path, which was apparently just under it. They were tired and bruised, and yet they laughed as they realized they had survived and were now safe.

"We're alive!" Sasha announced, throwing her arms up as she laid on her back.

"Your plan worked!" Amelia cheered as well, "Way to go, Sash!"

"Wow," Polly looked at Sprig, as she tried to dry her laughing tears. "Promise me that whatever happens, we will never end up like those two, brother!"

"Us, are you kidding? There is no way our quarreling could get that bad! We're too good of a team!"

"Hey, look!" Ivy pointed out, "Looks like we're back on the main road. But where are mom and the others?"

"Yeah, they should be here by now." Maddie agreed, "Are they late?"

"No, here!" Sasha pointed out, "Here they come!"

"Hey, guys!" Anne waved at them, Felicia and Hop Pop sitting together on the coach and leading the snails.

"Hello, kids!" Hop Pop happily smiled at them. "How did the trials go?"

"They were…fine, for the most part." Maddie said with a grimace, "Wait, what is all that stuff?"

"And why do you all look tired too?" Amelia raised an eyebrow.

"Well, let's just say we had some excitement on the road to arrive here too…" Felicia chuckled sheepishly.

(…)

Once everyone was back on the fwagon, it didn't take long for the two groups to start comparing their experiences and tell each other what happened on their own path. Polly was baffled when she found out how many bandits ambushes the others had faced (mostly because she lost the chance to fight against them), while Felicia showed concern when Ivy and Maddie told her about the last part of the pass, and the close-up meet with Lysil and Angwin.

"So, they were Olms? Real, breathing olms?" The veteran adventurer was left shocked and astonished.

"Huh, what's the issue about Olms?" James asked with a worried tone. "Aren't they simply another species of Amphibia?"

"The Olms are nothing like any other species of Amphibia," Maddie looked at him. "They're one of the oldest races of Amphibia, and surely, the most mysterious. The legends say that the Olms can live for centuries, maybe even for millennia, and they have an understanding of magic and supernatural forces that goes beyond everything we know."

"They were believed to have been extinct for centuries, many adventurers tried to search their hidden city of Protus, looking for the amazing treasures and secrets buried into it." Felicia continued, a worried expression on her face, "Yet, if you ended up meeting one-"

"-then there may be more." The British teen finished, as he pondered about it, "And if there are more, then they might not be so extinct after all. Yeah, this is worrying."

"Hey, you said those guys were blind and couldn't live outside of darkness, no?" Jacob piped in, "We could ask our local magic experts to make some upgraded version of that light spell of yours, I'm sure that would be quite useful if they turn out to be aggressive."

"That reminds me, where is Marcy?" Maddie looked around, noticing the absence of her student, best friend and adoptive sister. "I didn't see her again after-"

"After Amelia told her that Sasha had been a closeted nerd for years and she shrieked of joy so loud it almost caused a landslide?" Jacob chuckled, never having seen Marcy so happy before. "Apparently, Mar-Mar's been so excited to find something in common with Sasha that she is having an impromptu anime time with her, and she invited Amelia, Polly, and Ivy into it. If you pay attention, you can hear it from inside."

"Yeah, I guess now I know where the sugar night core music is coming from," James rolled his eyes, before turning head and looking at the front coach of the Fwagon, where Hop Pop was still driving with Anne and Sprig on his sides, talking aloud. "At least they're having a better time your boyfriend is doing, Mads."

"He's not- ugh, forget it!" The light blue frog grunted, trying to forget the overly-enthusiast reaction Hop Poop had made when he found out that she too had a crush on Sprig, prompting the old farmer to give his grandson a short and condensed lesson about love and romance, one known in all planets and universes as 'the Talk'.

"-so, as I was saying, a relationship is like a farm. You plant a seed of trust, and it grows into a better relationship! And this is how tadpoles are born!"

"Goodbye childhood!" Sprig lamented, his eyes wide open in horror.

"Hop Pop, look, while I do appreciate the interest in Sprig's love live, aren't you being too pushy once again?" Anne asked, removing her hands from her ears (she tried her best to avoid learning any unnecessary facts about amphibian reproduction). "I thought we had agreed to not force him into a relationship against his will."

"I remember, and I intend to maintain that promise. However, that doesn't mean I can't dream and wish to have some beautiful grand-grandchildren soon." His voice trembled, nervousness building up under his skin. "In fact, do you… Well, you, Sasha, or Marcy for that matter, have a boyfriend back home?!"

"HOP POP!" Anne lamented, restraining herself not to kick him by reaction, "That's not something you should ask this freely! Back home, this is a major faux pass! And besides…"

Her voice died down, as she once again focused on the music and voices coming from the inside, where Marcy and Sasha were apparently having a very good time talking about anime together with Polly, Ivy and Amelia.

…besides, I don't even know if I'm into boys at all…