Chapter Three: A Journey towards Destiny

After the mysterious and sinister voice inside Carl's mind suggested to help him "enact revenge on those who did him wrong", our protagonist was even more creeped out by this voice than before, when it introduced itself.

In response to that malicious intent, Carl decided to ask more questions to the voice, in order to assess more in-depth just what the true intentions of his speaker were "Listen, I don´t know what you meant by what you said just now, but something is telling me that I shouldn't listen to you. No one so far has treated me so badly to the point where I would want to get revenge on them: I mean, I just woke up not even an hour ago from a sleep that lasted 1000 years, for the gods' sake!"

"Are you joking with me? Did you not see how that innkeeper treated you before?! First, he accepted you as a guest in his inn and was receptive towards you during the first minutes; until, in the next moment, he begins behaving like a complete douchebag, without any explainable reason, and expels you from his business by claiming that he had made a "mistake" and there were "no rooms available" after all. He even threatened to call the police on you, dammit!"

Carl shyly tried to reason with the voice "Yes, I know that his behavior was very strange, and he changed his mind very quickly. But what do we know? The innkeeper might have genuinely made an honest mistake when checking the inn's ledger: he might have really confused the dates for the rooms' availability, and he accidentally read the date for yesterday instead of today's date …."

The mysterious voice interrupted Carl to speak up their mind about the issue, opposing his point of view in a condescending and annoyed tone of voice "You gullible idiot! Do you really believe that the innkeeper made a mistake like that, and that he remembered to correct it at the last minute, out of nowhere? Please! What he did was give you a lame and poorly thought excuse to avoid telling you the real reason why he changed his mind and didn't want you staying inside the inn with him and his other guests! You, and you alone are the main reason why he kicked you out of his establishment, and nothing else!"

"Wait, what? How could I have been the main problem?! What did I do to him that made him dislike me and throw me out from the inn?"

As soon as the newt finished speaking, the mysterious voice got their curiosity piqued by Carl's obliviousness to his hidden supernatural power "Oh, my, my, this is interesting …. You mean that you have absolutely no idea about what you're truly capable of, isn't that right …?"

"What I'm truly capable of? What are you talking about? Explain yourself."

The voice, subsequently, clarified what had truly happened inside the inn "As you command, your Majesty, HAHAHAHA! You see, you and the innkeeper, as well as the other guests of the inn, may have not been able to see what transpired in the living room of the building, but I did! You, my dear friend, are not an ordinary newt, much less, by extension of my rationale, a normal amphibian: for, indeed, I've seen with my own "eyes" that you casted quite a few energy waves across the entire living space of the inn; moreover, the energy you projected towards the innkeeper and the guests wasn't a good one, not even close … In reality, you were projecting a very dark and negative energy that ended up severely affecting those around you…"

Carl, upon hearing the voice's explanation, was caught up by an understandable feeling of surprise and shock at hearing how he, unknowingly, exerted such a negative influence on all those present in the living room of "The Giant Rattleshroom". But, most importantly, he was puzzled about how he, unknowingly, projected energy waves at all, especially dark ones.

So, naturally, learning these facts at the same time compelled our newt friend to ask more questions to the voice, who apparently knew more about Carl's powers beyond what was shown on the surface (i.e. beyond what was shown during its first time demonstration at the inn) "Wait just a minute. How did I even do that? I mean, how can I project energy waves, and why couldn't I see them? And, above all, why did I project energy that carried so much negativity …?"

"About that, I also don't know how you were able to project energy onto others, but, from what I've witnessed, you seem to do that automatically and subconsciously, without any control whatsoever over the circumstances linked to this event, whether they be the time, place, your mood, or the people that come across your way, between others. About the second point, I can tell you that neither you nor the innkeeper and the inn's guests could see your energy waves because they are invisible to the naked eye: only a select number of people are sensitive to that kind of energy, making them the only ones who can see it naturally without any effort. As you might have concluded, I am one of the few who is sensitive to and can see and feel the energy you let out earlier, but you, on the other hand, are not one of the sensitive ones …. Yet. Finally, about your last question, the reason you projected dark and negative energy is because, in your current state, you are a disgraceful walking emotional mess of a newt! I mean, just look at you: you're at the verge of catching a cold, if not on the way to die of hypothermia, you're physically exhausted from walking all the way up here and weak from starvation, you're confused and lost because you don't even know about your real identity, and I could go on and on. The point is, the dark energy is a manifestation of all the negativity existing in your current emotional states, and you can't do anything to change the nature of the energy you project unless you change the nature of your present emotional states. But, as is in the nature of emotions, that's easier said than done, am I correct? HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHA!"

After listening carefully to the sinister voice's explanation, Carl's mood changed from an inquisitive one to a terrified one: he was mostly terrified with not only the negativity he could spread among others very easily through energy waves, but also about the fact he couldn't prevent the indirect harm he was causing to other people, on account of him not being able to control when the negative energy waves were emitted …

Before he could say anything back, however, the voice cut Carl off and continued with his monologue "But, even though you filled the room and all the people inside with negative energy, the innkeeper still had no acceptable excuse to treat you like beetle shit! What's worse, he jumped too fast to the conclusion that you were the one responsible for making him and his guests feel bad, without having any visible empirical proof (at least, to his perceptive faculties) that pointed directly to you! I say, we should get back at him for what he did to you, don't you think?"

"W-Wait, you don't mean … Is what you're saying right now related to what you said before about enacting revenge on those who did me wrong? You better not be thinking about hurting those people inside the inn…"

"Oh, don't see what I'm about to tell you as me trying to convince you to hurt those people. No …. I'm going to teach how to acquire some negotiation skills …. You see, what I'm suggesting is for you to enter inside the inn once again, and, before the innkeeper has the chance to speak up against you and kick you out like before, you walk up to his stand and make a proposal: either he forgets everything that happened a few minutes ago and pretends you didn't do anything bad, and he lets you stay at the inn for the night with a full course meal included for supper; or … if he refuses to do so, you will then tell him that you're going to grab some cooking oil from the kitchen, spread it across the main rooms of the building, grab a torch from the living room and light the oil on fire, burning the inn with everyone still inside! Of course, you'll be leaving the inn way before the fire spreads out and traps you in with everyone else, and you'll be locking the door from the outside so no one attempts to escape … HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA!"

Carl instantly gasped upon hearing the voice's suggestion, horrified that someone could even think about doing something so vile and murderous like what he's just heard. He immediately protested against following through with that course of action "T-That's horrible…! What you're proposing is not a negotiation at all, it's a direct threat to burn everyone alive inside the inn if they don't do what we want! I'm sorry, but threatening to kill people like that just so we can get a place to eat and sleep is out of the question for me."

"No, no, no, you're not understanding the full picture of the scenario: we're not actually going to burn the inn; in reality, we're just going to grease the whole place with the cooking oil and we're then going to hold a torch over the cooking oil, but not touch it, because the intention here is only to reinforce the main consequence of not obeying the conditions of our suggestion … And I'm completely sure they will give us the room and the meals we need, because those morons will follow their survival instincts and will refuse to die over something so petty and meaningless to their lives, isn't that right? HAHAHAHAHA!"

"N-No! I don't care that we're not actually following through with the plan of burning the inn and its people and it's all just a warning! It's still wrong to threaten them like that to get what we need for our survival!"

The voice became upset and annoyed that Carl refused to follow his "negotiation" strategy, but quickly brushed it off as not being that much of a big deal "Tsk, you're a real buzzkill, did you know that? Fine, we'll play this game your way for the time being. But, let me warn you that you won't survive for long if you keep playing the "Mr. Nice Guy" card every turn."

Carl dismissed all the words that came out of the sinister voice, opting instead to look attentively at the environment around him. Nothing was really amiss in the plaza located near "The Giant Rattleshroom", but something quickly grabbed his attention: it seems that a local vendor forgot to close their market stand in the middle of the plaza. Judging from the amount and variety of produce displayed on the tabletop of the stand, one can easily arrive at the conclusion that this belongs to a local farmer who forgot to close their business for the night, probably because the strong winds hit the town so hard and so fast that they had no time to put away everything for the day.

More specifically, between all the agricultural products exhibited in the stand, Carl focused his attention more on a loaf of centipede bread and on an exposed carton of good old orange juice. Whether he liked it or not, the voice caught up to Carl's eye movements towards the food and drinks at the farmer's stand and proceeded to provoke him "Well, well, I see that those delicious agricultural produce caught your eye, didn't they? I bet they also caught the attention of your stomach …. So, what are you waiting for? Steal that centipede bread and orange juice this instant!"

"What?! Are you kidding me? I'm not going to steal anything from that market stand! The farmer who owns it worked very hard to cultivate and care for the growth of his crops, not to mention he had to be patient when waiting for them to become fully grown and ripe! I'm not going to disrespect his work by taking away his products without paying for them!"

"HAHAHAHAHA! Are you sure about that? Are you actually hearing yourself when you're talking? And do you actually believe in the bullshit you're spewing right now?! You're acting like a complete moron if you would rather die from starvation, just to continue playing by your act of "Mr. Righteous", than assure your own survival for this night by eating some food and drinking a nutritious drink! NOW, STOP STALLING AND GO STEAL THAT BREAD AND ORANGE JUICE!"

Carl didn't want to steal the bread and orange juice from the stand, doing everything in his power to resist the pressure put on top of him by the mysterious and sinister voice and also by his tremendous hunger. Unfortunately for him, his moral standards couldn't ultimately resist nature's calling for nutrition, as evidenced by the enormous strength of his stomach growling for delicious food and a good drink. With hunger propelling Carl towards the bread and orange juice at the stand, he slowly began taking small steps to grab his small meal from the tabletop. However, his walk was being purposely slowed down by feelings of shame and guilt for being on the verge of becoming a thief.

This didn't last for long though, for Carl reached his targets at the stand, sat down on a stool placed behind the stand and started gobbling up the centipede bread and pour the orange juice down his throat like there was no tomorrow. After a few minutes spent digesting his meal, Carl felt his hunger subduing itself down and his energy levels rising to normal. But, at the end of the day, he felt guilty and downright ashamed that he had to step down so low to get what he needed to continue living.

Of course, opposed to this, the sinister and creepy voice was amused and overwhelmed with joy over the fact Carl gave in to his instincts, and more importantly to the voice's "advice" "HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, this almost seems too good to be true! So, you finally decided to listen to the voice of reason, did you? I knew you would eventually give in…."

"N-No, don't make this sound like I did a good thing…. Despite feeling better now and not hungry, I still stole the bread and the orange juice, don't you see? I'm now officially a thief, and I don't like it!"

"Tch, you're such a whiny brat. It doesn't count as stealing if no one is out here in the open to watch you do it: and, as you already know, who would want to be out here in the streets with the extreme wind and cold there is tonight? Besides, you can't also count this action as stealing if you're doing it to assure your own survival in conditions where there are no other options available, am I right? HAHAHAHAHA!"

"…. Fine, I see that there is no reasoning with you on this subject. But you're forgetting that there is one thing that is not yet assured for me: you forgot that I still don't have a shelter where I can take cover from this terrible cold wind and sleep for the night. Where will I find one?"

"Ahhhh…. Now you've reached the real problem here, because I don't think you're going to be able to find a decent ehnough place to take shelter in this town. On one hand, in your current emotional state, if you're planning on trying your luck with the other inns in Swamp Shiro, you're risking spreading more dark energy waves through all the people staying inside. On the other hand, if you're actively refusing to partake in my negotiation plans, which I proposed before, then I guess you have no other practical alternatives left …"

This response left Carl feeling desperate and hopeless once more, slowly killing the energy and hope he had gained before from eating the loaf of centipede bread and drinking the orange juice. But, fortunately for himself, he thought of a life-saving idea that implied he didn't even need to stay in Swamp Shiro for tonight "Hey… I just had a great idea! Maybe I don't need to find a shelter in this town at all: in fact, I just remembered that, around Swamp Shiro, and before I went up the stairs at the bottom of these mushrooms, I saw a forest lying on its outskirts. If I go down the stairs and get back to the bottom of the mushrooms, I can wander into the forest and maybe find either a hollow tree trunk where I can snuggle in its interior, or, if I'm lucky, find a cave that's safe enough to the point that it doesn't house any predators that might eat me as their supper!"

"Well…. For once, I must agree with you! That idea is better than staying here out in the open, do nothing and wait for your death by hypothermia. So, if you know your way out of this unwelcoming and hostile town, lead the way and I'll follow."

Of course, in Carl's perspective, the voice needn't have characterized Swamp Shiro's people and ambience the way he did with their last words, but the newt ignored the insult and started walking towards the exit stairs out of Swamp Shiro, the ones he used to get up here in the first place.

Once he was down on the ground, near the marsh beneath the high up town, he continued his journey towards finding a shelter by walking into the direction of the forest on the outskirts of Swamp Shiro. While Carl was walking, he decided to kick start a conversation with the sinister voice inside his mind: this was because, although they didn't reveal themselves to be the best company in any kind of situation, Carl was feeling lonely right now and, deep down, he wanted someone to spend some time with.

"So, as you might or not have guessed, after finding someplace to take shelter in this forest and resting for the night, I'm going to get back to Swamp Shiro first thing tomorrow. And, before you start ranting about why you think it's a bad idea to go back there, let me tell you about the purpose behind my intention. You see, I need to go back to that town because I think it may hold some answers as to who I really am. I woke up in a strange laboratory beneath Swamp Shiro and, apparently, I've been asleep in a comatose state for the past 1000 years. But, the real twist in this story is that I woke up without having any clue about my real identity…. It seems that, according to a robot that came up to me …."

Before Carl could continue, however, the voice interrupted his story and spoke up slightly annoyed and bored with our newt friend's tale "Yes, yes, you don't need to tell me everything that happened after you woke up. I regained my consciousness a few moments after you fully woke up, and I saw and heard everything from the conversation you held with that soulless and uncaring automaton. Long story short: you don't know about your real identity, and you're desperately searching for clues that might take you in the right direction to finding out who you were in the past. But, let me tell you my opinion on the issue: I don't believe you will actually find anything useful in Swamp Shiro that may help you complete your task."

"How come? And, first of all, how would you know if that's true? I mean, you probably know just as much as I do about that topic, am I correct? Which is almost nothing, really."

"I wouldn't be so quick to underestimate my understanding abilities on the issue if I were in your place. You see, in case you haven't realized it yet, I share another thing in common with you: I'm referring to the visions you've been having for the past few weeks, while you were still unconscious inside the healing tank in the laboratory. Like you, I've been watching carefully most of the steps that the strange, tall, long membered and freaky creature you've seen has been taking to assure its survival in an environment that's unknown and hostile to it. And, I don't know if you agree with me or not, but the fact that your visions have been focusing almost exclusively on this freak of nature, as well as the fact that the visions have been occurring too frequently in your sleep, must mean that this beast has to be important to your current quest. It's almost as if your fate is connected to the creature's fate in some way or another …."

"Well…. What you just told me is very interesting indeed…. And, if the creature I've seen is that important to my personal quest, then I must meet it in person! But …. I also saw a frog family appearing alongside it: an old frog man, and two frog children, one of which is still a tiny tadpole. Do you think that perhaps the frog family is also connected to that strange creature in any way whatsoever, and, by extension, connected to my fate as well?"

"Yeah, it's a possibility you'll have to consider too. In that case, you would be missing out on a clue that may help you find out about your identity if you decide not to meet them personally. But, back to the freakish creature, you would definitely do well to travel to where it is and meet it face to face. However …. The creature is not here in the surrounding areas of Swamp Shiro. Instead, it's staying a bit far away from where we are, in a small town called Wartwood."

"Ah, dang it! You mean the creature isn't here? Well, that's too bad, I was hoping we wouldn't have to travel too far to find and meet with it …. But, wait just a minute, how do you know it's not here, and how do you also know where it is right now?"

"Interesting question, my dear friend. The answer for that is that, in truth, I am not a voice in your head that is a mere product of your imagination: in fact, I was once alive many years ago, in a living flesh and bone body, and, during my living days, I visited Wartwood Swamp and, in addition, I passed through its nearby woods. So, as you may have already figured out, I recognized the environment where the creature was previously living as corresponding to the woods around Wartwood."

The voice paused their speech for a moment, only for them to reveal afterwards, in a comical moment, the other main explanation for their conclusion "And… another thing that helped was that I saw in the middle of the trees that appeared in your visions a wooden signpost pointing to the direction of Wartwood. I guess I forgot to add that detail, hahahaha."

Carl didn't think the situation was very funny, and he even wondered why the voice didn't mention that detail to him before now. So, naturally, he responded to the dark voice very dryly and sarcastically "Ha, ha, ha, very funny…. Now, can we get serious for a moment? You just said that you were alive once, a long time ago, did I hear you right? Are you some kind of ghost possessing me?"

"Well, for starters, I wouldn't say exactly that I'm possessing you per se: I mean, look at you, you still have your consciousness intact and you're still feeling like yourself and that you own your own body, right? I'm just co-habiting in your mind with you, that's all. As for the ghost part, I prefer to think of myself as a spirit: in reality, you may see me mainly as a kindred spirit that's offering their help in these times when you feel lost, and guiding you in the right way along your journey, HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA!"

"Okay ….. Anyways, let's forget about that for now. We have a new target ahead: Wartwood Swamp, isn't that right? So, if you've already visited that place and its surrounding areas, do you have any idea what direction we need to follow from here? And how long will we take to reach our destination?"

"If you want to know, from what I remember, Wartwood is about 60 kilometers south of where we are. So, if we wake up and leave early tomorrow, and if we manage to keep a steady pace while travelling by foot, then we'll reach the town in about three days, during nighttime. Good enough for you?"

"I see …. We have a long journey ahead of ourselves, then. It doesn't matter how long and how arduous our journey will be. As long as I can get some answers as to who I am, I'll be glad to do everything in my power to reach my goal."

The conversation was eventually cut short and reached its end when Carl entered into the heart of the forest surrounding Swamp Shiro, stopping beside an old and hollow oak tree with a big hole marking the middle of its trunk. After doing a quick inspection to the essential features of the oak tree, Carl concluded that it was the perfect spot to spend the night: all he needed to do was enter inside the hole, nestle himself among the solid and comfy walls of the hollowed trunk and fall asleep calmly and quickly.

Before entering inside the hole of the oak tree, Carl decided to treat the voice inside his head politely, despite the latter having been rude to him and treating him poorly so far, by wishing a good night "I guess this is where we'll make our stop for this evening. I'll be sure to wake up early tomorrow morning, and we'll get on our merry way. Good night, and sleep tight."

The voice, however, didn't respond to Carl at all, behaving once more like a complete jerk to him. Despite this rudeness, Carl entered into the hole of the oak tree, snuggled inside and quickly fell asleep.

When morning came, Carl got up very early, like he had promised, at around 6:00 A.M. He had no time to waste, so he didn't even care about waiting around for the voice to "wake up" and talk to him. He simply dashed away from the oak tree, proceeded to hunt for his breakfast in the forest (he managed to successfully hunt two dragonflies and ate them in a short amount of time) and started moving out of the wild environment he was currently at.

As for our newt protagonist's trip towards Wartwood, there's not much to say about it: the whole way went very smoothly for Carl, without anything particularly dangerous or difficult posing as a hard obstacle for him to overcome, even being lucky enough to pass through two towns located on the main road to Wartwood, Frogsville and Log's End.

Unfortunately for him, though, his journey didn't go without a significant problem that had been persisting since his attempt to stay at "The Giant Rattleshroom" inn at Swamp Shiro: at each of these towns, whenever Carl tried to ask for directions to reach Wartwood every time he got lost, or when he tried again and again to rent a room at the local inns of each of these settlements, his dark purple and negative energy waves were unwittingly emitted from him due to his distressed emotional state once more. As a consequence, the inhabitants of Frogsville and Log's End found themselves immediately put off by Carl's negative aura, refusing to give him directions and denying him the right to stay at the inns. Fortunately, he was able to always find a place to stay for each night: during the second night of his journey he stayed inside a peaceful cave near Frogsville, and for the third night he found an enclosed green clearing inside a bog located near Log's End.

Finally, after spending the whole time of the third day walking almost non-stop, Carl reached the town of Wartwood during the night. More specifically, he stopped at the town's central plaza, nearby the "Grub & Go" market building. Once he passed by the market, he stopped walking and seized the opportunity to observe his surrounding environment: at this time of the day, no one was present in the town plaza, since everyone had already finished their duties for today, and had already retreated to their homes to rest in preparation for the day of tomorrow.

However, much to the misfortune of our newt companion, this wasn't the only sight that passed through his eyes. Without any previous notice, Carl saw the most horrendous scene in a long time: he experienced another one of his famed visions, one where the town of Wartwood was bursting up in flames! On one hand, the flames were consuming most of the town's buildings, in such a way that they had become undistinguishable from one another. In addition, the flames spread throughout the town into the local flora, whether it be to the swamp's reeds or to the grass surrounding the town's plaza and town hall …..

Fortunately, this vision didn't last for long, as it soon faded away from Carl's eyes and he saw Wartwood's plaza in its normal state once again. Nonetheless, the vision of Wartwood burning left some mental scars in his sanity, as he was posteriorly shown to be negatively affected by the event in question, as he thought to himself "What did I just see…? This town being caught on fire: did this happen in the past, or will this happen in the near future…? If it's the latter, then this town is doomed to fall, and its people will perish …"

Carl's thoughts didn't have more opportunities to be elaborated further, however, as they were interrupted by the sighting of a mysterious silhouette: although it wasn't clear to whom it belonged to, it was pretty noticeable that the silhouette belongs to a tall figure, too tall to be either a frog, a normal-sized newt, a toad, or any other type of amphibian; what's more, the figure seems to possess long and slim arms and legs, something that's uncommon in most of the creatures known to inhabit Frog Valley.

Carl saw the silhouette walking around the plaza, but it was doing so in a sneaky and quiet manner, almost as if it did something very secretive and didn't want to get caught by anyone. Before anything could give away who the silhouette really was, Carl instantly inferred from its shape that it must be the strange and tall creature he's been seeing and accompanying through his visions.

Before the figure could see him, Carl hid himself away from its sight, and began watching its movements carefully. The silhouette walked around the statue erected in the middle of the plaza, until it eventually began to gradually move away from it and went walking straight to one of the plaza's main exits. After the figure left the plaza, Carl decided that he needed to follow in its footsteps as quietly and as far away from its detection field of view as possible.

Carl continued tailing his target for quite a while, until the silhouette lead him to one of the edges of Wartwood Swamp: in this case, the figure lead our newt protagonist towards the location of the land which was property of the Plantar family, the Plantar farm. Carl stopped following the silhouette when he entered the surrounding areas of the Plantar family farm as soon as he saw the figure he was following stopping at the front door of the Plantar family's main household, open the door as quietly as possible and enter into their house, closing the door behind it.

Despite seeing the silhouette enter the Plantar house, Carl didn't immediately start to move towards the door: in fact, he was feeling nervous right now, evidenced by his heavy breathing and that he felt his heart pound heavily inside his chest. He didn't know what would happen the moment he would eventually meet with the creature face to face, nor did he even know how to approach it without sounding like a freaky weirdo or a lunatic. So, naturally, he needed some time to regain his normal composure and prepare himself for what was about to come.

"Okay, it seems that the creature I've seen in my visions lives here, in this quaint and peaceful farmhouse. Now, all I have to do is stay calm, meet up in person with it and talk to it like a normal person to explain what brought me here to its home. It's time for me to, at last, meet with my destiny!"

(To be continued ...)

Hello, Amphibia fans! DarkSoul2000 is here again to bring you another chapter of this fanfic. Before I a give a brief summary of what happened so far in the plot, I think I need to say a few words about one thing. For starters, I imagine that you all must be wondering why I'm taking so long to finish up writing the introduction of the main storyline for this fic, since I've used the "To be continued" ending line for the third time in a row when reaching the end of each chapter. Regarding this topic, my answer is that, unlike what some of you might have thought at first, this story's narrative and course of action isn't separated by chapters, but instead it's divided in episodic instances: indeed, I've decided to not follow the standard division of the pacing of the plot in chapters, because I believe that the division of the plot in episodes guarantees a more solid structure and better coherence between the main events that make up each one of the different main overarching points of the overall plot of the story. In other words, I'm going to continue using the "To be continued" ending line until an episode reaches its end, and that will only happen when the overarching point constructed by the episode's chain of events is completely fulfilled. But, anyways, moving on to the events of this chapter, I think we can all agree that now we've begun to know a little more about who the mysterious and dark voice inside Carl's mind is and what his intentions and purposes with our protagonist are: it's pretty evident that the voice's intent in staying inside Carl's mind isn't very good, and the voice seems to know more about Carl's hidden powers and about the direction in which his journey will be taking him more than he himself knows at this point. Given what the voice has shown us so far about his opinions filled with ill intent towards the other people of Amphibia, this latter fact should be interpreted as a warning sign that's trying to tell Carl not to trust the sinister voice inside his head. But, at the end of the day, the decision is up to Carl as to whether he will trust, or not, their guiding words. However, more importantly than that, it seems that, luckily, Carl is finally on the right track to meet up with the right people who will help him find out about his real identity, his past and his purpose in life. With Carl finally reaching Wartwood, everything is pointing out to him meeting Anne in person, and perhaps the Plantars at the same time. But, how will that meeting go? And will he be able to get the help he needs from them? These are some of the questions that will be answered in the next chapter. Until then, you have to be patient and, if you would like to, you can use your imagination to speculate about what will happen next time. And, with this said, that's everything for now. Stay tuned for the release of the continuation of this fic. Until then, happy readings for everyone!