AN: Kept you waiting, huh?
Welcome back, everyone (or just welcome to those of you first joining us now). It's been quite a few months since Time Brings All to Pass and the promised sequel has finally arrived! Though, I have of course been busy since uploading the last chapter in June, writing several other one shots, including a prequel to TBAtP called In a Mirror, Darkly. So hey, if you're wanting a bit more of this AU, you can go check that one out.
Well, I don't want to keep you all waiting, so without further ado, I bring you chapter 1 of Arc 1 of Forging a New Tomorrow!
...yes I did say Arc 1, more about that down below.
Arc 1: Recolored - Chapter 1: The Morning After
Anne Boonchuy walked out of the Plantar house and into another bright sunny morning in Wartwood. It was something she'd done what felt like a million times since she came to Amphibia, and yet, it still felt important to her that she was doing this, because she knew that once she, Sasha and Marcy went back to Earth in a few days, it would likely be a while before she'd get to do so again. If she ever did get to do so again. Which, of course, made it a little annoying for Marcy to grab her and drag her away suddenly.
"We totally need to talk!" Marcy practically shouted in what sounded like pure excitement.
Before Anne could make any sort of protest or ask what Marcy meant, she was already being dragged into the Fwagon that Marcy had been using as a makeshift guest room and being forcefully sat down at it's table.
"You soooo need to tell me everything that happened!" Marcy said, squeeing as she did so.
"…Marcy what are you talking about?" Anne asked. A lot of things could get Marcy excited, but this might be the most excited she'd seen the girl ever.
"Duh." Marcy said, like whatever she was asking Anne about should have been obvious, "You and Sasha dancing last night!"
Upon finally getting her answer, Anne's face turned a deep red.
"Oh, you saw that." She said in a tiny and embarrassed voice.
"Yeah, I couldn't find Sasha in the part of the woods I was searching, so I decided to go see if maybe she ended up going back to the Sundew's or ended up at the Plantar's," even with such a rambly sentence, not one word of Marcy's didn't carry the same excitement she'd had since she dragged Anne in here, "and when I cut through town to go check, I ended up running past the dance and saw my two best friends slow dancing all romantic like!"
"It-it wasn't romantic." Anne said, in an unconvincing voice as her face turned even redder.
At least, it wasn't meant to be romantic and Sasha probably didn't think it was romantic…
Marcy's face of excitement quickly changed to one of annoyed exasperation.
"Ugh, Anne I've known you like Sasha for like, 2 years now." The Taiwanese girl stated bluntly.
"Wait, you have?!"
"Yeah, I mean, you always seemed to shoot her these sort of loving looks, you paid more attention to her than you did Domino of all things, not to mention that poem about her I found in your math notebook that one time-"
"You said you didn't look at that page!" Anne said, pointing an accusatory finger at the black-haired girl.
"I lied." Marcy cheerfully admitted.
Anne let out a groan as her face fell forward and rested on the table.
"I can't believe I was that obvious about it."
"Oh don't worry Anne, there are people out there who are waaaay more obvious about this kind of stuff than you." Marcy said, her voice carrying a light hint of cheekiness to it. Though Anne wasn't quite sure what there was to be cheeky about with it.
Anne raised her head, only to find Marcy's face less than an inch in front of her, a giant smile plastered on.
"…you seem really intense about this." The Thai girl stated.
"I'm sorry, it's just so exciting!" Marcy said as she pulled herself back to a more reasonable distance and let out another squee of excitement, "I've been shipping you two for so long and finally seeing you together is so AMAZING!"
Anne let out a sigh, not happy that she was about to burst her friend's bubble.
"We aren't…actually together."
Marcy's face slowly shifted from beyond excited to confused at that.
"Huh?"
"Me and Sasha aren't together, or, anything."
And at that, Marcy's face shifted from confused to utterly dissapointed.
"Bu-Bu-But the danceI!" Marcy uttered, in a tone almost like she was begging Anne to take back what she just said.
Instead, the Thai girl just shook her head.
"The dance really wasn't what you think it was Marcy." Anne said, a bit of disappointment in her own voice.
"But, then why the dance?" Marcy asked.
"When I found Sasha last night…she was…the only other time I've seen her that broken up about something involved stuff with her parent's divorce. When I found her I just wanted to do something to help cheer her up, I remember that dance was supposed to be tonight and…well, the point is we didn't get together or anything."
As Anne spoke, her tone was wistful. However much she knew that last night wasn't anything romantic, even if it certainly looked like that to someone else, there was a part of her that really did want it to be romantic. There was a part of her that wished that night had ended with her and Sasha becoming girlfriends or kissing or something like that. But that wasn't what happened. And there was another part of her that thought that that was for the best.
"Well," Marcy began, "if nothing happened last night….why not make something happen today?"
"Something like what?" Anne asked, not quite getting what Marcy meant.
"Something like asking her out!" Marcy answered, her excitement returning.
"I don't know if that's the best idea." Anne said hesitantly.
"Oh, come on Anne." Marcy said, "What reason could there possibly be not to ask her out?"
Anne sighed.
"Well, to start with I'm pretty sure that she doesn't see me that way."
At hearing that, Marcy's face scrunched up in a very odd way, like she was trying to hold herself back from saying something.
"…Well, you won't know until you ask her, right?" Marcy asked through gritted teeth.
"I guess, but she's never really shown interest in me before." Anne replied, ignoring how her answer started to make Marcy's left eye twitch. "But that isn't the only reason."
Across from Anne, Marcy took a deep breath and un-scrunched her face.
"OK, what other reasons could there be?"
"Well…you remember how I told you that me and her had that fight?" Anne asked.
"The one with swords and minor explosions?"
"Yeah, that one. Anyways, it…" Anne paused as she decided how much information about what happened at the Tower she actually wanted to share right now. "…Well part of the reason for the fight involved some stuff Sasha did to the Plantars. Some messed up stuff."
"Messed up like what?" Marcy asked, sounding both confused and concerned.
"Just…stuff that makes me uncomfortable with the idea of being more than friends with her without discussing things with the Plantars."
Really, Anne felt guilty at the idea of having a crush on Sasha at all after she nearly killed Sprig and Hop Pop. While she wanted to push ahead with repairing their friendship, she just couldn't feel comfortable with the idea of going beyond that until she knew that the Plantars were OK with it.
"Well," Marcy began, "I'm sure the Plantars would want you to be happy, so if you talked to them about it, they'd probably be OK with you two going out. Right?"
"Maybe…"
"Well, then that settles it." Marcy declared, "Both reasons you have for not asking Sasha out are resolved, you just need to talk to the Plantars-"
"There's actually another reason." Anne interrupted.
"Oh. Well, lay it on me, I'm sure it's one I can help you figure out as well." Marcy said confidently.
"It's not really something you can just "figure out" Marcy." Anne said. "Ever since we came to Amphibia I've…I've started to change. And as I did, I started to really think about how things have been with me and Sasha and how…well how bad of a friend she was."
Really, as Anne looked back on it, the number of times that the blond pushed and pressured her to do things she wasn't comfortable with was absurd. Sasha's controlling nature was, ironically, out of control. Enough that Anne knew that if she had been just a little less of a doormat back on Earth, there was a good chance that she might have finally had it with Sasha long before she actually tried killing someone.
"Yeah, Sasha's been kind of a…total control freak in the past." Marcy agreed, "But it really seems like she changed at the Third Temple, like she's gotten better."
"I know that she's already started changing Marce." Anne said, a small smile appearing on her face. "She's…It's only been a couple of days and it already feels like she's a completely different Sasha. Like all the good parts of her are still there but the bad parts are disappearing. She even apologized to me last for all the stuff that's done."
"Didn't she apologize to you at the Third Temple?" Marcy asked, confused.
"No Marce, I'm not talking about one of her "I'll acknowledge I hurt you but not actually admit that I did something wrong" apologies, I mean like she actually said sorry."
Marcy's jaw fell at hearing that.
"Whoa, that is big!"
"I know right?! When was the last time anyone's heard her say sorry?"
"Wait, hang on a sec." Marcy said, a questioning look on her face. "If you know that Sasha's changed and become better, why are you saying that you won't go out with her because of how she's been in the past?"
Anne sighed.
"It's not that I couldn't get together with her ever," Anne clarified, "but…I'm only just starting to realize now how hurt I was by what she did. Back on Earth and here. I…I'm happy to be friends with her still now that she's changed, now that she's not going to be the Sasha that bullies us around to do what she thinks is best, but…I think I need some more time before I really get over that stuff enough that I'd be comfortable going out with her."
"Oh…" Marcy said, dejected. "…But you're sure that you will be OK with it enough in the future?"
"I think so. I mean, it's sort of like what happened with me and Hop Pop." Anne mused. "Sometimes you just, need some time to be able to fully forgive someone for the hurt they've caused you; you know?"
"Yeah, I guess…" Marcy said, disappointment clear on her face.
"Sorry Mar Mar." Anne said, patting Marcy's shoulder. "Maybe one day in the future I'll say something to Sasha, but for now...we'll, it'll just be the three of us being friends like usual. Well, better friends since we've all changed a lot being here, but you get the idea."
"Yeah…"
"Well, anyways, I've got to go pick some stuff up from Loggle." Anne said as she stood up and walked towards the door. "You want to come along?"
"Nah, I'm good." Marcy said as she waived Anne off.
The Thai girl nodded at her friend and then exited the Fwagon, and began walking to town. Only to then turn her head back to the Fwagon on hearing an annoyed shout coming from the Fwagon.
"…I hope she isn't too frustrated by this." Anne said to herself as she continued her walk into town.
I am so frustrated by this!
Marcy paced around the Fwagon, her frustration and annoyance clear as day on her face to anyone who might walk in. She had known for several years now that Anne and Sasha loved each other. She had seen them interact and knew how perfect they were for each other. And she'd watched with mild frustration as neither of them did anything about it. Now, here she was seeing them having an obviously super romantic dance, and not only were they still not together, but Anne wasn't even willing to entertain the idea of just going up to Sasha and asking her out!
Really, it was infuriating for Marcy.
Marcy did understand where Anne was coming from, she really did. Well, she understood the last two points anyways, she was honestly mystified by how Anne still hadn't picked up on the fact that Sasha was head over heels in love with her.
"Seriously, and they say I'm the oblivious one!" Marcy complained…right as she bumped into the table and knocked over the vase of flowers on it, only just barely catching it before it hit the ground and shattered. The raven-haired girl let out a sigh of relief as an embarrassed blush crept onto her face.
…So, back to the inner monologue then.
Really, Marcy was at the point of wanting to just go up to the both of them and reveal that they both had feelings for the other. About the only reason that she didn't was that Marcy herself felt it was better for them both to just tell each other directly. It was unfortunate then, that the waiting was practically killing her, and worse, it sounded like Anne was probably planning to wait even longer!
But…even with all of the frustration, Marcy could understand why Anne wanted to wait. She could understand that Anne was uncomfortable with the idea of getting together with Sash when the Plantars didn't like her, and she could get Anne feeling like she needed more time to be able to fully move on from what Sasha's been like in the past…
…But what if that time was sped up by being around Sasha!
The gears in Marcy's head began turning and the answer to her frustrations became obvious. If Anne already saw how much Sasha had changed and was willing to forgive her enough to stay friends with her, then spending even more time around her and seeing how she's changed would make Anne more willing to move past everything and get together with her! And surely, if Anne did move on from the past and decide she was comfortable being in a relationship with Sasha, then maybe she'd go talk to the Plantar's, and if Marcy knew her found family tropes like she thought she did, then they would definitely give their approval if it meant Anne being happy.
Really, when she thought about it like that, the hardest hurdle to jump would be getting Anne to work up the courage to just go up to Sasha and finally admit her feelings for her.
It's settled then, Operation Matchmaker is-a-go!
Sasha sat in the room that she and Grime were being allowed to use while they were in Wartwood. She had asked him to have a conversation with her about what happened the night before, and where that bright light took her. Now, he was trying to process all of the information that she had given him.
"…So, let me make sure I understand everything here." Grime began, the tone of his voice being more skeptical than Sasha would have liked. "That bright light was actually from a time machine that your friend invented?"
"Yes."
"Powered by those gemstones on the music box?"
"The remnant of that power in the temples that charge them, but yeah basically."
"And in the future Andrias and I die during the rebellion, you gain powers from one of those gems and then turn into an insane tyrant that wrecks all of Amphibia?"
"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up," Sasha replied, her tone already showing her resignation to Grime's inevitable disbelief.
"…Now, when you came back last night and fell out of that light, how hard exactly did you hit your head?"
Sasha let out a frustrated groan. She had spent all morning trying to get things straight in her head about what she should tell Grime about her trip to the future and how she was supposed to convince him to stop the rebellion. She figured the latter would be the more difficult part, but even getting him to believe her story was proving to be much more difficult than she anticipated.
"Grime, I know it doesn't sound all that believable, but it's true."
"Sasha, I'm really sorry," Grime said, his voice sounding genuinely apologetic and concerned "but you must understand, this "time travel" thing is…look, I trust you but that is completely unbelievable."
Sasha wanted to disagree, but she couldn't without being a hypocrite. She had been just as dismissive of being told that she was taken to the future until she actually saw what the world looked like. It was too bad that she didn't have her own proof as obvious as the scenery outside that cave to show Grime.
"I know that it's hard to believe, I didn't believe it at first either." Sasha began, "But the whole 'me disappearing and then reappearing in a flash of light' thing isn't exactly normal right?"
"Neither is travel between alternate worlds and yet you and your friends are here," Grime replied. "Honestly, it makes more sense to me that you ended up going to some other world and then got some sort of head trauma and now you think that this time travel story was real."
"Isn't there anything I can do to convince you to believe me?" Sasha asked, a bit of desperation leaking into her voice.
Grime actually looked a little guilty when Sasha's question, like he felt bad over not believing her.
"…Well…you said that your "future self" got her powers from the pink gem on that box, maybe you can get them for yourself?" Grime offered, trying to give Sasha something resembling the benefit of the doubt. However, that simply elicited another groan from Sasha.
"We're pretty sure those stupid powers only activate if we were in some sort of really emotional state."
Like you dying. Sasha thought, finishing her statement in her head.
Grime walked over to Sasha and put a hand on her shoulder.
"Sasha, I'm really sorry about this but…look, I'm sure there's a doctor in town who we can go to just to take a quick look at your head-"
"I'm not making this up!" Sasha said, pushing Grime's hand away as she stood up.
"Sasha just be reasonable here." Grime said, a more authoritative tone coming into his voice. "Believe it or not, I'm actually trying to make sure that you're alright. I am trying to help."
Sasha let out a sigh.
"I know." Sasha said, her tone of voice sounding both frustrated and a little guilty. "I know you're just trying to help but…"
Sasha's voice trailed off as a thought came into her head.
"…The sword." Sasha said as her eyes widened in realization.
"What sword?" Grime asked, confused.
"The sword you got me!" Sasha responded excitedly.
"What about it?" Grime asked as he looked questioningly at the sword attached to Sasha's belt.
"No, not that one, the silver one!"
"S-silver one?" Grime asked in a tone that sounded more like a parent who just realized that their kid found out about a big surprise…which, Sasha could admit, basically is what happened.
"Yeah, the one you were going to give me after the rebellion."
"I-I…have no idea what you're talking about." Grime said, turning away from Sasha in what the former cheerleader guessed was an attempt to hide how much his face was giving away his lie.
"Really?" Sasha asked smugly, "So you don't know about the cool silver sword that matched my pink one exactly?"
Grime sighed and turned back to his lieutenant.
"Alright, who told you?" Grime asked her flatly.
"My future self." Sasha responded. "She said that they found it in your stuff after you died. She actually made it a part of her emblem."
Grime went silent as he looked at Sasha, the look on his face indicating that he was turning over in his head what Sasha just said really means.
"…And you're sure you didn't know this until that light appeared last night?" He asked.
"Grime, I'm exactly the type of person to turn the entire house upside down looking for her presents and then opening them early. Trust me, if I had known about that thing earlier, I'd already be wearing it on my right hip." In fact, the only reason that Sasha hadn't gone searching for it through Grime's things after she got back is that there were much more important things on her mind than some present.
"…You're telling the truth." Grime said, amazement in his voice.
"Yup." Sasha answered back, grinning.
"This…this is amazing!" Grime said excitedly. "I mean, not just that this whole time travel thing is actually a thing, but it dives us so much advance warning on what to do."
"Huh?" Sasha responded.
"Well obviously now we need to plan around that General showing up and ruining the plan, plus we've got some idea of where resistance to our rule might spring up, not to mention how we can find all that advanced technology you mentioned much earlier. This is going to be amazing!" Grime said excitedly.
Right…that.
"A-about that-" Sasha began awkwardly before she was interrupted.
"I can't believe how perfect this all turned out." Grime said. "We should have just enough time to put together something to keep Yunan out of the picture, maybe even account for anyone else pulling the same thing she's pull."
"I-I think we should-"
"Oh what am I saying." Grime said, interrupting Sasha. "Obviously with how long you've known about this you've already come up with some sort of devious plan to make sure things go right."
"…Maybe…maybe we should put this on hold for a little bit."
While Sasha had spent the morning figuring out how to tell Grime about the future and how to tell him that they should stop the rebellion, she really only ever managed to figure out that first part. She knew that she wanted to tell him once she had a plan figured out on how to actually get the rest of the toads to stand down, given that Grime's own life was on the line if the rebellion didn't succeed, she figured she had to come to him with that much at least. The problem was that she hadn't actually figured that plan out. She knew that just because she didn't want the rebellion to take place anymore, didn't mean that the other toads wouldn't either just because she and Grime were the ones who started the whole thing. She knew that she'd need to come up with something good and she just couldn't. The only remotely workable idea she had involved…a certain person who might be able to help them get an inroad with the king, but that would probably be a long-term systemic change that Toads wouldn't jump on when they could stage a surprise attack and put themselves in charge without waiting. The only real immediate benefit that Sasha could think of for that plant was that she and Grime could get taken off the wanted lists. Frankly, she didn't even want to have any of this conversation with Grime, be it the events of the future or her desire to end the rebellion, until she had a plan to stop the rebellion, but she also knew that he was not going to stop trying to find out what happened to her last night so…now she was in this mess by trying to get out ahead of his questions. All she could really hope for at this point was buying herself a little extra time to figure out a plan.
Unfortunately, Grime shot down that hope pretty quickly.
"No, the other Toads wouldn't go for a delay, not unless it was over something big." Grime said dismissively.
"Right, of course not." Sasha said as she let out a disappointed sigh.
"Oh, don't worry Sasha, we're the two smartest people in the toad army, we'll be able to figure something out." Grime said in an obvious attempt to cheer Sasha up.
"Right." Sasha said as she began walking towards the door. "I'm going to head out around town for a bit."
"Alright," Grime said back to her. "Just don't be back too late, I'd like to take some time tonight to figure out a plan to keep Yunan busy."
Sasha grunted in response as she walked out the door, moving through the house they were borrowing to the bottom floor. She then immediately ran back up to her and Grimes's room as a thought occurred to her.
"Hey, uh, Grime," Sasha began awkwardly, "did I uh…in the time that you've known me, have I been…too obvious about certain things?"
"…Is this about how obvious you've been about your crush on Anne?"
Sasha let out a disappointed and embarrassed groan at realizing that he knew as well.
"Please tell me that the only toads at the tower who knew were you, Braddock and Percy."
"No, pretty much everyone did." Grime responded flatly.
"Seriously?" Sasha whined as she covered her face with her hands in embarrassment.
"Yes. Were you trying to keep that a secret? You're normally much better at that."
"I know." Sasha said, frustration and embarrassment in her voice as she turned and walked away, moving down to the bottom floor and actually exiting the house this time.
As she left the house behind her, Sasha walked with her hands behind her back, lost in thought. She knew that she had to come up with something to stop the rebellion now, or some really good reason to convince the Toads to delay the rebellion to buy her some more time to come up with a more permanent plan. She'd much prefer to figure out something for the former given that she had no idea how long it would take for her to make a return trip to Amphibia once they got back to Earth, so finding a way to put a stop to it for good that she could implement now was her priority.
She'd also need to make sure that whatever stopped it wouldn't result in retaliation against the toads and would also get Grime pardoned so no one was trying to arrest and execute him.
She'd also need something that would help give the toads better lives and standards of living given how many were on board with the rebellion for that explicit purpose.
…I really wish I had spent more time in the future thinking up this plan, at least enough to take to Grime and try to get him on board with helping.
As Sasha walked through the town, she just could not come up with any ideas. Nothing seemed to come into her head that even came close to meeting her needs for this plan.
Maybe…maybe something to scare them? Make them think that attacking, even in secret, is a bad idea? But how would I even go about doing that-
Sasha was taken out of her thoughts as she accidentally bumped into someone, too consumed by her attempts to come up with a plan to even try and watch where she was going.
"Shoot, that was my ba-." Sasha said as her mind came back to the world around her.
"Sorry about that, I didn't see y-." Said the person she'd bumped into at the same time as her.
Both had stopped their sentence's part way through, as it was only at those moments that they realized who the other was, a blush appearing on both of their cheeks.
The person that Sasha had bumped into, was none other than Anne. The girl she was madly in love with. The girl whom she had spent last night dancing with. The girl who had so consumed her thoughts last night that it took hours for the blond to actually fall asleep.
"Oh, h-hey Anne, I, uh, I didn't see you there." Sasha said, very nervously, unsure of exactly how she was supposed to greet her best friend after spending the night dancing with her in a way that was far more romantic than either of them had intended.
"H-hi Sash, I, uh, didn't expect to run into you around, y-you know, here." Anne's reply helped to assure Sasha that nervous stuttering was the appropriate way to greet her after last night.
"I, uh, well I guess I just needed to take a bit of a-bit of a walk so, you know…" Sasha began contemplating if getting killed by her future self would have been preferable to enduring this awkward conversation.
"Yeah, I-I get that." Anne replied. "Uh, so…how…how are you doing?"
"Oh, f-fine you know, totally, w-why wouldn't I be fine?"
"Well, you know, the stuff we talked about in the forest? You're feeling better about that?"
"Oh." Somehow, Anne's question seemed to cut through the awkward tension that had otherwise consumed the two teens. "Yeah, I'm…I'm feeling a lot better about that. Thanks again."
"Hey no problem," Anne replied. "If you ever need to talk again, just let me know, I'll always be ready to listen and help."
The funny thing was, Sasha did need to talk to Anne. But not about something that was bothering her. Right now, Sasha knew that the priority in her life had to be finding some way to stop the rebellion. She could not place anything ahead of that given the consequences of letting it happen. But as soon as she was done that, her priority would have to be coming clean to Anne about the rebellion and what happened in the future and that…that was something that Sasha had no idea how to deal with.
"I know Anne." Sasha said, a smile appearing on her face. Even if she knew that there was going to be a very heavy conversation between them in their future, Sasha couldn't help but smile at Anne's simple offer to help her with whatever was bothering her. It was another reminder of why she was so in love with the girl.
Anne opened her mouth to say something else, but she was cut off by a yell from down the road.
"Hey girls!"
Both of the teen's turned to look at the very familiar person who had called out to them.
"Hey Mar-mar." Anne called back, waving at the dark-haired girl approaching them.
"Hey Marcy…" Sasha called back to the girl as well, but did so with far less enthusiasm than Anne.
While thoughts of Anne had been invading the blond's mind since their dance last night, she had been very deliberately trying to not think about Marcy. Ever since Future Marcy had revealed the truth, that she had known that the box could take them to other worlds, that she'd deliberately gotten all three of them transported here…well, it left Sasha really not knowing what to think of the Taiwanese girl. All she really knew was that she was far from happy with her. Of course, she couldn't just let everyone know that since it would bring up a lot of questions about why she was unhappy with her and that was something Sasha was not prepared to deal with yet. Her only option, really, was to try and pretend that nothing had changed and plaster a fake smile on her face.
The Taiwanese girl ran up to the pair, bag dangling from her shoulders.
"Hey, I was thinking that while we were all here in Wartwood, we could go do something together." Marcy stated.
"Yeah sure that-"
"Great, glad you agree." Marcy said, interrupting Anne and immediately reaching into her bag. "I figured that maybe we could grab a couple of rackets and hit a ball around."
"I…guess that sounds fu-"
"Great, I already made up a racket for Sasha." Marcy once again interrupted Anne as she pulled out a wooden racket that looked fairly well made, yet had a few rough spots that told Sasha it was thrown together rather quickly. Marcy then immediately shoved the racket into Sasha's hands.
"Thanks Marcy." Sasha said, trying to make her gratitude sound genuine. Really, she wasn't particularly excited by Marcy's suggestion. Not only was this going to eat into the time she had to think of a way to stop the rebellion, but spending too much time together with Anne or Marcy was probably just going to cause trouble until she could sort everything out. Still, she did need to keep up the appearance that everything was fine, and that would meaning hanging out with the two.
And hey, maybe I need a break from thinking up the plan? Maybe hanging around with Anne and Marcy for a little will help recharge my mental batteries or something?
"Wait, what about your racket Marcy?" Anne asked.
"Oh, I didn't have time to make one for myself," Marcy said, waving off Anne's concern, "Besides, you two are the more athletic ones so it makes sense for you to be there hitting the ball to each other while I sit off on the side and watch."
Sasha raised an eyebrow at that. While it was true that Marcy was the least athletic of the three, she wasn't unathletic, at least, not since they got here anyway. That part of her answer didn't quite make sense to the blond. Still, she didn't see much point in questioning the girl at this point. Right now, she just wanted to get going to this little game and then get back to planning.
"Right, we'll I've still got to go pick up some stuff from Loggel and take it back to Hop Pop." Anne said. "I'll also pick up my racket while I'm there and then meet up with you two."
"No need to worry about your racket Anne." Marcy said as she reached into her bag, pulled out an item and handed it to Anne.
"Oh, you already grabbed it." Anne said in surprise at Marcy handing her the pink racket.
Sasha stared at the racket, a gift she had given Anne less than a year ago. She had planned to ask Anne out when she gave it to her but ended up chickening out. Despite the chickening out, however, the smile on Anne's face when Sasha gave it to her had burned itself into the blond's memory. As had the memory of when she last saw it. Or rather, what was left of it. Finding the destroyed racket in the future had truly hurt her. Anne had loved it and carried it with her practically everywhere, and yet in the future Sasha had hurt her badly enough that she…well, that didn't matter now. That future wouldn't happen, and that racket would never be broken. It would always remain exactly as Sasha saw it now, a top-of-the-line, well used and well-loved present that was a pile of pieces of broken, pink plastic, with some black and white in there as well, what looked like a broken apart handle with some wrapping on it, and white string randomly strewn throughout the pile.
To anyone else, they might have no idea what this broken pile of plastic used to be. Sasha, however, knew exactly what it was…
Sasha stared at the broken racket.
It hurt to see it like this. She could still remember the face Anne made when Sasha gave it to her, the sheer joy and excitement. It had made Hey Anne? Maybe with her feelings for the girl. She remembered how depressed Anne looked when she first told her and Marcy about what pain happened to the racket earlier that day, she remembered having Marcy help her look up which was the best tennis racket available at their mall, she remembered cutting school you're better off into her dad's place to grab some extra cash out of his wallet so she'd have enough when she went to buy the racket. She also remembered how many times she practiced to herself what she was going to say to Anne when she gave it to her, even if she ultimately failed at saying everything she wanted to.
She remembered the first game that Anne played with it, where she felt the blood higher spirits than usual. She remembered when without me the little green sticker on it, something to note Marcy's contribution to getting the racket when Sasha told her that Marcy helped her pick it out. She remembered the carriage ride from Wartwood to Toad Tower and Anne telling her how she had been using it as a weapon since she got to Amphibia. Anne told her that she was actually worried about Sasha being mad for using an expensive gift like that, felt the sword in her eye at hearing that. After so long of not knowing if Anne was safe and not being there to protect her, hearing that Anne used her gift to defend herself made Sasha feel like a part of herself was there protecting Anne all along.
A part of herself that now lay on the ground, broken and dis"Sasha?"
Sasha blinked when she heard Anne's voice.
Sasha looked at the Thai girl, whose face was one of concern. Her eyes then wandered around to the rest of the town. The town that was in perfect shape. The Town that was exactly how it was supposed to be. It was not a town that was ruined and ravaged by war. It was not how it looked in the future. Her eyes then travelled back to the racket, and just like the town, it was exactly how it was supposed to look. Except…Sasha could swear that just a few seconds ago she was in the destroyed town staring at the broken pile that used to be that racket.
What was…
"Sasah?!" the concerned voices of both Anne and Marcy seemed to break Sasha out of her thoughts.
"Huh?"
"Are you OK?" Anne asked, fear present on her face.
"Y-yeah, I'm totally fine." Sasha replied.
"Seriously?" Marcy asked, both her and Anne's faces showing that neither were convinced by Sasha's words. "You just zoned out there for like, half a minute."
"You're exaggerating." Sasha said dismissively.
"By like, maybe 10 seconds." Marcy replied.
"Look, really, I'm fine." Sasha said, rolling her eyes. "I just…didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I'm just a bit tired is all."
Both Marcy and Anne looked at each other, almost like they were having a telepathic conversation about how believable what the former cheerleader just said was.
"You're sure you're fine." Anne asked as she turned back to Sasha.
"Yes Anne, I promise I'm fine." Sasha said, putting on her most reassuring smile.
Once again, the other two girls looked at each other and had some sort of silent conversation.
"Well…if you say so." Anne said, clearly not fully convinced of Sasha's words, but convinced enough to drop the subject at least. "I'll go quickly run that errand, then I'll meet you over at that little clear field just past the bridge out of town, OK?"
"Yup, that sounds perfect." Sasha replied as the Thair girl had already begun walking to another part of town.
Sasha turned and began walking to the field that Anne had mentioned, walking ahead of Marcy to try and put a little distance between the two of them, though Marcy quickly caught up.
"You're really sure you're OK?" Marcy asked.
"Yes Marcy." Sasha replied, her tone a bit more aggressive than she had intended it to be.
Despite what the other two girls might think, Sasha was sure she was fine.
Sure, she just suddenly had some sort of flashback to her time in the future, but that didn't mean anything.
And sure, while she was having that flashback, she had felt pain in her left eye from a wound that she never had, but that didn't mean anything.
And sure, while she was having that flashback and feeling that pain, she had heard those eight words she said before she fell from the tower echoing in her mind, but that didn't mean anything.
I…I'm fine. Really.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed that.
Quite a few scenes here I was really happy to finally get down, mainly the Marcy freaking out over Anne and Sasha still not being together bit and Sasha going through her first trauma induced flashback. Yes I said first, implying there will be others. That flashback is something that I went back and forth on the presentation of a couple of times. I wasn't sure if I should just leave it as normal text or italicised, and then I wasn't sure if I wasn't sure if I should incorporate parts of the "Hey Anne? Maybe you're better off without me." phrase in there, and then at the last minute I decided that if I was going to put the 8 words in then I needed to have a reference to Sasha feeling the pain from Queen Sasha's wound in there since I had already written that she was feeling the pain during the flashback.
Anyways, after the months of planning on this one, I ended up deciding to split it into 5 separate arcs, the first of which is "Recolored" (take a guess what that's leading up to.) While I have a general plan for each arc right now, I'll probably take longer breaks between arcs to better plan out the next arcs outline in more detail, so be aware of that.
Anyways, all I have left to say is that it's good to be back to writing this series, I appreciate any feedback you guys have, and I'll see you next time.