Disclaimer: Amphibia is owned by Matt Brady and Disney. This is a fan-based story purely for fun.
Chapter 24:
Reunion at the Gate
"GUYS!"
Anne and Sprig both looked up to the excited tadpole who swung the ceiling hatch open.
"Polly? What's up?" Anne asked.
"Guys! It's- I mean, we're- Not gonna believe- Well-!" Polly stuttered as she struggled to properly convey what she wanted to say in her excited state. "AHH! Just get out here!"
The two humans briefly looked at each other, wondering what got her so excited. They then decided to follow her request, stood up from where they were and poked their heads out through the hatch.
They both gasped in astonishment, now understanding why Polly was acting the way she did.
Once they realized that they have stopped near the edge of a cliff, Anne and Sprig got off of the fwagon and walked closer to the edge, followed by Polly and Hop Pop, to get a closer view of what they had been seeing before their very eyes.
On the shallow sea some distance away from the coast lied a large, majestic city, consisting of countless buildings that looked like they had been built from long ago, based on their architectural design, as well as towers that resembled tall red mushrooms. A large silver sculpture resembling a beak facing upward stood on top of the spiral stone monument right in the middle. Formidable walls with a large, golden gate surrounded the city, accompanied by huge corals that clung onto them from the sea.
There was no doubt in mind that the large metropolis in front of them is the core of Amphibia: Newtopia.
"Whoa…" Anne, Sprig and Polly continued to stare in awe at the splendid city before them.
Hop Pop chuckled at his grandchildren's awestruck reaction. "Well, kids, this is it! Newtopia is finally within our reach!"
"Wow…! Newtopia…" Sprig spoke with gaping mouth. "After hearing so much about it for so long, it feels unbelievable that we're standing right in front of it. It looks even more amazing than I can even imagine…"
"And that's where I can find my way back home. Right, Hop Pop?" Anne asked the elderly frog.
"I can't see why it wouldn't be." Hop Pop nodded. "After all, this is where the wisest of newts in all of Amphibia can be found."
"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Polly exclaimed in excitement. "Let's get down there already!"
"Yeah!" The Plantar family all cheered and jumped in joy, knowing that their long, arduous journey to Newtopia would soon pay off.
"Well, my feet are soaked." Anne noted, not long after the family started traversing into the shallow water past the shore on their way to Newtopia.
"Come on, guys! It's right over there!" Sprig shouted as he ran towards the large gate ahead of everyone, unable to contain his excitement of finally reaching the city.
"Slow down, boy! We're not exactly in hurry for anything!" Hop Pop told his grandson while trying to have Bessie follow him by foot.
"Ah, let him have some fun, Hop Pop!" Polly said as she let herself float above the water and allowed to momentum carry her forward. "We're kids, remember? You can't really blame us for getting all giddy about something as cool as getting to Newtopia, finally."
"So how come you're not joining your brother in the excitement?" he asked.
"Can't a gal as hardcore as me be allowed to relax for once? Especially since it's been exciting adventures after exciting adventures this whole trip. I think I deserve a little R&R."
While she was savouring the tranquility of it all, she got interrupted when she bumped into something, causing her momentum to be put into a halt. She turned to look what was behind her and took notice of a strange dirt hole that stuck out from the surface of the water.
"Hey, what do you think made these holes?" she asked.
Hop Pop joined the purple tadpole and took a look at the hole himself. He then looked at their surroundings and saw that there were more holes just like that one practically every where.
Whatever they were, they spelt trouble for the elderly frog.
"Hmm… Better not to ask." he replied. "In fact, I think Sprig has the right idea of hurrying for the city. Come on!"
"I feel like this will come back later!" Polly quickly remarked as Hop Pop dragged her away from the hole.
The Plantar family all gathered in front of the large golden gate, its ornate design depicting two robed newts guarding the gate on each side.
"Oh man! I still can't believe that we're actually here!" Sprig expressed his joy still to the point of visibly hopping in place.
"I'm with you buddy. But here we are, at last!" Anne said. "Yo! Anybody home!" she shouted at whoever was behind the gate, assuming that there was anyone there.
One of the clams above the robed newts on the gate flipped open, and a blue, hooded newt poked his head out, surveyed the area around before lowering his sights down towards the family below.
"You can't come in. Newtopia is closed." stated the guard.
"What?! Seriously?!" yelled the Plantars in unison.
"Wait, you mean, like, closed, closed? Or like, closed for lunch?" Anne asked for clarification.
"The city is closed, closed to all outsiders." the newt clarified.
"What the hey hey?!" Sprig shouted in disbelief. "We finally get to Newtopia after a long trip, and you guys are closed?! That's not fair!"
"Well, you folks should have gotten the memo before coming here. Not that it's my problem or anything."
"Memo? What memo?" Anne asked, raising a questionable eyebrow.
"About the Barbariants, of course." he replied. "Good luck out there!"
The guard then closed the clam window on them, though not before he struggled with it by trying to grab the handle that was barely out of reach, nearly falling off the window while doing so, getting himself back up and finally closing the window by using a rod with a hook.
"Barbariants? What are those?" asked the curly-haired girl.
"Beats me." Hop Pop shrugged. "We don't got 'em in the valley."
"Psh! They closed the whole city because of a few little ants? That's lame. And I thought they're armed to the teeth against threats like those." said the disappointed boy. "Well, if they're not gonna budge until those things are gone, then what do you say we take care of the problem for them?"
"Count me in! Let's squash those nasty bugs!" Polly said, captivated by the idea of committing wanton violence against the ants.
"Kids, we have no idea how much of a threat those Barbariants pose." Hop Pop warned them. "I'm fairly certain that they wouldn't closed the city prematurely if they weren't that dangerous."
"Relax, Hop Pop! Those ants can't be as bad as the ones that we have back home!"
The boy moved towards the back of the group before turning around to face them with a confident look on his face.
"I mean, look at us! We've gotten a lot stronger since we left the valley so long ago! Anne is as reliable as ever, Polly nabbed us some nice, new weapons behind our backs, somehow,"
"Don't ask where and how I got them from." Polly spoke.
"Hop Pop learned how to be as reckless as us," he continued.
"I, uh… don't think it's something to be proud of per se." Hope Pop said while scratching the back of his head.
"And I got the power to shoot lightning off my fingers!" Sprig concluded while pumping both fists in the air in delight.
"Say what now?" said the confused tadpole.
"You know, the whole pretending to have super powers by watching too many videos and stuff." Anne reminded her. "I'm still surprised that he's still at it even now."
"Sprig, you need to rein in on your silly imagination." Hop Pop told the boy with his hands on his hips.
"I'm not being silly, guys! I really do have lightning powers!" Sprig strongly insisted. "Think about it! If Maddie's potion transformed me into a human, then maybe it gave me lightning magic too!"
"Well, I can't say it's impossible, as far as magic is concerned." The elderly frog scratched his chin as he found himself somewhat believing Sprig's claim.
"Hop Pop, come on." said Anne who was arguably the most skeptical of it. "If Sprig has lightning powers the whole time, he would have flaunt them to us the whole trip."
"Well, you have a point there." Hop Pop nodded, becoming doubtful again at the drop of a hat. "Sprig, you do not have lightning powers. Just give it a rest already."
"I'm serious!" Sprig shouted. "Just let me figure out how to use them and I'll prove to you that I'm not making it up!"
He looked down at his open palms, as he tried to remember how he did it the last few times.
"Hmm… Maybe I need to cast some kind of incantation? No, I tried it already and it didn't work. Maybe I need to go with a feeling? But what exactly am I supposed to feel? Come on, magic lightning fingers…! Work with me here…!"
"Sprig, behind you!" Anne suddenly yelled.
"Huh?"
Sprig was caught by surprise when something large suddenly collided into him from behind, causing him to fall forward onto one of the many small parts of the land sticking out of the water surface. As soon as he got up on all fours and turned himself around, he let out a yelp upon seeing what was behind him.
He was met with the sight of an enormous ant, more than twice his size, with two glowing corals that acted at its horns, and barnacles clinging onto its exoskeleton. It quickly approached him without giving him as much as a break.
"AH! Big ant! Really big ant!" he yelled.
The Barbariant snapped its thorny mandibles on the boy as soon as it got close, only for Sprig to quickly stopped its attack by pushing his hands against the mandibles and holding them still.
"Hang on, dude!" Anne said as she, Hop Pop and Polly quickly ran towards the boy to help him.
The ant tried to push its mandibles as hard as it could against the boy. In an attempt to avoid getting his head chopped off, Sprig lifted his leg up and kicked the ant off of him before crawling back away.
The ant quickly recovered and was about to charge in, only for the purple tadpole to land on its head and pull on its antennae. It tried shaking its head to get Polly off of it, then it tried running in circles while bouncing off the sea bed.
"Yeehaw!" Polly shouted while riding the rampaging insect, clearly having fun doing so.
"Sprig, Anne! Sling me at that thing!" The elderly frog instructed them.
"Okay!" The two humans both said as they quickly went to him before grabbing an arm each.
"Polly! Try and get it to move in front of us!" Anne yelled.
"You got it, girl!" Polly nodded as she pulled on the ant's antennae again and forced it to move towards the rest of the family.
Anne and Sprig prepared themselves to throw Hop Pop at the giant insect, swaying him back and forth.
"One, two… THREE!"
They both launched the orange frog forward. As Hop Pop flew towards the Barbariant, he inflated his vocal sac as big as possible.
Polly managed to jump off just in time for their grandfather to strike the insect right on the head, sending it flying back a few feet before it fell back against the water surface.
It was clear that the Barbariant grew afraid, as it quickly retreated and went down inside one of the dirt holes.
"Yeah! In your face, ant!" Anne cheered as she and Sprig gave each other high-fives.
"See? What did I tell you? We handled that thing no problem!" Sprig said with confidence while pretending that he was not a bit scared by the Barbariant in the first place. "I don't see what those guys are so afraid of. If we Plantars can beat one of them easily, then taking on a whole army will be a cinch too!"
"Boy, what did I tell you about jinxing it?" Hop Pop said as he and Polly rejoined the others.
BrumBrumBrumBrumBrum…
As if on cue, the ground below their feet shook, alarming the family. As they looked around to see what was causing it, several mounds of dirt came out of the water surface and more Barbariants bursted out from there, surrounding the family and the fwagon.
Outnumbered, the Plantars all backed themselves towards the fwagon as the group of ants approached them at the same time. Even Bessie retreated into her shell when one of the ants got too close to her.
"Uh… I take back what I said about us dealing with a whole army." said the nervous boy, even though it was too late to rescind his words.
"Anyone else getting antsy here or is it just me?" Anne asked.
"Now's not the time for puns!" Polly yelled.
The Plantars prepared themselves for what might be a very close fight against the Barbariants, when suddenly…
SPLASH!
Everyone was caught by surprise when something fell in a splash between the Plantars and one of the ants. A brownish black substance spread around the water from where the unknown object fell.
"What the heck?" The Thai-American girl said. "Is this… oil? But who dropped something like this over here?"
"Look! Up there!" Hop Pop shouted as he pointed up at the city walls.
Everyone else followed where the elderly frog was pointing and they all saw a silhouette of a person in a cloak standing on top of the formidable walls.
The mysterious person was seen spinning something around in a sling before launching it at the sky, where the object then proceeded to fall towards the group before it exploded apart next to where the last one fell upon making contact with the surface, extending the oil-covered area across.
The individual repeated the same steps a few more times, throwing the object next to where the previous ones were one after the other until a semi-black circle separated the Plantars and the fwagon from the Barbariants.
Then, they shot what resembled an arrow with a flaming head, using a crossbow strapped to their arm, up to the sky. The flaming arrow then fell off and hit the semi-black circle of oil, igniting it into a wall of fire around the Plantars, scaring off the Barbariants into burying themselves into the sea floor before retreating.
"Hey! They're running away!" Sprig pointed out.
The family all looked back up to their mysterious saviour who shot another arrow with a rope attached to the tail straight into one of the wheels of the fwagon, creating a zipline going from the top of the city walls down to the fwagon.
After attaching the other end of the rope to a nearby stone column, the cloaked person then proceeded to leap off the walls before gripping onto the rope with a hook in hand, allowing themself to zip down at a steady speed.
"Wow…!" The family all sounded their astonishment of their rescuer's actions.
"Now that's one cool newt." commented the impressed Hop Pop.
SNAP!
The rope suddenly snapped midway through, causing the cloaked individual to fall off and crash into the shallow waters head first in some distance away from the Plantars.
Sprig, Hop Pop and Polly all winced upon witnessing the person's failed introduction in a rather clumsy way.
"Ooh… Didn't really stick the landing." Polly noted. Sprig and Hop Pop agreed with her assessment.
Anne, however, was struck with a sense of familiarity from seeing how clumsy the person presented themself.
"Wait a second…" she said as she slowly approached the fallen being.
The person lifted themself up, coughing out a bit of water that went into their lungs.
"Okay, so a Newtopian rope can hold an average human girl for, uh… 2.3 seconds." they concluded, pulling out a journal. They then stood up from the sea floor before writing down what they learned. "Maybe I can reinforce the rope with ironspider silk to increase the tensile strength…"
From the look at their journal that was practically covered in stickers, to the way they spoke when gathering information in an intellectual way, on top of their clumsiness, Anne started tearing up when she began to recognize who the person standing in front of her was.
"Marcy?"
The cloaked person stopped writing once they heard her from behind. They turned themself around and pulled down their hood, revealing the face of a Taiwanese girl with short, black raven hair.
"… Anne?" Marcy spoke, shocked to see who she was speaking to.
"MARCY!" Anne cried as she ran towards the Taiwanese girl.
"ANNE!" Marcy widely smiled with joy, too shocked to react to the Thai-American girl tackling her to the sea floor with arms around her neck. "Is that really you?!"
"Marcy! I can't believe it!" Anne said, letting her tears of joy fall down her face from seeing her best friend safe and sound.
"You, me, here?!" Marcy said in a state of disbelief, still processing that one of her dearest friends is right there in front of her after being apart for so long.
"I know! I know! I missed you so much!" Anne proceeded to give Marcy a big, long-overdue hug.
"Oh, I missed you too!" Marcy giggled as she returned the hug in kind.
Hop Pop and Polly both smiled fondly at the reunion between the two human girls, feeling glad that they managed to find the other girl upon seeing how happy Anne was.
Sprig, on the other hand, did not smile alongside them, as he was left in conflict with himself.
After Anne stood up from the seabed and helped Marcy up, she looked at the Taiwanese girl from top to bottom and was surprised by how much she changed in appearances, noting the cloak with fur lining held together by a turret shell fastener, the breastplate made of some material that she did not know of, the belt with a buckle of an unique design, and of course, the crossbow strapped to her right arm.
Marcy really did looked like she was having the time of her life out there.
"Look at you! Look at this outfit! You look like an Amazon warrior queen or something!" Anne expressed her amazement at her friend's looks.
"I know, I know, right?! It's nuts!" Marcy excitedly said, showing off more of her outfit that she earned to Anne. "This is real!"
She proceeded to show off her crossbow, obliviously unaware that she was aiming her weapon right at Anne's face, loaded and ready to fire, no less.
"Yeah, very real!" Anne quickly pushed the crossbow away from her before it could shoot an eye out.
"Oh, sorry!" Marcy chuckled bashfully once she realized it, retracting her crossbow away as it folded into itself. She then looked at Anne from top to bottom herself. "But wow, Anne! It's been months, but you look practically the same as before we got pulled into Amphibia! You're still wearing your school uniform and all! Barring a couple of scratches here and there, now that I look at it a bit more closely."
"Well, minus my right shoe." Anne added, lifting her right leg up to show that her foot indeed had a shoe missing. "Pretty much lost it right at the start."
"Oh, so it is! But how come you're still walking without a shoe?"
"I, uh… You know, I don't really know myself." Anne replied while scratching the back of her head. "I mean, I did wear a couple of pairs of shoes at some point in the past few months, but somehow, I always go out with just one shoe in my usual getup. I like to think it's because I don't worry too much about that, but I dunno…"
Marcy giggled. "Oh, I'm so glad that you're as carefree as ever! Still the same Anna-Banana that I love!"
Although she said it that way, she did notice one thing different about Anne. She looked and acted the same, but there was something about her that implied that she was thriving since the last time that she saw her, as if she had experienced a character arc off-screen.
Realizing that Anne changed for the better made Marcy feel more grateful on how things ended up for them since their arrival to Amphibia. And she was not the only one who has changed.
"Anne, isn't this place wild? What an adventure!" Marcy exclaimed, looking like she had a lot of stories to tell, but remained indecisive on where to start. "Aw man, I've really grown out here. Come into my own. Leveled up. No more clumsy, klutzy Marcy! Can you believe it?"
"Your cloak's on fire." Anne pointed out.
"What?"
Marcy looked at her cloak to finally notice that it caught on fire at the bottom. She yelped and started running in circles to try to put out the fire.
"Don't swing it around, dude!" Anne shouted as she put an arm up while leaning back to avoid being struck by Marcy's flaming cloak.
"Haha! That girl's pretty clumsy! She was standing next to that fire wall there when her cape caught on fire!" Polly laughed at the Taiwanese girl's predicament.
"Um… Haven't the flames gone out before she arrived?" Hop Pop asked, as he could have sworn that the cloak caught on fire on its own. "Well, regardless, I think a proper introduction is in order. Come on, kids!"
Hop Pop and Polly walked towards the two human girls for a short bit, until the former noticed that they were one person short and turned his head to see that the orange-haired boy remained where he was.
"Is something the matter, Sprig?"
"Uh… No, not really…" Sprig replied while shaking his head, finding himself still watching the raven-haired girl with caution until his grandfather called out to him.
"Well, come on! Let's go see Anne's other human friend!" Polly said as she and Hop Pop resumed their walk towards them.
Sprig, with his hands tucked in his pockets, eventually followed them, though reluctantly so.
"So, Anne, who's your friend?" Hop Pop asked the curly-haired girl just as she managed to put out the fire on Marcy's cloak by dunking it in water, while Marcy was busy writing down something on her journal about getting a non-flammable cloak.
"You guys, meet Marcy!" Anne formally introduced her to them. "As you all know, she's my other best friend from back home!"
"Oh my gosh! Who are these cuties?" Marcy said as she looked up from her journal and saw the rest of the group.
She quickly approached them and gasped when she had an inkling on who they might be, causing a multitude of questions to burst out of her mind.
"Are they your surrogate frog family? Did they find you and took you in? Ugh! I love the found family trope! Gosh, this is just like the hero in my favourite game, Vagabondia Chronicles! The greatest JRPG of all time! Have you played it? Do you wanna play it? Do you wanna borrow it? Just say the word and I'll lend you my copy. Man, it'll change your lives!"
Sprig, Hop Pop and Polly were taken aback by how uncomfortable close Marcy had gotten to them when she hastily asked them a rapid fire series of questions that they could only catch and/or understand half of what she was saying. They were uncertain on how to respond.
"Uh… Mind helping us out here, Anne?" Hop Pop asked.
"Yep, the Plantars took me in, Marcy." Anne answered one of Marcy's questions for them. "The old frog wearing an ascot right there is named Hopediah. We call him Hop Pop for short."
The raven-haired girl quickly took out a measuring tape and wrapped it around Hop Pop's head to determine how big it is.
"As I thought, 62 centimetres!" she deduced.
"Yep! All brain!" Hop Pop proudly declared, even as his eyes were being squished by the measuring tape until she removed it.
"Judging from the size of your cranium and the speckle of sediment," she spoke while jotting down what she learned on her journal. "You're from Frog Valley, right?"
Hop Pop gasped at her correct deduction. "You can tell all that from my head?"
Marcy looked up at Anne. "Oh Anne! I'm so jealous that you found a farming community. I've been studying Amphibia history, and farm culture is super underappreciated in my opinion."
She then looked back at Hop Pop.
"You're the backbone of society and do not get enough credit for it."
Hop Pop sputtered at Marcy's flattering, understanding and supportive opinion of him and the farming community to the point of his heart becoming very warm inside. He would have fallen on his back, if not for Polly being in his way, much to her annoyance.
"Get off of me!" Polly yelled as she pushed him back up.
"Thank you, thank you!" Hop Pop showed his immense appreciation of Marcy while shaking her hand, taking a liking to her almost immediately.
"Hey, a pollywog!" Marcy noticed the purple tadpole, as she walked past Hop Pop to get a closer look at her.
"Hi." Polly waved her hand, right before the Taiwanese girl picked her up and held her up to the sky to examine the inside of her body under the light of the sun.
Marcy pulled out a magnifying glass and placed it over the back of the tadpole, where a pair of small legs could be seen pushing against the inner walls.
"Uh, what're you doing?" Polly asked in confusion.
"Just checking to see how far your legs are developing." Marcy replied.
Polly gasped in surprise. "You can see my legs?!"
"Yup. And from how it's looking, I'd say those legs should be coming in in about, bub, bub, bub, buh… Two months, give or take."
"Really?! Can I get that in writing?!"
"Oh yeah, absolutely!" Marcy put Polly down, immediately wrote down a note saying 'Legs in 2 months!' with her name signed accompanied by a heart, and then gave it to Polly.
"Oh! Thank youuuu!" Polly happily thanked the raven-haired girl, cherishing the note and pulling it close to her.
"You're welcome! Um, your name is…?"
"I'm Polly!"
"Nice to meet you, Polly!" Marcy smiled at the ecstatic tadpole. "If I'm not wrong, there's only one person left that I haven't personally met yet. Now who do we have here…"
Marcy turned to where Sprig was standing, expecting another kind of frog in the family. Once she saw the third member of the Plantar family, she let out a loud gasp.
"Hold up, hold up, hold up just a darn second!"
She quickly approached the boy to take a closer look at him, much to his discomfort. She squinted her eyes as if to get a clearer view, looked from top to bottom, walked around him to see the rest of him before stopping in front of him.
"No. Way. Are you… human?" she asked in visible shock. "Oh my gosh! There's another human here?! I thought that it's just me, Anne and Sasha here in Amphibia! How can there be another human besides us? Unless there's another magical artifact that can also warp people to another world! Is that really what happened? Where did you get your hands on something like that?"
"Uh, I…" Sprig was about to reply to her, but she cut him off almost immediately.
"Okay, never mind the specifics! When did you get here? Was it after me and the girls or before? Oh! But according to how you look like you're used to all the dirt and grime on you, that implies that you came here way before. Aww! And here, I thought we're the first human beings on record to arrive in this world! But that's beside the point! So how long have you been here? How much do you know about the farming culture? When did you start getting used to life in Amphibia with all the dangers that come with it? Have you gone to the point of forgetting your old life back on Earth? Do you think you're better off here? Gosh, tell me everything!"
With each question asked, she leaned herself towards the boy more and more, even as he tried to lean back as much as he could, until she put her hands on his shoulders as she was dying to get answers from him.
"I, uh… Well, actually, I'm…" Sprig wanted to explain himself to her, but he had a difficult time doing so, especially when she overwhelmed him with a series of questions all at once.
Anne noticed his plight and stepped in to help. "It's, uh… a long story, Marcy. We can tell you all about it when we're inside of the city. Speaking of which, do you think you can help us get in? We tried the gate, but they won't let us in."
"For a good reason, unfortunately." Marcy spoke as she pulled herself off of Sprig and turned to Anne. "Until we get rid of the Barbariants, those gates will stay closed."
"Are those things that much of a problem?" Polly asked.
"Yup. If even a single one of them gets in, it'll be enough to turn the city into one big anthill. Not to mention that the queen will spawn more of her children and expand her territory to the rest of the land, which is a big yikes. But not to worry! I've got a plan that'll help us deal with our little pest problem."
"You do?"
"Sure! I'll explain it when we get to the tent that we use as our base of operations just around the walls over there. Follow me, everybody!"
Thrusting her crossbow forward, she shot another arrow attached with a rope and zipped through the air towards where the arrow struck.
The Plantar family watched her go while staying still, each of them having different emotions and opinions towards the situation surrounding the raven-haired girl.
"So… That's Marcy, huh?" Sprig was the first person to speak out. "Not gonna lie, even though you told me a lot about her, I feel like I wasn't fully prepared for the kind of person she really is."
"Yeah, my own explanation doesn't do her justice, to be honest." Anne replied. "I guess seeing her in person really gets the job done."
"Your friend there is such a sweet girl!" said the smiling Hop Pop, as he wiped away a single tear that fell from his eye. "She may be from a different world, but she called us farmers the backbone of society! Do you know how often we get such heartwarming compliments like this?"
"I didn't know what to expect from her, but she helped me know when I'm gonna have legs, so she's okay in my book! Not to mention how awesome her crossbow is!" Polly said. "… Speaking of which, Hop Pop, can I get a crossbow for my birthday? Please, please, please!"
"Yep! That's Marcy for you. Spontaneous, geeky, smart and really eager to learn." Anne said, listing her friend's aspects in order of what they have witnessed from her.
"And clumsy too, right?" Sprig added.
"Oh totally." she nodded.
As she looked towards the direction of where Marcy had disappeared to, she broke into a relieved smile and she started tearing up once again, prompting her to wipe away her happy tears with her arm.
"I… I'm so glad that she's safe and sound." She turned her head towards the orange-haired boy. "You were right, Sprig. She turned out to be pretty tough on her own and looked like she was living the dream. I almost feel like an idiot for thinking that she wouldn't last a day out here. Thanks for getting me to keep hoping, dude."
The boy smiled at his best friend, though it took him quite a bit of effort to do so.
"Come on, guys! Let's go follow Marcy already and help her out with this whole Barbariant business! And then, we can finally get inside Newtopia!"
Anne, Hop Pop and Polly all cheered and threw their fists in the air, as they ran to follow Marcy to her base of operations.
Sprig, however, remained where he stood, as he was left with numerous thoughts about the situation involving Marcy.
He should have been relieved, because seeing Anne happy again, especially after the Toad Tower incident, was all that he wanted since. And the most optimal way to achieve it was to find Marcy and have them reunite, which was exactly what occurred.
But instead, his happiness was in conflict with his suspicion towards the third human girl, taking his experience with the last one into consideration. Marcy was just as Anne had described her to be, albeit more pronounced than previously thought, but he could not help but think that it was a front to hide a more sinister person who found pleasure in taking advantage of Anne in the past, just like Sasha.
Sasha had done so much harm to Anne's wellbeing. The last thing he wanted was for another one of her longtime friends to betray her and send her even deeper down into despair, after they worked so hard to lift her spirits up. If Marcy turned out to be a really bad person, then he would do everything in his power to stop her from crushing Anne's heart.
Thinking back on the events of Toad Tower, as his normal frog self, he could not do much to fight back against Sasha. In fact, he would have lost his cute little head if Anne hadn't come to his rescue. But since he was currently a human being just like the girls, he might stand a better chance against someone like Sasha.
"Hey, Sprig!" He heard his little sister calling out to him and saw her hopping up and down at a distance to get his attention, while the others went ahead. "What's the hold up? You coming or what?"
"Sorry! Be right there!" he said as he ran to rejoin the others on their way towards the tent.
For the time being, he would have to keep his eye on Marcy and act if she show even the slightest bit of wickedness that was similar to Sasha, fuelled by the desire to protect his cherish friend no matter what.
End of Chapter
Hey, everybody. Hidden Kurogawa here with the latest chapter of the story.
Once again, I'm very, very sorry for the long wait between chapters. There really isn't much that I can say about it that hasn't been said before in the previous chapters. Though, for this chapter in particular, if there is one thing that I can say that is partly the reason for the delay, it's the fact that most of the chapter is a rehash to the first third of the episode that it's based on, which I'm not too happy about. I hope that the next couple of chapters will stand out more, but that'll depend on how it's developed.
This chapter is relatively short. Well, to me, it's short compared to what I've written before. But since it's been a long time since I posted a new chapter, I feel like it's a good length to start things off, assuming that I'm able to publish new chapters in a short period of time.
That's all I can say for now. As always, feel free to comment, criticize, follow and/or fave the story, though I appreciate these very much. Until next time.
