The Cyberkinetic Witch of Amphibia (Updated)

by Madman777

The Core was a vile evil abomination who was hated by virtually everyone. It's most vile act in the series was painfully possessing Marcy Wu and using her as a host. Well this time, it fails. Now Marcy is turned against it and the Core gets more of what it deserves and becomes more demonic in the process. And Marcy Regina Wu gets more of a chance to shine with her friends.

4. Chapter 4

Ch. 4 Troll the bridge, tour the Toad Towers, and do a Scavenger Hunt

"To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, gives in your weakness strength unto your foe." -William Shakespeare

"Then make them care. Plant the seed in the middle of town, where everyone can see. Change the way things are. I know it may seem small and insignificant, but it's not about what it is, it's about what it can become. That's not just a seed... any more than you're just a boy."-The Once-ler

Marcy's initial army was complete. Along with some radical ideas like her Timeinator units, she and Smarcy began to improve and expand upon the existing designs within the first couple weeks.

Marcy went through every Frobot model on the factory production list to do so. Smarcy helped reduce the workload she had to focus on and handled most of the construction.

The Standard Soldier Frobots were capable of flight with wings and thrusters on their back, limited scanning and tracking, radio dishes in their chests to signal for backup, plasma cannons in their right hands, and deployable cannons and missiles in their backs, and could stretch their heads and arms. Not very intelligent and easily defeated in a serious fight, they were nonetheless not to be taken lightly by most Amphibians and had overwhelmed all opposition in open battle by virtue of sheer numbers.

Marcy used the many she recruited and ones she destroyed or got fresh parts for to make new designs and improvements.

The Froglets could be good scouts and base workers. She equipped hers with special binoculars and a rolling ball mode.

The other small model, the Butler Frobots, needed no changes (apart from some simple offensive gun fingers and fancy etiquette subroutines and culinary knowledge). Her head butler she dubbed Lumiere (guess why).

For good measure, she made some Frog and Newt maid robots.

The maids wore full body modest French maid outfits.

Unable to resist a bit of an upgrade, she gave them some ninja maid vibes. Head maids Fifi (the newt model) and Roberta( the frog model) had black hair, wore sunglasses and carried mininguns, pistols, blades and six other weapons in their limbs.

The Dragonfly drones (repainted green) could be good swarm attackers and scouts.

Some new models she could make were a nod to Creatures and Caverns. The first was a being called a Mothman.

She used the size and frame of a Coastal-kill-a-moth with a humanoid frame, genuine organic parts to make silk, and Luna Moth wings and colors to make five Mothras (named after the Godzilla moth kaiju).

The Mothras had four arms and two legs with claws, giant wings with a span of 10 ft, green skin/antennae and red eyes on a smooth face with a small mouth. These lovely cyborgs had short brunette bangs (chin-length) and wore feathery brown cloaks and vests.

The Mothras had regenerative insides, expert camouflage abilities and night vision. For attacks, they could emit an electrical disturbance that blinded any Core machine near them to their presence, shoot laser eye attacks, and create silk threads to grab people. The assigned leader (or 'Alpha Mothra') was named Luna. She had extra-large wings of 12 ft and hair that went to her shoulders. The rest were named Clementine, Ayla, Bianca, and Calypso.

The second and similar creation was meant to have a fearsome effect. The Driders were humanoid spider centaur beings with the upper torso of Deep-elves, and the lower body was the abdomen and legs of a giant spider.

Her versions were simpler and more complex at once. They stood at a height of 7 ft or higher (depending on how high their legs were raised). They had humanoid torsos (visibly feminine), grey skin and wore diverse armor, for their upper half. Their lower halves had eight large reflective black or chrome spider legs of 7 to 9 ft in length.

For their faces, she used a smooth chrome design with a LED display black visor that allowed for expressive neon-colored glowing eyes and a mouth. The three she made had various hair and visor colors.

They could shoot webs from their hands, regenerate from damage using advanced internal nanites, use a hover flight mode, climb all over the place and do ambushes and recon with ease. Their scanners (complete with x-ray, infrared, EM, and thermal vision) were several times better than the Cloak-Bots, able to scan and identify facts and traits about an enemy or trails they left within seconds. They had interchangeable hands (with electroshock abilities) that could go between their normal four-fingers, bladed claws that resembled large knives, office supply tools (scissors/laser pointers/staple gun, etc.) satellite dishes, submachine guns, nail guns, blowtorches, long-range laser cutters, EMP generators (which they were completely immune to), small virus chips good for infecting enemy robots and most factory-level or above computers, automatic rifles with laser and bullet modes, and chainsaws. For weapons, they wielded sharp swords (flying slash attack capable), shuriken (hira and hiragata shapes) and massive manriki chains.

Vicki, the first one made, was a lead raider and best at ambushes She had bob-cut purple hair with a black headband with five yellow glowing eye pieces, purple eyes, chrome armor and 7 ft legs with TRON-like purple glowing lines, a sleeveless blue cut-crop jacket. For a personal weapon, she carried a massive nodachi with a blue blade (78 inches)length. She named it the Burumun (Blue Moon) Blade.

The second one, Charlotte, was the better fighter, smarter and their best recon/stealth expert. She had long white hair with blunt bangs, yellow eyes a grey beanie with a ️ adorning it on all sides on her head, black legs of 8 ft, a black hoodie with caution sign sleeves and a ️on the back and the words Укуси меня! (Bite me!) on the front. She was Her choice of additional weapons were two large jian blades (60 inches). The green glowing one was named Shichisei (Seven Stars) and the blue one with elaborate vine patterns was named Dingyao (Stinging bite). She had a Russian accent and spoke Russian most of the time.

The two of them were specially made to be advanced combat robots with teenage girl personalities. Vicki was playful, teasing and perky (especially in combat). She led raiding parties all over with gymnast-like grace and keen reflexes. Very outgoing, she always voluntarily accompanied Marcy for major missions or trips. Charlotte was silent and ruthless in combat and a nice but shy girl in downtime who supervised recon around Wartwood and the other Valley areas.

Every construction bot could be used and remodeled.

The Bug Bots, steamroller type robots shaped like stag-beetles, were reinforced and had road-roller modes for making new roads.

Bulldozer Frobots were extensively modified into other vehicle modes (excavators, compactors, demolition, etc).

A brilliant idea was to use some Bulky Bulldozer and standard Frobot frames to make Bond Hunters from the Nimbus videogame franchise, one game Sasha had enjoyed playing with her on occasion. The blue-armored giants of sentient orange worm colonies of 12 ft with four flexible spikes on their back who carried shields and assault plasma cannons, and no visible faces that travelled in pairs were a good fit to make robotic heavy units.

Hers looked the same, except with orange cables for 'flesh' instead of worms.

These cables had colonies of nanobots 'swimming' in them that did self-repairs and fought off any mechanical or organic infection. They also had more flexible fingers. Their armor was the thickest she could make and could shrug off most attacks with ease.

The Mechamorpher Cybertron fictional series of transforming vehicle robots also gave her an idea. The Cybertronic live-action film versions had come out over the last decade, and she decided a demolition crew was in order.

The Wrecker Crew was made using parts of Tank Frobot and construction designs from Earth and Amphibia. All of them had hazard signs and markings on them.

First was Flail, a 2.5 story tall green robot with two wrecking balls on his arms and two swinging booms with hooks on his back a

Crusher was 4 Stories tall and painted yellow with six arms (two excavator shovels on the bottom pair, two clawed hands on the middles, and two magnet) and steamroller wheel feet that moved much faster than a usual one.

Loader was red, 2 stories tall, and basically a walking garbage truck. He had a large trash compactor bin on his back and four claw arms.

Meltdown was a walking Incineration unit of 3 stories height in white, with tread feet and large magnet cranes on his shoulders and two junkyard claw hands. In his torso he had a furnace for melting down parts.

In her first two days around her new base, she captured and recruited two Shield Generator Bots around the defenses of the bases around Lily Paddington. The concept of a forcefield robot was a welcome addition.

She soon had five modified Shield generator Bots positioned around her base's perimeter and had seven more standing by just in case.

Andrias's versions had to be plugged in to the buildings they protected with electrical forcefields, could burrow underground, use underground cameras to observe the area, and wielded their large claws for defense and offense.

Marcy's improved design was more versatile. They didn't require plugs and weren't limited to buildings. They had a blue scheme with glowing runes on their shell-like backs and blue eyes. For additional attacks they could also unleash bolts of energy from the nodules on their backs or trap their opponents in energy bubbles. They were linked to each other and the computer networks for alerts and could combine their energies in a forcefield of electricity and plasma to cover the base entirely for an ideal protection that not even Andrias's Castle cannon could break through.

No one was going to get in or out unless she wanted them to.

Fire Frobots, a deadly extermination-themed unit, were the first to get a new look after looking up some similar video game characters.

The Cloak-Bots were perfect as the deadliest and stealthiest model they had. They had a camouflage mode, laser eyes, hacking, multipurpose claws, several weapons, stored Dragonfly drones, advanced sensors that could detect Calamity energy, a self-destruct bomb capable of levelling half of L.A., and self-repair.

"It's the perfect revenge on Andrias, to use this model against him!"Marcy said while fiddling with her first redesigns.

The Tank Frobots were good, but she wanted to improve on their capabilities and redesign them.

The Judge Frobots did not impress her. All they were meant for was doing a crooked form of justice on those against Andrias to be punished with death every time and wielding giant hammers as weapons.

Another unimpressive model was the squads of Hooded Frobots who accompanied them using simple double-bladed axes as weapons.

Those two models were discarded as not to be used and their parts repurposed.

However, the hoods and the Royal Guard Frobots gave her an idea from Fantasy Galaxy IV for a radical new design to try for the first of her elite bodyguards.

The game's Asura warriors, a six-armed summon monster resembling a pale woman wielding blades in each hand, gave birth to the concept of Asurdroids.

These fearsome fighters consisted of eight feminine newt-style robots that stood over 5 ft tall with 4 ft tails, smooth faces with glowing mouths, and glowing eyes of many colors. They wore fancy bracers, and they wore a blue cloak and hood like a Newtopian Ranger over long artificial hair. For each pair of arms from top to bottom they wielded a different set of weapon: two katanas,two glowing energy whips, and two kanabos. They had power over fire, electricity, earth and water, moderate healing abilities, short-range teleportation (up to 500 yards in visual sight) and could cast illusions and holograms to confuse their opponents.

Their leader, Araya, was the most acrobatic and strongest. She had white skin, a white circlet on top of her head, intense brown hair, yellow eyes and golden arm bracers with rubies on her arms to make her stand out.

The second in command was Yuriko, who struck the fastest and always acted calm. She had black hime-cut hair, dark purple skin, blue eyes, a black pearl necklace, and silver bracers with sapphires. Her closest friend was named Sydney, large yellow eyes,long yellow claws on her fingers, blue and white skin, and white hair that reached her torso and grew along her tail. Her bronze bracers with white pearls and wooden bead necklace didn't make her stick out any less as the most visually intimidating, aggressive and tallest at 6 ft.

Spiral, the third in command, was snarky and the best at fighting. She was also the best at teleportation and swordplay to the point where she requested to only carry katanas, a request Marcy granted. She had long silvery hair, a blue bandana, obsidian bracers with malachite shards, puffy white fur on her boots, ivory white skin and white eyes.

Kimiko had red hair in pigtails, shamrock green skin, ocean blue eyes, and bracers with sapphire stones. She was the best as using her elemental attacks (especially fire) and the nicest one alongside Yuriko and Mei. Mei was shorter than the rest at 4'10", had white skin, sky-blue eyes, special square glasses that let her use a virtual library everywhere she went, and black hair tied in a bun with a Chinese hairpin through it. She was the smartest one, serving as the resident tech and chemical expert. Amélie had pale blue skin, yellow eyes, and grey bracers with diamond-shaped spinel gems on them. She was the quietest but was very dedicated and focused on a mission and did long-range and whip attacks the best. Hana had long back-length brown hair, violet skin, and pink eyes that matched the two 'whisker' face paint marks on her face. She multitasked the best with her arms to deal with enemies in front and back and enjoyed a hobby of videogames on the side with Mei (her best friend).

The Royal Guard Frobots and Standard soldier Frobots were perfect for expanding on simple designs.

Andrias's purple/lavender colored artificial bodyguards were quite weak for a protection detail. They only wielded a shield and lance and wouldn't last long against the Resistance or other competent foes, but could help add to her own bodyguards and lower ranks.

The classic Clash of Cultures games (she'd played the sixth one at St. James) offered some simple twists on the armor and shields for infantry and defender units.

The Phalangites (Greek/Roman style) infantry got melded into their basic design to have Greek helmets, Roman Scutum shields, and large Doru spears of 10 ft length.

The basic Royal Guard model was reshaped into Paladins ( a broad idea across many games she'd played), with the same extendable shield (in a completely natural sand dollar color scheme) and holding 8 ft Noldoli elf spears/glaives or Egyptian Khopesh swords in one hand, and a new Wit gem color scheme for their bodies and yellow eyes.

The Phalangites and Paladins had the phrase 'For our Friends' on their weapons and shields in elvish:

The Compact Archer used Compact longbows and crossbows (modern ones from Earth) with armor piercing and trick arrows and bolts (stun, explosive, sonic, smoke bomb, knockout gas, tear gas, metal corrosive, bola/net, acid, target tracking, and flare), wore full body blue cloaks and hoods over their frames and heads and had long grey dreadlocks, red eyes and a female personality.

Marcy's plans for her elite bodyguards weren't limited to one unit. In addition to the Asurdroids, she had three other types made to act as her elite protectors.

Using General Grief's battle droid bodyguards from Galaxy Wars for ideas, she made Magna Guard Droids (or Magnas), skeletal-looking grey-cloaked Frobots with skull-like faces with red eyes and various scratch-marks on their double-layered armor from combat and training they wore as 'badges of honor'. She gave them a camo green paint coat to be distinct. They carried tow cables for restraining or pulling enemies, had a built-in cloaking device on the level of a Cloak-Bot's, and their limbs had a magnetized mode that could let them climb up metal surfaces with ease and pull other robots towards them. For combat they used double-ended electrostaffs of diamond hard and heat resistant metal that could deliver very powerful electrical shocks and fire blasts that rivalled Force lightning.

There were five of them and were designated with a number on their torso in order of construction and rank.

Emperor Palp's royal guard was perfect for a delightful twist. She made the Crimson/Cyberkinetic Guards (CGs), red cloaked Frobots standing at 1.83 m tall, adorned with slit-visor helmets, white x-shaped cross belts and enlarged shoulder pauldrons with pink spikes. Instead of the movie Force pikes, she had them carry large white coral shaped tridents that could fire stun blasts, levitate opponents and fire powerful electric blasts. They CGs had an internal radar scanning system that could let them fight visually blind against opponents and sense anyone around them for up to 100 yards in any direction. There were six total, numbered one through six on their right shoulder. CG-1 led this unit and oversaw securing meetings and negotiations.

Age of Warcrafters had a practical game skillset for weaponizing major weakness of Amphibians: cold. She took the idea of the Death Knights (a being Creatures and Caverns also had) and their subclass of Frost Death Knights and made 20 knights of an adult Human or taller size. She called them Frost Knights.

She realized early on advanced robots alone wouldn't cut it and predicted that the Leviathans would advance their designs and creations to her level with no restraint. Some serious firepower of another kind was in order.

The Frost Knights were her first experiment to try combining magic and technology, and it a week and a half to perfect. She used every stolen text and magic item on hand, collected magical energy and her full concentration and new powers to get it right.

They wore smooth blue and black armor with glowing patterns and large shoulder pauldrons with articulated ridges, and/or spikes decorating them. They wore blue cloaks and/or sashes around their shoulders and waists and they all had their faces covered. Glowing icy blue eyes peered out from their headgear and white, black or blue hair flowed down if long enough.

The Frost Knights were more like magical synthetic organisms (like a golem) than robots. She'd used frames of armor with semi-organic material encased inside the armor lined with unique circuits infused with magical energy she gathered. They could eat, drink, taste and smell.

For powers, they were incapable of feeling pain and could regenerate and even grow stronger when being hit. Their armor and weapons were infused with shielding, mystical energy and spells she improved for them over time to be increasingly controlled and dangerous. They wielded massive axes, swords, polearms, or maces. These weapons had glowing blue patterns and fancy Amphibian runes on them spelling 'Strike with Frigid Fury!', 'Chill of the Underworld' or 'Might of the Frozen Hearts!' that cut through most substances with ease and could fire powerful blasts of energy and ice. With practice, they started using ice to make chains, snowy storms and drain the warmth from the area into themselves for more power. In time, Marcy would upgrade their potential.

Their leader, the 'Lich Knight' Darius Pendragon, wore a Helm of Dominion-based Helmet just like the Lich King of the second game (his former master) and the same cape and fancy Saronian armor design. He spoke in a very deep voice that could paralyze an enemy in their tracks, and had the most raw power out of any of her bodyguards. She crafted him a special large Wartorn Ashgiver sword model named Öskustrik (Ash strike in Norwegian). This weapon was unique in having strong fire, light, and ice capabilities and gave Darius even stronger attacks.

Highlord Baldor Migraine the Immolated, his second in command, wore black Darkruned armor (with fiery patterns all over it) and a Scourgelord helmet( with large iron horns on the side and a crystal above the head) and glowed fiery red instead of blue most of the time. He alone used fire attacks more than ice. Baldor wielded his massive Flamemourne Warhammer (capable of lava-level attacks) with spikes and skull patterns on both sides. He led the top four strongest Knights, the Four Horsemen.

The other three Horsemen were Toras, Sally and Nazgrowl.

Lord Toras Trollbane wore a Terrorwyrm Crown/helm and armor and carried a massive two-handed Armageddon blade.

High Inquisitor Sally Frostmane had shoulder length white hair that flowed from under her Highlord's helmet, a blue sash around her midriff, and fullbody Mythical Juggernaut armor (with spiked pauldrons and thick greaves and guantlets) that left her protected from virtually every known attack around. She carried a Calamity's Edge sword with three diamond-shaped gemstones in the hilt that were the color of the Calamity Stones (green and blue on the sides and the largest pink one in the middle).

General Nazgrowl was an orc-based Knight who stood taller than the rest at 8 ft. He wore Savage Saronian armor, a Saltstone style Helm with a black ponytail coming out the back, and carried his trademark giant single-bladed war axe.

The remainder were a mix of high and mid characters who deferred to these five.

Lieutenant Thazarus, a Champion of Darius's, had long white hair, a short beard and mustache. He wore his Conquest armor and Viking-like Helmet, and dual-wielded his trademark pair of bright blue Endbringer swords.

Fellow Champion General Koliath Deathweaver was an elf Death Knight and Thazarus's "brother in death". He wore his spiky armor, very spiky Helmet of Triumph and carried his Runeblade Bilrost.

Siobhan the Banshee Knight, a grumpy elf with silver hair, handled training and assigning missions as the Mission Specialist . She could conjure a protective energy field that protected others from magical and psychic attacks and unleash a sonic scream as a trump card. She wore fancy Infinite Palace Mythical Armor with fins on the shoulders and arms. She carried a double-bladed Nightfall Axe that she had sharpened and polished at least once every week.

Duchess Mina the Quartermaster was a female elf. Her face was completely covered by a fancy Voracious Maw Greathelm, long blue hair in ponytails that emerged from holes in the back of her helmet, and fancy curved Deadplate armor. She dual wielded two crystalline Soulcutter Mageblades.

Duke Lancaster wore intimidating Bladeoath Harbinger armor with spikes, skeletal rib patterns, a horned Harbinger Greathelm, and carried a Barbed Ice spear.

Arachni Bloodquester (an elf) had red/brown hair and wore unique blue and red Sunwell Onslaught armor and a Gaze of Despair Helmet with glowing feathers on the back on her head. She carried an Agony's Edge sword.

Lord Septimus the Quest giver wore Spiritguard armor with bulky pauldrons, a Greek helmet style Helm of Foresight, and carried two Gravekeeper swords.

Stablemaster Imhadria was an elf with sky blue hair, in charge of all livestock and steeds in their group and the magical ability to communicate and tame beasts with ease. She wore Guiding Light battlegear armor, carried an ornate bow that could shoot arrows of energy and ice, and a Black Ice Polearm.

Marcus the Tireless (who could literally walk for days on end without resting on guard duty, which he often did) wore a Dreadful gladiator's spiked armor and helmet with a flowing white mane of hair decorating the back and a single horn on top. His weapon was a large blue Migraine's Might mace with six spike flanges of large size adorning the top.

Grand Champion Crocus Banescourge was an orc with a grey beard that poked out from the bottom of the Nullified Greathelm on his head. He wore Scourge Champion armor and carried a large double-bladed and spiked Trollbane Axe.

Arabella Winterfall (an elf) wore Cosmic Aberration armor, a design which Marcy modified to have blue kraken tentacles and fins instead of black ones on the shoulders, green and pink Amphibian eyes on the shoulders in the front and back (respectively) and pink, blue and green gems that matched the Calamity stone's hues and shape decorating the waist, arms and legs in certain spots. She wielded a Willbreaker Blade, a sword she later requested Marcy to modify to actually give off psychic waves that attacked the wills of those who faced her in prolonged combat, wearing them down into submission. Unsurprisingly, she had the highest capture rate of willing surrenders.

Jada the Destroyer(an elf), one of Darius's original Champions, was arguably the most intimidating. Her large Ebon Greatword (as tall as herself) was less scary than the Soulforged Dread armor with massive spikes on the shoulders and helmet (minus the usual fanged lower half of the facemask) she wore. Her long white hair flowed down all the way to the middle of her back and swung in the wind. She had an aggressive personality and ruthless skill with the blade to match this fearsome look.

Sylallaes Blizzardwind was an elf knight. She wore a Mythical Titan Onslaught Greathelm on her head, Scourgelord pauldrons, and glowing bulky Magma armor on the rest of her body. Her weapon was a double-bladed Archon's Glaive.

Lady Grenda the Recruiter was a human knight who wore blue and purple Judgement Paladin armor, a hood and violet Mask of Penance. Her weapon was an Obsidian Bladespear.

Last but not least was the green-haired and raspy-voiced human Grand Champion Minerva Ravencry the Gravemaker, Jada's closest rival (and friend) in enjoying combat way too much. She carried the dreaded Shademourne Axe, a glowing blue axe as large as herself that could get stronger from harming enemies and unleash that collected energy in a powerful Chaotic Bane blast on all enemies in a nearby radius. For gear, she wore bulky Saronian war plate armor, a barbarian style Scourge Champion helmet (a large blue gem in the Heart Stone's shape was on the forehead and two large tusks on each cheekguard), and a blue sash and skull-adorned belt was around her waist.

"It's good you decided on elite bodyguards. You'll never be alone or vulnerable on missions without high levels of protection!"Smarcy said as they walked to the center of her base to start planning their first big counteroffensive.

"Yes, and now … we have living additions!"Marcy looked over their expanding base.

Survivors from the ruined areas of Frog Valley closer to her were coming in day by day to the strange area after some were picked up and saved from the factories and refineries.

"Frog Valley had over 22,651 in the last elections,"Nicky Flappers from Lily Paddington said, offering her some figures,"and now … Wartwood has all 88 of their number with a few extra but was reduced to one house for them still standing to live under. Our city is mush … Bogwater is abandoned, and I'm not sure about Swamp Shiro."

"Well, yes …your city in our Northern side was the fanciest, houses on top of giant lily pads in a large lake, all cut down, drained and removed of supplies …Bog Bottom's bayou tree area to the East got torched. Swamp Shiro has a good castle with lots of mushrooms and farming supplies … last report they barricaded themselves in …check on that later,"She crossed her fingers,"I suppose I'll clear up shop a bit down by Wartwood and Toad Tower before doing some more raiding!"

Nicky asked,"What are your thoughts on the Wartwood Resistance? That troublesome fellow human Miss Waybright is leading them with Captain Grime!"

"I'm confident that the South of the Valley is in good hands with her! I'll show you!"

After confirming Sasha and Wartwood were alive, she'd hacked into Frobot feeds from the first attacks. She pulled them up now.

They destroyed the robot sent after them easily and a Tank Frobot was sent next.

Sasha wasn't even scared. "Only one? Honestly, that doesn't seem that bad."

Then it started launching Froglets. "Of course."

Grime proved his loyalty by coming out of nowhere to save her life from a missile attack when it had her pinned.

"I got to thinking, Beatrix may have weapons and soldiers, but you know what she doesn't have? You, Lieutenant."

Sasha, to Mars amusement, was flattered and hugged him," Grimesy! You big softy."

Marcy said,"Mmhhmm!"

"Increasing deployment!"The Tank-Bot said. It sent out 30 more Froglets.

"30 against 2, eh?"

"Hardly a fair fight!"

Sadie Croaker did a kung-fu yell and did a double downward KO punch on one/s head.

"Die robot scum!"She yelled while her pet spider Archie barfed some acid onto it, melting the robot. "Good boy Archie!"

The other 30 Froglets were torn up by the townsfolk.

"Oi, bugger off!"Wally yelled, whacking several in the face with his accordion. Maddie cursed several of them with her magic curse bags, turning them into animate objects. Ivy and her mom showed a knack for strong kicks, and Loggle showed a savage knack for tearing eyes out.

Marcy and her audience laughed.

Sasha was incredulous. "No way. The townspeople?"

"By Barrel's belly. They're deadlier than any soldier!"Grime said.

The Tank Bot was destroyed when Grime and Sasha made its own tracking missiles follow them to hit it.

The circuits in the Froglets remained active long enough to watch the rest.

Sasha said," Wow... I don't- I don't know what to say."

"You said enough, deary."Mrs. Croaker said consolingly to her.

Maddie said brightly," You may have been a terrible person, Sasha, but you were honest with us when you didn't have to be."

Ivy said," And taking those robots on alone to protect us frogs..."

"It really is something Anne would've done."Wally finished. The feed ended there.

"That is a good leader to rally around …"Nick agreed.

"Wartwood is in capable hands. I'm also about to do something Anne would've done in my own way on a BIG SCALE! Maybe I should check in on our allies and tease them with a hint about their new neighbors before we hit the road AND DO MY BIG DEBUT!"Marcy said.

"How generous of you! Should we ask invite them for a housewarming party?"Nicky said. He grinned wider when she shook her head.

*Troll on a bridge*

Croakwater Gulch's Bridge was over a deep drop into a cold river that while harmless enough, was not something any Amphibia enjoyed swimming in, and that wasn't even on the minds of the five thugs and their three Wartwood captives as they hustled their captives to rendezvous with the rest and pay off the threatening Frobot armies that a vindictive King was menacing them with.

The Resistance members, while not that important in the group, seemed like the perfect bribe. And Felicia Sundew had beaten up over half of the initial seven additional mix of Toads and Newts sent to catch them and Toadstool and Mr. Flour insulted them enough to earn their wrath.

But instead of the easy rescue Sasha would have done later, they arrived at the long wooden bridge being guarded.

There was an enigmatic figure in the middle of it wearing a black-green hood and cloak and holding a long double-bladed spear in its hands as it leaned against the side railing, looking bored.

The leader of this gang, one large but lean Newt with grey skin, walked up even as the rest exchanged looks. He was about to speak when the figure straightened up.

They gasped at the shadowed mask with green glowing eyes and her metallic fingertips as she called out in a mixed female voice of machine and flesh, "Hi there! Riddle me this, WHAT DOES EVERYONE LACK THESE DAYS BUT NEED?"

"I don't care whoever you are, you weirdo, but I suggest you get out of the way or-"

She cut him off with sparks flying off her spear."NO NO NOOOO NAUGHTY NEWT BAD BOY, YOU play my game or MY SQUAD DOES THIS THE TOUGH WAY!" On both sides of the gulch, several red or other colored eyes of her robots glinted as they emerged or stood in the shadows, training their weapons on him. "Now you gonna do the riddle, or are you the DUMB NEWT OUT?"

"Uuuuh, is it lack of control?"

"BZZZT, WRONG, IT'S KNOWLEDGE! Nobody knows what's going on these days, BUT I DO! So as a lesson, all eight of you just have to answer three random questions one at a time or take a trip down … THE DROP OF LOSERS!" She did some jazz hands dramatically.

Barnable cocked an eye at this. He decided to play along.

He sent his first and most reliable sidekick Newton IV, his aide, to go over. But first he asked,"Can I at least know who you are if we have to play your game?"

"If you must know, I am …"She lit her right hand up with green flames,"the CYBERKINETIC WITCH, the genius mistress of all things technology, science and magic-related in AMPHIBIA. I am the Witty leader of my own rebel group against Andrias!"

"Sasha didn't mention her as a leader in the Rebellion!"Felicia whispered to her friends.

"I thought Captain Beatrix was the only other rebel!"Toadstool replied.

Marcy tapped the bridge," Today I am also the guest KEEPER OF THIS BRIDGE. If the other side of this bridge you wish to see, you must answer my questions three! Let's begin!"

The snobbish Newton went up to her as she sized him up. "Now honestly and truthfully, no threats or rudeness or you lose, soooo … First, WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

"Uuuuh, Newton IV."

"GOOD!" He jumped at her volume.

She followed up rapidly with her next one," What is the ancient capital of the toad Duchy of Snarslburg?"

For one long moment he stared.

"Who the FROGGING HECK CARES!? Ask me a real question!" She snapped her fingers and the bridge opened up beneath him and he fell screaming into the water and was washed down the current.

The Amphibians exchanged looks as the witch chuckled.

"He'll be fine. Probably wash up a few miles away from these cliffs at best. NEXXXTTT!"

Gasher the large and scary-looking toad went next, and he considered punching her, but was too scared to try.

"What is your name?!" Her abrupt question as she pointed at him terrified him so badly, he lost focus entirely for his reply.

"Uhhh Gashly, Gashman, Glashley, the Gashter, Asher- Barnable, help me out!"

Marcy sighed with exasperation and snapped her fingers, and he fell screaming like a little girl. She dryly asked,"What's life coming to, if that question was too hard for a big tough-looking guy like him?"

Barnable snarled as her robotic troops and the Resistance shrugged. He shoved Toadstool to go next,"Fine, ask this idiot next!"

The mayor shook, but Marcy was less tough on him,"Whaatt's your name?"

" F-f-froderick Toadstool!"

"Gooodd, now what is your best source of income for most folks in Frog Valley?"

"Uhhh, farming, or at least it was…"He said.

The witch pointed at his neck"Last one: what is this lilac cravat doing undone around your neck?"

For one long moment he and the rest waiting behind him stared in confusion at this specific question.

The witch pressed a bit more in a sassy Southern accent mode as he glanced down at it,"Speak up now! You've got these fancy bling bling rings on yo froggy fingers, but you act so slloopppyyy on this pretty lilac cravat? What's wrong with you?! Ya ain't got the sense you was born with! Tryin' to fake livin' high with funds so low? You think it matters what you look like or what you wear with no money to fix all yo problems, does that make you happy now or did it make you happy back then when all of this,"she tugged at the cravat,"wasn't undonnnne? You goin' blind or something?"

"Oh dang it, I DON'T KNOWW!"Toadstool broke down into tears and fell to his knees,"I can't keep up appearances, ma'am, it's hard enough maintaining my dang jacket and shoes and valuable bling, even in this roughhousing time of fights for survival with everyone else going wild warrior dress mode, it's all I gootttt to keep a bit of order in my routine that's gone to ashessss! I only know how to solve problems with the economy and some cash! What am I doing with my life?! I can't even keep up appearances in these crazy times!"

Felicia and Mr. Flour rolled their eyes.

Barnable and his gang were amused. This was more pathetic than they thought he'd do.

Marcy snickered. It was still an answer she could accept.

"There, there, chin up! That's an honest answer. Don't overthink it! Here,"Marcy tied it for him, much to his surprise. She patted his back,"UP you get, keep it tied from now on and try goin' for a brand-new perspective! That's what I be tellin' you! Off you go!"

The speechless mayor stood back up and walked over.

Felicia went next.

Marcy was very polite to her,"Let's mix it up a bit. Ma'am, what is your job?"

"I run a teashop!"

"Is yellow or green your preferred color to wear, ma'am?"

Since she had both on, Felicia took a few seconds to consider her answer," I'd say green, miss."

"Yes, it looks good on you! Now tell me, ma'am … is this fashion of doilies acceptable or not for a tea setting?" She pulled out one of the finest set of doilies from an abandoned mansion near Lily Paddington she'd looted.

Felicia gasped in shock. Barnable's gang stared longingly at the fine quality cloth.

Nervous and confused, Felicia gulped and said a moment later,"Very acceptable for any tea setting! This looks very high quality and rare!"

Marcy nodded, and put them in her hands, "IMPRESSIVE! Here, you keep it and put it to better use. The old owners certainly weren't at the place I found them at! On you go!"

Miss Sundew walked over.

Toadstool whispered,"I feel she's doing that on purpose, being easy … somehow, on us."

"Maybe … I'm not complaining! This is rare quality stuff she just gave me!"Felicia said in awe, holding the blue and white mixed with green colored fancy napkins in her fingers.

Mr. Flour was shoved forward. Barnable growled,"I'd like to see if you'll ask him something hard or weird! He barely says a thing!"

Thankfully, Marcy already had an idea of how to proceed with out of the box thinking with him. Mostly because he was Maddie's dad.

"FAIR ENOUGH, let's start with this one. What is the worst magical smell around?"

"Really bad potions that have gone wrong and burn through the carpet!"Maddie's father droned.

Marcy kept going for a harder one,"What is the rarest type of fish around here that one can fry and enjoy in either Pan-fried style or Swamp-grill style of cooking meat?"

"Huh?"Barnable said.

The bulky blue frog scratched his head in thought for a few seconds,"Ehhh, Albino Spotted Swamp Pike, last I checked."

Grinning with eager manic delight behind her mask, Marcy asked him a very easy one,"Last but NOT least, what … is your opinion on Barnable's taste in food?"

"What kind of question is that?!"Barnable howled furiously.

The witch replied,"What part of RANDOM QUESTIONS WAS UNCLEAR? Wait your turn!"

Mr. Flour smirked and answered,"His taste in food is terrible!"

Marcy snickered hard,"I have no doubt, YOU PASS WITH FLYING COLORS!"

"Yay!"The baker said in his dull-sounding enthusiasm.

The Wartwood inhabitants and the robots chuckled as the furious newt shook with rage.

The next toad, Belattrixious, came up, sneering at her. "Soooo grim looking, what is YOUR favorite pastime?"

"Carving intricate statues of my greatest opponents of brawls and greatest warriors from the South Tower!" Everyone stared in mute surprise for a moment, even her cohorts and the robots.

Marcy whistled,"That's a new one. What is your name?"

"Bellatrixious!" Just when she thought she had a chance to get across, Marcy tried one odd one that set her off for some reason.

"Whhhatt … is the name of that fashion you're wearing?"

"Are you seriously asking me for fashion advice, because it's a lot better than-Auuhghhh!"She screamed as Marcy snapped as she got too close for her liking.

Marcy shook her head,"Gee, I thought she'd like that one and answer it right. AH WELL!"

Running out of patience, Barnaby sent his most serious member, Gillahad, a grim-looking newt, up next. He faced the Witch with a stone-cold face.

He was able to answer most of the types of questions she'd been asking so far and not get angry.

"What is your job?"

"I am a member of this gang who do deals and business to survive, and that is all I will say!"

"COOOL, ummm, what is the color of rare paints of the Eastern Toad Tower murals?" Marcy asked meekly.

Gillahad smirked, thinking his priceless death glare was making it easy for him,"Dark red and yellow glowing paints are the best, followed by haunted blue!"

Marcy hit him with her favorite surprise question, "Correct, now what … is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

That threw him for a loop. The Resistance Members (except Mr. Flour) across the bridge and Barnable yelled, "WHAT?!"

He did not know the answer and tried hard to wrack his brain for any bird facts,"What do you mean, an unladen swallow that can be ridden like a giant sparrow can be-wait, do you mean Southern Marsh Swallows or an Easter Mountain Swallow or-?"

Marcy giggled with mad delight and snapped her fingers again

He fell yelling into the water.

The robots chuckled as Marcy celebrated. They knew the inside joke to the whole thing. Their leader giggled with delight as she did fist pumps of triumph while jumping up and down. " YES, YES, YEESSSS, I DID THE FAMOUS SWALLOW MEME! SCORE! WOOOOHOOOOO!"

Mr. Flour chuckled while his comrades blinked in confusion.

Marcy beckoned the final guy forward, and Barnable snarled,"You're going to make me do a harder one than that, aren't you?!"

In a very serious voice, she asked him,"Maybe not, tell me this, in your opinion, what is better to help you succeed in life: beauty, brains or brawn,or all three?"

Barnable gaped at her for a long moment. He dug his own watery drop instead of doing the smart thing,"Oh, you think I'm none of those? Like you apparently?! Well let me you tell, you stupid ugly-"

Marcy snapped her fingers right there on the spot after he said that, and he fell howling with rage, and she shook her head, grabbing his purse full of money and papers as he fell with her staff powers and she walked over to the other side and tossed it to Toadstool,"Here, you can keep that! Jerk really didn't need to say all that, just answer such a simple question on opinions any honest fool could answer! That was an easy one!"

A Frobot with spotted black patterns and yellow eyes patted her on the back. She exhaled.

"That cretin is a major idiot, don't mind him,"Toadstool said quietly.

Felicia asked,"Miss Witch lady, what was that all about? Were you really just messing with everyone or just his gang of thugs? And are you a rebel like us? Using … robots?"

The mysterious witch giggled,"Of course I was messing with all of YOU, BUTTT … I was messing with him more! I'm totally a fellow rebel against Andrias! That guy needs to go down! To help me do that, I'm using his own robots and other things with improvements! I make them smarter and COOLER!"

The Magnas and CGs lit their staffs up with electricity behind her to demonstrate.

"But why?"Miss Sundew pressed.

Marcy crossed her arms,"Why not? IT'S WORKING!"

Felicia gave up trying to think of an argument.

"Good for you!"Toadstool said approvingly.

Marcy chuckled and started walking off slowly,"Yeah, I try. Anyways, I was bored, and in the neighborhood, so call it an improvised game to pass the time and say hi to my NEW NEIGHBORS! Trolling people on a bridge, it's a funny meta joke for me! Anyways, you guys have fun beating up all sorts of bad guys! See you around! I'm OFF TO GO SHOPPING and cause trouble for ANDRIAS! It's a lovely day, there are blue skies and sunshine guaranteed, and WE'RE ALL still alive!"

The overcast sky did look clearer, with the sun out and birds flying.

"Did she do that somehow?"Felicia wondered as Marcy walked off with her Frobots.

Mr. Flour said,"Maybe she did … Maddie's gonna love this!"

They chuckled.

Toadstool snarked,"Of course she'll love it … now there's two scary witches around!"

"Don't be mean, they're both nicer than you'd think!"Felicia admonished him.

"Of course …"He eyed the bags of free goods in his hands,"very nice."

When they showed up three hours later to the Resistance HQ, Sasha asked,"Why do you have fancy doilies and a bag of stuff you didn't have before?"

The three exchanged glances and Felicia took the initiative on starting.

"Sasha, Grime, did you know there's a new leader in the Rebellion who uses magic AND robots?"She asked.

"Nooo, we did not … as far as we knew, there was no other leader besides Beatrix,"Grime said slowly. Sasha's jaw dropped.

Mr. Flour smiled, which surprised his daughters almost as much as his words,"We met the newest one at Croakwater Gulch. A funny girl in a dark green hood and glowing green eyes with some weird-looking robots working for her. She called herself the genius mistress of technology, science and magic in Amphibia, the Cyberkinetic Witch!"

Their band of rebels found the whole story (what they remembered of it anyways) unbelievable.

Ivy shook her head,"Trolling people on a bridge, what does that even mean?"

"Messing with people by getting them to react with tricks or insults, that's what trolling means,"Sasha said, and rubbed her head, holding the purse they'd been given. "Did this new rebel really ask that last question of what was better, using brains, brawn or beauty?"

The trio nodded. Sasha thought of Anne and Marcy, their trio of beauty brains or brawn. Anne the beauty was gone and Marcy the brains had gotten stabbed but was still alive and held captive. Or so she thought.

"Whoever this new rebel witch leader is, I hope she's not thinking of messing with us or making it harder for us!"Grime said.

"Drop of losers, and going out shopping to cause trouble for Andrias … I don't think she is!"Sasha smiled. This new rebel, she already knew this Witch liked her.

"A witch rebel leader …"Maddie was eager to see more.

*Terror on the Toad Towers, close to home and abroad*

When going over how to establish herself, Marcy took a hard look at the castes of all 3 main groups. She knew the newts well and could play to their strengths and weaknesses to ruin Andrias's hold and even get some on her side. She also liked the frogs, but the toads were in a class all their own.

The Toad Armies had helped enforce law across Amphibia for ages, and had reigned in the four Toad Towers in East, West, North and South of Amphibia as their strongholds. They were feared and hated by many, but respectable enough in their codes and standards to not be irredeemable to her. And now, the remaining Toad Armies not imprisoned or killed were at large enemies of the Core and being hunted and pursued.

Smarcy brought them up while planning before they knocked the Core offline,"We've taken out most the Reactivated Factories in Frog Valley and have over 10,000 units ready for deployment. The Wrecker Crew is finished and can serve as the planned diversion. Now, for our planned 'Scavenger hunts', do you want to focus on the the Toad Armies as allies or enemies? The North Tower was blown up and Aldo with it, so his army is not a factor anymore!"

Before, Marcy turned to the group here. " Going outside to all four areas and a trip to Dawnblood Island, let's look at the local South Tower first! Captain Bog is a real savage brute compared to Grime, and … uuughh, that ex-emissary pal of his who got him the job. Jacinda, I remember her. She didn't like me for being polite when I met her at the Newtropolitan. Said Olivia was going 'too soft on this weird girl' and that my nice attitude would not solve things, only my inventions!"

"Well, look where that approach got her, roaming around and banished with a pack of bandit toads, that's where their own life got them! They aren't around the Valley anymore, but probably out with Beatrix!"Smarcy then pointed at the map,"Our new recruits from Lily Paddington and Bog Bottom reported some hired criminals are near the abandoned South Tower, using it as a temporary spot for moving weapons and stolen property to Newtopian held areas. Over 500 families were wiped out and an estimated 3,000 at the least were sent to work as factory slaves."

"Truuuue, ah well, I suppose a truly vivid show of strength and terror is in order on behalf of our new refugees we took in. Since the violent life and stories of terror are what they are used to and respect, I'll speak that language harshest with them first! We'll drive them off and loot the Tower and eliminate the competition! That is the kind of INFLUENCE I do not want around here now, it would be best! Ohhh boysss!"The duo turned to their latest fierce robot fighters, modified and upgraded Cloak bots, sitting behind them. Scar, Grid, Celtic and Wolf were their names.

"Time to go hunting!"Smarcy told them. Their eyes glowed brightly.

South:

In the areas near the South Toad Tower, four enigmatic figures stalked in the shadows. With wild hair and unfamiliar armor, no one in Amphibia could claim to have seen such a shape before. But some from Earth had, and the toughest Amphibians would soon learn there were more fierce hunters than them. Glowing predatorial eyes homed in on what had been deemed an "acceptable target" for aggressive violence.

Bazaar Billy, a samurai-like toad who was feared in the Bizaare Bazaar around here, was not happy. Sure, he got to be in charge of the area with the group of recruits here, but it was all because of how it had downhill after that disastrous coup the toad Armies had tried on the King and a bulk had been captured by the Frobots after that.

He got a lot of good business as an ex-soldier from the East. He had Muscle Matt, a bulky green frog, and Cyclops Bob, another soldier toad with his left eye closed (a red slice over it), and Odd-eyed Sammy, a bearded frog with a cloak and mismatched eyes, and the vendor/thief Marnie, sitting outside the Tower.

"Just one more week and we can go do business elsewhere!"Billy said.

Marnie kept looking all around. "I still don't like being here, those two Frobot squads are late!"

A guttural tone combined with a mechanically low voice hissed," Wrong, veeeerry wrong, Marnie. It was three squads. If it had been two, my brothers and I would have disposed of them much quiiiiiickeeer…"

A standard Frobot model was dumped out of the treetops above them into their midst and they all jumped, especially Jacinda. Its chassis had been violently ripped open in many parts, with its eyes and arms gouged out and removed. Slowly, the toads turned to look up at the Frobot who'd done so.

This was no Newtopian design. The robotic frame was taller than any average Amphibian of any surface kind (and any human as well) with a heavily bulked up armor model based on the Predation movies.

The robot had elaborate fancy shoulder pads and extra layers on the torso and limbs with scale-like patterns and ridges. Net-like cloth hung visibly in the less covered places. No mouth was visible with a mask-like covering over the lower face and perhaps oddest of all, mechanical replicas of shoulder length dreadlocks hung from its skull. They had scanners rivalling the Driders and the ability to detect scents and organic materials of every kind arouns Amphibia.

"From these unfortunate tools of the … viooollatttIIINNG" many flinched at the venom in that word and how its clawed fingers began to clench,"overlord, we have confirmed some troubling facts. Several villages looted, and entire families killed or worse of all ages, some sent into slavery at your hands. All for funds, lots of blood-money FUUUNNDS, WHICH is why you are now IN my sights! Soooo… who amongst you is going to face the hunter's honor for battle first?"

They all exchanged glances, worried. Billy still thought maybe he could slug it out, but he knew in his gut this was no ordinary battle in his favor.

Bob thought this was some bizarre tactic of a rogue robot and could probably be redirected or stalled.

"Oh, come now, you really expect any here to buy this attempt at an honorable duel or hunt from machines!? ! Why would a Frobot care to pretend to be moral?" His disdainful frown began to crack when the enigmatic machine looked right at him and then leaped down in front of them and then slowly began to let out an insect like chuckle.

"Of course, a washout toad from the armies like yooou WOULD say that. Where has that left you, FORMER SERGEANT BOB of the Eastern Tower? Not higher in life, for sure, you or Billy boy from the West one there!"

"How could you possibly know that about us?"Bob squeaked.

The robot shook its head.

" Never you mind, my BROTHERS and I can weed the guilty out here easily enough and maybe all of you anyways if you push it, since now … YOU ARE OUR PREEEEY!" With that, three other monsters revealed themselves. A nearby pond shifted as another hunter-bot uncloaked in view from there. This one had even more elaborate black armor with more scaled up markings combined with net-like cuts that had a vivid glowing green color to them with matching green eyes.

From the tree tops another one with armor similar to the first, but rustier looking as opposed to the grayer color and a vivid wavey pattern on its head hung upside down with a Frobot head in it hands and several more mangled remains hanging next to it with red eyes peering down. Finally, from the other direction came one more, this one with the least bulky armor. But its head and arms had small reptilian-like horns on it and bones of various creatures hanging off it like trophies, and cracks were on its head and some marks that vaguely looked like acid-burns as it peered out with vivid yellow eyes.

Billy thought just maybe he could rally the group to fight hard and get out of this, but then the first Frobot began to laugh again, slowly building up from something bestial to a deep-throated chuckle to an increasingly unhinged cackle that sounded like a normal man's maniacal laugh, louder and louder the longer it went on.

As the modified Cloak Bot laughed, from both wrists two large and serrated blades extended as dual cannons rotated into place on its shoulders with laser sights that targeted his intended targets at once. A large elaborate spear was hefted by the second along with a shuriken. From above the third extended even longer single wrist-blades and a huge dagger. The last bot extended blades and flexed a spine-like whip of metal in its fingers as these predators moved in on their prey from all sides.

Much later, the entire group of 55 hired muscle woke up in a grey dungeon, silent and shaking with bandaged wounds. The toads, frogs and the newts had been thoroughly beaten and had all their supplies taken. The Tower had been looted while they were occupied.

Fighting back had earned several terrifying punches and cuts and more than one of the most criminal members had been painfully injured.

All four of the Predbots (their designation) dragged off their victims in their iron strong nets, no matter how much they kicked, flailed, screamed, threatened them or offered money. To add insult to injury, a small metal box was tossed to the ground as they left by their camp, which began to count down with 5 minutes to go. After they were gone, a sizable explosion filled the air.

The Mothras, Driders and Frost Knights found every other criminal competitor or ex-Bazaar employee currently in the Valley from the shadows.

The Bazaare had long been managed by an order of red-cloaked newts called the Red Hours (symbolized by the red hourglass symbol on their backs and charms worn by participants).

A trio of them were counting the funds and information for their records with ten of their goons in a cave.

They heard a knock. "Who is it?" The lead Hour said, turning to look.

A toad with a large helmet on stood still at the entrance. He toppled face forward onto the ground.

"You dare attack us here!? You will-"The newt's words were cut off as they were frozen solid in a second.

One of those taken down last was a loosely affiliated assassin and performer, Halley the Whackjob Jester.

She was a tall (5'7") fit acrobatic newt (a marbled salamander kind) with colorful white and black striped skin, a thick and very flexible tail that was just over 4'5" ft long, hypnotic eyes with dark purple sclera and white slit pupils that glowed in the dark, sharp teeth. For clothing she wore a classic red and white harlequin outfit with diamond patterns and bare opposable gripping triple feet like many newts that she trained to be as good as her hands. She had long blonde hair with magenta highlights she wore in pigtails and carried a huge meat-style mallet made of iron that was almost as tall as she was with bumpy tenderizers on one end of the oversized hammerhead and a flat metal sheet on the other . She was so nimble with all five limbs she could wield it in any single one of them while doing stunts with the rest.

On Marcy's way out of the Valley, she'd been hired by some old associates to eliminate this threat to their business.

After being caught in midair while jumping at them from the nearby cliffs, she proved quite friendly.

"INTERESTING, a newt in a harlequin outfit trying to hit me with a hammer … Is that supposed to be scary and colorful at the same time for dramatic EFFECT? It's working if that's your goal!"

"Why, do ya want advice on how to do it yourself? I'd say you're winning!"Halley asked dryly while hanging upside down in Marcy's Wit energy ropes.

Marcy poked her in the face,"I don't suppose we could talk about WHY you came at me with a hammer?"

Halley smirked mockingly,"You're the first to ask! I'm touched! I do 'hit you with a hammer jobs' for people who like to have their problems solved by hitting them. Which is just about everyone! Tell you what, ya let me down and don't hit me and I'll hit a problem for you on the house!"

Even without a mask, it was obvious Marcy was smiling,"I have a better idea! YOU'LL have to come along for a ride while I inflict TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE DAMAGE on my enemies when I hit them with everything!"

Halley didn't bat an eye,"Sounds fun. Can I watch?"

Marcy and her robot escorts laughed and let her down to have a free meal and ask questions while eating dinner.

Halley was a roaming jokester from the Teardrop islands who left there desperate to make ends meet for her struggling village. She found work as an acrobat, mercenary and occasional assassin.

However, she never went after kids, villages or struggling families as her top rule. The moment she found out Marcy was a kid, she decided to help her out.

Hearing a few hints about Marcy's recent ordeals and seeing her marred face broke Halley's heart the more she saw.

"So you do this part-time mercenary job to help provide for your family and keep villages, poor families and kids of any age out of it?"Marcy said with interest after they talked about Halley's job.

The Jersey-accented newt said,"My line of work is rough and dirty, but it's nothing kids or families should be involved in … the wars around here do enough of that already! No frogging way are you getting more trouble from me. How old are ya again, sweetheart?".

"Thirteen. I'll be fourteen in a couple months!" Halley twitched. Marcy didn't notice but kept stirring their meal over the fire.

"It's great you have that standard in your work! A hitman, or hitgirl, with a heart and moral code is someone I can work with! I need all the folks with standards I can get to fight the evil out to destroy us all!"Marcy said brightly.

"You're just a kid yourself, ya know. Thirteen years old … you shouldn't be dealing with this crap by yourself or be getting hurt by monsters who do things like that to ya…"Halley said quietly.

Marcy's face lost all cheer so quickly when she looked back at her it scared Halley.

"Tell that to half of Amphibia who doesn't care right away about that sort of thing … "She pulled her cloak tighter,"Don't get me wrong, I love this place as it used to be. But Amphibia is dangerous on a good day for young and old alike. The kids here were all fighting for their lives in small ways before, now they're doing it right by the adults with little protest. I've seen Amphibians in Newtopia and outside of it hardly bat an eye at grisly fates or be ready to attack kids younger than me. I get called a beast or animal right away just for being something different. No one asks about that sort of thing first with me. This place is a real loony bin in many ways compared to my home … and now it's full-blown crazy with no limits."

"Yeahhh, ya got a point …"Halley sighed,"they call me crazy sometimes just for the way I dress or goof around while whacking fools on the job, but the outfit goes with my skin and works for the shows. There's worse crazy than me in the fanciest castles or humblest barnyards."

Marcy snorted,"You have no idea how true that is! The worst lunatics responsible for this whole mess live in the Royal Castle. Besides, it's only natural for people to look out right away for their own and care for their own kids more. If you have someone or … something … that's not like you and not from around your area, it's harder to care or spare the effort to care! You have to earn that to be part of that system of communal love and protection! Look at me … I'm a lifelong klutz of an alien outsider with timid social skills who's had many close calls with death already. My recent horrible ordeals are no laughing matter … but I can't just expect that people will care right away … even if I want them to! Right now, I need to survive, get tougher and build up my forces! That'll help me keep plenty of Amphibians and their kids in need safe, a good thing to do regardless … and I can start building on that again! I just have to earn that community value, build some new stable relationships, and prove I'm worth caring about!"

"I care! Ya shouldn't have to prove something like that!"Halley said fiercely.

Touched, Marcy smiled and walked over to her,"I'm glad you said that. Maybe someone needs to make them care by setting an example … to change how things are and help hearts grow three sizes or bigger. If nobody cares at all, nothing will ever get better. It takes a bit of heart to make change that matters!"She offered her hand to Halley,"Wanna help me do that aggressively and gently for everyone to see, you softie with a big hammer and bigger heart?"

The colorful newt smiled back and shook it. "Now you're talkin' sense!"

Halley would cultivate a huge disliking for both Andrias and the Core later when she found out more about who hurt this kid.

A week later her village got airlifted to come live with them.

The Diversion:

Sasha led a scouting team with Grime along the Eastern Frog Mountain ranges that surrounded the Valley.

The Large Mold Rot Forest below had been turned into a wasteland of factories and more.

"No good trying down there and-"Sasha paused from her talk hearing a loud crunch and explosions.

"What is going on?!"Grime yelled.

Explosions sounded in the distance.

Then they saw the Wrecker crew ride through and over entire rows of factories and Bugbots. Their arms and limbs were folded, retracted or not as visible.

"What are those? Did they go haywire or something?"Loggle asked.

"Whatever they are, they're making too much noise, it's going to draw Andrias down in force!"Sasha yelled.

However, that was the point of this.

Scores of Frobots, six Tank Bots and many Fire Frobots were summoned from forest clearing or patrols to come attack.

Flail did the first jaw-dropping attack. He spun his torso in a full 360 degree spin rapidly with his wrecking ball chains extended. Thirty Frobots and three Tankbots got taken out in 10 seconds.

Crusher swiped his arms (all of them) straight through several small ones and tore off the head of one Tankbot and broke another one in half when it tried launching Froglets at them.

Loader headbutted the last Tank Bot with his spiked head, tore the head off and began grabbing Frobots to put in his compactor.

Meltdown barely had to move. He used his magnet arms to start sucking the flying Frobots to him and began putting them in his furnace along with the ones he grabbed

"Ok, time to retreat!"Sasha decided after watching this terror of machine-on-machine battle for over five minutes.

"500 to 700 robots lost …"Andrias rubbed his forehead in annoyance reading the reports on this one battle alone,"and 60 factories … oh Marcy, you're pulling my battle lines way too easily …"

East:

The East Tower was near Ribbitvale, Mt Mutu, and the Fiefdom of Kaeru. It was also closest to the main exit of Frog Valley in the East on the path to Newtopia. Naturally, it was Marcy's first stop.

In the East Tower Area, Captain Bufoc's forces had been hard-pressed to take on the onslaught of the massive armies of Frobots Andrias had unleashed after his capture at Newtopia, and now he and half of his army had been captured, with over 2,000 dead or captured already in battle.

Marcy wasn't focused on him, but an old friend of hers who'd worked with him and some extras.

Her first major toad recruit was a crazed veteran called Ravager the Fixer who'd struck out on his own years ago after getting some knocks to the head too many times. He had greying hair with a beard, small black eyes, and muddy brown skin with a furry vest with trophies of bone necklaces over his neck and belt and a harpoon, net and cutting knife he carried everywhere.

Ravager took little convincing to hire and gave Marcy all she needed to know on major toad information.

One acquaintance of hers, Bernardo, was the best armorer in Newtopia. He'd designed her Ranger outfit and Anne's armor look. He and his quiet and efficient assistant Squire Egwellems weren't that bad at all. Bernardo was passionate about fashion and practicality, and had provided his services in ways that benefited her and Anne both.

She sent a trick message to him before setting out about getting armor improvements and upgrades for a selection of officers.

His pet Bay land crab was pulling his carriage down the road when it came to a stop.

"What is it now? I don't do unfashionable tardiness!"He grumbled.

He opened the door and saw a grinning but scarred Marcy Wu, her mask and hood off, with a very glamourous polearm in hand and strange guantlets, standing in front of it with an army of strange robots and a grinning jester standing next to her.

"Hi there Bernardo! Care to take a new job with me? It'll be fancy and fashionable and all the rage!"

Bernardo didn't bother reacting with unfashionable fear or anger,"Master Marcy, a few things. First … knock next time. Second, this raises so many questions about your rich knowledge of fashion you hinted at! Third, I hope you didn't damage the quality outfit I made for you! Fourth, where did you get that fabulous spear and all these intimidating armor styles?"

Marcy giggled and said,"Oh, it's not me you have to complain about for my Ranger outfit getting ruined, and I've got several ideas besides this I can offer you to add to your supplies!"

"Is that so?"Bernardo said with practiced indifference.

Egwellem snickered. He already knew his boss was hooked.

It took less than five minutes riding in his carriage on the way to the East Tower to convince him he'd be better off being her armorer, and even less time for Andrias and the Core being pure evil. He took one look at the drawing and two photos of the Core and said,"Ugghh, whoever designed this horrible crawling machine should be executed!"

"That's funny … I'm pretty sure that guy is one of the minds living inside it!"Marcy said flatly.

He raised an eyebrow reading what Andrias called it,"Tutt tutt, the greatest minds of our civilization decided to cheat death and this is what they came up with? For shame …"

Eggwellem shivered.

They perked up seeing the potential for countless new ideas from Marcy's world and their own to make new armor and designs.

Bernardo, insisted on making Marcy a new cloak. She let him. Her next one got comfortable cuffs, the original fur lining and fancy Tron-style patterns and reinforced fabric lining. He washed and maintained it for her and got her gauntlets comfortable lining and better ammo cartridges.

Marcy's biggest objective for a rescue on this trip was her old friend and Night Guard colleague Bomme Frite, a newt scientist and former Chief Engineer for them

She'd gone to work for Bufo before she reunited with Anne. She'd once been a mercenary drop out from Newtopian University who used her work to fund her inventing.

They'd first met when Bomme was hired to sabotage their work in tracking down the rogue ex-captain Ernst on Dawnblood Island by Ernst.

She'd flown over in a steampunk flying contraption and dropped bombs that sprouted into vines that restrained the team. Marcy defeated her and got her to talk and sent her to their camp. She'd made them some of her meals as a chef, including a 'Croak Monsieur' sandwich. It was made of crusty bread, cow-a-pillar cheese, and mushroom slices.

Marcy ran a finger along the wrecked flying contraption,"This is pretty impressive. Why do you need to do this job to invent cool things like this? "

Bomme sighed and passed her a sandwich,"I wish. Before I did this, I wanted to start my own business. But I exploded one too many projects by accident at the University. I lost my eye in the last few years doing odd jobs to make ends meet. This lets me keep safe and do work that pays better to stay alive and invent!"

"I love the steampunk vibes!"Marcy said.

"Steam-what?"Bomme asked. To her credit, she followed Marcy's complicated explanation fairly well.

"If your alien home has that concept… must have lots of fun inventions!"Bomme said when she was done.

"Where would I start on that?"Marcy said with glee. Bomme chuckled.

After Marcy tamed Joe Sparrow, she'd left with them and joined as a valuable engineer and chef in the Night Guard before getting transferred East to Captain Bufo's forces to help with weapons developlment.

She'd sent her a note saying thanks for the job and mentioning that a coin salvaged by Marcy was over 1,000 years old, predating Andrias.

Now that she knew more about Andrias and was rethinking the old details on Ernst's mysterious betrayal that was aimed at covering up records of the Calamity Box, details she'd already confirmed meant Andrias had paid Ernst to do all that, Marcy wanted Bomme at her side again.

"She's also the only FORMER member of the Night Guard who wouldn't …"She trailed off.

"Take your incidents, both of them, so personally?"Smarcy said. She knew Marcy had been afraid Sasha and Anne would have the same reactions as her old team in the betrayal, one key reason she hadn't told them sooner.

Stony Gulch, where Kettle and Javi had settled, had been destroyed already. If they were still alive was uncertain.

Femur the quiet and gentle giant had settled down as a shepherd near the Great Bay pasturelands. The area was already burned to the ground and Marcy felt sick to her stomach reading that there were 'no surviving witnesses or livestock' to the robot army's 'combative advances in the area.'

She tugged her neck nervously,"Yes … Bufo and his Tower and armies are out of commission. We can her offer all the funds, supplies and inventing she could ever want and figure out that Dawnblood Island mystery together!"

Within a few days she tracked the diminutive scientist down at a special labor camp where the Olm Wood Forest once stood.

Bomme, over 50 toad soldiers stationed at the East Tower, a dozen from his ranks attacking the Castle that had almost escaped before getting caught near their own lands and some other Amphibian locals (mostly frogs) were sent to be mining and constructing things. Just in time, since she was due to be executed secretly in a month or less after Marcy's escape.

The small green newt with spiky green hair, large teeth, and an eyepatch over her right eye, was working on some parts in the labor camp. She was not happy. A month or so ago, the Captain went out to the Toad Summit for a meeting with the other toad lords, and then he got arrested with over half the army doing a crazy rebellion against Andrias. Within hours, she was captured along with most of the remaining East Tower staff by an army of Frobots. Life made no sense anymore.

She looked up when they heard lasers and explosions in the distance. Bomme smiled. She liked explosions.

The prisoners and guards did not expect what they saw to be the source.

Far off in the distance, a group of flying robots called Reaperbots were causing problems

They were basic Frobot frames remodeled to resemble the 'boxed crook' Reaper raiders from the strategy game Spacecraft.

They had large jetpacks with designs of jolly rogers on the shoulders and red flight-suit style armor. Their heads now had gasmask helmet faces with red eyes. For weapons they wielded D-8 Cluster explosives and dual laser Scythe pistols

A dozen were harassing the area, flying around at faster speeds and control superior to the Frobots guarding the base.

Already over 50 Frobots lay shattered on the grounds, while these rogue robots lobbed small explosives all over the mining projects and equipment, ruining the labor side of things.

"Who sent those in?! I demand answers!"The bulky frog warden, a guy named Mire Norton, demanded.

One chucked darkly as it threw a bomb at his spot above the prison's entrance.

"Fat chance of that, fat boy, the grim Reaperbots have arrived! To bring the pain on you! Your time is up!"

"Over there sir, there's a ground force headed in from the West!"His assistant yelled. Norton saw it, a squad of other unknown Frobots clustered behind a cloaked figure.

"Get all forces over there at once! There are not getting any of the special prisoners here!"Norton demanded, and over 300 Frobots came to guard the front gate.

"Stop this attack at once, rebel scum! Put down your spear and surrender, and you might live after causing this much damage to my camp!"Norton yelled.

"DON'T make me destroy your forces and everything you own, warden! You can't win!"The figure yelled in a deep female voice. Her masked face had bright green eyes.

"Get her!"Norton yelled.

Marcy stuck her spear in the ground, and pulled out a pair of six-sided white dice with red dots, and shook them in her hands. They were glowing blue on the dots as she tossed them to the ground.

A puff of blue sparkling smoke hit the ground and rose into the air. A storm cloud of lightning began to form overhead.

"Olms above, how is she doing that?"A frog yelled.

"Hey Bomme,would you know?"A toad named Greg asked her.

"Not my field of expertise, but I'd wager it's some kind of magic!"Bomme responded. Her voice had an intelligent South African accent.

The Frobots felt the hostility coming from her actions and took it as reason to respond in force. "OPEN FIRE!"

The lasers they fired en masse at her did no good. She came forward spinning her spear, blocking their attacks with a mirage-like shield around her body, and she began deflecting their shots back into them.

Within thirty yards, she channeled a massive surge of green energy out of her gauntlets, and levitated 36 Frobots in the air when it made contact with their body. She swung them at the nearby laser cannon. They exploded with the building.

Everyone jumped.

"Definitely magic!"Bomme concluded. The toads and frogs nodded.

Eight Frobots tried to come up close to attack her in the air only for her to swing her heated spear around and carve through them with ease. The Frobots behind her took out any who tried to come from behind her.

By this point the Warden and his staff still watching were afraid. So were the prisoners.

Bomme glanced up and yelled,"Sweet olms below!"

The other prisoners and the guards looked up and felt very afraid seeing the vortex of fire and lightning overhead swirling and ready to burst.

What happened next shook them all hard.

The Cyberkinetic Witch pointed at the mass of Frobots still in front of her, and the sky rained fire down on them, frying them with lighting and glowing hail.

Andre, a large toad with a black barrel helm over his head he rarely took off, shook his head,"First robots and flying castles, whatever happened two weeks ago and now this?"

"You made your quota today, so extra …"Norton stopped talking to his assembled workers hearing an ominous hum. His staff and prisoners had no words seeing the distant Castle glow like a green lantern and then go off like a firecracker.

"Put them inside now!"He ordered the Frobots. The prisoners didn't sleep but talked about what that could mean.

Only 25 Frobots still stood, along with a black Tank Frobot that came lurching around, and the camp's Shield Generator Bot standing guard over the main camp power supply station.

Marcy fired blue lightning out of her fingers. The Frobots fell down with ruined circuitry.

Pointing her spear at the approaching Tank one, she focused a beam of telekinetic energy that also overruled its controls and swung it over in the air to crash on the Generator Bot, exploding both. Lazily, she aimed her right gauntlet at the prison gates and fired a modified wrist bow bolt.

The gates exploded completely.

"Sergeant, you and the boys round up these guards for me!"Marcy yelled. The Reaperbots did so, shocking and stunning the warden and his still living staff with stun grenades.

She walked in the smoking ruins of the gates with Halley. After looking around the prison yard for a few seconds, she spotted her objective.

"Eenie meenie,minie moe!"She waved a finger lazily in the air.

Halley snickered and pointed at Bomme,"Catch a Frite by the toe! If she hollers, don't let her goooo!"

Bomme swallowed. What did she do to get their attention? Were they old enemies she'd attacked before who were taking advantage of her captivity?

Her heartbeat echoed in her ears as the pair walked up to her. Eleven large Frobots of a bulky design followed them in while her other robots surrounded the place.

They had an unknown design to the Amphibians. It was the Spacecraft CMC-armored Marines. The iconic Terran (human) unit was simple enough to apply to the standard Frobot chassis. The pauldrons were replaced with smooth ones, their hands fitted with bulky 5-fingered gauntlets, and their heads had the enigmatic space-helmet black or gold visors instead of a visible face. The rest of the armor looked almost identical to the game Marines and stood at a height of 6'8" ft, and carried various laser/bullet rifles (most of which resembled C-14 Guass rifles). The C-14's had bayonets, laser sights and attached grenade launcher barrels on the bottoms in a few cases.

They had a mix of colors and body art/visor tattoos. A white-colored one had a black visor with an 8-ball picture on it and the words Bite me, and his name, Malkovitch, on his beige-colored chest, two other Bite me tats on his head, and Mother's on both of his shoulders.

A yellow one carrying two Slugthrower pistols had a barcode on his black visor, the Latin Epsilon (Ɛ) and a fiery gear symbol on top of each other in the middle of his chest, and in red letters on both shoulders his assigned name, RICCO, was painted. A black-colored one had his name 'Jacobs' in large white letters on the center of his upper torso.

Two other black colored ones had matching body art tattoos: the words 'BIG LOAD (from left to right), Pig on the left shoulder, and War on the right. One of them (Hicks) also had a red-colored torso, a black visor with honeycomb patterns, and headlights positioned on his right shoulder. The other one (Hudson) had a barcode painted on top of his helmet and a neon blue Recticle design on his visor

Just behind them, another one (named Drake) with had teal green colors , green Ghost goggles tattooed on his black visor, ammo belts strapped over his torso and held an AGR-14 style rifle.

Bringing up the rear was a contrasting pair. One (Chris) had grey armor with scratches, a gold visor, logos of human skulls with lightning bolts behind them on his pauldrons, and purple spade and diamond playing card symbols on his torso. The other one (Wallace) had black and white chessboard patterns all over his armor, a gold visor, a grenade barrel attachment on his gun, and red Christmas tree lights draped across his shoulders.

Marcy dubbed them the Demo Squad.

The closest three, Tychus, Tosh, and Raynor, were light blue, desert camo, and black. Tychus had a gold visor, the number 435 on his shoulders, and tattoos on his armor: A red-hooded newt lady with black goggles sitting and holding a sniper rifle in a spade symbol below the number on his left shoulder, a four-leaf clover on his chest and a skull and crossbones on his chest with the words 'Eat my lead' below it. Tally marks (thirteen) were on his left wrist and various Frobot symbols adorned the back of his legs for a 'kill count'. He carried a heavy 'chain rifle' in one or both hands.

Tosh had desert camo colored armor with a black visor, a voodoo doll and necklace of sewer gator teeth hanging around his neck, and glowing red circles on his forearms, Shadowblade symbols on his jest, pulsing power lines down his arms and legs, and the words 'Irie!' and 'You got Bad Mojo, mon!" on his shoulders. He carried a bulky AGR-28 rifle and a bone-patterned balisong knife tied to his waist.

Raynor was all-black, except for his gold visor with an anime skull on it. His right shoulder pauldron had a coiled snake skeleton tattoo on the front. His weapon was a massive HEV Commando rifle.

Marcy stopped right in front of Bomme … and she waved her hand.

"Hi THERE!"

Bomme knew that greeting.

"Hi there! My name's Marcy! What's your name? Is that a real flying machine? Are you a pirate? Is that why you wear an eyepatch?"The strange-looking Ranger said to Bomme as she lay on the floor groaning and was trapped by the other three. This Ranger was smiling at her while the other three glared.

She squinted at the mysterious lady. Could it be …?

Halley smiled charmingly and swung her mallet over her shoulders,"Lovely spot you folks got here … but terrible interior design!"

"Forget that! Who are you?! What are you?!"A female toad with a head of brown hair and chain mail named April asked.

Marcy snapped her fingers and their chains all fell off,"I am the Cyberkinetic Witch, the newly debuted Witty Rebel Mistress of all Technology, Science and Magic, a fast-rising major enemy of Andrias, the supreme genius overlord of creativity with a cool mixed army, and SO ON! This is my friend Halley, the Whackjob Jester who takes jobs to solve problems by hitting them! Tell you what, BEFORE WE EXCHANGE LIFE STORIES … You are ALL free! I would be honored if you would join us!"

No one said a thing.

Bomme looked over the girl. Her right gauntlet had a bolt-firing attachment on it …

"You can go back to our camp and wait until we're done. Afterwards, you can leave with us. Maybe you could even join the Night Guard as an engineer!"Marcy told Bomme after she finished disarming the traps.

"I might like that … good luck with Ernst!"

The strange lady crouched in front of Bomme, who was only half her height,"I say, Miss Frite, you don't look so good … that transfer to the East Tower to work with Captain Bufo not turn out like you hoped?"

"Is that you, Marcy?"The short newt asked.

The toad soldiers raised their eyebrows. They'd heard stories about that human girl living in Newtopia from Bomme. Funny and bizarre stories.

"Girl's a total wierdo, but a nice one! A real genius too! I've never had anyone talk about inventing with me so well … and she got excited when I made a vine monster by accident!"Bomme said while adjusting the catapults in front of Bufo one day.

"I heard Grime's got his own hummus …she can't be half as nice as this one if she's working with him!"He said.

"Human … it's human,"Bomme grumbled. Of course, the toads wouldn't get it as quick. Marcy was lucky she didn't wind up with them. Most toads were very rough and simple (stupid even) in language and culture at the best of times.

"Another one, eh? Marcy did say she had two best friends …"

Marcy vibrated with glee.

"You GOT it! I'm here to save your life and offer you a better job with me as my CHIEF ENGINEER and Science Officer. More explosives, funding and inventions to work with than you've ever had. In return, I want you to make us all your delicious 'Croak Monsieur' sandwiches, and help me find the secret to those rare ancient coins and more from Dawnblood Island, and HAVE FUN WITH ME doing crazy inventions and saving the day! FORGET the Toad armies and Night Guards, Bommey"she took her mask off, showing the scarred but familiar smiling face of Marcy Wu," let's be Light Guards!"

"It is you!" The relieved newt hugged her. Ravager and some other Amphibian recruits came up to help explain it to the now freed prisoners.

Five Medics (also a Spacecraft unit) came in to tend to their injuries. They had white and red armor similar to the marines, helmets with black visors, a large shield on their right arm, syringes on the left arms and beams in their hands that could help heal on the cellular level in minutes. Another model, the Medivac Pilots, had blast shield scanners/targeting systems over their faces

They all accepted accompanying Marcy, but they had questions.

"Good, I have answers, and lots of them!"She said.

On the way back to their temporary base of operations in the area, Marcy and Smarcy filled them in on the details about the Core and Andrias.

The pictures and explanations of the Core had understandably skeptical reactions, so she played the clip of Andrias kneeling down in front of it she'd recovered. No one doubted her after that. She also played Andrias's speech about conquering all words and laughing maniacally before he blew up the North Tower in front of her, Sasha and Grime.

"Andrias is crazier than I thought … and his family was even worse!"Andre said scornfully as they processed that.

"Oh sweet Olms, that is horrifying,"Bomme shuddered,"that is so awful you had to deal with that thing up close, Marcy!"

Halley's mind had horrible thoughts of rage towards these top two 'targets' (she referred to them as such from that day on) now that she knew what Marcy had endured (more or less).

Marcy patted Bomme reassuringly on the back,"I know, but now we have a chance to fix it and get rid of that thing! I left it temporarily dead after it tried to get into my base systems last week and am taking advantage to do some damage all around for a week. Some of our old adventures is a good place to start finding out more!"She had a copy of one scroll she'd retrieved back then and reconstructed from memory and translated.

Bomme read it,"'The Three will come, it is only a question of when and how. Their coming will shake the foundations of this land and let us begin anew. Praise be to the three. Their choice shall reveal salvation or, indeed, punishment. But beware… dark forces will destroy our history and try to confuse our saviors when they arrive. Mother has foreseen it …' Odd, but promising."

"Should we go to spring Captain Bufo loose?"Medog (a toad soldier in samurai armor) asked.

Smarcy advised against it,"His prison is in a more restricted and guarded area far from here. They'll double down hard on forces on prisons and in the Toad areas after this. Besides that, Captain Bufo lives by a very strict code of honor and image. He might take it the wrong way if we do."

"Yeah, true …"Sergeant Omei, a female horned toad with dreadlocks, admitted. She shook Marcy's hand,"Still,we owe you for this!"

"Yeah … thanks, really!"Greg patted her on the back.

Marcy smiled,"Don't mention it! For right now,"she suggested,"as far as our options go, we can build up our strength and give Beatrix the chance to rally the other free toad soldiers in her army and strike hard on her own. Maybe we can pass her info on Bufo's prison spot to bust him out later. However, as incentive for hanging with me until he's free and we can propose a proper alliance … would you all like to raid your old Tower with me and get dibs on everything old AND new in it?"

The liberated toad soldiers (along with Ravager and the other new ones) grinned savagely. They accepted on the spot.

The East Tower resembled a large pagoda and bordered Mt. Mufu.

Marcy shook her head seeing the place where the Second Temple (Anne's) was. She'd have to revisit that spot later.

Anne's quest had been a big mystery with the mysterious and powerful guardian Valeriana.

General Gavin, a handsome and very arrogant red newt with well-groomed black hair and thick green armor similar to Yunan's (but thicker) had taken charge of it. Sir Gawayne, a knight in full armor, aided him along with a garrison of 100 soldiers and double that number of Frobots.

Marcy ingeniously sent Kristanna in disguise hours ahead of her arrival. She infected 70% of the Frobots over to their control using her nanotech touch and left explosives by the two Shield Generators bots and three Laser Cannons.

"Sir! That rebel witch is down below outside the gates waiting!"Captain Yin told Gavin at noon the next day.

Gavin glared at the green hooded enigma looking up at him with a horde of 'corrupted' robots and vagabond Amphibian rebels behind her. "Unless you came to surrender, don't expect me to thank you for waiting politely at my tower!"

The toads glowered at him.

Marcy rubbed her fingers absentmindedly and said,"Maybe you should. How about this, I ask you a riddle and you answer it WITHOUT help or trying to cheat your way out of it, and I MIGHT leave and come back tomorrow. If you guess wrong, YOU surrender this place to me and GET TO WALK BACK HOME!"

"Sounds more than fair to me. An easy guessing game, winner takes all and nobody gets hurt!"Halley commented while inspecting her fingers. The toads chuckled or agreed out loud.

Gavin and his troops were too speechless at her gall. Marcy said quizzically,"Here WE GO! Riddle me this: I never was, am always to be; everyone's looking, but no one sees me. What am I?"

Gavin gave Gawayne a meaningful look.

"Send word to the king, we'll have the entire army down on her in half an hour!"Gawayne told Yin quietly. Yin nodded and went to do so.

Marcy knew they tried that,"You just cheated. That means you AUTOMATICALLY lose WITH NO BENEFITS!"

She snapped her fingers.

The cannons and their shield protectors blew up.

Over 100 Frobots turned on their own kind and allies and fired at them.

"What did you do?!"Gavin howled down at her.

Kristanna went into action on the top floor, shifting from her disguise as a simple guard into her robotic look. She fired her M41 Pulse Rifle and Rapid Cluster Gun (stun blasts and sleepdart ammunition). All 30 newts hit the ground.

Back in her usual look, she waved down to Marcy from the window.

"The Tower is ours!"She called down.

"Piece of Cake!"Marcy said to the toads

"Nice!"Greg said. They all clapped.

"What was the answer to the riddle?"Bomme asked as they went inside.

"The answer is tomorrow!"

"Ohhhh!"Bomme, Halley, April, Omei and Andre said. Half of the others didn't get it but were content.

Andre, a sergeant who'd been left in charge of the place at the time, took lead in doing inventory with Marcy.

The prisoners in the dungeons were liberated and added to her army. A few interesting ones stood out.

Gaff the Collector was a middle-aged toad with brown skin, white eyes and black sideburns. He was a bounty hunter who liked taking a single trophy from every hunt, including a multitude of weapons and armor he used. He'd rubbed the newts the wrong way when they came through his area by the coast and thrown him in jail.

Kane was a large toad with red skin and ridged skin with yellow eyes who'd fought as a gladiator and did bounty hunting for whoever hired. He loved ambushing opponents from high altitudes and jumping down on them. He'd had his arms blown off by a Frobot while on a trip when the factories were activated.

Marcy offered him cyborg arm replacements. He enjoyed the clawed fingers, stun capabilities and superstrength, and was deadlier than ever.

Oscar Glass was a glassfrog with very transparent skin that showed his organs and bones … he'd been teased and called a monster for years because of it. He wore a heavy coat on and did work as a chemist. He'd annoyed Bufo with some explosions in his private home in the Olm Woods Forest and had been arrested before the toad summit.

He was delighted with the equipment and job Marcy offered him and joined Bomme as an assistant. He wore a white and black bodysuit of armor in combat outside the labs with wrist lasers.

While they ate dinner there before leaving, Marcy said,"That leaves the North and West Tower areas before we head to the Dawnblood Islands. We'll get what we can from the North Tower rubble and leave Beatrix's area alone as a sign of respect. She's still at the top of the threat list to Newtopia along with the Wartwood Resistance and me."

Bomme looked at the list,"Hang on, you're at the very top of this, and this list isn't even public knowledge!"

Marcy smiled mockingly,"Not yet anyway! Knowledge is power! I hold all the cards on that as a threat and we have a decent window of opportunity to make them more reasons to fear us!"

"How much should we leave for them here?"Ravager asked.

Their new leader giggled,"Another riddle for ya: Invisible to those unfit for their roles,Or so the story amusingly unfolds.A garment that's not, for the bold …"she paused for effect as hey looked annoyed or confused,"The answer to that riddle is … Nothing! We leave nothing here and our evil emperor will have no new clothes to wear!"

"Ha ha, original! His clothes suck anyway!"April said.

"Like we'd want to leave them anything anyway!"Omei snickered.

The East Tower was stripped of everything by the time they were done and walking out that night.

North:

The North areas of Amphibia was mostly made up of large mountains or harsh environments. The volcano of Death's Eye Mountain and the Blood Swamps and Outskirts around it at the top were the most dismal areas

The North Tower was where the possibly deceased toad Lord Captain Aldo had resided. The vines covering his body had grown from where he sat. Andrias had demonstrated a laser blast on the North Tower moments after activating the Box to control his armies and the Castle.

There wasn't anything valuable for Marcy to work with on that front, but she went to the North to see what followers she could find and what damage she could do to this major area of mining.

The Third Temple under the volcanic Death's Eye Mountain was untouched except for some nearby Frobots trying to mine the mineral rich area. A force of HERCs and Frobots destroyed them and the Drill Frobots (Frillers) digging there and went inside the temple. The heavy weapons (and some heavier ones in hidden caches), construction and magical devices powering the place were retrieved. The means used to create the Gravity-force wielding Stone Monster guardian were now hers to try.

A very lucky find she didn't see coming was running into Sasha's old friend Sasha and Braddock on the road when entering the area near there.

"Hi there!"The pair jumped seeing Marcy standing with Ravager, Halley, several robots and other Amphibians.

Halley smirked widely seeing Percy's hat,"You do shows, buddy?"

"Ehhh … sure?"Percy answered nervously.

April said,"Hold up, Mars, these two were at the toad summit with your old pal Sasha!"

The two toads gasped.

"You're Marcy, the super genius clumsy human BFF of hers in that photo?"Braddock said

"Yup …"They weren't hard on her at all hearing the basic facts of her ordeal. She liked these two sweet toads and took pity on them while they swapped stories over the campfire

"Wanna hang with me?"She asked the pair quietly with her mask off, "Help me try and fix this and make it right? I won't make you … you can be entertainment if you prefer and not do anything you don't want!"

"Sure … we could use some happier stuff!"Percy shook her hand.

"Let me worry about Sasha … I'm still working that out for myself!"Marcy said, very tired.

Braddock snickered,"Yeah, she's like that …"

One stop was the prison of Torpor Heights in a mountainside near the Outskirts. In it some old enemies of Newtopia, Frosch and Great Bay villages were locked up. It was not a very warm environment, which made it harder for both the prisoners and guards to keep their strength up.

It was much more understaffed now, a minor amount of Frobots there with the sentries.

"Trust me … we might find some good muscle here for a price or motive, someone you can use!"Halley said to Marcy as they looked over the mountainside jail.

It took only five minutes to eliminate the guards.

There were only fifteen prisoners left. Sorting them out one at a time got a total of seven they could use while the rest were set free or added to their own prisoner list for further evaluation.

The two most surprising but valuable finds were Coatl and Lonnie.

Coatl was a tall albino axolotl just under 6 ft tall with wiry limbs and glowing bandages covering most of his skin that he didn't let anyone touch. You couldn't tell he was an axolotl underneath it. His external gills had long been cut off and he had burns from some past ordeal he never talked about. He wore large rose-tinted glasses over his eyes.

He was a part-time assassin known as the Killer Lightbug who'd haunted Mold Rot Forest for nearly 10 years and had a huge loathing of Newtopia and the nobles around the area. He'd wielded a lengthy flail tipped with a weighted ball that resembled a chigiriki (a Japanese flail) and a black iron boarding axe with brutal skill on many high-ranking targets or those who provoked him. He kept to himself otherwise and stayed out of larger conflicts. His defeat came a few years ago when he brought down a squadron of toads on him while he was sleeping once after he cracked the skull of a Frosch knight who insisted on challenging him to a duel.

"Promising … bring him out!"Marcy said.

Charlotte and the CGs led him into to the warden's office she'd commandeered. His bandages were dirty and his jumpsuit somehow spotless.

"Your name … is Marcy Wu?"He asked in a flat monotone of a voice after sitting down. If any of this bothered him, it didn't show. His mind was quite relaxed and non-hostile.

"So far so good. Let's test him."

"Yes, Mister Coatl. I read that you are quite the analytical fighter … what you can guess about me?"

"Scarring, burns and odd prosthetics or extra armor … covering recent traumatic injuries, no doubt. Wielding electrical equipment and undefined magical skills, and against the Newtopians, and your unusual bodyguards here claimed that you are a member of a a species from another world, which fits your appearance. Judging by the additional fact that my jailers are indisposed thanks to you, am I correct in stating you are at odds against the Newtopians?"

"All the way to the top, or … I should say, the top alone gets all my attention!"

He smiled, something he hadn't done in years. "Ah, the King? Your ambition as an enemy of the realm is impressive, young lady!"

She smiled back and leaned forward,"The King and … his predecessors. Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Define 'ghost' …"His eyebrows rose seeing the picture of the Core she handed him.

"Interesting … some kind of machine with many eyes … one that's not like the ones going around outside … and it's … in the Castle? Is it ancient?"

He whistled seeing the list of kings 'living inside' this 'ultimate creation' of the Leviathans, "That's a ghost alright … a lot of ghosts,a monster and an ancient machine rolled into one!"

Pleased he was interested, she asked"What's your enmity against Newtopia?"

"I lost most of everything over the years thanks to the corruption in that city … they wouldn't leave any minor detail alone once it got personal. Andrias was always way too sly for such a jovial newt, but sinister in some circles and now this …no wonder he employs the Rangers and now machines. I gather you want to hire me, yes?"

She smiled kindly and offered her hand, the first person to do so either of those things without ill intent for him in years,"I'm dealing with uncivilized threats in an age of chaos that could end this world and more … some mercenary recruitment with guys like you could help me stop the corruption down to the 'Core' to be removed even better. Do you want to be hired and set free?"

He shook her hand"I've got nothing better to do, and this … this is an opportunity to engage my faculties again to the fullest. I love doing that. I just can't stand being bored for too long at all. It's maddening."

"I know what that feels like!"Marcy said.

Lonnie, better known as the Ironhide Bane, was a large toad … very large at 10 ft. He'd had one natural growth spurt and claimed to have had two unnatural ones in his life.

The giant toad had intense black eyes (all black) and grey corded skin,was very quiet and never used any weapon except his fists and all-black armor he rarely took off until he got caught. His dark past was a relative mystery to most … but he'd taken to wearing his spiked black suit of armor and struck out on his own, not caring for most toad codes except single combat. He took the idea of fighting only those worth fighting to an extreme. He'd served as a bouncer, mercenary and assassin on several tough targets.

How he got caught was also a mystery, even to him, but it involved some magic curse and gas from someone in a hood. He suspected it was a Night Guard.

"You're a former Chief Ranger?"He said to Marcy after he came into the room. She used her best lie-detecting powers and equipment. Neither of these two top prisoners were being dishonest.

"Yes … if that bothers you, I won't judge …"

"No … you weren't that Ranger, kid … but,"He offered his grey hand to her,"if you help me find that out and …"he smirked,"have me around when you meet Beatrix or Bufo … I could offer you my services."

"Why's that?"

"Let's say for now … I have history with those two top jokers. I might want to slug some answers out of them."

"Maybe I should be worried, but they might like that, so ok!"They shook on it.

He got his black armor from the impound and put it back on.

Coatl got his old weapons and a trench coat.

Marcy used her best lie-detecting powers and equipment for sorting out who was being honest and who wasn't. The two of them had been very honest.

A tall lean frog of age 16 around Marcy's height named Veronica, who had pale green skin, stringy brown dreadlocks that reached below her neck, and crimson red eyes sat down near her home.

She lived in Mucklehead Marsh, an area of villages (around 3,000 residents before this) in a perpetually foggy area near the Boiling Bastions some said were haunted.

They struggled to make ends meet before and kept to themselves, considered cursed or dangerous with the eerie appearance the village guardians tended to have. Veronica's late mother had been one, and her daughter knew some magic and sword fighting from her. She'd made a decent living doing that with good skill and using exotic recipes and ideas to make good curse mixes.

But their villages had been razed to the ground in Andrias's army marching through in one raid. It was too much for her and the rest.

While Halley led a team to raid three vaults and outposts below the Boiling Bastions, capturing over 50 officials and several soldiers along with the loot, Marcy went to see this spot.

She saw Veronica and smiled.

"HI THERE!"The mechanical sounding voice made Veronica react in alarm and she threw an acid curse bomb at the sound.

Marcy evaporated it with a blast of fire, and whistled,"Dang, girl, AN ACID CURSE? That is so dark and excessive, but SOOO effective!"

"Who the frogging heck are you? Some kind of robot like those things working for Newtopia?"Veronica asked. Her raspy sassy voice delighted Marcy. It reminded her of several teenage girls of an African American style back home.

"I am the Cyberkinetic Witch, the NUMBER 1 public enemy of Newtopia, mistress of magic and all things tech and science related, and I use that all sooo much better than them!"The hooded figure wore a mask with green glowing eyes, metal fingers and the coolest spear Veronica had ever seen.

"Oh yeah?"Veronica said testily.

Marcy pointed to the distance. Veronica gaped at the sight of a cackling Bomme leading two Fryerbats and four Maraudbots in dealing explosive and flame actions on an entire fleeing squad of Frobots who were being chased by small bug-like drones.

The Fryerbats were several pounds heavier, stood at 7'0.5" and were reinforced with more armor than their original Fire Frobot design . These flamethrower types looked less like them and more like the SpaceCraft 2 version Marcy based them after: the Firebat unit.

Instead of a circular flamethrower on one arm, they wielded much heavier dual-pointed flamethrowers on both arms above their fingers. Their elaborate spacesuit style armor had bright red paint with yellow and white symbols of flames and hazard signs painted on them.

As a welcome similar addition, there was the artillery supplement of seven renditions of the similar Marauder grenade unit Marcy had made: the Maraudbots. They were the same height and painted black with grenade launcher arms and a heavy supply tank on their backs and white skulls and crossbones on their large shoulder pads.

Bomme loved these two types and had her own personal squad.

"It's about to get HEAVY!"The Maraudbot Bomme was riding yelled.

"It's been heavy and will be heavy, crush them all and bring them to me for parts!"Bomme yelled.

"You said the word, let's do this!"The Fryerbat lead unit agreed in the gravelliest voice Veronica had ever heard from someone not a toad. The massive flamethrower bots torched the closest ones while the Maraudbots blew the rest in only 6 seconds.

"How the … you …?"Veronica said.

Marcy giggled and gestured at her to follow.

She gathered up some of the other villagers. Others included the deformed but slippery Riggelloto, Bogster (a quiet giant frog who looked like a cross between Soggy Joe and Dave the taxi driver in hair/beard and build) and the balding Vizzini who lived by himself as an archivist and fisherman.

"What say you all come and join me down South? As a favor to you … I'll get any of your stuff back that's left and blow up the biggest base Andrias has around!"

"That would be interesting … go on!"Bogster said.

The next day, the main base of the area for the Core, a fort/factory called NS-4 (Northern Station 4) was still being manned and producing more Frobots for the army with the ores of the mountains nearby and every other resource being added.

"We need to take the systems down to render it inoperable!"Bomme said to Marcy.

"I think we can arrange that!"She sent her advisor into their systems, who proceeded to do it in a funny way.

Smarcy started playing a Techno beat

Marcy narrated for the confused Veronica and her fellow refugees,"This song is a TECHNO beat, a style of electronic music that focuses more on rhythm than words. With FOUR ON THE FLOOR BEATS, this is perfect for club dancing and … MAKING ROBOTS DANCE!"

"

Bomme, Braddock and Percy snickered as the angry owners and soldiers there yelled in alarm and anger. Marcy snapped her fingers and said,"Now, LET'S crank it up!"

To the further irritation and then alarm of those running the place, the lights all over started to do disco lights displays. Then the robots and assembly line parts started dancing and shooting each other and the place up with lasers and other weapons.

NS-4 blew up.

Any surviving Frobots (just 10) came towards them, still dancing with Smarcy coming out of their light displays above them in disco get up with glow sticks spinning in her fingers.

Veronica howled with laughter. "That's rich! I love it!"

What was left of Mucklehead Marsh were delighted to find half of their town's remaining goods (and more than double that) from three vaults of Andrias's that her other soldiers raided.

Their last big job in the Northern regions was looting the rubble and underground caverns of the North Tower. The armory and treasure vaults still had many intact weapons and valuables.

"Somehow, it doesn't surprise me Aldo's fort was the one to blow … he was already a plant-zombie something …"Andre commented as he carried a treasure chest out,"Bufo and the rest loved to joke about that …"

"Yeah, that he was possibly asleep or dead already and smelled like it … and it was either those plants growing around him keeping his body alive or something …"Greg agreed.

"Heh … well, he went out with a bang instead of a whimper …"Lonnie smirked,"you know …"he pointed at the tapestries and battle ledgers,"this would be good leverage if they ever complain."

"What's the price?"Marcy asked dryly.

"Simple, they fight me for the best stuff or pay their weight in gold!"

The other toads, frogs and newts found that hilarious.

Riding with Marcy, Veronica chatted her up and was surprised at her passion for magic and other odd things.

"You could be the first lieutenant of my forces if you want!"Marcy offered.

"Wow … no one's ever said I could do that … where this last stop or two before we get back to your base?"

"Oh that …"They turned to look at the approaching coasts," a stop nearby the last Toad tower standing unchallenged and a haunted island of sorts … one haunted by the oldest legacy of a hidden nightmare around here!"

Veronica said at once,"This I have to see!"

West:

Captain Beatrix was grinning a ferocious grin with more bloodlust than usual. While she was the toughest toad in Amphibia by common knowledge (even Grimothy acknowledged it), even she had to admit that fighting this new tech-level war was getting on her nerves. The failed rebellion had cost them a lot of troops.

The Barony of Frosch on its isolated peninsula in the Northwest corner of Amphibia had a large amount of frogs and toads living there. They looked to her forces for protection, which she begrudgingly provided.

Therefore, she felt totally justified in attacking the second biggest mining plant/factory in her Western territory on the Southeastern areas just across the Anura River in an area called Quaken Canyon. Her best and/or most bloodthirsty troops were behind her, including Bogs, Fern and Mire from the South Army.

She easily hefted two axes looking down at the sentries patrolling the edge of the very large building with Frobots. There was enough for her to have plenty to smash and enjoy herself. This walled canyon area was ideal for an ambush.

The Frobots turned their red eyes and cannon arms, getting ready to fight as the toads began to charge. But then they turned almost automatically to a signal alert and focused on something else. Indignant, Beatrix turned and blinked.

Three bizarre Frobots stood on the edge of the top of the canyon, one with white, militaristic paint and black stripes and pitch-black robotic eyes emulating a stormtrooper while the other had a forest-type camouflage pattern with yellow eyes and a jacket of vines draped over it like an Earth commando soldier in the forest. Tychus stood on the far edge … he made even less sense with no definitive frog-traits at all.

And in between them stood a smaller figure whose body was entirely hidden by a black/green robe as it peered down with glowing blank green eyes from within a hood. It leaned on a strange metal staff/spear(?) with blades on both ends.

"Oh DEAR, complications, what to do, what to DO?" The distorted voice was unmistakably female, and Beatrix knew who this was. Some crazy new rebel who was running around lately with her own Frobot army, though no one knew how or why.

"I heard some nutjob rebel was using Frobots of her own, but I got to say, those designs are whack! What's your name anyway? Behave and I might even let you walk away from MY fight on my turf!"

A mechanical sigh came out. "Captain, I'm focusing on TITLES, not names. FOR NOW, you can call me … 'THE CYBERKINETIC WITCH! The ultimate Mistress of Tech, Science and Magic in Amphibia and WITTIEST REBEL around!"

Her tech-aided dramatic words were good at selling a fearsome aura. Some of the toads were already buying it, but Beatrix just shook her head with a flat look.

"Are those even words? And how are you a witch?"

The witch groaned.

"Uuuugghhh, most of AMPHIBIA knows nothing about magic anyways, not much about science and NOTHING AT ALL ABOUT TECHNOLOGY. Let me be VERY SIMPLE … I can control science stuff and magic!"Her fingers sparked with neon flames," If you're thinking of fighting me, DON'T. You should be GLAD you're not MY TARGET today because it could be … MESSY. I've already wiped the floor with other toads, Amphibians and Frobots who aren't on your side at MY territory and the others uncontested! I even got free souvenirs from the other Towers!"

"The East Tower has nice tables and a lovely view of the ocean!"Tychus added.

Most of the toads snarled when they heard her mention the Towers.

"Are you saying you think we're weak and can do whatever you want in our areas and Towers?"Beatrix asked, glaring daggers at Marcy.

Marcy chuckled,"Awww, the toughest toad in Amphibia is worried about looking WEAK? That's funny! You aren't weak or stupid, Captain, far from it. And neither am I! I know you guys work, the savage warriors of Amphibia who are all about being strong. You've got bigger problems about what everyone ELSE thinks about you. You are the ONLY Toad lord with a functioning army and forts to hold down! I know ALL about your ambitious rebellion to overthrow Andrias and establish a toad regime. So tired of being servants keeping the other servants in line and you wanted to take your,"she used air quote fingers"rightful place as the rulers of Amphibia.'"

Tychus drawled,"Simple … so painfully simple but so passionate and inspiring for a revolutionary idea I would weep tears of joy if I had real eyes and then die laughing."

The other two robots chuckled

Beatrix's temper rose rapidly as Marcy kept criticizing their plan.

"A simple plan with a straightforward approach that was … workable, but it was an epic failure. The toad armies united with tens of thousands ready to fight. The leaders got inside the Castle while holding Barrel's Warhammer and your soldiers got inside the city, but …the entire attacking army lost hard against the King's hidden army of Frobots in less than an HOUR! Big Old Bufo's all locked up with several thousand lackeys. You weren't there, lucky you! Your little brother fled for his life and left the rest behind and is out having FUN down South with a smaller guerilla force. You have his short-lived replacement, the very hotheaded ex-bandit and tax collector Bog ,right there,"Bog sweated as she pointed at him,"and the North Tower and the possibly already dead Aldo got blown up in just one shot! To most of Amphibia, the reputation of the utterly defeated toad army is down the drain and NOT worth taking seriously. "

Marcy shook her head as they got madder,"Shame really, ALL that hard work of centuries holding down the forts and bringing the hurt down on Amphibia's enemies ruined on one bad day. There was no mighty toad army left to bother me or Andrias in any of your other three FORMER territories or the Towers. They were all under new management or wrecked! Andrias himself doesn't think you're a real threat to his plans at all now."

"If you ever were to begin with … he wasn't bothered at all by your 'angry servant' union meeting with cheap t-shirts, surly staff, and ideas for customized armor with the slogan 'toad up' and … duck logos on the back!"Tychus added. He cracked up,"I can't fully blame you for that design, it fits. You had to 'duck and cover' later!"

His two pals shook their heads with pity and chuckled with him. Some of the Frobots at the factory laughed. Marcy rolled her eyes under her mask.

"Don't look at me! I told Troy that customized armor design of his was stupid!"Omei said angrily to a cackling Bomme and Halley a couple miles away as they listened in.

"I know … so did I, but they wanted to focus on armor AGAIN instead of weapons!"Bomme said.

"Oh boy, I'm gonna enjoy our jokes about this from now on!"Halley said with glee.

"Like I was ever going to wear that dumb design?"Andre said flatly.

"The Captain liked it …"Greg mumbled in embarrassment.

"So did Beatrix and most of us that day…"April sighed.

"Look on the bright side, it wasn't YOUR idea!"Veronica teased the embarrassed toad soldiers who had liked it or weren't aware of that.

The toads got madder at the memory of their humiliating defeat and their mockery of them. Many hefted their weapons at Tychus.

He wasn't bothered at all,"Oh please, unless you quacks are better at throwing then ducking, don't embarrass yourselves more! I know how to 'jump and duck' better."

Beatrix considered threatening this witch with disembowelment and the robots with being burnt to pieces. But she was cut off when the masked girl glanced at her metal gauntlet which was beeping, "We could do DUCK jokes all day, I'm sure, but we're not here for that! CAPTAIN Beatrix, look on the BRIGHT side! You can always get back up and hit em harder! Show them all, take back what's yours, and prove that backstabbing jerk Andrias wrong! That's what I'm doing!"

She gave a thumbs up to Beatrix,"You're still the toughest toad in Amphibia, the only Captain still standing who kept her head clear and still had an army, weapons and fortifications within hours of that defeat! Not rushing in blindly with the rest was a GOOD CALL! ALL OF THAT is something to be proud of! No one else in Amphibia can say they did as well! YOU GO, GIRL!"

The toads didn't know what to make of her. First, she taunted them and now she was encouraging them and complimenting them?

Even Tychus threw in his support,"Besides … you're better than the poser trying to rule over all worlds using his Magic Box and cheap armies … what you need is to kick this revolution into Overdrive!"

Marcy spread her hands invitingly," If you like, for practice, there's a sizable squad of FROBOTS that has just been summoned as reinforcements for these guys, WHY not take them out instead? I'm just here to loot this one place of all its ORE and best parts and then CRUSH IT! Anything else around here is all yours to pummel and take back! I'll head back to my area and leave you to do what you want here and stay out of your way with respect as a fellow rebel against Andrias! Win-win, right?"

Beatrix was amused." That's a generous offer. I'm tempted to accept. This place is an eyesore that I won't miss! But you really think you and your minions there can do all that?"

The girl waved it off.

"Truth be TOLD, I've got more soldiers of my own to choose from … plenty right here already."Six Hunters, three Asurdroids, a few Driders, the Frost Knights, and several Marines and Maraudbots came to the edge of the canyon.

"It's literally shooting fish in a barrel at this point! I was just weighing my options first. How best to do the biggest smash and grab and look totally awesome while doing it. You know, the usual … decisions, decisions! Would just tipping the building over be boring or should we do a 'hit the guard in the head' contest with prizes?"

Beatrix and her troops snickered. The Frobots pointed their lasers at her but held fire.

Marcy leaned over and said," I'VE already decided, but just to be nice to you, I gotta ask: Any of you toads scared of giant WORMS?"

Of all the odd, crazy or stupid-sounding questions Beatrix had heard over the years, that was a first. Every soldier with her had no real response to that, and chuckled, stared blankly, exchanged looks or just shook their heads no.

The West toad lord rolled her eyes, "Not really, not even the narwhal worms or those massive Sandworms in the Eastern Deserts I've tussled with. Those are creepy and a PAIN to fight. Why?"

"Let's just say I've got a lot more than Frog-based robots with me, because …I will now," there was a long dramatic pause as the toads and opposing Frobots waited with increasing anticipation,"… RELEASE THE DRILLER!" That last part was very dramatic in delivery.

"The 'Driller'?" Several toads said in confusion. They had yet to see anything called that.

The Frobots assumed she meant the Drill Frobots used for mining.

She'd found a better idea from the Cybertronic films and had it finished while she set out on her trip. It had come tunneling on its test run through the Ruins of Despair already.

Seconds later the ground began to rumble. The Frobot guards scanned frantically and then heads turned when loud sounds came from the other side of the plant and then a metallic sound like spinning metal wheels came out as a large shape came rumbling through the ground near it, tearing through the earth.

Marcy elbowed her camouflaged robot subordinate and said eagerly," Yo, Corporal Sludge, care to say Shockwave's ONE-LINER for me?"

Sludge raised his arms and spoke in a distorted and bestial robotic voice : "DRILLER-BOT IS THIRSTY".

Beatrix began to feel just a bit nervous.

The robotic sentries themselves looked afraid. And for good reason, since a massive metallic mass of cables and exposed machine parts came twisting through the ground around the corner. Every Frobot on the outside came around and began firing at it with the factory's automated cannons when it got in front. But that did nothing whatsoever to stop it. They kept firing as it rose up and faced them.

A gigantic metal body of a mass of machine parts, several hundred meters long, with twisted and extendable cables all over its mass, and four tentacle-like arms in front of the head with huge double buzz-saw tips with extendable claws to grip with.

Contorting a flexible frame that had large blades sticking out of it, it faced them with a huge eyeless head that had a circular mouth ringed with saw-like sharp teeth inside.

With frighteningly rapid speed, it shifted its head to focus on the factory entrance where a dozen Frobots were clustered.

It let out a chilling mechanical roar. The blades flared up on its body like predatorial spines, its mouth began to rotate, and the buzz saw arms spun around. It lunged into the building.

Every toad present felt a chill go down their spines. Many yelled or screamed.

Beatrix said nothing and slowly backed away.

That … thing tore through the place. They saw Frobots get snatched by its "arms' as they tried to fight or run and got pulled back inside.

A Frobot flew above to try and send a signal with its radio dish,"Radioing Newtopia, come in, this is a top-level threat!"

No one should have heard that out loud, and they didn't. But Marcy heard and blocked the signal.

"Get that one for me, would ya?"She said over her comms to the Driller.

One arm reached up and grabbed it by the head and pulled it down into the swirling vortex of bladed teeth.

"All units head for-"A Frobot on the rear exit was snagged by a cable limb from the lower body of the Driller. It tried to hold onto the rails, but the cable started cracking its chassis and it was pulled in after the torso crunched like an eggshell.

Seconds later a different Frobot flew out and landed on the ground. Only its top half was intact.

Beatrix and Bog swallowed.

It dug into the building and consumed everything worth having inside and no security system lasted more than 5 seconds when it got close to them. Finally, it wrapped its twisted frame around the foundations like a giant python and squeezed.

Metal and stone snapped like a spine and the building collapsed.

The Driller chased the few sentries left who were now fleeing. Beatrix shivered as the last two were seized and pulled into that awful mouth.

The Cyberkinetic Witch glanced sideways as two more of her Frobots showed up near her spot on the walls, one of them painted red, wearing a red cloak with a black visor-style helmet look and hefting a huge white trident crackling with electricity. The other one had a skeletal look with red-eyes, grey limbs and a ragged grey hooded cloak on. It wielded an even larger staff that had club-like tips that also hummed with electricity. This one spoke as it held a severed Frobot head in its free hand.

"REINFORCEMENTS ARE ON THE WAY FROM THEIR NEAREST BASE, BOSS. ETA 3.5 MINUTES. YOUR ORDERS?"

Marcy shrugged and said, "It's all good, Magna-1 and CG-3, the good CAPTAIN'S forces can have their fun, let's BOUNCE!" She hopped on the giant worm's head as it rose up to their level with her robot followers and she waved goodbye,"You TOADS have fun NOW. Byyyyeeee!" They were off as it rode through the sand like it was water.

For several seconds, no one said anything. Beatrix loved a good fight, and she was the best at it among the Toad Armies. But even she didn't think she could fight that. She shook her head and quietly gestured at her troops to follow her to confront the patrol. It was cathartic and epic, but still seemed tame to what had just been unleashed on that factory back there.

On the bright side, she had a blast crushing even more of them and over ten different spots like that over the next week.

She kept notes on every report she heard of this new rebel afterwards. It impressed her and concerned her.

"She practically took over half of Frog Valley and looted the South Tower … in less than a month … and she raided Bufo's place and the North Tower's rubble with no one stopping her. Just like she said she did. They're calling her the most wanted criminal in Amphibia who could destroy everything!"Bog said. He was very afraid. That was his old territory she was lurking in.

"Yeah, Grimothy and Sasha are there … and they don't even know that yet … I'll send 'em a message!"Beatrix said.

She didn't want them unaware of the risk. This witch had done more damage than all of their efforts combined in a week travelling to all their old territories. Their scouts reported the Driller had started consuming several factories in the old Ruins of Despair area just outside the Valley exit days earlier. None were left by the time it was done.

Dawnblood Islands*

The Dawnblood Islands were covered with rocks that were all blood red, the trees were barren, and the local millipedes were snake-like. The Painkillerpillars had saliva with useful painkilling saliva that could mess with your head. Marcy harvested them and the other wildlife to take back with her.

The Castle on the largest island of the three (Rising Bloodflow) was gothic, ancient and broken down. Most people only came for the Gumdrop Gulch tourist spot on the coast, and not to see the Castle.

Dawnblood Castle still remained derelict in spite of the reactivation. The laser cannons barely moved and Smarcy shut them down. There were only six Frobots stumbling around, poorly made, up top.

Darius and Araya lead a force to crush the factories and fortified spots around Amygdala Woods and the Caerillain Coasts as a way to keep the enemy occupied while they did so.

She said to Bomme,"It's fitting … last time we were here, there were illusions and my eyes glowed green to open a secret passage … green magic I wanted to research along with spontaneous eye color change … and now-"

"You have that and can do more!"Bomme finished.

Once again, Marcy made her way to the secret passage and opened it up with her presence. This time, they were thorough with no opposition from a rogue Ranger or worse.

In the caverns and walls, the old inscriptions and texts were still there. They took photos of it all.

Veronica asked Marcy about this monster as their party went down,"The Core … who calls it that?"

"Andrias did … "She replayed his words.,"Behold, our ultimate creation. A collection of Amphibia's greatest minds, preserved for all eternity … Studying the Moss Man improved our medical technology. But it wasn't until we met the Shadowfish that we truly learn to conquer death. And thus, the Core was born."

"There were clues here before … let's see if we could find more!"Bomme lit some torches and they went in further.

Marcy's Wit powers and new robots helped their teams find more caves and vaults all around the Castle filled with crates of treasure, including those same coins.

One big find was a carving of eight newts arranged in a circle connected to a great orange eye. That same symbol had been in the basement at the time it tried to possess her, but Olivia and Yunan hadn't understood it.

Marcy and the rest began collecting this, taking pictures and reading notes.

"It started with eight of their greatest minds. The top smartest newts working for King Tritones, using the technology with experiments of Mossman and Shadowfish essence like Andrias said, were the first ones to merge into the completed machine. Over the centuries every ruler joined along with some of their other best minds to form a unified consciousness, all the way up to the last king…Aldrich,"Marcy read off one lineage name from an official history book,"Andrias's father. Dozens of minds supporting the Leviathans in their greatest creation for all time."

Bomme was not pleased to read the rest,"Some great creation! They consider themselves to be considered an immortal god transcending death and using all their knowledge and power together in harmony."

"That's a stupid design to look great with …"Coatl said scornfully.

"That's what I said!"Bernardo agreed.

"Why look so creepy about that idea or be so desperate with an idea to stay alive, after all this time?"Percy said, shaking in fear

Smarcy sighed"You hold onto something for too long, you don't want to lose it. And when you start going farther and farther on something, it's hard to stop … wait, what's this?"

There was a damaged paper with some burns around the edges.

Marcy picked it up shone a light on it to reveal hidden ink in Newtopian script. "The feared 'Olm Prophecy' … ohhh yes! This must be the prophecy Andrias and the Core fear!"

She recited it:

Three stars burning bright

Come from beyond to expel the Night

Should they fight or embrace the fall

Their choice will determine the fate of all.

"The Night … like the name Night Guard. These powers. Stars … this is all some kind of destiny!"Marcy said. But then she got anxious,"That means … I can't end that threat on my own! We need all three of us to decide."

"You sound reluctant, Marbles …"Braddock said.

"Ehhh, maybe … if I could deal with the Core on my own, it'd be enough so Anne and Sasha-"

Smarcy cut her off,"Marcy, stop that! How many times do we have to go through this? You don't have to spare them everything or deal with this alone! We've all suffered because of that thing, but none more than you!"

"I know! Don't push me on this!"Marcy retorted angrily.

"You're still afraid of it, aren't you?"Halley said. They looked at her. She looked quite serious, "I don't like this thing, and using a girl like you to cling to life like that forcefully only makes me dislike it more. That is not right at all. It needs to go down, but you shouldn't face it alone."

"That's worth fighting to the last for!"Andre said.

"Yeah … this is a good cause, we're with you, to save our world and yours and everyone!"Ravager said firmly. Everyone there agreed.

"I got a riddle for you, Marbles …"Smarcy smiled smugly at her wary boss," What falls, but does not break, and what breaks but does not fall?"

Marcy smiled,"Night falls and Day breaks!"

"Finally, an optimistic riddle that means something important!"Bomme joked.

On the way back, Veronica was flattered to learn Marcy had another creepy frog pal in magic.

"Maddie has a good code for using magic to help people and not abusing it. You should only curse someone if they deserve it … and we had such fun joking about magic and other things!"Marcy said.

"I like her already!"Veronica decided.

"The stones …"Marcy reflected on what each temple looked for when they'd gone to them,"my stone of Wit looks for intelligence and humility … check. Anne's stone of Heart looks for empathy and responsibility … big check. Sasha's stone of strength …looks for strength and persistence … also check. And ... if these stones wield so much power to be compared to stars …"She grinned manically,"oh boy. If we get this right … the three of us could be like a trio of anime space goddesses facing a demonic horror from below! I'm going to enjoy this alottt!"

"This will be so much fun!"Vicki said with equal glee.

"Whoo!"Greg yelled.

"That sounds totally epic and terrifying at the same time … ah well, what else is new?"Percy said.

They took every bit of treasure, info, and the best advanced or ancient technology there for themselves with no obvious trace of them being there left. To make it harder on the Core to find out, the doors and openings were locked and welded shut from the inside.

The six days out travelling had been well spent. Three Tower and former toad territories raided, over 15,000 Frobots taken out in battle or at their bases, several dozen factories and fortifications destroyed, over 1,000 prisoners taken and close to 8,000 Amphibians recruited from all over the areas. The liberated factories alone were a fertile area for gaining willing followers.

*Wartwood Resistance Lair-NOT AN OBJECTIVE*

Soggy Joe came in with Wally,"Good news, gang, we got over 40 supplies and the latest info!"

"There's even some wanted posters!"Wally said.

"Oh good,"Sasha smirked with pride seeing her face, Grime's, Beatrix's and her best operatives (Croaker, Maddie, Loggle) with 'Wanted dead or alive' pictures. Then she frowned seeing the new girl on the block.

"Hey, it's that weirdo witch rebel you guys saw. How'd she get that high on the threat list?"

The 'Amphibia public enemy Number 1' wanted poster had a picture of that same mystery from the bridge, the Cyberkinetic Witch.

"An entire city or valley of your choice as a reward to capture her or provide info on her base … an extremely dangerous criminal who could destroy Amphibia. Do not approach unless you're willing to risk your life or worse? What did she do?"Loggle said in disbelief.

Grime read off the list of charges,"Let's see. Mass destruction of Newtopian property and inflicting casualties in the thousands on the soldiers in the areas of Frog Valley, Mold Rot Forest, the Caerillian Coasts, the Royal Castle, and every single area the rebellious former Toad lords held except the Barony of Frosch; using stolen Newtopian war machines in acts of terror; springing dangerous prisoners loose to hire as bloodthirsty killers; enlisting renegade rebels and traitors from the Eastern and Northern territories to add to her forces; grand larceny of weapons, money, supplies and private property; abduction and suspected murder of several citizens, soldiers and leaders-"

His glowing eyes widened in horror reading one part."She captured the entire garrison, prisoners and supplies of the captured East Toad Tower and looted the lingering valuables and weapons from the rubble and underground caverns of the destroyed North Toad Tower!? You cannot be serious!"

"She did what?!"The Resistance yelled in shock.

Grime took a breath to compose himself and glanced at the last part. He lost it,"THIS TOP MENACE OF THE REBELLION IS SUSPECTED TO BE RULING THE REBEL HOTBED FROG VALLEY FROM THE SHADOWS WITH THE MAJORITY OF THE REBELLIOUS PEASANTS THERE AFTER LOOTING THE ABANDONED SOUTH TOAD TOWER AND ELIMINATING RIVAL CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD LEADERS AND MEMBERS OF THE BIZAARE BAZAAR NIGHT MARKET MOVING GOODS IN THAT SPOT?!"

The letter he got from Beatrix minutes later talking about Marcy's rampages she'd witnessed or heard of, and a jab that this rebel and one of her robots mocked his 'dumb toad revolution speech' and praised her as the only Captain who'd come out on top of all this with an army and fortifications that day while he had none of that was too much for him. He fainted.

"I'm tempted to be jealous …"Sasha said.

"You're totally jealous!"Ivy teased her.

"Maybe …"Sasha smirked and poked the senseless Grime with her foot,"I never made Grimesy faint."

They all laughed. That was priceless.

Beatrix laughed hysterically when she saw on Sasha's return message that her brother fainted.

"Forget being worried about him! This is even better!"She said.

Sasha and Grime kept an eye out for her even more but could not find a single clue. They started keeping an entire section of research on Marcy's alter ego in their strategy room.

Final Scene- Bomme and the Marcy's go Subdigital mode*

"This is perfect …"Bomme said, rubbing her hands eagerly at the new labs and factories, 10 of them, for her to work with at the main base.

"I know, right? All the tech to invent things with you could want as my chief Science Officer, while Andrias is stuck with the Core and Triple B!"

The pair laughed hard at the idea. The quarrelsome trio and a monster robot didn't compare.

Two vehicles put down for development from Spacecraft were a big success a few weeks later.

Siege tanks made peerless defensive and offensive siege units. The Cyclones, fitted with lasers and missile launchers, drove around at rapid speed while firing at air and ground targets alike with deadly accuracy.

HERC minerbots had heavy yellow/grey armor that was immune to acid, other chemicals and most explosive force. They carried drills with grappling hooks and welding guns as weapons and tools and served as Marcy's self-defense worthy miner units to do work in the Frog Mountains surrounding the Valley for ores.

The only aircraft for now was the Medivac Dropship with cloaking added to be both transport and medical aid for those being rescued. A special model of Medic Bots, Medivackers, was made for piloting and crewing them. They had blast shield scanners/targeting systems over their faces, checkered yellow and white patterns on their armor, and dual shields mounted on their waists.

"Hmmm … if only we had a cool theme song for our labs that fit …"Marcy said.

Smarcy had an idea while speed-searching for a few ideas,"There was an old retro tv show that might work … from the early 2000s called Codes of Lyoko …"

Marcy was entranced reading this,"The word is a version of the word 'Ryoko' in Japanese that means 'to travel'. Which is what some teens around my own age do in a virtual reality world called Lyoko with an evil virus using an eye symbol that resembled the Toad Army's logo … and the song is called 'World with no danger …' play it."

The theme song for the show played out, showing these kids fighting monsters in Lyoko and real life.

Here we are, going far, to save all that we love

If we give all we've got we will make it through

Here we are, like a star, shining bright on your world today…

Make evil go away …

"OMG THAT IS SO COOL! Marcy yelled.

The original French lyrics and the show in general interested them a lot.

They made the English versions their lab theme song and the French version a ringtone.

The bullseye-like Eye of XANADU Symbol appealed to them. It looked similar to Sasha's toad army symbol, a single white eye with one dot in the middle and two lines on opposite ends.

Percy, who'd designed that, pointed that out,"Check it out, it's like my design."

"Maybe we can use that!"Marcy said thoughtfully. Percy came up with a design for their own use.

This one was white and had three colored lines in the shape of starlight rays coming out of the bottom (from left to right green, blue, pink) without the original line at the top. They dubbed this symbol the Lyogo.

Many of their robots and the armor their soldiers wore had it on their pauldrons or chest plates.

The Siege tanks from Spacecraft made peerless defensive and offensive siege units.

Some HERC minerbots (welding suit armored guys) with heavy armor, carrying drills with grappling hooks and welding guns as weapons and tools, were made to start as Marcy's self-defense worthy miner and constructions units to do work in the factories and mine in the Frog Mountains surrounding the Valley for ores.

She and Marcy invented some Krabbots (Krabbs) and Manta Razers (or Mantas) that were based on two effective digital Lyoko monsters.

The Krabbs were almost the same as their digital counterparts. Seven ft tall, red, four giant legs, lasers fired from their triple eyes, and they could crawl upside down and up walls. They made them completely waterproof and able to go underwater.

For the Mantas, the lasers from the 'snout' could now also be fired with explosive force from their tails. They could spawn and release homing mines shaped like little skull mushrooms from a line of 'gill' openings on their underbelly at the front (instead of the underbelly 'hatch' the show ones had).

Most of the other show monsters were too dark or close to home (especially the Omegatanks, Spectres, and Meduse), silly-looking, redundant or weak.

One of XANADU'S robots used in a planned robot army made in Siberia to take over the world (but never got the chance to be deployed against mankind) was useful for a simple new Frobot model, the Siber-Bots. They stood 6 ft tall, had two sets of triple red eyes on their heads, a Lyogo on their chest plates, antenna with radio systems, and a laser cannon in their left hand. They were not much tougher than a Soldier Frobot and couldn't fly, but had better aim and scanning systems.

Their hauls from the Third temple and Dawnblood Castle aided in creating the next three.

A major artillery unit they added were the Volcashells, a video-game only monster. The bipedal and clunk robot had a turtle-like shell, and a hatch of a mouth that could shoot lava and fire attacks. They could act like catapults from a distance.

The red and blue Labsturs (redubbed Labstars), large lobster-like robots from the sequel 5th season with red and blue cannon claws (Vibe claws) that could fire energy and sonic blasts, were even better.

A single video-game boss unit called the Ice Spider in stage 2 mode was made with improvements. The 14 ft (?) tall four-legged being with a round central body could fire triple rows of ice-blue lasers from the front parts of its legs, along with ice orbs and explosive orbs of energy from the large eye on its head which could cover itself with the ice-like eyelid around it. It had shield generators that could cover the area below it or for 4 ft in front of it. There were smaller or hidden eyes and sensors on its legs and central orb body that could see in all directions, all spectrums of vison and sense vibrations underground.

It was mostly used as a base guardian.

The best idea was the final additions to the Mar Guards using the personalities and skills of the Lyoko Defenders (minus Belpois) with a bit of editing to create the very advanced Subdigitoids.

Marcy used heavily modified Cloak-bots bodies of a smaller size with humanoid dimensions and humanoid ( smooth and noseless) features.

The first two were based off of Ulrich Sterns and Odd Robia.

Sterns stood at a short height of 4' 8", wore samurai style gi robes in yellow and brown colors, had white skin and red eyes, and wore a yellow headband with a Lyogo in the middle of it. He was the fastest runner on land with a Super Sprinter power, a Danger sense that let him react to attacks at high speed, the ability to cloak (he alone had this) and wielded two katanas that could fire electrical slashes/beams with great skill.

Odd was … odd. He matched Sterns in height and his body had blue skin with yellow eyes covered by a purple body suit with glowing yellow patterns. His gauntlets had retractable claws and he had a purple cat tail and lilac cat face paint tattoos on his grinning face. His blonde hair stuck up with purple highlights. He rode a highspeed hoverboard he could hang upside down from with ease. For powers, he could summon lilac colored energy shields twice as good as a Shield Bot's, shot damaging and adjustable arrowhead projectiles from his wrists that could home in on targets, and climb up and down walls with his hands and feet.

For the girls, Marcy used the characters of Yumi Ishiyama and Maya Hopper Schaeffer to make three instead of two :Yumi, Maya and Hopper.

Yumi was 5'5" with shoulder-length chin bangs of dark hair. She had purple skin and wore her season 4 kunoichi-style outfit of a burgundy and magenta catsuit with daisy flower designs around the waist, but with large shoulder pauldrons two thirds the size of Sasha's red former red one adorning her shoulders with more daisies adorning them.

Maya stood at 4'9", wore a mix of her season 4 and 5 pink/white/grey outfits, had lilac skin with her signature pink cheekmarks and white eyes, and had small grey pauldrons with pink Lyogos on them.

Hopper, the extra addition, had a personality similar to Anne's and Maya's (nice with a bit of mischievous and moody), stood at 5'2", had shoulder length blue hair, and was dressed in a lapis-lazuli colored version of Yumi's outfit that lily pads in place of flowers or Lyogos.

One thing all three could do was summon versions of Maya's glowing angel wings (large ones with a wingspan of 10 ft tip to tip) if they needed to fly and get somewhere fast. Yumi's wings were maroon, Maya's were her original pink, and Hopper's were sky blue.

Yumi knew Ninjutsu/Penkat Silcat/Jujutsu/Kung fu, and she picked up five more in the coming months. She wielded a pair of glowing tessen fans she could summon with a flick of her wrists. They could deflect lasers and swords with ease and cut through almost anything when she threw them like boomerangs.

The gravity force abilities from the Second Temple allowed Marcy to give Yumi strong Telekinesis (or 'Teek') powers tougher than her namesake's that could move objects, buildings and other machines/people with her mind. As a bonus she could use it to direct her fans at targets with greater accuracy.

Maya was a genius at tech and math who could implant codes into electronics to deactivate or reactivate them to do their bidding and could sing alluring tunes that had a hypnotic and paralyzing siren effect on robot and living alike. From her hands she could create pink orbs of electrical energy that could take down all current Frobot models (even Cloak-bots or Tank bots) in one shot. For defense, she could form this energy into powerful forcefields able to withstand every standard or heavy weapon fielded by Andrias's army.

Hopper was programmed with knowledge of Ninjutsu, Tae Kwon Do, Muay-Thai, Silat, and Boxing fighting styles.

Her unique powerset let her fire sharp or explosive shards of energy from her wings called Sub Shards. They could explode if she wished. She could also unleash sonic blasts (she dubbed this attack Soundbytez) from her hands that could overload most Frobot's circuitry even if it didn't destroy them.

Last but not least was Dunbar, the tallest one with a height of 5'8". Dunbar's outfit had red stripe patterns on the biceps and legs, and a chest plate with a white Lyogo on it. His wrists had spiked greaves, and a mop of spiky black hair covered his head. A pair of glowing green eyes peered out.

He was the heaviest hitter who wielded a large black Zweihander of 6 ft in length with a white glowing Lyogo orb in the middle and green root-like growths decorating it.

The sword could send blasts and energy slices of energy and absorb attacks (even magical ones.

Besides that, he had a very powerful and versatile power called 'Super Smoke'. Using nanobot tech and some potent magic energy, he could fire green and black clouds of smoke from their palms that could knock out living enemies instantly and infect other machines to be hacked or destroyed from the inside. Concentrating hard enough, he could levitate himself or others with this power, break down into a cloud of nanites and magical smoke, fly at high speed through the air and reform into a solid shape. Thanks to this, he was virtually indestructible and could reform from these nanite parts if hit by massive firepower or be summoned back to life using the connection to Marcy's powers.

They also made mounts for the Frost Knights: the Acheron Chargers. These horses were Spectral but fit Pegasi whose bodies and heads she covered with spiked armor and made their manes and large retractable wings glowing with blue fire.

All six Subdigitoids were added to Marcy's roster of Mar Guards along with two pairs of the Hunters who'd done the best on the raid. These four Hunters got the rank of Swarmlord and seismic punching in their fists (courtesy of Third Temple knowledge) and glowing Lyogos on their arm shields.

Vicki requested that she and Charlotte join the Mar Guards. Besides the fact that Vicki thought hanging out with Marcy on missions was fun, the two had more than enough skill and success from the recent missions to qualify.

Marcy was so flattered at the idea she said yes right away.

This force of 51 elite protectors always had members on hand in the shadows or in person to keep her safe.

The Mar Guards had unparalleled authority over her robot armies and living soldiers, were completely cut off from any connection to the Core's robotics networks and could only answer completely to Marcy.

She had plans in the future to include Anne and Sasha for their services after they allied and ensured they all had a bit of Calamity power.

They also made mounts for the Frost Knights: the Acheron Chargers. These horses were Spectral but fit Pegasi whose bodies and heads she covered with spiked armor and made their manes and large retractable wings glowing with blue fire. Darius rode a black horse with extra large wings and a unicorn-horn tipped helmet. Bolvar's mount was blue, Nazgrim's was green, Toras's was red, and Sally's was white, and the rest were grey.

The Mothras served as aerial escorts for trips and her personal attendants with the maids in her quarters.

Since magic could also make magical creations or transfigure things, Marcy decided to test her growing grasp of wordless magic with her Calamity powers to experiment a bit.

The dangerous Shambling Mounds from C were mimicked in the Shambler monsters she made to care for and lurk in the restored swamps and bogs around their base. Walking mounds of algae, slime and plant life with a face of vines around their 'heads' that writhed like a mass of snake or tentacles. They could lurk under the water or in the trees or ground and control the plant life around them to great degrees.

The pretty Woodland Warders, enchanted guardians of elven areas, were added as tall Amphibian/humanoid shaped bushes with thick leaves and flowers covering their branchy limbs and vine-like growths that had thorns on them. Green eyes peered out from a head of leafy hair that covered a feminine newt-like face. They could use their thorn-covered vines to defend themselves and induce temporary sleep on living opponents, but Marcy mostly used them to tend to the growing gardens and farms she made.

"Olivia will love you girls!"She said while trimming a fruit tree with one.

"Of course … you're using your green thumbs well!"The Warder said in her flute-like voice.

Six days later, Marcy decided to try an idea to encourage everyone here and at least one other spot.

She chose Ribbitvale, the fanciest and richest town in Amphibia. It was the closest major city to Frog Valley, and the hometown of Wally Ribbiton of Wartwood. He was the son of Wigbert Ribbiton, the owner of Ribbiton Estate and Ribbiton's Ribbon (which made the finest web crusty floss for flippers in Amphibia).

That was one surprising detail that delighted Marcy to learn when researching all available family of the Resistance. It was also a place Anne mentioned she and the Plantars had visited on their way to Newtopia, close to where she'd done repair work on the Saint's Lake Bridge and a perfect high-class place with many connections to show what she was all about.

As a perfect bonus, a force of over 5,000 robots was gathered there while en route to the Valley.

"This is going to be a happy work environment …"Veronica said fondly while she watched the monitors while Bomme and Marcy got ready to unleash their song and dance attack.

"This is going to be good!"Braddock rubbed her hands eagerly. She'd enjoyed so many cool songs here already, and now Marcy was going to try something that would do Anne and Sasha proud on presentation.

Marcy looked at their BFF photo before they started and said,"Oh Anne, I'm thinking of you! All our cool dance parties and pranks and defeating evil with a good soundtrack and smiling … This song from your playlist… I'm playing it for you and everybody else!"

The fancy town was still intact and mostly untouched, but the Sheep-fly fields around it were gone and the foliage decayed or burned up. Factories, towers and robots outside the city were toxifying the land while others patrolled the city. As an insult to injury, most of the Frobot inside the city had gold or silver paint or amor attachments. The citizens there didn't feel flattered at that gesture.

Smarcy appeared in midair in a look she dubbed Daft M ( a Daft Punks look with the helmet, spiky blue anime hair going down her hair and a green and black suit/jacket with a Lyogo on the shoulders and gloves) and started one of Anne's favorite songs ('Holidays' by SMTOWN).

The Frobots and citizens swiveled to look.

Bomme (with goggles on) rode in on a Krabbot first with hordes of other Krabbots, her Maraudbot and Fryerbat squad, some Compact Archers, and other Krabbots, and some of the Mar Guards (the Strifebots, Sterns, Asurdroids, CGs, Magnas) following her.

The Frobots in the city swarmed out with the rest to attack.

Bomme casually snapped her fingers on her ride and flung a handful of vine bombs that exploded into her tendrils on the largest factories and construction bots. Her soldiers fired and sliced into the ground forces with chaotic but controlled precision.

Marcy flew down out of the sun for the first chorus on the back of a Manta using green energy straps to keep her feet in place and stay balanced. Her spear was on her back. Her mask was off for once.

Her hair, eyes, and face were glowing in enhanced neon green Wit mode to disguise her human face . Only her smile, glowing white like diamonds, was visible.

Swarms of other Mantas, the Driders in flight mode, Odd on his board, the Kawaiinichi, and several Reaperbots followed her down.

For an opening salvo, she conjured and threw a gigantic glowing green dice with both hands at high speed that bounced around like a pinball on the Tankbots and some Cloakbots in cloak mode. It bounced around, hitting all of them down with blows to the head. A Shield Generator Bot caught it in the clawed arms, the forcefield shielding it. Marcy smiled wider and pointed at it with both index fingers. The dice sent a surge of power into the Bot that made it send green lasers out the spikes on its back, destroying the laser cannon and factory it was protecting before it exploded.

She waved at the gawking citizens and gave dual peace signs before she did a barrel role through an attacking swarm of Dragonfly drones and left them exploding with an electrical shock wave that was so fast it was hard to see.

The Reaperbots, Driders and Odd took out a row of factories and flying drones and Frobots in a swarm in a dive run. The Frost Knight flew around unleashing bolts of blue destruction down on their enemies and buildings.

Smarcy danced and did her thing, lighting the air around her up with psychedelic colors and keeping the song louder than the battle. She jammed any signals to Andrias and hacked three laser cannons on road checkpoints and made them destroy each other.

Wigbert Ribbiton and Crumpet walked up to the walls to watch.

"Is that a stingray she's riding?"Crumpet asked.

Wigbert squinted,"Not quite … I've never seen one that color!"

His brothers Henry(an ex-military frog in in uniform with a long green head and white mustache), Bingam ( a tired-looking balding blue frog), his brother in-law Eli (a short fat frog with a scarf) and their wives and many kids followed them up first.

Before the first chorus was over, all inhabitants were watching from the walls. The k-pop song made no sense to them at all, lyrics or sound wise (except for the repeated word 'Holiday).

At the same time, it appealed to them.

"What does she hope to accomplish with this? She's the most wanted criminal in Amphibia!" Henry asked.

His friend Bogdon, a large toad with a top hat, adjusted his monocle,"Whoever this rebel is … she's sending a message and doing damage to Andrias at the same time. We're the witnesses to spread it."

"She is winning this easily!"Eli conceded.

"It's not just another battle for her. That song, it's a gift of sorts …"Wigbert said, watching closely. He was fighting back a smile.

"A heroic song, if I'm not mistaken!"Crumpet said. He was unconsciously tapping his feet to it.

"Very … dramatic and graceful …"Miss Palmer (a young frog with a pink frog and wig) said.

"Not enough, here come the reinforcements …"Bingam said sadly. He pointed at the mass swarm of hundreds of Frobots flying in from the West.

Marcy spared them a brief glance, shrugged, and held her right wrist up and fired a special arrow towards them.

It combusted in their midst and let out a shockwave that made their internal hardware explode.

The Ribbitvalian's jaws hit the ground.

Undeterred, Marcy and her steed focused on the area here and dropped mines that blew up three shield generator bots and six Tank bots in just four seconds. She high-fived Bomme upside down in the air seconds later and unleashed several volts of lightning that fried three squads of Frobots above her.

For the closing chorus of the song, her steed hovered in placed while she took her hood off. Her hair was glowing, three times its usual length and burning like a swaying green bonfire.

The sight was entrancing to the Ribbitvalians. It was so bright but not blinding to look at. They couldn't turn away.

Marcy did a formal curtsy with her legs, cloak and hands just like Olivia had taught her many times. Then she cracked her knuckles, lit green fires to swirl around her and danced with skilled dance moves of k-pop, shoulder pops, Batusi, pop and lock, head bangs, disco freestyle, arm waves and rolling her hands like she'd seen Anne do many times, smiling and shining like a radiant star in the sky. The sun and blue sky looked even brighter behind her.

While she danced, she formed the flames with her mind into the words- "Well met, Ribbitvale! I'm a witty poppin' lockin' fresh don't stoppin' hip-hop B-girl having a blast doing this renovation Andrias did NOT approve of! It's too quiet and depressing around here! Please keep being the fanciest town in Amphibia and enjoy this cool action scene with a soundtrack and a breath of fresh unpolluted air to add some sugar and spice into your lives! Hop to the beat or just enjoy your wonderful tea while I shimmy and shake on this beautiful day! Give me a tax-free smile from a safe distance!"

This original greeting/advertisement flashed in the air in blue, pink and green colors.

To make it even better, she formed a massive emoji above these words. A hand emoji was underneath the words, and a (in all three Stone colors) was above the smile. To the left of the words a hovered, and to their right a shook in tune along with the song.

All this flashed above her like a neon sign while danced.

The display of words and symbols stayed there for a full 10 minutes.

A gigantic blue, red and orange explosion of parts, remaining Frobots, laser parts and Boomshroom crates went off below her in large blasts and rose to form mushroom clouds.

The reason for that was Smarcy (her helmet faceplate displaying a ) spinning in a rapid circle below her, firing blue lasers out of her 'hands' that were coming out of two small circular devices hovering in the air masked by her hologram.

Marcy held her hands and face up to the sky at the end of the song and laughed with delight, looking as happy as a girl could be while saving the day and wrecking an army of evil robots to a soundtrack.

Wigbert smiled within seconds of seeing the curtsy and greeting line and started to laugh reading the rest of it. So did his family, Crumpet and the entire town. They applauded when the song was over.

It was the loudest disturbance in their quiet respectable area they'd ever seen. It made very little sense and was very unnatural. It was pure madness mixed with pure chaos. It was catchy, silly, whacky, hopeful and not bothering or harming them at all. This was meant to cheer them up and give them hope for something better. A Star danced in front of them, letting her rays burn bright with the sun overhead to drive away the Night from their lives a bit.

It worked.

Bomme clapped and gave a thumbs up along with the rest of their forces on the ground or air.

Their forces watching back at base laughed, cheered and clapped in delight.

"Amazing!"Percy yelled.

"Whoo-hoo!"Braddock jumped and cheered.

"That a girl!"Halley shouted with pride.

"Way to go, Mars, you did it!"Veronica said. She was going to accept that offer of being her lieutenant as soon as she got back.

A certain ghost at a nearby mountain laughed her undead head off.

Smarcy thought with relief,"This is perfect for her optimism to reach its peak … along with everyone else's!"

Marcy held her hands and face up to the sky at the end of the song and laughed with delight, looking as happy as a girl could be while saving the day and wrecking an army of evil robots to a soundtrack.

She gave a theatrical bow and said,"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, you've been a wonderful audience! The best one I've had yet! You are properly fancy! This poster did not exaggerate!"

She waved a damaged town poster in hand that said, "We spare no expenses on being properly fancy! That's why we're the best at it!"

They laughed some more and waved as she flew off after winking at them.

There was no way this was going to stay quiet. Every legitimate business contact of Ribbitvale, all the way to the Newtopians themselves, heard rumors before (and even after) they were ordered to not say a word.

"That was a good one!"Henry chuckled.

" I like her … she wants a happy ending with a song!"Crumpet said.

Wigbert tapped his chin,"Same, she reminds me of a certain friend of my son's who visited a while back and made a less noisy impact with a game of Beast Polo and kept talking about weird things from another world … things like those words!"

His friends and family agreed. They could see the resemblance.

The entire Newtopian operation around Ribbitvale was destroyed.

Andrias heard of it two days later when scouts investigated.

"No good … she's got Miss Frite with her … we'll have to press harder on her forces and send a force to reclaim Ribbitvale … no one must hear of this."

He recovered an intact Frobot head and got to watch the first part of the attack. It amused him.

"Showoff!" He smirked. He took his crown off and went into his private room, conveniently burned away of any Core circuits, and added this to a growing collection of things he was collecting about what she was doing all over the place.

He used the Box to send a Drone to Earth, only for a few minutes, to download their internet for their own servers, and had it come back.

The next day he managed to find out what their new logos and 'monster robot' designs were about by looking them up and laughed for a whole minute.

"I must use some of this … it's only fitting she has proper monsters from this to fight!"

He was enjoying this … fighting her. It was almost like matching wits in a game against her again. Even if he didn't win … he was going to enjoy this.

"I think we could use a train … for outside travel purposes …"Bomme suggested on the way back.

"Hmmm, and one that could do all-terrain … go on!"Marcy said.

The Portal alert concerned them, and after confirming their wasn't a robot after Anne, they realized Andrias now had some information.

"Welp, looks like we can expect a counterattack. Let's get ready for the next level!"Marcy told her expanded army.

*Veronica sounds like Cree Summers. Think Cree/Abigail from KND or Miranda from 'As Told By Ginger'.