A few hours earlier...
"And as if it wasn't enough that you ruined the party, now you're living here in Anne's house like a dirty scrounger!", Sasha practically shouts right into Luz's face with an extremely accusatory tone, just before Luz runs off in tears.
'Wow, that was almost too easy... Well, I definitely won't hear from her again today', Sasha thinks to herself almost proudly, 'Actually, I should make sure Anne isn't here later either. That could cause problems otherwise...'
Sasha walks back around the house again, coming back to the outside area from the side, where she originally left from.
"What happened?", she hears Anne ask.
"Maybe all this experience in this new world here is just too much for her...", Sasha answers her dryly.
"That was actually not the first time she cries so hard... I should talk to her", Anne concludes.
'Hell no', Sasha thinks to herself and grabs Anne's arm. "We'd better give her some time alone. She'll calm down and come out again eventually."
Thankfully, Anne agrees with her.
'There, I've managed that now too. Now I just have to think of something to keep Anne occupied for the rest of the evening until she falls asleep... Hmm, she's already eaten a lot, and knowing her, she always goes to sleep early when she's in her food coma. Maybe I could watch something with her on my phone that she will definitely fall asleep to. The sooner she nods off, the sooner I can get this over with'.
"Hey Anne", Sasha begins, "Would you mind if I spent the night? I'd hate to travel at night..."
Sparkles form in Annes eyes and she begins to squeal in excitement.
"Yes, yes, yes. We'll have a girls' night together... Uhh, I have the latest season of 'Suspicion Island' on my phone. I've already watched it a couple of times, but I just can't get enough of it."
"Sounds like a plan", Sasha replies, albeit with mixed feelings, just before Anne hastily runs into the house but comes back out shortly after.
"Sorry, but I had to tell Luz and Sprig the good news", Anne explains, having quite a bit of trouble keeping herself calm with her excitement and anticipation.
'How I missed seeing her so happy... And that's what I'm going to take away from her later...', Sasha sighs inwardly, 'Focus Sasha! You're doing this so we can get home. What's one sacrifice to achieve that goal?'
Sasha is abruptly pulled out of her thoughts when Anne suddenly puts her hand on Sasha's shoulder.
"Is everything okay?", she asks with genuine concern, whereupon Sasha jerks around the table and sees that she and Anne are not only sitting outside alone, but also that everything has already been cleared away.
"When did everyone leave?", she asks in confusion.
"Um, I don't know, ten minutes...", Anne answers hesitantly, "Is something wrong?"
"Oh no, everything's fine. I was just a little lost in thought... And apparently lost my sense of time, hehe.", Sasha replies roughly, just before Anne's smile returns and she gets up from the table.
"Come on then, let's go to the living room. I'll get us pillows and blankets", Anne smiles happily and enters the house, sprinting up the stairs to the upper floor. Sasha enters the house as well, but stays in the living room, sits down on the couch and strips off the top layers of her armor, as well as her boots.
After a few minutes, Anne comes running down the stairs, only this time fully loaded with several pillows and blankets. And apparently, she's already changed into some more comfortable and casual clothes.
On her way into the living room, she accidentally steps on part of one of the blankets that are dragging across the floor and loses her balance. Sasha reacts quickly and is able to catch Anne before she would have fallen face first onto the floor.
"Whew, thanks Sash. I knew it was an awesome idea to invite you", Anne says with a smile on her face as she puts the pillows in front of the couch, and the blankets right in front of them.
'Oh Anne, why are you making this so difficult for me?', Sasha just thinks to herself, until she suddenly notices Anne staring at her strangely.
"You're lost in thought again, huh?", she asks with a raised eyebrow.
"Um... I'm just thinking about when exactly I have to leave again tomorrow morning, so I can get back to the tower on time...", Sasha lies rapidly.
"Then I guess I'm not trying hard enough to distract you accordingly. Come here", Anne grabs Sasha by the arm and pulls her down to her in front of the couch before pulling out her phone. "I'm going to assume you haven't seen the latest season yet. I downloaded it just after it was completely available, just before we-", And that was already the point at which Sasha's thoughts began to wander. She hadn't noticed anything about the show itself. Admittedly, she never really liked it. That was more like Anne's thing. What she had noticed was Anne inviting one of the frogs to watch along, though Sasha was too much in automatic mode for it to bother her.
It took about four hours before Anne finally fell asleep. Fortunately, the frog went to sleep a while before that. Sasha isn't sure right now how long Anne has actually been sleeping, so to be on the safe side, she waits a little longer before she's ready to do what she was sent here to do.
Within the house, all the lights are off and only Anne's phone is still on, illuminating her slightly. The only other light source is dim moonlight, shining through the windows into the house. Dimmed because in the meantime a rather dense fog has rolled in. The house is pretty quiet and the only thing Sasha can hear is Anne's calm and regular breathing.
After another half hour, Sasha is ready to get up. As quietly as possible, she puts her armor back on, and her armored boots as well. If they were ordinary metal boots though, Sasha's mission would now be in pretty serious jeopardy. Fortunately, they are a special design, mainly used for intelligence missions, where noise, or rather the avoidance of it, plays a very important role, and the underside is therefore equipped with noise-absorbing material.
Sasha tiptoes toward the front door, but stops at a double door to the left, where she saw the old frog go in earlier. She opens one of the two doors, enters the room, and closes it again as quietly as possible behind her. When she turns around, she realizes that this is probably just a study. On the left side of the room is another door, through which Sasha also scurries quickly and quietly.
'There he is', Sasha thinks to herself, as she sees the old frog lying in his large bed, with his back towards the window. Right next to him lies a rather large book, but it happens to be lying in such a way that Sasha can't make out the title, even if she would care. She creeps around the bed to the window.
Slowly, she reaches into a boot with one hand and pulls out a small knife, holding it tightly in her hand. She looks at it rather intently for a few moments.
'Can I really do this? Can I really take someone's life just to find a possible way home?', she asks herself and simply takes a very deep breath. 'It's too late to back out now'. She just holds the knife tighter in her hand. Her pulse rate quickens.
"I'm sorry", she whispers, just before ramming the knife into the old frog's back. Hop Pop wakes up immediately and has the urge to scream in pain, but he can't make a single sound. With all his strength he tries to find out what is causing him such pain. His eyes meet Sasha's, who is also trying with all her might to keep her composure. She stumbles back a few steps when she sees the absolute fear and terror in his eyes. Though he can't speak right now, his eyes say so much more.
She approaches him again, grabs him by his collar, and drags him out of his bed. He himself, especially with the knife still stuck in his back, no longer has the strength to move himself, let alone free himself from her grip.
Sasha looks at the bed and sees how it is already turning red from the blood. She drags him, with his face to the floor and as quietly as she can, to the front door. However, as she tries to open it quietly, a strong gust of wind throws it open with a loud noise, and mere centimeters in front of her face.
'Fuck', Sasha thinks to herself as she realizes that her plan for a silent and undetected escape is now out the window. However, when she hears a noise from inside the house, she dashes out of the house into the thick fog, as fast as she can, with the dying frog in her grip, hopefully right before anyone realizes what exactly has happened and that she left.
After only a short time, she arrives in the center of the village, which is well lit by towering torches, despite the tight fog. In the center of the place is a stone pedestal with a flagpole set up in the middle.
'Hmm, I could position him right there and put the poster right next to him...'
Before she can continue her planning though, she can hear footsteps approaching her rather fast from behind.
"SASHA!", she hears someone yelling in fury. It's that Luz, who Sasha actually thought had already taken care of. She sounds like her blood is about to boil.
'Maybe I can repeat my little trick from earlier…', Sasha thought to herself confidently, before stopping in her tracks and just letting Hop Pop fall to the floor, who is letting out a painful pant in the process. Slowly and dramatically, Sasha turns around, trying to intimidate Luz in the process.
"Oh Luz...", Sasha teases, "I was so hoping that you would-", but stops abruptly when she sees that Luz is not the only one facing her.
Sasha's gaze falls immediately on Anne, who is kneeling on the floor next to Luz, crying, completely broken, with her hands held in front of her mouth. Absolutely devastated and uncomprehending, Anne looks up, straight into Sasha's eyes, and straight into what's left of her soul.
'Oh no, Anne... I tried so hard to prevent you from seeing this...', Sasha thought to herself at that moment, as her own gaze falls from her devastated best friend to the old frog, knife in his back and bleeding onto the ground, lying motionless next to her metal boots.
When suddenly two fireballs fly just past her head, her gaze snaps back to Luz, who runs screaming directly at her.
"YOU KILLED HOP POP!", she screams. Sasha has just enough time to take a hidden retractable sword from her cloak, before Luz nearly pierces her shoulder with an ice blade of her own.
Sasha sprints towards Luz, leaping onto her chest, and catapulting herself backwards with a backflip while Luz stumbles backwards herself and falling to the ground.
Sasha walks toward Luz, who is kneeling on all fours on the ground, with her sword drawn menacingly.
"Leave! This is not your fight. This is none of your business"
"You bet it is!", Luz suddenly looks up smirking as suddenly two thorny vines shoot out of the ground right next to Sasha directly towards her.
'What the fuck...', she thinks to herself and cuts through both vines expertly.
Luz stands up and, seemingly out of nowhere, suddenly throws massive icicles at Sasha. She can only dodge them with major difficulty, until suddenly a fireball hits her directly in her back, knocking her to the ground.
Her cape completely bursts into flames, and Sasha throws it to the ground. But not before she brings out a second retractable sword.
Luz continues shooting icicles and fireballs at Sasha in turn, which she easily dodges this time before sprinting towards Luz, swinging her sword and gives Luz a minor bleeding scar, right below her eye.
"Give up already!", Sasha demands, as Luz lies on the ground again.
"Never!", Luz screams, smashing two fire glyphs against each other and creating an explosion that hurls both girls apart from each other.
While Luz continues to attack Sasha with unprecedented aggression, and she tries to dodge and counterattack, when possible, Anne hasn't moved the slightest bit from her position. Her gaze is fully locked on Hop Pops body. When she recognizes slight movement on him, she charges forward hastily, coming to a halt right next to him.
"Oh my god, Hop Pop?", Anne cries in a broken voice. With all his remaining strength, he opens his eyes and his gaze wanders across the floor up to Anne. Strained, he tries to smile.
"A-Anne...", he whispers softly. Anne takes Hop Pop's hand, which is lying next to his head.
"I'm here...", Anne sobs, while her tears don't stop flowing. Hop Pop's eyes get wet as well.
For a moment, the two of them just look deeply into each other's eyes.
"I... I don't want to believe it's going to end like this... There's still so much-"
"Shhhh", Hop Pop softly interrupts Anne, "You... will still... have many... adventures... You'll ugh... grow up... and someday... go... home..."
Anne's sobs only get stronger and she just holds his hand even tighter.
"Anne... ... I... love... you... ... like... my... own... grand-daughter...", and with that last sentence, his body goes completely limp, and Anne breaks down loudly crying again, all over him, louder and harder than ever before.
"Nooo... no no no no no no no...", She can't understand it. Hop Pop was by far the nicest and kindest person she had ever had the pleasure to know. When everyone wanted to hunt Anne down when she arrived in Amphibia, he took her in. He always did everything in his power to take care of her, as if she was a part of his family. A part of his heart... An incredibly kind heart that was brutally torn apart...
By Sasha... Her best friend, the one she invited over, the one she trusted... She killed him, she violently ripped him from her life...
Anne's initial grief, now slowly turns to anger, hate, and fury. Heartbroken, she looks up from Hop Pop, directly at Sasha, who has just sent Luz once again knocking her down to the ground.
Her vision begins to become blue, the blood in her veins feels like it's beginning to boil, and with every second her furious panting intensifies.
In the meantime, Sasha had beaten Luz so badly that when she went down this time, she didn't have the strength to get up again, no matter how much she wanted to keep fighting. Besides, it's quite possible that Sasha broke a few of her bones, while Luz just managed to demolish Sasha's armor. A lot.
Standing triumphantly, Sasha is standing right in front of Luz when she sees something glowing out of the corner of her eye.
Cautiously turning around, she spots Anne, who is... glowing?
A luminous blue aura envelopes Anne as she lifts herself up from the ground. Her hair bursts into a brilliant fiery blue. The leaves in her hair are multiplying and the twigs are growing. Anne's eyes are turning blue as well, but not only that, there are blue flames erupting from them.
With clenched fists and clenched teeth, she shoots Sasha a deadly glare, and for the first time in her life, she is terrified of Anne.
"A... Anne?", Sasha asks in a shaking voice, right before she takes a anxious step backwards.
At the same moment, Anne steps off, heading straight for Sasha. She continues to back further away from her. The closer Anne gets, the more apparent becomes the pain, grief, and rage in her eyes.
Anne begins to run and Sasha immediately spins around and runs away from her in increasing panic. That is, until a powerful blow directly in her back, causes her to be launched forward uncontrollably for several meters, where she hits the ground face-first. Agonized in pain, Sasha rolls over onto her back, watching Anne come running at her again, with superhuman speed, and rage beyond control.
Unexpectedly, Anne stops right in front of Sasha, grabs her by her chest plate and lifts her up with ease so that her feet no longer touch the ground.
"Anne? It's me, Sasha. Your best friend...", Sasha's voice as well as her whole body are shaking, as she is truly scared for her life.
"Friend?", Anne speaks, but in a deeper and more distorted voice than normal.
"YOU stopped being my friend the moment you attacked my family!", Anne punches Sasha in the stomach area, and she hurls again further backwards.
"YOU KILLED HOP POP!", Anne leaps high into the air, her fists clenched together and Sasha is barely able to roll to the side before Anne strikes the ground and now there is a crater where Sasha's head was only a moment ago.
Stunned, Sasha stares at the crater just before Anne's fist lands a direct hit in her face and she is knocked to the ground once again. Her entire body aches in pain, like she's never experienced before, and on one of her eyes, Sasha can no longer see anything.
Laying helplessly on her back with her armor partially cracked and severely damaged, Sasha remains on the ground with Anne standing directly in front of her. She points one of her swords directly at Anne. She had lost the other one earlier.
"Please... Please have mercy on me...", Sasha pleads desperately, but realizes by looking into Anne's eyes, that she is already dead. Anne kneels down directly in front of Sasha, the tip of the sword barely centimeters from her face. She grabs the blade with her bare hand, and lets it shatter into pieces right in front of Sasha's eyes. She stares at it in disbelieve.
"YOU STABBED HOP POP IN THE BACK WHILE HE WAS ASLEEP, YOU… DON'T DESERVE ANY MERCY!"
Sasha squints her eyes in painful anticipation as Anne stands up and lunges for what is probably a final blow.
"Ahhhh... What the...", Sasha hears Anne say in sudden confusion before cautiously opening her one eye again, and seeing all the blue on Anne flickering. Anne's legs suddenly give out, and moments later, Anne falls to the floor, unconscious, and completely drained of all her energy.
Succumbing to the shock, Sasha takes a few moments to realize what just happened. Anne has transformed from the massively intimidating woman, back into the frailer girl who used to be her best friend, who now lies unconscious next to Sasha's now shattered remains of her sword.
With extreme effort and severe pain all over her body, she tries to stand up. She looks once more at Anne, and also once more in the direction of Wartwood, where Luz is also still lying exhausted on the floor about ninety meters away, and flees from the area as quickly as she is currently able to.
A considerable amount of time passes before Luz regains her strength, and is able to get up and begin to assess how she is feeling physically.
She immediately notices that her ribs hurt, as well as one arm, which does make getting up no less tedious. The wound under her eye is bleeding, as is a small laceration on the back of her head.
Luz catches sight of Anne in some distance, and slowly limps towards her using Owlbert as walking aid. She has seen the fight between her and Sasha in its entirety, and to say that Luz was not intimidated by Anne's appearance, would definitely be a lie.
Arriving next to her, Luz kneels down next to Anne.
"Anne?", she whispers. Anne startles, but calms down just as quickly when she notices Luz next to her.
"Luz, she's gone...", Anne tells her, her voice sounding broken.
"I know... I couldn't stop her...", Luz recounts, whereupon tears begin to break out on Anne's part.
"Hop Pop...", Anne sobs. Luz immediately understands, and despite her own injuries, helps Anne get up. The first attempt ends unsuccessfully, with Anne falling back down, but the second one succeeds.
They support each other as they slowly walk back to the center of the place. In the meantime, the sky has already lightened a bit and a new day has dawned, which means that a few scattered villagers can see the two girls limping through Wartwood.
When they arrive at the stone pedestal, Anne is the first to break down crying loudly next to Hop Pop, who lies completely motionless in the dirt, his clothes soaked by his blood. Luz, however, can't hold back her tears either.
More and more inhabitants step outside, pulled by Anne's crying, until a dense, wildly whispering cluster of frogs has gathered around the two girls.
Among the residents is Sprig, who carries Polly in his arms. His face slips away completely when he sees Anne and Luz mourning and crying over his grandfather's body. Polly feels the same way.
Luz notices him and they look briefly, yet meaningfully, into each other's tear-streaked eyes. Luz shakes her head.
"No...", Sprig whispers, tears already streaming down his cheeks and along with his sister he runs to the two girls. "No no no no no", he repeats over and over as he runs. When he gets to them and sees the knife in his back, both he and Polly completely break down.
"Sasha?", Sprig asks the two human friends in tears. Anne and Luz nod.
"But... But we had a plan... Why didn't it work?", he asks uncomprehending to no one in particular.
"By the time I noticed her, it was already too late.", Luz answers in a broken voice. Sprig looks at her.
"Luz, your face... You're bleeding…", he notices. "What happened? Where is she?"
Before anyone would be able to tell what happened, Maddie suddenly joins the grieving family. Luz is the first to notice her.
"Maddie?", she asks, at which point the others look up at her as well. Her gaze, however, is focused on the lifeless body among the grieving ones.
"How long has he been dead?"
"WHAT?", Anne asks incredulously as she wipes away a tear.
"How. Long. Has. He. Been. Dead?"
"Why does that matter?", Anne asks, still aghast at Maddie's insensitivity.
"Because it might not be too late to bring him back", Maddie explains, sending all of them straight into state of shock. "So, how long?", Maddie repeats her question once again, but more urgent.
"An hour. Maybe two", Luz guesses.
"Good, I can work with that.", Maddie says, sounding pretty convinced of herself, "Luz, could you maybe do something about all these spectators? I can't work with that many people watching."
Luz pulls out the remaining few ice glyphs and uses them to create an opaque, hollow ice dome, several meters in diameter, right around them. Anne, Sprig and Polly are still pretty rattled, Luz on the other hand is surprisingly lucid.
"Luz, come here, you need to help.", Maddie demands, kneeling right next to Hop Pop. "And the rest of you, please keep a little distance".
"What do you want me to do?", Luz asks with a serious tone. Maddie pulls out a few small pieces of paper from her shoulder bag and hands them to Luz.
"Take these. Hold one of them up to the knife and then put the other one directly on the wound while I pull the knife out. I'll explain later."
Luz does exactly what Maddie told her to do, while the others just stand by and try to understand what is happening.
"I'm going to count to three, then pull out the knife and you activate the glyphs. Got it?", Maddie asks, to which Luz nods. "Okay... One. Two. Three."
Maddie pulls the knife out of Hop Pop's back and places it next to her, before Luz activates the glyphs. Hop Pop's back begins to glow slightly green and the two girls watch the wound close. Maddie pulls out a few more glyphs, which she gives to Luz.
"Here, for your own wounds.", she explains.
"These... are healing glyphs, right?"
"Almost right. These are regeneration glyphs. Only work on organic matter and only on wounds.", Maddie explains, whereupon Luz places one glyph on her torso, one on her injured arm, and the last on the laceration on her head. The wound under her eye is not quite as critical.
Hop Pop's back stops glowing and Maddie turns to Anne.
"The wound is closed, but he's not alive again yet. For that, we need to get him to one of my hideouts, and we need to do it fast... Anne, can you help me carry him?", Maddie asks, but Luz interrupts her before she can even respond.
"We'd be a lot faster if we're flying there.", Luz says, just before she pulls out her staff, readies it for flight, sits on it, and now just hovers in place.
"Impressive", Maddie says. Luz takes Hop Pop in her arms and sits on the staff with Maddie.
Before Luz can take off, however, Maddie once again turns to Anne, Sprig and Polly, whose tears are still flowing.
"Please go home. I'll come right back to you as soon as I have any news. I promise.", Maddie says sympathetically. Anne, speaking for everyone, nods in agreement, before Luz just moments later, breaks through the ice dome with her staff, causing it to collapse completely.
"Maddie's right. We should go home...", Anne says, still grieving. Sprig and Polly silently agree with her.
Before she leaves, however, two objects catch her eye: the knife and a poster. She takes both of them and follows the two siblings back to the Plantar farm.
Far too many hours later, at the edge of the forest near Toad Tower...
It felt like an eternity that Sasha had been running through forests and fields. Fortunately, so far, the adrenaline had prevented the pain from hindering her too much, however, that is exactly what is gradually wearing off more and more.
The fact that Sasha can now only see with one eye, does not make the situation any easier for her. Nevertheless, she feels absolutely relieved as she spots Toad Tower in the distance. Well, she would normally be, but considering the events of the last night...
With each step, Sasha becomes increasingly weaker and more tired, requiring more and more strength. She is also falling down increasingly more often, a sign that she will not be able to endure this ordeal much longer.
The last hundred meters she only manages under great agony, but when she reaches the big gate, she lets herself fall against it with her whole bodyweight. She knocks several times with the back of her head.
The door opens behind her, and she falls directly to the ground, without the slightest effort to support her fall.
Her vision blurs, she only perceives the silhouette of a toad bending over her.
"CAPTAIN GRIME!", the toad yells, and that's the last thing Sasha catches before everything around her goes dark.