Ch. 1 Wit is Unleashed
"It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable."-Seneca the Younger
"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."-Leonardo da Vinci
"Reach for the stars, you just might become one!" — Unknown
It had all come undone so tragically for Marcy Regina Wu in Newtopia. Not only had Sasha done her worst scheme yet and Andrias revealing himself to have plans of world conquest and betraying them all, but Marcy had a hidden, awful secret of her own. She had deliberately gotten them stranded there out of desperation and tearfully tried to explain. Her friends were horrified and all looked lost.
To make it worse, Andrias crushed sweet lovable Frobo, threw Sprig out a window, and stabbed Marcy through her chest as she opened a Portal to Earth.
Anne and the Plantars were sent to Earth while Sasha and Grime went on the run. Poor Marcy was put into a rejuvenation tank for a sinister purpose.
You know how this story goes.
However, while Marcy was setting up the box to transport Anne back home in a desperate attempt to make up for her mistake, her work with the Box let it sense her inner being. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Anne's powers had just manifested,and Marcy was right now desperately focusing her own deep affection she still had for her friends despite everything and that they still felt in their hearts for her. It went unnoticed by everyone around.
However, there was a being , more akin to a deity, who did notice. The Guardian of the Multiverse was an entity who watched over the infinite multiverse. It observed this event with its creation, the Calamity Gems. The Gems had been a tragic experiment 10,000 years ago to see if any mortals could handle such unlimited power, and one day take its place. The royals who abused these stones and eventually became the abomination known as the Core had twisted their purpose in every way possible, and tragically no Amphibian hero had done the correct course of action with them either. Thus the necessity of the true bearers of this power who would one day come from a different world to end this abuse of power.
The multiverse is a complex concept. It not only had different versions of life, such as a world ruled by sentient amphibians as opposed to humans, a realm of demons and witches, dimensions governed entirely by rules of chance or concepts of living as 2nd-dimensional beongs or other dimensions of perception, but different timelines. The same types of species and worlds, but with differences defined often by a series of choices, or even just one.
This is just one of endless choices for the story of Amphibia.
One timeline had already been won for all of the main characters with an eventual successor for the Guardian. Anne willingly took on all the power selflessly to end the Core's threat as the first person to do so in 10,000 years. The Guardian had plenty of time to think and observe while it waited for that, so it did.
The Guardian felt the connection Marcy Regina Wu made. When she connected with the Gem's energy, it recognized a quality related to the purpose of why these girls matched the qualities meant for the bearer. For the Gem of Wit, the qualities were meant to reflect both intelligence and humility. Marcy was a highly intelligent savant, mastering a lot of knowledge and facts from both worlds with little effort. She loved learning things, life and her friends.
However, she was super oblivious, obsessed with her interests, clumsy and poor at social skills. It was her fault they'd gotten trapped on Amphibia.
In spite of that, when realizing her errors, she showed great humility and strove to make amends for errors of hers. What could've been her last potential act and final words had been to think of a plan as quickly as she could to try and save her friends and apologize … that's who she was at heart, a nice humble genius.
Ashamed and appalled at her betrayal of her friends and how she was betrayed, she not only saved Sprig's life right away, but apologized with what she thought were her final words. Her qualities were ideal for humility and intelligence in someone so young, just as Anne had been steadily growing already as a friend and more responsible young woman. That was someone still worthy to hold the power of Wit.
While the Guardian could act childish and a bit inconsiderate towards mortals, it did understand the nature of the Gems better than anyone else. Focusing on this, it homed in on the poor young girl at this time in her life and took a closer and more personal look at what had happened with the connection to her.
Thankfully, she was alive, but close to death and her hope for life was now in the hands of a king who was unwillingly handing her off to a living nightmare that was going to … "use" her.
Anger filled the Guardian. It hated anyone who misused the Stones. The Core was the worst offender in Amphibian history.
It now had a deeper understanding of Marcy's pain, one it had seen play out if that possession happened and could've ended so much worse than it did. It had ended worse in many timelines or with more pain and scars for everyone.
She'd earned her place as the Stone's inheritor first and was remorseful and ready to make amends before the Core got to her. That possession set her back months on that and left her trapped in her head without full access to her memories while the Core used her body and mind.
The Guardian saw a chance to make up for the pain its experiment for a successor, a very selfish experiment, had forced her into. It also saw an opportunity to both thwart her possession from ever happening in the first place and give the other two Stars a better fighting chance at ending this charade in one different form of this timeline with a chance for a less damaging outcome on both worlds. And perhaps … in the future they could be useful for dealing with other messes in the future in the services of the new Guardian.
A latent defense for Marcy was laid in her body, one tied to the Music Box in the event of foreign invasion inside of her.
After Amphibia was being reduced to a stripped wasteland, Lady Olivia and General Yunan hatched a plan to save Marcy. She was their best chance to thwart Andrias, given her intellect. But they were thwarted.
Andrias appeared,"Leaving so soon? But we have so much to discuss!"
There really wasn't much to discuss at all.
"But how did you …?"Olivia asked in fear.
"Simple. We've been watching you the whole time."
His master, the Core, the Night, an unnatural Thing that would not die, a collection of Amphibia's greatest minds preserved for all eternity in unified consciousness (etc.) crawled out to peer down from the ceiling behind him with seven large orange eyes with lighter orange/white slit pupils. A horrible mechanical screech came out of its unseen mouth.
"What the heck is that?"Marcy was grabbed on the head by the creature,"AAAHHH! WHOA!"
"Marcy!"Olivia and Yunan cried out.
Andrias barely reacted and acted like a curator displaying a national treasure,"Behold! Our ultimate creation. A collection of Amphibia's greatest minds, preserved for all eternity."
"What are you doing, Andrias?!"Olivia screamed.
"Stop it, you maniac!"Yunan demanded.
He didn't. "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 …"
The Core put her into a fiendish chair composed of cables and metal and restrained her into it.
"Let me go!"Marcy screamed. The terrified girl had just woken up from one bad dream into one bad day was already devolving into a living nightmare of the worst kind.
Andrias said,"I wish I could. But my lord craves a Host. And it wanted the best, the smartest, the only one who could beat me at flipwart."
Marcy gasped in horror. Olivia blanched … she'd only just said to Yunan that Marcy was the only one who could do that.
Andrias had no words of comfort, only regret," Honestly, Marcy, I like you. Always have. I begged the Core to consider an alternative Host, but... alas."
"What...? What is this? Huh?"She looked up to see a horrible helmet being lowered towards her head.
Olivia and Yunan watched in fear and horror as that helmet was lowered onto her skull. A surge of energy into her body and the welding like process to her body made her scream in agony as the Core tried to download itself.
Andrias was unable to make himself watch. He didn't want to. He liked the cheerful girl who had wowed the entire city with her intellect and love for life and had no desire for her to be reduced to this.
This time, the story went differently.
Before the process could be completed, the failsafe planted by the Guardian activated. In another room the Calamity Box glowed.
The energy surges suddenly and unexpectedly fizzled out.
The Core's hideous eyes widened in surprise. Yunan and Olivia gasped. Andrias turned to look in astonishment.
"What's going on?"Yunan whispered to Olivia.
"I don't know …"Olivia whispered back. They glanced at Andrias. He clearly didn't know what was going on.
The Core tried continuing, but nothing happened as it jerked its tentacles.
There was silence for a long moment as it did so. A wisp of green energy rose up from the green Stone to the right of the blue one and flowed down to the basement to go inside Marcy.
Far away, the ghost of a certain red-eyed newt felt the shift in the Box's power. She knew the Box better than anyone else in Amphibia.
After all, she had made this box with these gems for the purpose of unifying the kingdoms of Amphibia a long time ago, only to watch with regret as the rulers of her own people turned it towards ruin and conquest. Since then, she haunted her world as a ghost, unwilling to move on as penance.
However, what she just felt emanating from her handiwork was unprecedented. Valeriana stared at the Castle in the distance. She did not know if this was for better or worse, and that scared her.
No one in Amphibia fully understood just what they were dealing with when it came to the Stones. Not even her.
Marcy (in Ranger garb) had been falling down (literally and figuratively) into a prison inside her own mind as the Core took over.
Inside her head, she stopped falling and hovered in place. She looked up in astonishment as her mind space lit up with glowing neon green energy coming in from the top. That energy poured out like a pool of water below her feet.
She asked cautiously, "What is this?"
However, the color of the bright pool looked familiar," Hang on … that color … could it be?"
At the First Temple, she called up to Anne and her found family,"Ha! Solved it. Okay guys, listen up. Green is the safe color. Get it?"
"Eh …"They all said skeptically.
She connected the dots for them,"Don't be jealous of my hue." It's a reference to green, the color of envy."
Before that, at Dawnblood Island, she thought she'd have to think her way past the door, but then it opened for her. Her eyes were glowing with a green light in them. She noticed it in a nearby mirror after she got inside.
"Wow … my eyes changed color …do I have secret magic powers?"She asked while making her way into Dawnblood Castle. She made a note in Jo. That was definitely worth researching to replicate for future use!
She reached down with her left hand to touch that pool and rubbed a bit of it in her fingers. Her eyes flickered from brown to green.
The girl smiled and promptly dipped both hands in up to her wrists. The pool sparked and became flames that fused with her. The fire didn't harm her but made her feel very strong. Strong with cosmic power that had no equal here.
Marcy felt that power as her eyes lit up like a lantern, and then her hair grew a bit longer and glowed like a green candle. Her fingers sparked with magical electricity in front of her face.
"YES!"She said with delight. This miracle gave her hope.
She felt the fear from the parasitic invader of her body as her mental faculties grew stronger.
"No …it can't be!"Andrias said in shock as blue flames gathered around Anne.
It was her turn now. Marcy looked up to the roof of her thoughts and raised her sparkling hands up. A night sky full of stars was forming up there as her mind lit up with supernatural fire. Numbers, facts and figures swirled in front of her as the power of Wit claimed its chosen champion.
One by one, the eye holes on the Core's intended helmet on Marcy opened. But instead of orange, one by one, all ten of its eyes glowed a very bright neon green. That glow started to increase in intensity.
"Marcy?"Olivia whispered.
"What is going on?!"Yunan yelled.
The Core knew that color. Raw fear filled its soul.
"No …"
Andrias knew that color. "Not possible …"He breathed. First Anne, and now Marcy?!
One of the many dislikable traits about the Core was the very reason for its existence in the first place. The collection of great minds and rulers had uploaded their minds into this collective existence to gain immortality and continue to rule Amphibia, deluding themselves into thinking that it was for the glory and good of Amphibia since only they were worthy of it and could work better together with all their minds linked. Instead, the whole lot of them were heartless cowards afraid of death and of change and selfish to a childishly insane degree. Eventually they believed they qualified as a deity, but the thing they became was a mechanical devil only fit to be feared and hated.
When the glow got to a blinding degree and energy started flowing down its own arms towards it head, the cowardly abomination trembled in all that was left of whatever soul nature was left of its various minds.
The three living newts backed up to the edge of the room.
The evil sphere tried frantically to remove the tentacles plugged into Marcy's body but could not. It was not getting off that easy. The energy it desired to control from the Box coursed into it .
All the lines and machinery in the room began to glow with this green light. It spread out of the room and throughout the whole Castle. The glowing blue patterns of circuitry on the walls outside shifted to a bright neon green that lit the whole palace up like a lantern and made a faint humming sound.
Frobots, animals, officials, prisoners, soldiers and civilians of all stripes below it and all over Amphibia looked up to gaze in shock at the sight.
The Newtopian citizens and soldiers hadn't known what to make of the Castle rising up, and they definitely didn't know what to make of this.
The robots felt a fear of something unknown stir in their processors, something that would mean things for them in the future that their makers had never intended.
A blonde human girl with a scar on her right cheek watched with wide eyes from a distant valley next to a disgraced toad soldier holding a famed Warhammer and their stunned Resistance.
Some roaming newt thieves looked up from a caravan robbery they'd finished in the far East. Their mustachioed leader's jaw hung open. He'd thought he'd seen everything when the Castle rose into the air weeks ago.
Three quarreling analyst's miles away stopped arguing over an invasion idea they had a deadline to finish and kept quiet as they silently tried to determine the cause of this new phenomenon.
"Oh frog, what now?"A scarred toad captain in the West complained.
"Is this another trick?"Her grumpy colleague from the East grumbled from his prison cell. The toads had grumbled about Andrias 'cheating to win' for days after their defeat, especially the ones who got caught.
Prisoners and slave laborers were just as confused and fascinated by the sight as their captors.
A rich frog with one eye in the fanciest town in Amphibia held onto his teacup at dinner with refined composure, but his face was full of fear.
Some former Ranger colleagues of Marcy's down in their cove base in the Southwest stared in fear, worried that this officially signaled the end of their society.
The one-armed ghost smiled.
A ghastly mechanical shriek came out of the Core as the energy seared it from the inside and began to build up into an explosion. Cracks formed on its shell as light spilled out and then suddenly released in one massive burst.
No one or nothing in that room could've fully escaped the blast that ensued even if they tried. It wrecked the entire room and halls outside it beyond recognition. The Castle windows shattered and the four rectangular engines at the base let off hot bursts of flame. The ornamental cannon/portal projector at the top of the Castle and the triangular structure at the bottom exploded like fireworks, sparks flying off in multicolored trails.
The cursed dwelling shook and groaned loudly. It faltered and sank closer to the ground but kept floating with smoke rising off of it. The lights flickered off to conserve power.
The continent-wide audience said very little or nothing.
At the source of the explosion, the smoke and dust settled. Rocks and machinery alike were lying around in pieces. Olivia and Yunan lay on the ground barely conscious and burned but still alive and not seriously injured.
A few minutes later, King Andrias pushed himself up from where he had been blasted painfully into the wall, and part of his flesh torn open, exposing the machinery underneath his skin.
He deserved that.
Rubbing his bruised cranium, he peered towards the center of the room and gasped. The Core's spherical body was shattered, leaving ghastly machinery exposed with white slime and crackling orange sparks coming out of it. Tapping into the link he shared with it on his cracked but still intact crown, he heard nothing. Scans from the Frobots coming into the room revealed the Core still existed on the remaining circuitry left in the Palace but was now in a reboot mode of sorts. Any conscious feelings on its part were now in a withdrawn state of fear and trauma.
Despite being its accomplice, Andrias didn't feel sorry for the Core. All his life he had been bullied and pressured into following his family's dark legacy by his own father and his forbears inside of it. While he had grown into a sadistic shell of his former self, he always resented what they had put him through for a millennium, with no real chance of escaping its influence. He had protested its decisions to first kill Marcy and then use her body, but to little avail. He liked Marcy, the cheerful young human who had made him laugh in genuine heartwarming amusement for the first time since losing his two best friends so long ago.
Then he noticed that she was missing from the room. The accursed chair was in pieces and Marcy was not anywhere to be seen.
"What just happened?" He mumbled.
The ghost miles away chuckled with pleasure and said to her pet Leander after he landed on her shoulder,"Wit has awakened. What an unexpected boon."
"Unexpected boon!"He squawked.
She picked her staff up and began walking. "The world is never going to be the same again … I can feel it!"
Two whole worlds would never be the same again.
In another part of the castle, two newts stood near the library, wondering what in the world that noise had been. One of them wore a classic scholar's robe and was there to update the archives while the other was a Castle guard holding a poleaxe.
"Olms have mercy, are we under attack?! Not even the Castle lifting up out of the ground was that rocky!" The guard grumbled. He desperately wanted a new post.
The scholar chuckled nervously, "Now calm down, I'm sure that there's a perfectly reasonable explanation! We'll just have to contact the teams outside, and the King will surely have the situation … under …" he trailed off as he heard footsteps coming and froze when he looked in the appropriate direction, and the soldier also turned to look.
In the shadows to the left of the door stood an average newt-sized figure leaning on a large pole with steam coming off it. Its glowing green eyes were focused intently on them.
The newts barely had time to feel a chill go all the way down their spines to the ends of their tails before the figure lunged at them. Seconds later she entered the library pulling the scholar's robe over her frame and the guard's belt.
After browsing the shelves with even quicker observation than usual, she grabbed some informative tomes on a few different subjects and shoved them into a bag which she slung over her shoulder under her new robe. She administered a slight application of a memory wiping potion that had been conveniently in the library as an exhibition to the two unconscious newts so they wouldn't remember this, bound and gagged them, and shoved them into a closet.
Then she slipped away into the hallways.
Marcy's bedroom was ransacked to reclaim her phone and other stuff, and so was the medical bay.
A few minutes later, the Frobots started converging towards the Castle from miles around, desperately trying to control the situation. They were blindsided by the fact that they had absolutely no orders coming in and were thus running on basic protocol. This was very much to the advantage of the mysterious girl, who slipped outside of the Castle and got off of it.
She flew out the hole at the top at high speed to the currently empty Newtopian University on the main city in its original spot and acquired some valuable alchemical and chemistry supplies. Her analytical gaze settled on a lone Frobot, who stood a mere 10 feet away and was conveniently not close to any of its brethren or looking in her direction. Quietly, she grabbed an electric cable from a nearby lamppost and moved towards the machine with a bit of green energy going down her fingers.
The Frobot unit never knew what hit as it was stunned by a shock to the back of its head that was directed to its CPU. It was taken out right away and the figure began to use the green energy of her intellect to control the robot.
She now had a ride to help conserve her energy and avoid attention with easier.
The Frobot flew off away from the ruined city with a passenger on its back, its red eyes glowing green under a new master.
The hooded girl looked back at the city fading into the distance behind it, once an inviting paradise of learning and fantasies, now a very potent nightmare and ruin unveiled. She let out a bitter sigh of regret.
Many miles later, she directed the robot to stop and land just outside a certain rocky mountainous area which had a pass with two alternative routes. But she ignored that and landed at the point where it diverged. Then she made the Frobot shut off. Finally, the figure pulled down the hood of her robe.
Marcy's eyes and hair were still glowing with green Calamity energy.
After the explosion set her free, her brain had gone on autopilot mode. Her own personality was still there but the decisive survival instincts of her empowered intellect had been in charge.
The power of the Wit Calamity Stone focused on intelligence. At a low level she had used it to plan and execute the best strategy to escape danger and plan a solution in seconds. That instinct was at full power now.
She had used that to escape quietly and effectively with valuable supplies, including everything of hers from her room and a Laser scythe intended for the Core to use inside her body. Calculating that she was reasonably far away from any observation, she could now focus on her medical issues. She removed the robe for to look at what the explosion had done to her. It wasn't pretty.
The cyborg-type body suit she'd been outfitted with to interface with the Core was now burnt on the outside with several gashes. Notably, the orange gem chest piece had exploded and left a hole over her torso near the heart.
Underneath the suit her arms had singe marks from both the attempted hijacking of her body and the reverse flow of energy. Complicating the issue was the fact that she was dealing with old injuries that hadn't healed on top of the new ones.
The armor was still smoking from the aftermath.
Most haunting of all was the state of her face.
Running down her forehead and to her eyes were vein-like trails of purplish scars left by the attempt to merge with her mind and the explosive aftermath of the helmet being blown off her head. These newfound scars were glowing just like her eyes and hair.
Right now, she could tell that the pain and health problems were going to erupt after her power high wore off. She needed to numb the pain and get a temporary medical healing. Unfortunately, she was in no state or position to remove the remains of her armor which were blocking access to her body.
Fortunately, there was a workable, if drastic, solution in front of her. She leaned down and began to take apart the robot.
Working fast but carefully, she converted several parts into different things. For her torso she constructed a thin but well wired vest to replace the fried circuits from the Core's suit for protection and monitoring her vitals. A pair of gauntlets with electric charge pulses and bulky arm coverings served a couple different purposes. Not only did it serve as a weapon with lasers and room for later attachments (like crossbow bolts), but it worked in sync with her new vest to suppress any pain she would feel. The voice chip and onboard files were cannibalized to use for fooling the machines. Slowly she slid this new gear on, and reapplied the cloak, breathing heavily as it began to take effect in an uncomfortable but painless way.
After that, she took out two of the mixtures she'd swiped from the university. One after the other she downed them. The first would act as an immediate healing agent for her internal injuries. The second would enable her to go on her own for a while without any sustenance, for a week or more. With the immediate problems out of the way, she set off the self-destruct in the Frobot's torso and picked up her remaining tools and walked off away from the machine and its corrupted city, not even flinching as the explosion rocked the surroundings.
Gradually, the light faded from her eyes and hair, leaving her in her normal state of mind. Her intelligence remained heightened slightly above normal level, but she was otherwise back to normal. Unfortunately, the normal state of being for her was darker than ever.
The poor girl wandered aimlessly into the Dry Swamp area of Amphibia, wandering through the desert inhabited by giant sand worms. While normally this could be a fatal course of action for any biological being to take, she was currently in a state of sustainability that could last a while. One sand worm tried to eat her, and she shot it in the mouth with a rapid laser blast that left it lying dead on the ground without even blinking.
Of course, the desert heat did not help with her current state of mind. For a good long while she just thought about things.
The long, complicated but loving friendship she had with Anne and Sasha. Despite all its pitfalls she truly cherished her friendship with them more than anything else on Earth. No one else really connected after all with the poor little Taiwanese American nerd, not even her own parents. Bringing up the music box as an idea for Sasha with the long shot (or wishful fantasy?) of an idea to get out of this world, even though it was Sasha's idea to steal it.
Her dream of a fantasy life came true when she came her. People there liked her and appreciated her genius skills and improvements to help them out. She'd still felt regret for getting her two besties into this since even she could see this world was dangerous and she had no idea where they were. She'd worked hard to find them and get answers on the Music Box. Then she'd met up with them again one after the other, overjoyed. But she felt a growing anxiety and fear of rejection, not helped by certain things she observed and witnessed. Andrias had offered her something too good to be true with the Calamity Box's powers, a chance to explore and adventure forever with them. But it was too good to be true.
Andrias had played her for a fool and exposed her in front of everyone. Now they hated her, and then she almost died. She got freed briefly only to be haunted by that horrible vision of her two friends saying they hated her and never wanted anything more to do with her, which worked all too well. The last clear memory she had was that thing descending on her with horrible body violating intentions. Sure, she was miraculously free now, but she was scarred inside and out, traumatized, sad and walking alone in the wilderness. You didn't just walk something like that off.
Why did the universe hate her so much?
She pictured this all vividly as she trudged along in the sand to the point where she was hallucinating this right in front of her. Eventually she started talking aloud to try and dispel it. But it only helped a bit.
"Hehehe … perfect fantasy life … why does it have to be so more complicated than in Creatures and Caverns? … Oh well I guess that's because I can control it to a degree … plan ahead … strategize … work with a team … but WHEN does that really EVER work out for me with the people I care about? … if I'm so smart why can't I figure it out? … what did I do wrong with connecting? … did Andrias ever really mean ANY of it? … what now? … perhaps I can go … go … go …"
At this point the tears and pent-up dam of emotions began to pour out slowly but steadily as she continued," Go where?! Anne's back home … who knows where Sash went … and I can't go back to Newtopia … maybe Wartwood? …. Well, wait wait wait, Anne's the one who connected, had a wonderful found family, so it's her they really like … they'd all probably hate me like she does now … except Maddie ... but wait, if the control over Amphibia is already this widespread, who knows what's happened since? If it's even safe … but what does that l-l-leave me to d-doooo … ARRRRGGGGGHHHH?!" She howled with frustration, sank to her knees and shook her free hand at the hot arid sky.
"I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A FROGGING DESERT WITH A CLOAK, ROBOT-SCAVENGED ARMOR AND A SPEAR AND I FEEL LIKE THE VICTIM OF THE ODDEST SEXUAL ASSAULT IN HISTORY AND I. DON'T. HAVE. ANYONE OR ANYTHING TO WORK WITH AT ALL! Why does everything I try have to end in DISASTER?! I … I … just want my friends b-b-back, and I MIGHT HAVE LOST THEM ALL … f-f-foreverrr!"
The poor girl put her head down and sobbed bitterly at just how wrong everything had gone. The issues with moving, the awful system that was public school, and everything that failed with her friends and Amphibia. She had messed up badly and was at the lowest point of her existence.
Poor Marcy Regina Wu let out a quiet whisper,"I don't know what to do …"
"You find a starting point of course!" a chipper voice piped up. She looked up and saw a perfect copy of herself in her Newtopian ranger garb, unscarred and intact and still full of life. "Take stock of your surroundings and fight off your opponent with a new plan!"
Whether this was merely a stress and anxiety induced hallucination, a manifestation of her heightened intellect and connection to the Gem of Wit, or both, Marcy never knew. But it turned out to be just what she needed.
She didn't question it. After all, it was quite tame compared to the other visions. An apparition that could interact with you in a helpful way was far more wholesome than most people would like to admit. If it worked with Anne, it could work with the weirder Marcy.
The real Marcy wiped her eyes. "What plan and purpose would that be? I'm still very alone out here, very upset and scared, and I may have lost all my friends for good. And now all of Amphibia and Earth could be doomed for conquest and ruin! How do I work with that?"
Her mirage avatar replied soothingly, "I get that, but … you don't know for certain that everything's lost. You don't know that the situation has gotten to the point of no return. The Core hasn't won yet. Right now, you have the advantage of being where no one knows where you are, with some convenient survival equipment, Music box powers and gear you weren't expecting. That's a start. You're the smartest person around, and you are free in mind and body to use all that."
Marcy gasped. That was true. She was free … alive and not trapped by that thing.
Smiling victoriously, the mirage added,"You know Sasha's tough and still kicking. She'll find a way to survive. Anna-banana will probably stop at nothing to get the Plantars back home, and save Sasha and you! You know already in your genius mind Anne has always been the heart and soul of our group! I bet neither of them have given up on you! I mean, you haven't given up on them, right?"
Turning towards her bag, Marcy pulled out her copy of that special BFFs photo all of them treasured and had copies of. Yes, even now she dared to believe in still being friends with Anne and Sasha and becoming a better friend and make up for her mistakes. Conviction began to flood in her heart and it showed on her face.
Grinning wider, the helpful hallucination whispered slyly, "That a girl! Besides, remember why the Lich King lost in 'War of the Warlocks'?
Her eyes brightening considerably as she turned towards the imagined version of herself, "The heroes had the power of friendship on their side!"
Mirage Marcy snapped her fingers dramatically," You got it! The last thing you need is to be alone right now! Friends and family are the best cure for recovering from this sort of thing! Isn't it also a fact that the majority of all these kinds of stories in any mythical, magical, sci-fi or whatever setting … the heroes beat the bad guys only work because of that factor? An optimal victory works best with a team of allies, friends and family to be by your side. So work to get to that to see what you can get, play with what your strengths are as the smartest girl around and get some allies and shelter, any you can find, to back you up! The rest will follow!"
Inspired, Marcy propped herself up with her spear-weapon and expressed gratitude towards this apparition. "Thanks, Other me!"
Waving a hand, Other Marcy replied, "Don't mention it! Oh, one more thing: you're in an apocalypse type setting of a real warzone with two worlds and more at stake! I would recommend taking your metaphorical safety gloves off, get ruthless and don't be too soft! Balance thought and emotion to be ruthlessly effective! Release that dangerous beast of knowledge you got in you! The sky's the limit!"
With that her doppelganger of the mind winked at her and faded away.
Glancing once more towards the image of her herself with the best friends of her life, Macy clenched her fists tight, and wrapped some bandages with salve on her face to ease the wounds.
She pulled her hood up and kept walking.
The photo glowed with bright light as she walked along and looked up to the clear blue sky. A distant bug (or bird?) flew miles high in the distance. This sparked a memory of hers.
"Check it out Marcy, I got this cool present to give to my Mom when I get back!"Anne said to Marcy. A blue butterfly trinket with sparkly stars on it was in her hands.
Mrs. Boonchuy liked tea, antiques and butterflies.
"Sweet, where'd you get it?"Marcy asked. The charming story of a Shopper Derby misadventure stuck in the back of her mind.
A childishly silly but sweet idea based on a childhood show came to mind. In her semi-delirious state, she went with it.
Marcy giggled as flurries of green sparkles rose off her fingers and formed into a trio of sparkling magical live blue butterflies just like that.
She cleared her throat, and sang a little tune,"Butterfly in the Sky. I can go twice as higgghh … Take a look, inside a book…a reading rainbooww …"The trio of butterflies left a trail of rainbows and sparkles in the air as they flew around.
She giggled and sang a bit more,"I can go anywherreeee … with friends to know, new ways to grow! Reading rainboowwww!"
Two of the butterflies settled on her shoulders. The third one flew in glittery circles around her head.
She held her hand out for it to land on and ended on a high note,"A readddinnng rainbowww!"
"You know,"Marcy said to the butterfly while she stroked it,"I've got powers connected to a magic rainbow portal in a box I first saw in a book! Maybe I CAN be anything and go anywhere with lots of new friends to know and ways to grow!"
She laughed and kept walking, "Oh man, I loved that show growing up! It made reading even more fun! "
Marcy thought with determination," Hold on girls! Anne … Sash, I believe in you! I'll fix my mistake, one way or another! I promise! And Andrias and the Core, for all they did or will do … will pay!"
She checked her new compass and map system on her gauntlets and headed towards Frog Valley.
The Core had sought to thwart the prophecy by manipulating Marcy and her friends away from fulfilling the conditions. Then it wanted to use her body and peerless mind for its own, to harness her capabilities to rule and terrorize the multiverse with. Such a plan could only merit the karma of it all failing and the being in question perishing with its mistakes all coming back to bite it. This time, instead of harnessing her abilities for itself, which it should not and ultimately could not hold on to in the end, her power and brains were now irrevocably turned against it even sooner.
A girl from a world with a lot more knowledge of various fantasies and fictions and ideas than Amphibia did, a genius that had accumulated knowledge of both worlds, was now empowered and out of its grasp.
The Core's drawn-out nightmare had only just begun.
For now, it had to face the Power of Wit that had been unleashed.