Chapter Text
Tap. Tap. Tap. Fingers glinded against the tablet in a frenzy. Marcy, the one who was currently using the tablet, had her tongue sticking out. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration, as she effortlessly answered the math questions coming at her.
Beside her sat Anne, who was staring at her in awe. When there were seemingly no more questions, Marcy let out a sigh of relief, handing the tablet to Anne, who hesitatingly took it.
“Wow, Marbles! You got them all right again!” Anne exclaimed, staring at the 100% in fascination.
Marcy grinned. “Of course I did! They were easy!”
Anne sighed. “I struggled with them.” She admitted. “I haven’t managed to get past multiplication yet.”
Marcy frowned. “Do you want me to help you?”
Anne’s eyes lit up. “You’d really help me?”
Marcy rapidly nodded. “Of course! C’mon, I’ll help you on your turn!”
Anne let out a gasp as she was roughly awakened, the world around her shaking violently. She let out a few harsh coughs, her body shuddering as it struggled to breathe.
“Yunan, you need to be gentle !”
She recognized the lady-like voice but her mind was so fuzzy and everything looked so cloudy she couldn’t place it. “Marbles, Sash?” She murmured, her voice filled with hope. Had they come to rescue her?
Wait. Rescue her from what? She was home, wasn’t she?
Time seemed to slow as her mind rewinded the past events. Sasha, betraying them. Again. Fighting Sasha. The king, turning out to be an evil conqueror. Marcy, revealing to have stuck them in Amphibia on purpose. Sprig nearly dying.
Somehow she had unlocked some crazy superpowers like ones you’d see in an anime. She remembered a flaming sword neatly sliding through her body like she was a piece of meat, her family and friends horrified faces staring up at her as she slowly fell to the floor.
Sprig, her bestie and brother letting out a horrified wail of her name as the world slowly went dark.
At first, she felt a surge of anger cursing through her veins. How dare they . How dare Sasha, Marcy, and King Andrias do this . But her anger faded as quickly as it had come. She was just so tired she didn’t have the energy to deal with anything anymore.
There was a sound of someone shuffling their feet. “Uh, is she okay?”
Right. These two must be Yunan and Olivia.
“For frog’s sake Yunan! She just got impaled by a flaming sword! Of course she isn’t okay!”
“Alright, alright, jeez. I was just asking.”
“Where-.” She let out another cough. “The Plantar’s, Sasha, Mar-.” She let out a raspy cough and wheezed.
Her vision was slowly clearing up so she was able to make out Olivia’s concerned face. She shared a look with Yunan, who despite also looking concerned seemed like she didn’t want to be here.
Olivia took a step forward, placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly. “They are safe.” Olivia reassured her. “Master Marcy was able to open up a portal, you gave them enough time to go through it.”
Anne let out a sigh of relief, muscles losing their tension. “Oh thank frog.”
Her parents would take good care of them.
“I know you just got impaled by a sword but we do need to hurry.” Yunan urged them, glancing at the exit.
Olivia nodded. Together, she and Yunan lifted her up. Anne let out a groan at the movement, her body screaming in protest.
Olivia noticed. “You were in that tank for a long time, give your body time to adjust.” She told her.
Anne nodded, despite her frustration. “To be honest, I didn’t expect you guys to come back for me, go figure, huh. I mean, I’m not smart like Marcy nor strong like Sasha.” She laughed.
Olivia and Yunan suddenly seemed very interested in the ground.
Oh. So that’s how it was.
As they got closer to the exit they all gasped as they were no longer in a room but outside.
What followed was them discovering it wasn’t real thanks to Anne and a battle to destroy eyes.
“How could you let this happen to us, Anne?”
“Marcy? Sasha? But I thought Olivia said you guys went through the portal-.”
“We couldn’t even make it through before Andrias stabbed us in the back, you did nothing to stop him, Anne.”
She held back a scream as Sasha and Marcy turned around, their backs decorated in blood. Desperately, she swallowed back saliva to keep her stomach contents from coming back up.
“You left us for dead, Anna banana.”
“No! That’s not true! I managed to stop Andrias before he got to you guys! Please, no…”
“Anne…”
She looked up, Sprig standing before her.
“Sprig…?”
“Anne, how could you let this happen to me? I thought it was Spranne against the world?”
This time, she did scream and scramble backwards, as Sprig turned into a puddle of bones and blood. His eyes bore holes into her, glaring accusingly.
“You let me fall to my death, you failed me, Anne.”
She brought her hands up to her head, scratching at it frantically.
“No. No. No. Sprig. Marcy saved you, I saved Marcy. I didn’t fail anyone, I couldn’t have, you’re all safe I’m sure of it!”
“You have to be safe.”
“You have to be…”
The feeling of someone rubbing circles onto her back caused her eyes to snap open. Widened eyes found themselves staring at Olivia.
“Breathe, Anne.” She murmured.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She must be in shock,” Olivia said.
“We can’t prolong our stay here any longer, for all we know Andrias is already here by now.” Yunan said, stomping her feet.
“Do you think I don’t know that already?” Olivia snapped.
“I knew we should’ve left her in that tank, she’s clearly a liability exactly like I predicted.”
“Hush, Yunan.”
“Having a little lover’s quarrel, are we?” A deep voice rumbled. They all let out a shriek as they were suddenly pushed back by a huge hand. Finding themselves laying in a crumpled heap on the floor.
“Andrias…” Anne snarled, shock getting quickly replaced by anger as she clenched her hands tightly, eyes narrowing into a glare.
“To be honest, Boonchuy, I’m impressed you’ve managed to stay alive until this point. We had originally planned to kill you.”
An orange glowing eye revealed itself in Andrias’s crown, before she had a chance to ask about it, the ground shook as a strange creature made its appearance. It opened its countless glowing eyes resembling the one in Andrias’s crown, letting out an echoing shriek.
“What the…” Anne let out, getting cut off as the creature shot one of its hands toward her, grabbing her face tightly and ripping her away from Olivia and Yunan’s grasp.
She shrieked as it pulled her towards it, forcing her down in a chair and chaining her to it. She struggled, spewing curses from her lips that her mom would surely wash her mouth out with soap for.
“You’re anything but the perfect vessel we could’ve hoped for, Boonchuy. We originally wanted someone smart, a person who could beat me in Flipwart, someone like… Marcy Wu.”
She stopped struggling then, eyes widening as she registered Andrias’s words.
“I got so good at it that I even beat King Andrias!”
“Andrias… don’t you dare hurt Marcy.” She growled.
Andrias sighed then, facing the other way as he avoided her piercing glare.
“Since you still had the gift, I so badly wanted to kill you, but I held off. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to retrieve Marcy and in the end I wasn’t able to… because she’s dead.”
“What?” Anne breathed out. Her attention fully on Andrias, unaware of the helmet slowly coming down upon her.
“She died in a silly Christmas parade, an explosion killing her and whoever was with her, I saw it all.”
It was then that Anne snapped.
“I’m going to kill you Andrias! Do you hear me! I will kill you-!”
“You should be grateful we took the time to make sure your gift wouldn’t interfere, because if Marcy was alive she would have to go through what you’re about to go through right now.”
She didn’t even register Andrias’s words as her screams of bloody murder were replaced with wails of pain as the helmet finally descended upon her, clicking into place.
“You’re finished, Boonchuy.”