Chapter Text
“My friends! Wonderful to see you!” From atop a throne of golden coral, the largest newt Sasha had ever seen threw his arms up wide in welcome as she, Grime, the Plantars, Marcy and Anne strolled into the Newtopian throne room. Guards were posted at exits, that pink newt hellion who had been sent to apprehend Grime was stationed up by the throne and an almost imperceptible lump at the King’s right side denoted a hidden weapon, though of what kind she couldn’t decipher from the imprint alone. The plan had accounted for the King’s presence and size; the pink armored General at his beck was more of a nuisance, unpredictable. Still, once the box was in her hands, she’d have all the power in the room, and if she had to threaten the King or Anne with the destruction of the box, well, she’d had a pretty good time in Amphibia thus far. Being queen of a nation would be a fun way to pass the time while Marcy figured out how to get them back without it. A preemptive smirk worked its way across the blonde’s face as the monarch leaned forward, a warm smile that Sasha herself had worn just yesterday lighting up his face. Oh it’ll be so good to bring you down, she thought silently, relishing the idea of wiping that grin off his stupid blue face.
“I trust you were successful?” King Andrias Leviathan stepped off his throne, raising himself to his full height as his voice dropped to a lower register, carrying an undertone that bled crimson with unspoken malice. Sasha caught Grime’s eye beneath the hoods that Marcy had asked them to wear while she explained to Andrias how helpful they had been at the third temple and the co-conspirators nodded to each other.
“Boom, baby!” Anne unveiled the box with a flourish from the depths of her backpack and held it up like one of the characters in Marcy’s games when they had just gotten an important item. The colored gems sparkled and shone, tri-colored light cast to the already deeply blue walls of Newtopia creating turquoise, purple and deep ocean blue hues around the room. If Anne had caught the king’s veiled threat, she hadn’t shown it.
“The charged music box!” Andrias grinned, a full mouth of razorblade teeth appearing bloodstained in the light from the pink gem mixing with the shadows cast by his own monstrous maw, as if the box was trying to tell them something. The Lieutenant of Toad Tower’s eyes narrowed at the sight and, were she not behind the Newtopian ranger, she would’ve noticed Marcy’s do the same.
“Well done, well done!” The second congratulations came as a near roar of glee from the leviathan, accompanied by an earth shaking clap before his open palm reached out to accept the box from the comparatively tiny human girl in front of him. Sasha’s right hand went to her blade while her left’s thumb and forefinger found each other, ready to give Grime the signal as soon as Anne moved the box away from her body and released her grip on it. In the miniscule moment the box was between newt and girl, Grime would intercept it, his tongue lashing out with the same blinding speed it had on top of Toad Tower to grab Hop Pop. Say goodbye to your kingdom, you tyrant, Sasha thought, focusing on her disdain for the king to steel herself for what she might need to do to make this work.
“Now, let’s finally send you girls home.” The tyrant’s voice was gentle and calm, already assured of his victory as Anne stepped forward to place the box into his open hand. Sasha pulled the trigger on the plan, her left thumb and forefinger pushing against each other until the tension broke and a sharp snap was heard from beneath her cloak. At the signal, Grime’s mouth began to open but as if that, too, was a signal an unexpected object emerged from within the party. In a flash of gleaming shadow it slotted perfectly into the keyhole opening on the side of the box, twisting to keep hold and yanking it from the clutches of the King. As fast as it had appeared, it retracted, bringing the box into the hands of someone nobody in the group had expected to see attached to that masterful display of precision. As one, King, Heart and Strength broke the silence with the culprit’s name, each in a different tone.
“Marcy?” A guttural growl rumbled out from the leader of Newtopia, the veil of calm pulled away from his voice by the Wit’s sudden action, brow furrowed in a scowl that even Sasha could admit it wouldn’t be very fun to be on the wrong end of.
“Uh, Marcy?” Anne had turned as the box was whisked from her and now she was looking to her best friend, ready to be let in on the joke, until she noticed the dark look that had settled like a storm over the normally radiantly optimistic girl’s face. Confusion etched its way across the Thai girl’s own features as she gauged where the dark clouds of Marcy’s demeanor were directed, straight towards Andrias, a glare to match the King’s own silently returned. Instinctively, Anne took a few steps away from the monarch, pushing the Plantars behind her.
“ Marcy?! ” Sasha hissed under her breath as Grime turned to look up at her, the question written on his face legible even in the shadow of the hood. What now? The would-be usurper looked from her co-conspirator to her friends, watched as Anne stepped away from Andrias, choosing to place her trust in Marcy. Sasha swallowed the uncertainty in her throat, gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head and cut the air under her cloak with a horizontal motion of her hand. We wait , was the Lieutenant’s order, despite the mismatched ranks Sasha was the one with the plan . Grime nodded in response, the shaft of Barrel’s Warhammer resting in his palm, the head of the weapon on the floor, ready for whatever came next.
“Give me the box, Mar-mar.” Andrias spoke patiently, his left hand returning to his side as he let go of the tension that had formed at the unexpected disturbance as naturally as if he were a snake shedding skin. “Give me the box and I’ll send you and your friends away ,” he enunciated the word conspiratorially, “like we talked about.” An equally sly wink followed the honeyed words and Sasha recognized the type of exchange taking place in front of her; similar exchanges had occurred between her and Grime in front of the rest of the group when they couldn’t get a moment alone. Marcy had been working with the King, but it seemed like that dirty deal was over now, and not by the King’s doing. As Andrias tried to invoke the secrets they held with each other, the keen eye of the queen of manipulation caught the ravenette’s muscles tense… And then Marcy broke her silence.
“No.” It began with a quiet refusal but already the next sentence doubled in volume, the next doubling again as Marcy exhibited an anger, a rage that Sasha hadn’t thought her capable of. “You don’t plan on exploring other worlds. You’re a conqueror .” She let the words hang in the air for a moment as she took a deep breath before continuing, her tone and delivery becoming more assertive, almost manic. The black rod she had used to steal the box gestured in an accusatory manner at the newt, each spat insult accompanied by an oddly menacing leisurely step forward. “You’re a tyrant . A failure who couldn’t live with his own mistakes , so he learned nothing for a thousand years because it was easier than facing his own” Marcy was almost screaming the words of her conviction, but at the last word her voice dropped low again, the implement in her hand slicing the air in finality. “ Worthlessness .” Marcy snarled the final insult with a vitriol that Sasha, even after thirteen years in a house without love, had never heard before.
“You want the box to rule and destroy .” Marcy ceased her approach just out of the King’s reach, slightly closer to him than Anne was now. The rod she had been gesturing with, which Sasha guessed to be a staff of some sort now that she could see its full six or seven foot length, was vertical in her grasp, a spiked spiral shell design anointing the end that met the floor. “And you know what?” Marcy shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, closing her eyes and tilting her head as if utterly unconcerned about the creature in front of her, tension gone from her body as the staff leaned slightly out at the relaxation of her arms. “I would’ve let you do it.”
Sasha felt her blood chill, a shiver run through her at the words of the girl she had always thought of as the clumsy, good-natured nerd of their friend group. Words she had said so easily, like Anne didn’t have an expression on her face now that Sasha had last seen looking up as she dangled off a tower, like the Thai girl’s hands weren’t clenching and unclenching at the uncertainty of what to do. Sasha thought her face probably looked about the same under her hood as Andrias spoke for the first time since Marcy had begun her speech. The menacing quaver in his voice was obvious to everyone in the room, though he was still trying to hide it with his usual calm facade. “Then Marcy, why-”
“You made one. Fatal. Mistake.” Marcy cut the King of the Newts off, still not looking at Andrias, a lone finger raised from the hand that held the staff. A flash of surprise flew across the regent’s face before it was suffocated by a faux smile and innocently inquisitive tone. “And what was that, Mar-mar?” The calmness left Marcy as quickly as it had come. “You were going to hurt her .” The staff spun in its master’s grasp, becoming perpendicular to the floor to point at Anne with its small oval-shaped head. Andrias was silent, staring at Marcy with furrowed eyes. Anne looked like she wouldn’t feel it if the tyrant did hurt her, she had barely even moved when the ranger had announced the danger she had or was still in. The entire room was processing the accusations the girl who still held the box in her left hand had levied against the most powerful man on the continent.
The entire room, except Sasha. Sasha hadn’t accepted Marcy’s accusations, she knew they were true. She knew they were true instinctually, not because Andrias had reacted but because he hadn’t. No feigned surprise or appeals to the good standing the room presumably held him in; he just let his Chief Ranger accuse him of atrocities in front of his guards, his subjects and her friends. Nevertheless, Sasha was still frozen in place like the rest of the room was, though for another reason. The lightning bolt of panic that had arced through her body had paralyzed her as it had the rest of the room as they had realized that Marcy, voted most likely to die before adulthood in the admittedly extremely morbid school yearbook awards at Saint James, was really pissing off a giant monster who was, apparently, an extremely merciless despot.
Yet still, something about Mars’ tone, her demeanor, the manic rant of moments ago that had transformed in a flash to serene acceptance, back to devastating revelation, kept Sasha rooted in place. She knew she wasn’t afraid of Andrias , she had spent many a training session now imagining herself leveling her sword at his stupid smug face, or at least Percy’s artistic interpretation of it. But then, who else could possibly be responsible for her frozen limbs, the frantic beating of her heart in her chest and the fight or flight instinct that Anne had once said was “stuck on fight” screaming at her to stay put? It couldn’t be Marcy … Could it?
“And that,” Marcy concluded, the staff once more lifted up and tipped towards the monarch, “will cost you.”
The tyrant king of Newtopia, of Amphibia, surveyed the scene before him. The Boonchuy girl, her focus split between himself and Marcy. She’ll side against me. Already has. The Plantars, the children trying to push astride Anne as she and the eldest held them back, eyes fierce but concerned. They’ll do as Anne does. The hooded figures standing by the pillar, one clearly the third human, the other short and stout, hiding a weapon beneath the cloak. Unknowns. I hate unknowns. Marcy, body turned parallel to him now, a smaller target, ready for a fight. She’s made her choice.
An exasperated sigh, overacted for the dramatic flair he so loved, signaled the end of the newt’s decision-making process. “You know, Mar-mar ,” he spat the nickname out in a parody of its owner’s rant, “I really liked you. You reminded me of me, when I was younger.” His fist clenched a little, the familiarity of betrayal starting to eat a little close to home as his next sentence allowed some of the hatred he had let simmer a thousand years slip out. “Now you remind me of someone else.” His tone dropped to a wry, deep drone, devoid of telling emotions as he gave the order. “Yunan, kill her.”
He made a show of checking his nails in the moment between his order and the expected sound of the General’s claws unsheathing. Perhaps, if Anne was fast enough, a fight would break out as she tried to help her friend against the Scourge’s relentless onslaught. It would be futile; Yunan was not elegant like himself, or calculated as Marcy was and maybe not even as determined as Anne. But she was efficient. A one-woman army in the truest sense of the- Why isn’t there any sound? Was it that fast? Andrias snapped his attention from his immaculate manicure to his Chief Ranger again and there she was, standing where she stood before he gave the order for her execution, making a performance out of searching the room for an attack that wasn’t coming with a smirk on her face. Mocking him.
“General, that’s an order , not a suggestion .” The second order came growled out. A thousand-year reign had worn his patience extremely thin and though the arrival of Marcy and the promise of the fruition of all his efforts had restored his good spirits, this sudden roadblock and its accompanying trip down memory lane had once more excised the virtue from his being. He shifted his gaze, keeping the ranger in his periphery while adding the two newts behind the throne, side by side, to his vision. Lady Olivia was poised, proper, silent and staring straight ahead, seemingly unfazed by any of this. Almost as if she had expected it. General Yunan, on the other side of the coin, was sweating bullets with her hands behind her back in her usual at-attention stance, fiercely avoiding eye-contact with her commanding officer. “Andrias…” The disappointed utterance of his name from the decidedly un-executed girl at the edge of his vision brought his focus back to her. “Who do you think told me all this?”
Before he could stop them, his eyes widened in surprise at the news of the betrayal of the two highest members of his court. A moment later, Andrias’ composure returned to him, shaken but intact thanks to a millennia of politics. “Guards, arrest the Chief Ranger.” The order was certainly a step down from kill but the monarch’s faith in the newts sent to his army by the lords of Amphibia had never been particularly high. As nobody moved again, Andrias’ lack of faith was confirmed to be deserved. “Guards?” He intoned dryly, though he already knew it was futile. “Y’know Andrias, you’re not a complete failure.” A raised eyebrow was all the response Andrias gave the girl as she tilted her head, resting it on her left hand in a decidedly sarcastic manner. Where did she put the box? “This system you put in place is really clever, making the nobles staff the guard in the city?” She smiled up at him, the sincerity of the expression clashing with the facetiousness in her words. “Really made going to all those parties worthwhile.”
This time, Andrias’ eyes widened and refused to return to the facade of calm they had worn moments ago. It was all he could do to keep his mouth from dropping open like a fool as he remembered… Marcy, innocently curious about the structure of power between the nobles and their King. Himself, proudly explaining the system he had created to prevent one noble from attempting to overthrow him. Marcy, wanting to go to the high society’s parties to “get to dress like Olivia does”. Himself, chuckling at his advisor’s innocence as she suggested helping noble after noble with their meaningless requests, requests he had stopped even looking at centuries ago. “You…” he began, before stopping. The Chief Ranger pointed at herself in faux surprise, before sticking her tongue out and giggling at her own joke. Andrias stared at her for a moment before laughing himself, devoid of the mirth he had manufactured to ingrain himself with his people, the trio, even the Lady and General. A tepid, unfeeling laugh. I’m alone again, then. The laugh subsided and he chuckled a bit only to himself at the irony of the pattern of his life. If the universe had prepared Andrias Leviathan for one thing in his thousand years, it was being alone.
As he spoke again, the surprise left his face, replaced with resigned determination. His usual boastful nature, too, began to seep back into his voice, his left hand gesturing whimsically as he started speaking. “Well, looks like I’ve got some house-keeping to do!” He smiled, lips pulled back to reveal the razor-like teeth again, now brilliant white in the absence of the box’s light. “I should thank you, Marcy,” he made a slight bow towards the girl in question, exaggerating a sweeping motion with his arm, keeping his eyes open and trained on her all the while, “I’ve needed a reason to get rid of those whining aristocrats for a while now.” He turned his back on the subject of his ire for the first time since she had dared defy him, facing towards the two newts by the throne. “First thing’s first though…” His tone darkened as he took a menacing step towards his other two advisors, who now looked his way in fear and grim acceptance. The General stepped slightly in front of Lady Olivia, dropping her ceremonial stance but not unsheathing her claws. Then, in a feint that even the great General Yunan, Scourge of the Sand Wars, Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched and the youngest newt to ever achieve the rank of General in the great Newtopian Army hadn’t predicted, he spun on his heel towards his real target. “Goodbye, Mar-mar.” A flash of the coral hilt of a plasma blade drawn from inside his royal coat, the hiss of plasma hitting air as it ignited, a massive lunge that took the despot to one knee to close the last distance between himself and his quarry. “Marcy!” Lady Olivia and Anne screamed, the latter delayed by only milliseconds, both knowing they were too late to provide any forewarning.
Marcy had solved Andrias’ plan of attack a few minutes ago when he had brushed over the weapon in his coat-pocket with his hand. By the time the strike was actually headed towards her, blade screaming in tandem with Anne and Olivia, it had already been side-stepped in her mind twice over. Still, she hated hearing Anne sound so pierced through with panic, like the blade was headed in her direction rather than Marcy’s, and she hated even more the thought that once she had written herself off thinking Anne wouldn’t care. “Stupid…” she muttered aloud as the sword burned itself into the space she was moments ago, quiet enough that even Andrias, whose head was now only a few feet above her own, couldn’t have heard over the din of his weapon. Louder, she spoke to the creature that had just tried to end her life in a harsh, final tone as she sprung into action. “Only my friends call me Mar-mar…” The Chief Ranger ducked through the gargantuan newt’s legs and under his desperate grapple, a second, smaller hiss of plasma barely audible over the first one as she reappeared behind him, her staff taking new form. “And you… Are not my friend.”
Even paralyzed by the conflict in her head, Sasha still possessed the greatest head for battle in the room, so it was she that most clearly witnessed the single-strike defeat of the Last of the Leviathans. A feint that she had seen coming only moments before its execution, tell-tale shifting of weight occurring a second before the strike itself, a mistake she would’ve thought was sloppy if she had been critiquing the form of its executor. Of the six hundred or so muscles throughout Sasha’s body that were tensed in the moment Andrias pivoted towards Marcy, few relaxed as she observed the masterful side-step that prevented the end of the Taiwanese girl’s adventure and as she watched the counterattack the tension seeped its way back into every fiber of her being. A side-step, Marcy saying something that Sasha couldn’t hear to Andrias as she darted toward and through the legs of the other combatant. The war-minded cheerleader wondered, for a moment, what she thought she’d accomplish with her staff; the conical decoration at the butt didn’t seem likely to pierce Andrias’ skin and the head was blunt and small, as if it had been designed to hold a more deadly weapon rather than be one.
As the Chief Ranger ran, the Leviathan’s left arm made a desperate swing at her, unguided by its owner’s vision. She ducked and slid across the floor on her cloak, trailing the staff behind her. As Marcy slid between the monarch’s legs, Sasha found her answer as she held the staff firmly with both hands, pressing the metallic black length against the blue flesh and activating some hidden mechanism. The curious design of the staff suddenly made sense, as blood red plasma extended from now-open vents in the head and the newly formed blade slid into and through the tyrant’s leg as if it were made of paper. The terrifying weapon and its wielder disappeared from Sasha’s view behind her victim, though the light the blades cast was still evident in the purple hues created as it mixed with the ocean blue walls.
Sasha saw too the fear on the face of the regent of Newtopia form as he looked at the end of his blade, not skewered through his target, then below himself as she eluded his attempt to stop her movement with his free hand, watched as the fear turned to panic as he processed that she was now behind him, his back exposed to the weapon that had just so easily severed his leg. Confusion took the astute spectator as she pondered the expressions; she couldn’t decipher any pain in the newt’s face, even though she was sure the searing off of nerve endings must hurt like hell. The time to ponder this came and went swiftly, though, as Andrias shifted his weight to turn himself back towards his foe… And instead came crashing to the floor as the severed leg buckled under his weight, as if he hadn’t known he’d been injured. A resounding crack carried through the space to every creature present as the giant blue back of its ruler met the floor of the throne room, a cloud of fine dust kicked up by the sudden impact, obscuring the combat for a moment.
The first thing visible through the settling dust were rays of bloodstained sun silhouetting the shadow of a girl, who was silhouetted further by the grand throne of coral she stood in front of. The light of the “sun”, created by the lazily spun circles of the scythe behind Marcy’s back, framed Sasha and Anne’s oldest friend in a violent light, the victory-crazed grin on her face assisting Sasha in her realization: It was Marcy she was afraid of, stood in front of the seat of power of an empire, a sunset of crimson flame following slow, deliberate movements toward an azure titan, relishing every second of her victory in a killer’s ritual that the Lieutenant recognized a little too well.
Anne recognized it too, she had watched Sasha perform the same ritual atop a tower not too long ago, a five foot and change predator towards tiny pink prey. She had stayed the hand of fate then but the situation was so completely incomprehensible now, she wasn’t sure what to do. Anne Boonchuy, storied defender of the weak of Wartwood, could feel, knew for a fact that the weakest creature in the room right then was the goliath still holding onto a more than ten-foot blade of orange death. His predator, the four ten oriental girl who had hopped from the steps of his throne to his recently severed limb, tapped her way across it with an unearthly grace. But that was Marcy . Marcy, who fell down a flight of stairs first thing upon arriving in Amphibia, whom both Anne and Sasha had protected at every step of their lives together, who had just chopped off another living creature’s leg with zero remorse. “M-Mar-mar, stop. You…” Anne faltered for a moment, trying to force herself to smile towards her friend, “you got him, he’s done.”
Anne felt a moment of relief as the leisurely stroll stopped, the scythe stopped its spinning and Marcy turned her face towards her, usual radiant smile suddenly reappearing. “Don’t worry Anne,” she beamed, her tone chipper for the benefit of her Heart, “I haven’t hurt anyone!” The conical butt of the scythe clanged against the leg its master was perched upon, a hollow metallic sound echoing from the limb. “See?” Marcy grinned wide. “He’s mostly metal!” She started to turn away from the Thai girl again, content to have explained that she had done no real harm, but…
“Okay, you didn’t hurt anyone,” Anne agreed hurriedly, “I know that.” Even from the thirty foot distance between Sasha and Anne, the blonde knew the statement didn’t have nearly as much confidence behind it as she had tried to put there. Nevertheless, Anne did what Sasha had been unable to do thus far and swallowed the question of “ Am I afraid for Marcy or of her?” down her throat, if not for Andrias’ sake, then for Marcy’s. “But,” she continued as Sasha remembered how proudly Anne had shown her the Mediator of the Year award, a title which seemed vastly inadequate now, “I’ll take him to the dungeons, okay? We’ll… We’ll lock him up while we figure out the box?” The last part of the suggestion came out like a question, hopeful, almost pleading, as Anne looked up to Marcy.
Marcy turned her full body towards Anne, the scythe still active but immobile in her grasp as thoughts, though invisible on her face, coursed through her mind. This was why, after she had learned of their locations from her scouts, she still hadn’t called them to Newtopia. It was why, when she had learned that the Plantars were coming to Newtopia of their own volition, her elation at a reunion with Anne was also tinged with apprehension. She had wanted to keep Anne, especially, away from Newtopia as long as possible. Some of the things the mastermind had done to set up this coup had been… Underhanded, if described extremely generously. Vile, Lady Olivia had once said, before herself ending the career of some poor low-level politician. Simply put, Marcy couldn’t have hoped to accomplish the things she had to do to ensure the safety of her girls if she had had to mask or justify her actions to Anne all the time.
Now that Anne was here though, maybe this is what she needed. Maybe things had gone a bit too far, maybe the planner had become consumed by the plan and if this wasn’t what stopped her, Anne’s voice shaking as her knuckles turned white on the hilt of her sheathed sword, then what would? What line could possibly be drawn that could make her feel worse than this? Another body? Another two ? A single tear escaped from the iron restraints Marcy had placed on her emotions and wormed its way onto her face. Her canary was gasping for air right in front of her, oxygen starved by the acrid fumes of treachery wafting from every side of the situation before her, and she had almost let her choke. “Okay.” The girl atop the severed limb spoke softly, gently, as Wit tried to show her Heart the person she had come to Newtopia to find again. “Okay, Anna-banana, we’ll do that.” The Defender of Wartwood visibly relaxed at the sweetly spoken nickname, her hand falling from the sword hilt she hadn’t even realized she had grasped so tightly, her shoulders dropping their tension as the room seemed to release a collectively held breath.
The Chief Ranger’s scythe hissed in protest as again its wielder flicked the hidden mechanism somewhere on the shaft and the plasma blades dissipated into nothingness. Marcy’s gaze was fixed on Anne, her Heart, her moral compass, the girl who came back to her as she had promised she would. “ANNE!” The scream was familiar, hoarse from the speaker having had her voice stolen from her for the entire fiasco until now but something dire enough had happened to let her get a single, desperate word out. The mastermind’s senses immediately tore themselves off of the girl whose name was still ringing in the ears of the assembled group, looking for the source of Sasha’s panic. A heat behind her provided the answer, Andrias was making one last desperate play to avoid his dethroning but why had the Lieutenant screamed-
Realization set in moments before it was too late, as the sword’s edge sailed to and past Marcy’s body, leaving her unscathed. Unscathed, because its target wasn’t her. “NO!” In tandem with another activation of the scythe, the wielder spun her full body in a fraction of a second, throwing her entire weight into the force behind her weapon as she launched it towards the plasma missile headed past her. A blast of concussive force exploded from the weapon’s point of convergence, sending both flying across the room and knocking the intended target of Andrias’ sword off her feet. The mastermind descended from her perch and ran to Anne, pulling her back to her feet. “Are you okay?!”
Despite the near-death experience she’d just had, the frantic concern in Marcy’s voice as the cloaked girl performed a thorough check for injuries, darting around her in a frenzy as she asked if various things hurt. “Mar-mar, I’m fine, thanks.” The Chief Ranger finished her inspection and grabbed Anne by the shoulders, staring at her with wet eyes, the panic still not quite gone from her face. “Oh thank frog.” Suddenly the Thai girl found herself pulled by the shoulders into a tight hug, her oldest friend nearly choking the breath from her lungs with the force behind her grasp.
“I’m fine Mar, I’m okay.” Anne whispered the words of consolation quietly, dropping her chin to the shorter girl’s shoulder as much so only she could hear as to seek support while her neurons stopped firing in fear.
“But you almost weren’t.” Marcy’s voice comes out choked and Anne can feel her nails digging into her sides as she trembles a little, suddenly reminiscent of the kid who had rescued from trash-cans and lockers.
“I’m pretty used to it. Are you okay?” The uneven tremor of Anne’s voice betrayed the nonchalance of her words just as puffy, tear-stained eyes betrayed the smile on Marcy’s face as she pushed herself out of the hug.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Don’t bother with Andrias, I’ll take care of him.” Anne started to nod before she heard the blade in Marcy’s voice as she finished her sentence. It was true that she was used to life-or-death situations at this point but another sentient being attempting to end her life was a different experience, one she was less acclimated to. One she hoped she never would be acclimated to, for that matter. Even still, she was pretty sure that she didn’t want to see what Marcy, whatever the hell was going on with her, meant by “take care of him”.
She felt a familiar weight on her shoulders as Sprig hopped from where he had been standing by his sibling and grandfather to land in her hair, his familiar voice soothing her nerves some even as his words brought the turmoil she had felt as Marcy had stood atop the severed limb back to the surface of her mind. “Uh, what’s up with Marcy?”
As Marcy turned away from Anne, the relief of the latter’s continued survival gave way to anger at the thought that she had almost died and it would’ve been her fault . By the time she had walked to where the explosion had implanted her scythe into the ornate wall of the throne room, that anger had stewed to boiling. “That was pretty fucking stupid, Andri-” The name went unfinished as she dislodged the scythe from the wall and turned again towards the center of the room and the object of her ire, only to find Anne standing between she and him. “Anne?”
The Defender of Wartwood stood firmly, her sword drawn but at her side, blade perpendicular to the ground. The pink frog on her shoulder was turned away from Marcy, watching the treacherous creature behind them for any signs of movement. Anne’s expression was set in stone, determination to keep the innocence of the girl in front of her intact chiseled over the fear and confusion of not quite recognizing the person she was protecting either. “Marcy, you can’t.”
“I have to, he… He can’t just-” The rage from her rant and the attempt on Anne’s life had faltered as she had seen the look on Anne’s face but it came rushing back as she remembered what she had almost lost. “He can’t just try to take you from me and get away with it!”
The force and desperation behind Marcy’s words knocked the wind out of Anne’s lungs, pushed some of the doubt as to whether or not this really was her friend from her mind and brought tears to her eyes. But it didn’t wipe the determination from her face. “He won’t. Grime’ll come with me to lock him up. I’ll be okay.”
He will try again. A humming harmony of voices, audible only to the mastermind, whispered. She felt a heat against her chest, one to match the inferno of fury inside her and her free hand clutched at the amber-like crystal hanging out of sight from her neck under her tunic. If not her, then the other. Marcy stole a glance towards Sasha, still frozen in her spot, the blonde’s eyes flicking between the two members of the stand-off. You know he will. She looked past Anne, to the newt titan laying on his back in the center of the room, his eyes narrow slits as he watched the human he had tried to kill moments ago attempt to save his life. She cannot stop you.
Marcy grit her teeth and tightened her grip on the scythe, returning both hands to it. “I have to, Anne. You can’t stop me.” She stepped forward, angling herself slightly to move around and past Anne, who stepped to the side to match her. The mastermind’s eyes widened as the blue sword at her friend’s side raised from its resting place, coming to a halt in front of her midsection, blade pointed her way. “Then you’d better-” Anne choked on the words as she spoke them, eyes shining with tears she wouldn’t let fall. “You’d better prove it.”
The canary had escaped from her cage. She had escaped and, rather than fly herself from the noxious fumes of the underworld the mastermind had dug herself into, she had turned back into the depths, flown to the center, the core of the mine where the miner picked away at a sulfurous vein that would explode on her at any moment. The tiny bird had clutched at the miner’s shirt, tried to pull her away from her poisonous task. When that had failed, she unleashed her talons, digging into the miner’s shoulder and flapping away with all the force she could muster. For the first time, the miner turned to see the bird at her shoulder, recognition of its meaning dawning like the inferno they were both destined for if they stayed. A metallic clattering rang across the throne room as the scythe hit the floor, inactive once more. “I could never,” Marcy Wu whispered as she dropped her weapon and heeded the canary’s call.
Bah , the voices spat, as she turned away from Anne, the scythe still on the ground. Weak. Their master ignored them as she walked between Hop Pop and Polly, avoiding eye contact with either, and stood before the two hooded figures at the end of the room. “Grime, go with Anne to the dungeons to lock up the King.” Her voice crackled with an air of command and Captain Grime found himself straightening immediately and replying with a militaresque “Yes ma’am!” He paused for a second to look at his lieutenant, still staring blankly at the girl in front of her, before shuffling away to do as he was told.
Of all the things Sasha had braced herself to expect as the mastermind had approached her, fresh from her confrontation with Anne, the embrace that came to her wasn’t one of them. “Thank you,” the ravenette whispered as she held the taller girl. “If you hadn’t warned me he was going for Anne, I…” Sasha wasn’t sure if she couldn’t finish the sentence or just didn’t want to, like finishing the thought would be admitting something to herself she didn’t want to admit, but she got the idea. “Yeah, no problem. Nice throw Mars.” The nervousness still hadn’t faded, though as the blonde’s arms closed around her friend she found herself almost believing what she had just seen had been some freak circumstance, brought about by stress and loneliness.
“Thanks.” Marcy paused for a second before her volume dropped even quieter as she whispered directly into Sasha’s ear, “The toads are outside the city gates waiting for Grime. He can send them home once he gets done with Andrias. We’ll figure out what to do about the power structure here later. I’ve got some ideas.” Sasha froze, her mind and body too tired to react to what she was hearing. “And Sashy?” The mastermind continued, something creeping into her voice that once Sasha would’ve dismissed as unable to be a threat , Marcy wouldn’t threaten anyone, but she wasn’t so sure of that anymore. “That was really stupid. Anne would’ve never forgiven you.”
As suddenly as the embrace came, it went and Sasha could do nothing but watch as the five foot child who had just dethroned a monarch walked to the door of the throne room, pushed it open silently and slipped out of sight. The door closed behind her and the room burst into action and reaction.
Sasha and Anne both fell to their knees, their bodies’ adrenaline giving out and the weariness of a battle they hadn’t fought settling over them. Similarly, General Yunan fainted, wavering for a moment before toppling into the waiting arms of Lady Olivia, who herself seemed not long for consciousness. Sprig took his eyes off Andrias as Grime approached with the warhammer at the ready and hopped to Anne’s lap, looking up at her in concern. The dethroned monarch lay silently staring up at the mural of Amphibia’s twin moons on the ceiling. The somber silence was broken first by Hop Pop’s catchphrase echoing the unspoken thoughts of many present as the elder frog lost hold of his built up disbelief.
“SAY WHAT?!”