Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fighting off The Core inside your mind is one thing.

Fighting it off in person, when it has a physical body with terrible claws and electricity and knowledge of everyone’s weaknesses and strengths ( because you told it, you traitor) is another.

The sensation of Sasha slamming into both her and Anne is a familiar feeling. She sends all three of them barreling to the rocky ground as a claw crackling with lighting shoots through the space where their torsos used to be. Normally Marcy would pause to process what happened, maybe a few sheepish words and thanks while they’re all still in a pile, but she doesn’t have time for that today. 

Anne pushes Sasha and Marcy off her and sends a blast of blue straight into the Core’s impenetrable hulking mass. This is the longest she’s used her powers, and yet her eyes are still focused and shining brightly, burning with protective rage. It’d be admirable if it weren’t so concerning. It scares Marcy to think about the burn out Anne is going to have after this battle, so she doesn’t.

 She just gets to her feet and fights back the illusions threatening to encompass them, crushing each one of the eyes as soon as they spawn. The Core has an ability to use whatever material is around it to store itself in, like a parasitic fire, taking up whatever resources it can. It’s unpredictable, and incredibly annoying. Her powers are weak physically, but they’re effective enough to destroy glass and organic material. If only she could get a tiny sample of the Core and figure out how it reconfigured atoms…

Sasha roars and sends a rush of acidic fire to the bottom of the main eye, burning it straight through as the Core squeals in pain. It sounds angry. 

And suddenly, instead of grabbing Sasha for her misendeavor, a claw reaches out and wraps around Anne instead, coming around her from behind. She screams and struggles to get free, and usually she’d be able to, if she weren’t having her airway blocked by yet another set of claws. And another, and another-

Sasha and Marcy scream for her at the same time. Because the Core knows. 

“ ANNE!” 

It knows what’s most important to them.

They both rush to free Anne in an instant, communicating with only their eyes. 

A glance to the side tells Marcy to attempt to disrupt whatever system is holding the claws nearest to Anne’s neck intact, and she jumps up the best she can and slams her palms onto the gaps between the metal, sending an opposing electrical force along the wires. The entire mass stops moving, and starts short-circuiting instead. It won’t be long until it repairs itself, but it’s enough time to get Anne out. 

She gives a nod to Sasha and Sasha melts the joints with alarming intensity, ripping the metal and iron apart effortlessly now that it’s movement is disabled.

It’s over in only a few moments. When Anne falls to the ground, the both of them fall with her.

Her energy has already faded, dead leaves and twigs falling out of her brown curls. Angry red lines are springing up on her neck and face. And as expected, she’s completely passed out. 

“Anne!! Anne, wake up!” Sasha pleads, shaking the other girl roughly by the shoulders. She doesn’t respond, eyes closed and unresponsive. Sasha’s powers are still going strong (once they activate, they’re hard to turn off) but her acidic touch doesn’t do a single thing to Anne, or Marcy. Marcy has theorized it’s because she and Anne also have calamity powers, but a more sappy line of thought she goes down sometimes is that Sasha loves them so much that her powers automatically deactivate wherever she’s in contact with them. It’s a fantastical, irrational thought, and definitely not something she should be thinking while Anne is still completely unconscious. “ ANNE!”

“Sasha, hold on,” Marcy says as calmly as she can, leaning over Anne’s form. “Look.”

Marcy presses three fingers onto the side of Anne’s neck, looking for a pulse. It’s still there, thankfully, but faint and slow. Which… isn’t good. Marcy racks her brain for info- Anne’s always had the worst side effects of them all. Her calamity powers exhaust her completely, paralyze her, and she doesn’t quite act the same for days afterward. Meanwhile, the only thing Marcy gets after her erratic on-and-off use of her powers is a giant headache. So it’s important to keep an eye on Anne, just in case-

The creak of metal, and the familiar sound of crackling electricity catches Sasha and Marcy’s attention.

…too late. 

They barely have time to turn around before the blast wracks through the sky, and hits them dead on.

Bright red light pulsing behind her eyes is the last thing Marcy sees for the second time in her life before she blacks out. 

——-

Marcy Wu wakes up in a messily made bed.

She’s got one leg sticking out from under the sheets, her arms thrown above her head. Various papers and pens and even a calculator or two are strewn across the blankets. This is not an unusual way to sleep for her.

She stretches, and yawns, groggily opening her eyes and rubbing the sleep out of them. It takes her about a minute and a half to get the motivation to get out of bed.

And then when she does, she doesn’t reach for her glasses that she left on her bedside table. She’s still half-asleep, just barely processing her surroundings. 

She steps in front of her full-length mirror. 

And the sight that stares back at her is what finally shocks her awake. 

Marcy looks at it and almost doesn’t recognize herself. 

Her hair has grown out, all the way down to her shoulders. When she reaches up slowly to try and figure out if it’s actually real, her fingers brush against an undercut. She’s much taller, having now grown properly into her lanky limbs. Not to mention the blurriness that’s fogging her vision- she takes a few steps back, still staring at herself, and fumbles for glasses that are apparently supposed to be hers. 

She puts them on. The thick red frames are never something she would have picked out herself, but they work to clear her vision. 

Holy… mother of frog.

Marcy shakes her head again, attempting to clear it. Surely, this must be a dream. Or something along those lines- she doesn’t even know where she is.

She stares at herself for a bit longer. Her cheeks are fuller, more healthy. Her eye bags are still impressive, but not as deep as the ones she’s used to having. And she looks… older.

Marcy takes a moment to rub at her eyes again, running her hands through her hair (she’s not used to the way it feels.) The long, loose sleeves of her night-shirt slip down to her elbows, and the resulting sight makes Marcy freeze in place.

Her scars.

The circular ones, the ones from the tube- they’re not there. 

She looks closer, rolls up her sleeves, and squints- the only marks on her skin are tiny cuts and scratches, undoubtedly left over from her usual clumsiness. No sign of scars anywhere. Not even faded. Anytime else, it would be a relief. She hates those. Now, it just terrifies her.

Her hand flies to her chest. 

She can’t feel anything through her shirt besides skin and bone. No trace of heavily layered scar tissue anywhere. 

“Oh god-“ Marcy blinks, hard, stomps her feet into the ground just to make sure it’s real. “What- where am I?”

She’s supposed to be with Anne and Sasha. She racks her brain, and that’s the last thing she remembers- she was with Anne and Sasha. (It seems that remembering their presence first over everything else after waking up from some intense bodily trauma is going to become a pattern.) 

She was with Anne and Sasha, and they were fighting off the Core. And Anne had gotten caught, and she and Sasha had saved her, and her heart was still beating, pulsing under Marcy’s touch-

And then-

Marcy whips around, looking for clues. Anything to tell her what’s going on. Anytime, anywhere. She spots a cat calendar over her (?) incredibly disorganized desk and makes a beeline for it, nearly ripping it off the wall.

It’s 2025. 

Marcy blinks. 

She was 13, it was 2020, she was with Anne and Sasha in Amphibia, and now it’s 2025. 

WHAT. 

Some red lettering scrawled across the calendar with way too many arrows catches Marcy’s eye before she can truly process. According to the page the calandar was on, it’s currently June.

And in the box for June 15, writing belonging to a very excited high school senior spells out:

PROM WITH ANNE AND SASHA!!! :D :D :D 

There’s also various hearts. Three of them, to be exact. 

Heat rises to Marcy’s face, and she stares at that calendar for… a long time. 

She looks around, and reaches for her phone, hidden beneath a thick book on architecture on her desk. Luckily, she doesn’t need to input a password to know the date.

It’s June 10th. 

In the background of the phone’s lock screen, there’s three people. Marcy recognizes herself vaguely, but would rather stare at the people on either side of her instead. 

One is a… girl?… with pale skin and short blond hair, streaked with dark brown roots. She’s got several piercings in her ear, 4 to be exact, and is wearing something that looks like a black t-shirt with the sleeves torn off. 

The other one is also a girl, with brown skin and long curly hair pulled back in a ponytail. The tips of her hair are dyed a bright blue, and she’s wearing a soft turtleneck with a bracelet or two around her wrists. On her neck is a small tattoo of a frog.

And they’re both kissing her cheeks. She’s got one hand intertwined with theirs, eyes closed and mouth open in a peal of giggly laughter. 

The image is overlaid with a pink Snapchat filter, little diamonds and swirls overlaying the image. One of the words on the filter in particular catches her eye. 

It says, girlfriends! <3

Marcy places the phone back on her desk. Her mind is screaming at her, struggling in its desperate rage to understand what it’s experiencing. 

She walks over to her bed, and sinks down on it. Her heart is beating unbelievably hard in her chest. 

Even if she doesn’t have any idea what’s going on, she does know one thing. The fact that her, Anne and Sasha are… whatever they’re doing, is more than enough evidence.

She places her head in her hands and stares down at an unfamiliar floor. 

This can’t be real. 

Chapter Text

June 10th

Marcy shuts her eyes in a tired haze as she looks up at her supposed highschool. She was driven here by her mother, someone who Marcy can remember seeing over the dinner table for years, but she can’t recall her face now for some reason. There’s a cause behind her mother’s actions, but all that remains is a unidentifiable face covered in worry lines and a high pitched voice that she cannot repeat the words of. 

Maybe she’s dissociating. Maybe she’s just not used to this new body, with clothes she’s always wanted to wear. She opened her wardrobe this morning, after deciding she had to go along with whatever nonsense had befallen her (at least she wasn’t anywhere near Andrias) and there were cloaks, and fingerless gloves, and soft v-neck sweaters to go over the long-sleeved shirts with the thumbholes added in. 

And now, she’s standing here, in front of a highschool she vaguely recognizes. 

It looks a lot like SJMS, with it’s stone and brick walls, and one-floor setup. Even so, it’s imposing and unfamiliar, on a street that looks like every other L.A street  Marcy’s ever seen. The door looms in front of her, and as if the world itself is urging her forwards, the bell rings. Marcy’s never been one to be (purposely) late to class. 

So she strides in. 

Belatedly, she realizes that she doesn’t have a schedule. Why is she worrying about that of all things? This isn’t even where she’s supposed to be- she’d be willing to believe it, that somehow she jumped 5 years ahead in time, just for a little bit, if it weren’t too good to be true. 

The hallways are filled with kids, a few of them sticking out as people who Marcy knows- Vince, Cheyenne… Jamie, of all people. Silence falls around her as they pass, as if they all suddenly became aware that screaming for no reason before classes start isn’t the most enjoyable for other people. Maybe high school changed them. Or… maybe not. 

Marcy squints as Cheyenne passes her… in a short grey bob and headband. 

Wearing SJMS’s uniform. 

She doesn’t pay Marcy any notice as she walks by. And maybe it’s just her, but Marcy swears she looks paler. 

What are middle schoolers…. You know what? She is’t even going to ask. She knows there’s something up, and if it weren’t for the glaringly obvious lack of glitching at the top of the ceiling, or voices whispering in her ear, she’d think it was a simulation. One to make her more docile and relaxed, to gain control of her again. 

Well, unfortunately, for the Core, that isn’t happening. 

Also unfortunately for Marcy, she really doesn’t have any other ideas at the moment that make any sort of logical sense. Whoever is running this is doing a rather sloppy job, anyways. Did they really believe she’d settle down into a highschool setting out of nowhere with no complaints? 

Marcy wades through the crowd, and collapses against a locker, sighing. The cold metal bites into her skin, even with the layers she has on.  She’s already tired, and she hasn’t even done anything yet. Then again, most people don’t wake up 5 years in the future and find out they’re dating their best friends. And they don’t feel like their head is full of soup as soon as they open their eyes, either. 

“THERE SHE IS!” 

Marcy snaps out of her haze for just a moment, and looks around. Her heart is thudding erratically in her chest with the sound of that voice- it belongs to someone she’d hoped would be here, but didn’t actually expect to be. 

But there’s always a drawback to these sorts of things. See, as soon as she sees her, Marcy has a feeling the dream will change. It’s happened enough times that she expects it at this point, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still scare her. 

Marcy braces for what she sees, and-

Two pairs of arms are wrapping around her. She’s surrounded in absolute warmth, pressed between two bodies who seem very enthusiastic to see her. It takes her a moment to realize just how real it feels, grounding and stable in the sea of fog that’s been following her around all morning. Without much shifting, she’s got someone wrapped around her from behind, and someone hugging her from the front. She’s packed in like a slightly confused and very flustered sardine. 

It occurs to her that she knows what this feels like. She knows this habit like the back of her hand, but the last time she had experienced it… well. You could say it was before everything went to frogspit. She wonders if she’s allowed to indulge in nostalgia. 

“I thought we’d never be able to find you! I’m so happy you’re here…” someone mumbles into her shoulder, curls tickling the back of her neck. Anne. Marcy weighs the possibilities in her mind before leaning into her touch. Anne supports her weight without question. Meanwhile, Sasha hugs her tighter. 

“I didn’t know that box was going to do this… I just wanted to see what was inside it. What the actual heck?!” Sasha’s tone of voice takes Marcy off guard. And her words. When Marcy flinches, both Sasha and Anne freeze. 

But mostly Sasha. 

She looks up at Marcy with wide eyes, searching her face. Marcy notices for the first time that there’s no scar, that her face is healthily filled out instead of angular from months of training. Her hair is short, she looks exactly like she’s supposed to from the photograph- but for a moment, Marcy swears that she can see her 13-year old self hiding somewhere. Maybe it’s the way her mouth twists into a regretful grimace. 

“I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to scare… you.” 

Sasha looks confused by her own words, and by the way Anne makes a little noise in the back of her throat, Marcy can tell she’s taken aback by it too. 

“You didn’t scare her… I don’t think? Why would she have any reason to be scared? I mean, we look different, but we’ve been friends for years!” Anne laughs nervously, and tucks her face into Marcy’s hair. It’s still raspy and low. Something tugs at the back of Marcy’s mind unbidden, memories of scheduling plans and hanging out in the middle school library arising. “I’m just glad we’re in the same place.” 

“What… happened?” Marcy asks, carefully drawing a hand up to Sasha’s hair. It’s the only thing about her that doesn’t quite fit. Marcy can feel phantoms whispering over her hands as Sasha leans into it. The action makes her heart skip a little in her chest. “Did you guys?...” 

“We were in the playground, Marbles, remember?” Anne says, and Marcy furrows her brow- going back, back, back, back before everything started and they were just dumb kids again. It seems like a wistful fantasy. “We were opening the box because Sash wanted to see if there was anything inside the present you guys got for me, and then…” 

“We woke up, and apparently we’re in highschool. Which makes no freaking sense,” Sasha finishes, finally untangling herself from Marcy. Anne separates herself as well, but keeps her hands on Marcy’s shoulders.. “How did you fare?”

 Marcy supposes their story confirms that they’re not dating, which is less of a relief than she thought it would be. She still craves the warmth they brought however- even if they look completely different from how she remembers them. And they act differently too- because either they lost their memories, or they’re people from a completely separate universe. In that case, she should probably not enjoy their presence as much as she does. It’s strange- what kind of parameters had to exist to set up a world like this? 

“Same as you.” Marcy half-lies, just to save face. It’s nice to see Anne and Sasha less… damaged. If only Marcy were so lucky. If it weren’t for her, they could probably live like this for a time, albeit in bodies that don’t belong to them. But with her memories intact, there’s nothing to do but to get out of here, whether she brings them along or not. “But you guys don’t remember Amphibia?...” 

“What’s Amphibia?” Anne asks, resting her chin on the top of Marcy’s head, completely oblivious and innocent in tone. “Is that one of the RPG’s you always tried to get me and Sasha to play?...” 

Sasha’s face is scrunched up, like she just bit into a lemon full-force without knowing. Marcy watches as her hand comes up to lightly brush at an invisible scar, seemingly subconsciously. It catches Marcy’s attention, and she files it away for later. Sasha blinks, hard, and comes back to reality. 

“...Nope. Nothing. Sounds familiar though.” 

A spark of hope ignites in Marcy’s chest, then flickers out and dies all at the same time. This is fine. She can handle being the only one who knows. 

Marcy turns around and takes Anne’s hand in her own. Her skin is warm to the touch, but it feels strange now without the thick callouses on her palms. Marcy stares at her- stares at her hair, at her eyes, just for a second, and tries to figure out if her senses are trying to trick her. Better to check every possibility she can think of.

“You’re real right?” It’s a stupid question. What kind of simulated NPC says ‘no’ to a question like that? But there’s always a difference in how explicitly human the reactions are. “You’re not something made up to distract me, are you?” 

Anne’s face scrunches up in confusion.

“What? Marbles, of course not- are you real? What version of you would ever have long hair?” She holds onto Marcy’s hand and cups her cheek with the other. Behind them, Sasha makes some sort of strangled noise, like she’s choking on air. Anne reaches up into Marcy’s locks and messes them up, causing her hair to fall into her face. “Did you hit your head? What’s up with you?” 

Her tone is joking but Marcy’s always had a tendency to take everything literally. Besides, her head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls- she’s not doing her best to process anything right now. Maybe it’s just another side effect. 

“I might have. The blast was aimed straight at us- I don’t even know if-” Another realization hits her, and for a moment her mind goes spinning in all directions. Never mind the fact that she should technically already know what dying feels like. At least her rambling remained intact. “OH MY FROG. Are we in the afterlife? Is this why everything’s weird here and I can’t remember what my mother looks like and you guys don’t have your memories??” 

She shakes Anne back and forth rapidly by the shoulders. She then lets go of her abruptly then as the logical side of her catches up to her paranoid one, and starts pacing around in circles, not paying attention to the faceless crowd that is slowly closing in on the three of them. They’re silent and move like a single unit. Marcy doesn’t notice them, but Sasha and Anne do. 

“Wait… no, that doesn’t make sense. Because why would we be in this together?... is it because of the prophecy?... I don’t think the Core is truly capable of killing people… ugh, this doesn’t make-” 

A hand grabs her arm. The action feels familiar, but it’s as if the person behind it is used to putting in much less effort than they have to do now. Marcy snaps out of her trance, and Sasha is already pulling her and Anne out of the way of the crowd, which advances upon them without reason. 

Marcy stares at their faces for a moment, at the cold aura they give off. None of them reach out to touch her, they just… stand there, and shuffle. And it’s the same situation as her mother- when she stares at them, their faces blur, and a hundred names come to mind instead of just one.

Their eyes glow a familiar sickly orange. There’s too many to count. 

It’s a warning. And Marcy checks off a box on her mental checklist. 

Before Marcy has any time to voice her concerns, she’s stumbling over tile-covered hallways and catching glimpses of prom posters on the walls. Sasha’s hand is warm from where it’s wrapped around her wrist, and her voice is incoherent as she mutters something angry and confused under her breath. Anne wraps a protective arm around Marcy’s waist as they run to keep up with her. 

“Sasha, hey-” 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry-” It still sounds strange coming from her- Sasha’s voice inflection is from before Amphibia, and it makes everything sound fake and sarcastic. “I just- I didn’t know what they were going to do, and this place is all weird, and was it just me or did they not have faces?” 

Sasha looks around to make sure the coast is clear- the silver toned hallway is now completely empty except for the three of them. Marcy isn’t exactly sure where she dragged them, but whatever she did, it worked. Said repressed queen bee doesn’t hesitate to open what looks like a janitor’s closet, and shove all of them inside. 

It’s dark. It’s musty, and smells like dust and cleaning fluid. Marcy thinks she might have been inside one of these once when she was younger, out of sheer curiosity. Of course, being herself, she had gotten herself trapped somehow, and the look on the janitor's face when she opened up the door to see a very panicked 8-year old who had a bent paperclip clutched in her fingers was one she’d never forget. It’s just her luck that it’s small and cramped as well, meaning that she’s once again sandwiched between Sasha and Anne. It’d be uncomfortable if it were anyone else but them.

She wonders what would have happened if this world truly was her reality, and she was actually dating them by some god forsaken miracle, but then pushes the thought deep, deep down. No use in thinking about that when she’s got bigger fish to fry. It’d be a nice, happy break from the frogspit show her life has been lately but it’s like living in a dollhouse- she couldn’t fit in with that supposed reality even if she tried. And that’s why she needs to break it.

“I think the Core is keeping us hostage,” she blurts out suddenly, desperately trying not to focus on the fact that Sasha and Anne have already decided to wrap their arms around her and lean into her space without question. It’s like they think that if one of them isn’t touching her, she’ll disappear. She looks nervously around the dark space, over Sasha’s shoulder, over the soft sound of her breathing next to her ear, for eyes. There’s usually some sort of noticeable glitch where they’re hidden behind, or a blurry spot in her vision, but right now, there’s nothing but darkness. 

“Not Quite.” 

The voice is coming from behind her, and Marcy knows it like the back of her hand, tastes it like bile sticking stubbornly to the back of her throat. 

Sasha’s hands dig painfully into her arms, and Marcy can hear her breath getting shakier. 

“Marce. What… what is that,” she whispers hoarsely, staring straight ahead. 

Marcy turns her head, clinging to Sasha for dear life.

Anne stares down at them, eyes glowing orange, yellow irises like car headlights. Her smile is cheeky, much unlike the soft grin she usually sports.

 Marcy knows how this goes. It’s just a repeat of everything, isn’t it? She can’t escape.

 She wills herself to wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up-

WAKE UP-

WAKE UP-

Anne blinks, and tilts her head, as if curious. Her smile stretches impossibly wider. And if Marcy could muster up the courage to angrily glare at her, she would. 

A flash of bright orange fills her vision. 

The feeling of Sasha’s and Anne’s touch is the last thing to fade away. 

----

You need to change it. 

{Why should I? Let me remind you- you are not the one in charge here. You have no power. I can take it all away.}

Yes. But you don't know Wit. And if you truly want to keep the stars from completing the prophecy, you need to make sure everyone is distracted. Including her. And so far, it isn't working. 

{I thought you said this reality was what she wanted?} 

She does want it. But she won't give into it. 

{Fine.} 

{In the meanwhile, make sure Andrias doesn't get in the way of the Deconstruction.}

Of course. Anything you wish, my lord.