Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day was bright and extremely hot in the California sun but inside the AC-regulated temperature of the library everything was perfect for one Marcy Wu, if anything the temperature was a little cold, not that that bothered the Asian-American girl.

The girl was dressed in a school uniform its design was that of a gray shirt and hoodie with a shield symbol on them with a green skirt to match the green collar of her shirt and hair clip she was wearing on her head to make sure that her black hair didn't block her vision, she was sitting on a chair reading with a table filled with a stack of books on it, the subjects of the books were many, some were history books, others chemistry, engineering, technology, philosophy, fantasy, sci-fi, and some were novels of something called Battlemace 40 million.

Marcy was reading a book on chemistry and was in fact about to cut short this visit to the library and ask to take the books with her to go home when the librarian passed her by and accidentally dropped a book, Marcy's reflexes made her react and pick up the book faster than usual and she thought, "Well done, Marcy! " as she didn't usually react that fast, mostly 'cause she's "in the zone" as she called it, she then tried to call out to the librarian, but she was gone, like she was a ninja, she was gone, Marcy then looked at the book "Dr. P's Extraordinary Guide To Magic & Mystery" it had bronze letters, and a really old-looking design, Marcy thought it looked interesting and so she started to look through the pages, finding "spells" and curses and am encrypted language you could use, it was all interesting stuff, but something else caught her attention, a music box the book says can take you to "other worlds" as if that was true, she still took a picture and she started to pack up, she wanted to go to Anne's birthday party today, and she still had time, she left the book on the table, and started packing up her books and school supplies.

Before she could finish packing however her phone rang, a message from her dad present on the lit screen "Marcy, we need to talk", from the way the text was written it was important, had she forgotten to do her tasks at home?

She quickly finished packing up, making sure to grab everything, and close her backpack. Anne wasn't here to pick up her stuff, and she didn't want to get her stuff stolen again.

But now, she needed to find out what her dad wanted.

== ==

"No, you guys are ruining my life!" Marcy ran out of the house, backpack still on her back, tears streaming down her face, she heard her father call out to her, but she ignored it.

She ran and ran, surprised that her body could carry her so far, she stopped right besides a thrift store, tears still rolling down her face, she looked up and saw something familiar, the very box that the book said could take you to other worlds, she thought about it if it worked, her and the girls could live out adventures together for the rest of her life, she wouldn't have to deal with going to another school where people would bully her like back in kindergarten, Sasha wouldn't have to see her mom again and could finally do whatever she wanted, Anne wouldn't get reprimanded for her low grades, nor would she get called a dumb jock by the teachers. It would be perfect.

She sent a photo of the box to Sasha alongside the message, "I found the perfect present for Anne!". Hoping desperately that she wouldn't regret this.

==💙==

"I'm seriously regretting this" Marcy thought out loud, she'd spent three days in the wilderness, lost, alone, at first she was amazed, this world had incredible plants and animals that she'd spent hours of her first day studying, she then realized Anne and Sasha were not with her, she was alone.

She then spent the rest of the day looking for Anne and Sasha, and failed, she then started looking for something to eat, she found some fruit, which tasted horrible, but she was desperate, and needed to replenish her energy, now tho, she was looking for a river or body of water, odds are she's going to find people near one, she hoped, and she also hoped they would speak English.

A few hours later and she hadn't found anything, she was still in the same tropical-looking forest, only difference is that it was dark and the terrain started getting swampy, she'd been taking notes on her journal of the plants and animals she'd seen on her way there, and had sat down to read a couple of her books, she'd even found a couple edible mushrooms, and other… "recreational use" mushrooms, which she'd learned what they were the hard way, she'd spent half an hour sitting on a fallen tree, having what was her first use of drugs, she'd been freaking out for two thirds of that experience, she'd decided to not do drugs ever again, she's kept some of the 'shrooms for documentation.

But she was getting a bit too off topic now, she needed to continue traversing the rough terrain, until she heard an instrument playing, she immediately looked up saw a blue frog standing on two legs, wearing clothes(a leather vest, pants and hat, with a red scarf to finish it all off) singing in -fortunately- English, looks like luck was on her side.

She built up courage, breathed in and out, and proceeded to approach the frog and say. "Hell-"

She didn't even get to start her sentence before tripping and falling on her face, falling on mud, dirtying her (now slightly torn) hoodie.

The creature screamed, said something Marcy didn't comprehend and just as Marcy got up ran away, probably back to civilization, Marcy decided to follow them.

Before long though, she started to get tired, and passed out.

Marcy was woken up by someone poking her in the face, she opened her eyes and saw another of those frog creatures this one a lighter shade of blue with her neck being an even lighter shade of blue, her hair being light pink with dark pink spots her hair having a knot tied up on the top of her head, one of her eyes was covered, the other one looked yellow in its entirety, with their pupils a slit that looked oddly reptilian, the being wore a "dress" which looked like an oversized black shirt tied at the waist by a rope.

"Hey, creature, can you hear me?" she spoke, her voice reserved and raspy, but loud enough to be heard clearly.

Marcy took a couple seconds to actually get up and be fully aware of her surroundings and then she answered the girl. "Y-yeah, I'm awake"

"Okay, so we can understand each other, I seriously didn't want to throw a couple curses to drive you away from my brewing lair." She said, Marcy's curiosity peaked at the word curse, like the magic sort of curse? She then realized the creature said "brewing lair" she then looked around and saw that she'd passed out on top of a sack of mysterious powders, nearby was a cauldron, a table with chemistry equipment, and bottles and containers with various liquids and materials for "brewing".

"Oh, sorry, I didn't see that. Stupid exhaustion." Marcy apologized, it wasn't the first time she'd fallen asleep on a strange place because of exhaustion, Anne always helped her when she did that.

"Oh, it's ok." From her tone it was clear that the conversation wasn't going anywhere, as they were both as socially awkward as the other, so Marcy built up the courage to try to move the conversation along.

"S-so I'm Marcy, Marcy Wu." she presented herself, the other girl responded in kind. "Maddie, Maddie Flour." 

"Sooo, you said something about brewing?" Marcy asked ready to start taking mental notes, she should probably ask the girl about where they were, though she was more interested in this for the moment, not that she was in any sort of hurry.

"You wanna know about curses?" The girl asked, hopeful and excited.

Marcy just answered with a simple. "Sure."

And so, they talked for about half an hour, with Marcy asking the occasional question.

"And that's how you make explosive curses out of tree sap vinegar and rotting bug carcasses." Maddie finished her impromptu presentation.

Marcy clapped excitedly, which Maddie bowed to, as she was about to start asking more questions about her whereabouts a bunch of shouts startled them, the shouts were panicked and numerous, one of them being an inhuman roar.

"Oh no a monster! C'mon we gotta help!" Maddie screamed, she grabbed a couple of her spare curses from a nearby chest and tossed a dagger from the chest to Marcy.

"This is like the first enemy encounter from Ring of Fire!" Marcy thought out loud, fumbling to get the sheath off the dagger Maddie gave her, succeeding in her third try but dropping the sheath accidentally in the process, she didn't have the time to go pick it up right now.

Maddie gave her a weird look, but they otherwise kept running at the general direction of the screams.

And soon they came to a "clearing", it was more open, yes, but there was mud, tiny rocks, a hollowed tree trunk and some fallen branches in there.

And on one side of it there were Frogs.

Some looked kinda like Maddie, but still different, most taller, some with a slight bulk, and others looking very lanky and thin.

They had pitchforks and torches, there was one of them right at the middle of the crowd, he looked taller and bulkier than the frogs, his outfit made him look like nobility, its purple color and golden lining contrasting with the rustic and tattered outfits of the farmers around him.

They were currently being attacked by a gigantic Praying Mantis it's chitinous carapace was coloured an angry crimson, it's eyes a royal purple, its gigantic chitin claws poised to attack the Frogs. 

Before it could, however, Marcy charged at it recklessly, and tried to stab it, keyword "tried".

Instead of the thing avoiding the hit, it just absorbed it, if the stab Marcy performed were going to a human wearing a basic bulletproof Kevlar vest, it would be able to penetrate it even if just barely at the speed which Marcy was running at, alongside the weight it would've been very bad for the person who might take the stab if they were hit by surprise, to this creature however, it didn't even give a fuck about the stab, the dagger dug in a little into the chitin, but otherwise it was fine, Marcy however crashed into the creature at full speed, and it hurt her more than she hurt it.

It quickly turned to look at her, unlike with monsters on movies were when hit they would turn slowly animals tried to react to anything unexpected with as much speed as possible, sometimes this sent their own brains for a loop and made them crash into things, in this case it worked on the Mantis' favor, with its arm hitting and throwing Marcy out of the way.

As she flew through the air, Marcy dropped the knife, her body's adrenaline rush kept her from feeling the blow, she tried to get up, but realized that she was breathless as the blow knocked the breath out of her lungs, she desperately tried to breathe normally, it took a couple seconds till she recovered, yet her body was still hurting with having her organs jostled around inside, she got up and saw Maddie trying to fight off the beast, she then looked towards the Frogs, they were frozen in shock, still in the same corner.

Marcy decided to help Maddie, whom was running out of bags to throw towards an enraged Mantis, so she ran up to her and asked. "What can I do?"

"Well, since you lost the dagger, you could try to fistfight it, it'd be about as effective!" Maddie replied back, stressed.

Maddie then went to pull out another bag, but found nothing, then she heard a screech coming from the Mantis as it ran at them, Maddie raised her arms when it tried to attack her.

As soon as it tried to do that, Marcy snapped into action, gritting her teeth, putting her arm up, somehow, she didn't get cleaved in half and managed to block the blow with one arm, then her body offered the appropriate response to its strike, she punched its face, but she did so with enough force to scramble its brain, and as Marcy looked at her hand a strange energy was wrapped around her fist it cooked a section of its face, the energy was gone as soon as it came however.

Marcy proceeded to collapse onto the ground, exhaustion catching up to her, she just silently stared at her hand, opening and closing it slowly. Her muscles felt weird.

Until she was suddenly tied up and thrown onto the ground.

Maddie mirrored her response. "What's going on!? Why're you guys tying Marcy up? She helped you"

"Well, it's for our safety, you've all seen what she can do." A haughty voice said, like, in a similar accent to what a rich Texan 1800's plantation owner might've sounded like.

Several more voices agreed, saying that they should run her out of town for their safety, and that they should let Toad Tower deal with her.

She was overwhelmed quickly, she couldn't even voice her opinion on the matter.

As they discussed what to do with her, a voice called out in a gruff, deep tone. "What's going on here?"

Some kept their eyes on Marcy, but the majority of the people turned to see a short blue Frog dressed in a brown dress shirt, a pair of black pants and a dirty apron, though Marcy didn't yet know this Frog's name or even who he was, she instantly knew it was someone related to Maddie as they were both short, and had a color scheme incredibly similar to Maddie's.

He then noticed her on the floor and Maddie trying to defend her.

He sighed, looked at something behind his dirty apron -probably a pocket-, and said. "Okay, Toadstool, can we talk?"

Toadstool nodded and approached the shorter Frog, the "talk" was brief and was ended by Toadstool grabbing a tiny leather sack offered discreetly by the Frog.

"Alright everyone we'll be setting the creature free, as a thank you for saving us." He said, shocking everyone. "Now come on everyone, we have a Mantis to cook!"

That last sentence made everyone perk up as they untied her, and took the giant Mantis.

She saw a little purple pollywog looking at her as they left, suspicion ripe in her eyes.

Toadstool had remained a little behind. "I hope you know what you're doing, Flour. If anything happens, it's on you." He said before leaving hastily.

The short frog approached her and helped her to her feet.

"Th-thanks." She said nervous, as she went to ask her next question she started looking at the features of the Frog's face rather than staring at his eyes, she did so as that helped distract her brain when public speaking as that prevented her from stumbling so much with her words. "Why did you help me?"

He smiled a little and looked at Maddie who was standing off to the side. "Eh, it's not a problem, you being chased and captured by that mob was just plain unfair, besides, Maddie here would've been in trouble for bringing you near the town anyways, so I thought to kill two flies with one stone"

"Well, thank you for it anyways" Marcy said. "Though I kinda need to find my friends now, I don't know where they are. And I don't even know where I am currently."

Marcy's tone grew a bit more distressed as she realized that just how much time had passed with her in the forest, lost, and probably almost dying a couple times, she barely had escaped the forest and had barely eaten, she could tell she'd lost weight, even though she'd eaten those fruits and edible mushrooms she'd found, of course the "recreational 'shrooms" she'd accidentally eaten had made her body go into overdrive and expend more resources than it needed and the hot and humid environment didn't help her at all, overall she'd lost a fair bit of body fat, but unlike the girls, she was the only one capable of identifying which of the local plants were edible, of which -surprise surprise- there weren't many, the others would have a way tougher time surviving in the wilderness, so she hoped they landed near civilization.

"Okay, calm down." Said the Frog, Mr. Flour she reminded herself. "Your friends are probably fine, the toads do patrols around here every week, one of your friends is bound to have been picked up by them we could ask them when they come to collect the taxes, if not we could try to ask in Newtopia for an audience with the King in a couple months when the mountain path clears."

Hearing all of that, she calmed down a little, they were probably safe, she hoped.

"What's this about a mountain path?" Asked Marcy.

"Well, here in Amphibia there are several spots were during the colder months of the year they become inaccessible by any means due to the terrain freezing, massive winds making flight impossible, rainstorms getting the terrain all muddy, sinkholes appearing out of nowhere and bandits become more active due to the decreased activity of the Toads and Newts, one of the places where that exact thing happens is here, Frog Valley, and you're smack in the middle of it in our town of Wartwood." He answered her question perfectly, even pulling out a map, and as he talked they started entering the town, Marcy was amazed at the construction of the town itself, quietly taking notes of both the town and of the things Mr. Flour was saying.

Then she realized something, she was basically homeless.

Realizing this, Marcy made the most shameful thing she'd ever done at this point in her life: asking if she could crash at their house.

As she built up the courage she felt her entire torso tighten, like her ribcage was crushing her lungs, her face reddened and the air felt so much hotter than it did before, and her stomach felt like a weight had been dropped inside of it.

"H-hey, Mr. Flour? D-d- do you think I could stay at your house for tonight? I don't really have anywhere to go." Marcy asked, eyes near watering as she let out those words, it felt so liberating to say them, if she was being honest.

As he went to answer, Maddie interrupted.

"Please, Dad?" Her raspy voice for the first time since they met sounded almost cutesy.

"I was going to say yes anyway. Can't let a kid wander off into the unknown." He said pausing for a second, to think probably, then continuing. "Say, Marcy, why don't you stay with us, could use the extra help in the bakery, and I need to go to Newtopia next season, as I have to fix a legal problem there anyways, we could ask for an audience with the King when we're there."

This got Marcy all excited, almost jumping, she hugged him and repeatedly said "thank you".

Then she picked up Maddie and celebrated, as they did so they approached a bakery, and entered it, marcy had to lean slightly down to fit in through the door without bumping her head.

==♥️==

As that happened a blonde girl called Sasha Waybright sat in a dingy dungeon in a Tower, her hair messy, and her clothes dirty, an ankle cuff keeping her from moving too far.

Now, though she wouldn't show it, she was afraid, because the leader of her captors showed her evidence that one of her friends was here, in the same hellhole of a world, and it just so happen to be the clumsiest human in all of Earth.

Chapter Text

Marcy began her day very early in the morning, as she always had back home, but this time it wasn't to prepare herself breakfast or anything, rather, it was out of sheer excitement, she wanted to help Mr. Flour, she wanted to explore and catalog all of Amphibia's creatures and their cultures, and she was just so excited that she couldn't really get 8 proper hours of sleep, waking up in the middle of the night, then going back to sleep only to repeat the process several times.

She currently found herself at the Flours' residence in the guest room, the room looked medieval with a certain charm that she couldn't explain yet it looked plain, the window behind Marcy's bed was blocked by wooden blinds that blocked light and made sure nobody could peer in, there was a drawer besides the bed and a medium sized closet besides the door a small table and chair sat on the corner opposite of that wall, her backpack hanging on that chair.

But first, she needed to take inventory of what she still had on her person.

She went to her backpack, and started unpacking.

It was a mess, her backpack she meant, it was filled with trash, a few utensils for school(it was only a couple of pencils, as she has a tendency for losing many of her pencils and her other various utensils), an extra change of clothes due to previous accidents involving her almost melting her entire skirt and shirt in chemistry class, her gaming console, a few games, and her laptop, she wondered how it'd gotten in there, she probably had put it in there when preparing her backpack the other day, her various books, her various plant samples she had picked up and the rest of the dagger and its sheath that she'd dropped, and a singular school notebook, as she didn't really take notes while in school, only when it was for homework.

She started to pull out all of her stuff, and as she was pulling out her extra clothes she felt something heavy was wrapped up in them.

This was unexpected, she hadn't packed anything else than the aforementioned objects, well, that she knew of, 'cause she certainly didn't expect to find her laptop in there.

As such, she grabbed the object through the clothes, it was sturdy, and angular, with some sort of engravings on its surface.

"No way!" Marcy thought out loud, then realized that it probably wouldn't be such a good idea to speak that loudly at 5:30 in the morning. " It can't be." She said, much quieter this time

She unwrapped the thing, and to her disbelief and dread, it was the thing that she hoped it wouldn't be.

It was that accursed music box, its golden frame gleaming lightly against the the shroomlight that Marcy had touched to make it light up to actually see in her room, its beautifully designed engravings were smooth against her fingers, but despite that there was a critical difference between this music box and the one Anne had stolen for her, its gems didn't glow with that strange unnatural light, they were a dull gray now, she knew it to be the same music box.

Marcy's breath got caught up in her throat, as she inspected the box again and again to verify that it was the same she started thinking how it could be here, in her backpack, she remembered it being in Anne's hands when they opened it, it couldn't be here, and yet here it was, on her person.

It was shocking to say the least.

She put the box down, carefully, like one would when handling a delicate flower, or a porcelain figure, or objects of delicate crystal.

After doing so, she started pacing around the room, her mind racing with options, what could she do? The box was here, with her, should she go back to Earth, and alert the authorities? She was clearly out of her depth when it came to Amphibia, no, she discarded this thought immediately, she needed to do this herself and save her friends in case they needed saving, like in the "tales of Mapu" series, where the protagonist has to embark on a journey to save his friends, and besides, she didn't want to face her parents now, or in a couple of years if possible.

Then, she thought of the next option, study the box, it clearly was tech that far outclassed the early 1800s level tech of Amphibia and even her own world's tech. She decided to go with that one, it would be the wisest option to go with.

She stopped her pacing, and approached and picked up the box, despite it not weighing much more than six pounds, it felt as though it weighed a ton.

So… she got to work on investigating it.

She started by risking it and ripping the band-aid off immediately and opened the top of the box, her breath hitched, muscles tensed and her eyes closed so tightly they hurt, and she only opened them up once she realized that the feeling of every atom in her body being separated from each other and turned into a gas-like state and put back together in another place was luckily absent, unlike when she arrived, it wasn't painful or anything, just dizzying and generally uncomfortable.

She checked the room, yep, Amphibia.

That, for some reason, made her feel both uneasy and relieved.

Now, she was wondering why the box did not work this time.

She started checking it out, until she realized: the gems!

She flipped the top back into place, and checked the gemstones' color again, gray, as she expected, if her she was correct then the gems should serve as a source of power for the box, so it would seem that the trip drained its energy, so that left leaving to explore other worlds besides Amphibia as a no unless they could somehow recharge it.

As she was thinking about that however, she felt how some of the engravings were pushed in slightly as her palms were pressed against the box like buttons.

So she started to fiddle around with the box, finding what was a button and what was not.

She discovered that the box worked with three different types of… alphabets if she could put it to words, one numerical from 0 to 9, another with a system similar to that which she saw when entering town, and a final one that worked with a large set of glyphs, each more bizarre than the other.

As such, Marcy was not gonna mess with that, she didn't want to mess up the box's possibly very complex systems, and besides, she wasn't knowledgeable in the various alphabets that the box used, and even if she was, it would be impossible to identify the necessary combination to be useful as there were billions, possibly trillions of different combinations, until she got a handbook or instructions or even a piece of paper that said how it works anything at all would help.

So she did the most sensible thing she could think of and grabbed the box, wrapped it in a bedsheet, and put it in the closet behind the other bedsheets and extra pillows, it should be safe here.

It honestly was stupid to even try to understand the box in the first place, she didn't even want to see it right now.

The stupid thing didn't even take her to a town immediately like in her isekai, or even explain anything, it just drop her into the frying pan no preparation given, though she should be thankful that it also didn't take the typical overdone isekai route for otherworldly transportation and off her in that park via "Truck-kun".

At least she hopes that that didn't happen.

Marcy tried to ignore the existential dread she'd just given herself tried to focus on other stuff, like how hungry she was as her fatigue caught up with her and her stomach rumbled, it was time to get breakfast, as she checked the hour on her phone she realized that she was there investigating the box for two hours as now it was 7 am.

As always, she'd gotten carried away by the possibility of getting to know the inner workings of some device, just like back on Earth.

She went to the nearby chair and took her skirt from its seat, as she didn't have any pajamas she just took off the skirt and used only her shirt and underwear as sort of pajamas, at least until she could get a sewing kit and cloth to make her own pajamas, just like she did back home with a lot of her clothes, it was certainly cheaper when she bought the cloth directly from the manufacturer, she also made and sold the remaining boxes of cloth for ever so slightly cheaper than other resellers did as to regain her money and make a profit, not to toot her own horn, but that was one of her smartest decisions, that and buying clothes in bulk, even if her parents didn't exactly approve of her making her own clothes.

Marcy put on her skirt, two clicks were heard, and she adjusted it and straightened it up.

She then proceeded to walk to the door and opened it slowly as to not make too much noise, she was pleasantly surprised when the sounds and smells of someone preparing breakfast reached her ears and nose respectively.

Marcy continued walking down the small hall and down the stairs, passing by a couple doors marked with three letters and another one marked with Maddie's name

When she did so she found herself walking towards the separate room that was the kitchen through the living room and besides the dining table, which had plates set up, 6 she counted, oddly three of the chairs were as tall as the table, probably for three children.

She continued her trudge through the dining room, careful to not make too much noise, as her parents always told her that she was too loud, they were probably right, as she often dropped things at like six in the morning, one time the neighbors had called the police on her because they thought she was a burglar who'd broken in.

Anyways, she continued until she reached the door, opening it to reveal the kitchen, which was eerily similar to her own, but with less technology than the one back home.

She saw Mr. Flour cooking on a cast iron skillet, freshly baked bread and a few baked goods on two different plates waiting to be taken to the table, he was also brewing coffee on the side, the stove he was cooking on looked ancient, like the kind of thing that you'd find in an ex-soviet or third world country, it had a stack of wood besides it in a metal container, the entirety of the kitchen was a pure white in color, except for a door - massive one at that - that was a different shade of white, not too different, but enough to seem out of place.

"Hi, Mr. Flour!" She said, excited yet nervous.

"Hi, Marcy, was it? I've never been good with names." He said, focused on what he was doing, she answered that that was indeed her name. "Marcy, if you would be so kind, could you help me out and take those plates with the bread and canastas to the table?"

"Canastas? What're those?" Marcy asked, confused.

That made him pause for a second, as if collecting his thoughts.

"Well, a canasta is in simple terms a bowl of dough strips threaded together to form, well, a bowl, it has a flat lid and in the empty space in that bowl you put things like chocolate ganache, or jam, or fruit, etcetera, etcetera, you put it in an oven for 30 minutes and voila! Canastas." He said this by making exaggerated motions, he seemed genuinely passionate about this, she made a mental note to ask him about more traditional Amphibian foods later.

She then grabbed the plates, and as she was on her way out Mr. Flour asked her something else. "Hey, kid, could you wake up Maddie and the triplets, too? They're all on the second floor, like you."

She nodded, put the plates on the table, almost fell when hitting her foot against the leg of the table, sucked in air, finally recovered her balance after a couple of minutes, walked towards the stairs, tripped on the rug and fell.

"Ouch." She said flatly, she then got up and checked herself, for any injuries, as she found none, she proceeded with her previous task.

She went to Maddie first, as she would probably need her help dealing with the other children, she wasn't very good at dealing with them, then again she wasn't very good at dealing with people in general, Anne was more than capable of dealing with large groups of people, Anne could probably be a great politician now that she thought about it.

Marcy snapped out of her thoughts now that she reached Maddie's door.

She carefully opened it, the room was dark, and messy, there were some plants in there, they were all overgrown, a bush here(at least she thought it was a bush) and a bunch of mushrooms there, a large cast iron cauldron stood elevated over a fire pit, mysterious materials and strange chemicals were on top of a table, a chemistry set right besides it, Maddie's bed was modest, even smaller than the one she'd slept on, Maddie's room, in contrast to the room Marcy had slept in, had actual curtains, black, and slightly tattered, and burnt on its edges.

Marcy approached Maddie's bed, and touched Maddie's shoulder, she didn't wake up, so she told her "wake up Maddie" as she shook her shoulder, this did wake her up, hse groggily got up and stared blankly at her.

Then, realization hit her, and she swore Maddie literally glowed from her happiness for a second there, then Maddie launched to her feet saying. "Yes, yes, yes." She looked at her and said, "I thought I was dreaming, you are real, oh my gosh."

"Why would you think I was a dream?" Marcy asked, curious.

"W-well, it's not the first time I've dreamt meeting a made-up creature." She blushed as she gave this information away, clearly embarrassed.

"Aww, that's cute, honestly, can't say I haven't done the same thing." Marcy said, Now that she thought about it, they were pretty similar, Maddie and her.

"Well, um, Maddie, I'm gonna need your help with your sisters. I don't wanna scare them, as you know, I'm kinda like a monster here, and I don't wanna scare them." At that, Maddie nodded and went to wake up her sisters, Marcy then went down the stairs again, and saw that Mr. Flour was already serving breakfast, she passed by the rug making sure not to trip.

She stared at breakfast, and dang what a breakfast it was, from the basic bread to the baked goods, freshly squeezed juice, sunny side up eggs, some strange variant of bacon local to this world, sausages, like the stuff German people call sausages, some sort of hashbrowns, and coffee, it all smelled so freaking good, she sat on the chair that made her back point towards the wall and waited as the rest arrived alongside Mr. Flour, he served her coffee and she thanked him, as she tasted it she felt that it was hot and sour, far too much to be enjoyable, but she could fix that with sugar and milk, as she was about to pour milk into the cup a trio of simultaneous screams were heard coming from the stairs, startling both Marcy and Mr. Flour, the former almost dropped her cup, while the latter looked towards the stairs, unimpressed.

A trio of pollywogs were standing - sitting? - on the stairs.

"Maddie, there's a monster inside the house!" The one furthest up said.

"She's not a monster! I told you! Ugh." Maddie answered, annoyed. "You would know that if you actually listened to me for once."

"Now c'mon, she's not gonna eat you." She then scooped them up and put them on their respective seats.

Maddie sat down and started to eat, and the pollywogs did the same, only they were eating a yellowish porridge instead of the regular breakfast she was eating, speaking of, she was just realizing that all of the previously mentioned items on her plate(with the exception of the hashbrowns) were a different color from the ones on Earth: the bacon was a purplish red, the eggs were odd green, the sausages were near pure white, with a bit of color from the oil that cooked them.

But Marcy didn't care, she was so hungry she ate it all, it didn't taste bad, it in fact tasted nearly the same as back on Earth.

And she just noticed four of the five other people at the table staring at her, specifically it was Maddie and her sisters.

"What? Do I have something on my face?" She said between bites.

"No, it's just, how can you eat those?" Maddie's sister, the one in the middle chair, asked, pointing at the eggs on her plate, they were already halfway eaten.

"T-they taste good to me, pretty similar to chicken eggs from my world, too." She answered, confused.

"Ugh, you eat that kinda stuff? Eww." The rightmost pollywog said, sticking her tongue out and making gagging noises.

Marcy kept quiet for the rest of breakfast, eating away at her breakfast thinking about what she could do to try not to stand out like Anne or Sasha did back home, 'cause being a whole different species on another world it's kinda difficult to blend in, and so her mind went to work thinking of a few solutions and as she did she tried to ignore the nagging feeling of her being watched closely by the triplets with suspicion, when they were done with breakfast she immediately asked to use the shower.

As soon as she was given the pretty much immediate "okay" by Mr. Flour she went upstairs, grabbed her uniform and entered the shower immediately, and she immediately felt relieved, being watched constantly was something she really, really, didn't like, it made her uncomfortable, more so than doing a presentation back in school, so entering the bathroom was a relief, and plus, she could use taking a shower, 'cause she was sure that if she washed right now there would be enough dirt on her to turn into mud.

It was lovely, its ceiling had the load bearing structure exposed and it looked rustic, the wood it was composed of was varnished and smooth, the wall had a cabinet made of wood that was painted a Calypso blue, on its front was a smooth mirror made of an extremely polished silver, Marcy had taken her towel that Maddie had brought her yesterday, and as she was about to take her shirt off a couple of knock on the door could be heard.

Marcy opened it and the three pollywogs that were part of the Flour family were standing -or was it sitting?- there, Marcy opened her mouth to ask what they needed but they cut her off. "We're sorry for calling you a monster, Miss Marcy." From their tones it was obvious that they were in fact, not actually sorry, it was like whenever Anne and Sasha got caught doing stuff they shouldn't, such as graffitiing public property and stuff like that. "I- um, it's okay, you guys, don't worry about it." She stuttered the apology which she'd grown used to saying to Anne and Sasha whenever they apologized for not paying attention to whatever game or movie she was talking about at the time.

Marcy closed the door, and undressed, as she did so she noticed how tattered her outfit really was, it had tears, its polyester fabric showing signs of damage due to friction, it was also stained permanently brown by mud and a large purple stain was at its front where the blood of the monster from yesterday had landed.

She took off the uniform completely, looked at herself in the mirror and saw the large bruise on her chest, she was incredibly lucky to even be alive right now, a hit like that would've killed a person normally, Marcy cut that line of thought right then and there, she didn't want to think about her mortality right now.

She then walked towards the bathtub and it turned on, there wasn't hot water, cool, so she had to move quickly.

==💙==

She finished her shower in five minutes, she was trembling from how cold the water was when she got out, she got dressed, and got out of the bathroom.

She walked down the stairs and into the kitchen where Mr. Flour was waiting for her, Maddie was sitting on a stool alongside Mr. Flour, the pollywogs were nowhere to be seen.

"Okay, Marcy, I've already got the bread prepared, they're in the hearth right now, it'll take about twenty minutes for them to be ready, we'll let them cool for another ten and as soon as that happens I'll need you to make the deliveries at the people with Maddie, she'll teach you your way through the town, you'll carry most of the bread and Maddie will be the one doing the talking, as to not freak folks out." He explained, all the while he moved around the kitchen, he then opened the door on the back of the room, leading to a shop, tiny, but still a shop with a counter, a lit hearth, a cabinet filled with various ingredients, and a table where between two wet towels was raw dough waiting for the rest of the bread to finish, Mr. Flour grabbed a pair of oven mitts with a red and white checkered pattern, he opened the hearth to check on the bread and he flipped them around to make sure they cooked properly.

They waited, until Mr. Flour pulled the bread out, and waited for it to cool down, and as soon as they were cool enough, they put it in a large basket and they were off, walking quickly in ever-expanding circles going through the town delivering the bread, along the way some people looked at Marcy like she was an oddity at times, others they looked like she was gonna eat them, most avoided her like the plague.

And so they went back and forth to the bakery, picking up more bread as they needed to.

As they passed by the houses and businesses she noticed the state of disrepair the town was in, entire houses abandoned, lampposts rusted and fallen under their own weight, the disgusting smell of rotting food was ever-present, there wasn't a proper drainage system as such the smell of waste was very noticeable in some parts, mailboxes had huge holes in them, the school was a mess of crumbled material, she thought American maintenance infrastructure was bad, this made that look like the roads back home look like they were made of marble gilded with gold, it was so outrageously bad she couldn't even poke fun at it like she did back home, it honestly looked like something out of a third world country in Africa or Asia.

"One last delivery and we're clear, Marcy." Maddie said, getting up from a rock which she was sitting on.

"Good, good." Marcy felt tired as heck, she'd never walked that much in her life nor did she carry that much weight, and she honestly just wanted to be done with the deliveries, she wanted to go on an adventure, not do escort missions.

She got up and Maddie guided them through the massive fields, through various abandoned houses, and failed crop fields, many of the crops withering without anyone to watch over them, massive, near cow-sized horse flies eating the edible remains, unwittingly fertilizing the land preparing it for the next people to come to Wartwood to try their luck in becoming a farmer, from what she's seeing she doesn't believe that a lot of them are capable of succeeding as some houses seem recently vacated, heck, some people were still looting the houses, looking for valuables, she wrote this down on her phone, it could come in handy later.

Then Maddie came to a stop in front of a rustic house, its construction made it seem like it was part tree, part overgrown plant life, and part actual house, it was charming in a sense, now that she thought about it, the houses from around here were much bigger than the ones on Wartwood, with much more expensive and durable materials, she wonders why, but she doesn't get to as Maddie advances towards the house.

Now that she gets a closer look, she sees that the house is right besides a lake, then she noticed the massive fields that had files upon files of plants, she also noticed that the field had Phaseolus vulgaris, AKA: bean plants, waiting to be harvested, the moment they were harvested the plants would be left to die, the plant would slowly release nitrogen this nitrogen would help the other plants grow, such as corn, 'cause whoever the owner of the property was they had a pretty big corn field, and they also knew their stuff pretty well, meaning this person has been a farmer for a long time or they were born a farmer, which for her was pretty cool, 'cause these guys tended to live interesting lives, at least for her.

As soon as Maddie knocked on the door and she was right behind her, something tried to jump on Marcy with a warcry.

As fast as she could she reacted, but it was in vain as whoever it was that jumped on her managed to make them hit their heads together, Marcy felt ill from the hit, her head spinning and hurting like someone had hit her with a tennis ball she tried to get herself back on her feet as she'd fallen to her knees with the hit, she succeeded on the fourth try, as soon as her vision stabilized she noticed the purple pollywog in front of her, with a mace on her cute little flippers, she honestly didn't know how she could wield something like that without falling over since it seemed to weigh the same as the pollywog, she also wore a yellow bow with polka dots, she guessed it was a she thanks to the bow.

"You won't eat us alive, monster!" She screamed angrily at Marcy before charging, Marcy tried to run away, but the pollywog was clearly more experienced in that aspect, catching up to her.

Maddie, looking at the stupidity of this situation put her basket down, annoyed that this little girl was harassing an innocent hummus… humass?... a person, an innocent person, so she reached down to the inside of her skirt where she hid her things such as money 'cause this thing had quite the spacious pockets, she calmly pulled out a little cloth bag, and threw it towards the pollywog, and as soon as it hit the pollywog she was encased in thick vines, preventing her from moving.

Marcy looked tired, and like she was about to vomit from sheer exertion, which she did, right then and there, in the middle of the road, her mouth felt disgusting, her throat burnt thanks to her stomach acid, but she herself felt a bit better, not by much but better than she would normally be if made to run that much after walking for three hours, she saw Maddie offer her a handkerchief, she accepted it, cleaning her face from the bile and sweat that coated her lips and brow respectively, she stuck the used handkerchief in her pocket.

An elderly orange frog came out of the house, saying. "The heck's up with this ruckus out here?!"

He then saw Maddie and Marcy, but specifically Marcy. "Aaaah, the beast!"

And tried to close the door on them, Maddie threw another of those bags, this one made a small block of extremely packed earth block the door.

Maddie then picked up her basket, walked up to the door, opened it up, tired of this, she put the basket with the bread right on the frog's arms, and said in a creepy, emotionless tone. "Hello, Mr. Plantar, I'll need the payment for the bread and the delivery, and the basket I gave you last week." While her tone was unnerving, her eyes - or rather - her only  exposed eye was a slit, its sclera yellowish, and she didn't blink a single time, constantly looking at the elderly frog, as if staring at his soul, which made Maddie look downright terrifying, he quickly gave her the payment, copper coins ironically called coppers, and the basket.

She went outside removing the piece of packed earth with another bag, and motioned a terrified and quaking Marcy to go.

Marcy followed, and as they were leaving she told the frog, Mr. Plantar, that the vines encasing the pollywog would wither and die in about an hour.

That confrontation out of the picture, they went back to Maddie's home, and ate sandwiches that Mr. Flour had left on the counter, with him having gone out on an errand to the nearby town of Swamphausen. "That's a really weird name." Marcy thought.

"I'm sorry," Maddie said, apologetically. "For scaring you like I do to everyone else."

Marcy actually had to stop doing anything else for a second to process that, and then answered with the first thing that came to mind: "Wh-what? Nah, you're fine." Which came out sounding like she was disinterested.

She immediately amended it, by saying: "I wasn't scared, at all, s-see?" She forced a strained smile.

Maddie looked at her, her face emotionless, and deadpan.

"O-okay, yeah, you were pretty scary." She admitted, defeatedly. "But you don't need to apologize for it, it was pretty cool " she said, putting emphasis on the word cool by pointing finger guns at Maddie with the sandwich still in hand.

Maddie smiled slightly. "Thanks, Marcy, you're the first one to tell me that, outside my family that is."

"Well, friends compliment each other, don't they?" Marcy said, throwing a thumbs up toward Maddie, much like a peppy, overly excited MC from a shonen anime would.

"Are we friends?" Maddie asked, confused.

"W-well, that's if you want, I can't force you to be my friend." Marcy answered, nervously.

"It's just that I haven't ever had friends, people find me "too creepy" to hang out with me." Maddie explained.

"Well, then I'll be your first." Marcy said, inspired, she knew what it was to be a social outcast, so she took a page out of Anne's book, and offered her help in a way that was manageable for her.

"Do you want to assist me in making curses? I've gotta replenish them from our fight yesterday." Maddie asked, waiting for the obvious yes.

"Yeah! Let's go do this!" Marcy said, excited.

And so they finished up their sandwiches, and ran upstairs, and Maddie picked up materials for her curses, while Marcy picked up her backpack, they reunited in the living room, and walked out the door and locked it after they went out, all the while, Marcy was wondering how the girls were doing.

==💚==

Anne was currently going through hell, not actual hell but- honestly, explaining her current predicament would require her rewinding time to 7 days ago, the day of her birthday, everything was going as it normally did, Sasha and her were skipping class, went to the arcade, Sasha did some graffiti, Sasha vandalized public property, the usual, until Sasha got a message from Marcy talking about a great gift for her, they tried buying it, until they realized that the damn thing was worth 5k which was more than they could afford, even if Sasha used the entirety of her monthly allowance, speaking of which, why the heck did Sasha need 2k monthly? Anyways back on topic.

They decided to steal it in the end, of course Anne had doubts about this, but Marcy and Sasha reassured her, and so she stole it, it was surprisingly easy, no one saw her, there weren't any cameras and she walked out uninterrupted, until she reached a park upon which she sat, and when they were at the park, far away from the thrift store she opened it, transporting her to Newtopia, with the box nowhere in sight.

Then she got captured by the Royal Newt Guard, the name of which she learnt later, and she met Lady Olivia, who brought her to the King who pronounced her a diplomat for her world, and he promised to help her find her friends, which she really wants to do, even if she also wants to clock Sasha in the face right now, after hugging her and freaking out.

A couple days later she meets with the eccentric General Yunan, they actually met at the palace gym, after lengthy conversations between them Yunan took a liking to her, and decided to train her in the ways of the Newtopian Rangers, a training course lasting a month, with her free time being ate up by Lady Olivia's lessons on mathematics, history, physics, politics, etiquette, and many more, but she didn't mind, somehow learning stuff from Lady Olivia felt entertaining, and she was making actual progress with everything she was given, not much, mind you, but it was progress, she could even pronounce words correctly on High Newtopian which was a language composed of runes, and the language was barely even used outside of bragging rights or tradition.

All of that brought her to this, a rocky cliff, her uniform tattered in some places and dirty, a breastplate on her chest, a single-edged shortsword with a spiked handle clipped at her waist by a belt and a leather backpack on her back, she had a rope tied to her waist too.

This rope was connecting her to Yunan, Yunan was - in Anne's honest opinion - a pretty good-looking Newt, fair amount of muscle, yet slim, tall, and her scarlet scales looked iridescent when the sunlight shone on them, her hair was a gorgeous pale blonde, looking almost white, she also only was twice Anne's age which was very impressive considering that the rest of the Newt High Command were on their 50s or 60s, and a veteran of the most important of the recent wars, the Sand Wars.

What they were currently doing was traversing the biomes in the Newtopia area, the terrains varied wildly, from barren deserts to lush forests, their current route was taking them to the asymmetrical labyrinth, the trial that would see if she could even get to train with Yunan to become a Newtopian Ranger, the place was a cave filled to the brim with traps, noxious gasses, poisons, and wild animals, the place had claimed 300 lives in the past 5 years, it was a pain to get to, actually, so, how bad could this place be in comparison to the hellish trek and climb to actually get there?

This is, of course, not even counting the flora and fauna that they'd had to deal with in order to get here in the first place.

"Boonchuy! Hurry up and pick up the pace! We're going to get thrown off if we continue to stay too long on the ledge" Yunan screamed at her over the constant wind, never actually looking at Anne, more focused on not falling, Anne immediately got to pick up the pace. If there was one thing that she truly enjoyed about Amphibia it was the fact that the people here didn't treat her like someone inferior to them, condescending because you're a student, a child that doesn't know what places they're going in the world, Olivia and Yunan were just like her parents who told her that the moment she was 12 she would be treated like an adult in their eyes, with full responsibility and all, after all they WERE preparing her to eventually take over their restaurant, so she appreciated the way Lady Olivia treated her like "Lady Boonchuy" like she was the head of a noble family, or how Yunan treated her like a soldier, it made her feel… comfortable with her situation somehow better than it actually was.

As they reached the edge of the cliff the wind began to mellow out, over the edge was a large part of flat rock, gray and barren, with a a large, large rock stood there a couple yards away from the edge it had a flag mounted on it, the Newtopian Rangers flag, the air here was incredibly thin, as such they took air out of these canisters made of bronze that helped them breathe every time they began to feel the effects of the lack of oxygen.

At the base of the rock was an opening to a cave, it has stairs carved into the stone, carvings decorated its surface, carvings that clearly indicated danger.

"Okay, Boonchuy! You know why we're here, right?" Yunan asked, Anne nodded her head in response. "I expect a verbal answer, cadet!"

Anne immediately snapped into attention, straightening her back, saluting Yunan, when Yunan stopped talking to her casually and started talking to her like a drill instructor she had to act like a recruit, and so she answered to her. "Yes, ma'am, we are here to test if I'm good enough to enter Newtopian Ranger training by going through the Asymmetrical Labyrinth, the cave currently in front of us, upon me completing it or failing to complete it we will come back directly to Newtopia, ma'am."

"Good, good, Boonchuy, but you're wrong on one thing, we won't be going to come back to Newtopia directly." Anne looked at Yunan, wondering why they wouldn't. "'Cause we'll be going to Leap's End." As she finished the sentence she pointed at something on the distance covered by the clouds, as if on cue the wind blew the clouds out of the way, revealing a massive clearing bordered by trees, in the clearing was a massive freaking city, not village, city, she saw birds flying out of the city, snails - which appeared to be the equivalent of cars here - going in and out of the city, the city appears to have been walled at some point, but the rustic houses of the Amphibians had clearly extended beyond the walls, huge fields that reminded her of those on Iowa from when her family made a trip through the country, it had been awesome.

Its houses were all different, yet similar in materials and shape of construction, and there were hundreds of them, maybe a 1000 or 2000 of 'em, possibly even more, as the horizon prevented her from fully grasping the full scope of the city's size.

"Why…?" She asked.

"Hmmm?" Yunan looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

"You guys haven't even presented me to the general public, save for a couple people, why are you taking me there, where thousands of people could look at me, and see I'm not from this world." Anne elaborated.

"Well, I frankly don't care about the politics of it like Liv and the King do." Yunan walked closer to Anne, and reached out to her face and pulled a bug off that Anne hadn't even realized was there, its torso was as big as her thumb, and had freakishly long legs and wings. It had a color so similar to Anne's skin that it was indistinguishable.

"I believe that first impressions are the most important thing, currently, Leap's End has been attacked by bandits for the last month, you can see them over there." Anne followed her gauntleted hand and saw a pillar of smoke. "We are going to capture them, and hand them over to the local authorities, we will present you as their savior and that way you can get more freedom to find your friends." She said, raising a hand in front of her face and closing it, making a fist. "That, and after today's meal and tomorrow's breakfast and lunch we'll be out of food, and I'd prefer to not waste our time hunting for something to eat." Anne laughed a little at that.

"Why do you want to help me?" Anne asked.

"I want to help you because you remind me of myself, wild, good at kicking butt and quite frankly a little dumb." Anne responded with an embarrassed "hey!" To that. "But you've got a good heart, and you won't stay put, you'll go out and try to find your friends, I'm doing this so you don't get yourself killed, if you accomplish this you'll show the King you're capable enough, heck, maybe they'll send you with me on peacekeeping missions, if you do well enough!" Yunan hit Anne's arm lightly, the armored gauntlet hurt a little against the bare skin of her arm, she rubbed it a little, a bit embarrassed at the speech that Yunan just gave.

Anne then smiled and said. "Thank you." And embraced Yunan in a quick hug, she didn't hug back, just patted her on the head, very, very awkwardly.

"Now enough emotional talk. Set up camp, Boonchuy!" She responded with a quick "Yes, ma'am!" And got to work.

After 20 minutes she was done, and Yunan had set up a fire with firewood she had tied to her own backpack.

The camp was basic, two tents, and a fire and that was about it, the only difference between the tents was that Yunan's was red and Anne's was yellow, on the inside were sleeping bags, both were blue in color as they were standard issue Newtopian army Blue-ringed bumblesheep sleeping bags.

They ate, Yunan conversed about her stories of the Sand Wars, they ate, and went to sleep as the sun was falling, for some reason the sun here sets on the East. But anyway they had a long day tomorrow, so it was best to go to sleep.

==💚==

Anne woke up to her alarm, as she typically did, her body sore from the climb and the hard floor, she immediately noticed something wrong, Yunan woke her up at least an hour before her alarm went off.

She turned off the alarm, and rose up to her feet, but she was in low crouch as she couldn't stand at her full height, now noticing a note besides her chestplate, she first put on the chestplate, unlatching the sides of it to make it open, its riveted plates that were hammered into shape to fit her creaking slightly as she put it on, clicking the latches back on, then putting her belt with her sword onto her waist, above her skirt, she checked the note out, it was from Yunan.

She opened it, and it read: "Boonchuy, I have already departed, pack your items back and descend into the Labyrinth, I'll be waiting for you at the bottom, if you make it, I'll wait for you for 3 hours max, if that time has passed by the time you arrive at the bottom I'll be waiting for you at Leap's End, which should be just ten kilometers to the East of the exit of the labyrinth, if you arrive before nine hours and I'm not there then something is wrong, and you should go to Leap's End, I'll catch up to you."

As soon as she read that she snapped into action, gathering her stuff packing the campsite, her equipment heavy on her back, she was lucky she didn't wear a helmet, she seriously didn't want any more weight.

She walked towards the rock, and into the darkness of the abyss, taking one last gulp of air out of the canister, leaving it behind as it became dead weight.

Turns out the abyss lit up a little after entering as the lack of light let a glowing moss light up the place, barely lighting it up as everything was wreathed in darkness, but lighting it up all the same

She descended quickly, not having the time to check out the carvings, she ducked and dodged the stalac- stalag- whatever, the pointy rocks that poked out of the ceiling.

She kept up the pace until encountering her first trap, which was activated by a string near the ground, it almost tripped her, a simple dart trap, she easily dodged the dart, "this is supposed to be difficult?"

She then felt a dart hit her chestplate, the hit bouncing off harmlessly.

She then heard the whistling of several objects passing near her ears, and then she heard the trap firing a constant barrage of darts, so many in fact she couldn't parry or dodge by moving to the side, the only option she saw was forward and so she dove forward one of the darts hitting her backpack.

As she landed face first onto the ground she felt a click come from the ground and she rolled out of the way to avoid whatever was coming, what came was a bunch of spear-like spikes popping out of the ground to try to impale her.

As she avoided this she noticed a strange mushroom on the wall, she recognized the shape, it was a shroomlight, she walked up to it and lightly tapped it, it truly lit up the place, as Anne was about to walk through the seemingly empty corridor towards the bottom a series of clicking and shifting sounds were heard, and then all manner of traps and obstacles popped up, swinging guillotines, saws, freaking flamethrowers, ballistas, and freakish monsters that waited for her to get close to take a bite out of her were suddenly there, Anne's jaw would've fallen to the ground if it wasn't attached to her face unable to deal with this she said. "What kinda fucking dungeon is this!?" She didn't even try to hold back her cursing as she was alone.

She composed herself, and tapped the mushroom again to see what happens and as she expected the clicking and shifting was heard again as the traps disappeared, the flames of the flamethrowers extinguishing last, its light lighting up the hallway for one last time as they extinguished, Anne tapped the mushroom again, the same process of the traps popping out repeated itself.

She got ready, and as she prepared herself for the run of her life she noticed a harsh green colored gas flowing from the cracks on the walls, "there it was." She thought. Yunan had talked a lot about the toxic gasses that Newtopia used in this specific training course.

She took a deep breath and started sprinting, timing her movements with the action of the traps, she passed the guillotines, ducked under the saws that popped out of the sides, jumped before the flamethrowers activated, and avoided the chained beasts, her body feeling better than ever, the pains from yesterday disappearing as she moved through the dungeon, she approached a fork on the road, she picked the left side, she felt a click under her sneakers gave her all the info she needed about this hallway, and she dodged backwards as the walls crashed together, that brush with death out of the way, she picked the central road, which ended in two dead-ends.

As such she backtracked and went through the road on the right, and continued, not noticing how the air seemed to be getting greener.

She ran around, avoiding traps, going through hallways until they led her further down or they ended, having to backtrack entire sections at a time more often than not.

This place was getting on her nerves, she- woooooooosh…

She felt the rush of fresh air against her face, it was coming from the hallway on the left of her, it also smelled delicious, like her mom's cooking.

She decided that she would follow the smell, she didn't have anything to lose.

As she walked through the hallway she came across an arena, it didn't have any features besides being made of massive bricks of stone.

In the middle of it stood a familiar figure, her mom, cooking.

"Mom?" She called out to her, she didn't seem to hear her, she got near her, and tried again. "Mom?" As she got nearer and nearer she saw her mom's body shimmering strangely, she slowly pulled her sword out, something was not right, why would her mom be here anyways?

Then, suddenly a spiked tail flew through her mom's body, the illusion was dropped, a beast was in place of her mom, Anne parried the strike, she was off balance, she cut a section of its tail off and it scrambled back, this allowed Anne to stabilize herself, dashing towards the creature, stabbing it deep then ripping the sword off the flesh and kicking it on the face, then slashing at it cutting it, blood streaming down its injuries, the creature looked like it was made of sinewy muscle blue in color, it had no eyes and had 4 fingers on each limb, it looked somewhat humanoid, its mouth a mess of teeth bigger than her fingers a long tongue came out of its mouth as it hissed at her, it looked like a mix of a cat and a wolf with exposed muscle and had a tail similar to that of cat with a stinger at its tip, she couldn't see much more as the creature reared and prepped for another pounce, she didn't give it the chance as she did the sensible thing and ran away toward the door on the other side as it chased after her.

Anne reached and opened the door on the far end and closed it behind her, she didn't want to see that thing ever again, it crashed into the door several times before giving up a couple minutes later, and now that she was done with that part she stared at the road ahead, it was filled with the gas from before. "Oh my god! What the heck is wrong with this place! Can't anything be normal here!?"

She sighed and resigned herself to her fate, walking through the hallway, continuing her deadly march, she then suddenly  tripped and fell onto the ground, which she found to be composed of mud, a 3 feet pool of it.

She got up, body caked in mud and continued walking luckily the road here was straight as an arrow, only it began to get steep, in a downward angle, she noticed that the place was looking like a slide, and used this to her advantage she slid down with ease the trek going for about twenty seconds till she hit another pool of mud, she got up and continued her walk, she started feeling tired, her face flushed, the shroomlights glowing green from the gas on the hallway, she continues walking, albeit at a slower pace than normal, her sword hanging low, her body sore all over, she wanted to rest. As she was about to fall asleep she came across a door, massive in size, taller than her, in fact, she could probably put a school bus standing upright through the doorway and still have plenty of room.

She needed to get out of here, she used all of her weight to push them open, when that failed she then looked at the construction of the door and realized that it was a pair of sliding doors, she slid them open slightly as her strength was leaving her, suddenly the doors were opened up by another force,.

Said force grabbed her by the waist and threw her to the other side of the arena, similar on construction to the other one though the other one was featureless blank slate of brick, this one was a highly ornate arena actually worth describing it, high pillars that reached the incredibly tall ceiling were decorated with engravings of battles and wars and of times of peace, and intricate carvings of religious symbology, besides them were statues of various Newts, behind them were the carved busts of other Newts into the wall some of them were incredibly pretty, and had detailing so meticulous that if you put the person whose statue it was besides it she wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them besides the fact that one was made out of stone.

As Anne was thrown into the ground thanks to the unknown force, she spent the next 30 seconds teaching her body how to breathe again, she sounded like she was dying, heaving and letting tears of pain out of her stinging eyes all the while.

As she got her breath back she saw the beast that had thrown her, it was a pumpkin, a massive one at that, it had strange growths connected with vines to form arms, its vine tentacles acted as legs, it had 8 of them, it had a jack-o'-lantern face which was part of its torso.

It also was waiting for her to take the first step, she looked behind her, to look at the door behind her, it was locked by a bunch of interlocking pillars of iron, she saw that the lock would take too much time to open, and expertise that she just didn't have, so her only option was fighting it.

She readied herself, and it charged at her, she waited for it to come to her, the gas was still affecting her, she felt like if she walked towards it she'd fall, when it reached her it lunged at her with those mutated tumorous masses, now that she had a closer look, she realized that the creature wasn't smooth on its surface as tiny pustules of a strange glowing yellow liquid covered its body, Anne dodged to the side, the creature clipping her leg, leaving a gash on her leg, as she rolled, trying to get back on her feet it attacked again, trying to smash her into a meaty paste on the floor, she dodged again, barely, she slipped a little, her body overcompensating as the gas's effects screwed up her equilibrium, she then proceeded to lunge at it hitting one of its limbs, cutting a couple of the vines keeping it attached to the body, this gave her an idea, she started running away, she needed her full strength for this, the effects were starting to wear off she noticed as her limbs didn't feel like jello anymore, then the creature jumped and landed in front of her, cracking the ground as it landed, Anne steeled herself, and lunging again, this time she had better positioning and managed to cut a lot of vines, she continued by stabbing its left eye before backing away as it tried to hit her, she then ran around it and cut off two of its hind vine-legs, she ran and did the same thing with the other side, it fell on its back, giving Anne the golden opportunity to strike at its head, she did so brutally, not wasting a second, and hit it again, and again and again and again and again and again, till all that was left was just a puddle of smashed rotten pumpkin, it smelled disgusting.

"Well, that was anticlimactic." She thought out-loud, but then again, most fights aren't these glorious, epic fights right out of the movies as Yunan had told her - speaking of which, yes, the Newts had movies, and arcades, which was honestly surprising, considering that most of their technology was either from the dark ages or of the industrial revolution - most fights would end very quickly, lasting a couple of seconds at most.

She rested up and continued walking, as she did so, she saw natural light, it was reflecting off the corridor's wall, she ran, and saw the final hallway, and open chasm that went deep below, large rocks stood there as platforms to jump to, about 10 of them, she then heard the familiar harsh whistling of an arrow heading towards her, it went past her head and cut a bit of her hair off, not much though, she wasn't going to wait to get shot, as such she started jumping onto the next platform, she couldn't see what was shooting at her but it was clearly taking its time aiming at her and reloading between shots, implying a sort of crossbow.

She leaped from stone to stone, finally seeing what was shooting at her, a gray-robed figure with a crossbow laying down against the ground, the robe serving as camouflage against the bare rock, she approached it, quickly, as she leapt towards the next platform a bolt slammed into her chestplate, slowing her down, making her almost fall to her death, she gripped against a rocky protrusion on the side of the platform.

The being got up and walked towards the edge, they probably didn't know that Anne was still alive, and were just checking if she survived, Anne waited for them to come near the edge, as they did Anne jumped onto them, and gripped the robe, she pulled them to the abyss, they stumbled and fell, their screams were heard ever more distant, until a loud crack was heard on the distance, as the person fell she saw that they were a toad, she couldn't get more details other than that as they fell deep to the chasm far too quickly, gripping the ledge as if her life depended on it(which it did) she pulled herself up continuing to move out of the cave she came across the sounds of fighting, she went to take a peek, and as her eyes adjusted to the brightness she saw Yunan fighting off a group of toads, from what she could see they were clearly losing as Yunan proved why she was the general of the Newtopian Army, the contrast between them was huge, Yunan had clean, mastercrafted armor and weapons of high-quality materials compared to their slapdash equipment, ragged clothes and worn weapons, most of them had clubs or axes and hatchets, some even had mining equipment in place of weapons, the medals she always had attached to her chestplate clinked as her motions tossed them around, speaking of motions, Yunan somehow managed to maintain momentum while fighting, sometimes landing hard strikes against the toads, knocking them back or knocking them down, and most normal strikes she performed were purposefully made to rake against the exposed parts of their armor or leather, often they were joints, neck, feet and face, all critical areas, creating shallow but numerous cuts, until Yunan hit them hard and they didn't get back up, groaning in pain on the ground or being knocked out, Yunan repeated this various times, until only one toad remained, who was decidedly the smartest one there and ran… right into Anne's chestplate, knocking themselves out.

"Ah, Boonchuy, good, you're here, did you by any chance see a gray-robed toad wielding a crossbow? I saw her run towards the exit of the Labyrinth." She nodded and answered. "Yeah, I saw her, had to throw her into the chasm as she shot me and I couldn't exactly knock her out." Yunan was perplexed for a second, surprised that Anne took down a bandit by herself but ultimately nodded, approving of Anne's quick decision-making.

"Well, then, don't just stand there, help me tie them up!" Yunan said, commanding, as they tied up the bandits she noticed Anne's damaged chestplate, the arrow had left a dent and a section of the armor had a small fracture on it, nothing too important, as the armor was literally several sets of armor put together in a slapdash manner to fit Anne's "bigger than average" size. "Say, Boonchuy, now that you've completed your entry course, we can get the King's approval to get you your own armor, 'cause that thing you're wearing hardly serves that purpose."

Anne thought about this,looked at herself, then she answered. "Yeah, I guess I should, I should also start getting a dress, Lady Olivia wanted me to get one as soon as I could." Yunan scoffed at that. "She probably wants you to go to a gala, or a party, pretty boring nobility stuff, buncha stuffy assholes." She said that last part under her breath.

Anne looked at the bandits and then asked. "Say, what were they doing here?"

Yunan finished tying another bandit up and helped with Anne's whom she had been struggling to tie up for the past 3 minutes. "I don't know exactly, but they were trying to get into the cave through this side, probably trying to use it as a base to attack incoming merchants from, the cave is very close to one of the main roads that head for Leap's End, and just isolated enough that if no one escaped the local authorities wouldn't notice, and if they did the bandits would probably just bribe the enforcers or already be in cahoots with the mayor or sheriff." Yunan answered casually, Anne stared at her, appalled at the blatant problems the Amphibian empire had in the way they governed.

They waited until the bandits woke up again, Yunan gave Anne an antidote for the poisons in her bloodstream just in case, it almost made Anne vomit, as it tasted like garbage, and then they ate the rest of their rations, dry, flavorless bread with chunks of dried, salted meat in it, to some it would taste disgusting, but to Anne it tasted like heaven, as she was freaking hungry from all the fighting and jumping as the bandits woke up they started guiding them towards the town.

As they arrived at the walls of the town Anne saw the massive fields, they were so big that she couldn't see how far they truly went, she saw that a lot of the field were grapes, some had grapes the size of her fist, she thought that they were a different type of fruit, Yunan told her that they were indeed just regular grapes that had been selectively bred for hundreds of years to reach those sizes and others had many small grapes, she saw farmers harvesting them, ignoring the people arriving, sometimes some took glances at them then quickly went back to work.

They approached the gates, as they did so they noticed the guardsmen of the town waiting for them. "Halt, who goes there!" A female toad demanded, the voice while threatening had a bored tone as if this was protocol, which it probably was. "I am General Yunan, scourge of the Sand Wars, defeater of Ragnar the Wretched, youngest Newt to ever reach the rank of General of the Newtopian army! And this is my aide, Anne Boonchuy the human." She finished her presentation, making weird poses all the while, the Toad stared at Anne for a moment and Anne gave her a wave, the Toad took a short look at her and told the other Toad guard besides her to note that down not even phased by the fact that Anne was a creature from another world. "What would your business be in Leap's End?" She asked, her voice monotonous "We are here to deliver these bandits we caught on our way here and to restock on supplies for the journey to Newtopia." As she presented the bandits they saw how battered and bruised they were, Anne and Yunan having bandaged their wounds, same with Anne's wound on her leg a temporary fix as the bandage only kept it covered till they find a place where they could sleep and tend to her wounds properly and in peace.

They noted this down, and took the prisoners. "Welcome to Leap's End, the inn is just further down the road, can't miss it, it's really big, it also sells traveling resources, don't get into any trouble, I don't care that you are a General, I'll arrest you all the same, same thing for you, hummus." And with that she let them through, the residents sent sideways glances at Yunan and her.

True to her words they couldn't miss the inn, it was massive, they even had a snail rental agency in there, they walked in, and scared the small Frog that was the innkeeper.

She was about a third of Yunan's and Anne's size, with Anne being a strange creature and Yunan literally smiling the creepiest smile she's ever seen, not because of her face or the psychopathic look on her eyes (which did influence this) but because of her freaking serrated teeth. 

"I'm going to need a room with two beds, with lunch, dinner and breakfast, please." The scared innkeeper had to make a double take before recovering. "Yes, that'll be 30 coppers, ma'am." Yunan handed her the money, she gave her the key and said that the room's number was 307, and as they were about to leave she stopped, and turned towards the innkeeper. "Hey, how much would a small bottle of distilled wine, a surgical needle and thread and a roll of clean cloth for wounds cost?" The innkeeper made the calculations in her mind. "Smallest and cheapest bottle I've got is 500 milliliters and worth 50 coppers, all of that in total would make it 90 coppers." She answered simply. "Good, I'll buy that," she reached for her bag to pull out a tiny sack, filled with coins, she paid up, and got the things. Anne opened the door and immediately laid down on the bed closest to the door face down, tired and sore, and wanting to eat something again.

"Boonchuy." Yunan called out, she lifted her face, she saw her with a glass on her hand, the bottle she bought on the other, Anne got up and sat on the bed. "Extend your leg, and grab this." She offered her the glass, Anne extended her leg onto the next bed, the space between them being enough to let her put her leg on it and still let her sit, Yunan poured half a glass of the liquid from the bottle into the glass, it reeked of alcohol, burning her nostrils a little. "Why are you giving me this?" Anne asked, shaking the glass a little. "Oh it's to make sure that when I begin closing your wound you don't start crying for your mommy." Anne gave her a shocked look and replied with a simple, "Oh." She continued her shocked response with a question, "is that why you bought those things?"

"Yes, now drink, be careful, it's some powerful stuff, drink it slowly, 'cause it's gonna burn when it goes down." Anne drank it as per Yunan's request, the liquid burning her lips, mouth and throat all the way down, she drank the liquid as fast as she could, as soon as she finished her drink Yunan took the glass from her hands, she'd been preparing the needle and thread, by putting them on little bit of boiling, rapidly cooling water.

"Okay, Boonchuy, this is going to hurt, and unlike in Newtopia we don't exactly have access to painkillers, so we're going to do this like everyone else does, by making you drink a lot of alcohol and biting down on a piece of leather, how do you feel? Feeling the effects of the alcohol?" Anne tried to look for the right words to say in this situation, she didn't want to get drunk until she was 21, she'd promised her parents to wait, but the fact that Yunan was about to essentially perform a field surgery made her feel scared because of the incoming pain so she felt that it was necessary for now. "Not really, I feel the same."

"Hah, you humans sure are way more resistant to alcohol, well, that or you'd be a beast when it comes to drinking contests, huh?" The conversation was great at distracting her from the ever growing pain on her leg, now that she'd stopped moving and the adrenaline was wearing off her wound's pain was increasing, slowly but steady, Yunan served a second glass and gave it to her, Anne drank it faster now, putting the glass down on the bed right beside her, Yunan pulled the needle and thread out of the water, the water was still slightly hot she realized as she touched it, she walked back to Anne, a glass of water in her other hand, she'd taken off the gauntlets as she didn't want to get any more bacteria that could infect the wound in there.

She kneeled right besides Anne on the bed, she removed the blood-stained bandages and poured a bit of water on the wound Anne hissed quite audibly at this, cleaning it up to properly see the damage, it was deeper than one would think for one, as with how much Anne had probably moved during the day would indicate minimal damage to the leg, she checked for any foreign elements such as torn cloth threads, or pieces of rock or metal or whatever, finding none she proceeded with the next step, she grabbed the needle and thread and got to work on the wound, trying to close it as she made the first incision Anne screamed a startled yelp and half-screams cut by her biting into a piece of cloth.

Yunan worked as fast as she could, but she didn't want to hurt Anne or screw up the "surgery" as such it went much slower than she wanted it to go. " Hey, Anne, tell me how you feelin'?" "Like shit, Yunan, how do you expect I feel!? FUCK!" "Okay, should've expected that, let's talk about something else, how do you feel about me training you and Olivia teaching you? I haven't had time to ask yet." She started with the next stitch. "Fuck. Well, it's cool, I guess? mmph, I don't like it very much, I'd rather be home with my mom and dad, gotta say tho. Motherfucker! I like it tho, I've learnt much more from you two than I have in school, plus, I need this to survive and leave Amphibia." Another stitch was done now, she moved on to the next one. "Yeah, I guess you do, I gotta say, you are almost at the necessary physical level to enter the Newtopian Rangers, I used to be one before having to become a bureaucrat you know?" "Huh, that's why you hunt down bandits on your own?" "Yup! I do it 'cause I'm bored and nobody else does it, 'cause if there's one thing being in the army has taught me it's how to avoid bureaucrats, I hate doing paperwork, I even have an army's worth of secretaries to manage the piles of it to be out here."

They both chuckled at that, Anne gripped the bedsheets as she continued working on Anne's injury.

"Say, General, how'd you learn to do this?" She pointed at her leg. "Oh, we had to learn how to operate on ourselves and our teammates during the Sand Wars, the rebelling toads on the desert had learnt to shoot our medics, as such we had to learn to close wounds and keep ourselves from dying, hah, those days were awful, wouldn't recommend it, saw a guy get shot in the head by a ballista while we were being airdropped into the toads' trenches, the war was devastating, displaced a lot of people, all 'cause some dumbass weapons dealer decided to show pity and pick sides, fuck whoever it was, I wanted to strangle them at the time."

Anne looked up to Yunan in shock. "Weapons dealer? What do you mean by "picking sides"?" 

"Well, you know how there are bandits who get into fights with towns or work for certain mayors?" Anne nodded, flinching as Yunan started another stitch. "Well, sometimes they get into wars with the cities, either by pushing too far their raids to the point where it starts cutting into the profits of the mayors, or they cut off a city from critical trade routes, once that happens weapons dealers will hurry to the area as skirmish leads to another skirmish and once they arrive to the place they sell things like crossbows, bolts, ballistas, oil, explosives to the city, and siege weaponry alongside with more mercenaries to the bandits, trying to draw the conflict out as much as they can to make a lot of money from it, once the conflict is done they buy back the equipment from the cities and scavenge the bandit camps and bail out the mercenaries to repeat the process somewhere else, repair what can be fixed and slag whatever metal that cannot be salvaged while the rest of the wood and leather is burnt to cover tracks, this happens always." Anne looked horrified. "How could the King let this happen? And what happens if the bandits win?" "Well, to answer your first question: he lets it happen because it's easier than just let everyone sell weapons to everyone, if that happened it would be chaos and many more would get killed and displaced, as for the other question: they really won't win, 'cause the moment a war is started the Toad army is deployed to deal with the problem, and if they fail to stop it, they deploy the Newtopian Army, which is rarely done, at which point the enemy is demoralized and short on men, and usually surrender, last time they didn't surrender was during the Sand Wars, when the bandits had taken over a town in the Eastern Amphibian deserts, we crushed their rebellion so hard they zone hasn't had bandit activity since." As Yunan explained coldly, staring at nothingness as she finished doing the stitches, grabbing a nearby towel and pouring a little bit of water again to clean the blood, as the blood was cleaned she bandaged up the leg again with the clean bandages she bought. "Hey, Anne, don't think about that, you're not going to get involved in that kinda stuff, now get in bed and rest, Frog knows you need it, I'll bring you some food later, sleep it off, we'll check on your wound tomorrow, 'kay?" Yunan looked at her, she was right, it wasn't her business getting involved in the petty wars of this world, honestly if she wasn't so close to experiencing it it could be an interesting subject to listen Marcy talk about, even if she dozed off in the middle of it.

Speaking of her friends, she pulled out an image, similar one to the ones Sasha and Marcy had on them, it was stained, and grainy as it was taken with a Polaroid, she missed them, soon they would be reunited, and they could go home, she hoped that would be the case at least, she started to tear up a little, remembering the worried messages her mother had sent her before going to Amphibia, as she got into bed and Yunan having left to get supplies she started to doze off, the photo squeezed tightly on her left hand, she slept peacefully, with only a tear flowing down her face that revealed the truth of what was going on in her dreams, as this happened in a closet on a certain house a gemstone flashed green, signaling the beginning of something great and terrible for Amphibia and the rest of this universe...