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Everything was wrong.
Once Anne went through the portal, she was supposed to land in verdant, green Amphibia. She would take a stroll to Wartwood and meet all her amphibian friends. They'll be happy to see her again; maybe they'll throw a big party for her and the Plantars (piñatas included, of course). She was supposed to be standing in the place she had grown to call her second home.
This place? It was a dust bowl. The once green Amphibian soil was now a wasteland. Wartwood was no more than ruins. And her friends? She saw none.
Or not how she remembered them —and she didn't just mean Loggle being shredded now or Ms. Crooker's war attire. She means the toad.
Red in hue and wrapped in terrifying armor. Its gigantic form cast shadows over them. Anne took a fighting stance, but the toad spoke at her directly.
"I don't believe it. Anne?"
And Anne felt like she'd been soundly sleeping and someone had sucker-punched her awake because she knew that voice.
The toad took the feathery helmet off. Transfigured as she was, Sasha had a very distinguishable face. The scar on her cheek was a giveaway, too.
Sasha made the first move but Anne closed the distance. Damn, she could barely circle Sasha's wide toad neck! Sasha's tubular arms were crushing Anne's back and bone but it was a welcomed pain.
"This is amazing. Sasha, is that really you? Mana, you got big!"
Through her tear-filled eyes, Anne caught Sasha's watchful look.
"I mean, you've put on weight!" Anne added, and now Sasha was scorning. "I mean… Muscles! You got them. I mean, you always did, but now you're buff! You've got fat but good fat. Good muscles, for crushing skulls and-please feel free to stop me."
To make Anne's day more mind-blowing, Sasha laughed off Anne's goofiness. "Man, I missed you so much, Anne. I don't know who those are, 'tho? Why did you bring civilians with you?"
Then it hit Anne the Plantars were still in their human forms. It must be weird for Sasha, after a whole month missing, to suddenly find Anne, back in Amphibia, side by side with a slinky human teenager, an angry-looking human child, and a human geezer.
"Civilians? Which ones? I don't see 'em," said Hop Pop, missing the point.
"I've never been civil in my life," said Polly, dodging the point by an even larger margin.
Anne said, "She means you guys. We're safe here. Masks off."
The Plantars complied. Three whirlwinds of blue fire danced around them, and where once were three humans, now stood the Plantars, in their usual frog shapes.
Saying this freaked out everyone would be an understatement.
"Well, I'll be damned. It is them!" said Loggle.
Sasha was the most flabbergasted. "What in the- They can turn into humans now? Like, backward to what we do? How is that possible?"
"Beats me," said Anne. "Probably something to do with the Box. Speaking of, how come YOU can turn into a toad, hmm?"
Sasha shrugged. "Beats me. How did you guys even get back here?"
"It's a long story. There was a portal and FBI agents. I think we're enemies of the state now —well, two states if you count Amphibia…"
A long, terrifying roar rumbled in the distance. Sasha, Loggle, and Ms. Crooker got into soldier mode.
"It's dangerous to stay outside. Come on. Let's head to the rebel base."
Anne lifted her fist to knock on Sasha's door. Then put it down. Then lifted it again. This has been going on for a few minutes and it was stupid. Why was Anne scared? It was just Sasha! And things were fine now. Well, fine-ish. OK, everything sucked, but neither had betrayed nor attacked the other yet. Big improvement. Which was the exact reason why Anne wanted to talk to her.
She took a long breath and knocked on the door. Sasha called her in. Sasha's room served as bedroom, war room, kitchen, and, Anne supposed, bathroom. Right now it was a war room, with Sasha and Grime studying some maps and wooden figurines resembling soldiers. Sasha dotted her human form. Her arms were way wider than Anne remembered.
Grime took his leave as Anne came in, bidding her a 'good night, Captain' as he passed her by.
Sasha folded the Amphibia map over and put the figurines aside. "Good to see you, Anne. I trust you guys are settling well? I wanted to apologize to the Plantars for taking their basement as a rebel base. It was just too perfect to go waste," she said, scratching her arm.
Apologize? Arm scratching? Who is this bashful girl and what did she do with Sasha?
Anne said. "You can bet they are. They're thrilled to be back in Amphibia, even if it's kinda on the yucky side right now."
"You sure? Seems to me Earth rubbed off on them. I saw Sprig flexing off in his human form to Ivy, and I'm not sure if she was impressed or grossed out. Maybe both."
Anne pointed a finger at her. "Excuse me, but I'll let you know they make pretty decent humans," she said, then added. "Seriously though, they were a pain in the butt. Who would've thought teaching frogs how to human would be so hard?"
Sasha leaned over the table. "Oh, that I gotta hear. Bring on that mocking material, girl."
They chatted. Incredibly, unbelievable, they held an hour-long talk without it falling into who betrayed who and who tried to kill who and whatnot. But perhaps the circumstances had something to do with it. They were at their worst moment; fighting a war against a highly technologically advanced immortal newt, with Marcy being held prisoner and with only a ragtag bunch of farmers to call 'army'.
It was horrible. And they were both too stubborn to admit how messed up they were about it. So they drank tea and eat cicada cookies and talked smack about the Plantars' lives on Earth.
"Frog-man?" Sasha snorted, nearly choking with her tea. "Sprig played to be a Superhero and the best he could do was Frog-man?"
Anne said. "It was technically true. Sometimes frog, sometimes man… Frog-man. I swear he caused more property damage than that one earthquake when we were ten." Anne rested her head on her hand. "It wasn't as bad as the ladies at the Thai temple falling over Hop Pop."
Sasha gasped. "They did not."
Anne hummed miserably. "Apparently, as a human, Hop Pop is a..." Anne spat the words, "silver fox."
Sasha's laughter was borderline hysterical, but Anne was still flinching.
"Oh man, I really should've seen all that," said Sasha.
"I wish you had. No, actually, I wish the opposite had happened." Anne corrected herself. "I wished I'd never left. Leaving you and Wartwood alone. If I've been here…"
"If you've been here we would be in the same place. Except the morale would be higher because you're the light of the lives of these frogs." Sasha squeezed Anne's shoulder. Firmly, but not violently. "You're here now and that's all that matters. Thanks for coming back for us."
Now was the time for Anne to say something smart. 'Thanks for holding the fort,' or 'I couldn't let you have all the fun,' or a simple 'I came back for you,' would have sufficed.
"T-that's how I roll, baby," said Anne, doing finger guns for some reason.
Sasha slowly pulled away. "Right," she finished her tea. "Still don't believe the Box gave the Plantars the power to turn into humans. Talking about plot twists."
Anne agreed. "You know what's crazier? You turning into a toad. We thought you could never do it! I don't know why the Box worked on the Plantars so fast but so slowly on you."
Sasha stared deep into her mug. "Actually, I've turned into a toad before." She picked up her mug and the empty cookies trail and made a fast turn towards the sink.
It took a hot minute for Anne to process all that.
"Wait, what? You had shifted before? Do you mean before before? Before I left? When Marcy and I asked you if you could change and you said no? That before?"
Anne didn't mean to sound so upset but…
No, wait, she was actually pretty pissed. But more than that, she was hurt, and she demanded answers.
"Mm-hmm," was all he got from Sasha as she silently scrubbed the dishes. "It was a quick, one-time thing. Nothing important," she said.
Yeah well, a fly hitting you in the face is not a big thing, but it doesn't change the fact there's a stinking fly in your room. You can't ignore that.
"I guess," said Anne. "We thought you weren't affected by it and it was strange. I mean, Marcy asked a thousand questions. She was pretty upset about the whole thing."
Sasha didn't make any comment except to ask Anne for her cup. Anne finished her cold tea.
"But hey, it's no big deal. I mean it's not like I'm super curious about it or anything. And it's not like it would be a nice gesture of trust if you told me about it. But hey, if you don't feel like talking about it, we don't talk about it. It sure would be nice. You're not forced to, 'tho. But it would be nice."
She cheerfully offered her teacup and plate. Sasha scoffed, but there was a shadow of a smile there.
"Look who's being manipulative now."
This didn't offend Anne. Quite the contrary, she flapped her eyelashes and tilted her head just a bit to the left. Sasha turned red. She snatched the cup and plate and threw them into the soapy water. For a minute, she washed the dishes in silence.
"It was when we were plotting to overthrow Andrias," she began, bashfully. "Remember the whole thing about the giant worm and Barrel's war hammer and whatnot? That was real, but I lied about it. I did try to pry the thing out of the worm's back. I gave everything I had, and the damned thing didn't move an inch. My strength didn't save me back then. It was you." She stole a glance at Anne. "Thinking about you and Marcy, being together without me, leaving me behind, it filled me with… feelings I prefer not to feel again." She said and didn't elaborate. "Next thing I know I exploded into a big ball of fire but it didn't burn me. It felt nice, and it made me stronger than ever before. Strong enough to steer the worm and ram the bastard into the Toad Lords' tower.
"That shut everyone for good," Sasha proceeded. "At first I thought it was because I shoved a giant worm through their window. But then I noticed their eyes were on me. I lifted my hands and I had meaty toad claws, feet, and everything. I was a toad. It… freaked me out so much I exploded and became human again.
"Anyway, the toads took the return of the war hammer and my transformation as good omens. That's when they started to take us seriously."
Sasha put the crystal clean cup on the counter and dried her hands with a towel. Then she plummeted on the couch like she'd fought a whole army instead of just, you know, talking.
As for Anne, she was even more confused than before. "OK, but that's awesome. You know it's awesome, right?" she said. "You, in your gigantic toad form, covered in fire, riding a giant worm and slamming it against those old toads' home? It's the coolest thing I had ever heard of!"
"It's the second time today you've called me fat. I'm starting to believe you want an ass-kicking, Boonchuy," said Sasha with no bite.
"Well, excuuuuuse me. Some of us can only turn into tiny frogs. Venomous frogs, by the way."
This got a laugh out of Sasha but she didn't relax. It seemed she was waiting for any chance to flee out of this talk. Unfortunately, doing so would mean leaving her room, so there she was.
Guess the talk will have to fall on Anne's shoulders.
"Hey. Talk to me." She took a seat on the couch, on the farthest end. "I learned to change in a month. Marcy learned it in two days —because she's Marcy. So we were pretty worried when we heard you never shifted. Marcy especially was sick worried about you. She ran a thousand tests on you and nothing came out."
Sasha held her arm. "I think she took, like, ten liters of my blood in two days."
"She was afraid. The Box's magic might affect you in negative ways. What if you had any sort of immunity? What if it was contagious? What if she and I caught it and got stuck in our amphibian forms and we couldn't change back? Just… Why didn't you tell us?"
"Because I didn't want you to know, alright?" snapped Sasha. She calmed down quickly, with deep breaths. "Look, it was hard for me. You had the Plantars as your family. Marcy was living her best life in Newtopia. And me? Heh, I had two toad friends and I drove them away, just like I drove you away. The only one that stayed behind was Grime, and I think that's just because he doesn't have anyone either."
Anne paused. "So that's it? You were jealous of the Plantars?"
"No! Well, a little," Sasha confessed. "The point is, I saw how much you two had changed and how strong and in control you were. Meanwhile, I had that shift happen to me by accident." Sasha inspected her hands as if they weren't her own. "I didn't want to admit I was changing too and that I wasn't in control of it. I mean, what if I changed into something even worse? Something you and Marcy wouldn't want as a friend."
From Anne's perspective, it looked like two giant anvils were held over Sasha's shoulders. Everything was wrong. This wasn't her Sasha. But it was Sasha nonetheless.
Anne cleared her throat and tapped the couch surface. Smile softly and look friendly. I'm not a threat to you, she mentally repeated.
Sasha scooted a little and Anne closed the gap. Their knees were touching.
"Something must've changed then because I saw you shifting five times today," said Anne, only a bit accusingly.
Sasha turned slightly red. "It's not something I worked for, you know? Grime and I became Wartwood defenders. Every day more frobots would come, and we would lose more ground until we had to retreat underground. But as we lost something, we gain something too. You should've seen these frogs, Anne. They grew so much! I mean, Loggle could pass as The Rock's stunt double. Every day, Grime and I taught them how to fight. How to be an army. In turn, they taught us about life here. You know, boring farming stuff. But they also taught about being alive here. Being part of this world. Wanting to defend it. One week later I shifted through another frobot attack. After that, it just became more and more natural each time." She lifted a hand and it burned with fire. Now it was a toad claw. "I guess it's a little hard to understand."
Hah! Anne nearly laughed but that would've minimized Sasha's opening up to her. Gravity was hard to grasp. This was easy.
"Hard to grasp heh? Mmm. Let's see."
Anne got up and went into full Marcy mode, both hands together like a teacher giving class.
"For one, you're surprised, most of all. A few months ago we were two simple girls, living the LA life, and now suddenly we're shape-shifting half-human, half-frog-slash-toad creatures. Pretty fa- big change." She found herself looking at her own hands. Her left had burned with a blue fire and became blue and slimy. A strange contrast to her brown, calloused right hand. "But that's not the part that surprises you. What really gets you going, the weird part is that is not weird. You take a look at the mirror and see a toad but it's you, in toad shape. It has always been you. A-and that makes you happy but sooo confused too. Because how could this be so right? How could that new-old self be inside you all along and you never knew it?"
She knelt to be at eye level with Sasha. Sasha, in turn, leaned further against the couch, like Anne was about to bite her.
"And you're happy too because sometimes there's like an itch inside you, and your body feels weird and wrong and you don't know what it is. Then you shift and it hits you. duh! My body was trying to tell me it was shifting time. And you're afraid too. Are you from Earth or Amphibia? Part human, part toad. Two different worlds. You try not to think about it too much, but one day, maybe you'll have to choose. And you know from that day on, you'll never be whole again."
Anne itched closer to Sasha, staring smugly. "So, did I hit the nail?" she said and Sasha went red to the ears. Two times in a day, baby! Score one for Anne!
A snorted laugh came out of Sasha and expanded like air until it filled the whole room.
"Oh, man. We should've had this talk a long ago."
Anne gave the biggest hmm-mmm ever given since Sasha took over the role of head cheerleader.
"It's really that bad, uh?" Sasha asked, shily.
"It was. But it's way better now that the Plantars can shift too. Now there are four people here that now what is like,"
"That makes six of us if you count Marcy." Sasha reached for Anne's hand. If this was reassurance for Anne or herself, only Sasha knew. "We'll get her back. I have to apologize for keeping secrets and being a controlling jerk."
Anne wanted to hold Sasha's hand. She did. But even in her human form, Sasha's strength was mountain crushing and, no kidding, Anne could feel her fingers cracking.
She recovered her hand and figured out a better way to lift her friend's mood. Anne focused her mind on mud lands and endless swamps. Fireflies in the air and the rustle of nearby waterfalls. A frog leaping happily into a pond. A whirlwind of blue fire kissed her skin and the world turned big. Or rather, she turned into a small blue, black-patched frog.
Sasha whistled impressed but winced when Anne opened her arms. "Anne. What're you doing?"
"Giving you just what you need," said Anne. "A nice hug from a tiny, cute frog. Trust me. This always made my mom feel better."
"That's because she's your mom, not because you're a frog! Also, I'm still not into slimy things."
Anne omitted how, as a toad, Sasha must be pretty slimy too.
"Oooh, so you're saying you, a mighty toad girl, is above hugging a squeaky toy like myself?"
The moniker didn't make Sasha laugh. But she recovered her composure and turned serious.
"No Anne. I don't want to hug you."
Before Anne could protest, Sasha burst into fire.
I mean, it happens to Anne too, but it's different. Anne's shift was like a gentle wind; a fiery gust that caressed her skin, ripping it away with a kiss, freeing the frog inside.
Sasha literally exploded. Spontaneously combusted, inside out, like the toad hidden deep was too big to be contained, and its only way to be free was to burn everything away until it was out and the human girl was no more. Just the toad remained
And what a toad! Tall as a door and equally massive. She was bigger than Grime even —not surprising; female toads tend to be wider than their male counterparts. Her skin was fiery red, black-spotted. Her pupils were red and yellow. Hair still blonde and wild. Just like with Anne and the Plantars, Sasha's armor shifted with her, making her look like a giant; a fiery beast covered in terrible armor and fur.
And she was.
"Now I'm ready for my hug." Sasha grinned like the little shit she was and opened her arms. Her biceps were the size of Anne's human head.
Anne croaked.
A croak is a complicated gesture for Amphibians; it possesses many meanings. 'I'm excited about this', 'I'm mad about that', 'I'm about to pierce your heart with a spear if you keep talking to my wife, Joe.' Those are just a few examples.
Anne's croak meaning was on the line of 'I'm about to die by hugging'.
She made a run for it, with Sasha's heavy footsteps shadowing her. Anne made use of her slimy form and slid under the table. Sasha swiftly lifted it over, holding it high above her head with one hand. Show off, thought Anne, and made one final frog jump for the door. One inch. She was one inch from the door when something sticky hit her backside, and she was reeled back like a fish caught by Sasha's tongue.
Sasha didn't think it through. Anne chose to believe that. There was no way Sasha could've predicted how, by reeling Anne with her tongue, she would be dragging the frog girl straight into her face, pushing both of them into a smacking kiss. Anne chose to believe that because it was easy. The truth was more complicated. She didn't need more complicated in her life.
Sasha came out of her stun first and pushed her lips further against Anne's. Anne slightly opened her mouth.
It was the messiest, wettest, slimiest kiss ever given. It lasted less than a minute.
Anne pulled out first with a 'pop'. "That was, I mean…"
"Yea, I get it. It was wrong," Sasha lamented.
Anne put both hands over Sasha's chest to stabilize herself. She was sitting on Sasha's arms, like a throne. It was an awkward position, but it beat Sasha holding her like a baby.
"Maybe not wrong," said Anne, uncertain. "We're in different bodies now, which are not at all used to the other one's. Plus, we're different species. I mean, I think so? What's the real difference between toads and frogs?" she shook her head before getting sidetracked. "But this? You and me. It's not wrong. Or is it?"
Sasha's pause was painfully long.
"It's not wrong," Sasha announced, getting a curl of hair away from Anne's face. "But it's too soon. For me, at least. And I think for you, too. Plus, there's the whole war going on…"
"Oh yeah, yeah, I get it. Totally. We shouldn't let our emotions get the best of us. It's not the time for that."
Neither of them specified what 'that' was.
Sasha put Anne down. Two explosions happened at once and they both were back into their original bodies.
"Heh, imagine if the guys outside saw what just happened," Anne chuckled. "'A frog and a toad? The horror! The indignity! The dirtiness!'"
Sasha snorted. "I don't know. If the stories Grime had told me are true, frogs, toads, and news have been 'getting dirty' in secret for ages."
That conjured a horrible image in the girls' minds. Not thinking about that anytime soon.
Sasha led Anne to the door They said their goodbyes, and as she was about to get out, Anne's wrist was grabbed by Sasha. It was a firm grip, but not a strong one. Anne could get out if she wanted.
Sasha stammered to talk. "You know, if at some time we're both human again, and if we don't have much to do and, you know, we're not in the middle of a war with a tyrant newt and you feel you want to try that." Sasha's aloof face turned red from the nose to the ears. That's the third time in one day. Boonchuy is on fire! "I wouldn't be against that, that's all I mean," Sasha finished and let go of Anne's arm.
Sasha went back to her commander persona. "And good job today, soldier. Now, uh, carry on and stuff. Goodnight."
She rushed Anne outside, leaving the girl staring at the massive door. There was no noise from inside. It was a good thing Anne wasn't a frog now, because if she were, she would be hopping and jumping, and croaking like nothing else mattered in the world because dear Frog she can't remember the last time she felt this light.
"Yes, Commander," she said, to no one in particular and carried on to the barracks.