Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The blood-red moon breaks from its stable orbit and draws nearer– a hot, menacing ball of fire streaming toward the trembling sphere. The moon squeezes Amphibia as if the core is a child jumping on the bed of the world's gravitational force. 

“How is the core doing this?! I can’t believe it still has enough energy to slow down the moon’s orbit!” Marcy groans out against the rock, which was vibrating enough to send tremors throughout her entire body, even with her cool anime powers. 

“We really should have smashed that helmet, girls,” Sasha groans. She shrieks as King Andrias’s robots begin to implode from overexertion. “What the–?!”

The blood-red moon rockets forward, and the girls scream as they are shoved backward. They strain with all their might, but they are quickly losing the fight. Sweat dribbles down their faces as they hear the Core chuckling: Bye-bye! Farewell!

They are rapidly losing control as the moon warps into an oblong shape, shaking violently as Amphibia forces it to adhere to its gravitational force. 

“I-it won't be long until the moon reaches Roche's limit!” 

“What??! Is it gonna plunge right toward Amphibia or something?!” Anne cries. 

“Oh no, that’s not it at all. The moon will be affected by the world's gravity and then break up into billions of pieces.”

Anne halts. “Oh wait that doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Yep!” Marcy chirps. “But then the pieces of the moon could cause friction against the atmosphere and then boil Amphibia alive. Either that or the space rocks would cover up the sun and freeze us to death …Assuming they don't crash into Amphibia and wipe us all out like the dinosaurs first. She takes a moment to process her infodump. “OH NO!” she shrieks. “THAT’S SO MUCH WORSE THAN WHAT YOU WERE THINKING!” 

Sasha tenses: so little time to plan, and with so much on the line! “What do we do?!” 

“C’mon!” Anne glares at the moon. “Let’s hunt down wherever this ‘core’ is hiding and destroy it!”

“Right!” 

You ugly creatures. You have no right being as meddlesome as you are.  The core’s voice billows across the moon. Another of its robots sulks down the surface, but with the flick of Anne’s magic tennis racket, it disintegrates in half the time.

“WOAHHHHH!!!!” Sprig gasps, lowering his telescope to leap up and down. “Did you see that?! Did you see? Did you see what she did?” He beams at his grandfather and sister, although he’s trembling. “That’s my hero!”

“What, what?” Hop Pop wrestles the telescope from his hands. “Gimme that!”

As the girls seek the mastermind, and while the Plantars watch their human family member, Amphibia is falling down. 

A hunk of rock the size of Pluto has its consequences on a planet. The resistance forces watch in trepidation as the tides soar. The oceans grew bulbous in the distance, walls of water slamming into the castle. They could feel the palace begin to rock with the current.

“Ah, what’s going to kill me first?” Hop Pop mutters. “The ding-dang flooding, the moon wiping us all out, or my crippling fear for Anne’s life.” 

“Oh, no clue!” Sprig looks at his shaking webbed hands and chuckles. “Haha, look, my hands are moving on their own!” His lower eyelid twitches as he begins to laugh maniacally. “Ahahahahahahah–!”

“Quiet, boy!” Hop Pop demands. He shoves Sprig’s telescope back into his arms. “We’ve got to try to get everyone to lower ground in case Anne isn’t able to stop the moon in time.“

“No, we’ve got to get everyone to higher ground!” Polly screeches. “Look at the water!” The family watches the ocean reaches for the dawn–-far higher than the normal high tide. Sprig whips his telescope to his eyes and watches the tides turn.

“If they don’t hurry, all of frog valley could be underwater soon,” Hop Pop mutters. “All right, I’ll trust your judgment, granddaughter. Let’s get everyone on top of this tower!” 

Anne… As he runs and shouts, shepherding the army up into the castle’s remains, Sprig traces her name along the telescope. You can do this…

Marcy is engrossed by the moon’s surface: “Hm, hm, hm, these permutations across the moon should lead us to where the core is… Oh! Foooooound it!” Marcy exclaims, pointing out a metal head poking out from a muddle of wires a few meters ahead. Her friends cheer and high-five her. 

“Way to go Marcy!”

The orange hue of the core’s eyes grows darker. “Yes, Marcy, way to go,” it chides, and the girl flinches at the sound of its dry chuckle. “I’m surprised at you. For such a smart girl–” The core suddenly expands, stretching out across the three girls and locking them into a black corridor. “--you act so foolishly.”

The girls scream. Anne throws out her arms, expecting a hit...But nothing comes. She is only met with utter darkness. “Sasha! Marcy! Where are you?” Anne calls. She whirls around and catches their pink and green hues in the midst of the blackness. 

“We’re here, Anne. Tch. I don’t know what the four-eyed freak (“Uhhh there are more than four eyes, Sasha”) expects to achieve by doing this. We can just–” Sasha aims a punch at where the core’s walls should be, but her fists meet nothing. She blanks. “Huh. Where–?” She punches the air in front of her, searching for the core. “Where are you?!”

“Sasha, come back!” Anne calls. “Let’s not get separated here.” Something whistles past her ear and sends pieces of her cyan hair askew. She freezes. An arrow? The sound is followed by a BANG and a flurry of fire, and Anne’s mouth drops. An…exploding arrow?

“Ohhhhh, you three have loved each other since you were children…but every beginning has an end.” The sound reemerges past her ears once more, and she sees red. Yes: a vibrant streak of red, and the sound and sight proliferates until its raining slashes of scarlet and one of them rakes her arm. She jolts back in pain, screeching at its contact. The core warbles a laugh in reply. 

“Anne!” Sasha surges forward at the sound of her friend’s cry and peers suspiciously into the shadows. 

“Don’t you think you’ve outgrown each other?” The core prattles on. “ You’ve all changed beyond each other’s recognition. You will grow to hate each other, enflamed by your passive aggression or obvert rage.”

“Show yourself!” Sasha growls, pom-pom gauntlets raised. 

“Ohhh, the bearer of strength and resilience, how you’ve tried and tried to bear significance over this pathetic world.”

The core doesn’t show itself, but shares with her a vision: a plume of smoke shrouds the utter blackness and embodies the forms of her parents, her best friends, Grime, and her fellow soldiers. They look down at her in fear, in disgust, in hatred. She trembles, swallows hard, but holds her head up high in resilience. 

“This sickeningly sweet facade won’t last forever, brute. You’ll keep making mistakes, too many for your friends to bear, until they have no choice but to let you go.” The vision of Anne brandishes a sword and charges forward, and Sasha blocks her with ease. 

“Shut up,” Sasha spits. “You really haven’t learned shit from the last time we fought, haven’t you? I’ve got no time to be weak.” The Not-Grime sneaks around her and tries to get a scratch in, but Sasha is ready. She punches him full in the face. 

If it were possible, Sasha’s body burns a brighter shade of pink, eyes iridescent with power. She’s never felt more alive. “My friends need me to kick your ass, and that’s exactly what I’ll do!” And with each word, she aims a punch at the pathetic copies of her Amphibious friends:  “No! matter! What! It! Takes!”

Marcy–too–was preoccupied, staring at one of the core’s eerie eyes shimmering in the dark. 

“Marcy, Marcy, Marcy. You could have belonged with us. You didn’t have to die.”

Marcy frowns. “You’re not very smart, are you?”

“And you think you’re any better?”

“I’m not,” she says, maintaining her humility.  “Not really. I have so much more to learn.” And the core chuckles in the hopes that she has given up. But of course she hasn’t; a cheeky smile crosses her face as she declares, “But I think I’ll learn best from schooling you!” ( Heh! Anne would be so proud of me for that joke…) 

Red arrows fly and explode around her, and she winces. But she also narrows her eyes, squares her shoulders–-thinks.  Her cape flutters over her shoulder as she turns, and (funnily enough) the end of it catches aflame. She pays no mind, flying away as fast as possible as the core’s eyes twist and turn over the other, chasing her down hungrily with its blood-red arrows. 

Meanwhile, Anne was having none of the core’s bullshit. It was telling her, “What will you do, bearer of love and responsibility? What do you even have to offer but to break the hearts of those dearest to you? Will you really die for a world you wish to abandon?

She twiddles with her tennis racket, looking down at the glassy eye with derision. “Don’t talk to me.”

The core watches, and she feels its voice reverberating against the sides of her cranium: “You know you can’t stay here. Your parents would never forgive you.”

Anne bites her lip, and falters only slightly. But she doesn’t even bother to respond. She bears too much responsibility to the world she loves to give it another thought.  

The Plantars, how she loves them so much. She lets their weight upon her soul fortify the cyan energy radiating off her, and she can feel herself living every second of her life all at once. Her body shudders with exertion, and she lets the images of her beloved grandfather, siblings, Wally, Ms. Croaker, Soggy Joe, Olivia, Yuhan, Bessie, GrimeIvyMaddieDomino2FroboFeliciaFernMayorToadstoolToadieBeatrixChuckMicroAngelo– AMPHIBIA fills her mind and body and her heart beams with its treasures as she lifts her arm–-

“You will regret this.”

–-but she lifts it toward the core as if to say, Talk to the hand. 

Anne produces the killing blow, arm outstretched. Hot blue molten energy swarms the large eye, and the universe dims in contrast to her power. The core bellows with rage, flecks of red swarming straight for her. Anne stands her ground. 

Marcy is running across the walls of the enclosure. Several eyes follow her across the expanse of black, arrows firing blank at its walls, creating fissures in its own trap. Soon enough, black crumbles away to give way to the starry expanse of space: a way out!

As she’s about to whoop in triumph, a bright light washes over everything. She turns, and her mouth drops. She’s astonished to find that Anne is destroying the core, absolutely obliterating it. She tenses, though, as Anne stares blindly at the red arrows hurling for her, and notices that her eyes are drooping, body going limp from exhaustion–

“NO!” Sasha smacks a fake Ivy aside and catapults herself forward, but miraculously, Marcy is faster.

“Anne!” Marcy streams forward–-barely in time to save most of her–- takes Anne into her arms, shoving her away from the core’s final strike. 

Sasha’s blood runs cold for a moment, watching her girls harrowingly miss death for the umpteenth time. That split second is all the time fake-Grime needs as it dashes around not-Ivy and shovels a red spear into her eye. Sasha throws her head back and wails as the illusions fade into stardust. 

All Anne wants to do is see if Sasha is okay, but she cannot even say a word. What’s left of her arm is still outstretched. Marcy’s cape bursts into flames.

Pain. Pain so terrible her voice fails her, and yet everyone’s screaming; Marcy’s mind goes blank, she lets go in shock, her body plummets, Sasha is clutching her face, Marcy feels smoke curling around her lungs, red is raining down as the blackness crumbles. 

Anne falls. 

Metal is reduced to flames, charred pieces rain onto the moon, and more craters bloom. 

Pieces of the decimated core whiz past Anne’s unconscious body, all hurling towards Amphibia.

Sprig saw her fall. 

He splashes through the shallow waters, his family members yelling and following close behind, but he can hardly hear them. Blood pounds in his ears and he keeps his eyes peeled; if he closes them too long he can relive the sight of Anne’s limp body among the stars.

Soon enough he finds her lying supine and motionless in the reddening shallow waters, and he bounds for her and immediately assesses her body for injuries. Horror clogs his throat. “Anne! Oh my frog, Anne, your arm!” And it's not just that: She is a defeated-looking god; her body is bleached white and her hair is frayed as if she had used up every last bit of her livelihood to destroy the core. 

“It hurts,” Anne mumbles. She weakly lifts her head, and recognization flares in her otherwise dazed, silvery eyes.  “Sprig, shhh, shh it’s okay.”

"How can you say it’s okay!” he bites. Panic has his heart running a marathon and his brain cells bouncing against the insides of his head like bubbles ready to escape a soda can. Without another thought, he tears the hat from his head and ties a knot around her stump of an arm. Red combines with green and produces a putrid color, but Sprig believes he can take it off and wash it once Anne is all better and well and is no longer bleeding out and her body is no longer crumbling into shards...

Sprig's mind shuts up as a shadow falls over them. He slowly raises his head as a tremendous roar is heard in the not-so-distant distance. 

Oh yeah, that’s right. The flooding.  Sprig and Anne exchange a look of deep concern.

A tower of water reaches at least thirty meters toward the sky. The structure of rippled brine rumbles menacingly as it gathers higher and higher still, blotting out the remaining light of the retreating red moon.

“Sprig,” Anne has to force every word off her tongue. “Get out of here. Run as fast as you can.”

“No, I won’t leave you.” His voice is resolute. 

“Sprig, I’m going to die anyway.” He grits his teeth and pretends not to hear. He shakes his head, reassesses the situation, and decides to try to drag Anne to safety. “You need to let me go. Listen to me!”

He yanks on her only arm, hard. She moves four inches, barely. 

The moon was rolling further away like the world’s biggest bowling ball and back into its ordinary revolutions. Waves here and there were beginning to calm–-but what was already yards up in the air has to come down as violently as potential energy would have it. Sprig remains by Anne’s side, trying in vain to drag her from the wicked arch of saltwater. Before Sprig can anticipate death a second more, however–-

“FROBO, THERE!”

–-a pair of robotic arms seize the two friends and whisks them upwards. 

 “Polly! Hop Pop!” Sprig gasps out, still clinging onto Anne’s hand.  

“NOT THE TIME FOR SURFING GUYS!” the pollywog hollers, perched on one of Frobo’s shoulders.

“Sprig! What did I tell you about running ahead!” Hop Pop scolds from Frobo’s other shoulder, but his disgruntled expression fades away into one of horror as he takes in his grandaughter’s condition. “Oh, Anne…”

“Hey HP, how’s it hanging?” Anne mumbles. 

“FROBOFROBOFROBO!” Polly screeches, and everyone’s attention tacks on their imminent deaths. “GO HIGHER, GO HIGHER!” The Plantars look up with comedically bulging eyes and scream in terror as they are face to face with the undescribably THICK mountain of water. Its comparably docile spray has them soaked to the bone; Sprig’s certain they will look like the wet dogs he saw in Anne’s world just before they begin to drown.

“We’re not going to make it in time!” Sprig shouts. Anne cracks an eye open with all the strength she can muster.

Frobo warbles with effort, his thrusters thrumming with exertion but it’s no use. The head of the wave topples for the Plantars, and at the last second, they resign themselves to their fate and embrace for the last time. 

“N-no!” Anne chokes out, throwing a hand out to protect her family. A blue-tinted orb (complete with little cat ears and a kitty face on top) materializes around them. The force field is violently knocked backward by the surging wave and the family screams as they fall further, further, further down… They are bounced like a rubber ball, shaken like a soda can, and are mercilessly tossed about like a leaf in a hurricane. 

All the while Anne is fading in and out of consciousness, struggling to keep alive just as long as her family needs her.  Anne’s gaze points skyward, where she can see Sasha and Marcy-–like streaks of color, like angels–-racing for the ground. 

Presently, their rapid descent grinds to a halt, and the waves smooth out into a flowing blue gown. Sprig’s clippy attention span docks back onto Anne. “Wheww…,” Sprig gasps out. “That was a close one. Right, Anne?”

Anne releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding, but the air leaves her in a pained groan. The kitty-force field pops, and the Plantars slump into the waters.  

Hop Pop rushes forward and wipes the bangs from his grandaughter’s eyes. Her calamity form fizzes out and dies, and she's left as their grubby 13-year-old once more. Sasha and Marcy touch down, and Anne could hear them splashing and shouting closer. 

Anne should say something brave in the moment. 

“Anne?”

But being honest is what makes for a true friend. 

“Sprig…I’m…I’m scared.” And his heart breaks. “I don’t… I don’t want to go.” She looks at her best friend, and he shudders to see that her pupils are silver. “We still…” she coughs and then wheezes a laugh.  “Still…gotta watch Love Choice 2.”

Sprig swallows a sob. “Yeah, we-we have to!” Please keep talking, she needs to keep talking. “Who do you think won her heart?”

She could feel her heart pittering out fast. “Uhmmmn, dude, I don’t really know.  Maybe she. Like. Uh.” Sprig stares and stares as her fingers begin to crumble. “Learns to love herself. And they all just uh. Become besties...”

“Sure, I like that. That’s cool.” Sprig says hurriedly. “Hey, you never told me who was your favorite.”

“Hmmm,” Anne’s head droops. “I…dunno. Maybe both. Both is good.”

Cracks decorate her arm and scatter across her chest. “R-remember when Polly and I had that big fight about who was the better love interest? B-because of me, Polly almost got hurt.”

Anne’s lashes flutter as she thinks of Wartwood. “Sprig,” she hums. “It’s not your fault.”

“But I didn’t let her. Get hurt. Because… w-what kind of brother would I be if I let my…” He looks at Anne with all the love and sorrow his eyes can bear, “...sister…” he trails off, seeing as cracks splinter up Anne’s arms and down her spine. 

“Uhhhh.” She mumbles something incomprehensible and closes her eyes. Sprig feels something die inside him. 

“A-Anne.”

The cool lake laps at Anne’s monochrome body as Sprig ever so carefully takes his sister’s face in his hands–wary of the broken pieces as her body continues to rupture. 

“Anne.” Tears trace his cheeks. “Anne .” But her eyes will not open. “Please, please, please, I love you, you have to wake up.” He cups her face and stares fervently at her eyelids, pleading for a sign. He can hear the sobbing of his dear family around him, but he hardly registers the sound.

“ANNE!” Her friends-–they prod her face and scream as her skin sinks and crumbles like loose pebbles as they try to shake her awake. 

She’s gone. 

Sasha and Marcy are in hysterics. Hop Pop and Polly hold each other close as tears rake down their cheeks. Her family and friends–they hurt, it all hurts so much. They too, are begging her to open her eyes, to get to her feet, to flash that goofy, darling smile of hers: Please, not my granddaughter, not my sister, not my beloved friend…

Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no no no, How can she be dead!? Sprig thinks, shaking like a leaf. His vision scatters and renders him blind. How can she even be dead!? Oh, my frog it’s not a joke. How do I keep on living? 

“Give her back…” Sprig croaks. He presses his cheek against hers. “Please, please. Give her back .” 

Chapter Text

Only one room is illuminated in the Boonchuy household. 

Anne's mother Oum Boonchuy sits in the dimly-lit living room, the glow of the TV cast against her face. On the screen is her darling daughter, only two years old and eating plain noodles out of a bowl. Or–more accurately–she is piling all the noodles onto the kitchen floor, placing half in her mouth, and gathering the dirty noodles back into the bowl. Behind the camera, Bee chuckles as Oum orders Anne to spit them out. Little Anne promptly sticks the bowl onto her head like a hat. Noodles cascade down her face, earning her astonished shrieks from her parents. 

Her husband used to shadow Anne’s early years with a camera, wanting to preserve the precious moments for a future them. And so the future her sat on the couch, her phone face-down on the coffee table, hands twiddling anxiously across her lap. 

“Oum?” her husband pokes his head in the doorway. Her gaze remains glued to the screen. “It’s getting late,” he says placatingly. 

She sighs and lowers her head. “Is this really the time? To be resting? She hasn’t come back yet.” She turns her phone over, sees no new notifications, and flips it over again with a disappointed pang. 

Bee places a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “She will be okay.”

She adverts her gaze. “Hm.”

“Hey, this is our Anne we’re talking about! Did you see her magical powers? The ways she took care of her whole frog family? We even saw her take down a huge lizard king!” He pumps his arms up and down, eyes shining with pride. “She can do anything she puts her mind to!”

“Nuh-uh!” comes a babish babble from the TV. 

Both parents are transfixed by their daughter’s younger face, pouty and innocent and more valuable to them than all the world. 

Bee shouts behind the camera, “Oum, Anne just said her first word!”

“Nuh-UH!!!” 

Oum chuckles. “Yeah, she really has grown up in that frog world. It’s amazing. I’ve never been more proud.” Her smile fades as she looks into her lap. “Sometimes I wonder if Amphibia…If she would be happier…”

Bee perks, “Huh?”

She shakes her head and holds her head in her hands. “No, it’s nothing.”

But her husband understands. He smiles sadly and takes a seat, wrapping his arm around his wife. “She will be okay. She’s our strong little lady now.” 

“I know.”

They look at each other and waste no time holding each other close. “She gets it from you,” Bee mumbles into her hair. Oum squeezes her husband tightly as tears spring into her eyes.

In the dead of night, the Boonchuys think of their daughter. 

The resistance is almost silent. Silent–-save for the gulping sobs and the shaky sniffles that pervade the chilly early air. They mourn the life of a girl who had given up her life for Amphibia, who lays dead in the circle of sobbing friends and family so that no light touches her white, broken body.

Sprig relapses into sobs, tucking his face in the crook of Anne’s shoulder. He feels completely lost even in the company of family, beseeching whatever higher power that she didn’t have to go where he couldn’t follow, and in her ear, he mutters references to adventures that only they would know. 

Sasha clings to Marcy, her tears running dry. Her entire body is sore–the wound on her back makes it difficult to stand upright, and her lost eye drools blood down her pale face. Grime has been pressing cloth onto it to stifle the bleeding. She has to hold herself back from collapsing onto Anne–for fear of crumbling her body into loose stones. She almost envies Sprig’s smallness and how he’s able to cradle her body without breaking her, but it's hard to want to be someone with eyes as bloodshot and devastated as his. 

Sprig’s been a better friend to Anne for many months than Sasha’s been for many years. She had always believed she would have more time to make up for it, but now…

Sasha struggles forward, and hesitantly pats the top of Sprig’s head. To her shock, he leans against her hand, even grabs it, and holds it to his chest, face still crumpled with grief. 

“...I’m sorry, Sprig,” she whispers. “I know she meant a lot to you. She…”

Sasha looks down over Anne’s war-torn body. Moisture sifts through her lower lash line as she struggles to hold back a fresh wave of tears. 

“...meant a lot to me too,” she chokes out. 

Sprig keeps his gaze on Anne’s body. He opens his mouth to say something, but no voice leaves him. He simply grasps Sasha’s hand tightly and slouches forward, bringing her hand to Anne’s face. He nods, permission given. Sasha carefully presses her hand against Anne’s cold cheek and he doesn’t protest. 

She takes that to mean that she is forgiven. Her tears dribble onto Anne’s body.

She’s so cold. 

Marcy watches them, but her teary gaze is distant. She looks lost. She takes her place by Sasha’s side and tentatively reaches forward to rest her hand against Anne’s chest.

It’s too quiet. 

She stifles a sob with the back of her other hand. “I’m so sorry,” she chokes out. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry–” Sasha gathers her into her arms and rests her chin against her head. Her anguished apologies set Sprig off again.

“Oh, Marcy.” She strokes her hair. “Shh, I know.”

Nobody notices as a long white gown glides through the solemn waters with leisure, approaching the ring and pushing past Hop Pop and Polly. They look up, abashed that someone would rudely disrupt their spell of emotional ache, but freeze at the sound of Valeriana’s raspy voice:

“Not all is lost.”

They slowly fold out of their somber stupor.

“What?” Marcy croaks, voice still horse from screaming.

Valeriana smooths out her white cloak as she explains, “She still bears the blue gemstone. It is simply inactivated. Aggravate it, and there is a possibility she can be returned to the world of the living.”

Everyone’s eyes grow huge. Impossible. And yet: 

“What do we do!?” Hop Pop, Polly, Sprig, Sasha, and Marcy exclaim. 

Valeriana lifts her head, pleased by their passionate reaction. “Close your eyes,” she orders. She turns to face the members of the mourning resistance members, directing her directions to them as well. “Revel in your connection with her. With luck, she will awaken.”

“Wait,” Sasha’s brows twitch with irksome as she scrambles to her feet. She stumbles halfway there, and Grime and Sprig move to support her. “Are you seriously telling us that we can bring her back with the power of friendship? Is this some kind of cruel joke?” 

Marcy ducks her head, grasping her head in her hands. 

Valeriana smiles sagely. “Is that really so odd? It’s an indelible source of her celestial abilities. Her powers cannot function without love. Nor can she herself.” She turns, misshapen red eyes boring into her lone blue one, “Why the resistance? You want to save the girl you love, don’t you?”

Sprig watches as Sasha trembles. “More than anything.”

She hums and lifts her wooden staff into the rose-red sky. “Then what are you waiting for?”

Voices stir her awake as the blackness pours into her consciousness. She hears them call out to her, and in a haze of disorientation, she recognizes her mom, her dad, her grandfather, her sister, and her best friends’ voices begging her to come back. She tries to parse the disorientation by opening her heavy eyelids, and a blurry starlit sky comes into focus. 

She sits up almost robotically. She feels the grassy field brush against her legs and smells the sweet farmland air. In the distance, she can see her friends and family, their shadowy contours melding with the sky. 

“What the?” She blinks, rubs her eyes, and squints at her surroundings. She senses that her family and friends are with her, but cannot see them distinctly from against the background.  “O-kayyyy…?” she tilts her head. “That’s weird. Where am I?” She turns her head and sees a familiar lake. It’s surrounded by playful, sunny glitter and rainbows, and she immediately stumbles in that direction–away from her family members’ voices. 

Something’s painfully wrong. She feels detached. Exhausted. She feels like a prisoner in her own body as she moves forward on trembling legs. 

That’s her family. Behind her. Where is she going?  Why is she… why is she walking away? With all her might, she struggles to keep still, willing her legs to stay in place. She can hear someone approaching her, and she turns to greet them. 

Her parents make their presence known to her. They hurry for her, and her mother brushes her filthy bangs from her eyes. “Anne, ที่รัก?” Mother and daughter peer into each other’s eyes. Domino mews by her feet and purrs against her leg. “Are you okay? Are you coming home soon?”

Anne blinks, pauses. “Uh. I don’t…” She looks into the firefly-lit sky. “Am I…still in Amphibia?”

As soon as she asks, she knows that she’s not. The lake glitters behind her, invitingly. Just beyond it: who knows what came next?

She frowns, looks at her feet, and mutters, “I wish I could have stayed with the Plantars… in Amphibia.”

Her parents exchange a glance and smile. “We know.”

Anne’s eyes widen. “You don’t…think I’m being stupid? For thinking that?”

“Are you kidding?” her dad cups her cheek. “After how much you’ve grown. Anne, you’ve done much more than we ever could. With how much they love and care for you, it would be impossible not to think of the frogs as our family too.”

“Anne.” Her mother grasps her arm, “Anne, we came to the U.S. for a better life. But who said it was easy? We did this because we had dreams here.” Her mother wraps her daughter in a tight embrace. “Of course we understand.” 

Her father follows suit. “You are our daughter, Anne. Whatever you choose, we will always support you. And besides,” he grins smugly. “Now that we’re friends with the FBI, it’ll be a lot easier to get the portal to get up and running again.” 

Anne squeezes her parents close, but her smile wans into a distant expression. 

The crescent moon shimmers above–like a tiny sliver of silver. Fireflies are like stars in the nighttime sky, and she knows that this calming, nonexistent world, and the calming lap of the cool lake against her ankles is the last thing she’ll ever feel or see. 

“It’s no use,” she says. “I’m… done.” 

Her mother pulls away, face paling with alarm. “Anne? What do you mean you’re…”

The prospect of living in Amphibia–a world she had chosen to die for–is presented to her. But Anne feels her consciousness being pulled toward the lake behind her; she can even feel where she needs to go without lifting her drooping eyelids. She mumbles something indecipherable and lets her body be tugged toward the end. 

“Anne? Anne!”

“Sasha…,” Anne mumbles, trudging forward. “Marcy.”

The girls grab her shoulders and pull her back. They whirl her around and stare imploringly into her bleary eyes. “Anne, come with us!” Sasha orders. “We can still save you!” 

“Anne, please,” Marcy clasps her hands. “Come back to us.”

Anne tiredly drops her gaze and tries to pull away, but they don’t let her leave. 

“Anne,” Marcy grasps her chin and pulls her in so that their gazes are locked. Brown eyes fervently meet brown eyes. “It’s my fault you’re here. It’s my fault we’re in this mess.” Her lips tremble as she speaks, “I don’t want you to die…because of my selfishness.”

“Mar-Mar, I’m tired. Let me–”

“No,” the words fall from Sasha’s mouth before she can register it. She grasps her wrist. “Your family needs you. We need you. I’m not--” her lower lip quivers, “I’m not done making it up to you yet.”

“I’ve always felt like I couldn’t be myself. That I was weird, and that I needed to be something to prove that I was worthy of respect,” Marcy blurts out. She squeezes Anne’s hands but can hardly stand to look into her eyes. “I’ve been so scared to lose you and Sasha, Anne. I'm expected to be the best an exceptional amount of time and lie to cover up any faults I could possibly have. But I feel free when I talk to you.”

“Marcy…”

She hurries along before she loses the courage to keep going: “You like me for who I am. You just let me be myself, and you're just yourself. And you’re…wonderful. And that’s why…” Marcy swallows and looks at the ground. “Why you’re my best friend...and why I... I love you.”

Anne looks taken aback, cheeks going pink, but her gaping mouth melts into a warm smile. She reaches forward and readjusts the clip in Marcy’s hair before bumping her forehead to hers. “I’m really glad I got to spend one last adventure with you both.”

“I really mean it, Anne,” Marcy says, tearing up. “I really do…”

“After everything we’ve done to you, we can’t–” Sasha's voice cuts off as Anne leans close and tucks stray blonde hairs behind Sasha’s ear. "A-Anne."

“Before the Plantars found me, I was living in a wet, buggy cave. I had no idea where I was or if I’d ever see LA again. What always kept me going was the thought of getting back to you." She slings her arms across her girls' shoulders, and they hold each other close.  "I couldn’t have saved the world without you guys supporting me…caring for me.” She smiles sadly. “In a way, you always have. Which is why I could never really give up on either of you.”

As her final words to her girls struggle to leave her lips, Anne’s body sags forward. She pushes past her girls and retreats to the lake. 

“Anne? Where are you going?” They reach out to her, but they find that they cannot take another step.

 “Argh!” Sasha strains to break free. “Anne! Anne!!!”

She keeps walking. I can’t wait five more minutes. I’m so tired. Her eyelids droop as she stumbles forward toward the great beyond. Her feet touch the water, but they don’t sink. Ripples retreat from her shoed foot as she walks on water. 

“Anne!”

It’s Sprig’s voice. And like that, she halts. “...Sprig?”

Sprig runs past the girls–-who dissipate into shadows as soon as Anne’s attention leaves them-–and waves his arms like a dragonfly on a sugar rush. “Anne! Anne! Anne!” he shouts.

Presently, Anne feels something bump against her leg. She looks down and sees her sister and grandfather sitting upon a lilypad she somehow finds herself standing on. “C’mon Anne!” Polly orders. “It’s getting chilly!” The pollywog yanks her down to their level and snuggles against her. Anne blinks her eyes wide open, and Sprig scootches up on her other side and rests his head against her arm.

The Plantar family watches the fireflies in the pastel blue sky. The lights flutter listlessly and noiselessly, and a strange sense of peace washes over them. Ripples glide off the lilypad, and they’re still safely close to shore. 

Anne breaks the brief serenity; she sighs and tells them, “I don’t think I should stay.”

“Why not?” Polly asks accusingly. She grabs her leg and squeezes. “We need you. Plus, it’s cold.”

“I can’t go home with you anymore, Polly.”

“Say what ?” her grandfather cocks a brow at his adopted granddaughter. “Yew’re not making any frog-gone sense.” He opens up a picnic basket and pulls out a sandwich, along with a bottle of Sal’s sauce. “I can’t just un-adopt one of my kids. It just wouldn’t be the same Plantar home without yew.”

“Look, it’s not that I want to. I just…” she stares ahead. “I don’t think I can.”

“Tch. When have yew ever cared about the rules?” Hop Pop huffs. He shoots Anne a half-hearted glare. “Who are you and what have yew done with my granddaughter?” Still, his voice sounds strained and he forces himself to gulp down his bite sandwich without any joy or satisfaction in his eyes. 

Anne rolls her eyes. “Har, har.”

On the blue-tinted lilypad, they sit in solemn silence, the beyond waiting just overhead. 

Anne shifts. “Be honest, guys. I’m dead, aren’t I?”

Hop Pop sags, moves a hand to his eyes and takes in a deep, shuddering breath.  

“No,” Sprig mutters.

Polly whimpers and nestles her face into Anne’s ankle. "Don't leave..."

“No, you’re not,” Sprig tells Anne. 

The dreamlike forms of Hop Pop and Polly wither and fade. Anne looks at the darkness ahead of her and is reminded that her time is running short. Sprig bristles as she stands up and reaches out to her, and Anne wants to shove away this self-doubt, this bubbling fear in her belly, and put off this soul-wrenching farewell. She’s not ready to die, she’s not ready to say goodbye, and she can hear the cries spilling from her little brother’s throat and it’s the most heartbreaking sound she’ll ever have to hear.

Before she can take another step, his tongue lassos around her wrist and pulls her from the lake. “Donb go,” Sprig cries, voice slurred with his tongue still latched around her arm. “Pleeese, letz juss go back.”

Anne can’t help but turn, then, to see the desperation in Sprig’s face. The sight almost breaks her resolve-–to crumble, to hide–- to snatch him out of the firefly- stars and hold him close and deny their terrible fate. To cry and cry and mourn the loss of Marcy when she had thought her to be dead, the fight with her dearest Sasha, the agony that gripped her heart when Sprig plummeted out the window to his death, and this horrendous reality that she will never see her parents again–-all buried deep down and procrastinating its reemergence just like that essay her principal told her to write all those months ago.

What is she to do with her life? She is to die here.

And who was she? Some remnant of self-doubt told her that she is not a warrior but a child--not at all certain of what to do. Her frightened young eyes are wide-open and far away and teary, and so…

“Ugh! How do I get out of here?!” Anne groans, grasping her mane-like hair with one free arm. “This is just a nightmare… I need to wake up! Just!” She turns to Sprig. “Sprig! Pinch me!”

“Wha’uh?”

“Pinch me awake! I gotta–!”

Sprig disentangles his tongue from her arm and socks her in the face. She screeches and grasps her face, curling in onto herself.

“OH MY FROGGING FROG, MY NOSE!!! SPRIG!!! ‘PINCH!’ NOT ‘PUNCH !’”

Sprig looks abashed. “I thought you said punch!!!” 

“Why on Amphibia would I say-–” She sags and runs a hand through her hair. “Ugh, I need to get out of here. I keep on wanting to walk through the lake to get to that thing.” She points to the void at the very end of her journey, somehow too dark to look at directly. Sprig winces and shields his eyes, and his insides feel like jelly just trying to process that the dark mass exists.

 “What even is that?”

“I don’t know…but I think once I go, I won’t be able to come back.”

Sprig’s lower lip trembles. “Why were you walking over there then!?”

“I… don’t know. I’ve been feeling really exhausted.” She looks around and sees only fireflies. “Huh. Where did everyone go? Weren’t my parents just here?”

Sprig frowns and grasps her hand. “Can we get out of the lake first?”

She holds his little hand in hers, but when she moves to get up, her legs tremble and collapse from under her. She grimaces apologetically and crosses her legs. “Yeah, I don’t think I can.”

Sprig dolefully looks up at his older sister. “Can I stay with you, at least?”

“Aw,” Anne smiles fondly. “You know you can, Sprig.” He nods and hops into her lap. She folds her arms around him. 

Sprig rests his head against Anne and wonders how he’s going to go about this. He asks, “Remember when you said you didn’t love yourself before you met us? Do you ever think of… how great you are?”

“Pffft,” Anne smirks. “Not really? I’m not a narcissist, dude.  I just feel loved and I love others and I feel… part of a community.” She snuggles him and rests her cheek against his head. “‘S nice.”

“Yeah but you just… you just do so much for everyone just because you want to!”

“Whaaaaat?” She snorts “I haven’t done that much.”

Sprig squints at her. “You’re kidding, right? Just look at yourself!”

Anne looks over the lilypad to stare at her reflection in the water. “Gotta be more specific dude.” She huffs and combs out her hair with her hands, “Ohhh, why are there still so many leaves in my hair–”

“You’ve never given up on so many people, even when they betrayed you! There’s Sasha, Marcy…

“Those are my best friends, of course, I–” Anne tries to rebuke.

“...Hop Pop…”

“That's my family of course I–”

“Domino 2, Tritonio, the mayor, and literally everyone in Wartwood…”

“Huh. Well.” Anne blinks. “When you put it all together like that..."

Sprig’s surprised to find that-- in a desperate attempt to save her life– they've just lapsed into quite a normal conversation. And as if he just didn’t break her nose, he continues, “Even when they did you wrong, you still look out for them. That just shows how much of a hero you are.”

“Hehe,” Anne scratches her chin. “Not sure if it's heroic. It’s just. Sasha and Marcy are so important to me, just like you and the rest of my family are. Sasha’s changed a lot, and she’s been doing so much to show that. Frog, even a blind Ohm could see it!” She chuckles and curls a ringlet of hair around her finger.

Sprig smiles to see her so happy.

“Marcy’s knowingly put us through hell and back, but she’s gone through so much of this journey on her own, and she’s suffered so much. She says she’s sorry. And I believe her. Because what the three of us share —it’s real.”

“It is,” Sprig agrees. “I know you can be happy together.”

“Yeah,” Anne sighs. “Despite everything, we’re still best friends. The three of us have made some mistakes, but no one is pure evil. Hop Pop also hurt me, but he didn't mean to. He hid the calamity box because he wanted to protect you and Polly."

"How do you find the energy to want to keep them close?"

"Well, I’m not a saint either. I’ve made a lot of silly mistakes and I still have so much further to go… But it’s amazing, isn’t it?” She lifts her head and smiles at the sky. “How willing people are to change for themselves and for the ones they love.”

“Super cool,” Sprig agrees. He tilts his head and catches her eyes with an adoring grin. “Buuuut! I can think of someone even cooler!"

"Uh." Anne scrunches up her face. "Uhhhhhhh...Polly?" 

"Nope! A girl from another world who went from monster to town protector to frog of the year!” He snuggles into her side and looks up at her with adoring, shimmery eyes, "It's you: my sister. My hero. And I love you more than anything."

Anne promptly bursts into tears and sucks up the mucus in her nose with an astonishingly loud “SnnnnghhhhHHRH!!! Sprig, that’s the sweetest thing ever! How am I supposed to top that?! I love you too, dude!!! Also my nose still really hurts!” She squeezes him so tightly that he squeaks like a chew-toy. He laughs apologetically and returns the hug at full force.

“Sorry, sorry…Was feeling friendship-punchy..”

“But…y’know, Sprig?” She pulls away from her best friend and cups his face. “I couldn’t have done it without you believing in me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart: for being my first real friend.”

“For you, anything,” he says earnestly. “It's like you said: as long as we’re together, I know we’ll be alright. Whatever it is that dares gets in our way, we’ll face those challenges head-on!”  He grins wide and bounces excitedly. “And speaking of challenges!  I even like Sasha now!”

Anne’s brain explodes.

She rears back in surprise, slipping on the lilypad and almost falling into the lake. Sprig grunts as he grabs her shirt and pulls her back. Candidly, that is the most shocking thing Anne has heard in the last several minutes–-not her parents telling her that they were okay with her staying in Amphibia, not that her best friends implying they wanted to be in a romantic relationship with her, not that she was dying–-no. Sprig says he’s okay with Sasha?!  “WHAT?! REALLY!?” she asks shrilly.  “I don’t remember that!”

“Come back to us, Anne. Then we can show you!”

“Hmmm…,” Anne thinks it over and finds herself liking the idea. She doesn’t feel so exhausted anymore, anyway. She waits anxiously for the urge to continue walking toward the end–-the urge to leave and never return, but it never comes. Instead, she jumps to her feet, arms akimbo.  “Sure, why not?”

Sprig grins up at her, eyes still shimmery. He jumps onto his feet and hops away from the lake, Anne following close behind. “OK, Anne! Ready for another adventure?”

“Only if Spranne’s leading the way!” 

“Spranne against the world!” they yell in unison. They perform their silly handshake and laugh so hard they cry, running far from the lake as they race each other home. 

Living and breathing, swaddled with blankets and on her bed in the cool, damp basement of the Plantar house, Anne Boonchuy finally wakes up.