Chapter Text
\\===// 🎾 \\===//
Anne Boonchuy stood in a coolly lit room, surrounded by various terrariums and exhibits for “Get Lost in Amphibia.” She had removed the front pane of glass for her frog exhibit for cleaning and upkeep. She hummed to upbeat music playing in her earbuds as she worked, a pink South American tree frog perched on her shoulder watching intently as his home was cleaned. She stands back, taking in a breath to admire her handiwork. She looked down at the frog, who she had lovingly named “Sprig,” as he continued to eye his habitat. The seemingly natural affinity the frog took to her had granted her the name “Frog Lady” by not only kids on field trips but even her peers. She bore the name with pride, choosing to withhold that it had actually taken many late nights over the course of a few weeks to actually teach Sprig to rest on her shoulder willingly.
She cupped the frog and returned him to his habitat, replacing the terrarium front glass panel afterward. She smiled at the frog as it bounced around his home. As she looked on, any budding thoughts of her dear friend whom she had named the small frog for were interrupted by her phone ringing. She looked down at her phone. “Unknown Number,” the screen read. Anne took out her earbuds as she stared at the screen. Usually, when she gets called from an unknown number, it means one of two things: a spam caller, or him . Anne hesitated, it had been a long time since she got a call like this, and she had long given up on receiving any worthwhile news from the government agent, but like every call before, she couldn’t resist the possibility of “what if?”
She answers the phone, “Hello?”
“Miss Boonchuy!” A voice called into the receiver, “It really has been a while…”
Anne rolls her eyes. Even after so much time, she would recognize that sass anywhere, “Mr. X? How did you get this num– never mind, dumb question.” As Anne waited for some sort of quick remark from Mr. X, Anne was surprised to hear a different voice respond instead.
“Anne?” Marcy Wu asked.
“Mars?” Anne asked, but once again was met in response by a different voice.
“Boonchuy? Marcy?” Sasha Waybright asked, seemingly just as confused as the other two girls, “What’s going on?”
“Sash? You too?” Anne responded as Marcy greeted Sasha.
“Now that I got all three of you,” Mr. X interrupted, his smug expression obvious from his voice, “Miss Boonchuy, Waybright, and Wu, I’m calling because we’ve received a message from another dimension.”
Anne froze. Had she heard that right? Another dimension? Amphibia? A thousand thoughts ran through her mind, but Marcy was the first to break the stunned silence that had befallen the girls, “A message? What kind of message?”
Mr. X’s voice suddenly turned serious, “Well, truthfully, we’re not sure what to make of it, but one thing’s clear: whoever sent the message is looking for you three.” Another stunned silence befell the girls, allowing time for Mr. X to continue, “Look, this would be a whole lot easier to explain if we just showed up in person. According to my completely legal tracking software, the nearest meetup point is Sasha’s office. Converge there and I’ll send a car to pick you all up.”
“Ignoring how you know all of our locations,” Anne started, “does this mean… does this mean we’ll be going back to Amphibia?” Anne asked as she tried her best to keep any sounds of desperation out of her voice. The last thing she needed was to get her hopes up.
“Well, we’re not exactly sure who sent the message, in theory, it could be from any number of universes. But the fact that it calls for you three especially leads me to believe that yes, this is from Amphibia.”
Anne couldn’t believe it. Or maybe she didn’t want to. If she got her hopes up now, only to be let down, the pain would be unbearable. But to be seemingly this close to her family in Amphibia after so long? There was a tightness in her chest as she fought to keep her excitement down, but it was like going to sleep the night before Christmas, and she couldn’t help herself but beam from ear to ear.
Now it was Sasha’s turn to break the silence, “Whooo, another dimension you say? You better not be toying with us man. I guess I’ll see you all at my place soon, right?”
“Definitely!” Marcy yelled into her phone as the sudden sounds of thuds and clanging could be heard from her end.
“Anne…?” Sasha asked.
“I…” Anne hesitated in her response as she found her eyes resting on the pink frog resting within his terrarium, “I’ll see you soon.”
\\===// ⚔️ \\===//
Sasha Waybright, dressed in a purple button up shirt and a long, black skirt pace around the room of her office. It is a decently sized rectangular room, with two large windows facing out towards the sprawling city of LA, allowing the moonlight to bask the room in a cool blue glow. The room features a work desk and a large space dedicated to comfortable couches and chairs. Around the room are several bookshelves, lined with a myriad of files, books targeted to children of varying ages, and a few personal items. One shelf stands out among the rest, and Sasha finds herself stopping in front of it. On the shelf, encased in a glass box is displayed a pink sword, the hilt featuring the likeness of a heron. Sasha gazes at her reflection in the mirror. Could it be real? Could we actually return to Amphibia? She thinks to herself. I wonder how much it’s changed, how much I’ve changed?
Sasha lets out a soft smile as excitement builds in her chest. Grime, Percy, Braddock, the denizens of Wartwood. They all filled her heart as she thought back to her time in Amphibia. Things hadn’t always been great, but in the end, she wouldn’t have changed her time in Amphibia. Her time on Earth since then, however…
Sasha’s thoughts are interrupted as she hears a knock on the door. Sasha jumps at the sudden sound, but recovers quickly, “It’s open!” She calls as she begins to cross the room. She pauses as Anne opens the door.
“Hey Sash!” Anne smiles.
Right on cue , Sasha thinks to herself, “Anne! Hey!” The two girls share a small embrace as Anne’s attention turns towards the room.
“Wow, this place looks great! Can’t believe you haven’t given me the tour yet,” she states as she begins to explore the room.
And who’s fault is that? Sasha thinks, biting down the sarcastic remark. “Yeah, it’s a pretty good setup! Feel free to look around, I just need to email a few parents about rescheduling appointments, hard to meet with kids when you’re a universe away after all!”
Anne lets out a small laugh, but her face is one of conflict, “So, you really think we could go back to Amphibia?”
“Well, I need a week off anyway. So Amphibia or not, I’m rescheduling.” Sasha jokes. Anne hums noncommittally with a small smile, but Sasha knows it wasn’t the answer Anne wanted, and she can see the doubt set in her friend’s face.
Truthfully, Sasha can’t bring herself to give a straight answer, because as much as she wants to believe they could go back to Amphibia, what if they can’t? What if this ends up being a dead-end, or even worse, some government ploy by Mr. X to do or get something from the girls. Sasha doesn’t know Mr. X well enough to actually say if he’d do that, but government officials are always shady, she’s pretty sure it’s in the job description.
Sasha sits at her desk and begins typing away at her computer, but in truth, she’s already emailed all of the parents scheduled for the upcoming week, but distracting herself is a better alternative to having to face the awkward air between her and Anne. It’s not like they weren’t still friends, and when all three of the girls were together, they were just fine. But as she had told Marcy three days prior at the airport, Anne and she had drifted apart, even if she hadn’t been exactly honest as to the reason.
Sasha realizes that she’s been staring at Anne, who has been gazing at her reflection in the heron sword’s case. Standing perfectly in the moonlight, Anne looks otherworldly, Sasha could almost swear she’s glowing. Sasha’s chest tightens, and she shakes her head. No. I won’t do that again. She thinks as she turns back to face her computer, but unfortunately, it seems Anne noticed.
“What’s wrong?” Anne asks, and Sasha is forced to meet her gaze. Her dark brown eyes sparkled as they reflected the cool blue of the moon. Sasha is stunned for a moment, but recovers quickly, pulling up a mask of calm cheeriness, an ability she had been naturally good at and one she had been able to hone during her time as a therapist.
“Oh, nothing! It’s just…” Sasha hesitated, Marcy’s return had given her and Anne the excuse to hang out again, she didn’t want to ruin that. Before she could come up with a good response, however, Anne continued for her.
“I get it,” Anne said with a wistful expression as she broke the gaze to look out the window.
“You– you do?”
“Yeah… I just, I want to believe we can go back to Amphibia, but I don’t want to get my hopes up, either.”
Sasha blinked. Of course, Anne’s mind was still dead set on Amphibia, the fact that this was the first time the two of them were alone in a room together in years didn’t change that. Sasha felt a little deflated, but ran with it, “Yeah! Totally! It feels so impossible but yet here’s something that proves otherwise!”
Anne turned to face Sasha again, looking much more relieved, “Right? I can’t even imagine who sent us a message in the first place!”
Sasha laughed, “I’ve decided to leave the theorizing to Marcy, knowing her, she probably already has three pages full of possible candidates. Speaking of, do you know when she’ll be here?”
Anne shrugged, “Eh, probably tearing up my apartment for supplies and gear for the possibility we do get to go back to Amphibia.”
“Hah! Probably, yeah!” Sasha chuckled, suddenly feeling much better Marcy ended up staying at Anne’s while she was visiting. Sasha moves towards Anne, laying her hand on her sword’s case, “Think I should bring this ol’ girl?” She asks Anne with a smirk.
Anne laughs, “I think you’re basically obligated too, dude. Man, you and Marce seem so prepared already, and to think, I almost packed my tennis racket for work today!” She says with a mock expression of sadness.
The two girls laugh at the joke, and Sasha becomes suddenly aware of how close she’s standing next to Anne. Sasha bites her tongue, holding back what she knows will be an unfiltered spew of feelings if she dares to speak. Luckily, the sounds of banging in the hallway outside her door distract the both of them from whatever may have happened next. As the two girls face the door to Sasha’s office, the door flies open as Marcy falls into the office, a collection of backpacks and a large duffel bag spewing from her arms. Behind her in the hallway a large potted plant shakes violently, threatening to topple over before Marcy quickly flings herself back to hold the pot in place before turning to her two friends with a large beaming smile.
\\===// 🏹 \\===//
The moments of Marcy Wu’s life after the call with Mr. X ended were a blur. Before she knew it, she was throwing herself around Anne’s apartment, digging up any supplies that seemed useful and placing them within two backpacks. First aid, an old compass, a traditional watch, notebooks, pens, an old polaroid camera that the three girls had dug up when Anne’s birthday party, and anything else that seemed like it could have even a small purpose was thrown into the bag. She changes into the same outfit she wore when she arrived in LA three days prior: a comfortable shirt, green pants, and a blue jean jacket riddled with buttons. The one change she makes to the outfit is stealing a pair of Anne's work boots, which she figures will be better footwear if she does end up traversing the lands of Amphibia once more. Moving to one of Anne’s shelves, she took down and sheathed the old sword Anne wielded while in Amphibia, placing it within a duffel bag she found in Anne’s closet. She regretted that she was without her old wrist-mounted crossbow, but unfortunately, airports frown upon medieval weaponry being in one’s carry-on bag.
Marcy moved to Anne’s bathroom and began rummaging through her drawers for useful toiletries. As she finished placing a set of toothbrushes within one of the bags, she glanced at herself in the mirror, but instead of seeing her usually cheery, if not tired, expression, she found herself facing an altered version of herself. A large, inhuman smile stretched across her face, and her eyes had been replaced with large orange ovals with slated yellow pupils. Marcy screamed as she quite literally jumped out of the bathroom, falling back onto the floor. Her heart was beating a mile a minute and in an instant, her body had been filled with adrenaline as her fight or flight response had kicked in. The scar from when King Andris stabbed her prickled uncomfortably.
She slammed her eyes shut as she tried to calm her breathing. “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real…” She whispered to herself as her breathing leveled. Slowly but surely, Marcy stood back up and crept back into the bathroom, facing her reflection again. Staring back at her was her, a tired and worried expression drawn over her dark brown eyes and thin frown. She wiped the sweat from her brow and used the sink to splash water on her face. It was not the first time she had been faced with haunting reflections of Darcy, but they had not occurred in a long, long time. She figures that all the hubbub about Amphibia must have subconsciously triggered another vision after all this time.
“Just try to think of something else,” She thinks out loud as she finishes packing, “Like Yunan and Olivia!” She says with a smile, remembering her two closest companions while in Newtopia. Well, two out of her three closest Newtonian companions, but she pushes all thoughts of King Andris out of her head, choosing to instead begin to mentally plan activities for her, Yunan, and Olivia, to undergo if they’re able to meet once again.
------
One Uber and slow elevator ride later, Marcy finds herself on the threshold of Sasha’s office, recovering from her fall as her two friends wrap her in a tight hug and help her collect her things.
“Wow, are you sure you packed everything?” Sasha jokes as she helps Marcy pick up one of the backpacks.
“Told you she’d tear up my apartment,” Anne smiles.
“Sorry,” Marcy lets out a sheepish laugh, “I may have gone a bit overboard.”
“No worries,” Anne reassures her, “better safe than sorry, right? Oh nice, my sword!” Anne grins as she removes the sheathed sword from the duffel bag, tracing her hand over the sheath.
“Oh, that reminds me!” Sasha says as she moves over towards a shelf on the other side of the room, removing her pink heron sword and sheathing it as she brings it over to the duffel bag, “better safe than sorry!” She repeats with a grin.
As Sasha begins to go back to her desk to pack up some supplies of her own, Marcy begins to explore the office, testing out one of the soft couches, “Nice setup, Sash!”
“Oh, thanks!” Sasha looks up as she packs away a glasses case and throws on her leather jacket, “Those floor plan designs you sent really helped me organize.”
“Oh yeah! Glad I could help.” Marcy replies as she remembers Sasha calling her last year seeking help about arranging a room based on the room Marcy now finds herself in.
As Marcy continues to look around the room, three beeps ring out simultaneously from each of the girls’ phones. Marcy looks at her phone, a notification from an unknown number with the simple message, “Outside,” is displayed. The three girls exchange grins as they look up from the phones. Descending down the elevator, which Marcy still finds to be far too slow, the trio goes outside to be met by a black van. The driver's door opens and a man in a suit departs. Wordlessly, he reveals a badge placing his affiliation with the FBI and begins to help the girls pack their things. Marcy exchanges a shrug with Anne as Sasha hesitantly relents the duffel bag to the man to be packed away. Before they know it, all three of them are packed into the back of the van as they drive towards an unknown destination. On paper, this situation probably looks really sketchy, Marcy thinks. Luckily, she has two trained sword wielders packed in the van with her.
As the drive continues, for the first time since they’ve been back together, a long silence befalls the girls, and Marcy knows why. Despite all their hopes and all their (albeit hasty) preparations, this could still be a fruitless venture. Marcy let out a small breath as she fell into a controlled breathing pattern. She had been set on wanting to approach the situation with a realistic mindset: hope for the best, prepare for the worst, but she was now finding it hard to control the building excitement in her chest.
Suddenly, the van stopped. The driver departed and held open the door for the girls as Marcy distributed the two backpacks to her friends, her own belongings being tucked safely in a satchel strapped across her chest. Sasha volunteered to carry the duffel bag as the girls were led out of the van. They appeared to have been driven into an underground bunker-like facility. “This place has definitely seen better days,” Sasha remarked as they walked through the halls of the facility, and Marcy had to agree. The metal panels framing the walls were lined with rust, the blue light features built into the ceiling seemed to be faded, and various tubes dangled from the ceiling and snaked across the floor, the largest of them letting out an audible humming.
The FBI agent led them to a set of large metal doors that slide open as they approached. As the girls enter the room, a freckled woman sporting blue hair and a lab coat calls out, “Anne!”
“Terri!” Anne smiles at the girls as they embrace in a quick hug. “It’s so good to see you again!”
“You too!” Terri smiles. As the two girls begin to catch up, Marcy adverts her attention to the rest of the room. This room is much better kept, but still sports a series of wires and tubes snaking to large computer consoles lining a large glass window that looks into a different, much larger room. Typing furiously at one of the computers is Jenny, Mr. X’s right hand, and next to her, fittingly is Mr. X himself, sporting his standard purple suit as he smiles at the girls with an almost smug expression.
“Welcome you three!” Mr. X exclaims as he rolls towards the trio, interrupting Anne and Terri’s reunion. “I’m all very glad you decided to come.”
Sasha rolls her eyes, “Like you totally wouldn’t have kidnapped us if we refused or anything.”
“Is this an observation room?” Marcy eagerly asks as her fascination with the current setting eclipses her feelings about the possibility of returning to Amphibia.
Mr. X turns to Marcy, “Right you are Miss Wu!” This here is–”
“This is an observation room for our interdimensional observation and experiments!” Terri cuts him off with a bright smile, leaving Mr. X with a sour expression.
“Woah! You guys have been experimenting with other dimensions all this time?” Marcy asks. The implications of such a reveal could be huge! Other worlds beyond Amphibia, possible other means of traveling them, maybe even more music boxes? Marcy’s mind ran wild with theories.
“Yup! Ever since Frog-vasion!” Terri continues, “We used to have more funding but we’ve never been able to open a portal big enough to cross through, and we’ve never been able to control where the portal opens, so it’s been a bit of an uphill battle ever since the government realized we couldn’t really open portals. Nowadays, we just monitor for any interdimensional activity using the data we have on file from when you all used the music box. We haven’t had any readings, until–”
“Until today.” Mr. X finishes, pushing Terri slightly out of the way as he regains control of the conversation, “Someone or something sent a message to our facility as if they knew how to reach us, and that message seems to be connected to the three of you.”
“Connected how?” Anne asks.
Mr. X seems to think for a moment, “I think I ought to just show you if you would follow me please.” As he turns to lead the trio to a metal door next to the observation windows.
\\===// 🎾 \\===//
Anne is taken aback as they enter the room, the ceiling is much higher, and towards the back of the room is an oversized version of the portal created with the help of Terri, Jess, and Ally ten years prior. In the center of the room, is a seemingly out-of-place wooden box. Mr. X gestures to the box as he holds the metal door open for the door. Once they enter the room, he returns to the observation room and closes the door behind him. Anne rolls her eyes as he gives a cheeky thumbs up from the other side of the large glass window. Marcy is the first to reach the wooden box. It’s rectangular, thin, and unassuming, missing any sign of intricate design that had been featured on the music box. Marcy turns to the other girls with a crooked grin, “Well, let’s hop right to it.”
Anne shakes her head and smiles as Sasha lets out an amused groan next to her. Marcy turns to open the box. When she does, Anne’s heart stops as they become frozen in place. Inside the box placed within three indents are three domino pieces, one blue, one red, and one green. The inside of the cover of the box has writing in cursive, “ For the three stars: Anne, Sasha, and Marcy ”
Marcy picks up the green one and holds it up to the light, her piece has one blank space on half of the piece, the other half featuring three black dots arranged in a diagonal. Marcy turns back to the other pieces, “Well, they match the colors of the gems from the music box, is anyone feeling superhero-y?”
Sasha picks up the red piece, featuring one blank half and one half with two black dots. She turns it over in her hands, “Nope, but the inscription matches the prophecy Mother Ohlm gave us, do you think she forgot a verse?” She asks as she turns to Anne, “Anne, are you alright?”
Somewhere, Anne is aware that Sasha and Marcy have begun to realize their reaction to the game pieces in front of her, but she is preoccupied as a memory she had forced herself to stop thinking about returns to the front of her mind, the memory of a promise and a cat.
Ignoring the hand Marcy places on her shoulder, Anne reaches out to pick up the last domino, painted blue and featuring a single black dot on one half of the piece. The moment she touches the piece, however, a white flash blinds her vision as swirls of color dance in front of her eyes.
Mr. X, Jenny, and Terri stare in disbelief at the spot where the three girls disappeared. Mr. X pinches his eyebrows together and let's out a long sigh, "Jenny... call the Boonchuys for me please."
-----
Eventually, Anne realizes she closed her eyes at some point. She breathes in through her nose, taking in the smell of trees and mud. Somewhere distantly, she hears the distant chirping of bugs. She begins to smile as tears threaten to form in her eyes. She’s home.