Chapter Text
Her head feels like the aftermath of someone pounding it with a jackhammer.
Anne shifts and immediately regrets it, rubbing away at her temples in an attempt to steady her swirling brain as the mattress spins beneath her. Gradually, memories from the previous day return to her, hazy images consisting of the colorful exterior of the Newtopian castle and buildings surrounding it, toad soldiers revealing themselves and arresting King Andrias, Sasha casually talking about overthrowing the central government while Marcy tries to calm everyone, chewing off Sasha and ending their friendship, and a myriad of colors blinding her after Sasha threw open the lid of the music box.
Ah, yes. That’s right.
She and Sasha had an argument.
The curtains in the room are drawn close and are dense enough so no sunlight can peek through. It’s enough to illuminate the space, though. As Anne lies there trying to find her bearings, she can’t help but notice how considerably large the room is in comparison to the rest of the residence. She turns her head, finding a large hardback book laying on the nightstand beside the bed, flipped open to a picture of a very large potato. Was she in Hop Pop’s bedroom? What was she doing back here?
The door opens, and someone walks in. The person is a few inches taller than herself, maybe three or four, and loose strands of blonde hair fall forward onto her hairline. Pointed nose, soft cheekbones, almond eyes, black eye-patch strapped across her right eye- she’s undeniably familiar, and the medium-length scar against her left cheek sparks something visceral inside of her because holy shit-
“Sasha?”
The girl- Sasha- blinks a few times as if she's trying to snap herself out of something, then opens her mouth to speak. “Long time no see, yeah?” She says, voice quieter than Anne honestly expected.
Without saying another word, she strides across the room and situates herself in the vacant chair beside the bed, an unreadable expression etching her features.
Unfortunately for Anne, she isn’t feeling very eloquent at the moment, as she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “What happened to your eye?” she asks before immediately backpedaling. “I- I’m sorry! I don’t wanna assume anything but since you’re wearing it I thought-“
“Anne,” Sasha interrupts, hazel eyes staring intently into her own chocolate ones. She looked serious, no nonsense- it’s the same look Sasha gave her whenever Anne did something she didn’t like. It made her stomach twist. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Anne blinked. “Uh,” She shifted uncomfortably, wincing when her temples throbbed with pain. “I was inside the Newtopian castle because we had just recharged the music box. I kinda got into an argument with S- you, and she opened the box and threatened to send me home before I could say my goodbyes to the Plantars,” she frowned. “When she opened it though… it sent me here.”
Sasha’s lips pull into a tight line; face twisting into a grimace. “How old are you?”
Anne paused. “What?”
“How. Old. Are you?”
“I’m thirteen?” Same as yesterday, right?
Sasha continues staring for another elongated moment before sighing, using her fingertips to rub at the outermost parts of her eyes. “Fucking- okay, okay. This is something that happens now.”
“Uh-“
“Do you know what she- I?- did?”
Anne barely stammered, unable to keep up with this. “What she did?”
Sasha frowned, running a gloved hand down her face in exasperation. “Did she- I! Did I touch the gems? Wind up the lever- anything?”
Anne simply lay there, deathly confused. “W-What? No?”
A sharp exhale, and a balled fist is slammed upon the wooden nightstand, rattling the dresser and hardcover book atop it. Anne flinched, and decided the sudden burst of noise has done the opposite of calming her throbbing headache. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” She murmurs, voice quiet. She’s older, definitely, but she has a general sense of being worn down. Like she’s been tired for a really long time.
“What the heck is going on?”
Several quiet knocks sounded throughout the room, and another person walked into the room. Donning a royal blue bomber jacket, the slightly protruding sleeves and elastic cuffs make her upperhalf appear more bulky compared to the rest of her body. The chocolate eyes, flat nose and wild hair looked oddly familiar and oh.
Oh. It’s herself.
The girl- herself - is looking at her, and Anne has to remind herself because it simply isn’t clicking, and she’s so sure her mouth is gaping and she looks ridiculous but she just cannot help it because it’s literally me. “Everything okay?” She- herself?- asked, smiling gently.
“You’re me? I can’t believe this, you’re actually me. Oh frog, I can’t even process this, what the heck-“
“What the hell are we supposed to do?” Sasha asks, voice growing increasingly bitter.
Anne- Oh jeez, she’d have to come up with a name to differentiate them- frowned. “Language, Sasha. There’s kids in the room.”
“You’re literally sixteen.”
“Whatever.”
Anne floundered, head swimming. “I’m- you’re- sixteen?” She asked incredulously. Her counterpart simply nodded.
Sasha slapped a hand over her face, heaving a shuddering breath. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?” she says in a tone that’s so forign, so unfamiliar and so unSashalike it catches her completely off-guard.
Hopelessness?
What was going on?!
Anne sat up, bringing her hands to wring away the aches residing inside her temples. She wants to gather a more comprehensive image of the situation, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult with the aching in her head and the apparent two older versions of herself and former friend talking right before her. Sasha had one eye, a future version of herself was standing right before her, and they’re asking how the music box worked? She doesn’t even know where her Sasha and Marcy are. Something was deathly wrong. This is so wrong-
Her fingers twitched, and her throat restricted and her eyes burned. She tried to breathe, but it was becoming difficult. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.
“Hey, hey,” Sasha shushes, gingerly placing a hand into her shoulder and squeezing affectionately; but the gesture is so unbelievably wrong because they were just fighting beforehand and Sasha wasn’t her friend anymore. “Anne, calm down, breathe,”
A moment of silence passes between the trio. With a heaving breath, Anne stands from her mattress, overcoming her swimming vision, and bolts out the door.
She attempts to run, but confusion weighs over her body with the heaviness of a weighted blanket. Only a few steps forward and she crashes into something, smashing the left side of her face into the wall. Rubbing her left cheek, she maneuvers past the fallen object- a small wooden stand holding a vase filled with flowers- and continues into the living room in a frenzy.
A group of people are seated on the couch, but ignore them as she attempts to unlatch the locks on the wooden door, yet they wouldn’t budge. The people on the couch surrounded her, concern etched onto their features.
One of them placed a hand onto her shoulder. “Anne?-“
“Sprig, back up,” Sasha ordered, marching into the living room alongside her future counterpart.
The frog looked familiar, and he was almost unrecognizable due to his sheer height and ginger hair peeking from beneath his signature pilot-hat and goggles.
Anne felt like she was choking. “Sprig?”
The boy- oh, she didn’t even have to look down at him. They were nearly the same height now- leveled his gaze, smiling gently. “Yeah, it’s good to see you, Anne.”
Anne’s smile was weary yet pleasant. “What’re you talking about? I’ve never seen you like this before.”
Her words elitched a shared look of confusion and worry. Sprig and Sasha specifically exchanged a look of sympathy.
A small deep purple frog, tugging at the hemming of her t-shirt, stout ginger pigtails and polka-dot bow bouncing with the movement. Polly. “Hey, Anne. You doing okay? You’ve been out for a while,” she pauses, then, “We found you a few hours ago.”
Something inside Anne’s chest twisted at those words, and that was added to the mere growing list of things she didn’t understand. “I-I…”
“Settle down, kids, give her some space,” The unmistakable voice of Hop Pop sounded through the worried faces and unspoken questions. In the past, his grandfatherly tone would’ve calmed her, but it only added to the stress. “Anne, hon, are you okay? Do you know where you are?”
Anne grit her teeth, throwing her hands out in exasperation. “N-No, I don’t know anything! I remember telling off Sasha for being a bad friend and then-“ she pauses, then frowns, and oh.
Oh no.
Sprig spoke up, curious though concerned. “Anne? Then what?”
She exhaled a shuddering breath, chewing on the inside of her mouth. “Them. Sasha and Marcy. I don’t know if they got zapped here with me. I don’t know where they are.”
Did they get transported here too? Was it like the first time they came here, and they were separated for several months? She wanted to scream, or cry. One or the other was fine.
After several moments of silence, Sasha speaks up. “It’s possible that they’ve been transported here, too. The three of us- you- are the wielders of the Calamity box. If the box is activated, then all of you would be transported.”
“This just can’t be.” Hop Pop says lightly, almost as if he was convincing himself it was a joke. “It just can’t be- the box isn’t that powerful that it can transcend through literal time, right?”
Another pregnant pause.
“We need to go get Marcy.” Sasha decides, leaving no room for questions.
“No!” Anne- the future one, apparently- almost immediately says. Past-Anne perks up at that. “Why wouldn’t I want to see Marcy? This is so confusing.”
“N-“ Sasha stammers, shifting her gaze towards Anne and widening her eyes incredulously. If the situation wasn’t so bad, she would’ve laughed at her reaction. “No?”
“No.”
“NO?!”
“No.” Older Anne repeats.
“Anne,” Sasha almost whines, throwing her hands onto her face in the most frustrated she’s ever seen her. More frustrated than Toad Tower frustrated. “We cannot pretend that things aren’t what they are! If this isn’t pretend, Marcy is the one that might actually know what’s going on.”
Older Anne shakes her head, balling her shaking fists and stuffing them inside her jacket pockets. “She- She can’t. She’ll flip the hell out if she sees this, I can’t put her through this again. I can’t.“
Sasha’s voice increases in volume. “She’s the one with the Millennium old eldritch being inside of her! She and the Night are bound to know something about this to help us!”
Anne can’t help but become flustered herself by the obtuse phrasing of their sentencing. Are they avoiding talking about something? Why aren’t they saying anything? “Is- Is there something wrong? Who’s the Night? Is Marcy okay?!”
A deafening pause passes through the room, and her mind races with the worst thoughts imaginable. Why’d they stop talking? Did something happen? Did this ‘Night’ person hurt her?
Sasha simply says, “We have to tell her.”
“No!” Older Anne protests.
“She deserves to know!”
“She’s thirteen!”
“We all were!”
“What are you guys talking about?!” Anne unintentionally shouted, but finally being able to be heard is so vindictive. The short-lived argument and anger between the two humans vanished, instead replaced with burning shame and embarrassment. Just as Anne finds herself unable to move where she stands, Sprig gingerly grabs the crook of her arm, leading her towards the door.
“Hey,” Sprig says, smiling softly, so understanding and kind and refreshing to see amongst so much confusion and unknown answers.“It’s a bit overwhelming here, let’s go get some fresh air. I'll explain it to you then, alright?”
Anne blinks, then smiles, shoulders slumping slightly. Maybe she’ll finally get some answers, now. “Y-Yeah. That sounds good, Sprig,”
He unlatches the door and they step past, making sure to gently close the door behind them. The air is crisp, exhilarating and refreshing, filling every crevice of her chest with a sharp coolness. She takes a moment to glance at her surroundings, finding even the outside of the Plantar family farm different. Several rows of vegetables are lined out in the fields in addition to a larger stall and shack; but it isn’t right because she remembers them harvesting the vegetables before leaving for Newtopia. Everything is different and she doesn’t even know what’s happening.
She just hopes the others are okay.
.
Sasha groans, head throbbing intensely. If the headache was keeping her alert, she would’ve sunken further into the plush sofa and drifted back into sleep, despite her clunky armor.
But that's the problem. She wasn’t supposed to have a throbbing headache or be laying on a sofa. She shifts herself, groaning when the movement worsens the throbbing. She doesn’t remember nor understand how she’s gotten here, laying in what seems to be a carriage of sorts, passed out and with the worst headache known to man. Where on earth was she?
Gradually, the memories come back. Her and Grime successfully overthrowing Newtopia, her reveling in her newfound power, Anne breaking off their friendship, and then unmitigated sorrow followed by unbridled anger overtaking her as she opens the box to force her former friend back home-
Then a blinding flash. Then pain.
The door to the carriage opens with a squeak, and Sasha’s can only make out the hazy outlines of unidentifiable figures standing in the entryway. They are spindly and they bowed themselves slightly to step past the entrance. They stepped forward, almost hesitantly. What is happening? Has she been kidnapped? Was this person going to hurt her?
They stepped forward again. Sasha decided to act.
In what is perceived as a split second, Sasha leaps from her seat and brings the figure down in a controlled fall, looping a leg around the other’s and forcing them onto the floor. She shifts to straddle them from behind and places arm around their lower back. It’s just what Grime had taught her; their dominant arm pinned to the floor and other arm ineffectual in escaping. Without hesitating, she grabs the knife situated onto her belt and points it towards the figure’s neck who, oddly enough, doesn’t even struggle.
“Ha,” Sasha thinks to herself, celebrating. “Didn’t even see it coming, did you?”
The ray of sunlight peeking through the drawn curtains happens upon the stranger’s face, painting honeydew shadows across their face. Their dark, medium length hair falls over her bandaged left eye, the strands thick and shimmering in the sunlight. The person looks somewhat surprised, eyebrows perked up in amusement.
“Now, now. You wouldn’t want to do this to a friend, would we?” They asked lightly, already knowing the answer, her gentle manner and honeyed tone being so very familiar yet so very wrong. She would’ve recognized that voice anywhere.
Sasha feels the air inside her lungs escaping her. Her sternum feels like it’s caving in. Her ears fill with white noise.
“Marcy?”