On The Brink of Calamity

Refraction Return

"You... saved us?" Mr. X looked at the glowing Angel of Death as she hovered above the smoldering remains of a Frobot assassin.
"It's what I've been trying to do this whole time. I just want to get back to the other world with my friends so we can stop these things from coming here." Anne exclaimed.
"There's more? How many?" The agent asked.
"Thousands maybe more, I've managed to smash the lesser ones he's sent to attack us but I can't stop them forever." She looks at the Plantars and then back at the strange man. "I need to get back to their world."
Mr. X was quiet for a moment then acquired a look of determined solidarity.
"What do you need?"
Anne smiled welcoming the support. "We have some friends making a portal but they need money and technology."
Mr. X smirked and for the first time Anne felt it was a good smirk.
"Oh yeah, we can help with that."

The Invasion has begun. Explosions rock the city as Frobots materialize all across LA! People screamed and fled as the mechanical amphibians laid waste to everything in their path until a blue streak came to even the odds.
TTZZZZAAAAOOWWW!!!
Fast as a bolt of lightning the shining form of Anne Boonchuy shattered another line of Frobots.
"There's just no end to them!" The Thai girl growled as she sped away toward the next group of machines. She blitzed the line shattering multiple frobot grunts but before she could finish the job a barrage of laser fire did the job for her. Anne looked to the source and smiled as the government van skidded to a halt and Mr. X poked his head out. "Get in girl we have work to do!"
Anne powered down stumbling into the ice cream truck that Mr. X had turned into his mobile base.
"How many are there?" The agent asked as they took off.
"Too many, I can't take them all on, going blue takes too much out of me." Anne grit her teeth.
"Then we'll have to hit them at the source." Mr. X grinned tapping his ear piece. "Send in the specialists I've got the asset and we're returning to the gate."
"It's ready?" Anne asked.
"Oh it's ready alright." The agent stepped on the gas as more frobot wreckers marched into the city.
"Who are these specialists?" Anne asked as she panted from returning to normal form, it took a toll but having used it enough she was getting better at it.
"People who know how to deal with weird things."
BEEP BEEEEEP!!!
A red 1965 Cadillac Eldorado convertible blasted off passed them down the road.
"What?" Anne looked back as the muscle car muscled it's way into the fine pulling a hard break swerve that took out several frobots before two old men got out and attacked the frobot squad. One with some sort of laser gun the other with just brass knuckles. A van with a shooting star on the side crashes through from another street and came to a stop near the other car. Anne could only gape as a full grown hot pink lion leapt out of the back with a young Indian girl on its back. They disappeared from sight before Anne could see what else happened.
"I have so many questions." Anne mumbled clutching her soar head.
"Later, we have a time table to meet." Mr. X adjusted his glasses and zoomed down the road swerving hard into the museum parking lot.
"Follow me everything is downstairs."
Anne and the agent rushed down to the bowels of the museum where Terry and the I.T. Gals with fresh government funding finished the final adjustments to the portal machine.
"Everyone's waiting for you little lady." Dr. Jan gave a little salute as Anne stepped into the room and was immediately tackled by the plantar clan.
"You're back!" They cheered.
"I'll always come back for you guys." Anne smiled.
"Anne."
The teen looked up at her parents. They had welcomed them here and now they were letting her go again. It had all gone way too fast. It wasn't fair for any of them. But it was how it had to be and they knew it.
Her parents smiled with pride as they embraced their daughter who was now more grown up than they ever thought possible.
"We're almost ready." Ally called.
"Coding is finishing now." Jess added.
"We just need to hope the city has enough power to support the portal." Terry grit her teeth and pulled the lever.
Sparks of blue, green and pink spiraled from pillars. Machines buzz and scream from strain. Electricity leapt from the machines like sickening claws pulling reality open.
"There's just one more thing!" Terry placed her old boss' skipman CD player on the console and pressed play. The song the angry woman had been listening to on that day imprinted in the disc harmonized with the portal locking onto the same place it had that day five months ago.
Space opened like a gaping maw and the plantar family stepped forward.
Anne looked back at everyone who had helped them. And with a single tear and a smile as big as she could she turned and leapt with her found family into the great unknown.


Andrias looked down from his floating fortress at the army amassing below him. On the edge of the wasteland formed from his frobots mining the kingdom for resources hundreds- no, thousands of frogs, newts and toads were gathering. Some fully armored others with only simple farm implements as weapons.
The combined forces came to a halt as the frobots massed beneath the floating fortress.
Sasha Waybright stepped to the front of the rebellion army. To her sides the people of Wartwood, Ribbiton, Newtopia, the four toad towers and a dozen and a half villages between. Everyone who had met and been helped by the planters and everyone they inspired to help themselves.
Sasha raised Barrel's hammer and pointed at the floating fortress. The place where she lost her friend. The place where she lost one of her loves. The place that represented all of the horrible things that had happened since that day. White hot fury bled into scarlet pink as Sasha's hair ignited like a technicolor flame.
She took the first step. The army followed. Slowly building to a power walk, a jog a run as the army charged with out any regard for anything by but raining as much pain on the frobot hordes as possible.
The machine forces waited for their master. Andrias gave barely a wave and they moved. Charging at the thought of the battle. At the thought of conquest. They would snuff out any flame of resistance.
Sasha's aura igniting sending off arches of lightening as she lead the army into battle raising her hammer and screaming with all her might.
"Bring me Andrias!" She rocketed into the air and brought down Barrel's hammer. The strike seemed to turn dirt into water as wave cascaded from the hammer into the frobot swarm uprooting their defenses as a physical ripple in the ground roiled the enemy entrenchment. Frobots we're thrown or simply crushed. Others were hurled across the field or into each other as the rebel army reached them with a battle cry that could be heard all the way up in the flying fortress.
"My my they are rowdy." Andrias snorted unconcerned. "Master perhaps you should show them what real power is." The leviathan newt suggested glancing back at the dark shape.
"Perhaps." it answered a single dice being juggled in one of its hands. "I suppose if nothing else I should roll initiative."
The dice fell to the floor rolling over to Andrias' feet. The king of newts looked down at the item as it bounced off his boot with a light "tink".
The die came to a stop with a twenty on top.
The blur shot passed Andrias sending his cloak billowing.
The black shape fell through the clouds, a fallen angel descending to earth to commence the flood.
Amphibian and Amphibimech scattered as the black shape impacted the ground like a meteor.
Sasha swung her hammer parting the battle between her and the shape that emerged.
The black cloak wafted in an unfelt wind. axolotl like gill branches extended from the black helm like devil horns. Dozens of eyes opened across the black visage all locked on Waybright as she was paralyzed by the figure.
"M... Marcy?" Sasha whispered.
A sickening grin spread across the alien's face.
"Hello Sashy."