Calamitous Intervention

One Cure Or Another / Family Shrub

It was stormy in Wartwood, which, to Luz, was a nice departure from the otherwise humid days. In the basement, Luz peeked out the barred window, feeling the splashes of raindrops on her face. The cold water felt refreshing against her skin.

As she was deep in thought, the door to the basement slammed open, making her flinch. Standing there was Hop Pop, who looked irritated. "Luz, move! This is the third time I've called you!"

Luz pulled her head out of the gap in the wall, looking at the old frog with a confused expression. "You did? I guess I couldn't hear you over the rain."

"Let's go!" he said, clapping his hands to get her full attention. "We've got work to do!"

The Plantars and Luz all gathered in the living room, with Hop Pop wearing a raincoat on his body and plastic wraps on his feet. "Okay, we've got a full day of hard work ahead of us," he told the others.

He handed out identical rain gear to Luz, Sprig, and Polly as well. "Here ya go, put this on! Polly..." He tied Polly up in a layer of plastic to protect her delicate body. She looked uncomfortable and agitated. "There you go, sweetie," the old frog cooed.

"Rain gear? Hop Pop, we're frogs!" Sprig reminded him, tossing the rain gear onto the floor, before he took off his vest and swung it around. "We should actually be taking off our clothes. Woo hoo!"

"Keep your pants on, boy," Hop Pop told him. "This here ain't no ordinary rainstorm." He gestured to the window, where Wally was desperately trying to walk across the grass with the wind blowing hard, but an uprooted tree flew in and smacked into him, sending him flying alongside it. Luz winced, but figured he would be okay. She'd seen him go through worse.

"We gotta cover up the crops before they're destroyed!" Hop Pop continued, knowing something like this could become catastrophic if not handled quickly. "It'll be hours of backbreaking work in the mud and the muck. Thankless, hard, character-building labor that will push you to your limits, but it will all be worth it in the end."

"You'd make a great motivational speaker, Hop Pop," Luz said. She turned to look out the window at the storm, and added, "So... we have to go out... there?"

He nodded, while Sprig reluctantly put on his rain gear. "With you here to help us, it'll hopefully go much faster. Uh, you don't have any of those potions that could help us, do you?" he asked.

The human shrugged. "I mean, I still have a resurrection spell, just in case. Maddie and I are still learning level-two spells, but they're pretty complicated. This shouldn't be that bad, though, right?"

As it turned out, it was way worse than she expected. Once they went outside, they had to face the intense weather. The rain came down in heavy buckets, and lightning flashed through the sky, frightening them. Thunder roared in the air, sounding like a cannon firing. Covering up the crops wasn't so easy when a cruel, intense wind was trying to blow you sky-high. Sometimes, Luz wondered how their house was still standing after all the abuse it was taking.

At one point, a twister roared toward the house and swept the frogs into the air. Luz leaped up after them and barely managed to grab onto Sprig, pulling him and the rest of the Plantars back to the ground.

It took hours of painful labor to get the crops finally covered up, and by then, exhaustion had taken hold of them. Their bones ached from the rigorous labor, their muscles were sore from the long hours, and their spirits were all but broken.

Chapter Seventeen - One Cure Or Another / Family Shrub

The Plantars made it back to the house, dripping wet, exhausted, and miserable. Right as they walked inside, they quickly realized they had more to worry about than just being wet. Hop Pop's nose was running, and Polly was sneezing, but Sprig seemed to be fine, surprisingly. Luz also felt the aftereffects, figuring this must be Amphibia's equivalent of a common cold.