Private David Johnson sighed as he finished his patrol. He had spent nearly all night walking around the outskirts of the small village they were occupying and now he just wanted to get some sleep.
When he enlisted as a soldier for the U.S. Army, he never thought he'd be sent to another dimension! The notion would have been unthinkable just a few months ago, yet here he was, near the front lines, making sure that none of those frog robots snuck up on them.
David waved to a couple other soldiers as he made his way into the town. Jacob Rodgers, another private that was assigned to the night patrol, bumped his shoulder as he walked into one of the buildings set aside for the soldiers to sleep in. "Long night, eh?"
"Tell me about it." David replied back, feeling relieved to finally have a few hours of rest.
"Ya know, the Commanders say the war will be done soon." Jacob continued, laying on the sleeping mat next to David's. "There's been a little bit of trouble over the mountains thanks to that Waybright girl, but the rest of the continent should capitulate within a month or two."
"Is that so?" David responded dryly as he tried to fall asleep. He was not in the mood for conversation.
Jacob didn't seem to get the message as he just continued to ramble on. "Did you know that she's only fourteen years old? Makes you wonder if the aliens here did something to her head that made her want to help them."
"Maybe." David yawned, turning his back on the other man.
"I mean, why would a human, one of us, want to help a bunch of freaks? They were gonna invade us for Pete's sake! We're saving the world right now!" Jacob exclaimed.
"Uh huh..." David mumbled.
"Oh hey, did you hear the rumors? Apparently, the FBI is working on making some kind of super weapon that's powerful enough to take down the flying castle. I'm not sure if they're true, but imagine the damage something like that could do to—!"
"Will you shut up?!" David yelled, sitting up to glare at the other man. "I don't care what kind of weapon the FBI is supposedly making! All I want to do is get through this, go home, and see my family!" He sighed. "Look, I get it. We're all excited to be in another dimension but if you say one more word, I'm gonna punch you in the throat, got it?!"
Jacob stared at him in shock. "Sorry, bro. I didn't mean to—"
BOOM
The ground shook violently as a massive explosion sounded out in the distance. Without sparing Jacob a look, David immediately threw on his gear and rushed outside. Everywhere he looked, people were scrambling to ready their defenses. David rushed over to the Lieutenant of his platoon who was barking out orders left and right. "Sir, what's going on?"
His superior turned to look at him. His face looked calm but his hands shook nervously. "Some kind of blue laser just took out a large chunk of the frontline. We're still working out the details."
"Sir, according to the radar, several large objects appear to be heading our way." One of the other soldiers announced.
David turned his gaze toward where the frontline was situated. The sun had only just begun to rise which didn't allow him to see much beyond the village his platoon was currently stationed at. "What are our orders, sir?"
"Hold your positions for now. We don't know exactly what the enemy is planning yet, but we need to be ready to engage at a moment's notice."
"Yes, sir." David saluted before running to meet up with the rest of his squad just outside of the village's boundaries. He grimaced when he saw Jacob was already there, conversing with their Staff Sergeant.
"There you are, Johnson." His Staff Sergeant greeted as soon as David came into view. "I was just about to send Rodgers here to find you."
David placed a hand on his gun. "Sorry, sir. I was just double-checking what our orders were."
The other man waved him off. "It's fine, private. You just get into position and then we can—"
BOOM
Yet another explosion shook the earth they were standing upon, this time much closer than before. David had to hold onto a nearby tree to keep his footing. He looked up in shock as a large shadow was cast over their position.
The flying castle was here, and it wasn't alone.
Thousands upon thousands of frog robots flooded the sky as the castle slowly approached them. Just behind the robots were two enormous birds with purple eyes and razor-sharp teeth, each of them looking like they haven't eaten in months.
David's Staff Sergeant was the first to break out of his shock. "All troops, prepare for battle!"
"Sir yes sir!" Every soldier around him responded in tandem, including David who had already joined the other soldiers in creating a line of defense.
"Sir, there appears to be movement at the tree line." One of the soldiers holding a pair of binoculars called back.
David turned just in time to see hundreds of frog aliens storm out of the forest, however, instead of their typical swords and shields, these Amphibians were using some kind of exoskeleton suits of armor. Each of which had a laser cannon arm similar to the ones seen on the frog robots.
"Open fire!" The Staff Sergeant yelled.
And that's when all hell broke loose.
~~~
Sasha whooped loudly as she watched the battle play out in front of her. Who knew riding on top of a heron could be this much fun? She turned to Grime. "Now this is what I'm talking about!"
Grime grimaced from his seat on the back of the other heron. "I'm glad you're having fun, Lieutenant. But let's try to focus, okay?"
"Yeah yeah." Sasha said, waving him off. "Let's just get down there already."
Sasha guided her heron to the ground, accidentally crushing one of the village's buildings as she landed. She looked toward the village's front gates, smiling in pride as the Wartwood Resistance began to overwhelm the American defenses.
Sasha patted her heron's head. "Alright, birdbrain, it's time to cause some property damage." She pointed at where a nearby group of soldiers were readying their tanks for battle, causing the heron to immediately stomp toward them.
The group of soldiers raised their guns toward her as she approached. One of the men seemed to recognize her. "Shit is that...stand down, Waybright!"
Sasha merely laughed and pointed her sword at the group of soldiers. "Not gonna happen."
Sasha's heron quickly spread out its wings, knocking the soldiers back in a powerful gust of wind. With the soldiers knocked away, her heron was free to rip the tanks to shreds using its talons and beak.
By the time the soldiers regrouped, it was far too late as Sasha's heron had already taken off back into the sky. Sasha looked down in triumph, noticing a pile of artillery shells just waiting to be ignited in the village center. She called out to one of the frobots flying nearby. "Hey metalhead, why don't you light this place up?!"
The frobot's eyes simply turned into question marks. Sasha rolled her eyes. "Shoot the shells, you idiot!"
Thankfully, the frobot did as she said, causing the shells to erupt in a massive explosion.
"That's one way to do it." Grime remarked as he flew his heron alongside hers. "However, let's try to keep structural damage to a minimum."
Sasha laughed half-heartedly. "You try telling that to them. Wartwood was in shambles after the battle, remember?"
"I know." Grime conceded. "But after the war is over, the frogs that live here probably won't want to come back only to see that their homes are destroyed."
"It's war, Captain." A voice from behind the two of them said. "Collateral damage is necessary if we mean to win."
Sasha turned in her seat only to see Andrias flying beside them in his Dyoplosaurus suit. The newt fired a missile at a group of soldiers while he continued. "I would assume a toad would know that already."
Grime opened his mouth to defend himself, but Andrias was already gone, using his flamethrower to torch a fighter jet that was heading for the castle.
"It's okay, Grime." Sasha said sympathetically as she maneuvered her heron back towards the battle. "I'm glad that you care about the frogs so much. I'm sure Anne would be too."
Grime simply nodded before guiding his heron to the ground, destroying a military drone right before it fired upon Wally and Loggle. Sasha shook her head and rejoined the battle as well. They would have time to rebuild later. Right now, all that mattered was taking back their home.
~~~
All in all, the battle went surprisingly well.
After only an hour of fighting, the U.S. Military had ordered its troops to retreat. The joint forces of Andrias and Darcy's frobots and the Wartwood Resistance were just too much for the single platoon to handle it seemed. In terms of casualties, only about a dozen frobots were destroyed and a few Resistance members were injured while the opposite side lost nearly all of their equipment and suffered a casualty rate of 25%.
And all of that is just the beginning of our counterattack. Sasha thought to herself as she looked down at the now-liberated village from the castle balcony.
"Wonderful job out there, Sasha!" Darcy spoke up from behind her. "We knew allying with you would work in both our favors."
Sasha scoffed. "I'm only working with you until Amphibia is free. Once the war is over and I have Anne and Marcy back, this alliance is over."
Darcy shook their head, feigning a look of sadness. "How disappointing. We'd hope this could be the beginning of a beautiful partnership."
Sasha rolled her eyes, pointedly deciding not to respond to the hive mind's act of friendliness. She turned when she noticed Beatrix and Grime making their way onto the castle balcony as well.
Grime glanced at Darcy before focusing his attention back on Sasha. "We found some of the villagers being kept prisoner underneath the town hall. It seemed like they were being prepped for transport before we arrived."
"From what they told us, the rest of the village managed to escape into the forest." Beatrix added. "Should we send a search party to look for 'em?"
Sasha shook her head. "Wherever they are is safer than the village is right now. Gather the ones that were kept prisoner and send them back to Wartwood. We'll deal with all those who were displaced as soon as the war is over."
Beatrix nodded and ran back inside to relay the order while Grime looked out across the Amphibian landscape. With the sun now being higher up in the sky, it was much easier to see the destruction the battle had caused.
Darcy smiled as they studied Grime's grim expression. "Andrias was right, you are going soft."
Grime sneered at Darcy. "Yeah, well, maybe if you hadn't misused the Music Box in the first place, none of this would have happened!"
Sasha stepped in before Darcy could reply with one of their typical snide remarks. "Ah-bup-bup, let's try not to argue with one another. We still have a war to finish and like it or not, we need to work together."
Grime nodded reluctantly while Darcy merely smirked. Sasha sighed internally. It was one thing to create this alliance. It was another thing to keep it together.
Grime rolled his shoulders as he looked back out over the balcony. "So, Lieutenant, where to next?"
Sasha smiled mischievously, something that Darcy seemed to take note of and mirror in their own expression. "I think it's about time we took back the capital. Next stop: Newtopia."