“Yeah,” Arthur responded. In fact, they were getting louder. It was almost as if they were right next to them, the amnesiac thought.
And then the pair saw them: a huge throng of regular frogs, surrounding them and the cabin on all sides. It was as if all of the grass on the ground had turned into a different type of green, this kind being one that ribbited constantly.
However, even this phenomenon didn’t last, as the entire amphibian assembly started jumping at Arthur! Normal frogs by themselves lacked much in the way of offensive capability against a creature much larger than itself, but the man had no idea what hundreds of them could do to him.
Not that he intended to find out; the amnesiac drew his sword and started stabbing them, slaying the amphibians as quickly as possible. He even used his feet to kick some of them away, which gave Clark the idea to exit the cabin and do the same. And like Roland yesterday, the impact of his foot sent these frogs flying. They creatures didn’t look out of the ordinary at all, so neither of the two was sure why these amphibians were doing this, but at least their defense against it seemed to be working.
That is, until a much larger and more familiar frog lunged down from one of the nearby trees, slamming Arthur into the ground.
“No!” Clark exclaimed, both alarmed at the damage his friend took and in fear of the ex-convict right next to him. And the frog did not waste any time; he immediately flicked his tongue out at the cricket, grabbing him with it. Unfortunately for the criminal though, Arthur did not either; he had landed with his back to the ground, so he was easily able to use his sword to stab the frog’s right leg. This clearly wasn’t something that the enemy was expecting, as the frog screamed in pain in response. Clark took the opportunity to jump away from the creature’s tongue and onto his back.
“Get off of my friend!” the cricket commanded with tears in his eyes as he assaulted the frog with a series of kicks, holding onto the amphibian’s skin with his hands in the meantime. Clark was absolutely terrified of being eaten by this frog, but the thought of Arthur being killed scared him even more.
“Do it now!” the frog raged in response before jumping off of Arthur with Clark holding on for dear life. Both amnesiac and cricket were wondering what “it” was until the man saw a silver ball zooming right towards him. Roland - it had to be Roland.
Arthur couldn’t compact himself into a ball, but when he saw the small fat man attempting to strike him, he knew what to do; the amnesiac rolled himself out of the way, just narrowly avoiding a spiked ball of pain. Fortunately, Roland had bounced off of the ground and landed a little further away from where he was, so Arthur had time to get up and take a defensive stance while he evaluated the situation. He knew Gordon had to be close by if his associate was there, he just didn’t know where he was yet. More worrisome than that, the amnesiac didn’t know where Clark and the frog had gone either.
----
“Get off of me, you stupid bug!” the frog yelled as he continued jumping, leading both of them away from the cabin back in the direction of Irris. As much as he hated to admit it, the cricket’s kicks were getting painful at this point and the amphibian knew his arms wouldn’t be able to reach either.
“No! Leave us alone!” Clark countered. He knew he couldn’t hold on forever though, as his arms were already in a great deal of pain just from holding on as long as this. He’d have to find a way to - wait, maybe he should listen to the creature trying to kill him, just this once.
The cricket knew he wasn’t much of a fighter, but jumping, he definitely knew how to do that. And landing was an important part of jumping, so he knew he could do that too. Adding another part to that process wouldn’t be too hard, then. So with as much grace as was possible in this situation, Clark let go of the frog once he was halfway to the apex of one of his jumps and kicked the amphibian’s stabbed leg with as much force as he could muster on his way to the ground. And like every other jump of his he could remember, the cricket made it to the ground perfectly.
“Son of a toad!” the frog screamed in pain. He had clearly not expected this, as his jump turned from something typical of his species to something much less skillful as he convulsed in pain. And instead of landing on his legs like he normally would, the frog landed head-first, indenting the creature’s dome in the process.
The cricket stood there in shock for a few moments. This was not what he expected to happen. Clark thought maybe the amphibian would be stunned in pain for a few moments at the most, but the creature was not moving at all. Not moving from a splayed position with his head facing the ground and bleeding. Yeah, that confirmed it - the frog had croaked. Somehow, he had won.
The cricket felt awful, both because of what had happened and because of the fact that Arthur was probably still in danger. Despite his exhaustion, Clark began jumping back towards his friend as quickly as he could, hoping he wasn’t in too much trouble.
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