“Run, Princess!” cried Frog, clutching the Green Button tightly as he, Princess Rainbow and Sheriff Explosion raced down a white corridor. “We have to get this as far away from King Kroak as possible! If he gets his hands on it he’ll … he’ll…”
Frog skidded to a sudden halt.
“What are you doing?” said Princess Rainbow. “I thought we were running away.”
“Baa!” concurred Sheriff Explosion.
“You need to take this,” Frog said. He held out the Green Button to the princess. “I can’t be trusted with it.”
“What are you on about, silly Greeny?” asked the princess.
“You have to take it, or I’ll press it and blow up the world,” Frog explained. “It turns out I’m King Kroak’s cloned-up self. We’re the same down to our left nostril. I’m all the badness there is, plus a million, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Baa,” bleated Sheriff Explosion.
“Pfff … that’s the bumdrops,” said Princess Rainbow, folding her arms. “You’ve had all sorts of chances to be bad. When the ay’lun invaders came it would have been easy-peasy for you to join up with them, but you didn’t. You saved us instead.”
“But—” Frog began.
“And then when they came back you saved us again. And you saved my mummy and daddy … sort of,” the princess continued, peeking into her pocket.
“Hail, Kroak,” squeaked the King and Queen together.
“But that’s not who I am really,” said Frog quietly. “Deep down, I’m one hundred per cent merciless conqueror.”
Princess Rainbow thought for a long moment, puckering her lips and squinting her eyes.
“What if you’re not the him he is?” she said at last. “What if you’re the him he would have been if he didn’t have to be one hundred per cent mers’less conker?”
“Huh,” said Frog, staring at the Green Button in his hand. “I never thought of that.”
“FROG!”
Frog spun around. At the other end of the corridor stood King Kroak, his massive fists clenched.
“I’ve changed my mind about you, Frog!” he roared. “I think I’d prefer you dead, after all!”