Grime leaps out behind me.
I land in a bush. I groan, and Grime pulls my hand off my eye.
"Is it gone?"
"You'll have to open it for me to see." I reluctantly open my eye, and Grime looks in it.
"You'll be fine." He doesn't answer my question, and besides, I already knew that.
"Yeah I'll be fine. I didn't need you to tell me that." I snap.
"Geez. Anywhere, we're still in Newtopia. We need to hide."
"Where can we hide? The Newt's are crawling around our old hideout, King Andrias decimated Toad Tower, and there's nowhere else where someone won't go running up to Newtopia at the sight of you."
"Listen, Sasha, we have to split up."
"No way." I shut it down immediately. It's most effective to kill the roots before the plant sprouts.
"It makes sense. You're not wanted."
"I'm a human. I'm practically a toad. Marcy has a good reputation, and Anne doesn't have a reputation at all."
"Andrias only wants me, he said nothing about you."
"Yeah, this is why we stay together. I'm related to you close enough that nobody will welcome me. Anywhere." It's why Anne and Marcy and I stuck together.
"After this incident, they'll be out looking for a pair of a toad and a human."
"There's safety in numbers."
"Yes, but that crashed and failed."
"Yeah, but where do you want me to go?"
"I don't know. Figure it out."
"So you're just sending me out on my own? After everything? I'm your Lieutenant, you can't do this."
"I'm not saying that. I'm going to head to the main tower. You'll know where to reach me, and if you can reach me, I'll have the return address to reach you. We'll go on from there."
"What kind of plan is that?"
"The only one we have, unfortunately."
"No. We have to stay together. End of discussion."
"You know that won't work on me."
"I'm going back to Newtopia." I said, looking in the direction of the city.
"They'll use you to find me. Not to mention, while you're not wanted, you're clearly going to make some rash decisions."
"That doesn't matter, you told me to go so I will." I say flatly, I pick herself up off the plants and start walking towards the water, towards the gated city.
"I can't let you go into Newtopia." Grime says.
"You can't stop me."
"I certainly can't. You know that."
"Exactly. I'm going to Newtopia, and you can't stop me."
"I wouldn't stop you, but think of this. Even if we were able to get into Newtopia, there's a good chance they'll kill you."
"Who cares? You're not afraid of death, if you were you would have run away by now, you wouldn't have been a soldier.
"I've been a soldier as long as you've been alive, if not longer. How old are you, 15, 16?"
"I turned 13 about a month before I came here."
"13? You're 13?"
"It's not a big deal. Let's go already." I seize my sword and walk toward the city.
"Wait! Sasha!" Grime follows me and grabs my arm.
"What?"
"I can't let you go into Newtopia. I'm setting a 13 year old against a whole army."
"Wouldn't be the first time. Let go of me." I say, jerking away from Grime.
"I won't let you into Newtopia. You'll be dead." He protests, and I run toward the city. Grime holds onto the warhammer and charges towards me, swinging it around. I held my blade as a shield from the swinging hammer, one hand gripping the handle and the other clutching the tip of the blade.
"Don't make me do this Grime." I say flatly, letting go of the tip of my sword and clutching the other one.
It's toad tower all over again.
"Not this time." I mutter, and I run toward Grime and bring the sword down on the hammer, as if I'd bring it down on him.
"I feel the same way about this as you do."
"If that's true then you're just getting started!" I yelled, tacking Grime and holding the wide side of my sword against his neck, holding him down on the ground. He kicks me up, I stick my swords in the ground before I land, the blades digging into the ground and keeping me from hitting the ground.
I stand in the very opening of the pass, holding my swords at my sides.
I run toward Grime, and he stands there.
He swings the warhammer and knocks me over. I jump up and climb the cliff to reach Newtopia faster.
The words echo and ache in my head, like a bad headache.
I never give up. Not now, not ever.
I pull myself up on a ledge, halfway up and out of breath. Grime follows me, and by his pace I figure it's still a somewhat friendly swabble. I scale the rest of the white rock, where the bay stretches out beyond the Newtopia gates in the far distance.
Grime finishes getting to the top, and he looks at me, still tilting the warhammer.
"Grime, what happened?" I ask, and I'm not just thinking about the trainwreck of today. I sink down to the white rock, which has soft spaces and rough patches.
"Sasha..." Is all he says, and he sits next to me on the ledge, resting the warhammer, which is easily a few hundred pounds, on his shoulders like it's a baseball bat, and with as much ease too. I'm strong, but that toad is insane.
"WHat happened to me?" I ask, not particularly to Grime, but more to everything. The Newtopia bay, the clear air. Anne, who gets to be home, who has a home to go home too. Marcy, if she hasn't fallen into the clutch of King Andrias yet. I sigh and stare into the horizon, which seems like a neverending existence.
"You see Sasha, all of this could have been ours." Grime says.
"I know. Sorry I screwed things up."
"That guy was insane. All the more reason to try again. Once we regain our army, of course."
"Really?" I ask, almost wistfully, at least my standards.
"Sure. Why not?" I glare at him, my one eye cutting the clear air.
"It's ok Sasha."
"But it's not. It's not, Grime. Anne's stranded at home, Marcy might be dead, we're back at rock bottom with nowhere to go, and I don't even want to go into my eye."
"Are you scared?"
"No."
"If you are, it's fine."
"Well it's perfectly fine anyway, I'm fine."
"Oh really?"
"Just peachy Grimsey." Grime snorts in response, and I grab my earbuds and plug them into my phone. I go into the music app and I open up the new AJR album and hit shuffle.
Hello, hello
I'm not where I'm supposed to be
I hope that you're missing me
Cause it makes me feel young
Hello, hello
Last time that I saw your face
Was recess in second grade
And it made me feel young
Won't you help me sober up
Growing up it made me numb
And I wanna feel something again
Won't you help me sober up
All the big kids they got drunk
And I wanna feel something again
Won't you help me feel something again
How's it go again?
Goodbye, goodbye
I said to my bestest buds
We said that we'd keep in touch
And we did our best -
I throw my phone before I even realize I did. Grime catches it and slides it across the rock to me.
"You dropped your phone."
"You could say that." I plug my earbuds back in and choose another song.
"Hey Grime?"
"What is it, lieutenant?" Grime asks.
"Where are we going to go?"
"Back to toad tower. Survey the wreckage."
"You saw what Andrias did. It's gone. They're gone." Sasha choked it out. Even she had compassion, if not empathy, for the toads left behind in the tower.
"I meant to begin building again. To reestablish our army. There are plenty of toads in Amphibia, there's no shortage of recruits."
"I guess."
"You still think Anne was right, don't you?"
"What're you talking about?"
"Sasha, you're my lieutenant, so I'm going to give it to you straight. But you're also my friend." I bite my tongue. Captain Grime's going into soft mode.
"I don't need your philosophy. Start mapping our route to Toad Tower." I snap, my temper bubbling to the surface, brushing Grime off.
"That's the way Sasha." He smacks me on the back, and I follow him. I plug my earbuds back in, but I don't play music.
I bite my tongue and Grime chugs a Bog Grog.
"Do you have to drink those things? They smell like cat pee."
"Looks like you're back to normal."
"And don't get me started on the cheese-beetles."
"Do you have to start?"
"They're cheetos sprinkled with death!"
"I don't know what a...cheeto...is."
"The human version of your guilty pleasure snack you tend to eat while slacking on your training. And when you slack on you're training you're a pathetic-"
"Shh." Grime hushes me.
"I wasn't done yet."
"Shut up." Grime says, and I hear the rustling in the bushes. I grab my sword and Grime gets the Warhammer. I step through, holding my sword battle-ready in front of me.
A small, unidentifiable mammal sat in the grass.
Marcy would've known what it was.
I blink away tears. What is wrong with me? I turn back to Grime.
"False alarm." I say.
"Look, Sasha. We need to split up now."
"No. I won't go."
"Lieutenant, we need to separate to keep our heads on our shoulders. Now's not the time for" Sentiment. I've heard that sentence too much to stop what I do next.
I smack Grime, and he just glares at me.
"Stop. We're not splitting up."
"I'll be at toad tower, you can reach me. We'll try again to get the box and take over Amphibia. We just need to get the law off our trail first."
"Yeah yeah, I get that part. But now is also the worst time to be alone. For the both of us. We'll be easier to kill, and you said this earlier, they'll use one of us to find the other. No. End of discussion."
"Lieutenant, you'll need to find a place to stay, only for a month or two, while I figure out a plan."
"I'm your Lieutenant, I need to help you."
"Sasha." He says, and it hits me that it's inevitable.
"Fine. We'll go our separate ways." I clench my fists at my sides.
"Sasha, let's not go like this." I don't say anything and I start walking forward, my fists still clenched at my sides.
"Just promise me this." Grime says, and I look over my shoulder. I really don't want to leave in a huff either.
"Wait to go to Newtopia. We'll conquer it together." He says, a sprinkle of something in his voice. I can't tell what it is, but it's not something that's been in him before.
"Sure Grimsey." I nudge him, and he laughs.
"Farewell Lieutenant." He says, looking back at me, before using his tongue to disappear into the trees.
I stand in the dusk, my hands draped at my sides.
It's not the first time I've been left alone like this.
Except this time it hurts, so so so much more.
This time the pain of it is raw and not scarred over.
I bite the inside of my cheek and start walking. I'm not paying much attention to where I'm going, so long as I don't run into any rocks or trees, I'm not like Marcy.
Marcy.
I choke back my tears and scale the side of the rocky ledge, before running down the side of the mountain, into the valley.
Halfway down I run into a rock, tripping downward farther into the valley, falling, tumbling down the hill, eventually landing in a mud puddle. I wipe the mud off my face and stand up, seeing where I landed.
An arch stands, with a wooden sign hanging off the end.
Welcome to Wartwood.
Slower to accept and even slower to respect.