Author's Notes: I'd appreciate constructive criticism on this one, since I made a lot of last-minute edits before uploading to AO3.


Sasha could barely remember how she and Grime got back to Wartwood. They'd escaped the palace on the back of Marcy's giant sparrow while Andrias was distracted.

They couldn't fly Joe Sparrow all the way back to Wartwood; he was just too noticeable. They left him behind near Quarreler's Pass, and hiked the way back to Wartwood. A numbness had overtaken Sasha as she marched along the rocky road back to Frog Valley as her mind replayed the events of the throne room again and again... Marcy's insane ranting, King Andrias laughing as she broke apart, Anne and the Plantars escaping through the portal; Marcy being impaled through the heart by Andrias, falling to the ground, the music box tumbling from her grasp as Anne and the frogs disappeared in a flash of light...

They walked through the night, Sasha ignoring the stiffness and pain in her joints as she followed Grime along the rocky road. All delusions of ruling Amphibia had evaporated the moment Marcy fell, leaving a black hole in Sasha's heart that drained her of everything; her stubborn pride, her reckless ambition, her once-unbreakable will to overcome, leaving her with nothing but shame and guilt, gnawing away at her insides like a voracious parasite and leaving her empty.

Sasha was so detached that it didn't even register in her mind that the had risen, nor when they stepped through the town gates into Wartwood, not until a crowd had gathered around them.

"Grime?" Came the voice of Mayor Toadstool. " What happened? What in frog's name is going on here!?"

"Where's Anne!?" Asked one the villagers.

"Is she okay?"

"What happened to Newtopia!?"

"What was that explosion?"

"Everybody, calm down!" Grime shouted. He turned to Mayor Toadstool, his expression grim.

"King Andrias has betrayed us," Grime told him. "He has the music box, a flying castle, and an army at his disposal. He means to use them to conquer other worlds."

"My frog..." Mayor Toadstool gasped. "What about the girls? Where's Anne? And the Plantars, what happened to them?"

"Anne is gone," Grime explained. "She and the Plantars escaped through a portal to the human world."

"And Marcy?"

"Dead," Grime told him bluntly. "Murdered by King Andrias. He was manipulating her all along; he had no intention of helping the girls get home. Marcy was able to get the box working long enough for Anne to escape, but... Andrias got to her before she could follow."

The people of Wartwood looked dumbstruck. All around were looks of disappointment, sorrow, worry, and shock. Sasha just stood there, her eyes downcast, saying nothing. The people who'd once feared and loathed her now looked on her with pity.

Mayor Toadstool offered the Plantar's farm to Grime and Sasha. As Sasha was in no condition to talk, Grime accepted on her behalf, saying that he needed to leave in the morning to rally the toad lords to strike back against Andrias.

Back at the Plantar's farm, Sasha trudged up the stairs and entered the washroom. Exhausted, beaten, and dirty from the battle and the long journey home, Sasha stepped inside and stripped away her armor before stepping into the makeshift shower that the Plantars had made for Anne.

The water was bitter cold as it washed over Sasha's pale skin, two days worth of dirt, sweat, and grime pooling at her feet before swirling down into the drain.

Upon getting out of the shower, Sasha stepped over her armor and picked up her backpack. Realizing that she hadn't opened it in what seemed like months, she unzipped the top and reached inside, pulling out her old school uniform. She took the grey blouse emblazoned with the crest of St. James Middle School, holding it up to her eyes. Seeing it again reminded her of Anne...

Anne. Out of the three of them, Anne was the only one who hadn't gotten lost in the fantasy... out of the three of them, she was the only one who strived to get them home. While Marcy and Sasha cosplayed as rogues and warriors, Anne kept her plain old schools clothes, never forgetting where they came from or their loved ones waiting for them on the other side of the abyss.

She was right about me, Sasha thought to herself. I am a horrible person.

Sasha found her mind wandering back to that night atop Toad Tower, when Anne first stood up to her. That little frog boy Sprig had slung a glob of mud in her face, called her a bully. Without thinking, Sasha had raised her weapon, ready to run through the little brat like he was a character in a video game... before Anne stepped between them and put Sasha in her place.

It made her think of how King Andrias had tried to crush Polly under his boot, how he'd dropped Sprig out the window, how he'd cut down Marcy... how was Sasha any better than him? She'd been just as cruel and indifferent to the Amphibians as Andrias had been to all of them. If Amphibia was like one of Marcy's video games, then Andrias was the self-styled "hero", and Sasha, her friends, and the Plantars as the soulless NPCs that he could stomp out whenever he fancied.

In King Andrias, Sasha saw a mirror of herself, what she had become. Oh how far she and Marcy had tumbled down the rabbit hole... Anne was the only one who could pull them out, but now she was gone, Marcy was dead, and Sasha was more alone than she'd been since arriving in Amphibia.

Forgetting her armor on the floor of the bathroom, Sasha put on her old school uniform. She set aside her heeled black slippers and denim jacket for now; that was when she noticed something in the bottom of her pack that wasn't hers. She reached inside and pulled out a yellow-and-white sneaker. It was Anne's right shoe, the one she'd lost in the south forest, the one Grime found while Sasha was locked up.

Sasha put it on. As insignificant as it seemed, it was all she had left of her friend now.

Sasha continued sifting through the contents of her backpack to see if she had anything in the way of a toothbrush, spare clothes, or maybe just some snacks... she was surprised to find that her old schoolbooks were still in her pack. Somehow, she'd never thought to toss them out. She pulled out several books on geography, history, mathematics, language arts, and tossed them aside one by one. There were of even less use to her now than they were before.

But something stopped her as she pulled the last of her school books out of her pack... this one wasn't a textbook. She almost laughed when saw it...

It was a bible. A rather beat-up one, too. There was a white sticker along the spine with the words "Property of St. James Middle School" in bold black letters. Sasha remembered receiving it from her teacher on her first day at St. James, along with every other kid in class. Opening it up, she could see that pages were dirty and frayed, covered in food stains from all the times she'd spilled her brown bag lunches inside her backpack as a kid. Not unusual for anyone who went to school at St. James; how many middle-schoolers treated this religious jargon with any level of respect? There were some... Sasha knew them well. They were among the outcasts, the kids who were never invited to her parties or sleepovers, the ones she openly mocked as "goodie-goodies" for actually reading the school's suggested reading material, especially when it was this thousand-year old religious rag.

But now, after everything she'd been through, after watching her friend die, Sasha looked on the tome with fresh eyes. Maybe- just maybe- she should've treated this book with a little more respect... maybe everything that happened was because she'd treated it with such contempt? It was easy to think such things in her emotionally vulnerable state.

Sasha left the rest of the books on the bathroom floor along with her backpack, taking the bible downstairs to the living room. She sat down on the couch, opened it up to first chapter of Genesis, and began to read. Maybe it would give her some answers...

Sasha slept on the couch that night, subconsciously thinking herself undeserving of the bedroom. She couldn't sleep; her mind was still buzzing as she relived the events of the last few days. At one point, she found herself wondering what would've happened if she'd been the one to be taken in by the Plantars and Anne had gone to Toad Tower, or what if both of them had gone to same place... if they'd been together in Wartwood from the start, might things have turned out different? Maybe Sasha could've been humbled by the experience of living on the farm with Hop-Pop, Sprig, and Polly, made real friends, changed her ways as Anne had.

Sasha heard a noise outside, snapping her out of her reverie and causing her to sit straight up. It was sort of a high-pitched chirp, and it was coming from the stable across the yard.

Sasha got up from the couch and went outside, following the sound of what she was sure to be the Plantar's snail mount.

The door to the barn creaked open as Sasha stepped inside. The two snails inside, one smaller than a cat, the other as big as an ox, looked to be distressed.

"Uh... hi," Sasha said as softly as she could manage. She'd never really taken any time to get to know the snails; she hadn't been to keen on getting all chummy with the Plantars either. That was all just to stay in Anne and Marcy's good graces while she and Grime planned their rebellion.

As the two snails had never seen her before, they looked scared. Sasha approached them slowly as to not spook them, while trying to remember their names.

"I'm Sasha," she said to the larger of the two. "I'm Anne's friend from home... you; you're Betty, right? No, wait, that's not it... Betsy? No...?"

The snail chirped at Sasha, lowering it's eyes in a manner that suggested it was glaring at her with suspicion.

"Um, hang on... Bessie? Is that it?" Sasha guessed. The snail bobbed it's head in an affirmative nod. It seemed to understand her.

Sasha was now face-to-face with Bessie, looking into it's deep purple eyes. She tentatively brought her hand up to the side of the creature's head in what she hoped looked like a soothing gesture, and ran her hand down the snail's leathery neck. It purred back at her, and relaxed against her touch.

Sasha glanced over Bessie's shoulder and saw that in the back of the barn, someone had hung a picture of the Plantars, including Anne. The smaller snail (Sasha recalled Polly referring to it as 'Micro-Angelo') was staring up at and chirping insistently, as if asking where they were.

"I'm sorry, guys..." said Sasha. "Anne's gone, along with the frogs... back to my world, I think."

Bessie hung her head in disappointment, giving a low chirp of sorrow.

"I know how you feel," Sasha insisted. "I'm all alone now, too."


Grime was taking their defeat at Newtopia very personally. Months of planning and preparation undone inside of an hour, the Great Toad Rebellion defeated, his people scattered, confused, and being hunted by Andrias's mechanical monstrosities. Humiliated and frustrated, he could think of little else beyond finding the other Toad Lords and beginning preparations for their counterattack. That was all that mattered to him.

Unfortunately Sasha, whom he'd come to depend on, seemed to be cracking under the pressure. He'd noticed a lapse in her resolve back in Newtopia when she allowed Anne's harsh words to cut deeper than they should, but it seemed the death of her other friend had pushed her close to the breaking point. He'd hoped that she would shake this off after a good night's sleep...

...but when he returned to the Plantar's farm the following morning (having spent the night scouting the countryside for Andrias's minions) he saw that Sasha had hung her armor and cloak out front like a scarecrow. That didn't bode well; no soldier would display their armor in such manner unless they no longer had use for it. Worse still, went he crossed the threshold into the living room, it was to find Sasha in her old school uniform, slumped over on the couch, reading a book. He noticed that she was also wearing Anne's other shoe, the one his men had found in the forests near Wartwood months prior. He wasn't aware she'd kept it.

Grime had no patience for this. Sasha couldn't afford to break down now; and he couldn't afford to have her break down on him.

"Sasha, what are you doing?" Grime demanded of her. "We should've been gone by sunrise! We must find the other toad lords and regroup as quickly as possible before Andrias can begin his counterattack!"

Sasha merely glared at him, saying nothing, and clearly paying no mind to a word he said. Grime was becoming increasingly agitated by her indifference.

"Lieutenant," Grime said to her. "Our mission is more urgent now than it ever has been. All of Amphibia is in danger, and you and I are the only ones in any position to stop it! Will you at least look at me!?"

Sasha looked up, staring unblinking into Grime's one good eye. There was a pregnant pause, and Grime wondered if Sasha might attack him. She could be quite unpredictable.

"Do you remember what happened at the top of Toad Tower?" Sasha asked him, her voice barely a whisper.

"How could I forget?" Grime retorted. "I was the one who save you after Anne dropped you-"

"Anne didn't drop me," Sasha interrupted. "I let go."

Both Grime and the onlookers were stunned by this revelation. Grime looked as though someone had dropped something on his head.

"You- what?" Grime stammered. "Why?"

Sasha stood up, towering over her toad companion. Grime could see that her eyes were red and puffy. Despite this, and being without weapons or armor, Sasha still managed to intimidate.

"You saw what I almost did," Sasha reminded him. "I tried to kill Sprig. Just like Andrias did."

"No, don't say that, you're nothing like Andrias-"

"Am I not?" Sasha contested. "I was gonna kill that little twerp over nothing! I probably would've done the same to Polly and Hop-Pop if Anne hadn't stopped me... I was a delusional psychopath on a power trip. How does that make me any different from Andrias!?"

"You're the greatest warrior I've ever had under my command," Grime said to her. "You're not so pretentious as Andrias. You have strength. Cunning. Determination. You never gave up, not even when I had you in a cell!"

Grime's praise did nothing to raise Sasha's spirits. For once, she had taken a good look in the mirror, and saw the ugly truth. That she was a horrible person. Worse than your average school bully, not merely a troubled teenage girl; she'd acted as a full-on sociopath with delusional fantasies about ruling over a world of talking frogs. She tried to kill Sprig. She would've separated Anne from her frog family out of pure spite, and it was only thanks to her own ignorance that it hadn't worked.

"Focus, Sasha!" Grime commanded. "Amphibia can't afford to have you give up now, Lieutenant."

"Don't call me that," said Sasha, flopping back down on the couch. If Grime thought to spur her into action by reminding her of her rank, he was sorely misguided. Sasha had come to realize what he hadn't; that it was an empty title. The toads, even after Sasha took over, were not an army. They were brigands. Raiders. More organized than your average highwayman, but every bit as cutthroat.

"I'm not a soldier," Sasha told him. "I'm not your lieutenant, and we're not an army. You, Grime? You're not a captain. You're nothing more than a glorified bandit."

"Maybe it was that way before you came along-"

"Before I came along, you were disorganized," Sasha interrupted. "I changed that... but I didn't change what we were. We were thugs. Privateers, stealing and threatening good people on behalf of a tyrant. But now, he doesn't need us anymore... and me? I'm done. I'm done pretending to be something I'm not... and I don't want anyone else to get hurt because of me."

"So you're just going to call it quits, then!?" Grime objected. "After everything we accomplished! Look at how far we've come!"

Sasha's insides churned. After everything that happened, Grime was still only thinking of himself. Entertaining delusions of grandeur as all of Amphibia was crumbling around him. He cared nothing for Sasha, or for Anne, or for Marcy.

"I'm sorry, Grimes. But this is as far as we go," Sasha told him flatly.

"What about Marcy? Don't you want to avenge her!?" Grime pleaded.

That was enough. Hearing him invoke Marcy's name was too much for her. She stood up, picking up her sword as she did, and drawing it from it's sheath. Sasha stood up from the couch, clutching the hilt of her sword in a white-knuckled grip as she staggered towards Grime, fixing onto him with an ice-cold glare.

"Not with you," Sasha told him in a low whisper.

Grime glared back at the teenager, unfazed by her thinly-veiled threat.

"Why don't you put that sword down before you do something you'll regret?" Grime suggested calmly. But Sasha wasn't listening to him. He looked into her eyes and saw a cold, black, empty nothingness staring back at him.

"Remember Sasha..." Grime began. "The only reason you're still alive is because of me. If I hadn't found you, you would be food for the herons. See how long you survive without-"

Before Grime could finish, Sasha grabbed his left shoulder, pulling him closer as she raised her blade- and drove it into the old toad's heart. The adamantium edge cut through the breastplate of his crude leather armor like a hot knife through butter, exiting out the back and splattering the grass with dark violet blood. Grime fell to his knees, grabbing Sasha's wrist for support as he gasped for air.

"That's for locking me in a cell," Sasha said coldly as the life drained from Grime's body. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but all that came out was a gurgling sound as more dark violet blood poured from the captain's gullet. Sasha swiftly withdrew her sword from his torso, allowing him to fall face-first to the ground with a wet thud.

Sasha stumbled back, falling just short of the couch. Trembling, she dropped her sword and reached a bloodied hand into her pocket, pulling out the old photograph of herself and her friends.

Sasha's thumb brushed against the film, smearing purple toads blood over Marcy's face. Her chest heaved as all the emotions she'd kept bottled up for the last 72 hours burst out of her.

Sasha lowered her head, buried her face in her knees, and began to cry.


When she regained her composure, Sasha wrapped Grime's body in a weathered old sheet, carried him out back, and unceremoniously dumped his body into the river. Drawn by the smell of toad's blood, a pair of river lampreys were on him in minutes. Sasha watched as he floated downriver away from the house before they pounced on him, tearing him to pieces and turning the murky green waters that dark shade of mauve. Only after they'd stripped the last of the toad's flesh from his bones did she turn away and head back inside.

Out front, Sasha erected a small crucifix made from branches and string, planted it in the earth, and pinned a crude hand-carved plague to the front that read "Marcy". It was the best she could do to honor her fallen friend.

Sasha couldn't help but feel responsible for all of this. Marcy may have been the one who found the box, but they never would've gotten their hands on it if Sasha hadn't bullied Anne into stealing it. In her mind, Marcy's blood was as much on her hands as it was on Andrias's. He would get his comeuppance, one way or another.

But Sasha? She was done. Anne had made it home safe and sound, she was going to see her parents again, and she still had her adopted frog family to boot. That was something at least... but Sasha had no intention of joining her. Even if she could get the music box back (never mind figuring out how to work it) what was waiting for her on the other side? A big empty house, an inheritance, and parents who were too busy with their big business and society parties to make any time for her.

And there was no point trying to make amends with Anne at this point. Even if she'd been right in the end, there was no excusing the fact that Sasha had lied to and manipulated Anne again to get what she wanted. Maybe Anne could forgive her, but realistically, Sasha couldn't see how their friendship could ever recover.

It was as she'd said before.

"Maybe you're better off without me."


Author's Notes: No, I don't hate Grime. I know many in the fandom like to see him as a father figure to Sasha, but... their relationship is actually rather toxic. Grime encourages Sasha to be her worst self, to take control of her friends, and to ignore what Anne said about her being a "horrible person". Does that sound like a good friend/father figure to you?

I figure after what happened in "True Colors" Sasha will take a good, hard look in the mirror and figure out what she really wants, and what kind of person she wants to be. But to do that, she's going to have to stand up to Grime... one way or the other.